Vic Snyder

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much. I now yield to the other gentleman from California, who has been a leader on campaign finance reform for several years.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the staff being around here on a Friday afternoon as we discuss these issues. Mr. Speaker, the previous speaker talked about how he would like to know where we Democrats stand on some of these issues on campaign finance reform. We Democrats would like to know how everyone in this House stands on campaign finance reform, but until a bill is allowed to come to the House, we are not going to do anything. The Democrats do not control the House right now, the Republican leadership controls that House. If they want to know how we stand on campaign finance reform, then let these issues come to the floor of the House. It is not our fault that there have not been votes on campaign finance reform, it is the fault of the Republican leadership that is now in control of this House. That is why, for this past week or so, we have seen a series of motions to adjourn and motions to rise, these kinds of procedural votes, trying to send a message to the Republican leadership: we have important work to do on campaign finance reform, and we have got to do a better job of bringing that issue to the floor of the House before we can move ahead on other matters. Why do we care about campaign finance reform? What do we see as the problem under the current law? I brought a sample check here. Members are obviously going to be able to tell it is not a real check because it is signed by my friend, Ima Big Donor. Ms. Big Donor decided she wanted to make a contribution to the political party of her choice, any old political party. She decided, like Mr. Ted Turner, that she had done well in the market in the last year, and she was going to donate extra money that she had to her political party. So she made out the check for $1 billion, $1 billion, enough to fund a thousand political House campaigns. We might think, well, surely under current law the $1 billion check would be illegal, since I as an individual can only give $1,000 to a candidate. But no, under our current system of law, there is unlimited ability to donate money to the political parties, whether you are an individual, whether you are a union, or whether you are a corporation. Why would someone like Mrs. Big Donor want to donate $1 billion? Just check her check: for access, for access. Is that not what Mr. Tamraz testified to last week before the Senate committee? Why would he give $300,000? Why would he give $600,000? For access. He is not a fool. It got him in the doors he wanted to get in. This is legal under our current system and it needs to be reformed. I am one of those candidates that does not like to raise money. I do not think many candidates like to raise money. I think raising money makes us weird. Raising this kind of big money makes our democracy weird, and the American people want to change that system. Until the Republican leadership lets campaign finance reform bills come to the House for discussion, we are not only not going to know how everyone wants to vote on these things, but the American people are not going to see the kind of changes and reform that they want. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Madam Speaker, I join my colleagues from Arkansas in celebrating today the 40th anniversary of nine black students entering Central High School. The President is there today to walk in the school with the Little Rock Nine. Who can forget this unforgettable picture of courage on the part of one 15-year-old and racism on the face of the other. Today it is a celebration of heroes. Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Minnijean Brown Trickey, Terrence Roberts, Jefferson Thomas, Carlotta Walls Lanier, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Melba Pattillo Beals, Thelma Mothershed Wair. We learned from their courage in the past. Today we learn from their wisdom. This is a picture taken just this week of these same two 15-year-old girls. Forty years ago we learned from their courage. Today we learn of the ability to forgive and move on and learn from the mistakes of the past.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, once again, my thanks to the staff here who are working late, as several of us have an opportunity to discuss these important issues. Mr. Chairman, it is my opinion and the opinion of a great many Americans that while we live in the greatest democracy in the history of the world, our democracy and the way we currently conduct our business has some major problems. Specifically, how do we do our campaigns? How do we elect our officials to come to Washington and do the people's business? Now, what is the specific problem? I will show my colleagues what the specific problem is. This is going to be a difficult number for me to read, because I do not know what this number is. I recognize $999,999. I can go one step further, $999,999,999. I can keep going to $999,999,999,999, and on and so. The reality is, whatever number this is, it is now legal for this amount of money to be donated to a political party, to a national political party. So if a person who had this kind of wealth wrote out a check to the Republican Party or the Democratic Party, it is completely legal to make this kind of donation and it not be disclosed where the money came from. Well, many of us in this House, many of us in America, think that is the wrong way to finance campaigns, and on January 11, 1995, the President and the Speaker of the House, in a very famous garden shot, shook hands and committed themselves to campaign finance reform. Since that time, we have not seen much action. The President is firmly committed to signing meaningful campaign finance reform, and as someone from Arkansas who was in the State Senate and worked with then Governor Clinton when he was in Arkansas, I know of his commitment to campaign finance reform and ethics reform. He had an experience when he was in Arkansas of calling a special session of the legislature in order to get ethics reform for lobbyists' disclosure, having that effort thwarted in the State legislature in the committee vote when that was the sole purpose of calling the session; and he took the issue to the States and initiated that to get signatures working in conjunction with organizations like Common Cause and others, got the signatures, took it to the vote of the people, and in 1990, it passed. The President is committed to cleaning up the problems in our democracy. If the President is committed to it, then where is the problem? I see the problem, Mr. Chairman, as being the leadership in this House; specifically, the Republican leadership that will not let us bring this type of legislation to the floor. Since we have convened in January, we have had approximately 85 bills filed, but we have had no hearings on any bill, we have had, obviously, no bills passed, and so we find ourselves as we are talking now about winding down this first year, this first session of this Congress, making no progress on campaign finance reform, and I think that is a mistake. I think it is wrong, and I think the American people want something different. My own preference in all of these bills is the Hutchinson-Allen bill, this is the gentleman from Arkansas [Mr. Hutchinson] and the gentleman from Maine [Mr. Allen]. And it is the freshman, bipartisan bill, Mr. Hutchinson being a Republican, Mr. Allen a Democrat, that has seriously looked at the problems and has tried to do the doable, and what it specifically does is ban the soft money, to do away with the potential of these huge, huge checks, the kinds of several-hundred-thousand- dollar, even million-dollar checks that sometimes come into political parties. No one likes raising money. I do not know of any politician that likes raising money. My own feeling is that raising money makes you weird. Raising money just does weird things to elected officials. But for parties to raise those huge donations makes our democracy weird. It distorts the system, it disillusions the citizens, and we have to do something better. So, Mr. Speaker, let me finally say, I do not want to see a check someday come in made out to a political party for $1 billion. I do not want to see checks come in to a political party for $500 million. We need to step forward. The Republican leadership needs to let this body consider campaign finance reform legislation, needs to let us vote on it, needs to let us debate on it, needs to let us move ahead with what the American people want: clean elections and a much-improved system of electing public officials.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, in June 1995, the President and Speaker of the House made a commitment to campaign finance reform in this country. Since that time, there have been approximately 85 bills introduced in this session of Congress showing great interest in that topic. What has happened since that time? How many hearings have we had? None. How many campaign finance reform bills have passed? None. Where does that leave the score right now, Mr. Speaker, at the end of the baseball season? It leaves the score currently handshakes one, campaign finance reform nothing. The President has stated his commitment to campaign finance reform. The Republican leadership in this House needs to get on board and lead the American people, because currently, under current law, if we do not change it, you may make a legal donation to the party of your choice in this amount. I do not know what this number is, but I think it is big.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, on June 11, 1995, the President and Speaker of the House, in a very famous photo of shaking hands, committed themselves to campaign finance reform. It has been over 2 years later. We have had 85 bills filed. There have been no hearings on campaign finance reform. There have been no bills passed. The President will support campaign finance reform, Mr. Speaker. This House and the House leadership needs to step forward and let this body consider campaign finance reform this year. My own preference is the freshmen bipartisan bill, the Hutchinson-Allen bill. There are other good bills out there, but they will get nowhere without hearings and without being brought to the floor of this House. We need to do our job this year on campaign finance reform.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman and I thank the Speaker and the staff this evening that are letting us talk about campaign finance reform. I noticed we had the gentlewoman from Oregon [Ms. Hooley], the gentleman from Maine [Mr. Allen], the whole country is interested in campaign finance reform. I am from Arkansas. I know that the influence of money in politics concerns Arkansas. We also had a referendum in our State that was passed overwhelmingly by the people to deal with State elections. Some of the polls say people do not have that really high at the top of their lists. They have jobs and the economy and education. Well, of course, they do have those at the top of their lists. But if you ask them, is this an important issue, absolutely, it is an important issue. I know in Arkansas people are very interested in how I think about elections, how I think they ought to be elected. They are interested in us improving our democracy. When we are talking about campaign finance reform, we sometimes get lost in all the details. We are talking about improving our democracy, the greatest democracy in the world. Mr. Speaker, I commend the gentleman. I know he has worked very hard in a bipartisan manner with the gentleman from Arkansas [Mr. Hutchinson]. You and he have done great work together. The gentleman from Arkansas [Mr. Hutchinson] is a Republican and the gentleman from Maine [Mr. Allen] is a Democrat. I commend you for your work, and I look forward to working with you in the next few weeks. Hopefully, we can bring one of these bills to the floor before we recess.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, on June 11, 1995, in a very famous photo, the Speaker of the House and the President of the United States shook hands and committed themselves to campaign finance reform. Over 2 years later, we have had over 85 bills introduced and none passed. Why is that? Because it is a tough issue. It is a very difficult issue that not only divides parties but divides us among our own parties. I encourage the membership to take a look at H.R. 2183, the freshman bill. It is bipartisan. It does the doable. It stops the large donations from unions, corporations, and wealthy individuals, those huge soft money donations that threaten our system. H.R. 2183, I believe, takes a step in the right direction, not a bill for all time but it is a good, important first step.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. I thank the gentleman, and I once again thank the Speaker for being with us here late into the evening. You know, I went home during the break, and as so many Members of Congress do, and it gives you a good chance to get out in the district, and one of the places that I went to was to northern Arkansas, which is home of the great Arkansas pig-out for those of you who have not been there before. It is also the home, however, of Petit Jean College, and I want to just tell a story, if I could, about Petit Jean College. I notice that the gentleman from North Carolina is here with us this evening because it is actually a North Carolina connection. Petit Jean had been a VO-TEC in the not too many years ago, and a group of State senators in the early or late 1980s, 1990, decided that we needed to bring Arkansas' VO-TEC schools into the 21st century so that it could prepare our students and our adults for those kinds of activities and skills that they were going to need in the future. And one of the places they went to to study was North Carolina. I notice the gentleman from North Carolina is with us here this evening. And what they came up with was a plan of converting a great number of our VO-TECs into 2-year colleges, technical colleges and community colleges depending on what the local community wanted, and this was passed in my first session as a senator in 1991, and it was supported, of course, and signed into law by our Governor who was then Bill Clinton. And as part of President Clinton's package in that legislative session was HOPE scholarships, giving opportunity for all families to get their kids into college, giving opportunities for all adults to be able to go on to college. And his platform complemented a group of State senators, including one Senator Gordon from the home of the great Arkansas pig-out in northern Arkansas who is a leader in this effort, complemented their activity very, very well. And over the break I went to visit Petit Jean College, it was my first visit there, and they had just blossomed under this new program. And it was great to talk with the President of that college about what this Congress and President Clinton has done for them with these HOPE scholarships. Their tuition on an annualized basis is about a thousand dollars a year, quite a bargain for a lot of colleges around the country, but our tax credits that we passed, thanks to the insistence of Bill Clinton, are going to really make the difference for a lot of the citizens in that rural county, Conway County, to be able to take advantage of Petit Jean College. Another campus I visited during the break was Central Baptist College in Conway, Arkansas, which is in Faulkner County. Faulkner County has three colleges, University of Central Arkansas, which is a 4-year State school, Central Baptist College, which has a 2-year associate degree, but its 4-year programs are religious training, musical education afternoon, training folks to go on to become pastors, and we also have Hendrix College, which is a very fine 4-year liberal arts private school. All three of these campuses are going to benefit from the passage of help and aid for families trying to get themselves and their children through college. I remember talking with one of the fellows in one of the classes at Central Baptist College. He said, ``Well, wait. What about us folks that are 27 years old? What about us who have waited to go back later in life? We're not 18 and just out of high school.'' And I can assure you that the Democratic package, and thanks to the leadership of Mr. Pallone and the President and others, definitely makes opportunities available for folks that are adults trying to go back to college. But I think that is what Democrats have stood for, I know that that is what this President stood for in Arkansas and worked so hard on in the last several years, is quality education for all families, opportunities to go on to college, 2-year colleges, 4-year colleges, VO-TECs, whatever type of higher education. We all need opportunities for all families. And we all know that if it had not been for President Bill Clinton insisting on these educational tax credits and this program for college being in this recently signed budget deal that it would never have come about. And so I commend the President, I commend the Democrats for taking the lead on fighting for education for all families, and, you know, now it is up to America to take advantage of it. It is up to the good citizens of Conway County and Faulkner County and all the counties across the country to go to the financial aid officers as the weeks go by, understand these new laws, take advantage of them, make them work, and recognize whether you are 18 or 28 or 48, these are meant for you to help in making all families compete in this very robust global economy. And I thank the gentleman for being here tonight.

Mr. SNYDER. If the gentleman might yield, you know, it was such a great honor to be here. I was sitting right over there the night hearing my first State of the Union Address, and when I heard the President's list I thought I have heard these lists before on the floor of the Arkansas General Assembly.

Mr. SNYDER

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

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, one of the issues that has come up is why are freshmen seeming to have such an early impact on this race. I am a Democrat from Arkansas, a freshman, and the gentleman is a Republican from Arkansas, and it seemed to me that the ugly races were ones for open seats. Both the gentleman and I from Arkansas had different political perspectives, but it was ugly because of the presence of soft money. I loved the line the gentleman from Maine [Mr. Allen] used, getting rid of the biggest of the big money. These are not the $1,000 donations we are talking about, but the $50,000 or $100,000 to the party that have so distorted the system. I commend the gentleman and the gentleman from Maine [Mr. Allen] for his work. It truly is a bipartisan effort. I thank the gentleman for his effort.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, yesterday President Clinton expressed his firm commitment to stand for children of all working families, not just the ones covered by the Republican tax bill. It is wrong, Mr. Speaker, to ignore millions of taxpaying working families, including thousands of children in Arkansas. It is not class warfare to point out that payroll taxes deducted every 2 weeks out of checks are taxes, and all working families deserve relief from whatever taxes they pay, payroll or income.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, Sierra Leone is a small country. My guess is that many Members of Congress and many folks in America would not be able to find it on a map. I can say that, being from Arkansas, I know that many people cannot find Arkansas on a map. And it was my pleasure to have lived and worked at a mission hospital in Sierra Leone for 6 months a number of years ago. At that time it was a dictatorship. It was corrupt. We would actually have to bribe the postman to get the mail. Life expectancy was 42 years old. As one of those folks who had lived there, like many Members here would have been overseas, one follows a country closely after that. I was very excited a year ago when these elections occurred. I have been in that town of Bo where those people had their hands cut off trying to vote. We went there in search of the elusive American cheeseburger when we were trying to find recreation. I know how much that democracy would have meant to those people. It is a terrible tragedy what happened during those elections, but it shows democracy does not come cheap in certain parts of the world. Some of us who have worked in Africa, and I have been there a couple of times to work, were concerned that perhaps with the end of the cold war that we would ignore Africa with our trade policy, with our failure to support an adequate foreign operations budget for Africa, with our failure to support an adequate military to military relationship with Africa, student exchanges. That is our responsibility, to do what we can to nourish democracy. But the responsibility for this coup is those folks in Sierra Leone that did this bloody and brutal act. It is wrong. This body knows who is responsible for it. I commend the folks that put this resolution together and ask every Member to support it.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I agree with the gentleman from Maine. This is not a question of is there going to be a tax cut. There is going to be a tax cut, it is going to be the same amount of money. The issue is what is the best tax cut for working middle-class Americans. Of course, being from Arkansas, I am concerned about working middle- class Arkansans. There has been a lot of discussion about who is going to benefit the most under this plan. Every responsible analysis I have seen, looking at this plan in its totality over the next 10 years, clearly states that the President's plan and the Democrats' plan most helps working middle-class families. Over the weekend I was really pretty outraged by some of the statements in the press made by Republican leaders in this country that somehow we Democrats advocating for working middle-class families were trying to turn a tax cut bill into a welfare bill. I would like to talk about real folks here for a minute. I have a constituent who was kind enough to share with me her paycheck stub; you know, that thing that you get at the end of the month and it just gets your heart to beating fast when you realize how much money went to the government. We all go through this every week or every month. This top portion is her particular paycheck stub. She and her family make about $14,000 to $15,000 a year, not a lot of money these days, but I have made it before; it is what a lot of us make when we are first starting out. This family has 2 children. One of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle earlier had a little chart about how to calculate the family tax savings, I believe was the way the chart was titled. He said just take the number of children and multiply it times two, by either the $400 or $500. You take this family here with two children and multiply it times two, and you come out with a $1,000 tax cut. Under the Republican bill that passed out of this House with no votes or very few Democratic votes, this family does not qualify for that tax cut, so that chart was inaccurate. Why is that? It is because under the Republican tax bill that was passed, they do not consider the taxes that you pay that are called payroll taxes, those taxes that say, sometimes it says FICA, sometimes it says Social Security or Medicare, but their tax bill says no, those are not really taxes. We did not consider those taxes during the campaign when we were talking about folks who play by the rules and pay taxes. We did not mean this family, we meant the families we were thinking about. So this family on that chart does not qualify for that tax cut. It is not advocating a welfare program for me to stand up for Arkansans who are in this situation and say this family and these kids also deserve a tax cut. Another issue that came up a few minutes ago by one of our colleagues across the aisle, again going to the family tax savings chart, again talking about the second calculation you make is the number of kids in the first 2 years of college, and you multiply that times $1,500, that number of kids. That all sounds good, but that is not what happens under the Republican tax bill, and both the Democrat version and the President's version are an improvement. Why does that not work? In Arkansas, and I know I am going to show my parochial interest, we have a lot of 2-year colleges: Foothill Technical Institute in Searcy County, Arkansas, and in White County, Pulaski Technical College in North Little Rock; I have several of them around the State that have tuitions, annual tuitions and fees of less than $1,500 a year. Now, under the President's plan and the Democratic House version, if the tuition is $1,000, this family, those kids, say we have two kids in that college in the first 2 years, two times a $1,000, that is $2,000. If you did the Republican version, it is a 50 percent credit, so you are taking $1,000 tuition, two kids, $2,000, and 50 percent is $1,000. They only get half the credit. If we say, well, that is okay, they can go to more expensive schools, but we are trying to stand up for working middle class families that may not have the resources to send their kids to more expensive schools. These are the schools that we work very hard in Arkansas for the last several years to develop a two-year college system. I know they are the schools the President has cared about when he came up with the HOPE scholarship program. It is just not fair that these families have to be left out of the full tax relief because they choose or are forced to send their children to less expensive schools. Mr. Speaker, finally, if I might make a comment about the estate tax relief, I know for some of us that is less important than for others. In Arkansas we have a lot of farms. We also have a lot of small business folks. In estate tax relief, the ability to be able to pass the small business or farm on to your kids without being at risk of having to sell a portion to pay estate taxes is important to a significant number of Arkansans. Under the Democratic versions of estate tax relief, for folks with small businesses and farms the relief is immediate. So if a person, as soon as the bill was signed into law if a person were to die, their family would be able to benefit from the full estate tax relief. Under the Republican version, it does not kick in until the year 2007. So to my friends my friends in Arkansas who have small businesses or farms, if the Republican version becomes law, all I can tell them as their tax adviser is do not die any time soon if you want full relief. I appreciate the opportunity, I would say to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] to share my concerns about the Republican bill. I think we as Democrats have an obligation to stand up for working middle class families throughout this country, and by doing that we are not advocating welfare, we are only advocating what just about every candidate in America promised in the last election: tax relief for working middle class Americans, all of them, not just the chosen few.

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, this issue of payroll taxes is particularly important. Before I was elected to Congress I am one of the people in the last 15 years that has been considered self-employed. Again going back to small business folks, farmers are often for tax purposes self- employed, as are shop operators, gas stations, the mom and pop stores self-employed. They can all tell us, they pay almost double the payroll tax, so this is a big concern to them when they hear that this Republican bill, the one that passed out of the House that the Republicans want signed into law, that they may not get the relief, that is of great concern to self-employed people.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Chairman, today we are considering the first tax cut bill in 16 years. Let us choose the right tax cut bill for working and middle-class families. This is one of my constituents, Ingrid, and her two lovely children. She makes $7.50 an hour, which comes out to approximately $15,000 a year. Every week or every month, like everybody in America, she gets a paycheck. This is a copy of her check stub. On it it shows what kind of State, Federal, and payroll taxes she pays, and I circled the payroll tax. The right tax bill for her is the Democratic bill because the Republican bill pretends that she does not really pay these Federal taxes. That is just wrong, Mr. Chairman. It is the wrong bill for millions of families like her. This is another set of my constituents. This is Judy and her two daughters. They are older, they are teenagers. She needs to be thinking about college. Under the Democratic bill she will get the full $1,500 tax credit per year for the first 2 years of college. Why is that important? Because college tuition at our 2-year colleges can vary from $800 to $1,500 a year. Under the Republican bill she would only get 50 percent credit for that. It is not fair that she is forced and her children are forced to consider going to more expensive schools just to take advantage of a full tax credit for college. Mr. Chairman, the Republican bill is the wrong bill for working middle-class families. I am going to vote for the Democratic alternative.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the staff for putting in yet another late evening here on behalf of the people of America. Mr. Speaker, I support a balanced budget. I strongly support it and all the things it can do for the business climate in this country. I voted for the budget deal and was one of the two-thirds of the Democratic side that did vote for the budget deal for a balanced budget, and as we know here that includes a tax cut over the next 5 years totaling $135 billion. Tomorrow we are going to make a choice about what type of tax cut we want, what type of tax cut do we think America would benefit from. And Mr. Speaker, I consider this to be the good side of partisanship, that there is going to be a choice we make tomorrow between the Republican plan and Democratic plan; and we are in the minority party, but we have an alternative that we think is better. For me the issue comes down to what is the best tax cut plan for Arkansas. That is where I am from. What is going to be best for the working middle class families of Arkansas, for farmers, for self- employed, for the small business folks of Arkansas, for those American who play by the rules, work hard and pay taxes? Let me deal first, Mr. Speaker, with the child tax credit. I am going to protect last names here, but this is Judy and her two lovely children, constituents of mine in central Arkansas. Judy makes $7.50 an hour. That works out to a total of $15,000 a year. Now under the Republican plan because she qualifies for the earned income tax credit, a credit that has been supported by every President including Ronald Reagan since Ronald Reagan; because she takes advantage of that earned income tax credit, under the Republican plan, she will not qualify for the $300 or $500 per child tax credit. Now the argument we hear is that, well, she does not pay income tax, that she does not pay income tax. Yes, she pays payroll taxes, but that does not count. I have a copy of her payroll stub. You know this is what we get every week or month, Mr. Speaker, and we look on here and we kind of get that empty feeling in our belly when we see how much taxes came out of it. Yes, she pays income tax, but she also pays the payroll tax. And here is what she pays for her Medicare and her Social Security, the FICA tax, the payroll tax, that all employers and all working people in America pay. Please do not tell her that she does not pay taxes. But because of the way the Republican plan is written, even though she has two children and pays $1,150 a year in payroll taxes, even though she pays that level of taxes, she does not qualify under the Republican bill for a per child tax credit even though she has those two lovely children. She plays by the rules, she pays her taxes. Some reward, Mr. Speaker, for being a good American. Let me show you another picture. This is another family that are constituents of mine. This is Judy and her two children. Her children are older. She is to the point now she better be thinking about college, and I know Judy well enough to know that she is. She makes approximately $31,000 a year and she will qualify because of her income for the per child tax credit. But let us talk about the college aspect of it. Under the Democratic plan she will be able to get $1,500, when the full credit kicks in, per child per year for her children's college for the first 2 years. But under the Republican plan she will also get $1,500 per child but it will be calculated differently. It will be calculated 50 percent of the first $3,000 of tuition and expenses. It sounds the same; does it not? They are both going to get $1,500. But it is not the same for Arkansas. Pulaski Technical College in North Little Rock, the tuition is a thousand dollars, a little over a thousand dollars a year. For Foothills Technical Institute in White County, Arkansas, gods county, Mr. Speaker, if you are looking for a place to move, the total tuition per year is $672 a year. You take 50 percent of that, if you go to Foothills Technical, you will get about $350 tax credit, not the $1,500. It is just wrong under that Republican bill to tell folks if you go to an expensive school, you get the full $1,500. If you choose to go to a 2-year community college or school like Foothills Technical Institute, you do not get the full credit even though your tuition is under $1,500. Judy works hard, she plays by the rules, she pays taxes; she does much better under the Democratic bill, not the Republican alternative. And finally today, Mr. Speaker, I had these letters delivered to my office from farmers throughout Arkansas, my district, and they are concerned, every one of them, about the estate tax. Every one of them is either handwritten or hand typed. Folks say: Well, estate tax just favors the rich. If you are a small business person or a farmer, you are very concerned about that having to be broken up when you pass away. Under the Democratic plan the relief is immediate. Under the Republican plan the relief is delayed until the year 2007.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank you and the staff who are putting in long hours here once again. We appreciate you very much. Mr. Speaker, on March 1, we had a 260-mile squawk of tornadoes come through Arkansas. By the weatherman's count, there were approximately 24 different tornadoes that came out of the same storm front and caused tremendous damage through that 260 miles. There were over 20 deaths; the majority of them were in my district. For those that did not die and did not lose family members, their life too was severely affected by the storm, and as many of us do who are elected officials in those type of events, we go out there and try and learn and walk with our constituents through their tragedies. I do not need to go into great detail about those stories. I have talked with policemen who found bodies, I have talked with family members who found family members. I cannot describe house after house after house of damage. Any of us who have seen those kinds of storms, we know that those storms are not partisan issues. We know that those victims were not only Democrats or only Republicans or only Independents or only black or only white; we know that they were Americans undergoing great tragedy. I do not see this issue of the supplemental appropriations being a partisan one. I know that Republicans and Democrats together care about the tornado victims in Arkansas, they care about the flood victims in the northern United States. The issue is not about who cares the most. We all care about what happens to our fellow Americans. The issue is really to me a more mundane one: How do we do the people's business; how do we in this Chamber, how do we freshmen, just completing our first term, just a few months into our first term, how do we do the people's business? Frankly, my constituents back home are confused by how we are doing the people's business when it comes to this storm. They see in the paper the words ``supplemental appropriations''; and I am a freshman, I hear that phrase, and it sounds like some new type of nutritional drink for athletes: supplemental appropriations. Then I explain to them that is emergency, emergency money for troops overseas, emergency money for storm victims. Then they want to know, why is there such controversy over emergency dollars that we all agree on? And I do not have a good answer. As a new Member, I am still learning. Let me tell the Members one of my observations here in the last few months. To me it seems there is a difference between compromise and common ground. We elected officials, we always talk about politics being the art of compromise. Let me suggest, Mr. Speaker, that perhaps in emergencies we ought not to be looking for the compromise. Compromises can take weeks and months to achieve. Perhaps we should be looking for the common ground: Find those things that we all agree on, whether we are Democrat or Republican, whether we are in Congress or in the executive branch and are the President. Find those things we all agree on and let us pass those cleanly without this extraneous material. Mr. Speaker, I ask support tonight that we pass a clean appropriations bill, take out things on which we are having fights, take out those things that have nothing to do with emergencies, such as how to conduct the census. It does not make sense to the people of Arkansas that we are dealing with a very controversial issue, how do we do the census, when we are trying to provide emergency dollars for our troops in Bosnia, when we are trying to provide emergency dollars for storm victims throughout this country. Tomorrow I hope we will vote on a clean supplemental appropriations bill. I hope we will vote for one without extraneous material. I hope we will conduct the people's business and find the common ground that the people of Arkansas and the people of this country want.