Vic Snyder

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, the point bears repeating that we are talking about having a foreign policy that makes sense and has made sense in the past and will in the future. We have decided that nations with whom we disagree, who have foreign policies with whom we disagree, what should be our policy toward them with regard to Americans traveling to those nations? We have disagreed with Syria very vigorously, yet we have said Americans can travel there. We have disagreed and continue to disagree very vigorously with Iran and their support of terrorist groups, but we have said Americans can travel there. We have had problems with China and Russia and their support through equipment and materials to countries we think should not get those materials because of the weapons systems they might be used for. But we say, Americans, you can travel to China; Americans, you can travel to Russia. The one country that we have this policy with is Cuba. So we are now seeing this bogeyman created, that somehow September 11 is related to the last 43 years of a failed policy. Well, in my view, what this debate should be about tonight is what increases the chances of the people of Cuba growing up in freedom and growing up in democracy and knowing a market economy. I was in Cuba the first week of January with several members of Congress. I took this picture at a church in Cuba. It is the same town where Elian Gonzales now lives. To me, this is the future of Cuba. What increases their opportunity to grow up in freedom? Is their opportunity for freedom increased by having Americans never see them, by having Americans never come to their church and visit with them and talk about America? Is that what increases their chances of freedom, of knowing what freedom is about, of hearing them talk, as we did, with people in Cuba about what it means to have freedom of the press? Why is The New York Times not available? Why do not you let people have open newspapers? I think that what will increase their chances for freedom is what we do tonight. Vote no on the Goss amendment and for the Flake amendment.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, let me just say I am a member of the Committee on Armed Services and the committee considered this bill last week and I voted for it coming out of committee, but this is a very, very poor process. Members got the Blackberry a week or two after September 11, and we get notice when bills are going to be considered. I believe it was 8:47 this evening I got a message that said that we were going to finish with the Cuban amendments on Treasury-Postal appropriations and go home. At 9:12 another message comes over it and says through this expedited process, we are going to consider a $10 billion bill, and we are going to give 20 minutes on each side. The Chamber is empty. Do not kid anyone, Members are not sitting in their offices watching the debate tonight. This is a time of war, a time when our country expects us to be paying attention to these kinds of bills, and we are not expediting the process, we are expediting the denial of democracy. I wanted to do an amendment on this bill. This process means there are no amendments. I had help with my amendment by the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter), a well-respected Republican subcommittee chairman, and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), the chairman of the Committee on International Relations, were joining me on an amendment that we were going to go to the Committee on Rules to try to put on this bill. This process denies the right of any Member to bring an amendment on a $10 billion bill. I think it is a very, very poor way to do a process at any time, particularly at 11:30 at night when Members have gone home.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Mississippi for his work on this issue, and the gentleman from Kansas also. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill, but let me say from the very beginning that I have no expectation of this bill being defeated today. It will pass overwhelmingly, as it has twice before in the last two sessions. But I continue to believe there are problems with this bill that jeopardize it being taken up by the Senate, as has happened with the last two versions. What problem are we trying to solve here? What problem led to this bill being brought up in the first place? It is not September 11 and the events of September 11. The first version of this passed in 1999 on the House floor. As you all may recall, in a very ugly incident, we had an ambassador who passed away who had qualified as a veteran under the Army regulations that govern Arlington. His family requested that he be buried at Arlington, and he was. It turned out that his record as a Merchant Marine that qualified him as a veteran status could not be verified. I think the conclusion of most people who have looked at these facts, without question, is that for years this man had been telling, unfortunately, stories that were not true about his past record with the Merchant Marine. He was subsequently exhumed from Arlington at the family's request and no longer resides at Arlington. That is the incident that led to these discussions and these bills. In my opinion, as the gentleman from Kansas indicated, the Army has ably handled the management of this very special resting place very ably by regulation. But, in my opinion, in attempting to solve this problem, the underlying bill creates new problems and changes the nature of Arlington National Cemetery as the final resting place of the honored dead of a nation of citizen soldiers, people who not only served their Nation as soldiers in the military, but later in other ways served their Nation honorably and well. What are the problems with the bill? There are three. First of all, both the bill and current regulation provide for the President to be listed in the bill. The President can be buried and former Presidents buried at Arlington. Other positions under current law are also eligible. So if there is a person who is a veteran who has been subsequently vice president, or who is a veteran and subsequently a member of the Supreme Court, or is a veteran and a member of the House or Senate who served their country, they also can be buried in Arlington. Under this bill, even if the Vice President or the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court or the Speaker of the House are veterans, they are not eligible for burial at Arlington, even if they are veterans. Then you say but there is a waiver provision in this bill. Let us discuss the waiver provision, which I think is the second problem with this bill. Under current regulations, if a person does not qualify under the regulations for burial at Arlington, the family can request a waiver from the current regulations. It specifically talks about providing information about military service and/or service to the Nation. Those exact words, ``service to the Nation.'' Under the language of this bill, H.R. 4940, the President can only issue a waiver if the person has provided acts, service and contributions to the armed services, to the Armed Forces, not to the Nation, not to the United States, not in defense of the United States, but only to the Armed Forces. Even the President would not have the authority under this bill to grant a waiver in extraordinary circumstances in which somebody may have died in service to their Nation, but not in service to the Armed Forces. I think that is a tremendous oversight. The third problem. On page 13 of the bill there is a limitation placed in the bill on monuments. It specifically states that there can only be monuments placed in Arlington to a military event or to specific military groups and individuals. That sounds all right. What is wrong with that? Well, if you go out to Arlington, you can find monuments out there that under this bill that we are considering today would not be allowed. What are they? One is to the Challenger disaster, in which we lost an entire space shuttle crew in a very dramatic and heroic moment for this country. Those people are heroes. Under the language of this bill, that monument should not have been there. Another one, there is a monument at Arlington to the dead of the Pan Am flight that was bombed over Lockerbee, Scotland. The monument is 272 stones, I believe it was provided by the people of Lockerbee, is my recollection, one stone for each of the dead in that plane. One of those stones is for a young 18-year-old from my town of Little Rock, Arkansas. Now, by putting this kind of restriction that says only for military events, in my view, it is too limiting. The one issue in this bill that I agree with is the portion that deals with the Reserve component. However, my understanding is that the Army deals with these on a case-by-case basis, and has issued waivers in the past, and I am told that they would certainly be willing to relook at their regulations and do this by regulatory change rather than by statute. The problem with setting these things into statute is that once we run into these problems, once events or people or extraordinary people come along and pass away that we would like to put into Arlington, but they do not qualify because of statutory change, even the President would not have the authority to waive it. So I commend the people who sponsored this bill for their patriotism, for their support of the Arlington National Cemetery. I speak today knowing that this bill will pass overwhelmingly again, but it did not get consideration by the Senate in the past because of problems. While it has been changed and the language has been improved, in my view, there are still serious problems with this bill that I hope the folks who participate, both on the House side and on the Senate side, will look at and either seek to improve or discard the statutory change and consider working with the Army on regulatory changes.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, this is an amazingly unfair process we are dealing with tonight. It is a continuation of the shameful conduct of the majority in this House last week when we were doing the defense bill. Last week at an unprecedented time in our Nation's history when we are fighting terrorism and we were doing the defense bill, senior members of the Committee on Armed Services were denied the opportunity to offer amendments merely because they were Democrats. Why? To avoid difficult votes in an election year for certain Members. But debate and arguing and voting are democracy. It is the essence of our democracy. If you do not want to be a part of this great debate here, find another job, but do not deny Americans the right to hear their Representative offer amendments to bills, even if they are Members of the minority. Tonight it is a continuation of the same process. No amendments are to be allowed in the consideration of this very important welfare reform bill. This is a corruption of our democracy occurring in this great House tonight, Mr. Speaker. There is a rot going on in the decision-making process of the Republican leaders who make these decisions to deny debate. The American people will tire of this tyranny, Mr. Speaker, and hold the majority accountable for this corruption of our sacred democracy. I have many friends on the Republican side of the aisle, and I care about them deeply, but tonight I am embarrassed for them that their leadership forces them to vote for this shameful, shameful process. Vote ``no'' on this rule.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Chairman, I am not opposed to the amendment. I do not believe there is any opposition. I would like to claim the customary division of time.

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment offered by my fine colleague, the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter). The amendment he offers would allow the National Guard to use appropriated funds to attend and compete in athletic events and small arms competition. I think it is a good amendment. The problem we are having here today is there are many fine Members, like the gentleman from Nebraska, who also had ideas they would like to have presented to the House. Not all ideas are ones I would have agreed with. I did not support and will not support the amendment of the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) on base closure. I think we do need another round of base closures. I think the process we arrived at last year was a legitimate one. But people should have their day in the sun to discuss these things, and the voters that sent these Members here should have their day to see these Members bring forth the ideas that they want to have discussed. I think this is a very sad day for this House, at a time of international conflict, when the world depends on this country to fight the war on terrorism, that good people on the Democratic side were denied amendments to try to improve the bill that provides for the common defense of this country. I do not think this is the kind of activity and arrogance that the American people are going to tolerate. I hope the lesson learned here through the day and through the night is that we have got to do a better job of acting in the spirit of bipartisanship and not just using it in our press releases back home. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I rise in support of the amendment offered by my friend and colleague, and the chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith). The amendment he offers, Mr. Chairman, would require the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs to approve and expand their health care resource sharing efforts. The gentleman is my chairman on the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, and I appreciate him and look forward to working with him on the Committee on Veterans' Affairs and on the Committee on Armed Services for many years to come on this very important issue. Ironically, we have time this evening to consider debate on these two last amendments which are noncontroversial. While noncontroversial, they are important and ought to be discussed. The two proponents of these amendments deserve their opportunity to discuss them on the House floor at their request. But just as importantly, we should have had the opportunity to discuss the controversial issues in this bill offered by very fine Members of this House, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Maloney), the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen), and others. All had issues they wanted to have discussed. At the full Committee on Armed Services, under the very able chairmanship of the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump), we had very vigorous and full debate on every issue that members wanted to be discussed, and we voted on every issue on which someone wanted to vote. The result was people were satisfied with the process and the bill came out of committee 57 to one. Ironically, the issue we have heard most about today, which is the amendment of the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) on base closure, could have been avoided if the Committee on Rules had acted properly last year. Now, what do I mean by that? Last year, the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen) and I had an amendment to provide for a base closure commission. The Committee on Rules did not make that in order. So the folks that want to discuss base closure can now say we have never had a vote on the House floor. We are repeating this process year after year, denying the opportunity to discuss issues. In 1981, I was working as a doctor in Thailand as part of the Cambodian refugee relief effort. We were living in the town of Aranyaprathet, right on the border, right next to a Thai army base. It was a very volatile border, and there was a lot of military presence. Got up one morning, the army base was emptied out. The Thai Army had gone to Bangkok to overthrow the government, overthrow the democracy and stage a coup. We went out that day to Thai villages where I would provide medical care with the medical team I worked with. We worked with these Thai paraprofessional medical people, and the fellow we were supposed to work with that morning could not perform his work. All he could do was sit and cry, literally cry about the fact that his democracy was overthrown. Well, I was very proud to be an American that day, very proud of our American democracy. And what I learned that day in Thailand is that democracy has got to be nourished or we lose it. Well, I am very proud of this bill I am going to vote for here probably in about an hour, when we finish this process; but I am not proud of this process. I think everyone has gathered that this process has been very dissatisfying to many people in the House, and I would hope my colleagues would respect our opinion in the future on other bills this year. At this very critical time in our Nation's history, we, as a body, as the people's House, need to do a better job of nurturing our democracy in this country. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Chairman, I want to extend my thanks to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump) for the great work he has done throughout his career in this House. He has also been my chairman on the Committee on Veterans' Affairs and I very much appreciate him. And to the gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh), who is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Personnel, of which I am ranking member. This bill has many, many good things in it, including a pay raise for our men and women in uniform. It decreases the out-of-pocket expenses for housing. There is an increase in end strength, recognizing the realities of the world that we are facing today. I also want to say a word about TRICARE, which has been a very good program, improving over the last couple of years, but we have some potential problems with it and this bill includes within it a mandate that GAO study some of the potential problems with TRICARE. Specifically, one is some of the paperwork problems that our providers are facing, like preauthorization. We had a lengthy hearing at the subcommittee level about the problems they are having, and this is leading to provider dropout. And while the overall numbers look good, which is 97 percent of physicians stay with the program, many of them are limiting the number of TRICARE patients they are seeing or are not seeing new patients, and this is a problem for us. So we look forward to those studies. This bill passed the committee by a vote of 57 to 1, and thanks to the gentleman from Arizona's (Mr. Stump) leadership and the way he conducts the committee, we had a very vigorous debate. It went on all day with multiple votes. The result was a 57 to 1 bill that came out of the committee. However, the spirit of the House Committee on Armed Services is inconsistent with the rule that brought this bill before us today. It was said this was a structured rule. It was structured to stifle debate and to avoid uncomfortable votes for Members. That is not consistent with a great democracy at this critical time in history. You look at some of the Members who were denied to bring amendments, some of the most respected Members of this House: The gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), I disagree with him on base closure but he had every right to bring his amendment to this floor; the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Maloney) and the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen), both excellent members of the Committee on Armed Services; the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost), the ranking member on the Committee on Rules and a strong supporter of our national defense, was denied an amendment; the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) denied an amendment. This arrogance of power, Mr. Chairman, has to stop in this body.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, we hear these stories and we read the stories of these men, men like Clarence Craft, and they seem like movies. They seem like fiction. But Mr. Craft was a real person, he was a humble person, and the story was real. It was my pleasure to have met him and talked with him some years ago. Time goes by and each year we lose more of our World War II veterans, we lose more of our Korean War veterans, but we must remember the stories, stories like Mr. Craft's. We must remember the history. We must remember the sacrifice. The naming of this facility will perpetuate his memory but it will also perpetuate the memory of the sacrifice of all of our veterans of World War II and of the many wars that they have served in. Congratulations today to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Boozman) and to Mr. Craft and his family.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure and honor to know Richard Arnold and I consider him to be a friend. The Arkansas delegation is united in their support for this measure, but his colleagues on the Federal bench are also united in their respect for his accomplishments and for him as a person. I wanted to add on one biographical detail to the life of Richard Arnold. Twice he was a candidate for Congress in the Democratic primary, and twice he lost. Somehow he managed to overcome this loss and go on to great things in life, despite not being a Member of this House. Of course, many would say that the voters made a right choice to send Richard Arnold to the Federal bench, because that is where he ended up. Judge Arnold is a great man, with a great wife, Kay, and a wonderful family. His brother also serves on the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Arkansas delegation takes great pride today in sponsoring this bill led by the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Boozman).

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, the Constitution is not a buffet table. We cannot walk in and pick and choose which rights we want to protect. That is what this amendment does. I have people back home that care greatly about prayer in schools. This amendment will not let them have the same rules as gun owners back home. I have people back home that care about the President's faith- based initiative. This amendment does not protect their rights of speech in the same way. The Constitution is not a buffet table, that we select one thing we like and one thing we do not. Vote ``no'' on this blatantly unconstitutional amendment.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, I was fortunate to be a doctor in the early 1980s in Sierra Leone in West Africa. At that time, Sierra Leone was poor. It was underdeveloped. There was a life expectancy of 42 years, but it was not a violent place to be. In this last decade we have seen the world's most brutal civil war, of which has been spoken earlier here today. In April of this year, I visited Sierra Leone and was taken to the site of the old hospital that I had worked at, Serabu Hospital near Bo in Sierra Leone. It was burned to the ground by the rebels. It had a wonderful nursing school, a wonderful hospital. It did a lot of great outpatient work. It provided a secondary school for the local villagers and the employees. It was completely destroyed, nothing there but shells of the old buildings. I do not know how to account for the dramatic change from the peaceful but poor country I had seen in the early 1980s to what has gone on in Sierra Leone in the last decade. The question is one of what spawns evil, which I do not know if any of us know those answers. Evil requires nourishment, and the diamonds of Sierra Leone have been the financial support and perhaps the motive for this brutal civil war. Now we are learning in the recent weeks of the potential involvement of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden in the diamonds of Sierra Leone as a source of their funding. To neglect evil is to strengthen evil. We in the world should have gotten a handle on these diamonds, on these blood diamonds years ago, even though it seemed remote from the United States and the western world. But better today than more years and more deaths from now. I thank the sponsors on both sides for bringing forth this legislation today.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule. Both the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen) and I had asked that amendments be made in order that deal with base closure. They were not made in order; but in the spirit of comity, we understand why that is the situation. However, the other body has clearly made its preferences clear, and this will be an item at conference. Secretary Rumsfeld also made a very strong statement within the last 24 hours that he believes the events of 2 weeks ago in Washington and New York bring home even more the importance of finding dollars to save as we transform our military into dealing with the threats of the future. So while we will not have any language in this defense bill today that deals with base closure, I believe that at conference, we need to improve the language of the Senate so that those communities that go through this process hopefully can have more peace of mind than they did in previous rounds of base closure. We need to do base closure, and at some point we will save an additional $3 billion a year that can go into items that we need to deal with the threats of the future.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Madam Chairman, as the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Military Personnel, I would like to thank my friend and colleague, the fine chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Personnel, the gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh), for his leadership this year. Madam Chairman, each and every day our volunteer men and women in uniform go forward to protect America's freedoms. Sometimes they are asked to pay the ultimate sacrifice, like those serving in the Pentagon on September 11. We owe those dedicated and committed individuals not only our gratitude but also our support. With this bill, we continue to improve the quality of life for those men and women and their families who chose to serve our Nation. It provides the largest military pay raise since 1982, including a 6 percent minimum to enlisted members and a 5 percent minimum to officers, and targets up to 10 percent for mid-grade and senior noncommissioned officers. The enhancements made to permanent change of station benefits will help to reduce out-of-pocket costs for those uniformed personnel and their families who often move to different bases to meet the needs of the individual services. And we continue to reduce out-of-pocket housing costs for families. The bill directs improvements to protect the rights and privileges of military personnel and their families to exercise the constitutional right to vote. We have also made improvements to health care. The Department has been directed to review the need to provide health care coverage to reservists and their families, and it clarifies previously enacted benefits under TRICARE for Life and other TRICARE benefits which were authorized last year. Given the expected increase in deployments for our forces as a result of the attack on the United States, I believe that in conference we need to review the $100 per day deployment bonus for those deployed more than 400 days out of every 2 years. While I understand why this policy was developed and passed last year, to encourage the services to reduce the high rate of deployments for military personnel, and I appreciate the language that has been added to ensure that the potential impacts of the policy are looked at, we need to ensure that the deployment pay policy is fair, that it does not inadvertently harm military operations or that it becomes too expensive for the services, particularly the Navy and Marine Corps, to bear. Madam Chairman, the bill before us today continues to improve the quality of life for those who serve their Nation in uniform and their families. These defenders of liberty need to know that their families are being taken care of while they are protecting our freedoms. Once again, Madam Chairman, let me say it is a pleasure to work with the gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh) and the members of the Subcommittee on Military Personnel. I urge my colleagues to support this measure.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Michigan for yielding time to me. As a family practitioner, I have had the experience of thinking a patient needs to have counseling. I have to take them into a room, have them dial a 1-800 number to their insurance company, have the clerk who picks up the phone at the end make the decision about whether they get counseling, who they see, and how many sessions they get. That is practicing medicine. That is delivering medical care. That is why it is my opinion that the Norwood amendment destroys this bill. Please read page 15. I know my Republican colleagues had a caucus this morning. They discussed this State preemption issue. Please read page 15 of the Norwood amendment. It clearly states: ``Yes, States can continue to have the liability provisions for the delivery of medical care,'' but then it defines that anything that the insurance company has to do with making decisions about claims determinations is not medical care. The example I gave, the 800 number, they say, No, that is not medical care. Mr. Chairman, that is medical care. When that clerk at the end of the phone makes decisions, they should be held just as liable as the family doctor. The Norwood amendment destroys the growing protections that are developing in State law. This amendment needs to be voted down.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, the violence in the Middle East continues. In December, I visited with wounded and with family members of the dead on both sides. Let me share with my colleagues some of the faces of violence. This lovely young woman, a Jewish family and her in-laws, her husband was executed with a bullet to the head in an Israeli office in Arab East Jerusalem 6 weeks before I arrived. This young man was shot in the chest, a Palestinian young man, the day before I arrived. This is at a hospital in Ramallah. And finally, this mother and her son. This man was shot in the upper abdomen about 10 days before I arrived. Several years before she had had another son that was shot in the head in the violence. This is also at a Ramallah hospital in the West Bank. An end to the violence, a solution, a peace agreement must come, because every traumatized family plants the seeds of more rage and more violence in the Middle East.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, the hour is late, but it is never too late to say good-bye and hello to a friend; good-bye to Asa Hutchinson, Congressman, and hello to the new head of the DEA, Asa Hutchinson. Asa, we will miss you. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Hulshof).

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, at the end of this month I have a law review article coming out in a University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review on the congressional oath of office. It is a rambling discussion probably guaranteed to put the reader to sleep, but it pulls together some of the history of the Congressional oath of office. I intend to distribute it to all Members next month and seek out their thoughts and criticisms. In the course of that research, I ran across some vignettes from history that I think are relevant to this debate today. Let me share with you some news stories taken from the New York Times in years of great strife worldwide. The first one I would like to read is from April 7, 1917. Headline: Diners Resent Slight to the Anthem. Attack a Man and Two Women Who Refuse to Stand When It Is Played. There was much excitement in the main dining room at Rector's last night following the playing of the ``Star Spangled Banner.'' Frederick S. Boyd, a former reporter on the New York Call, a Socialist newspaper, was dining with Miss Jessie Ashley and Miss May R. Towle, both lawyers and suffragists. The three alone of those in the room remained seated. There were quiet, then loud and vehement protests, but they kept their chairs. The angry diners surrounded Boyd and the two women and blows were struck back and forth, the women fighting valiantly to defend Boyd. He cried out he was an Englishman and did not have to get up, but the crowd would not listen to explanation. Boyd was beaten severely when Albert Dasburg, a head waiter, succeeded in reaching his side. Other waiters closed in and the fray was stopped. The guests insisted upon the ejection of Boyd and his companions, and they were asked to leave. They refused to do so and they were escorted to the street and turned over to a policeman who took Boyd to the West 47th Street Station, charged with disorderly conduct. Before Magistrate Corrigan in Night Court Boyd repeated that he did not have to rise at the playing of the national anthem, but the court told him that while there was no legal obligation, it was neither prudent nor courteous not to do so in these tense times. Boyd was found guilty of disorderly conduct and was released on suspended sentence. Another one, July 2, 1917. Headline: Boston ``Peace'' Parade Mobbed. Soldiers and Sailors Break Up Socialist Demonstration and Rescue Flag. Socialist Headquarters Ransacked and Contents Burned, Many Arrests for Fighting. Riotous scenes attended a Socialist parade today which was announced as a peace demonstration. The ranks of the marchers were broke up by self-organized squads of uniformed soldiers and sailors, red flags and banners bearing socialistic mottos were trampled on, and literature and furnishings in the Socialist headquarters in Park Square were thrown into the street and burned. At Scollay Square there was a similar scene. The American flag at the head of the line was seized by the attacking party, and the band, which had been playing ``The Marseillaise,'' with some interruptions, was forced to play ``The Star Spangled Banner,'' while cheers were given for the flag. From April 5, 1912. Headline: Forced to Kiss the Flag. 100 Anarchists Are Then Driven from San Diego. Nearly 100 industrial workers of the world, all of whom admitted they were anarchists, knelt on the ground and kissed the folds of an American flag at dawn today near San Onofre, a small settlement a short distance this side of the Orange County boundary line. The ceremony, which was most unwillingly performed, was witnessed by 45 deputy constables and a large body of armed citizens of San Diego. And the last one from March 26, 1918: Pro-Germans Mobbed in Middle West. Disturbances Start in Ohio and are Renewed in Illinois, Woman Among Victims. Five businessmen of Delphos, a German settlement in western Allen County near here, accused of pro-Germanism, were hunted out by a volunteer vigilance committee of 400 men and 50 women of the town, taken into a brilliantly lighted downtown street and forced to kiss the American flag tonight under pain of being hanged from nearby telephone poles. What do these stories have to do with this very important and heartfelt debate today so ably conducted by the chairman and ranking member? The decision we make today, it seems to me, is a balancing, a weighing, of what best preserves freedom for Americans. There may well be a decrease in public deliberate incidents of flag desecration, acts that we all deplore, if this amendment becomes part of our Constitution, although they are already quite rare. On the other side of the ledger, if this amendment becomes part of our Constitution, in my opinion it will become a constitutionally sanctioned tool for the majority to tyrannize the minority. As evidenced by these anecdotes from a time of great divisiveness in our Nation's history, a time much different from today, government, which ultimately is human beings with all of our strengths and weaknesses, will use this amendment to question the patriotism of vocal minorities, will use it to find excuses to legally attack demonstrations which utilize the flag in an otherwise appropriate manner, except for the fact that the flag is carried by those speaking for an unpopular minority. Mr. Speaker, I do not think our Constitution will be improved nor our freedoms protected by placing within it enhanced opportunity for minority views to be legally attacked ostensibly because of their misuse of the flag, but in reality because of views that many consider out of the mainstream. Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on this proposed amendment and for the same reasons a ``no'' vote on the substitute.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Madam Speaker, as one of the veterans who took advantage of the GI bill after I got out of the Marine Corps, in fact to the tune of 45 months, or 2 years of undergraduate and 3 years of medical school, like all Members of this House I care about the GI bill, and that is why I find this process in which those of us who serve on the Committee on Veterans' Affairs was an unfortunate one in which this bill did not come before the committee to be considered and voted on. What are my concerns? Well, in 1999, Anthony Principi, who is now Secretary of Veterans Affairs, and this was before he was Secretary of Veterans Affairs, chaired a commission known as the Principi Commission. The formal title was ``Report of the Congressional Commission on Service Members and Veterans Transition Assistance.'' Basically, what this report called for was a return to an education benefit for our veterans, much more like the original GI bill right after World War II. Now what is the problem? What is the difference between what the Principi Commission called for and the legislation we are considering today? The average budget last year for 4 years for tuition and fees only was about $3,500. If we add in the costs, living expenses for a student, that gets to about $12,000. The average private college tuition for a 4-year college was about $16,300 last year. That does not include any living expenses. That is just tuition and fees. It does not take a whole lot of math to figure out that 3 years from now, when the bill we are considering today is in full effect, the maximum benefit annually will be $13,200; $3,000 short of just the tuition and fees with nothing provided for living expenses. So in my view what we have done, Madam Speaker, is missed an opportunity to increase opportunity for our veterans; to help our military recruiters; to help our colleges; and perhaps, most important of all, to help the students at all of our colleges, even our very expensive 4-year private colleges, who would benefit by sitting next to a 4-year veteran of the military. We will all vote for this bill, Madam Speaker; but it could have been so much better. Let me make some response to the comments earlier that somehow we were engaging in petty politics. It is not petty politics to want to improve this bill or any bill. It is not petty politics to want bills to go through committee. It is certainly not petty politics to be in agreement with the current Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Anthony Principi, who put out this very important report; and the amendment of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Evans) that he wanted to bring up in committee merely reflects the desires of the Principi Commission.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this resolution, in opposition to this amendment, and in opposition to changing our most basic government document in this way. The gentleman from Michigan has been doing an admirable job of sparring on these issues, but I wanted to come over and stand up and be counted against this thing, also, with him. For the last couple of months, I have been putting together a Law Review article on the congressional oath of office. It has been interesting because I have gone back and read through some of the statements of Madison and the framers and Hamilton. These were serious men that put together our most basic document. This very debate that we are having today was a debate that the framers had. This is the kind of discussion that was contemplated by them, what level of vote count should there be in our legislative bodies to make these kinds of changes. I not only have respect for the seriousness of their debate and their discussions but also respect for their conclusion, and that once they reached that conclusion, I think we would do well as a Nation not to rekindle that debate every 2 years as we seem to have been doing here for the last few years. I think this amendment would be a mistake. I think it has very little support around the country. Right now the thrust nationally is to lower taxes, not to raise taxes. In the past when we have raised taxes, the majority of the Members of the legislative body felt that was the way to go. That is not the situation today. This is an amendment that is not necessary at this time in our Nation's history. It was contemplated by the Framers. I think it would be a mistake today to pass this amendment.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, I support this resolution, and agree with the intent of the sponsors in bringing it forward today. As a family doctor who has worked in medicine in several different nations, including Africa and Asia, I know that health problems and disease do not wait for political divisions to be solved or for political problems to be overcome. Ten days ago during this recess, I visited Sierra Leone and Guinea. I had worked in Sierra Leone for 6 months in 1983 and 1984. For the last 10 years, there has been a civil war going on in Sierra Leone which is now going across the border into Guinea. I was helicoptered to the site of the hospital I worked at 10 years ago. The hospital had been burned to the ground several years ago by the rebels. Some of the villagers that were there told me that there were a number of people killed by the RUF, this rebel force, when they destroyed the hospital. Mr. Speaker, why am I bringing up this issue on this resolution with Taiwan; because the rebels in Sierra Leone have been supported by Charles Taylor, the leader of Liberia. And Taiwan, unfortunately, contrary to every nation in the world, has been developing closer ties over this last decade with Charles Taylor in Liberia. The Taiwanese government has been very clear it is because Charles Taylor has expressed support for Taiwan in their efforts to be included in the United Nations. Mr. Speaker, while the United States has been supportive of Taiwan, I hope that the government of Taiwan will be sensitive to the international community's efforts to end support for these rebels in Sierra Leone. From press reports, Taiwanese government officials have been quoted as praising Charles Taylor for promoting peace and dialogue in West Africa. Charles Taylor has not been promoting peace and dialogue, he has been promoting violence and a brutal civil war; and I encourage our friends in Taiwan to be a part of the international community, just like they want to be a part of the WHO and end their developing relationship with Charles Taylor.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. I can assure the people of Maine that the gentleman cares so much about this topic that we were discussing it at 6:30 this morning as he was bench pressing several hundred pounds, which I thought was very impressive. Let me just make several points here. First of all, this is about unmet needs and there are a lot of unmet needs in our country and in our States and in our towns. But it is also about unmet responsibilities. Not only is the need there but the responsibility is there, and we have not met it, as my colleagues have so eloquently been discussing. We see this several places in this process here, in this budget. I am on the Committee on Veterans' Affairs. On Tuesday we had our new Secretary of Veterans Affairs, a fine guy, a Vietnam veteran, he was there to discuss the overall budget number in the President's budget. It is the feeling of everyone on the committee and every veteran services organization, VFW, the American Legion, that that number is clearly not adequate, the budget number for veterans, for the veterans health care system and the other veterans responsibilities. There is a need there but it is also not just a need, it is a responsibility. We have not kept our responsibilities to veterans. The following days the Committee on Veterans' Affairs met and unanimously, Republican and Democrat, passed a resolution to send to the powers that be in primarily the Republican leadership that we need to add money, that this is our recommendation, higher than what the President recommended, because we think that not only are there unmet needs in the veterans community but there are unmet responsibilities. This is another example, this funding for IDEA for those kids in school districts that have these special needs. In Arkansas, we have 310 school districts spread over our almost 2.5 million people. A lot of them are very small districts. A lot of them struggle. I was talking recently with one of the school superintendents. I brought up this topic of IDEA. It was actually a very moving conversation because he told me, he said, they absolutely know that they have a responsibility to do a good job with these kids, and they are going to do whatever it takes to do a good job with those kids. But because we the Federal Government do not meet our responsibilities, they have to pull money from other programs. For every Federal dollar that is not there, a State sales tax dollar, or a local property tax dollar has to go in to meet the responsibilities on those kids. These are all great people, they do a good job, but you can also sense there is some, I do not want to use the word bitterness but they are very uncomfortable with the fact that they know that they have agreed to this partnership with the Federal Government and we have not kept that responsibility. The third point I would make is there is a long-range benefit to us all to meet this responsibility, because these are special needs kids, and these are kids if we make that investment now in their education and in the things that they can learn, it will be better for them and their families and for us in the future. Working with these kids, the earlier the better, with the best resources, the best technology, the best teachers, all that takes money. The fourth point I want to make, and this is where I get a little bit baffled here, because it seems to me that what could happen is that we all just converge one day, Republican and Democrat, right down here on the floor of the House and say, by gosh, if we want to do nothing more in education but meet this commitment overnight to fund IDEA, we would accomplish what both sides of the aisle want and what our school districts want. What do I mean by that? I think there is some bipartisan interest in putting additional money into education. I think that is great. I attended a forum with the President in Arkansas last week at a school, a grade school, and it was a great forum. He is talking about he wants to put additional money in education. Where we are arguing about is, well, will it be money that goes in kind of in the form of a block grant or will it be money that goes in with a little more control and how do you account for it? We are going to have that discussion and debate and I think it is a good debate, but one way to resolve it is to say, wait a minute, if we did nothing more than to make this commitment of resources to IDEA, both those ideas would be met, because the school districts are going to have flexibility because those Federal dollars would free up their State dollars to do with them what they want to. Right now their hands are tied. They do not have the flexibility to use their own State dollars because they are obligated to put them into this program that we have mandated on them, and they are also having to do our Federal share. I think also folks from this side of the aisle that sometimes want more accountability, they would say, ``Wait a minute. We understand the school districts. We told them that we would give them this money. Let's step forward and give them this money because it is going for these special needs kids and that frees up money in the whole district.'' I think that this is an area that if the President wants to improve flexibility for school districts and how they can spend their dollars, all we have to do is just dramatically increase our commitment on IDEA, as we should do, as we are morally obligated to, and that would help kids, help all kids, help those special needs kids, give school superintendents flexibility and free up those State and local dollars that are in such short supply. I appreciate the gentleman's efforts in this regard and I proudly have signed on to the bill of the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hooley) today that attempts to do this.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank you for spending part of your Saturday afternoon with us today. I had lunch today at a Chinese restaurant. I got the little fortune cookie. I was walking, eating my cookie on the way over here. It said, ``Laughter is the best medicine.'' My experience as a family doctor is the best medicine often causes hysterical laughter because when people get the bills and see what they are paying for these drugs, it is a shocker for them. My experience as a family physician, and it is a sad experience, is that the patient comes into the doctor, you write out the prescription that you think is the right thing to do and you think this can help that person and they come back a week or two later. I bet the gentlewoman from California has had this experience, the gentleman from Washington has had this experience. ``How are you doing?'' ``About the same.'' Well, I wonder what happened. You talk and talk and talk. You finally find out, I went to the pharmacist to get that medicine and they filled it for me, they gave me the bill and I could not afford it, and I decided not to take the medicine. That is the experience in Arkansas, as over a third of our seniors have no drug benefit at all. Also, those are the same group of people, I think it is over 60 percent of our seniors, their only source of income is Social Security. So this problem of not having a prescription drug benefit is a real one. I was very optimistic when we began this Congress almost 2 years ago that we would do something in Medicare to modernize it. That is all we are asking for. We have a Medicare program. People talk about those bureaucrats in Washington. This is Medicare. They talk about the one- size-fits-all. This is Medicare. It is the Medicare program that my mother relies on, our parents all rely on; but it needs to be updated, and it needs to be updated with a drug program. Here we are on a Saturday afternoon, hoping that somehow in the next week before we finally adjourn that something will occur in this area; but I suspect most of us are not very optimistic that will happen. The Patients' Bill of Rights. Let me relate another anecdote from my experience as a physician. I think that to me the worst thing I had to do that illustrates why I am a supporter of the Patients' Bill of Rights was I have had several occasions as a family doctor in recent years where if a patient came to see me and they were depressed, they had some mental health problem and I may or may not give them a prescription or do whatever I can do as a family doctor, but I thought they needed counseling and they had an insurance program. I would have to take them in, this is the way their plan worked, I would take them into a room and say, ``Here's the telephone. Here is an 800 phone number; dial this number. You're going to get a complete stranger at the end of that line who will tell you, number one, do you get any counseling, number two, what kind of person will give you that counseling and, number three, how often and for how long a period you will get that counseling.'' Well, that is that person. That is the patient's insurance company. They have made that decision, with their employer perhaps, to choose that insurance company. But my opinion as a health care provider, as a family doctor, if that clerk at the end of that phone is going to make health care decisions, then they should be just as liable as I am if something goes wrong. I see my fellow health care professionals over here also nodding their heads. That is what the most controversial part of the Patients' Bill of Rights is about, that if a health insurance program is going to practice medicine, they should be responsible legally like the rest of us that practice medicine for real. I do not know why that seems to be so controversial, but it is. A third issue I want to touch on is this issue we have had come up just recently in the last few days with the vote on what was called this tax bill and the Medicare give-back provisions. That deals with the problem that our hospitals are struggling with around the country. A lot of us, I had promised my folks back home, yes, before we are out of here we are going to have some additional money for rural hospitals and health care providers. Lo and behold, I said, it is not going to be a problem because it is bipartisan; there is great support for it. What happened? Instead of getting the kind of bill we all thought we were going to get, we are getting a bill that gives far too much money to managed care organizations, to HMOs, and not enough to hospitals. It is really difficult to understand at this late hour why on something like that we are here today, why that cannot be worked out so that we can give our health care providers back home some relief. The last point I would like to make is on campaign finance reform. I think that sadly a lot of us have concluded, we would like these issues to be decided on what is the best policy. Unfortunately, a lot of these issues are being decided by who gives the most money to which party to help their particular position. The gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry) is trained as a pharmacist. He actually made most of his money now as a farmer, but he understands these drug issues so well, made mention of Citizens for Better Medicare and the reason that he and I talk about it is that they are now spending a ton of money in the Little Rock media market trying to influence this congressional race we have in South Arkansas. It is not the race that he and I are involved in in our two districts, but it is in the same media market. The Arkansas Democrat- Gazette had a report come out about a week ago. Citizens for Better Medicare, which is financed by drug company money, these are pharmaceutical companies, has now spent close to $800,000, if not more by this week, to impact that one race. They are opposing the proposals that we all support to include a drug benefit in Medicare. I do not deny anyone their right to run an ad. I do not deny anyone the right to support whatever candidate they want, but when they call themselves Citizens for Better Medicare, people need to understand and the folks in south Arkansas and in my district also need to understand that Citizens for Better Medicare is drug company money trying to block a drug benefit for Medicare, and that is wrong. I thank the gentleman from Texas for his work today and I thank the Speaker again for being here.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Chairman, as a family doctor and a Marine veteran, I have to ask myself now, why are the tobacco companies and their allies in Congress fighting this amendment, fighting this lawsuit in this way. Number one, they know the health costs that their product has caused, and those of us that have been in medicine have seen the lung cancer and the heart disease and the sexual impotence and all of those other problems; and we have seen those health costs. The tobacco companies know they lied to this Congress and lied to the American people about the effects of their product and the addictive quality. Finally, the tobacco companies know they targeted our men in uniform, those of us who used to open the C-rations and get the packs of cigarettes in there; we know we were targeted as we look back in time. That information would come out in this lawsuit, how they preyed on our young men, 17 and 18 and 19 and 20 years old, addicted them to this product, at a time when we were asking them to go into combat for their country in World War II and the Korean War and the Vietnam War. That is what this lawsuit is about, and they know what it is about. They do not want to have to defend in front of a jury, having targeted those young men. Support the Waxman amendment.

Mr. SNYDER

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