Mark Souder

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to raise a couple of things that were in yesterday's newspaper that illustrate that as much as we would like the drug problem in America to go away, it has not gone away. The front page of The New York Times says, ``Violence Rises as Club Drug Spreads Out Into the Streets.'' And it is yet another story about Ecstasy. On the front page of USA Today just a month ago, ``Ecstasy Drug Trade Turns Violent.'' What we see from the charts is that it is exploding on the West Coast, it is stabilized on the East Coast, in the Midwest it is soaring; and in the south it is roughly stabilized. We are seeing more and more kids realize the extreme dangers as more and more overdose, as more and more lose ground in their schooling as they see side effects like depression, particularly at the so-called rave parties which have been featured a lot in New Orleans and other places on some national TV shows. Just as crack cocaine became an epidemic in America, we are seeing the start of the Ecstasy movement. This is partly because of the drug legalization movement in the Netherlands and in Europe. We are seeing Ecstasy exported from Belgium and the Netherlands into the U.S. It is increasingly becoming the drug of choice. We need to be aggressive in our law enforcement, we need to be aggressive in our prevention and treatment programs, in our outreach programs, as well as our interdiction programs. In the Indianapolis Star yesterday, the headline says, ``Drug Test Ban Felt at State Schools. Ball State University survey shows rise in drug and alcohol use and student discipline since court rejected policy.'' A number of years ago, when I was a staffer for former Senator Dan Coats, we allowed drug-free schools money to be used for drug testing of student athletes. This policy had been spreading through the United States and beyond just the athletic departments to general, random drug testing. In my district, at East Noble High School, at Fremont High School, we had several model programs developed. In Anderson High School, a State court ruled that drug testing the students was illegal search and seizure. How exactly are we supposed to do prevention programs if the court decides it is the legislative body and does not have any legal precedent with which to decide that but makes that decision? What we do know, and ironically it took a court decision to overturn a broad drug testing policy of schools, is in fact that in Indiana drug use and alcohol use had gone down, and then when they were ordered to stop the program, in 1 year it has gone back up. So the question is, as we see the results when a program is pulled back, not whether drug testing works, it is how can we do it in a constitutional way, that is sensitive to the individual, whether in the workplace, whether at school or wherever it be? Because drug testing is one of the most effective prevention programs. We have maintained this for years, and this new study in Indiana proves it. Unless we all work together in prevention, in treatment, in interdiction, and in law enforcement, we are going to continue to lose many more of our young people and adults to the scourge of illegal narcotics.

Mr. SOUDER

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

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, the subject I want to address tonight is one that has been in the news a lot lately, and a lot of people are confused and many Members of Congress are confused. I want to review some of the basics, and that is about the faith-based initiative or the so-called Community Solutions Act that will be marked up presumably next week in the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Ways and Means, as well as hopefully brought to the House floor right after the July 4th break. This is an area that has, as I said, a lot of controversy in it, a lot of conflict in it, and at the same time is so basic to how we are going to deliver social services and how we might address the problems of the United States that it is absolutely essential. I would like to go into a little bit of overview as to what all of the fuss is about and why so many people are talking about faith. One would think from some of the media coverage this is a brand new idea discovered by President Bush and it was never talked about before in American history. In fact, it has been part of the United States from the very beginning. It has just been in recent years that we have tended to deny this. The Pilgrims came here because they wanted to practice freedom of their faith. The Catholics in Maryland came because they wanted freedom for their faith. The Quakers in Pennsylvania came to the United States because they wanted freedom to practice their faith. We have seen multiple revivals in American history, when George Whitfield came through and it swept through America right through the American Revolution, the Wesley brothers came and settled in south Georgia and then moved up the United States, and there was another evangelical revival. On Monday on the House floor there is a proposal to build a memorial to John Adams and John Quincy Adams and Abigail Adams, but particularly focusing on John Adams. The current second best-selling book in the United States by David McCullough, if you read that book, at the very beginning, it talks about how John Adams was raised in a religious family, and his father was a minister, and how John Adams initially started as a schoolteacher, and his dad wanted to be a minister. And it was only after deciding to become an attorney that he decided not to become a minister himself. At the very end of that book when John Adams is giving advice, he says, ``Walk humbly and serve God.'' John Adams, from the beginning, the middle, and the end was a very religious man. But it was not just John Adams. John Quincy Adams' son who died in Statutory Hall, which used to be the old House Chamber, his last words were that he was ready to meet his maker and he was ready to go to heaven. He wrote a special book for his son giving him advice from the Bible and telling him how to avoid all of the perils of the European culture when he was over in Europe. But it was not just the Adams family. Even those who were the least religious in the founding of our American Republic, arguably Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson was concerned enough about it that he did his own, in my belief, a phony Bible; but he took many of the teachings of the Bible with it because he believed it was a historic and important document for America's faith. Ben Franklin repeatedly called on Congress at the very time when we were supposedly debating about the separation of church and state, right after they passed the religious liberty amendment Ben Franklin was among those who called and passed a resolution saying Jesus Christ was the one and only son of God and was the saviour of mankind. Ben Franklin also had George Whitfield, probably the greatest evangelist ever to come to America, at his home; and Ben Franklin was not, in my terms, a particularly religious man, but he understood the power and importance of faith to America and how it was so integrated in our culture, and he at least understood the power of faith. We also saw that evolve. If Jefferson and Franklin were kind of the least religious of our Founding Fathers, we had the founders of the America Bible Society in our early Continental Congress, in our early Congresses. Most of the people in those Congresses were divinity school graduates. Even when you look here in the House Chambers, and it will not be able to be seen on C-SPAN, but there are lawgivers all around this Chamber from Rome, from Greece and so on. All their heads on this side are turned that direction. On this side, they are turned that direction. There is only one facing towards Congress. It is Moses, Moses of Bible fame, who looks straight down on the chairman. Behind the chairman, it says, ``In God We Trust.'' So when we talk about separation of church and state, let us do not get too cute here. We have Moses looking down on us every time we debate this, with ``In God We Trust'' behind us. What does this have to do with what we are talking about in public? It is because we have increasingly in America tried to deny this heritage and separate and act as though somehow we are not rooted in that and the people are not rooted in that, whereas the people in America are still a religious people; but the government has in effect tried to impose a secular alternative on this. Let me look at the role of faith in social services. In fact, if religious organizations had not stepped in in the education field, all of our major universities were religious universities to begin with. They are not now, but Harvard and Princeton and Yale, all of these universities were founded as religious universities. All the major social organizations, hospitals, child abuse, juvenile centers, all of these things in America were religiously founded. The book ``Tragedy of American Compassion,'' by Dr. Marvin Olasky, is a brilliant exposition of how we went from a basic religious-based provider of social services to the government taking over most of those options. Now we had a terrible Depression. There were other things that were occurring as well, but he highlights how some of it has been a substitution of character mixing with private charity and helping others to a government takeover of social services initiatives. I commend all of Dr. Olasky's books to us. He has a great book on compassionate conservatism that is probably the best single book out on that subject right now. He has several books on leadership and some of the American heritage to understand the mixing of how faith was so important in our country. Going back to the social service providers, what has happened is government has taken over more of the social service providing. They do not have the character mix. I am not saying government employees are not committed, but they are not going to stay there in the evening. They often will move back to their suburbs rather than live and work in the communities where the problems actually are. It is a different type of commitment. It is not leveraged with private funds. On top of that, what it has done it has absolved the rest of us from our obligations to help those who are hurting and those who have problems. We say now it is the government's business. It is partly because our Tax Code is high and partly because we see all of these billions of dollars being spent in the social programs; therefore we do not have to do it. But let us not kid ourselves. Part of this is an excuse. It covers our selfishness, and we have allowed the government to step in and provide social services that are really our responsibility as well. I am not saying there is not a government role. Obviously, a safety net is needed; but it can be a supplemental role. President Bush is not proposing to have government replaced. He is proposing to have an additional add-on and to add the hearts and compassion of the America people on top of our tax money that is going to this. That is what we are trying to do with this, is to expand the base of how we do social services. I want to read a couple of examples from World Magazine of which Dr. Olasky, who I referred to earlier, was one of the original founders. World Magazine is probably the best of the evangelical publications now. It is kind of like a Time Magazine for Christians, for lack of a better word. This week's issue, June 16, has a feature on compassionate conservatism and particularly looking at a lot of things related to this initiative of President Bush. One of the articles is on Teen Challenge, and let me read a little bit about this. Then I am going to relate these into the larger question of how faith-based organizations and community solutions work. Quote, ``Just tell them it is a spiritual bootcamp,'' responds the man who runs the Teen Challenge. It is a 4-month induction phase to the 12- month Teen Challenge program. The New Orleans center serves as the ground level, weed-out program that grabs drug users off the street and incubates them in Biblical teaching. Those who stay off drugs and complete daily Bible lessons receive gold stamp certificates and a bus ticket to another 8-month training center that offers intensive Bible study and job skill training. Only 20 percent of the residents who enter the Teen Challenge program graduate after 12 months. Of those graduates, 86 percent remain drug-free 7 years after graduation, according to a study done by the National Institute of Drug Abuse in 1975 and later confirmed by university studies in 1994 and 1999. ``At this place, we deal with the problem of sin, not its effects,'' says Mr. Pallitta. The only way to change sin is through the deliverance power of Jesus Christ. We had Teen Challenge at one of our committee hearings. They are one of the only programs that have been steadily audited by different groups who cannot believe their success rate because we are told, you mean clean for 7 years? That is amazing compared to our drug programs. It is a difficult question because it is clearly an overtly Christian program. How do we deal with that in this Community Solutions Act and the faith-based initiative? That is part of what I am going to talk about as I develop tonight's Special Order. Now here is another story. This one is in Dallas, a crime-infested area in Dallas. It says, ``We use Biblical principles to help children develop leadership skills,'' he said, explaining that there are no neighborhoods or parks in the area; just 10,000 apartment units that often host drug gangs and prostitution rings. These children are exposed to so much. Everything you would not want your child to see is right outside in the parking lot. It says that these children participate in community service programs, in a youth choir that performs at local nursing homes and malls. David Pruessner, a 45-year- old lawyer volunteer who teaches chess, quote, ``You have to learn to develop a strategy and think ahead.'' During the summer, he gives group lessons to 20 students at a time using ten game boards and hand-made wall charts but teaching about God is at the center of the program, for Mr. Gaddis states that the gospel is the only thing that really changes lives. Now here is another story in this same issue of World Magazine on the Good Samaritan Center, actually Good Samaritan House in Orlando, or actually Sarasota, Florida. It says, at the Good Samaritan House, ``The right direction begins with a set of simple, nonnegotiable rules.'' Residents must remain alcohol and drug free and accompany Mr. Cooley to church and Bible study weekly. They must secure a full-time job or work as day laborers at a local temporary agency until they find permanent employment. GSH residents must pay rent, $6 a night after their fifth free night of shelter. While they may spend a little money on personal needs, the men must save much of their earnings with the goal of becoming economically independent of this house. The rules include in bed by 10:00; no foul language; no fighting; and no women, presumably at least outside of marriage. I wanted to illustrate some of these examples because you can see that many of these groups are effective. How does this relate to the government and how do we work through this question of religious liberty in America, because it is illegal to use taxpayer dollars to do proselytization or to do direct, overt funding of Christian activities or any other religious activities with taxpayer dollars. It is unconstitutional. So how do we work through these? What would you think, from many people's criticism of this program, is that this is the type of thing that we are directly funding and we are directly funding the proselytization, but that is not the case. Let me walk through a little bit first some of the legal questions. David Ackerman at the Congressional Research Service has probably done the most work on this subject. His most recent is April 18, 2001, analyzing this charitable choice part of the debate. There are three parts to this that I want to illustrate in this section. The first is what is happening now. As he says in this document, that in the past, because contrary to public impression many faith-based organizations, hundreds and thousands of them, currently are involved in government. So what is this debate about? Well, the debate is that, as he says, these organizations have in the past generally required programs operated by religious organizations that receive public funding in the form of grants or contracts to be essentially secular in nature, essentially secular in nature. That means, for example, religious symbols and art had to be removed; religious worship instruction and proselytizing have been forbidden. Therefore, they are not really when they are doing these religious organizations anymore. So many religious organizations do not even apply to do social service work in any government grant program because they basically have to become, as is stated here, essentially secular in nature. So what is the President proposing to do, and what are we going to look at here in the House? People think of it as just this charitable choice, but it is to help States set up their own versions of faith- based and community initiatives. It is to help implement the charitable choice measures. It is to help pilot programs in this, but it is also a whole series of tax initiatives including giving nonitemizers the right to claim charitable deductions; to permit tax-free withdrawals from IRAs; to have individual development accounts; to encourage States to adopt charitable gift tax credits; to increase the charitable donation from corporations to 10 to 15 percent. It is a series of tax incentives as well, and then also technical assistance to small community and faith-based organizations. So are those things unconstitutional? Now what David Ackerman writes, and this is the fundamental kind of guts of the argument, he says, more particularly, the Supreme Court now appears to interpret the establishment clause in a manner that does not automatically disqualify pervasively sectarian institutions from participating in direct aid programs and perceives them as able to honor restrictions to secular use even without intrusive government monitoring. But the court's revised interpretation still requires that direct aid be limited to secular use by recipient organizations and the court has left open the possibility that other limitations may apply as well. Moreover, all of the justices have expressed doubt that direct money grants to pervasively religious entities can pass constitutional muster. The standards governing indirect aid, however, do not appear to have changed. Some aspects of the charitable choice proposals that have been enacted seem to satisfy these requirements. The provisions do not give religious institutions any special entitlement public aid but simply require that they be considered eligible on the same basis as nonreligious institutions. In addition, they all bar the use of public aid for sectarian worship, instruction and proselytization; i.e. they require that the aid be used only for secular purposes. Then it is constitutional. What we have been working through the last week in particular is some concerns regarding the original drafting of the bill and whether it met these constitutional questions. Now let me illustrate some of the types of things that we are working with. To give you an example, there was a report that an official of the Department of Housing and Urban Development wrote to the bishop in charge of the St. Vincent de Paul Housing Center in San Francisco asking them to rename the building the Mr. Vincent de Paul Center because they got a government grant. That is how ridiculous some of this is getting. In another case that was reported in the Washington Post January 28, 2001, in a George Will column, a city agency notified the local branch of the Salvation Army that it could be awarded a contract to help the homeless only on the condition that the organization remove the word ``salvation'' from its name. Now those are extreme cases, but more generally the problem has become, as Dr. Amy Sherman has said, charitable choice, most important effect thus far, is that it made the collaboration plausible for those within government and the faith community who had previously assumed such partnering was somehow outside the bounds of constitutionality under their misguided interpretation of the first amendment. In other words, much of this has not been unconstitutional. It is that people did not realize it was constitutional. So that was kind of attempting to address some of the constitutional questions. Now let me explain and review again this mix of what we are trying to do with the Community Solutions Act. First, and this is first because it is the most dollars and the most important, it is not government. It is the private sector. Secondly, it is tax incentives, because the best way to help the private sector is to encourage more charitable giving. Then we do not have the debate about whether or not government is involved or not, and there are more dollars than the government will have in it. Thirdly, it is technical assistance for small communities and churches. There are lots of Hispanic and black churches in urban American that have 15 to 50 people in them. They do not have CPAs and accountants in their churches. They do not know how and when the government grants are coming. They need technical assistance, so, one, they do not get sued, and, secondly, so they can figure out how to be eligible for the grants. Then we come to charitable choice. Let me go through each of those a little bit in particular here. First let me deal with the question of corporate philanthropy. This has become highlighted because of a speech that President Bush gave at the University of Notre Dame, as a graduate I would have to say arguably the best university in the United States. But he chose that to address the question of why corporations have not been allowing, they do not allow their corporations to give to faith-based. In other words, we can complain about government, but Dr. Michael Joyce, who has been a leader in a lot of these things, Michael Joyce was with the Bradley Foundation and is now working with the Capital Research Center and other groups, and he is the person who called this to the attention of President Bush. Listen to some of our biggest corporations in America and their standard for corporate giving, and then we can talk about the problem of faith-based, but let us first look at what is happening in the private sector. When the government starts to separate faith, but it is even the private sector that separates. General Motors, number one in corporate giving, declares contributions are ``generally not provided to religious organizations.'' The Ford Motor Company fund, the number three corporation, ``as a general policy does not support the following religious or sectarian programs for religious purposes. That is in the same undesirable category as animal rights organizations or beauty or talent contests.'' So Ford and General Motors do not allow their funding to go to faith- based organizations. The fourth largest, Exxon-Mobil, explains, ``we do not provide funds for political or religious causes.'' That is not exactly true, since the company touts its support of environmentalists, advocacy groups for women and groups performing ``public research.'' But no money for faith-based organizations. But IBM, the number six corporation, ``does not make corporate donations or grants from corporate philanthropic fund to individuals, political, labor religious or fraternal organizations or sports groups,'' and many faith-based groups also have trouble with the last two words of IBM's ban which says that they will not give any money to organizations that discriminate, for example, on gender and sexual orientation, which means faith-based organizations like the Catholic church that do not allow female priests or any religion, which is most major religions, including Christianity, traditional orthodox Judaism, Muslims, on homosexuality. So they are ruled out because they have ``discrimination.'' So we have General Motors, Ford, Exxon-Mobil, IBM, saying no donations to faith-based groups. No wonder we are having a problem with faith-based groups getting funded. As Michael Joyce told the President, according to this article, ``I said the President is both the President of the government, but also President of the Nation. There is a huge private sector that spends billions emulating what the government does.'' So our lack and kind of our trying to separate ourselves from faith has resulted in the private sector also separating themselves from faith. Now one of our colleagues here, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Green), has developed legislation which I am thrilled to cosponsor, and I praise him for his initiative, to try to have Congress go on record saying this is wrong out of the private sector. We need the private sector and the corporate sector leading in the effort to try to get more money to the people who are effective at the grassroots or actually changing people's lives. Now, the second part of this is the tax incentives. I was in an earlier life in the eighties the Republican staff director of the House Committee on Children, Youth and Families, when Dan Coats was the ranking member, former Congressman and Senator. We came to the conclusion after looking at so many of the problems in the United States that there was going to be a limitation on how far the Federal Government and even state governments and local governments are going to be able to go in assisting in solving our tremendous problems in this country, and that the best way to achieve this was going to be through faith-based organizations and the best way to achieve that was going to be through assisting in the Tax Code. Let me give you an illustration. It does not matter whether the state has a Republican Governor or a Democratic Governor or who controls this Congress. We have not increased funds outside of education for most of the social problems in America to keep up with the problems of child abuse, with runaways. There is not a probation department in America that does not realize that their caseload per probation officer is increasing. In Indiana, we are now entering, I think it is our 13th year of Democratic governors, and we have seen more money for education, but not for rehabilitation, not for a lot of the family services, not for child abuse, not for how we deal with the people when they are in prisons and try to help them; that no matter which party you are at the state level, we are a little slow here in Washington, you are saying the only way we are going to be able to address these problems is if we can extend the government dollars and get the faith-based groups involved. The most direct way to do that, I have an act that we call the Give Act to try to increase the value of the charitable deduction. When I worked for Senator Coats, we developed the charitable tax credit. Senator Santorum and Senator Lieberman in the Senate have introduced this Community Solutions Act as a tax bill, and as I mentioned earlier, it is part of our Community Solutions Act in the House. Arguably the most important. Now, I am disappointed that we have cut back the President's proposal so much than the non-itemizers, but I understand we are under tremendous budget pressures. I am still enthusiastic about the bill. I will take whatever we can get. But I am disappointed that we were able to come up with tax cuts for other groups, but not where we really need it in a lot of the social programs where the people are hurting the most, and I hope we can continue to increase that over the number of years, and I hope the President will keep the pressure on in the Senate, and in the next few years to increase that if our surplus continues to come in the way it is. But the tax incentives and the private sector philanthropy, plus the efforts of Steve Goldsmith and now Les Linkowsky in a lot of everything, from AmeriCorps to a lot of the other public service things, in addition to the President's proposals in each department to see if the departments can look at how they can extend staff to help on faith-based, those are actually the biggest part and the most important part of the Community Solutions Act. The next part is this technical assistance question. We have $25 million I believe in the bill to go to HHS. The President is also, I believe next week, having mayors in to talk about what they can do at the local level. We are encouraging states to set up initiatives. It does not all have to come out of Washington. Most of the best execution and the better ideas do not come out of Washington, they come up towards Washington. Part of this is how are we going to help? The fundamental thing we are trying to address here really is how do we help those who need the help most and what is the gap? One of the gaps is that we see at the grassroots level, even in the worst cases, as my friend Bob Woodson always points out, all you guys down there seem to do is focus on the failures. Why do you not focus on the successes? When you look at the successes, in the worst places, I got challenged once by Bob when I first came in as a staff director and he said, ``Don't be a typical white guy who sits on your duff and pronounces what is wrong in our urban centers. Go in and talk to people who are successful and figure out what is working.'' When I have been into Harlem and Brooklyn and inner-city L.A. and in Detroit and Washington and Baltimore and most of the major cities of the United States over the last 15 years as a staffer and Member and talked to people, in the worst places possible, there is always a success story there. There is always somebody who is not failing, who is succeeding. At least 40 percent, even in the worst cases, are succeeding. I remember one study by, I think it was David Farrington out of England, that if your parents are not married, one of them is gone from your home, they both have been in prison, they are both abusing drugs, neither are employed, and the chances of that child getting caught up in the juvenile delinquency system are only 33 percent. What happened to the other 67 percent? Well, usually they got involved in some sort of a mentoring and faith-based hook. The fact is that success stories are when there are two parents involved, or when there a faith-based mentor involved, or a church involved, and there is work. We know what the keys to success are. We have to build on those successes, rather than trying to reinforce the failures. Now, part of this is how do we help those little organizations? Pastor River's organization in Boston, they talk about how they have helped reduce the number of killings on the streets and so on, and you hear all these government programs bragging about it. But most government programs abandon that area and their neighborhoods in downtown Boston and the inner-city areas about 5:30 or 5 o'clock, maybe even at 4:30. The people who are left there are the people in the community and the churches. But they do not get the grants. How do they know between June 15 and June 30 there is a grant on juvenile delinquency? How do they have the time or knowledge to write out the grant proposals? What we do in small business? For example, when I was in my 2-year MBA program at Notre Dame, one of the things we did in small business was we went out as students, and part of our requirement was to go out and help people prepare the grant requests. We have microenterprise centers to help small businesses and start-up businesses get started in a lot of these communities to do that. Why do not we have that in social services? That is partly what the President is talking about in his compassion fund. That is partly what the President is talking about when he says the agencies need to help that. We need to have the creativity and the entrepreneurship and the reinforcement in the social areas if we are really serious about addressing the problems, like we do in trying to provide jobs for people. The two things go hand-in-hand. Part of the solutions are economic and part of them are in here. Broken families, you cannot educate somebody or you cannot educate a child if they are being beaten at home. If they are worried about whether their parents are going to get divorced, if they do not know where they are going to get their evening meal, it is pretty tough to educate them. It is a social problem and an economic problem, and we have to address both of themselves. I hope our universities, one of my dreams is that some of the universities would say, look, we are going to work with some tech centers, we are going to have our students spend some volunteer times in the communities helping these small groups figure out how to apply for some of the grants, how to raise the private money from the philanthropic groups as they become more sensitive to the need for faith-based organizations. So that is the technical assistance questions, because we have to come up with some creative ways to address that. Now let me move to the most controversial part, which is charitable choice. So the basic question is, if someone chooses to attend a faith- based program, why should that be denied? That is really the fundamental question here. If you want to go in a drug treatment program and go to a faith-based program, why should that be denied? For example, if you want to go to Salvation Army center for the homeless, why should you be denied that, if you want to go to the rescue mission. If you have a child care program and you want to go to a Catholic sponsored child care center, this include a hospice for the elderly, respite care, housing for people dying or trying to recover from AIDS, programs for juvenile delinquents. If you want to go to a faith-based programs, why should you not be able to go to a faith-based program? Faith is a big part of most American's lives, whether it is Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, whatever it is, why should you be denied, particularly at the time of your greatest crisis, any access to faith if you so desire? Let me go through some of the difficulties with this. As I said before, one of the questions is, can you use my money, for example, I am a committed evangelical Christian, can you use my money to fund a Muslim program? Quite frankly, I do not want to fund the teaching of the Koran, but the money cannot be used for proselytization, and if we are trying to figure out how to help somebody who is dying from AIDS and provide a hospice shelter for them or recovery center when other people will not care for them, and they are Muslim and they want to go to a faith-based organization, and I am not being forced into that, and they cannot use my money for proselytization, why should I care, if that is what is going to be most effective and what that person wants? Now, a key part of that, which is one of the things we have been battling about in this bill, is you have to have a choice. Let me give you a couple of illustrations with this. I have a son, Zachary, who is 7th grade moving into 8th grade. Let us say his junior high has an after-school program, and so many of us are used to thinking of it in a different way, so let me phrase it this way. Let us say that the group that wins the bid for the after-school program is Muslim. He comes home at night and tells me, hey, after we got started with the program we bowed down to Allah and had a prayer to Allah, and then a little later we had a study on the Koran. I call up the school and say, what in the world are you doing, putting my son in an after-school program where they are bowing down to Allah and studying the Koran? They say, oh, that part was done with private money, not with Federal money. Ha, I do not care. My son was in the middle of the program. You mean, he would have had to step out and have a big mess so he did not get up and embarrass himself in front of his friends? Look, if this is an after-school program and everybody is in there, you cannot mix it that way. But now what if there were two after-school programs? What if he had the option of which one he wanted to go to, and there was a secular option, why should not those kids who wanted a Muslim program be able to go to a Muslim program? Not really a very good reason why they cannot, but you do have to have the option or clearly it is unconstitutional in my opinion. Let me give you another illustration. A nutrition site, say, in Fort Wayne Indiana, not one of the more international cities of the world, but changing like the rest of the country. We have had a lot of influx of immigrants. Most people think, oh, Mexican and Central American Spanish-speaking people. No, we have a problem, because in some of our areas, a problem in the sense the fire department talked to me about language problems, but it was not about the Spanish language. It was about the fact we have had the largest population of dissident Burmese in the United States in Fort Wayne, and one of the housing complexes on the north side of town is about half Burmese. Interestingly, what Chief Davey was talking to me about was the other half roughly of this complex, which are Bosnian. Now, if we put a nutrition site in Fort Wayne, Indiana; admittedly, a mostly Anglo, mostly Protestant and Catholic city, but in that area, if you do a nutrition site and it was faith-based it would probably either be Buddhist or Muslim. Now let us say you are a Christian in that neighborhood and the only nutrition site is either Buddhist or Muslim, you have a problem. But if you have a choice, which is critical to the faith-based option here, it is not a problem. If the Bosnians who come to Fort Wayne organize themselves, and I am not saying they do, but if they organize themselves around a Muslim church, or if the Buddhists are more comfortable with their faith in having something, say a respite care center that teaches the pacifistic and relaxing attributes of Buddhism and that is what they want for hospice care, and there is an alternative for the other people in the neighborhood, why is that wrong? It is part of their institutional strength of what a community builds upon. Faith cannot be separated from life for most people, regardless of what their faith is, somewhere around 80 to 90 percent of Americans of all types and all heritages and all religions. So one of the things is we clearly have to have a choice, but we have to understand, those of us who are in the majority, that we are not always going to be in the majority in a given neighborhood and that religious liberty means religious liberty. Now, one problem that some conservatives are having with this is that say, what do you mean a Buddhist group can be funded? Hey, that is what religious liberty is. If this organization is the best to address the problems of that community and people want to choose that, that means it can be Buddhist or Muslim. It does not just mean that Christian organizations are going to be funded in this bill; it means that any religious organization, as long as there is another provider, has the flexibility to do that, because faith means faith. It does not mean one kind of sectarian faith over another kind of sectarian faith. It has to be balanced. There has to be equal opportunity. And that goes in both directions. If I am saying that if you want to have a Christian program or a Jewish program or a Muslim program or a Buddhist program, and you have to have a secular alternative, you ought to also have the opportunity, if there is a secular program, to be able to opt out and choose a faith-based program. It goes in both directions. We keep hearing here how you cannot have people forced into a faith-based program. Well, they should not be forced into a secular program either if they want to opt out and take that choice, for example, in drug treatment. Now, one other thing that we have been debating here, and this is another very ticklish situation, is should the grants go directly to the church or should we set up 501(c)(3)s, meaning an independent entity much like Catholic charities or Catholic social services, Lutheran social services. Those are big churches, big denominational setups. Okay. Now, let us take an African American church in inner city Philadelphia like one of our witnesses was that is small, maybe 70 people. How do they set up a 501(c)(3)? That is our technical assistance question, and this is a very difficult question, because we need to help them set up a 501(c)(3), and what I have become aware of as I have worked more with this issue and I have carried charitable choice bills to the floor now about four times, is we have to be very careful we do not suck the church into a very ill- defined and increasingly changing court decisionmaking process on what constitutes the flexibility of religious freedom. Now, for example, the bottom line is I do not want to sink the church in the name of faith, and that could happen here if we are not careful, because there are very difficult questions. Would the church be covered by minimum wage laws? Some say of course it should be covered by minimum wage laws, but what does that mean? We have run into this with a number of religious children's homes. What it means is you get paid for 40 hours and if there is a problem at your home and the kids need help and your 40 hours is up and the church does not have more money to pay you, you have to leave, regardless of what the problem is, because you are not allowed to volunteer. That was meant to protect workers in the United States from corporations taking advantage of them and saying, okay, your 40 hours is done, now I need you to stay a little bit of overtime and we are not going to count it because we are not going to pay you. It was meant to protect workers, but it has never applied to churches, because many people in the churches are volunteers and working for the church. Probably there are very few church secretaries, very few church staffers who do not both get paid for a certain number of hours and then volunteer when there is a revival, volunteer to take kids to an amusement park. You cannot do that if you lose your religious exemption. Another tough question. As I mentioned earlier, some religions, some major religions, both in Protestant and in Catholic faiths and big parishes and churches believe in a very tough thing to say today, but in sex discrimination, they believe that in certain positions, there should not be male nuns, for example, and do they have the right to maintain their religious freedom. If the church gets sucked into that and gets government money, this is a tough, tough question. One of the most hotly debated subjects in America today is homosexuality, and many, many, if not most faiths, still believe that that is morally wrong. They have the right in America as a church to have that view. If we put government money directly into the church, we endanger them, depending on where the court moves, on this subject, if they have a 501(c)(3) as a separate entity that receives it. The clarity is still being sorted through, but the church mission itself will not be at risk. Now, the closer the 501(c)(3) is to a direct faith initiative; for example, Catholic schools basically are exempt also for the most part because of the religious exemption, because the mission of the school is very faith based. But the degree you move, for example, to an exercise class or if a church moves to say a Pepsi bottling plant, the farther they move away from their basic mission, the more they are covered by sex discrimination laws, minimum wage laws, and a very difficult one, hate crimes laws, because how we define that in America has become increasingly flexible and puts those who have strong views on certain moral issues in potential risk. These are crucial matters of religious freedom and how we draft this bill and move through is very important, because we do not want to destroy the church. Now, a fundamental question here is, and I would suspect that many churches will not apply. Nobody has to apply for a government grant. If any church is fearful that they could be drawn in, then do not apply. It is very simple. You do not have to get caught up in this. But I believe, as in multiple votes here generally speaking with a margin of about 290 Members supporting, it has ranged from probably 240 to 300 and some, have supported charitable choice, because we believe that ultimately, it is going to be impossible to address the problems in this country without the help of faith-based initiatives, and I commend the President for his Community Solutions Act. Let me finish with two things. One is a further quote from Michael Joyce. It is an article about him, and I will insert the full article from World Magazine into the Record at the end of my remarks. Joyce says, ``Ordinary people understand this really well. We take human nature into account. We understand humans as they were wrought by God. These people wish to remake them,'' he means the government, ``and rearrange them. It is like that line in a Bob Marley song: `Don't let them rearrange you. That is why they fail.' ''. They are not accounting for the basic human emotions and needs and beliefs of the American people in many of these government programs. One of the most moving things that I have had happen to me in my life was the first time I visited Freddie Garcia and Juan Rivera at the Victory Life Temple program for drug addicts that they operate in San Antonio and now throughout Texas. Admittedly, this illustrates several things. This program would not be eligible for a direct government grant, period, because it is overtly faith. They would benefit from corporate philanthropy, they would benefit from the tax exemptions, but this is why so many of us feel that faith-based things have to be involved in any programs. I have just visited Johns Hopkins where they told me you could not go off crack cocaine without tremendous effort. I met in one day at least 150 former addicts who went cold turkey because they gave their lives to Jesus Christ. I met them in housing complexes. I met them in churches. I met them in neighborhoods. It was extraordinary. They told me over and over, we were dealers. Generally speaking, when I would come into the different housing complexes or places where they were, they would say, can we get you a drink of water, and I would say either yes or no, depending on if it was a hot day in San Antonio, and they would say, can I tell you how I met Jesus Christ? I was lost and he turned my life around. They do not operate a drug treatment program, they operate a turn-your-life-around program which gets people off drugs. Nobody disputes that they have the best success record. Later that evening, after having met, like I say, 150 to 200 people, I was with Juan Rivera who was telling me his story, how he went cold turkey, and we were in this little building with the sandy streets around it, he talked about this tree where he first read the Bible and he was in his backyard, at the backyard of that, and I pictured kind of a woods and it was just one barren tree with sand everywhere, a little different than the Midwest, and he said how he just is so thankful because he was on multiple drugs, how his life was a mess, like many of the others had told me, and he said, I was going to be a dead man. He said, now my life has changed. And I said, I am really embarrassed, because I have had a great life and I am not thankful enough. And he said, you should be ashamed and I said, well, I really am ashamed. He said, my dream is that some day my kids can have the opportunity that you have. When we see people who are hurting in drug abuse and we see people who do not have opportunities; part of the reason we started government programs was in the area of AIDS because many people would not help people with AIDS because they thought they could catch it and only the churches went out because they were confident of their souls, so they were willing to take the risk, so they reached out, and that is partly how the government got involved in faith-based organizations, because only the Christians and the Buddhists were early on too, in the area of AIDS. Then in the area of the homeless. We do not have enough dollars for the homeless. Organizations like the Salvation Army and the rescue missions and churches reached out to the homeless. We are going to tell these people, because faith is mixed in, you do not even get the option of going to faith based? This has been a tragedy to watch how America went from Founding Fathers, from Congresses where we put Moses there and ``In God We Trust'' behind us, to the point where our major corporations in America will not even let their contributions go to faith based; where we have to fight about the Tax Code, where we have to try to get help for faith based and people object. If there is a guarantee you have another option, and if there is a protection, that people would still oppose faith-based groups getting in. You either care about people and want to help them in every way possible. Mr. Speaker, I support the government programs that try to reach people, but we also need to strengthen our private sector. I hope that we can pass soon, and I am thrilled that President Bush has made this such a key part of his agenda, and I hope the House and Senate will have the courage to move forward with this. [From World, June 16, 2001] Front-Line Reports (By Marvin Olasky) One journalism newsletter complained recently that reporters have overquoted me during this year's debate about President Bush's faith-based initiative. I agree. Reporters shouldn't be basing their stories on what Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State says. They shouldn't be basing their stories on what I say. They should be going out into the field and talking with people fighting poverty at the front lines. That's what WORLD is trying to do this year with stories of four kinds--and over the next 22 pages you'll see examples of each. The first kind illuminates the debates going on within religious anti-poverty groups as they think through how to respond to the faith-based initiative. As the following story about Teen Challenge shows, evangelicals are not easily led, and the questioning is intense and good. The second kind documents the perseverance of some social entrepreneurs. Journalists not familiar with their activities sometimes assume that the poor must wait on the lords of government. The articles beginning on p. 76 show how individuals--Mo Leverett in New Orleans, Ray and Carolyn Cooley in Sarasota, and Vincent Gaddis in Dallas--have created programs that inspire both those in need and volunteers willing to help. The third variety extends the boundaries of compassionate conservatism to areas sometimes seem as apart from it. The day-to-day work of crisis pregnancy centers is probably the clearest example of compassionate conservatism around: Counselors suffer with individuals in need, working to save bodies and souls. Our story on p. 84 tells more about the major technological boost those counselors are now receiving. While we roam the countryside we try through a fourth kind of story to cover the debate inside the Beltway, but even there we want to go beyond the usual suspect themes. In that vein we conclude this section with a look at visionary Mike Joyce's battle to get corporate and foundation givers to drop their frequent discrimination against religious groups.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, Angola is a town in my district of 67,000 people in northeast Indiana, and it has become a hot zone for economic development, and will become ever more so in the upcoming years. Obviously, a hard-working work force is important, but that has been there since the founding. Interstate 80/90, better known as the Indiana Toll Road, and Interstate 69 intersect just north of town, which has been a longtime asset of this area. Angola, Indiana has further capitalized on its natural resource assets. Lake James and many other lakes in the area have long been a draw for many people who want to live in an environment where they can be surrounded by lakes and various recreation opportunities. By connecting Pokagan State Park to the newly-built YMCA and to its unique Monument Circle with a bike path, area residents are offered increasing health and recreation alternatives. What has given Angola a further edge is the educational collaboration of Tri-State University, Angola High School, and now the new Plastics Technology Center. Yesterday I was with Steve Corona of JobWorks, Inc., and Craig Adolph and Harry Adamson of the plastics center to announce a grant of $514,000. To some, this may seem like the rich are getting richer. Angola has a lot of advantages. The truth is, Angola is not a wealthy town. It is basically mid-America or maybe even slightly below in income, but they are organized. They have been rising because they have been able to coordinate several things that in fact have become the keys to economic development: the recreation opportunities, the lifestyle opportunities, combined with good transportation, a good work force, and increasingly, a well-trained and educated work force. One of the things that Angola provides is a continuum of education efforts. Whether the student decides to go into the work force directly after high school, enter a 2-year vocational program or community college program, or whether they are going to attend a 4-year university or just continue life-long learning or specific training that is not degree-driven, it is a real-world option. To employers, this means that students are being prepared for real- world jobs. Too often, our education is generic. Many job training programs at times seem to be marginally useful. It is easy to criticize our schools when they get things wrong, and we frequently do it from this floor. At Angola High School, they are getting things right. I visited their effective Safe and Drug-Free Schools program. As chairman of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, it has been frustrating to see a lot of programs that do not work. This is one that has worked. They have a great high-tech program which is innovative at the State and national level. They consistently win the State music programs over the last few years. I am proud that it is in my district, but let me give the Members a couple of examples that illustrate why and what I mean by this. The principal was quoted in this article, and the article reiterates that the U.S. Department of Education has singled out Angola as the ``new American high school,'' and the principal is one of only two high school principals on the National Commission on the High School Senior Year national study. The Indiana Association of Teacher Educators in 1998 and 1996 picked Angola as Indiana's most outstanding high school. One of the things they have done for the high school seniors is a workplace participation program. About 40 businesses and industries in Steuben County have developed a 9-week workplace curriculum. The high school's flexible four-block schedule allows students time to travel by bus to their workplaces. Let me give a couple of examples. One student at Angola, Todd Hack, is further along in his college career than some college freshmen. He will start at Tri-State University with 26 hours of credits earned from advanced placement courses and computer classes he took on campus. The flexible schedule allowed him to move ahead, so he was able to stay in school and, because he was an advanced student, get a college education. Another student, Greg Knauer, worked 30 hours a week in his senior year at a construction firm earning hours towards his journeyman's license. He hopes to begin an apprenticeship after graduation, another type of career path. Yet another student, Amy Dennis, was interested in nursing, but did not have a family member to show her the ropes. Her workplace participation took her to Cameron Memorial Community Hospital, where she followed every clinical rotation. She will study nursing at Indiana University-Purdue University in Fort Wayne, or IPFW or the University of St. Francis next fall, and hopes to become an obstetrics nurse. Yet another student will participate in a Cisco computer program in which two high schools in my district have hooked up, and when finished, he will be certified to build up a network system from ground up. He is planning to attend Cornell or MIT, his early picks, and he is confident his high school record, near perfect SAT scores, will make them take notice. This is how high school should work, where we have the range of students, a diversity of students: one here, one going into construction, one into nursing at college, one into an advanced placement program, and one to an Ivy League school. I want to congratulate Angola, and I am proud to represent them. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the following articles from the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette and the News-Sun and Evening Star of Auburn and Angola. The articles referred to are as follows: Is High School Senior Year a Waste of time? (By Karen Francisco) Senior-itis symptoms are at the full-blown stage. Mortar boards and gowns in hand, scores of high school seniors are impatiently marking time, waiting for the chance to slam the door on childhood and rush headlong into life. But are they ready? Have the spent the past nine months preparing for what lies beyond, or have they been stuck in an antiquated educational system that allots 12 years of schooling for 11 years of knowledge? The National Commission on the High School Senior Year considered the question. It arrived at the conclusion that ``The nation faces a deeply troubling future unless we transform the lost opportunity of the senior year into an integral part of students' preparation for life, citizenship, work and further education.'' In his charge to the commission, former U.S. Secretary of Education Robert Riley described the senior year as a ``wasteland,'' a year of ``significant drift and disconnection.'' The panel's final report will be released June 28, and it will likely create a stir not unlike 1983's landmark ``A Nation at Risk'' report, according to Dr. Rex Bolinger, principal at Angola High School and one of just two high school principals on the high-powered commission. Look for a sweeping indictment of the structure of U.S. high schools. institutional problems Bolinger points to a number of problems with the typical American high school and its role in the education spectrum. First and foremost might be its inflexibility. ``We've allowed learning to be the variable and time and support the constant,'' Bolinger said. ``The opposite is what is needed.'' He cited the example of students following a math curriculum without regard to their own interests and abilities. Students are passed along, and when they begin to struggle, they simply choose not to take any more math classes. Inflexible six- or seven-period schedules discourage students from retaking courses they haven't mastered. American students don't perform as well as students from other industrialized countries on math and science exams because our high school curricula allow them to opt out of advanced courses like calculus and chemistry long before their counterparts, the principal said. ``The message we've got to get out is that whatever you plan to do after you get out of high school, we've all got to have the same rigorous preparation,'' Bolinger said. Another problem with the typical high school is the sorting process, according to the principal. Unwittingly, some teachers and systems sort and label students as college prep, general ed or vocational. The labels stick, and students who might have discovered a passionate interest in art, literature or computers are dismissed as non-college types. Disenfranchised, they lose interest in school and are at risk to drop out. Angola is model Bolinger's own school could be a model for how high school should work. It has been singled out by the U.S. Department of Education as a ``New American High School,'' and by the Indiana Association of Teacher Educators in 1996 and `98 as Indiana's ``Most Outstanding Successful High School.'' The school's evolution began about six years ago, when Bolinger and some business and education leaders began talking about how to prepare students for jobs in the community. The result was the Workplace Participation Program. About 40 businesses and industries in Steuben County have developed a nine-week workplace curriculum. The high school's flexible four-block schedule allows students time to travel by bus to the workplaces. ``The curriculum is simple to prepare,'' Bolinger said. ``We tell them, ``Write down what you do and teach them.' '' And the students are learning. Joe Dolack is a senior who transferred to Angola from Illinois his sophomore year. He repeated a math class to catch up on academics, and then began participating in the workplace program at General Products Corp., an automotive components supplier. His grade-point average has risen three points on a 12-point scale and he plans to attend community college in Coldwater, Mich., before transferring to a four- year school. A career in manufacturing management is his goal. Senator Amy Dennis was interested in nursing, but didn't have a family member to show her the ropes. Her workplace participation took her to Cameron Memorial Community Hospital, where she followed every clinical rotation. She will study nursing at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne or the University of St. Francis next fall, and hopes to become an obstetrics nurse. It was a job in the building trades that enticed Greg Knauer. He has worked 30 hours a week during his senior year at Ingledue Construction, earning hours toward his journeyman's license. He hopes to begin an apprenticeship in construction after graduation. Angola senior Todd Hack is further along in his college career than some college freshman. He'll start at Tri-State University this fall with 26 hours of credit earned from Advanced Placement courses and computer classes he took on campus. The flexible schedule at Angola allowed him to move ahead, Hack said, while still finishing high school requirements and participating in three sports. Amy Enneking, also a senior, is convinced she wants to teach after spending her workplace participation hours in a first-grade classroom at Hendry Park Elementary School. She will study elementary education at Butler University this fall. Chris DeLucenay is still a junior, but his career goals are clear. ``I knew I wanted an aggressive schedule,'' he said. ``I'm interested in computers and engineering, so I've taken calculus at Tri-State and two Advanced Placement courses.'' He will participate next year in the Cisco computer program and, when finished, will be certified to build a network system from the ground up. Cornell and MIT are his early college picks, and he's confident his high school record (and near-perfect SAT scores) will make them take notice. A team effort Craig Adolph, an Angola education consultant who has been involved in the school program since its inception, said the most remarkable thing about recent Angola graduates is their focus. All seem to have a clear idea of what they want to do and how to do it. For the community's part, Adolph said, the job is to keep people in touch with learning so they never are reluctant to return to college or a job-training program. Dr. Tom Enneking, vice president for academic affairs at Ti-State, said the key was to develop a seamless delivery system for education. His school had previously offered an early admissions program, but the partnership with Angola High School allowed it to build on the Advanced Placement courses, easily bridging the high school to college gap that some students fail to cross. the job ahead Bolinger said the transformation of American high schools was one step in a bigger task--building an infrastructure that supports lifelong learning, instead of one that starts and stops in uneven intervals between preschool and adulthood. The first step--creating high schools that work--won't come easily, Bolinger said, but he's hopeful the national commission's recommendations will spur progress. A report that challenges the fundamental structure of American education is a sharp departure from the current testing and standards hysteria, but the principal said he is hopeful for its prospects because of bipartisan support and the interest of Rod Paige, who was a member of the commission until he replaced Riley as secretary of education. Bolinger said some parents have accused his school--with its emphasis on career training and college courses--of pushing students out the door. The opposite is true, he said. Rather than constraining students to a rigid, cookie-cutter model, a high school schedule should promote independence and self-exploration. The old model served us well for many years, the principal said, but a new American high school is what's needed for a new century. study's findings Selected findings from the National Commission on the High School Senior Year: A high school diploma is no longer a guarantee of success in either postsecondary education or the world of work. The goal of the American high school needs to be reoriented from preparing some students for college and others for work. The conditions of modern life require that all students graduate from high school with the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in both postsecondary education and careers. ``The tyranny of low expectations'' hinders many minority students and many poor students from all ethnic backgrounds. Ideally, beginning in the middle school years, every student would have a ``learning plan,'' a formal but flexible outline of what the student hopes to accomplish in young adulthood and which education, work and service experiences can best help him or her to attain those goals. The kindergarten-12 system is poorly aligned and has not established reliable lines of communication with postsecondary education and the world of work. The National Commission on the High School Senior Year (www.commissiononthesenioryear.org)

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I want to make it clear at the beginning of my remarks that I strongly support our President. I think he is doing a great job. I strongly support the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), our committee chairman. I think he has done a great job in a very difficult situation. But I rise to oppose this education bill, Goals 2001. I remember as a kid, I heard President Nixon say we are all Keynesians now. Right now I kind of feel like what we are saying is we are all liberals now in education. The fact is, in this Goals 2001, this current bill, unlike Goals 2000 where we were supposed to have the States evolve towards a national plan, we have a national plan. Unlike the spending in education under former President Clinton, this bill spends more. Unlike the education bills under President Clinton where there was a proposal to just develop and look at a national test, this has national testing; and it has it for 6 years in a row, mandated by a backup of the Federal Government that, if one's State test does not meet the national standards, one can have one's money jerked. Furthermore, it will lead to, in my belief, a national curriculum. There are more new programs in this bill than there were under President Clinton. At some point, one says when is it a bipartisan bill and when is it just taking two-thirds or more of what the Democrats had proposed in the past? Now, there are some amendments here that could change the bill. The amendment of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) would wipe out the testing and put us back to where we were under President Clinton. The amendment of the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox) would have the spending be only a little bit more than under President Clinton. The bill of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey) would take us back to where we were as Republicans last year on school choice. The bill of the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint) would take us, not quite back to where we were last year, but at least to the Kennedy position in the Senate. I know there are not going to be very many conservatives who are going to stand up under the pressures that we are under, and against the polls, and oppose this bill. I do not know whether there will be five of us, whether there will be 10 of us, or whether there are 20 of us; but there are some of us who are going to say that there are still Republicans who are conservative on the education issue, as on other issues.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote, and pending that, I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. I want to clarify because I, like many others, have a number of things in this bill and I have been pleased to work with both the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner) and the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) as we have worked through this bill. Mr. Chairman, at some point we passed the point of no return. This bill grows and grows. In fact, I wonder why we do not have a national test for CPR. I took CPR in high school; and quite frankly, I do not know if anyone would want me to perform CPR on them. Perhaps because we do not trust the local and State governments to come up with their tests in other areas, we should have a fall back test on CPR to make sure that they are actually teaching CPR in the way that CPR should be taught. On the other hand, I want to commend the gentlewoman for her concern, and her career concern, with combating heart disease. I know that I am likely to be a lone vote on this but I wanted to make a couple of points. To me this is a symptom of what is wrong with this bill. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, let me first point out that I am not against CPR. My father died at age 55, as did his two brothers, of a heart attack. So did my grandfather on both sides die of heart attacks. I agree CPR is needed. I agree that education on what you can eat, and exercise exercise is needed. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment because quite frankly, any reform bill that is a thousand pages long has a fundamental problem with it in the beginning. In trying to find out where this amendment is, title IV has between 90 and 100 pages in it. It has allowable uses, so to speak, coming out of one's ears. It is not clear that they cannot already use these funds for CPR. It is kind of a pattern that we have in Washington that we think if we do not put in the bill that they can use dollars for CPR to work among the schools and school districts, that somehow the local educators might not realize that CPR is important, or that State educators might not realize CPR is important. Mr. Chairman, throughout the whole bill we have this assumption that unless we specifically write it in and tell these poor, kind of backwards people in Indiana and California and other parts of the country what they can and cannot do, that we have failed as congressmen. I know very few schools that do not do CPR training, but I do not believe that it is essential to put that in this bill. In Title IV, Federal funds are used rather than local health departments, or local fire departments and ambulance departments which frequently do CPR training, these funds would come directly out of teacher training and the programs that we are doing to help the schools at risk. Federal programs should be tightly targeted to those in need, not necessarily towards a broad, sweeping program where there are plenty of avenues to fund them at the local level. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, for six years this Congress has insisted and held firm that there should be no national test. We have heard it said that the heart of the President's proposal was to find a national test. I do not believe this is true. The heart of the President's proposal is this: Find out what schools were performing, then provide assistance for two to three years to help them improve. Then if they did not improve, give the parents and the children the flexibility to find a school that does improve. Mr. Chairman, we have taken out the final thing, which was the heart of the proposal, to give the parents flexibility. Now we say if your school is failing, you are trapped. Furthermore, there is nothing to say that the State tests and the local tests are not sufficient to know whether the schools are accountable. This amendment says we trust the local teachers, principals, and school boards. We trust our governors. We do not need a national test coming out of Washington, which is one national standard that potentially will reach into every school, into private schools and home schools. Mr. Chairman, we heard it is only reading and math. But the truth is it can go anywhere. It can be anything because once Washington gets control of this test, we do not know where it is going to go. We will no longer have the local control that we currently have.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, first let me, too, congratulate, as a fellow Midwesterner, the city of Detroit. We had many escaping slaves go through the Underground Railroad through Detroit. We provide many auto parts. Unfortunately, our beloved Pistons used to be the Fort Wayne Pistons, and they, too, moved to Detroit; and I wish they would win as many games in Detroit as they used to win in Fort Wayne. But today has been a confusing day for Republicans and conservatives. We had a handout during the amendment of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) to eliminate the national testing that came from the Republicans. It said that, if one voted to eliminate national testing, one would wipe out the President's cornerstone of accountability. Without assessment, schools cannot be held accountable for improving student achievement. Without annual assessment information, parents are powerless to choose a better-performing school. For over 35 years, there has been little or no academic accountability in K-12 education programs. We need more accountability for Federal tax dollars, not less. This is really confusing. It is a Republican handout. Now, let us apply this to economics. Without the cornerstone of accountability, without assessments, business cannot be held accountable for improving business achievement. Without annual assessment information, workers are powerless to choose a better- performing business. For over 35 years, there has been little or no business accountability in ergonomics programs. We need more accountability for Federal tax dollars, not less. Now, let us try health insurance. Without assessments, businesses cannot be held accountable for improving health insurance. Without annual assessment information, workers are powerless to choose a better-performing business. For over 35 years, there has been little or no business accountability in health insurance programs. We need more accountability for Federal tax dollars, not less. This is a disturbing trend. Since when did the Republican Party stand for national accountability when we have always argued for local responsibility and accountability. It is not a question of accountability, it is accountability to whom. That is really what we have been arguing over today. I am curious what is happening to our party. A few minutes ago, a group of conservative Republicans had been hauled down to the White House for a combination of persuasion and subtle threats. I hope that the people in this body can still vote their conscience, and we have not handed over our voting cards to the deals developed with Senator Kennedy in the Senate, with veto power for the House Democrats. My friend from South Carolina is under heavy pressure not to even offer his minimal State flexibility for a mere seven States because it might upset the Democrats. This scaled down Straight A's was accepted by Senator Kennedy. Apparently, we must stay to his left, and then what is to guarantee that we can even hold that in conference. It used to be that the House was the conservative body. Now, apparently, it is Senator Kennedy who is the conservative. President Bush is a great President. I agree with him on almost everything, and I am so enthusiastic about his leadership. But on this issue, he has chosen to go with Democrats and a liberal bill. About every major conservative organization in America, including Dr. Dobson, Rush Limbaugh, the home schoolers, the Family Research Council, over 40, I think now, 50 conservative organizations oppose this bill. Maybe there is only going to be 5 or 10 or even 20 Members with the courage to vote no in the end. The pressures are great on us. Forty- nine Republicans today stood up to the President on national testing. Last year, we probably had over 220. Interestingly, this year, the Democrats kind of switched sides, because previously the Democrats had been for national testing. That is partly why people are distrustful of politicians, because it appears that one does not take a ideological position and stick with it, it is more a party position. It is a very upsetting trend in America. Part of my concern is that there will not always be a President Bush. We do not know who is going to be the next president. And when we pass things that mandate national testing, we are taking a risk that the next president will not be George W. Bush and, instead, we may have someone who is going to ram this stuff down our throat, and we may regret and rue the day that we passed a bill with less flexibility, more money, more bureaucracy, and now national testing.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I support this rule, but strongly oppose this bill, reluctantly, after having worked with it for much time and even the last couple of years in committee. The amendments being offered today are a mixed bag. Some are good and could restore this to a Republican Bush bill, but most likely they are going to be left behind in the leave-no-Democrat-behind bill and it will remain a Kennedy-Miller bill. This bill, in my opinion, is worse than current law. Most moral concerns that many of us had and worked with were stripped out in compromises. I understood the process, but did not expect it to go so far. I am disappointed that religious denigration discrimination amendment is not in the bill. I am disappointed that we could not get charitable choice. In fact, that was negotiated out in the Senate and there was no point in coming further on the House floor with it. It was taken out of our bill, which was in it in the past. Every concern of moral Christians that we had in trying to put protections in this bill are gone. This bill is spending far more money than any conservative can possibly live with. The national testing is a standard that we have fought. The Republicans fought even President Clinton's State standards, yet alone Federal standards. This bill is unacceptable to Rush Limbaugh, to Dr. Dobson, to over 50 conservative groups in this country. It is unacceptable to Bill Bennett and Chester Finn, who are original people who are doing this. Every major conservative in this country is opposed to it, and some conservatives in Washington need to stand up and say we cannot go there. I very much respect accountability and the principle of accountability. I am an MBA as well. I believe you need to have measures. I do not believe the problem right now is that there are not tests. I fear one national test, and inevitably this test will control not only public schools and lead to curriculum controlling, it will control home-schoolers and private schools, because once schools become punished by not meeting a standard and the parents have no escape, there will be a manipulation of that standard.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a few minutes to add my voice and join my colleagues in remembering and paying tribute to those Armenians who lost their lives and national identity during one of the 20th century's tragic examples of persecution and intolerance, the Armenian genocide of 1915-1923. Many Armenians in America, particularly Indiana, are the children and grandchildren of survivors. In fact, tonight I may represent the fewest number here. I think I have either two or six Armenians in my district. But some 20 years ago my friend, Zohrab Tazian, did a presentation to a Rotary Club as I watched the historical film in the background of how the Armenians were destroyed and chased, and listened to his personal story of how his family fled down to Lebanon; and eventually he made his way to the United States. It touched me, as do other human rights tragedies such as this. We commemorate this tragedy because it marks the beginning of the persecution, ethnic cleansing of the Armenian people by the Ottoman Turks on April 24, 1915. Armenian political, intellectual and religious leaders were arrested, forcibly moved from their homeland and killed. The brutality continued against the Armenian people as families were uprooted from their homes and marched to concentration camps in the desert where many would eventually starve to death. In 1919 when recalling the event, the U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau, Sr. said, ``I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this. The great massacres and persecutions of the past seem almost insignificant when compared to the sufferings of the Armenian race in 1915.'' As we heard Hitler say when he moved into the Holocaust period, ``Who remembers the Armenians?'' By 1923, the religious and ideological persecution by the Ottoman Turks resulted in the murder of 1.5 million Armenian men, women and children and the displacement of an additional 500,000 Armenians. The 20th century has borne witness to many acts of brutality and savagery by despotic regimes who sought to deny people human rights and religious freedoms. Examples abound, such as Stalin against the Russians, Hitler against the Jews, Mao Tse-tung against the Chinese, Pol Pot against the Cambodians, and currently Bashir against the Sudanese. Genocide has devastating consequences for society as a whole because of the problems created by uprooting entire populations. It is bad enough to see the persecutions that we see in Tiananmen Square, where governments do not acknowledge the shooting of civilians; but when you uproot entire subgroups based on their background, as has happened in Bosnia, as Serbia was trying to do, and clearly on a massive scale in Turkey vis-a-vis the Armenians, it is tragic. The survivors become the ones who carry the memory of the suffering and the realization that their loved ones are gone. They are the ones who no longer have a home and may feel ideological and spiritual abandonment. Part of the healing process for any victims of genocide, including Armenian survivors and families of survivors, involves acknowledgment of the atrocity and the admission of wrongdoing by those who perpetrated the persecution. It is only through acknowledgment and forgiveness that it is possible to move beyond the past. Unfortunately, those responsible for ordering the systematic removal of the Armenians were never brought to justice, and the Armenian Genocide has become a dark moment in history, even an unacknowledged moment. It is important that we remember this tragic event and show strong leadership by denouncing the persecution of people due to their differences in political and religious ideology. Who can visit the Holocaust Museum and not be personally touched? By establishing and continuing a discourse, we are acknowledging the tragedies of the past and remembering those awful moments in history so they will not be repeated. As my friend the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg) says, history may not repeat itself but often it rhymes. Acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide by Turkey will help to remove this decades-old barrier and allow greater cooperation and understanding between these two people. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all those Members who have come down here tonight to recognize and make sure that regardless of what Turkey does and regardless of what this Congress does, that the American people still hear a voice on behalf of the Armenians in this country and remember the Armenian Genocide of 1915 to 1923, as well as our thanking all the Armenian organizations who have worked so hard to keep this issue at the forefront of our minds to serve as an example of the brutality of man against man.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, today is a historic day. We have introduced in the House H.R. 1, the President's education initiative. I am not an initial cosponsor, but I am basically supportive of this legislation and am looking forward to continuing to work in tweaking it. Let me raise a couple of points that were of special concern. First, I think that the President's goal of leaving no children behind is admirable, and he is trying to develop accountability standards to make sure we actually know that no child has been left behind. Some of us on the conservative side of the spectrum have been concerned about how you hold someone accountable and how those testing standards are going to be implemented and whether this could lead to a monopoly test that would in effect become a national test. We have worked for weeks to try to clarify this language, and I believe by having an alternative available to the States, in addition to their State test, which is to be primary, in addition to the protections that we have for home schools and private schools and public schools that do not receive, if there are any, Federal funds, public schools that do not receive Federal funds, they are not covered by this. We have tried to make sure that the tests cannot be released on any basis without parental approval, that the language is clear to parents, that it is posted. We still have a few things we are continuing to work through, but there has been great progress in addressing many of the conservative concerns about a national test that we had under the previous administration. A second area of discussion has been the safe and drug-free schools. I believe that this prevention program, the only prevention program oriented directly at school-age children, needs to preserve its separate funding stream. The President of the United States supports this, the United States Senate supports this, and I believe that the House should support this as well. It is not a separate funding stream in this bill, although all of the changes that we had suggested and worked with in drug-free schools to make it a more effective program are in this bill. We worked hard in the last session of Congress to try to improve that program. I believe we made great progress. I believe that an amendment that I and others will offer in the committee will address the funding stream question and probably pass very easily and, if not, it will be addressed in the appropriations bill, as it has been in the past. Because we cannot talk about aid to Colombia and the Andean region that is line item and specific, it is not block granted. We cannot talk about anti-drug efforts in the Justice Department that are not block granted but line-itemed and then say, with prevention and treatment we are going to block grant it with other programs. We need to have drug- free prevention programs in this country that are effective, and I think most Members of Congress, if not the overwhelming majority, quite possibly unanimously, would favor that position. The third area is that the education bill is the first actual piece of legislation that also addresses the charitable-choice question. We worked this through committee last year in ESEA and it is in the 21st century. It is not a part of a school day, it has to deal with after- school programs. Those who want to get copies of this bill, in the language we can see language that we worked through that is tighter than the language on the welfare bill, tighter than the language on drug treatment, because in these programs, students do not have a choice, there is just one after-school program in their area. So we have said that not only can government funds not be used to proselytize, but private funds cannot be used for proselytization either during the period that government funds are in it. Because when we have a choice and we can do to different programs, no government funds can ever be used for proselytization, but private funds could be. But when there is only one choice available to students, we have to be even more protective of religious liberty. I believe that we will see in the 21st century a model of how charitable choice can work in those areas which is slightly different than how it will work in other bills. So today's H.R. 1 is historic because not only is it the first big step in President Bush's ``Leave No Child Behind'' in education, it is also the real first step of actual legislation introduced with specifics on charitable choice.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, this afternoon and this evening I would like to talk about our problems with illegal narcotics. We have a new President. We have a new Congress. I have recently, as of 2 weeks ago, been named chairman of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources that deals with both the authorizing and the oversight on the narcotics question. Today I would kind of like to lay out where we are likely to head this year and some of the fundamental issues that we will be addressing. This subcommittee has been headed by former Congressman Bill Zeliff, by the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the Speaker of the House, by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica), and we have been working together since the Republicans took over Congress to put an aggressive plan together with how to deal with drug abuse in America. What we saw in 1992 to 1994 was such a dramatic rise in drug abuse in America that since 1994 we would have to have a reduction of 50 percent among young people to get back to where we were in 1992. We had been making steady progress for over a decade, but two events, in my opinion, set the whole chart in the wrong direction. One was we cut our interdiction budget and let the drugs pour into our country, which gave a cheaper supply on the street in more purity and potency to the illegal narcotics. Secondly, the messages were sent in our culture, including at the top of our political structure, that hey, I did not inhale, kind of joked around about drug abuse. We saw such a dramatic rise. Let me repeat that, in 2 years drug abuse in America soared so much in 1992-1994 that among young people it would take a 50 percent reduction to get back to where it was the first 2 years of the Clinton administration. Let me explain a couple of things, because I am going to talk more in detail tonight about interdiction. We just had a delegation, a congressional delegation, that went to an antinarcotics conference in Bolivia. We were there for several days, as well as in South America and the former landing operations that we have now to replace Panama. And I am going to get into that in more detail as we get into this discussion of the issue. Because of Plan Colombia, we had, I believe, 5 congressional delegations, most from the Senate in Colombia, including ours, in the last district work period, because we have had a lot more focus in the United States on what is happening down in Colombia, not only in Congress, but the movie Traffic that is currently a nominated movie for the Oscars. West Wing, the TV show, in the last couple of weeks featured a question of lost Americans in Colombia and the attention to the subject has soared. Before I get into the details of Plan Colombia, it is important to lay out a more comprehensive approach. Mr. Speaker, we have to eradicate the drugs at the source. We have to work to interdict it. We need to work to arrest and prosecute those who are dealing and using it. We need to work with prevention. We need to work with treatment. That is, in fact, what we do in the budget. Frequently, those who would attract those who are trying to fight illegal narcotics say all we are concerned about is Plan Colombia. The efforts in interdiction total $2.2 billion, or 17 percent of the Federal budget, and interdiction cannot be done by State and local governments. We do not want the State of Indiana that I represent going and sending P-3 customs planes to get intelligence in the air. We do not want the State of Mississippi sending out boats to interdict in international waters. That is a Federal role. International aid is $.9 billion, or another 5 percent. So total, the international aid interdiction totals 17 percent. Domestic law enforcement from the Federal level aid is 51 percent of our budget, $9.8 billion. What we are doing in domestic law enforcement is almost three times as much as what we do in the international arena. That is only the Federal Government. The State and local government also have even larger expenditures in law enforcement, the result of drug abuse in America. In demand reduction, because sometimes we would think when we hear debates on the House floor that Plan Colombia, which is $1.2 billion, just dwarfs that. Why do we not spend it in treatment? Why do we not spend it in prevention. We spend $3.8 billion Federal dollars in treatment and $2.5 billion in prevention, or $6.3 billion, or over twice as much as we spend in interdiction. The reason that is important to note here is only the Federal Government can do international interdiction. State and local governments and the private sector do most prevention and treatment programs. The amount of dollars that we spend in prevention and treatment far dwarfs anything we spend in interdiction. It is just that only Congress can do international interdiction, whereas we have many, many State and local government and private sector programs in addition to this category at the Federal level being over twice the amount as interdiction international. Let me give my colleagues some more examples, because every once in a while somebody will say to me, whether we are down in Central and South America or here, why are we so focused on interdiction and why are we not more focused on prevention and treatment? Mr. Speaker, I also serve on the Committee on Education and the Workforce, and I have worked with the drug free and safe schools program. I also have an amendment currently, arguably the most unpopular amendment in the college campuses in America, where I said if you were convicted of either dealing or using illegal narcotics when you had a student loan, you would lose your loan for one year unless you go through a treatment program and tested clean twice. If you are caught a second time, you lose your loan for 2 years, unless you go through a treatment program and tested clean twice. The third time, you cannot get a loan, which is pretty generous. The goal here is to get people into treatment and to prevent people from getting onto drugs in the first place. If you are a dealer, by the way, that is not quite as generous a policy, it is two times. The reason that is important is because those who say they really want prevention and treatment often criticize that amount as well. It seems like they want to criticize interdiction, but they also do not want actual accountability to people who abuse drugs, even if it means they will be led into a treatment program. Rolling Stone magazine, I guess the current issue, attacks me again. They attacked me in the fall for this amendment saying somehow this is depriving, I guess, drug abusers and drug users of a tax-subsidized college education. Thirdly, we have sponsored legislation which I carried through committee, and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman) drafted, on community prevention grants. We have several of these in my district. This sometimes can be used for groups like Pride in Noble County, which is in my district. It can be used for other community drug prevention programs. We also passed legislation to help businesses assist in how to work with drug testing and drug treatment programs that are within the civil liberties demands of any program. We cannot just randomly test people. We have to have an equal, fair process, multiple tests so you do not get sued. Your goal here is not to play gotcha. Your goal is to help the individuals, because as businesses invest in people and develop them, they need to figure out how to help them be productive and not mess up their lives. The gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ramstad) and others and I have cosponsored a bill to require drug and alcohol treatment as part of any health insurance plan. These are important to see, because tonight when I talk about interdiction, I am not saying there are not other aspects of the drug problem we have to deal with. We have to have a comprehensive approach. Our committee, in addition to the interdiction, part of the way we wound up with the authorizing is ONDCP gets its budget approval and authorizing from our committee. General McCaffrey is the head of that, and hopefully under this administration, the efforts and the gains we have made in the last few years will be continued, and we will not have any backup in the sense of downgrading the Drug Czar's office or of getting rid of drug certification. One important part, and I want to just take a minute, because this is another kind of hot issue being debated right now because of President Fox meeting with President Bush and President Pastrana meeting with President Bush, and that is what is the role of drug certification? Whenever we meet with Central and South American countries and other countries around the world, they are very concerned that we have a certification process here in Congress that can pass judgment on whether their countries are working on drug certification. They have a similar concern with human rights certification. If we drop drug certification, we certainly will be dropping human rights certification, too, because both things have the same rationale, and that is, we have certain standards on the money that we distribute that is passed through the government by the taxpayers of the United States, and we expect that the countries who get that aid or, for that matter, the drug certification is not tied to this directly, but it is something certainly to consider, is trade. If they want benefits from America, then we have a right to say that the American taxpayers want to make sure that they are helping us with our biggest domestic problem, and that they are helping in not using any of our funds for human rights violations. I hope that this administration, while working in a positive way with Mexico and the other South and Central American countries, will not drop the drug certification process or ask Congress to drop, because these would be bad signals, much like the bad signals that were sent out at the beginning of former President Clinton's administration. We do not want to have bad signals come out here at the beginning of President Bush's administration, even if that would not be his direct intent. There are some difficulties. I admit that there are difficulties. For example, in the President's budget, do we keep the drug free and safe schools, or do we block grant more funds to give State and local schools more of an opportunity to make the decisions what they want to spend it on? Because if we do, in fact, only create five grant categories, as is potentially going to come in the President's education bill, that means we could be eliminating the only prevention program that we fund through the Federal Government, or the primary one, which is safe and drug free schools. That will be a difficult question that we have to address. Secondly, we have in the faith-based question in the new faith based office, how do you deal with the fact that many of the most effective drug abuse programs, for example, Teen Challenge, Victory Life Temples in Texas, many of the most effective programs in America are religious- based, and how do we make sure that people who are not comfortable with the religious orientation, religious content-driven curriculum have alternatives because we cannot force and should not force anyone into a program that they do not agree with, yet those programs are very effective because it can change somebody's heart. You can often get them off drugs; otherwise, they often learn just how to scam the system. We also have to face a very difficult fact; not only has it been hard to eliminate drugs at the source country level, but quite frankly, the results and the facts on everything from drug courts, which I support, to drug treatment programs, which I support, to drug free schools programs, which I support, have mixed effectiveness records as well. Sometimes it is a amount of dollars. If your drug treatment program is not long enough, the person does not get completely rehabilitated. Sometimes it is dollars at the schools levels. Their dollars are so little about all they can get done is passing out rulers or pencils. We have to figure out how to make the dollars effective. There are other reasons why they are not as effective either. We have to look at those. Are they targeting the right people? Is the message something that actually appeals to kids or do the messages appeal more to adults? Then another big question that was tackled under General McCaffrey as Drug Czar was a media campaign. We had a national media campaign that looked in lump sum like a lot of dollars, but compared to what people were getting hit with in the movies and on television and, in particular, in rock music, it was a little tiny dribble in a huge ocean, and was our ad campaign very successful in changing people's attitudes, and how do we do that. A lot of the questions that we are going to deal with in treatment and prevention are also very difficult. It is not just that what is happening in Colombia is difficult and what is happening in law enforcement is difficult, it is also difficult in prevention and treatment. Some people say, well, it is just hopeless. We should just give up. We cannot eliminate drug abuse. I happen to believe that the core problem is sin, because as long as people are going to sin, which they always will, it is going to be very difficult to eliminate it. Even if we do not accept that premise and want to say well, the problems are family breakup, their lack of economic opportunity, there is self-esteem problems, all of which are, to a degree, true, and certainly they are mostly intractable problems. We cannot in the Federal Government say every family has to stay together. We have to make sure that every single person gets a job. We cannot pass a law to say that your self-esteem must be high. Obviously we cannot do that, but we need to work towards those things. Mr. Speaker, we know that 70 to 85 percent of all crime in America is alcohol and illegal narcotics related. We hear about so-called victimless crime where someone is thrown in a jail for using a small amount of marijuana. I would like to see those cases; there are not very many. The bulk of crime that is drug related is robbery, assault, to get money or it is because the illegal narcotics has been an enabler and have resulted in child abuse, spouse abuse, rape, you name the problem. 70 to 85 percent of those problems are drug and alcohol related. It is clearly the biggest at least enabler problem that we have in this country. Do we just give up? People say Congress has spent a lot of money, and has not eliminated drug abuse. Do we just give up. We have been spending money trying to eliminate child abuse since America was founded. Do we just give up? We have been trying to eliminate spouse abuse. Do we just give up? We have been trying to eliminate rape in America. Do we just give up? Of course not. If you think that the drug war is something that takes 12 months or 24 months, you do not understand the nature of the problem. This is a problem that comes up every time young people are born, move into elementary and into junior high years, start to be exposed to the temptations, you have a whole other market that has to be reeducated and relearn why drug abuse is a problem. Just like racism and child abuse and spouse abuse, it is a never-ending problem that sometimes we get more control over and sometimes we get less control over, and we need to work on getting control of this. There is a fad in America of ``medicinal'' use of marijuana, implying that there is anything in marijuana that is good, rather than it has one subcomponent in it that can be helpful in alleviating vomiting when you take certain things for cancer, that that component can be isolated and used other ways. Much like there is probably one good component in arsenic, there is probably one good chemical component in most things. But marijuana is not medicinal. Marijuana is no different than any other cigarette except that it is more potent and more dangerous than other cigarettes. Mr. Speaker, for example, that kind of fad and the legalization fad, today in Washington we have an assistant health minister from the Netherlands bragging on C-SPAN earlier today and other places about how great the Netherlands program has been. Anybody who has heard of the drug Ecstacy in America and knows how it is ripping apart, starting on the East Coast and moving into the West gradually, and see what it is doing to individuals and young kids in our country, thank the Netherlands. Their legalization program have made them the home port for the entire world for synthetic drugs. They can talk about how great their legalization program has worked, but they are the exporters causing problems in my hometown, and yet they have the nerve to tell the world how great their legalization program is working. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to go through the demand focus before I move into Plan Colombia. First, on this chart let me illustrate a couple of fundamental points about the drug question. We have a hearing tomorrow morning at 9:30 where we are going to have General Pace, the head of SOUTHCOM, the military command structure of our Department of Defense that has the area south of Mexico and in South America with Randy Beers, who is the narcotics chief in the State Department, and also Mr. Marshall, who is the director of the DEA to talk about Plan Colombia in particular. We know where the drugs come from, and we know where they come into the United States. That said, it is still hard to get control of it. Colombia, Peru just to the south and Bolivia, the Andean region, constitute basically 100 percent of the cocaine that comes into America, almost all of the heroin that is currently in America with the exception of some Asian heroin in the West, and most of our high-grade marijuana in America. So we know where it comes from and how it gets here. It comes through the western Caribbean, through the eastern Pacific, often then up through Mexico, occasionally up increasingly through the Caribbean corridor which has gone down as low as 38 percent, as high as 58 percent, it depends where the pressure is. Now, if you look at this, it gets harder as the drugs move from the source country. And understand Colombia, Bolivia and Peru are not little countries. They are together about the same size as the United States, so it is still a large area to cover. As they move into whole Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific and can come into the United States from any direction, and much of it also goes to Europe and Asia, it becomes more difficult as we move from those countries. The next thing is that in Colombia, it is also clear that coca and heroin poppy are not grown everywhere in the Andean country. While they can be grown in other places, it tends to be that the coca is concentrated near the equator with a certain elevation, and you can get better yields and better grades in some parts of these countries. Furthermore, the heroin poppy basically needs a high temperature, lots of humidity, that is why the Equator, at 8,000 feet or above. So within these countries, they can only go basically in some places. Furthermore, in those countries they do not want to be where there are population centers or roads because then it is easier for the military and the police to get them. In Colombia there are two basic regions where the coca is grown. What has happened over the last few years for those who say that this is a hopeless battle, Bolivia at one point, because of the Chapare and Camiri areas being such a great area to grow coca, once produced 30 to 50 percent of the coca production. It is now down to less than 10 with their President committed it getting it zero in the next few years through working with alternative development. In Peru that used to be producing 30 to 40 percent, they made dramatic efforts to reduce it in Peru. Now, the instability of their current governmental situation leads the vulnerability back towards Peru. Ecuador, which is right up and right near the big cocaine area of Colombia, has not had the same level of growing of coca for a number of reasons. But they are very worried that this may spread to them along the Putamyo River. Now, there are a number of reasons. One is the road system is a little more developed in the areas, that there is so much instability, and Ecuador has never been a target, five Presidents in 5 years. The tradition has been more in Colombia partly for access to the United States. Let me illustrate one other thing. What is our compelling national interest in this? I have been going on about 70 to 85 percent of our crime in America being related to drug abuse. But it is more than just that. Panama here, for those who are historians realize that this really is Colombia and was made Panama when Colombia would not take our offer when we wanted to build the canal there. The narcotraffickers and others, these circles represent areas where the different terrorist groups have taken over part of Colombia have moved into the southern part of Panama and are in danger of threatening and shutting off or at least gaining control of the Panama Canal. We have had our military kicked out of Panama. We cannot have our AWACS and our other spy planes which we were doing to interdict traffickers for the last few years, we cannot fly them out of Panama anymore. So we are busy building forward landing locations, one here in Ecuador, one over here in Aruba and Curacao. We have refueling stops up here in Honduras and in El Salvador because we have had to scatter around. But what that means is right now some of our spy planes because we so, in my opinion, botched the Panama Canal situation, that we are having to come down from Puerto Rico or way in the United States and spending so much time trying to get a plane down there that they can fly around a little bit and then head back. Now, in the Netherlands Antilles, we have had some usage of their fields, but we do not have an AWACS down there. Plus, quite frankly, the last administration diverted most of our intelligence capabilities over to the Balkan area. Now the reason that becomes important, as I said, there is a trade nexus here. There is a drug nexus here. But this area is our choke- point on oil. Seventeen percent of America's oil comes from the Lake Maracaibo Venezuela area. Colombia and Ecuador and Venezuela together supply more oil to America than the Middle East. We have had our attention diverted into every skirmish and every terrible human rights crisis in the world, and we are not watching in our own hemisphere. Our trade choke-point, the agriculture products that come from the Midwest and down and go to Asia come through here. We are not watching our energy choke-point. We whine if gas hits $1.50. What if we lose this area to the narcotraffickers and they have a gun to our head and gas goes to $4 or $5 a gallon. What happens to the pickup makers in my district? What happens to people who drive trucks? What happens to the people who make RVs? What happens to the people who build boats? Ask the question, What are we going to do if we have this area fall under the narcotraffickers? We have a compelling national interest in these areas. I want to respond, too, to two other things. One is in Plan Colombia. One would think from hearing much of the debate that Plan Colombia is predominantly a military exercise. Now, I would like to insert into the Record two parts from the U.S. support for Plan Colombia from the U.S. Embassy document. And I have marked the pages, and I will insert that. I want to read a couple of the highlights. We are spending 25 million to establish a human-rights task force. So it is 25 million to establish a human-rights task force, 7 million to strengthen human- rights institutions, 4 million to enhance protection of human-rights workers, 15 million to witness and judicial security and witness protection in human-rights cases, 2.5 million in child soldier rehabilitation, 1.5 million in human-rights monitoring, support for U.N. human-rights offices another million. Then we are also investing in their governing capacity and reform to judicial system; for prosecuting or training, 4 million; for how to training judges, 3.5 million; how to train public defenders, 2 million; how to create the houses of justice, 1 million; policy reform criminal code, 1.5 million; policy reform enabling environment, 1 million. We also have different programs on asset forfeiture, on countering organized financial crime, on prison security, on judicial police training academy, on multilateral case initiatives, and a whole series of things. I wanted to point that out because what we realize here is our drug consumption, America has literally nearly destroyed one of the oldest democracies in South America, a democracy as old as America. The narco- terrorists represent a public support percent of 4 percent. The number of people in American prisons is approximately 1.5 percent. With one family member, they would represent 3 percent of our population. This is not a rising up of a dissident movement in a country. These are people who predominantly are terrorists, funded by our drug habit in America that have undermined their governmental structure. Now, as we work with trying to get control of the country, enable their structures to work again, and anybody who saw the movie ``Clear and Present Danger,'' while it was a fictitious movie based on a fictitious book by Tom Clancy, I asked former Ambassador Morris Busby, who was ambassador at the time that so many of those judges were killed, whether the movie was accurate. He said not completely. I died in the movie. It was basically accurate in the sense of nearly one-third of their judges were killed. Their police departments in many of these countries are terrorized because of the weaponry and the dollars that the dissident groups have. Now, that said, I am also going to insert some marked pages here from Plan Colombia, a document from President Pastrana in Colombia, for the Record. Let me read this paragraph: ``In short, the hopes of the Colombian people and the work of the Colombian government have been frustrated by drug trafficking, which makes it extremely difficult for the government to fulfill its constitutional duty. A vicious and pervasive cycle of violence and corruption has drained the resources essential to the construction and success of a modern state.'' President Pastrana has set aside a demilitarized zone for the FARC. The right wing terrorists are now into narcotics and almost as large as the FARC, but there is a demilitarized zone where the president is trying to work with the peace process so at least those who have been concerned about land reform and other issues in Colombia have the ability to separate themselves from the narcoterrorists. He is working at that. But we have grave concerns that it has become a launching area and a protection area under the guise of a DMZ for the other areas. Now, in trying to reestablish all those dollars I said for criminal justice reform and for legal reform, first there has to be order and the crops have to be eradicated; and then they can do the alternative development, which gives people an alternative to illegal narcotics. Now, in addition to that, I worked with the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan) in last year's foreign operations where the University of Notre Dame, the Kellogg Institute, the Ford Foundation and others have put together a human rights center for Colombians who fled, often with $1 to $2 million prices on their head. Many of their top writers, many of their top people in the movie industry, people in all forms of cultural life in Colombia have gravitated to the University of Notre Dame because of Catholic ties and because of this center; and we need to help keep their culture together. This is an old democracy being destroyed in large part because of our drug consumption. Now, they have to fight the battle there. A part of Plan Colombia I ask to insert is very clear. They have asked us for help. If they are not willing to do the fighting on the ground, if they are not willing to work to rebuild their institutions, there is not much we can do here. We have been through that before. But when people like the Colombian National Police, where they have had 30,000 police officers killed as they battled illegal narcotics, how can we not help them? The bullets being shot at them are coming predominantly with American and European money. All the battle is because in the soaring into Colombia, most of which has occurred in the last 5 to 8 years, is because of our habits. Now, if we can help them, and that is all they are asking, is will we help them financially; they will do the fighting, they will do the rebuilding, but can we help them financially, our answer should be, since we have at stake our energy, or kids' and families' lives on the street with drug abuse and our trade, our answer should be, yes, what can we do. We should thank them for being willing to risk their lives to help fight our battles. My colleagues can also see in the President's budget additional funds for the Andean region. Because if we are successful working with Colombia and giving them the resources with which to fight this battle, the narcotraffickers are not just going to give up. They will endanger other countries in the zone. As we heard the vice president of Bolivia so articulately say, what we need to do is convince people. People do not want to deal in narcotics that destroy people's lives; but we have to give them an alternative life-style to say, look, at least decent living can be made in other things. To some degree that means infrastructure questions; to some degree it means helping them with marketing, with training and different things so that they do not go back into narcotrafficking. I do not believe they have a moral claim on us. I do not believe anybody who grows illegal narcotics or deals in illegal narcotics has a moral claim on the United States that says we must give them money. But I believe it is in our self-interest to help them, or they in fact will grow coca and will deal it. So it is in our self-interest to do so. Plus, I believe it is our moral charity that says, look, certainly they would not be doing this illegal activity if we were not consuming it. So we are going to help them. But there is a difference from the cocaleros, the people who grow the coca, demanding a moral right to X amount of money in their life-style. We do not tell the kids on the street who are making $300 for 10 minutes' working as a lookout that if they go to McDonald's that they can earn $300. But we do have an obligation in America to try to make sure that people have a decent education; that there are economic opportunities for all Americans and that they can make it if they work at it. But they are not going to make $300 for 10 minutes as a lookout. Some of these countries seem to be thinking that we are going to replace their cocaine income. No, what we want to do is, through trade policies and through helping them and their countries, get enough of an income that a mother and dad can support their kids with an acceptable life-style, where they are not hungry, where they have a shelter above their heads, where they can learn to read and write and have the potential to advance themselves. And to some degree we owe it to them because we have moved and fueled this narcotics effort. So I thank my colleagues for giving me this opportunity today. As I say, we have a hearing tomorrow on Plan Colombia. We have money in the current President's budget, and this will be a hot debate over the next few months. As our colleagues who have just been down there, with many more going in a couple of weeks, and as the national media focuses on this issue, we will hear lots more about it. I intend to come down to the House floor and continue to stress the overall Andean package, of which Plan Colombia is part. It is part of a comprehensive approach to drug abuse, which is our number one source of crime in America, 70 to 85 percent, according to every sheriff and prosecutor in the country. And also it is a threat to our energy and economic trade in America and our very economic system. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record those articles I referred to earlier. Alternative Economic Development and Resettlement--Facts and Figures Alternative Development (Voluntary Eradication): US $30M. Assists farmers growing coca on small plots (three hectares or less) to obtain a licit income from agricultural, forestry, or livestock production and marketing. The activity concentrates in three areas: (1) technical assistance in production, processing and marketing of licit, alternative products; (2) social infrastructure, such as schools and health clinics, and productive infrastructure, such as access roads and agro-industry; and (3) strengthening of local producer, community and government entities to eliminate illicit crops. Environmental Programs: US $2.5M. Protects Colombia's globally important biological diversity. By introducing economic alternatives to deforestation for communities living on the edges of protected areas, these programs offset ecological damage done by coca and poppy production in the Colombian Amazon and protect watersheds. Support to Affected Municipalities: US $12M. Encourages participation by municipalities in deciding investment priorities, on agreeing how to use social development funds, and in establishing oversight and monitoring procedures. This program will assist approximately 100 municipalities that have been involved in illicit crop eradication and that are aiding displaced persons. Assist Internally Displaced Persons--Small Infrastructure Projects: US $22.5M. Up to 50 municipalities are being identified in northern Colombia where support for displaced persons can be established. Medium term support for displaced persons is being implemented in cooperation with international organizations through grants for public infrastructure projects such as schoolrooms, water systems, road and bridge constitution and repair, and market shelters. The communities themselves select the projects, provided they meet criteria for participation in the development of municipal decisions, transparency in financial management, and active participation in alternative development or other governance activities. Approximately 100,000 displaced persons will benefit from these programs. Alternative Development (Small Infrastructure Projects for existing Communities): US $10M. Unless a community is able to improve its social and economic situation it is likely to return to illicit crop cultivation even after it has completed an eradication effort. These funds provide public infrastructure projects such as schoolrooms, water systems, road and bridge construction and repair, through municipal governments to provide the conditions in which communities continue to raise licit crops. Alternative Development in Southern Colombia: US $10M. Provides technical assistance and material support to municipal governments and local NGOs to strengthen local social services including education, health, and potable water. The program also provides agricultural extension services, agricultural inputs and marketing support. In exchange, some 2,000 farmers, through farmer associations, sign agreements voluntarily to abandon coca production. The entire Alternative Development zone, comprising eight municipalities in southern Colombia and 18,000 families, will benefit from this program. Emergency Assistance in Southern Colombia: US $15M. This program provides temporary food and shelter assistance for up to six months to families displaced by conflict and coca eradication in southern Colombia. USAID Operating Expenses for Managing these programs: US $4M. Total U.S. Plan Colombia support for alternative development and displaced persons: US $106M.

Mr. SOUDER

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

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, last evening I was unavoidably detained-- specifically, two consecutive flights from Fort Wayne were grounded because of mechanical problems--and missed the votes congratulating President Sharon of Israel and guaranteeing a lock box on Social Security and Medicare funds. Had I been here, I would have supported both bills. The problems in the Middle East are longstanding. I had the opportunity to meet President Sharon on several occasions. He is a tough but fair man. Israel, constantly pressed by those who challenge its right to exist, needs a strong leader at this time. We stand behind one as he faces the difficult times ahead. I would also like to insert the following articles about the late Reverend Joseph White into the Congressional Record. Reverend Jesse White was my friend. He was a friend to thousands and thousands of people. He was a friend even to many he did not know because through his pioneering efforts he advanced the basic civil rights of many who may have been deprived of such rights without his efforts. Not too many of us can look back and truly say we were a prophet. Dr. White was a prophet. He, and other pioneers in civil rights, had dreams that are now becoming reality. Complete justice has not been achieved. But without Dr. White there would be less justice. Not only does he leave behind a history, through his family, his legacy lives on. His sons carry on his ministry in different ways. His daughter has been active in government and in promoting education training and opportunities. We will miss Dr. White's leadership in Fort Wayne and his national influence as well. Rev. White Demanded Equality If the civil rights movement over the last half-century was embodied in any single Fort Wayne resident, surely it was the Rev. Jesse White, 73, who died Monday. Tall, with a linebacker's physique and a booming baritone voice that was equally effective in soft conversation as a in delivering a sermon or demanding justice, the pastor of True Love Baptist Church had the rare ability to cut an imposing yet approachable presence in any room he entered. Parishioners, friends and public officials will remember the Rev. White as much for his compassion in helping and serving people as in his passion for fighting for civil rights. For instance, one of his longtime friends, former City Councilman Charles B. Redd, remembers White as the civil rights leader who charged into a closed Fort Wayne Community Schools board meeting. But he also remembers the minister who would open his wallet to people in need, a caring pastor who ordered a youth caught looting a parishioner's car be taken not to jail but to the front of the congregation, where he prayed with the youth and asked the congregation to grant forgiveness. His commanding presence and eloquence in giving voice to the wrongs of racism through a number of lenses--religion, the Constitution, economics, personally--made him a natural leader. He protested segregated Fort Wayne restaurants in the 1950s and 1960s. It was the Rev. White who helped direct a black boycott of Fort Wayne Community Schools in 1969, applying as much pressure on other black ministers to urge their congregations to participate as on the white leaders of the school system. The Rev. White chose his battles wisely, a natural ability borne from the heart and soul, not public relations concerns, self-interests or pressure from others. ``He was the kind of person who would do his own assessment, whether it was right or wrong, whether it was justice or injustice,'' Redd said. Though the kept his long, signature sidebars long after they had become passe in a fashion sense, the Rev. White's approach changed along with the times. As the leader of the local Operation Breadbasket in the early 1980s, White set about to address the economic legacy of racism, leading boycotts--and negotiations--with national department store and grocery chains, urging them to hire more blacks at their Fort Wayne outlets. By the 1990s, White concentrated on helping the economically disadvantaged people in his own southeast neighborhoods, opening the 30-unit True Love Manor for senior citizen housing and the 52-unit Adams and Bruce Housing for people with disabilities. True Love's computer learning center helped more than 1,500 students ages 6 to 86 learn and upgrade their computer skills. Through his ministry, his leadership in civil rights and his personal compassion, the Rev. Jesse White enriched his church, his neighborhood and Fort Wayne as a whole. He will be truly missed.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Earlier this week, President George Bush announced his faith-based initiatives office and different proposals that he will be sending down to Congress. Earlier today, the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Watts), who has been a leader in this effort, and Senator Rick Santorum, along with the gentlewoman from Kentucky (Mrs. Northup) and myself, and Senators Tim Hutchinson and Sam Brownback held a press conference with a number of leaders from Michigan, Florida, and other places around the United States to highlight some of these initiatives. There are a number of questions that I wanted to address here as we prepare to analyze and hopefully report the President's package and add different things we have considered here in the House and Senate to it as well. First and foremost, this is not a new idea. Former Congressman and Senator Dan Coats, when he was in the House, had a number of these initiatives. In the Senate, the Agenda for American Renewal. Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp had a number of faith-based initiatives there because a lot of people would not reach out and care for those with AIDS. In the early stages of the AIDS crisis, as people were dying, there were all sorts of false rumors around and many people did not care for them. Without the faith-based communities, if the government had not reached out to the faith-based communities and involved them, there would have been many people dying of AIDS who would not have received any assistance whatsoever. Nobody objected to the faith-based communities coming and working. Similarly in homelessness, the Federal dollars, the State dollars, and the local dollars were not enough to address the homeless questions. So, under HUD, they expanded into the faith-based organizations back in the Bush administration. That was continued under Secretary Cisneros and continued under Secretary Cuomo. It is not fair to say that these things are suddenly new and that President Bush is trying to insert religion into the national debate. It has been there. The difference is, instead of an afterthought, President Bush wants to make it a focus. He is saying that all these flowering organizations that are developed in every neighborhood, particularly those that are hurting the most, there are people making a difference and we need to tap into that. Now, a second question that comes up is, well, these examples that are brought forth and are talked about at press conferences or that are talked about by Gene Rivers in Boston or Freddie Garcia in San Antonio, they are just exceptions. They are not the rules. We could not possibly make this program work on a large scale because, while there are a few people here and there toiling away, this cannot possibly be part of an integrated strategy. That is just false. The largest city in my district is Fort Wayne, Indiana. I want to give an example of the breadth of what we are talking about here. Reverend Bill McGill was executive director of Stop the Madness. After one pastor's son was shot in the center city of Fort Wayne while he was sitting at a YMCA and two guys got in a gun fight, he decided to form an organization called Stop the Madness. Bill McGill headed that organization. Now he is executive director of One Church, One Offender. We have churches throughout northeast Indiana and Fort Wayne in particular who are working to adopt people who have gotten in trouble with the law and who are now coming out. Who is going to help them get a job and work with them? This is a tremendous program. The Ewell Wilson Center was started by Shirley Woods and her husband after their boy, who was a star athlete, was shot. She has a community center now who works with kids. It is disconcerting that she has to fight for every little game unit, for every computer, for every little thing because she is not a high-powered organization. It is just a couple of people who said we care about the kids in our area. They do not have grant writers or the so-called beltway bandits. How can people making a difference at the grass roots level do it? Reverend Jessey and Anthony Beasley came to me. They have an inner- city church and they are trying to figure out how to get a youth program started for the after-school kids because we have a huge crack problem in Fort Wayne and a high murder rate, and they do not know where to turn to do that. George Middleton took some of his savings out to help build a youth center, and he is building this with his private money and getting volunteers in. But he can only do so much. And when someone does not get the help, they get tired too fast. They are working 18 hours a day. Here are the people who are actually doing it in the ZIP code where they live and we cannot get the dollars to them. Friends of mine, Barb and Lonnie Cox, had their family touched and friends touched by the drug problem, so they went to the bishop and through the parish there they formed a house to reach people who have been battling drug addiction. There is Father Glenn Kohrman in Fort Wayne. We have an influx of Burmese come in, as they have had a conflict in that country. We have programs for people of Spanish language, often through faith-based organizations because often they are involved in the Catholic church or Pentecostal churches, but in this case, in the Asian community, we did not have any direct funds where the Catholic church could figure out how to do English as a second language to a subgroup. This is what President Bush is talking about. We have lots of people already there; we have lots more interested, but they have not had access to it. I congratulate the President for making this a foremost priority rather than an afterthought.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Madam Speaker, today was an historic day for the United States because our President, George W. Bush, announced a new office for faith-based initiatives. Many of us have worked for many years, as has President Bush and the State of Texas, in many of these initiatives and are very excited about what the President has done. There have been many people toiling away in our inner cities, in our rural areas, and other places trying to extend a helping hand to the poor, yet often ignored in the public arena, while many groups who have been less effective have been able to get the funds. Nobody is arguing that there are not well-meaning people in multiple bureaucracies of the Federal Government and of State and local governments. But we also know that many of the most life-changing experiences, many of the most effective programs, have actually occurred at the neighborhood level, the grassroots level, from people who live in those communities, who work in those communities, who are deeply invested; they leverage the funds, and yet they are not eligible when we have different programs. We have had a number of amendments through this House, some of which have died in the Senate, some of which were vetoed, and some of which are law in the charitable choice provisions. President Bush has gone one step farther. Not only has he said that he favors these charitable choice provisions in allowing, under rigid conditions, nobody can proselytize, nobody can try to push their religious faiths on somebody else, but for Christians who want to do service for others, to try to extend those dollars, whether it be in housing, in juvenile justice, whether it be in certain after-school programs, whether it be helping the homeless, whether it be helping people with AIDS, that Christian and Muslim and Hindu and Buddhist and Jewish organizations can now apply for those grants. In addition to what he has done at the legislative proposal level, he has asked the executive branch agencies to analyze their programs internally to see where they have reached out, to see what has worked and what has not worked and where they might expand that. He also has a package for a charitable tax credit for nonitemizers, for example, something that the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane) pushed here for years, that I have had legislation as well, to try to expand the charitable credit that was in the bill of the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Watts) and Jim Talent that we have argued, that former Senator Dan Coats advocated in the Senate and worked with, because a tax credit that would put additional dollars into the charitable organizations that are having such an impact at the local level would be a major breakthrough. What we have seen out of our new President is not just a talk that related to the campaign to try to win but a comprehensive blueprint of how to actually accomplish this in office. That is not something that gains necessarily a lot of votes. Not a lot of lobbyists come to our office saying, hey, we will financially support you if you just back this faith-based initiative thing. It comes with a lot of controversy because a lot of people, rightly to some degree, fear that this could be overextended, and they do not understand the full nature of this and the court limitations on it, and they are worried about religious liberty. But President Bush has stood up and said, this is too important, there are too many kids and families hurting in this country to continue to ignore the most effective way to reach many of these children who need our help. I cannot say enough in praise of this initiative. I am excited about the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. I am looking forward to the legislation that we will be bringing to the floor to work with this and to work with this office. This is a great morning in America today for many people who really need the help not only of the government but of their neighbors and the communities and the churches and others who can do so much to give them a chance in this wonderful free country.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. I erroneously voted in favor of rollcall vote No. 590, the Holt Motion to Instruct Conferees on H.R. 4577, the Departments of Labor, Health, and Human Services, and Education and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2001. I intended to vote ``nay'' on that rollcall vote.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss issues concerning the Republic of Macedonia. The largest population of Macedonian- Americans resides in my district. During the Kosovo Crisis, and throughout the wars in the Former Yugoslavia in the 1990's, Macedonia has shown remarkable strength and resilience which has allowed this democratic country to emerge as a point of stability in the Balkans as well as a strong ally of the United States. I believe we need to adhere to our financial commitments and reemphasize our support for Macedonia. As many of you know, President Boris Trajkovski is engaged in a long- term economic development program following the aftermath of the Kosovo crisis. Also, I understand that the continued border instability is undermining the Republic of Macedonia's overall economic climate and risks future economic development. Mr. Speaker, I would like to compliment the managers of the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill for including language that strongly supports President Trajkovski's government's efforts to bring stability and economic prosperity to all Macedonians and to the Balkan region. As a strong supporter of Macedonia, I support the manager's intent to encourage the Department of State to provide adequate resources to fund critical project components of President Trajkovski's Economic Stabilization and Development Plan.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, Bluffton, Indiana is not a large city. It is a small city nestled in the bluffs above the Wabash River in Indiana. It has grown to serve the surrounding prime agricultural land of Wells County. Bluffton is renowned throughout Indiana and the country for its extraordinary newspaper. It doesn't have lots of color pictures and fancy charts. But it is stuffed with real news, in great detail, and topped by the world's most comprehensive headlines. This is largely the product of Jim Barbieri, a throwback to earlier days of local journalism. An aggressive advocate, and when needed, critic of the local community, Jim is also active in State and National issues. But even in small-town Indiana, he also brings a world perspective. His writing is thorough and fair. But it is also much more. Jim captures the room, the people in it, and the context of the debate. When one reads the Bluffton News-Banner it is though you had been at each event. Except that often, you learn a lot more from the article about the meeting then you learn at the meeting. Recently Jim Barbieri celebrated 50 years at the Bluffton News- Banner. That itself is a tremendous and increasingly rare, commitment. Think of the historical perspective provided by such a paper compared to the transient nature of much news today. I hope that journalism schools in America will use the example of Jim Barbieri to show that even in modern America you still can practice the type of community-based newspapers that anchored our Republic. I submit for the Record the following articles. Dear Jim: Congratulations on 50 years of journalism in Bluffton. You are a living example of historic tradition of influential small-town newspaper editors. William Allen White in Emporia, Kansas, was an early Jim. Even the famous Niles Register, chronicle and journal of record of the early American Republic, was not as thorough as you. I know of no one in the public arena who is not astonished that you can take such complete notes with so few errors. I expect to read something like this: ``Congressman Souder, riding in a black Lexus, was in Bluffton today for the third time this year. He was accompanied by Mary Honegger of Ossian, who has been a senior advisor to Souder since he first experienced his candidacy in 1994. The Honeggers have an animal clinic in Ossian that is well spoken of in the area. Souder was here to discuss trade with China. . .'' In other words, Jim, your stories in the Bluffton News- Banner not only include what I say, when and where, but a context and lots of local color. Your writing makes one ``feel'' the meeting, not just get the general facts. And the headlines. Your headlines have more news than a half-hour TV news broadcast. You are also a tireless advocate for Bluffton and Wells County. While being a local promoter, you also have a world vision. You understand that in education and commerce, the competition is not just Decatur and Huntington. Hopefully, your tribute will help all of us to ask: Where will the next Jim Barbieri come from? Are we producing the young people with the curiosity and the commitment to debating truth? Thanks, Jim, for your fundamental belief: By publicizing the words of the debate, people will choose the truth. Sincerely, Mark Souder, U.S. Congressman, 4th District, Indiana.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to recognize James. G. Mills of Fort Wayne, Indiana in my district for his recent election as chairman of the board for the National Association of Federal Credit Unions. Mr. Mills was elected on June 17, 2000 and officially took over in late July. In 1985, Mr. Mills joined Three Rivers Federal Credit Union as president and chief executive officer. Three Rivers provides important options for my constituents and as such has been an asset to Northeast Indiana. Between 1985 and 1995, the number of branches increased from one to eight with the number of member companies increasing from 125 to more than 700. Individual membership soared from 15,000 to 65,000 plus. Along the way, Mr. Mills worked to promote the growth of the community as well as the Credit Union. In 1995, Three Rivers FCU was able to secure Indiana's first Community Development Credit Union Expansion Charter to open the field of membership and provide financial services to less served parts of the community. This innovation was the result of his near two-years of work with local city officials, the economic development offices of Fort Wayne, and the National Credit Union Administration. Most recently, Mr. Mills facilitated an initiative in the area of inner city financial literacy training for an under-served group that also happens to be a new part of the FCU's field of membership. I strongly commend him for his efforts to empower those who are less economically advantaged through knowledge and the broadening of financial services. In the role of Chairman of NAFCU, Mr. Mills will be leading the trade association that represents federal credit unions. I look forward to working with him and America's credit unions as we work to benefit families and communities, and congratulate him on this national recognition.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, the Republic of China on Taiwan will celebrate its 89th anniversary of its founding on October 10, 2000. As Taiwan's friend, I would like to extend my congratulations to the ROC President Chen Shui-bian and Ambassador C.J. Chen of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Washington, D.C. In recent days, I have been apprised of Republic of China's campaign to return to the United Nations. I believe that Taiwan should have a place in the United Nations. With its huge financial resources, Taiwan is and has always been willing to contribute to UN causes. Unfortunately, Taiwan is barred from substantive involvement in many international organizations and affairs because of Taiwan's lack of UN membership. The time has come for the world to recognize Taiwan's true potential as an active player in the international community. To admit Taiwan to the United Nations is the first step for the UN to honor its own principle of universal membership. On the eve of the Republic of China's National Day, I wish that the Republic of China will one day, hopefully soon, return to all international organizations.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, this afternoon I have introduced a bill to restore the Federal recognition to the Miami Nation of Indiana. The Miami Nation of Indiana is one of our most historic Indian nations. Unfortunately, it is not currently recognized by the Federal Government. It is an ironic situation that we face. When Anthony Wayne won the battle of Fallen Timbers that lead directly to the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, the Miami Nation, at that point a defeated nation, entered into negotiations over a period of time with William Henry Harrison in the Northwest Territory and the Federal Government, ceding millions of acres. Chief Richardville, the civil chief of the tribe, and Little Turtle, the war chief of the Miami Nation, did the best they could to keep as many Miamis in Indiana as possible, approximately at that point 800. The rest were transported in one of the many cases of mistreatment of Native Americans by the American Government, and moved across the Mississippi River. That tribe continued to be recognized and currently is basically the Miami of Oklahoma. They have completely at this point a distinctive history, a distinctive tribal form of government from the Miami Nation of Indiana. They moved across the Mississippi, then down into Oklahoma, have their own tribal governments and work with that, and occasionally even come in conflict with their brothers from Indiana over what to do with artifacts, over what things are important in the tribe. Because quite frankly, the Indiana Miami are not in many ways a traditional nation, in the sense they were not part of the reservation system that many other Indian tribes in America were part of. Their goals as a tribe are different. Theirs are predominantly historic and cultural goals as opposed to necessarily the same financial goals, because they are more or less integrated in, but that does not mean that they have not been a continual independent nation. Much of this is detailed in the book ``The Miami Indians of Indiana.'' This particular book was given to me by Charles Bevington, or Meshintoquah, chief of the Pecongeah Clan of the Miami Nation of Indiana. And he, Chuck, still gets benefits from the treaty of Greenville from 1795. His kids get benefits from the Treaty of Greenville; yet our government says they are not an Indian tribe. Now, wait a minute. If they are getting treaty benefits directly from 1795, this seems like a tad of a stretch. Let me make a couple of points with this: one is, they have been in continual relationship with the Federal Government, one of the standards to be an independent Indian nation. One of the problems was that in 1897, the Secretary of the Interior based on an opinion by a then assistant Secretary withdrew the acknowledgment of the Indiana Miamis as a tribe. Since then, Congress has never terminated this relationship. Since then, there has been an acknowledgment that that was an error in 1897. In 1990, the Department of the Interior specifically admitted that the opinion of Attorney General Van Devanter was incorrect and that the trust relationship of the Indiana Miamis was wrongfully terminated. In other words, in 1897 this was wrongfully done. They reappealed to the BIA and lost their appeal, because, apparently, some of the minutes from meetings in either the late 1950s or early 1960s were lost partly because the Secretary's house trailer burned and the Miami did not have records of their continual meetings they had. They had powwows in our district, and throughout parts of northern Indiana they have had a consistent form of tribal government. So we are basically looking at technicalities that have disqualified a nation that is one of our most historic. Let me give my colleagues a couple of examples. The famous Indian chief, Little Turtle, was one of the greatest warriors in American history. This is a drawing by a Miami of Indiana person who lives in Fort Wayne area, my hometown. What is interesting about this is, this is not a drawing that is contemporary of its period, because the only oil painting of Little Turtle was in the White House, and it was burned when the White House was burned in 1812 when James Madison was President. And it was by Gilbert Stuart. But this is a likeness drawn after that. Little Turtle is famous because on American soil, he is the only person to have defeated full- blown American armies authorized by this Congress, not once, but twice, bigger defeats, than Custard, bigger defeats than the Western, different things where Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull and all of those famous Indian chiefs, Little Turtle defeated American armies twice. George Washington said they had to get the junction of the rivers in what is now Fort Wayne but at that time was Kekionga, because it was the controlling of the Northwest territory and we would have never had a Lewis and Clark. We never would have had a Louisiana Purchase if we could not get control of the Northwest Territory. Little Turtle twice defeated those armies. He was victorious right near Eel River where his settlement was, and he also defeated La Balme from France, who was considered the foremost calvary officer in France. But then Little Turtle realized he was not going to be able to defeat Anthony Wayne. He stayed in the coalition with Blue Jacket and other Indian tribes, the Shawnee and others; but they were defeated at the battle of Fallen Timbers and that led to a change in the West. Little Turtle decided to work with the United States Government. Then the civil chief, Chief Richardville, also decided to work with the United States Government and in Fort Wayne. We hope within a few months this will be a national historic landmark; it is the oldest Indian treaty house east of the Mississippi still on its site. It is Chief Richardville's house. It is where the Miami Nation congregated. It was their civil chief. We also have Richardville's son- in-law Lafontaine, in an Indian house. After all, Indiana is named after the Indians, but we do not have respect and have not respected them enough. We have two treasures of these homes. This is apparently the only Native American home east of the Mississippi on its original site. Richardville and Little Turtle were in fact in essence punished because they stopped warring with the United States. It is time that the United States correct what are acknowledged wrongs in decertifying the Miami Nation in 1897, to reconcile the bookkeeping error. One last point, they have agreed by a 12 to zero council meeting to suspend their gaming rights. The act says that pursuant they will not pursue gaming in class 3, and only be allowed with expressed approval from Congress. It is unfortunate that true rights are being denied because of gambling, but they have agreed to suspend theirs.