Mark Souder

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I want to finish this point, because in my kids' own high school in Indiana, a survey was passed out in class through the high school yearbook that led me to get upset in my first term, and we passed some legislation here, but it concerned questions asked about anal sex, among other things, and it was one of the most offensive surveys I have ever read, even worse than this, even though this is probing even deeper into religious beliefs. But in Indiana the school board responded. They changed the rules of the school and they took back the test. The parent of the child who was in this class is taking it up with her school board and it can have an impact. When something happens in our local schools, we can try to do something about it and try to affect change. But when something happens in Washington, we are virtually powerless to change that. I say that as a United States Congressman. We are virtually powerless. It is very frustrating. And if we let Washington take over the national testing, it is a frightening scenario ahead.

Mr. SOUDER. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Arizona for bringing the attention of this country to the math standards.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my friend, the gentleman from Wisconsin, for his leadership on the budget and tax issues. Because underneath what he is saying, and I have heard him, as I have watched back in my office, allude to this several times, that a lot of this is basically a matter of trust. That is, who do we trust most with our incomes? Do we trust the people in Washington, or do we trust the families, the parents, the individuals around the country to make the decisions for their kids' future education, for their kids' health, for their family decisions on whether they are going to take a vacation with their family or whether they are going to get a certain kind of winter coat or whether they are going to bank it. Rather than have the people in Washington make these decisions, we need the people back home in Indiana and in Wisconsin and in other States to do that. That is in fact what we are doing. If we do not get control of this deficit that has been mounting up, particularly as it relates to things like the Social Security trust fund, which, if we repay that in the debt repayment plan, well, if we do not do that, not only will we not have short-term balanced budgets, we will not have the income in our families to make those decisions, but we will absolutely bankrupt this country as the baby-boomers, your and my generation, hit the retirement system, which we have paid into all of our lives, but all of a sudden there will not be any money there. So sometimes what we have to do is plan for the future, in addition to the present. The gentleman is going one step beyond where the current bill goes and saying, hey, look, we have to think out where we are headed, or our kids will be saddled with a double whammy; that is, no reserve, Federal reserve, to pay for our retirement, and having to pay huge taxes and interest rates, because the debt has accumulated.

Mr. SOUDER. If the gentleman will continue to yield, Mr. Speaker, I have some points I hope to talk about later tonight, where I am concerned as we get near the end of the appropriations process that the Federal Government is taking too much control. What the gentleman has pointed out and what we have to keep in perspective is the difference between where we were in 1993 and 1994 and what we are debating about today. I have a grave concern about the guesstimating in the census, and trying to gain power through that and through bringing in illegal immigrants into our voting system without background checks. I have grave concerns about national testing. I have grave concerns about the desire to allow family planning money to be used for abortions throughout this world. Those are grave concerns. But we made an earth-shaking change in the election of 1994, when the gentleman and I came in. That is, what we were so upset about in 1993 and 1994 is it seemed that in every category of American life the Federal Government was in an aggressive, expansive mode; that we had this tremendous pressure on the health care system, the greatest health care system in the world. We had the Labor Department going after small businesses and mid-sized businesses and large businesses, saying they were going to turn OSHA into an enforcement agency, when what we were hearing at the grass roots is that they were not concerned about the health and safety of individuals, but rather, in harassment of job- producing industries. We saw in every category gun owners being restricted and being gone after by the Federal Government. We saw a collapse in a lot of the moral leadership of our country and, in particular, the type of laws that were protecting unborn children and others. We saw a major tax increase, the largest tax increase in the United States history. We saw proposal after proposal that would have expanded the Federal Government's role in every single appropriations bill in every single category of this country. Now, after the 1994 election, the whole debate has been turned. We are still arguing over different points, important points. But the big questions, was the deficit going to continue to spiral upward or was it going to head down, were we going to give more money to individuals or take more money from individuals, and we now are moving towards a balanced budget this year; an amazing, amazingly low deficit this past weekend, and maybe $23 billion for the fiscal year. We are looking at-- --

Mr. SOUDER. An extraordinary achievement for our children and our families, because our interest rates are staying low, our unemployment rate is staying low. We are not only able to absorb all of the immigrants who are coming into this country, but we have in parts of my district at least 2 percent under what was considered full employment. We are at 2 percent in some of the counties of my district on an unemployment rate. The consequences of this control of the deficit are huge in terms of interest rates and keeping the employment rates up and the unemployment rate down. But the tax cuts are important, because it will give the maximum flexibility to the individuals. Those of us who are concerned about the growth of the power of government, the best thing we can do is give $500 per child to each family for each child, because what that will do is let parents make the decisions they need to make for their children. By giving the capital gains changes, people can invest in their homes, and senior citizens can sell off their homes for their retirement income. By having education IRAs, by having family farms be able to be preserved in the families and small businesses be able to be preserved in the families, those are huge steps toward social stability in this country, and toward the moral fabric and restrengthening in this country. We are going to argue about these other issues, important issues, but we have to keep in mind that in the big picture we have made tremendous strides in changing the entire national debate to how do we give more power to families and individuals, how do we give more power to States, how do we reduce the size of the spending and the deficit in Washington.

Mr. SOUDER. If the gentleman will continue to yield, my understanding of the gentleman's math, there is a family with two children, they would be paying roughly $24,000 a year in taxes, roughly $26,000 a year, and that is an extraordinary figure. It is not that the government is actually starving. They have been starving out families. What we want to do is get more of those dollars back to those families, empower the families to make those decisions, and less out of Washington. If I can add one other thing, those tax cuts deserve a ton of credit for the deficit reduction, because what it did by giving more dollars, and the stock market knowing that more dollars were going to be in individual hands, knowing that family businesses and capital gains and inheritance tax changes were coming, it kept the confidence of the consumers up, rather than having the confidence go down. Usually we have these cycles. It was to a large degree the combination of controlling our spending, but even more importantly, the tax cuts that have revived and kept this tremendous economic growth engine going. So a lot of the reason that we have this deficit decline that we have is not just because of us controlling spending, but in fact, it is because tax cuts gave the markets the confidence, gave the investors the confidence and the individuals the confidence to continue to employ people, to continue to build up inventories, to buy products. That has kept the economy going in a remarkable way.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, I first want to thank Chairman Goodling for standing firm on this national testing as we come to the final weeks of battle. But I wanted to reiterate a couple of points about the danger of these national tests. We heard about the math. It is unbelievable that somebody could oppose teaching 6 times 7, and particularly unbelievable that it could be a national leader. What is so amazing about math is that that would be a category you would think this would not happen. Later, when Lynn Cheney wrote about history standards and some of the other national standards, we had a college art association conference warn faculty members not to teach women artists such as Mary Cassatt because she frequently painted the women and children and thus reinforced patriarchal thought. We had a 1992 Smithsonian exhibit called ``Etiquette of the Underclass'' that advocated a view of the United States so class ridden that those born at the bottom could never hope to move up. One of the materials accompanying the Smithsonian exhibition said, ``Upward mobility is one of our most cherished myths.'' Mr. Speaker, we know that they have this problem with history standards, which is why it was thrown out. We have problems with art. We have problems with economics being national standards, because they politicalize it. Now we have problems with math. Mr. Speaker, I want to throw out one other thing. Bill Safire in a column this weekend said that, ``The American tradition has been to entrust such decisions to local school boards run, not always well but usually democratically, by involved parents and teachers in that community, with review by State authorities and with the Feds intervening only when States fail to protect a student's constitutional rights.'' Last Thursday morning, a lady whose son attends Casa Roble High School in Sacramento, CA, gave me a test that was given her son in a technology class on August 29, 1997, supposedly after we got by this. This was not a national test. If this was a national test, we would be in deep trouble. This was a local test. However, it is a local test that spread to five States. But because it is a local test, we can fight it at the local level. But this is why we fear national tests. It was trying to look at the students' values and things like: I donate to charities. I envy the way movie stars are recognized wherever they go. Things that make us wonder whether they are being too intrusive. But, Mr. Speaker, I want to read some questions that strike fear in my heart. Question Number 2: I will regularly take my children to church services. Question Number 11: I have a close relationship with either my mother or my father. Question 12: I have taught a Sunday School class or otherwise been active in my church. Question 24: I believe in a God who answers prayers. Question 34: I believe that tithing, giving one-tenth of one's earnings to the church, is one's duty to God. Question 41: I pray to God about my problems. Question 43: I like to spend holidays with my family. Question 53: It is important that grace be said before meals. Question 59: I care what my parents think about the things that I do. Question 72: I read the Bible or other religious writings regularly. Question 78: I love my parents. Question 82: I believe that God created man in his own image. Question 91: If I ask God for forgiveness, my sins are forgiven. Question 95: I respect my father and mother. What business do schools have intruding in the religious life of children and asking intruding questions about how students feel about their mother and father? It may have been well-intentioned, but this is scary. What if this stuff gets in the national tests? At least at the local level we can fight it. Mr. Speaker, how dare this President propose taking over our children's lives through a national test when we have seen the pattern here? We have seen it in economics, we have seen it in math, we have seen it in history. At least at the local level, we have a fighting chance to change it. If these people nationalize this stuff, it is going to be a scary country to live in, because it is clear where they are headed and this type of stuff scares me to death.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, he is absolutely correct. The people of Wisconsin have an independent tradition and the people of Indiana have an independent tradition. And the Founding Fathers knew, although Indiana and Wisconsin were not in existence at the time, that we have inherited that belief that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. We have a healthy skepticism of a concentration of power. Our Founding Fathers knew that we needed a balance. We needed individuals with rights. We needed a Court, we needed a Congress, a President. We needed strong States. A lot of people believed that going to a Constitution as opposed to Articles of Confederation was consolidating too much power. Back then, they did not think about departments of education and national tests. That was far from it. They were doing minimal Federal Government. Our Founding Fathers had it right. They were fearful that power concentrated, as it was in Europe, would lead to the type of tracking in the education systems, would lead to the type of monarchy dependency, that we would look to our capital city for all the solutions rather than inside our souls and inside our own families and look to government to fix the problems of the poor rather than sacrificing our own time and money to reach out to those who are hurting. Mr. Speaker, that is indeed what is happening in America. We need to stand up. And this budget deal and the tax cuts were an important first step. Now we have to follow through on some of the details, because we have the big picture right. We need to make sure that they do not back- door us as we go through the actual appropriations bills.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, one of the things that we begin to see in supermarkets are the calculators on the carts. As a practical matter, as somebody who has a business degree as opposed to a law degree, one of the great tactics is to change the size of the box so the new larger style actually has a bigger box but sometimes less in it. If shoppers cannot do basic math on their feet, they are ripe to be taken advantage of in every supermarket aisle, in every toy department, in every department store. And I say this as somebody who has been and my family have always been retailers, but if people cannot do basic math, they are not going to be able to figure out what is the best buy.

Mr. SOUDER. It is important to note for the record that the independent body is picked two-thirds by the President of the United States.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, the gentleman is being very kind. Mrs. Cheney was being very kind as well. The fact is it was a sham compromise to try to get themselves out of a pickle because the nominees, the overwhelming majority of those nominees would be picked by the President, recommended by the Department of Education, so in fact it is the same body. It looks different but if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck and swims like a duck, it is a duck.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. I thank the gentleman from Florida for his leadership in pointing out the problems with this administration. We have seen them from the days we started, first with the Travel Office and as we moved through the FBI files and as we moved through Whitewater and Craig Livingstone, and we have watched this in the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight relatively stunned. And as we start to get the depositions, as we prepare for the larger investigation of campaign finance scams, I was so outraged about a week and a half ago to see that the President of the United States was proposing to call Congress into a special session on campaign finance reform. Talk about gall. Rule No. 1 for campaign finance reform should be, follow the current law. What good does it do for us to pass a bunch of laws if they do not follow the current law? Today I wanted to share a couple of stories to illustrate this point. Story No. 2: Last month, the Democratic National Committee returned $85,000 in funny money, this time to help repay victims of the $38 million fraud using President Clinton's photo. The pyramid scheme, set up by Unique Gems International Corp, has been called one of the costliest credit card rip-offs in U.S. history. Here is how it happened. In October 1996, at a Florida fund-raiser, President Clinton took a photo with executives of the Miami-based jewelry-making company who coughed up $85,000 to the DNC. So the price tag for this picture was $85,000. When you start going after money everywhere as fast as you can get it, you forget to do some background checks. The pictures were featured in company newsletters to gain credibility with investors. The caption read, ``The company has been honored by President Clinton for its role in helping many people with real opportunities to earn a well above average income.'' Potential marks were told by one company boss, ``We met with the President. If it were not a good company, the President would not have invited us to dinner.'' Soon, investors were lining up to buy worthless beads to assemble into necklaces, which the company promised to market to retailers. At one point, when Unique Gems was using the President's picture most extensively, it was raking in $1 million a day. By the time the operation was shut down, 15,000 people had been bilked, most of whom were new immigrants hoping to turn their $3,000 investment into a small fortune. The Democratic National Committee bilked new immigrants indirectly through this type of scheme. Unique Gems apparently used third parties to donate $85,000 to the DNC, despite Federal law prohibiting such donations. Four of Unique Gems principals, who have, surprise, surprise, left the country, are foreign nationals prohibited by law from donating to U.S. campaigns. Mr. Speaker, this is yet another example of campaign finance reform. Rule No. 1, follow the current law. Former leader of Common Cause Fred Wertheimer put it best: ``This is one example, and it is a classic example, of an attitude that led to the Clinton campaign saying, `if you give us money, that is all we care about.' '' Just so everyone gets this story straight: DNC got the cash, swindlers got a photo with the President, and 15,000 people got stuck with $38 million of worthless beads. The second case is Jorge Cabrera. As we know, the Vice President has been a good student of President Clinton's in more ways than one. In December 1995, Vice President Gore attended a fund-raiser in Florida for 60 wealthy contributors. Among them were several guests more fitted to Shawshank than southern Florida. Consider the following attendees: Jorge Cabrera, a drug trafficker with links to a Colombian cartel. Dr. Joseph Douze, a fugitive who once blew up a bridge. Great background checks on these people. And the host for the evening, Jerome ``Jerry'' Berlin, was indicted in 1990, and later acquitted, on Federal conspiracy charges of bribing Federal officials. One of the politicians allegedly targeted was then Senator Al Gore, who prosecutors said did not know of the alleged plot. One guest, who paid the minimum $10,000 cover charge, said, ``Maybe the reason I got to sit with the Vice President is that I was the only honest person in the room.'' To be fair, the Vice President was disappointed to learn that his picture had been taken with a long-time drug dealer. ``He never wants to be associated with people who break the law.'' That makes for interesting Cabinet meetings. In fact, sometimes you wonder how he looks in the mirror, since he violated the laws in campaign fund-raising from the White House. Some of the same donors at the Florida fundraiser later received personal greetings from the President and the First Lady. Only days later, the Cali-connected Cabrera was sipping eggnog at the White House Christmas party. Cabrera, who gave $20,000 to the DNC, was later sentenced to 19 years in prison for helping import 6,000 pounds of Colombian cocaine that was killing kids in the streets of Fort Wayne, IN, and western Florida, and in Kansas, and he did not get a background check. This man was a drug cartel dealer, for crying out loud. At the time of the Gore fundraiser and the White House visit, he had already been arrested twice on drug charges and pleaded guilty to non- drug-related charges. Court papers said that by 1995 he was already deeply involved with the Cali Colombian drug cartel. Ross Perot put it nicely: ``I never thought I would live to see a major drug dealer give 20,000 bucks in Florida and then be invited to a big Democratic reception by the Vice President of the United States, Al Gore, and then be invited to the White House for a Christmas party.'' An invitation to the White House Christmas party was also sent to Dr. Douze, although the Government had confiscated his passport and restricted his travel after his arrest on 11 counts of Federal mail fraud and conspiracy.

Mr. SOUDER. I think that is what I am saying. And, furthermore, a convicted drug dealer was let in. So it was not as though they did not have a record, it was not as though they did not have background checks on these people, it was the classic cannot see, cannot hear, and, therefore, there is no evil. A Federal judge also denied his request to leave the area, Douze' request to leave the area, to visit the White House. But Douze, who was arrested in 1988 for blowing up a bridge in Haiti, received the judge's permission to visit his dying mother in Haiti a few weeks after the Gore fundraiser. Surprise, surprise, he has not come back. How does it happen? They let it. They do not follow rule No. 1, which is to follow the current law. I would like to, if I can, take a few more minutes here to go to the third case, Johnny Chung. This is his quote: ``I see the White House like a subway; you have to put in coins to open the gates.'' That is how Johnny Chung explained his $50,000 contribution which was delivered to the First Lady's office in 1995 to buy access to the President. Chung said he was seeking VIP treatment for a delegation of visiting Chinese businessmen when he was asked to help defray the First Lady's White House Christmas receptions that had been billed to the DNC. Chung's visit to Washington in March 1995 raised concerns in the Clinton administration's National Security Council. So in answer to the gentleman from Florida's question, here the National Security Council at least warned them. The Passport Office did not. The other, presumably State Department, did not, on the case from Haiti. They did not warn the White House on the drug dealer's connections, but here the National Security Council did warn them. One aide described Chung in the memo as ``a hustler'' trying to exploit his contacts at the White House. And we already saw in the first case what the contacts in the White House can do for bilking poor immigrants. Chung essentially paid $7,000 a head to have six businessmen and himself watch Bill Clinton deliver an 8-minute radio address followed by photos with the President. Chung knows his way around the White House. In December 1994, he escorted a Chinese beer executive through the West Wing, carrying two six-packs and taking pictures as they went. A photo with the First Lady with the beer executive is on display on one of Beijing's busiest street. ``He became an irritant,'' says one White House official. He took unfair advantage of the First Lady's office.'' At least he never came away empty handed.

Mr. SOUDER. With benign neglect, would be kind. With overt refutation and opposite action, would be the correct way, because not only did they allow him in, they allowed him in repeatedly, and at a radio address, and into the White House with the Chinese businessmen. So they did not heed their National Security Council's warning. And so at some point we have to say, how are we going to pass additional laws to regulate people who will not follow the laws, who allow drug dealers in, who allow people in who blow up bridges, who have their passports revoked, who have been warned by the National Security Council that the guy is a risk? What they are doing is, they are going ka'chung, ka'chung, so to speak, because they want the money, they want the cash register to ring with the dollars, because that was the primary goal, not the integrity of the political process of the United States. They abused people like Johnny Chung. His statement when he says he thought that was what you have to do, this is not a statement on Johnny Chung as much as it is a statement on the White House: ``I see the White House as like a subway. You have to put in coins to open the gates.'' So people who did not understand our system were led by this administration to think that the way it works in America is, they have to put the coins in, or you do not get any action. And that is a disappointing demonstration to people from all these different countries about how this works. I am so disappointed in this administration, that they would let the world think that the way we do business with the President of the United States is giving him illegal campaign contributions.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Is it not true that this bill has historically, because it contains the salaries of Federal employees, the amendment to not have the pay raise, to eliminate the COLA is historically placed?

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, if this would fail, would we get our increase?

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

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, is it not true that our salary increases are tied to the increases of Federal employees?

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that the most felicity about this bill has been because our pay raise, our COLA increases, are tied to the salaries in this bill, because in actuality that is less of the amount of dollars than we are increasing the IRS. We as Republicans are going around the country right now criticizing the IRS, while we are increasing their dollars here. There are many reasons why we are doing it, but nevertheless, it is rather an inconsistent message. Furthermore, many Republicans went around the country criticizing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and many gun owners around this country have been concerned about their abuses and civil rights abuses, yet we are not only not eliminating ATF, we are increasing ATF. I have great problems with this, as well as with the pay increase, and Members need to know that that is what is tied to this bill. The second major concern I have is the process. It was not that we were not aware that this bill had us tied to the pay increase, it was that there was no rule vote, so we could not object to the rule. The rule, because we could not object to a rule, it meant that we were not allowed to offer any amendment to stop the pay raise. Therefore, the only thing we could do the first time was to vote against this bill the first time it went through. We could not do a motion to recommit or a motion to instruct conferees, because that is left to the minority leadership, so we had a procedural vote. Once again, because it is a conference report, we cannot have a vote in this Congress on the pay raise. I think that is unfortunate. Thaere are a lot of Members, and I realize it is the will of this House, the majority of the Members favor a pay increase, but in fact this is another backdoor way to do it through, and it is unfortunate we did not have a straightforward vote.

Mr. SOUDER. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, is it not true that the Senate had placed their amendment on this bill and if we did it on another bill, the Senate has not passed it, therefore it could die in conference or could be vetoed by the President if it is freestanding, but if you do it on an appropriations bill, that it is less likely to be vetoed, and, secondly, that we have had no precedent in any other bill that the Senate has ever put that amendment on?

Mr. SOUDER. The gentleman is saying that our salaries go up regardless of what we do?

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan, who has been a leader in a lot of these issues in trying to root out corruption in government.

Mr. SOUDER. Reclaiming my time, because I would like to kind of tie a couple things together here, and one of the things we are seeing is that what has gone on in this country, it is hard for us, many of us do not get up here every day and talk, but it does not pass the laugh test. I mean a national test where the person on the math board does not want to do 7 times 6 equal 42, because it might intimidate some people that they feel left out or behind. The idea that the taxpayers are going to pay for a Teamsters election so the Teamsters can use their money, the leadership, to try to finance their own race against what appears to have been the majority of the Teamsters members of the United States, and we pay for Canadian ballots, and then that money goes and elects other Members of Congress who claim they want campaign finance reform. How about those members paying for the Teamsters election who got and benefited from the money of the Teamsters' members and the taxpayers of the United States, and it flowed into their campaign. How about following the current law? Another debate that we are currently having that I simply cannot fathom is on the Census, because it is fine to use sampling to try to set up and understand where we are headed, but it is not fine to do the actual count mandated by the Constitution by guessing. That would be like going to the Clinton administration political appointees and saying, we are going to throw one out of every five of you in jail because we know at the end of this time, and when we get through, done with everything, one out of five is going to jail. They may have the wrong person, just like in the sampling that they have had around the country, they may have the people in the wrong State. That is real sad, but at least they got the rough number calculated. It does not pass a laugh test. National tests do not pass the laugh test. The funding of the Teamsters election, which the gentleman from Michigan has twice now had this House go on record where, against the Census sampling, it does not pass the laugh test, and, quite frankly, the President of the United States threatened to recall lawmakers to the Hill so that we would have a special session on campaign finance and the people here in the House who keep saying this, it is a joke, it is an insult to the intelligence of the American people in a book, now discounted because it did not sell that great, called ``Putting People First'' by Governor Bill Clinton and Senator Al Gore. In campaign finance reform, to show you how humorous this is, it says American politics is being held hostage by big money interests. Members of Congress now collect more than $2.5 million in campaign funds every week, like he did, while political action committees, industry lobbies, and cliques of $100,000 donors buy access to the White House. This is what Bill Clinton ran against, and he turned it into an art form. This simply does not pass the laugh test, and it is so frustrating to me, and I know that, and I thank the two gentlemen who are here tonight on this special order who have been leaders in investigating this and in campaigning against this, and I enjoy working with both of you on the different committees. I do not know if any of you have a concluding comment here, too, but I wanted to get that last comment in. No matter what area we look at right now, whether it is Census sampling, national tests, Teamsters election, campaign finance reform, it is hard for me to believe the American people are taking this seriously.

Mr. SOUDER. Reclaiming my time, I want to yield, if the gentleman will, for a couple more questions just to reiterate, because it is confusing to a lot of people how this occurred. As I understand what the gentleman said, is that somewhere along the line, around 1994 or thereabouts, the Justice Department decided that the taxpayers should pay for the election, which had the Teamsters pay for it out of their own dues, would not have left as many dollars for the then President to go out and cut sweetheart deals with contractors and with the Democratic Party in return for them giving money to his campaign. In other words, if the dues had been used for a fair election, perhaps A, the president of the union might not have won, unless he wasted all his dollars in the campaign, and B, there are Members of Congress whose elections may have been different. Is that what you are, in effect, saying?