Gene Taylor

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, we have a drug problem. As a State Senator of Mississippi, I am real proud of the fact that I helped pass the toughest drug law in America. In Mississippi, if you sell two ounces of cocaine, two ounces of heroin, 100 pills, 10 pounds of marijuana, in one sale or intent or a series of sales over the period of 1 year, you are caught and convicted, you spend the rest of your life in the Mississippi State Penitentiary. But it is not enough, because we have this disconnect in our country where we say, if you are a dealer, you are bad; if but if you use it, it is okay. I often wonder how many kids here on Capitol Hill use drugs. They work for our Nation. They should not. I would hope at some point during this Congress we will see to it that everyone who works for this Nation, as a requirement of working for this Nation, will subject themselves to drug tests. But I cannot do that on this bill. I can, however, require that we take a step in that direction and say if you are going to work for our Nation's Department of Defense, if you are committing your life to defending our Nation or working to support those people who defend our Nation, you are not going to use drugs. You are not going to take your Federal paycheck and break the law and use illegal drugs. That is what we are asking to do. I do not think there is any opposition to this. I want to thank the chairman for allowing this amendment to come to the floor. I want to thank our ranking member who went to bat with the Committee on Rules to see to it that this amendment was made in order. I want to thank the Committee on Rules. I think they made a mistake when they voted not to bring it to the floor, but they admitted their mistake and saw to it that it could be voted on. It takes a big man to admit he made a mistake.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, I find myself betwixt and between two very, very good Members of this committee, two excellent Members of Congress. If I listen to both of the Members, I find them saying almost the same thing. They are both saying we do not want a standing U.N. army, and I agree with that. The difference I see is in the point that the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) makes, which is why, when there will be a joint operation, when there will be a joint operation, do we prohibit the very best from participating? Last October I had lunch with the head of the British forces, the head of the French forces, the head of the Italian forces over in Bosnia, very proud people who spent their whole lives getting to the top of their profession. It must have been very difficult for them to say what they said, but what they said was that they could not do it without the Americans; that when they went in without the Americans, their peacekeepers were chained to the lightpost, and people were raped and murdered and tortured in front of them, to show them how helpless they were. All that changed when the American troops came in. What I would like the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Hefley) and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) to do is I would like to see the amendment of the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Hefley) move on, but I would hope that in the very long time we have between now and the conference committee, that the Members work this out so that we accomplish what I know to be the Members' mutual goals. I would simply ask the author of this amendment if he would be willing to try to work with the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) on this, because I am hearing the Members saying way too many of the same things for us to get involved in a fight on the floor about this.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I would like to compliment the gentleman on his amendment. I know of no opposition to that amendment on this side, and we would also urge its passage.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, our Nation this year is going to spend $18 billion on the war on drugs. As we speak, there are Americans flying counter drug missions in places like Colombia and Peru, and they are being shot at, and pretty often they get killed. Mr. Speaker, imagine my surprise then when, just yesterday in the Committee on Rules, an amendment to require all Department of Defense employees to be drug tested was voted down along straight party lines. Every single Republican voted against requiring our Department of Defense employees to be drug tested. I think that is a decision the full House should make. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to tell my colleagues that if they had plans for this weekend, they should cancel them, because I am going to keep us here until we have a vote on that amendment. I want to tell the gentleman from New York (Mr. Solomon) and the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrich) that we can have a half-hour of debate on that issue and an up or down vote, or we can spend a Memorial Day weekend here in Washington.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I am going to ask my colleagues to defeat the previous question so that this body may vote on something I think is very important, and that is a measure that would require all Department of Defense employees to be subject to random drug testing. Mr. Speaker, I have been to Latin America on a number of occasion. Most recently in February I went to Colombia, to towns like Neiva, to San Jose, where American special forces are training Colombian Lanceros in what is a very real war on drugs. The unit that we visited one week was annihilated the next. Out of 125 Colombian soldiers that went out, 18 returned. The rest were killed or captured. When you go to Colombia, you do not drive around, you have to fly. The reason you have to fly from place to place is that the guerrillas control the countryside. So everywhere we went was either on a Colombian National Police Huey, or a Drug Enforcement Agency plane. That is how real the war on drugs is. But we have a tremendous disconnect in our country. You see, we are asking American soldiers as we speak to get shot at. We are asking the Americans who fly the crop dusters that are trying to eradicate the coca fields and the poppy fields that are being shot at, and they are shot down periodically. We have American soldiers in Iquitos, Peru, and American sailors, American Seals, training the Peruvians in riverine operations, mostly on drugs coming out of Colombia by way of the Amazon. But this body will not even ask the technicians and the people who work for our Department of Defense, who are paid by our tax dollars, to take a drug test to see if they are on our team or on their team. I offered this amendment for two years in a row. Last year the Committee on Rules, in what I thought was a particularly cowardly action, did not even vote on it. This year they voted it down in a straight party line vote. So every Republican who goes home and tells you he is tough on drugs, privately we know, in looking at that room in the Committee on Rules, voted against it. All I am asking for is 15 minutes worth of debate on each side and a vote, up or down. Until I get it, I will continue to ask for motions to adjourn before this House. So I think the Committee on Rules and my fellow Members can make a choice: We can vote on it today, or we can vote on it Sunday, but we will vote on this. Because I do not think people who work for our Nation ought to take their Federal paycheck and buy drugs with it. I think we ought to have the confidence that those people who are working on our war on drugs are on our team. I do not think it is asking a lot for the ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Personnel of the House Committee on National Security to have an amendment made in order that deals with the personnel who work for our Department of Defense. So, Mr. Speaker, at the proper time I would hope that our ranking member, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost) would recognize me for a motion to defeat the previous question. But also I want to assure my colleagues that if the previous question is not defeated and if this amendment is not made in order, we in all probability will be here Saturday or Sunday. I have already canceled my plans. So the question for my fellow Members is, do you want to cancel yours?

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman, I am going to vote for what the gentleman is trying to do later, but this is today. I am sure when we left last fall, Sonny Bono thought he would be here this spring, but he is not, and I regret that. We are given an opportunity today on a bill that we know the Senate has to vote on. This is the defense authorization bill for the Nation, and without it, no ships, no planes, no helicopters, the troops do not get a pay raise, nothing happens in the Department of Defense unless this bill becomes law. On the contrary, what the gentleman from New York is talking about the Senate never has to vote on, and anyone who follows Washington knows that more often than not, anything controversial, they simply choose not to vote on it. So I would say to the gentleman, I would hope, if he is gentleman enough to listen, I would hope since the gentleman is in agreement with what I am trying to do for this portion of the government that he would accept my efforts along the lines of the previous question, and we will know for certainty, for at least this portion, for the most important thing our Nation does, which is to defend the Nation, that we will have random drug testing for all Department of Defense employees.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, a while back I was visiting the honors class at Hattiesburg High School. One of my students asked me that in my capacity as a member of the Committee on National Security, ``What are you? Are you the cheerleaders or the critics for America's military?'' And my answer to her was, we are both. The cheerleader in me wants to report that I think we did the very best we could with what we had. The critic in me wants to point out that I do not think this Congress as a whole is appropriating enough to our Nation's defense. I hear on a daily basis some of my colleagues come to the House floor and say, well, we are pretty close to balancing the budget, so let us give our wealthiest contributors a big tax break. Some of my other colleagues come to the House floor and say, well, we are almost balancing the budget, so let us pass a whole bunch of new social programs. They are both wrong. The highest priority of this Nation has to be to defend this Nation, the States can do almost everything else, and I am troubled that we are not doing it well enough. I am also troubled that of the 5 people who put together the defense budget, I am sorry, the overall budget for this Nation, the President of the United States, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House, the Chairman of the Committee on the Budget in the House, the Chairman of the Committee on the Budget in the Senate, not one of them has spent one second in the uniform of our country. It does not surprise me that they do not think this is important. They never did. We have to ask ourselves, what is going to be our legacy? President Jefferson has the legacy of sending Lewis and Clark out to chart the American West and the Louisiana Purchase as a result of it. Earlier in this century an America that thought they could do anything anywhere built the Panama Canal. What is this committee's legacy? I am sorry to say it is treading water. Treading water because we know we have an op tempo problem and yet we could not find the money, the rest of the Congress would not give us the money to properly budget the use of the Guard and Reserve so that we could give some of the standing force a break. We know we have health care problems, not only for active duty, but for our retirees. We know we could fix that with Medicare subvention for about $2 billion a year, yet the rest of the Congress will not let us do that. Every single American over the age of 65 now gets health care, but those people who were promised it in return for serving their country for 20 years, they are being turned away at the base hospital for lack of funds. That is not right. A brilliant plan was put together by our Armed Forces for a mail order pharmacy plan for our retirees, and for lack of funds it will not be put into effect. There are still 12,000 fine young Americans in uniform who have to get food stamps in order to feed their kids. That is wrong. It costs about $100 million to fix it, yet the rest of the Congress will not give this committee the money to fix it. Let me make this perfectly clear. I think this committee is bipartisan. The people who care about the military are on this committee. Whether they are Democrats or Republicans, they care. The problem is, what is happening with the other 435? Where are they for the thing that should count the most? Where will they be when someone launches a biological attack on our Nation and we are not ready to respond? If Members do not think it could happen, they should pick up a book called The Cobra Event. Our Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, General Wesley Clark, made his staff read it because it is so believable. What is good about the bill? Something that I think is important is we are going to return to separate gender training at the basic level. A kid going to boot camp goes from being a high school senior, where he is on top of the world, to suddenly he cannot do or she cannot do anything right. They are, in my opinion, at their most vulnerable. When they are at their most vulnerable, we do not need them being led by a sexual predator. By separating the sexes, by separating the gender of the people running them through boot camp, we can minimize the opportunity for that to go wrong. We can get our drill instructors back to doing their job and our troops going back to basic training. We restore the funding for the Youth Challenge Program, a beautiful program by the National Guard that takes at-risk youth between the ages of 16 and 19 years old and gives them a General Equivalency Diploma. They go through a boot-camp-type environment and get themselves drug- free. To date, on a nationwide basis, 96 percent of those kids have gone on to get a job, join the American military, or further their education. As the Chairman, the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), pointed out, we have done as good as we could on procurement: stepped forward funding for LST8, 3 DDGs and some Navy vessels. But, again, as he mentioned, there are 900 Huey aircraft that we will not allow to fly because we are afraid that they and the crews in them will fall out of the sky, because the rest of this Congress is not putting forward enough funds to defend our Nation. Mr. Chairman, we have to ask ourselves, what will be our legacy as Members of Congress? We are only here for so long. We need to do the best we can with what we have. My challenge to all of us, Democrats and Republicans, is not to fight with each other but spread the message to the rest of the Congress that this has to be our Nation's greatest priority, because nothing else matters if we cannot defend ourselves.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to speak against this rule and the rule that will come up tomorrow. Mr. Speaker, about $18 billion of our Nation's money, most of it coming from the Department of Defense, is spent on the war on drugs. In February, to my knowledge, we had a special forces aid team in Colombia training the Lance Arrows. I visited that group a week before the Lance Arrows were ambushed. Out of 125, I think 18 straggled back. The rest were killed or captured. We also have Seals down there. We have E-3s flying. We have P-3s flying. We have surveillance C-130s, one of which was shot up by the Peruvians. An American airman fell to his death I think 11,000 feet out of the plane. The point that I am trying to make, Mr. Speaker, is that I offered an amendment to the Committee on Rules to require all Department of Defense employees to be tested for drugs. Because we have some Department of Defense employees, particularly our uniformed personnel, who are literally putting their lives on the line as we speak. So should we not know that all of the people within the Department of Defense are pulling for the same team? The uniformed military personnel and some civilians are required to be drug tested. We know from conversations that have been intercepted from the drug lords that they know when the planes are flying, they know when the ships are patrolling; and I suspect there are some people within the Department of Defense that are giving this information away. Is it for money? Is it for drugs? I think we deserve to know. And I think the American people deserve a Department of Defense, as a matter of fact, the American people deserve a Federal workforce that is drug free. And the best way to see to it that that happens is to allow drug testing as a condition of employment. That is why I must express my deep anger that every single Republican member of the Committee on Rules voted against bringing this amendment to the floor. I do want to congratulate my Democratic colleagues who voted for that. But that is one of the 100 amendments that should have been voted on. That is why I will be voting against the rule both tonight and tomorrow.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I am not going to argue with the gentleman on the tax increases, but it is misleading to the American people to say that this Congress has passed a balanced budget. They did not.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. But, please, the American public needs to know we are not there yet.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. The budget plan that you passed----

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, will my friend the gentleman from Texas yield?

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, let me first apologize to the wonderful people who work for this House. I am sorry we are keeping you late, I am sorry I am contributing to that. As far as the American people, I want to apologize for the expense of this speech and the others. It costs about $8,000 an hour for special orders. I tried when the Democrats were in the majority to do away with it, to have us use a room upstairs, let these good people, approximately 80 House employees, go home. There is no reason for these 80 people to be here, there is no reason for the clock to keep running. And I hope that some of my Republican friends who are equally cost-conscious would work with me on ending this practice. Mr. Speaker, there is a room upstairs we can use. We do not have to keep 80 people around. My worries are not so great they need to be transcribed, and I can always ask that they be included in the Record if I think it is worthwhile. I am sorry Mr. DeLay left. I do like Mr. DeLay. But I do feel like he said some things that need to be clarified, and I want the American people to know where I am coming from as I make these remarks. I have been here almost nine years, and in those nine years have come to the conclusion that both the political parties have degraded themselves to the point where they are not much more than organizations that raise money and peddle influence. So I hope that no one will take this as a partisan speech, but merely somebody who cares about his country and wants to fix it. I regret that Mr. DeLay would lead the public to believe that we have a balanced budget, because we do not, and I do consider our Nation's debt as the greatest threat to our Nation. I regret to tell the American people that we are now spending a billion dollars a day on interest on that debt and it is growing. A couple yards away from me is a real neat human being by the name of Duncan Hunter. He is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Procurement of the Committee on National Security. One of Duncan's great misfortunes is trying to replace an aging fleet for the Navy, replace aging airplanes for the Air Force, on a very, very small budget. And quite frankly, if we were not squandering a billion dollars a day on interest on the national debt, we could be buying a destroyer a day with enough change left over to buy about 20 Blackhawk helicopters. That is why it is important that we balance our budget, that is why it is important we be honest with the American people. And it is not a Democrat or Republican issue because, doggone it, they are both guilty in creating the debt, and the only way we are going to get out of debt is working together. I am sorry to say that the Cato Institute can back up everything that I have said. Actually, overall spending in the first three years that the Republicans have run Congress has increased at a greater rate than the last three years that the Democrats were in the Congress. They are both wrong. It is wrong for both of us. But defense spending has either shrunk or been frozen under both, and that is equally wrong. There are kids today flying around in 30-year- old CH-46s, 30-year-old CH-47s. Almost a thousand UH-1 Hueys have been grounded because we finally came to the conclusion that it just was not fair, and above all it just was not safe to send those kids up. But people are still flying old F-14s, still flying old C-103s, and they are still going to sea in old ships. That is why it is important that, number one, we face up to the reality that we are still not balancing the budget, that we are borrowing from the trust funds, and it does not get any easier to get out of that hole for a lot of reasons, but the biggest reason is as a Nation we are getting older. As a Nation we are getting fewer and fewer people who are taxpayers and more and more people who are receiving benefits. My dad a couple of days ago turned 77 years old, and I will use his generation as an example. When my dad was a teenager in the 1930's, there were 19 working people for every retiree. One hundred years later, in the year 2030, it has been estimated that there will only be 1.2 working people for every retiree. If we do not pay our bills now, we will never pay our bills because the ratio of workers to retirees continues to decline. It gets only worse all the way out to at least halfway through the next century. So what I am going to ask Mr. DeLay on one side, what I am going to ask my fellow Democrats on the other, let us not claim victory in the budget because we have not even started. We are $5.5 trillion in debt, and we do not need the Democrats over here or the demagogues over there misleading the public. We have an awesome responsibility to defend this nation. We have an equally awesome responsibility to pay our bills. We have an equally awesome responsibility to be honest with the American people, make them aware of the problem and then, as their elected representatives, both Democrats and Republicans, let us solve them.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, correct me, but my colleague's resolution says that they should withdraw within 60 days. It is not a question whether or not they should be there. He is mandating that they would withdraw. I am not going to do that. I am not going to pull the plug on those kids.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I wish to tell my friend from California (Mr. Campbell) that, had this vote been taken 1 year ago today, I would have voted with him. In October, I went to Bosnia, after doing everything I could to keep our troops from going there both under a Republican and a Democratic President. I went to Bosnia with a bad attitude and a notebook looking for kids to tell me that we should not be there, and I spoke with hundreds of them. Not one said we should not be there. See, we are asked to put our political lives on the line. Those kids are putting their lives on the line. They think they should be there. Should Congress vote every time troops are deployed? Absolutely. But that is not what this resolution is about. This resolution is pulling the plug on the most successful American military venture in the history of our country. Are we somehow disappointed that there was not a body count; that there were not thousands of Xs killed; that our smart bombs did not blow up bridges? I can assure my colleagues that I, as a congressman, am not in the least bit disappointed that I did not have to write letters of condolences to the moms and the dads and the spouses and the kids because we did not lose anybody. This is one of the greatest victories in American military history, and we won it almost without firing a shot. Every one of the established goals they have accomplished. Not because of me, but because of guys like Walter Yates, Master Sergeant Taylor, PFC Rhodes from Ocean Springs, Mississippi. They did their job, and we ought to be proud of them. I am not going to pull the plug and see to it that those things that they have accomplished are for naught. Some people come to this floor and say, well, we are building four-bedroom, three-bath houses with swimming pools for these people. Go to Brcko. Do you know what their idea of peace is? Peace is being able to walk into the front yard to a circle of bricks 6 feet deep that they throw a bucket down and get their water; and every night they get on their knees and pray to their god in gratitude that that night they will not be raped, they will not be tortured, their husband will not be drug off, and just maybe their kids who had to flee four or five years ago can come home. Our troops have done a magnificent job. We should support them. We should defeat this resolution.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, as we debate this, there are 20,000 Puerto Ricans serving in the Armed Forces of the United States. In this century, 200,000 have taken the pledge to defend our country. As recently as the Vietnam war, almost as many Puerto Ricans as Mississippians gave their lives for our country. And as recently as the Gulf War, when American casualties were miraculously low, four Puerto Ricans died for the United States of America. Mr. Chairman, if that is not the price to pay for the privilege of deciding whether or not they want to be a State, then what is? They have paid the price. They deserve the right to make that decision. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to please vote in favor of this bill.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) for yielding. I am going to divert a little bit from the course. Everyone has spoken at great length of Ron's social commitment to our Nation, but I think very few realize how much he has done for the defense of our Nation, and I do not think he ever got the credit that he deserves for that. For the 2 years that the gentleman was Chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, I want the people to what know he has done. I happen to come from shipbuilding country. It is the major employer where I live. Our country was once a great maritime power and, up until 1980, we were building about 100 commercial ships a year. One of the ironies of the Reagan years that most people do not realize is, while the defense structure of our Nation went up incredibly during those years and we were building many warships, we went from building 100 commercial ships a year to none by the time President Reagan left office. The year that Ron Dellums assumed the chairmanship of the House Committee on Armed Services, this great Nation built fewer merchant ships than the Nation of Vietnam. They built one. One of the legacies that Ron will always carry with him is that, working with his committee, he spearheaded the effort and made it possible for the National Shipbuilding Initiative to become law, for our Nation to take the first steps toward becoming a maritime power again. The loan guarantee program that the gentleman from California allowed to become law and that he spoke so eloquently for started the first Federal loan guarantees of U.S.-built commercial ocean-going ships since 1980. Since that date, because of his actions, because of his forceful commitment, the loan portfolio now stands at $2 billion and 260 vessels have either been built or being built. This is a Nation that on the day Ron Dellums took over the committee was not building one. That is $1.1 billion for U.S. flag vessels; $670 million of vessels that are being built by Americans to be exported; and $130 million for something that the gentleman personally worked to include and that is the modernization of our shipyards so that we could remain competitive with our counterparts around the world. Specifically, there are 17 commercial ocean-going vessels that have been built as a result of Ron Dellums' good work. Fifteen of them are double-hulled tankers, so that in the future, if a ship hits a rock or hits another vessel and is carrying oil or chemicals, the chances are nine out of ten that it will not leak into the oceans or the rivers of the worlds. Ships are being built in the district of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Sisisky) at Newport News. They are being built in the district of the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan). They are being built in, of all places, the home State of F. Edward Hebert, the State of Louisiana. I think Mr. Hebert would certainly want to apologize for some of the shabby treatment that Ron got early on in his career, but he was magnanimous to take care of those folks when he had the chance. Two passenger ferries, five shipyards are being modernized, and one shipyard is being reopened as a result of that. There are approximately 200 liquid, dry cargo, and power barges that have been built as a result of this. At this present time, there are 20 applications totaling $1.2 billion on file, again, for a Nation that was building no commercial ships on the day Ron Dellums took over. But it is not just that. I think in his life and in what he preaches, he believes in peace through strength. I think the best way we would agree to prevent a war is to be so strong that no one wants to go to war with us. In the 2 years that Ron Dellums was Chairman, 13 Navy combatants were authorized, including six DDGs Aegis class destroyers, the finest in the world; one LHD; one aircraft carrier; two Navy oceanographic vessels to search the seas for places to hide our submarines and places for the enemy to hide theirs; two support ships; and one mine warfare ship. Because it became so apparently clear during the Gulf War how vulnerable this Nation was and how the world's traffic lanes for ships were vulnerable to the use of mine warfare. So in addition to all the good things that the gentleman has done from the heart, I think this is something that he did to strengthen our Nation and prevent the next generations from having to go to war and, above all, to put Americans like my family and his family, the people from Oakland and the people from South Mississippi, to give them the chance to make things here in this Nation, things that are important for what the gentleman once described as an ``island Nation.'' Mr. Speaker, I say to Ron Dellums, ``God bless you and thank you for what you have done.''

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I would like to join the long list of people commending the gentlewoman from North Carolina [Mrs. Clayton] for bringing this to our attention. Over 4,200 reservists will be affected in their pocketbooks by this. They do not make much money. Most of them volunteered to go to Bosnia. Some of them were involuntarily called up. All of them took a pay cut, in all probability, to serve their country. So it is very important that, where we can and when we can, we see to it that they incur no unnecessary expense in doing so. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the gentlewoman from North Carolina [Mrs. Clayton] for bringing this to our attention. I want to commend the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Buyer] and the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Bateman] for allowing this to come to the floor today. We are definitely doing the best thing for those people in uniform.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, if I may, I would like 5 minutes of that time, and I hope you will tell me when my time is up, because I would like to yield the balance to my other colleague. I want to begin by thanking the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] for being so generous with his time. I want to compliment him, a very active member of the Democratic Party, and compliment the previous speaker, the gentleman from California [Mr. Hunter], also a very active member of the Republican Party, for their very articulate remarks against giving President Clinton fast track authority to negotiate new free trade agreements with other countries. Mr. Speaker, we have a constitutional crisis in our country. In addition to everything that the gentleman from California [Mr. Hunter] said, which was on the mark, and everything that the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] said that was on the mark of why this trade agreement is bad, it is bad because it violates the Constitution of the United States. Apparently, there are a number of Congressmen who, after working very hard to get here, decided that they do not want to do their job. The first time that Congress gave away their constitutional responsibility was on the War Powers Act. If we look at Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, it very clearly gives to Congress and Congress alone the power to declare war. Our Founding Fathers did that because they grew up in an era where one king or one queen could decide for everyone that the Nation's youth would go off and die, and they wanted to change that. So they saw to it that the people's representatives and only the people's representatives by a majority vote could make that decision. When Congress gave the President the War Powers Act, it was the first time they gave away their constitutionally mandated responsibilities. The second time they did that was just last year when the majority in Congress voted to pass the line-item veto. It was espoused at the time as something to cut the pork out of the budget, but they failed to mention that it was a budget that Congress put together. It was in effect saying that we cannot help ourselves. I voted against that, and I predicted at the time that all that it would be used to do is cut the defense budget. Thus far, Mr. Speaker, I am 90 percent right, because 90 percent of all of the things that have been vetoed by the President of the United States are defense related, and none of them contained any pork. Either tomorrow or Sunday, this body will once again have to make a decision as to whether or not we want to keep our constitutionally mandated duties or give them to the President of the United States. I am going to vote to keep those duties that I want the citizens of south Mississippi to have, and I think that more than half of my Democratic colleagues, for a variety of reasons, will vote to do so. So I really want to address my talk tonight to my Republican colleagues and those people who consider themselves to be Republicans. Mr. Speaker, almost on an hourly basis my Republican colleagues come to the House floor and say that President Clinton cannot be trusted. And they point to some things that would certainly give a great deal of credibility to their arguments. I hope that they are saying what they mean, and that they will mean what they say, because they will be asked either tomorrow or Sunday to give away their constitutionally mandated responsibility as espoused in Article I, Section 8, clause 3 of the Constitution to regulate commerce. They will be giving that, if they vote for fast track, to the man they say cannot be trusted. It is a very powerful argument for every Republican in this Congress to vote against fast track. Mr. Pallone is right when he talks about people being hurt. I represent \1/435\th of this country. In that \1/435\th of this country, 5 factories have been closed. The people who want to give the President fast track authority tout it as being somehow a way to smack the unions about. Not one of those factories was a union factory, not one. What it was was a place that in most instances employed women who had found themselves, either through the death of their husband or the separation from their husband as the sole earners of their family, they had been stuck with the responsibility of raising children and they were the only ones who were making a living. Ninety percent of the people who lost their jobs as a result of NAFTA were the women in those factories, not the union, ``union thugs,'' that were told were opposed to it. It is even worse than that, because the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] comes from a very populous State, and maybe in a populous State like New Jersey the retraining that he talks about makes some sense, because maybe there is something else for those people to do. But I can assure my colleagues in Neely, Mississippi, in Wiggins, Mississippi, in Lumberton, Mississippi, and the other small towns of Mississippi that have had their only factory shut down as a result of NAFTA, there is nothing else for those people to do. It is simply not fair, and it is simply naive for Congress to imagine that there is additional opportunities for these people. The only thing that Congress should know is that in a microcosm, the good people of America have been hurt and in a microcosm our Nation has gone from a trade surplus to a trade deficit with both Mexico and NAFTA as a result of the last Free Trade Agreement. So, Mr. Speaker, since we will have very, very little opportunity to speak on this in the next couple of days, and since apparently the Speaker of the House has seen to it that this vote will take place on a weekend when most congressional offices will be closed, and therefore, there will be no one at the phones to answer those phones when citizens want to call up and encourage their Congressman to vote against this, I want to take this opportunity to speak on it and have my remarks put in the Record. America's Lost Value: Hard Work is Rewarded

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Madam Speaker, let me begin by agreeing with everything the gentleman from California [Mr. Cox] just said. All of those things really did happen. The company that shipped that container-load of AK-47's into our country is the Chinese Ocean Shipping Co. We on the Committee on National Security this year passed an amendment which would ban that company, or any state-owned shipping company, from leasing or operating an American port that used to be a military installation that has reverted back to a local community. Unfortunately, the Senators chose not to do so, and it was dropped out of the conference committee report. I want to go back to some things that were said earlier, that this bill is great because we authorize the President to do some things. One of the things we are as Members of Congress expected to do is read the Constitution of the United States, and any Member who reads the Constitution of the United States knows that in section 1 it talks about the powers of the Members of Congress. One of those powers will be debated twice today, because it involves Article I, section 8, clause 3 of the Constitution, which clearly gives Congress, and I am quoting, ``the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations.'' What the gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Fowler] is trying to do here is to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and I have no problem with that because she is trying to slap the Chinese for their wrongful deeds. The problem with it is we should be doing it and we should not be delegating our constitutionally mandated authority to the President. We know they have done bad things. We know that they have tried to smuggle a container, a 40-foot container load of AK-47's into this country to sell to street gangs in this country and cause harm in this country. Let us not pretend that that is not going on. And let us not pretend that these measures that have absolutely no force at all are going to do anything about it. I am going to say for the last time, if this Congress is serious about getting the Chinese' attention for their wrongful deeds, we have to hit them in the pocketbook. They have unlimited access to the American market in most favored nation status which a majority of Members in this body, but not me, voted for, which allows them to have market access for 2 percent. They charge American goods anywhere up to 40 percent. We have had two separate options, two separate opportunities to level the playing field. The sponsor of this bill did not vote to do so. I hope this Congress in the next session will address that. Because if we really think that the Chinese are doing wrong things and we really want to address it, there is a means to do so. It is called trade fairness. It is called basic fairness for the American working people. I hope just once the Committee on Ways and Means will allow the Members of this body to vote on something that will call for fairness in trade between ourselves and the People's Republic of China.