Todd Tiahrt

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, it appears to finally be here, we have an agreement on tax relief for working Americans. Congress and the White House have come together and developed a package that will sustain a strong economy. Is it perfect or the best we could do? Probably not. But in a democracy we all give a little. So it is not perfect but tax relief is necessary and it is long overdue. The St. Louis Post Dispatch said it well when it said: Nobody asked wage earners in Missouri if they could afford President Clinton's 1993 tax increase. The Republican tax relief plan puts some of the money back where it belongs, in the pockets of working Americans. The tax relief plans passed by the House and the Senate are not government handouts. This money belongs to the workers of Missouri and they should not have to come on bended knee to the Federal Government just to keep more of what they worked so hard to earn. It is the same for wage earners in Kansas in my district and across America, they should keep more of what they worked so hard to earn. I urge my colleagues to vote for the tax relief plan for working families. It is long overdue.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, I am very proud of my fellow Republicans. Last night we met for 3 hours and openly and honestly discussed our faults and our hopes for the future. We have heard and read the rumors about the nonexistent or alleged coup attempt, and we all know the Republicans do not always agree. But we decided to work together to overcome the obstacles that we have. I admire our leadership. They open themselves to the media every day. Their lives are scrutinized by the public microscope, and this makes us all very guarded. Yet last night they opened themselves, they were vulnerable, honest, and frank. Any differences we had yesterday morning are now behind us. We are looking forward now. As a team we are fighting for tax relief for working Americans. Together we will do all we can to overcome any reason, any excuse the opponents have to overcome tax relief, or to oppose tax relief. Eventually there will be only one vote for tax relief. It will be at the request of the American people, with the consent of Congress, and with the agreement of the President. Either Members are for tax relief or they are against it. The Republicans have come together to get tax relief for working Americans.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. I ask the committee pay close attention to the Surface Transportation Board and its environmental mitigation study for Wichita. The report language specifies that the committee is concerned with Surface Transportation Finance Docket Number 32760. The committee is instructing the board to use as the basis for its decision verifiable and appropriate assumptions such as train speed and the number of trains. The committee is not telling the board what to base its decision on, but it is saying that the assumption it uses must be verifiable and appropriate. If there is any material change in the facts upon which the board bases its decision, then the committee expects the board to be proactive in exercising its jurisdiction by re- examining the final mitigation measures it would impose upon the Union Pacific Corp. or any of its subsidiaries. For example, if Union Pacific decides to significantly increase the number of trains going through Wichita or fails to get their speed up to 30 miles per hour going through town, then the committee expects the board to exercise its jurisdiction and increase the mitigation necessary to remedy the situation. Of course the city of Wichita or an interested party must petition the board to reopen the docket. The board does not have to monitor the number of trains or the speed of the trains traveling through Wichita. Wichita will be monitoring this closely. I appreciate the opportunity for this colloquy, and I want to comment on what a fine job the committee has done with the gentleman's leadership.

Mr. TIAHRT. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. TIAHRT. There is justifiable fear, I believe, in my district that the Union Pacific will significantly increase the number of trains traveling through Wichita after the Surface Transportation's 5-year review period. The board has taken the Union Pacific at its word and adjusted, although not yet officially, the amount of mitigation necessary for Wichita. I am concerned that the Union Pacific will not be able to increase the speed of its trains to 30 miles per hour or will significantly increase the number of trains traveling through Wichita after the 5-year period of the Surface Transportation Board review. Increasing the speed of trains going through Wichita will be extremely difficult even under ideal conditions, and with the breakup of Conrail, train traffic going through Kansas City will probably increase. This will put further pressure on Union Pacific to route more trains through Wichita. Mr. Chairman, the report language included in this bill is designed to give the citizens of Wichita an avenue to redress in case Union Pacific decides to significantly increase the number of trains traveling through Wichita or if the Union Pacific does not increase the speeds of its trains as they promised.

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Chairman, I would like to engage in a colloquy with the chairman of the Subcommittee on Transportation of the Committee on Appropriations for issues very important to the folks of Kansas. Mr. Chairman, because of the merger between the Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific Railroads, the city of Wichita would be faced with a significant increase in trains traveling through the center of town. These trains will cause significant health, safety and traffic congestion. The Surface Transportation Board has jurisdiction over the Union Pacific-Southern Pacific merger. The board has already required the merger company, Union Pacific, to pay all baseline mitigation costs of this merger. On April 15, 1997, the board stated that the Union Pacific will have to pay the full cost of baseline mitigation resulting from a merger. However, several weeks before this decision was rendered, Union Pacific downscaled the extent of the train traffic increase to 5\1/2\ trains and increased the speed of those trains to 30 miles per hour.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, I feel like our quest for tax relief is like a few lines from the song by the Lord of La Mancha: To dream the impossible dream, to right the unrightable wrong, to bear with unbearable sorrow. It has been 16 years since we have had tax relief, and still we hear so many reasons why we have to vote against the tax relief plan. When you do not want to do something like vote for tax relief, any excuse is a good excuse: too much for the rich, even though the rich are considered a family of four where each parent is making $32,000 a year; not enough income tax relief for those who are considered poor, even though they pay no income tax. There will be only one tax relief package to vote for, it will be the agreement between the Congress, the President, and the American people. There will be no excuse for voting against tax relief. Mr. Speaker, let us dream the impossible dream. Let us give tax relief to working Americans.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, if compromise of our national security and corruption of the electoral process itself were not involved, I would find great humor in the attempts to change the subject by the other side. Everyone knows how absolutely brilliant children can be at changing the subject, how inventive our kids can be at shifting responsibility and finding excuses for their behavior. It is like a child playing with a dog in a way that he is not supposed to, pulling his tail or poking the dog where he hates to be poked, and then when the dog reacts by barking or biting, the child indignantly blames the dog. Well, Mr. Speaker, what we have is the White House in clear violation of the law and then turning around and blaming the system for making them break the law. The system somehow required the Democrat National Committee to take foreign money. The system somehow required the White House to turn the White House into the mother of all fundraising operations. The system somehow required the DNC to accept drug money from drug traffickers. Great example for our kids, Mr. Speaker; break the law then blame it all on the system.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, I have gotten a few calls over the past weeks about the Treasury Department's use of imputed income. Imputed income means if you own your own home, you could move out and rent it to another family, and therefore you could be making some more money, and it should be taxed. There are a lot of taxpayers that are feeling a little bit insulted by this concept that has been developed by a bunch of out-of-touch bureaucrats here in Washington, DC, who think that people can count income that is not really income. Maybe the President can rent his home out for a lot of money, but most people do not own or live in a home that they own free and clear. Telling the average American families that their incomes are actually $30,000 or more higher than they think is truly bizarre. Telling middle-class families that they are actually rich and therefore do not need some tax relief is just the latest outrage from the bureaucracy in Washington, DC, that does not live in the real world. Most Americans know it is time for some tax relief here in America.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Chairman, I think this amendment meets the criteria that he is establishing here. It allows AmeriCorps to move on. I would like to remind the gentleman from Indiana that AmeriCorps spends about 11 percent of their budget authority. They have been allocated $1.6 billion from this Congress since its conception. They have only spent about $300 million. With a reduced budget as suggested here, we are able to achieve both of the gentleman's goals, help the Gulf War veterans who are suffering from this illness and allow AmeriCorps to continue at a reduced size so that they can become more efficient.

Mr. TIAHRT. I would suggest that this amendment does exactly what the gentleman is suggesting.

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Chairman, this is a very important amendment. I ask every Member of the House to consider what they believe our priorities should be, and I am hopeful that we will place our highest priority on the current and future health of the men and women who fought and served for freedom in our country. Caring for veterans who fought for America's freedom and security is a necessary function of our Federal Government. Paying healthy AmeriCorps volunteers is simply not. I ask Members to please not turn their backs on the veterans who so faithfully served this country in the Persian Gulf. Mr. Chairman, I submit for the Record two reports on the subject of my amendment: Time to End the Troubled AmeriCorps On April 27-29, 1997, with Independence Hall as a picturesque backdrop, over 2,800 delegates from across the country, including governors, mayors, private-sector leaders, and representatives from leading foundations, gathered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for the Presidents' Summit for America's Future. With President Bill Clinton and former President George Bush as honorary co-chairmen, this gathering was called to examine a topic that hardly could be more important: the future of volunteerism in the United States, and especially how the voluntary sector can aid America's children. The great 19th century French observer of American politics, Alexis de Tocqueville, noted that what made America great was the tendency of its people to form voluntary associations to meet community needs. Whereas Europeans looked with docility to government to solve problems, Americans learned self-reliance and the ability to look beyond individual self-interest through cooperation in voluntary organizations. In this century, however, as government programs--particularly human services programs-- have usurped much of America's traditionally voluntary domain, both the country's civic fabric and the character of its individual citizens have changed for the worse. The Presidents' Summit gave Americans a chance to pause and reflect on how community needs could best be met. The increasingly widespread appeal of the conservative message on the need to re-limit government led President Clinton himself to declare that the ``era of big government is over.'' Now America's civil society and corporate community have been called in to deal with the problems created by the failure of federal programs. Over the past few months, Newsweek has devoted a portion of its ``Periscope'' page to the many corporations that have agreed to make major contributions of goods or services as part of the effort to meet these needs. LensCrafters, for example, has agreed to provide free eye care for one million needy people, and the National Restaurant Association has agreed to hire 250,000 youngsters in the next five years.\1\ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Footnotes at end of article. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- But for all the fanfare and national press attention surrounding the Presidents' Summit--as well as the bipartisan images and goodwill it generated--there is reason to believe that it may serve less to foster a vision of a healthy voluntary sector free of unwarranted government intervention than to promote further charitable dependence on federal resources. The Presidents' Summit was largely the brainchild of former Senator Harris Wofford (D-PA), Chief Executive of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). In congressional testimony, Wofford declared that the CNCS, along with the Points of Light Foundation (another federally funded entity designed to promote volunteerism \2\), ``is working . . . in initiating and planning the Summit to promote the goals of the National and Community Service Act, the mission of the Corporation, and the vision set forth in the Corporation's Strategic Plan.'' \3\ The CNCS helps oversee administration of the AmeriCorps program, President Clinton's ``domestic Peace Corps,'' the largest extension of the federal government in recent years. Ever since its creation in 1993, AmeriCorps has been mired in controversy. Two recent independent audits of the program by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), the semiannual report of the Corporation's own Inspector General, and two audits by the nationally renowned Arthur Andersen accounting firm all have found serious evidence of cost overruns and mismanagement. Despite these problems, however, and despite a continuing inability to correct them, the Corporation has benefited from large amounts of good publicity, thanks in part to what one critic has called the ``camera-ready smiles of young `volunteers' '' whose efforts made good news copy.\4\ In an era in which balancing the federal budget has become a national priority, the CNCS has requested $546,500,000 for fiscal year (FY) 1998--an increase of 36 percent over the $400 million appropriated in FY 1997. Not only was the Philadelphia summit choreographed in part by AmeriCorps, but its proceedings offered a rousing endorsement of this very troubled program. Despite the good publicity for AmeriCorps that the Summit may generate, Congress should view the request for increased AmeriCorps funding with considerable skepticism. In this age or re- limiting government, the American public and its elected representatives should reject the very premise upon which AmeriCorps rests: that the federal government has an important activist role to play in guiding the voluntary sector in the United States. what is americorps? One of Governor Bill Clinton's key platform stands in 1992 was a call to create a federal program that would help individuals meet the high costs associated with acquiring a college education in exchange for community service. As President, Clinton saw his vision implemented through the National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993. The Act created the CNCS, which helps administer the ``largest national and community service program since the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s.'' \5\ Over the past four years, AmeriCorps has grown from a mere pilot program to include more than 24,000 people participating in more than 430 programs across the country. These programs focus primarily on four areas: education, the environment, public safety, and human services. Since 1993, despite the fact that Washington spends $1.3 billion annually to promote volunteerism through 23 other federal programs, more than $800 million has been appropriated to pay for 100,000 participants in CNCS's major program, AmerCorps*USA.\6\ Full-time AmeriCorps participants work a minimum of 1,700 hours per year, receiving in turn a $7,460 stipend and an education award of $4,725 in the form of a college tuition voucher or credit to repay a past student loan. In his 1995 State of the Union address, President Clinton praised AmeriCorps as ``citizenship at its best.'' In Philadelphia, the President announced his intention to expand the program in two ways: First, he wants to create a ``citizen army'' of one million volunteer literacy tutors to shore up the failed public school system in the United States. Rather than hold public schools accountable for teaching basic skills, his plan would cost taxpayers at least $2.75 billion and rely heavily on coordination and instruction by 10,000 new AmeriCorps ``tutor coordinators.'' \7\ Second, the President wants to expand AmeriCorps by 33,000 volunteers over the next five years by teaming with private organizations that would be responsible for paying the paid volunteers' living stipends while taxpayers still pay the cost of their college scholarships.\8\

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Chairman, I am here tonight to address the priorities within this bill. The amendment I offer would dedicate an additional $25 million to the Veterans Administration's Medical and Prosthetic Research Account to dramatically increase the level of research which the VA is doing on the illness which is affecting thousands of American veterans who served this country in the Persian Gulf war. This year the Veterans Administration is dedicating a mere $3.6 million to the research of the illness which our gulf war veterans are suffering from. To pay for this very necessary research, the amendment would partially eliminate funding for the AmeriCorps program and direct it towards this much-needed research. First, let me address why this amendment is necessary. The fiscal year 1998 VA-HUD Appropriations Act contains $267 million for the VA's medical and prosthetic research account. In the Committee on Appropriations an earmark was added which directs $20 million of this current appropriation to be spent on gulf war research. This pays for and expands the current research into gulf war illness. However it comes at the expense of other important research being done by the VA, such as Diabetes Centers of Excellence, Centers for Rehabilitation Medicine, and the VA's ability to retain high quality physicians. It just takes from one pocket, cutting important research, to put in another. This solves one problem yet, unfortunately, creates many more. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would remedy the problem completely. This amendment presents a question of priorities. We should do what is more important, expanding the very minimal research which the VA is doing on the illnesses our gulf war vets are experiencing and living with daily, or continuing paying for healthy young people to volunteer for public service jobs. Before we make our decision, let us examine the facts. This is difficult when discussing the gulf war illness. The problem is we cannot define it conclusively, treat it, or explain exactly how it is caused. The VA itself has said, ``Currently, there is no evidence of a single unifying illness to explain the health problems of all gulf war veterans.'' Without much-needed research, these veterans will continue to suffer, and we do not have the answers to our gulf war illness questions. We do know that the Department of Defense has confirmed that 27,000 American soldiers could have been exposed to chemical agents in the Persian Gulf. Separately, the CIA has estimated as many as 120,000 could have been exposed. I can also tell my colleagues what some of our gulf war veterans are experiencing. Like U.S. Army Reserve Sgt. David Janda. He is a 35-year- old father of three from Hutchinson, KS. He suffers from blinding headaches, a blistering rash which he has had for 6 months, chronic diarrhea and joint pain. Or Kenny Schwartz of Great Bend, KS, who endures stabbing pain in his left eye, stiffness in his joints which make him unable to walk, memory loss and scarring rashes. Their doctors can neither diagnose nor effectively treat these symptoms. To date, 90,000 Persian Gulf war veterans have contacted the VA's gulf war registry and reported symptoms which are consistent with how the Journal of the American Medical Association has described gulf war illness: fatigue, joint pain, gastrointestinal complaints, memory problems, emotional change, impotence, and insomnia. This is the Veterans' Administration current response: $3.6 million of research funding this year. That is $133 for every American veteran we know of that has been exposed to chemical agents in the gulf. On the other hand, we have AmeriCorps. This year we are spending $402 million on the AmeriCorps program. That is $19,000 in Federal funding for every one of the over 20,000 AmeriCorps paid volunteers. This chart shows the discrepancy, Mr. Chairman; $133 per veteran being spent on research for gulf war illness versus $19,000 spent for every paid volunteer. AmeriCorps pays recruited volunteers to perform public service jobs. It also provides $7500 for living expenses and $4,725 for an educational award. They also get health coverage and child care. Our $19,000 a year paid volunteers have lobbied the government, worked as low level Federal bureaucrats, and built hornos, which are ovens built from dirt and grass that were originally used some 4,000 years ago. Two recent audits by the GAO and a report from AmeriCorps' own Inspector General have found serious inefficiencies and mismanagement. In addition, Arthur Andersen has tried to audit AmeriCorps twice, and found the books too much of a mess to even perform an audit, yet we are asking to continue funding AmeriCorps at the current level while ignoring the illness of our Gulf War veterans. I cannot go back to Kansas and tell David Janda and Kenny Schwartz that we can only muster $133 per veteran to investigate what is making them sick and how to treat it, yet we have $19,000 to pay a paid volunteer to offer a healthy youngster that lives next door to these veterans.

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk a little bit about the amendment that just passed the House before we closed business for this day because it does establish a very good priority for this Nation and for this Congress. We, for once, for the first time, I think, since the gulf war at least, we have established that gulf war illness is going to be a priority when it comes to solving or finding a cure for this illness that has been plaguing so many of our gulf war veterans. We did so by making a good compromise to what we had before in the bill. What this amendment did basically is it took half the funding from the National Service Corporation and it transferred it to the veterans research account so that we can focus on the gulf war illnesses. Let me tell my colleagues a little bit about it. In Kansas, we have got several people, quite a few people that are currently suffering from this. I want to thank first of all Dan Thimesch from the 93d District of Kansas. Representative Thimesch brought this very important issue to my attention and provided me with a lot of information on what is going on in Kansas. He told me about Sgt. David Janda, a 35-year-old father of three from Hutchinson, KS, suffering from blinding headaches and a blistering rash. He has had this problem for 6 years. It includes chronic diarrhea and joint pain. He talked to me about Kenny Schwartz of Great Bend who endures a stabbing pain in his left eye and stiffness in his joints. He has memory loss and scarring rashes. Now we find out in that in Kansas that some insurance companies have decided that this is a war-related illness and they are going to be denying coverage based on a clause in their health insurance contract that says any health-related problems as a result of war will not be covered by health insurance, so it leaves these people without coverage. But now we have a way of finding out a cure for these illnesses because of the research money that we are putting in place. We are, in exchange, we are cutting back on a program that is largely inefficient and ineffective, AmeriCorps. It is a troubled organization and it does need to improve. And I hope through the course of this debate that we have had tonight, that Members are aware that there need to be advances in the way AmeriCorps conducts business. Right now they are suffering a 39-percent dropout rate across the United States. They have unauditable books. They only expend 11 percent of the money that they are allocated by the Federal Government. Since its conception, we have allocated $1.6 billion to AmeriCorps. Out of that $1.6 billion, only approximately $300 million has been spent or set aside for their trust fund for education that they have promised to the people that have participated in the program, the paid volunteers. That leaves about $1 billion, over $1 billion that has yet to be expended. So if AmeriCorps was actually cut off today and no funds were allocated by this Congress, the 105th Congress, AmeriCorps could continue for 5 to 10 years just on the money that they have been already budgeted but not yet spent because of their inefficiency. So it is an organization that needs to look at itself. I think they need to evaluate the trends they are using, the direction they are headed. Perhaps they need to rewrite their vision statement and come up with a more effective way of addressing the idea, the concept that they had in mind when it first came into service. It is this inefficiency, and in comparison to the great need of this illness that gulf war veterans are suffering from, that brought on this decision that we have made tonight of balancing the two. The President is strongly in support of AmeriCorps. It has kind of been his pet program. And the amendment that was put in place tonight does satisfy the need that he has to have paid volunteers in government service, and it also provides a solution to the need that we have for more research on gulf war illness. I think it was a good compromise that was reached tonight. It was not the original intent that I had when I put the amendment forward, but in this business it seems like sometimes we have to come up with the best solution to the problem, the best solution available that we have to the problem, and I think that we have accomplished that tonight. I hope that this bill will pass when we get done with the amendment process at the end of the week, and that we can have not only a solution for our gulf war illnesses but also have a more effective AmeriCorps.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, there was a fascinating article on the front page of the Washington Post last week. The article is entitled ``Voters Feeling Remote From Issues In Capital.'' One person is quoted as saying, ``Politics in Washington doesn't seem to affect me directly.'' Well, Mr. Speaker, many people do not realize it but Washington does affect them directly. Political choices made in Washington have a direct impact on the amount of taxes they pay. Perhaps people feel that regardless of what politicians say, they know that the tax bill will keep going up. That, in fact, is the way things have been going here in Washington. The family tax burden has steadily climbed upwards from 5 percent in 1950 to 25 percent today. Let me remind my colleagues that is only the Federal tax burden. When we add that with hidden taxes, with State and local taxes, it goes to over 50 percent. Now it is time for a change. It is time for Washington to spend a little less so families can have a little more.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, lend me your ear. Uncle Sam's tax bite has gotten so overbearing that not even Mike Tyson could defend himself. Taxpayers everywhere are so outraged that some are calling it the Mike Tyson tax bite. Hard-bitten taxpayers who call up the IRS to complain sure do get an earful. Mr. Speaker, I think it is time for taxpayers to bite back. Uncle Sam's relentless drive to take an ever greater bite out of the family budget is an insult to taxpayers everywhere who want to pay their fair share but think that Mike Tyson tactics are over the line. Uncle Sam's tax bite is more than just irritating. It is downright offensive to the spirit of fair play. It is time to put a stop to Uncle Sam's ear-isistible urge to rip off a huge chunk from the family paycheck. Taxpayers and Congress should not allow such barbaric behavior to continue. It is time for the taxpayers to stand up and declare, ``No mas.'' It is time for tax relief for working Americans.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, what is the difference between Mike Tyson and Uncle Sam? The answer is not much, but keep your ear to the ground. The amazing thing is that Big Mike got disqualified for taking too big a bite out of something he was not supposed to, but Uncle Sam bites you year after year, only there is no referee around to stop the foul play. Well, there is the IRS, but needless to say the IRS is not much help. Mr. Speaker, Uncle Sam has been chomping on the pocketbooks of American taxpayers for a long time. A lot of taxpayers have been taking to bobbing and weaving away from the painful jaws of Uncle Sam to protect themselves from the massive tax bite. Taxpayers have been crying out for some relief for a long time, but Uncle Sam never seems to learn any lessons. He just wants to take a bigger bite out of our hides, and he does not care how much it hurts. It is time to tell Uncle Sam ``No mas!'' and let the IRS know that Uncle Sam's tax biting days are over. It is time for some tax relief for American taxpayers.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, any excuse is a good excuse if someone does not want to do something. The liberals do not want to vote for tax relief, so any excuse will do. The most frequent excuse is that tax relief will only go to the rich. In today's Washington Post in the James K. Glassman column it says the Democratic Policy Committee recently sent an outraged fax to radio talk show hosts around the country. Under the current GOP proposal, this is a quote, ``The top 1 percent of Americans would receive more benefits than the combined bottom 60 percent in tax cuts.'' The IRS reports that the top 1 percent of Americans paid 29 percent of the Nation's income tax bill, and the bottom 60 percent paid just 9 percent. So to be fair, the top 1 percent should get triple the cuts as the bottom 60 percent. But that is not the plan. The plan is targeted tax relief for the middle class. That is what we passed in this House. But any excuse is a good excuse if someone does not want to vote for tax relief.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, I have seen information from the 1996 Statistical Abstract of the United States, and on page 461 is a table of statistics that shows the median household income in 1994, the latest year of which figures are available, was $32,264. An American household earning $32,264 is about as middle class as middle class can be. So the question I have is should middle-class households, such as one earning $32,264 a year, be given tax relief? Should Washington spend a little bit less money so that families with incomes of about $32,000 a year can have a little more? I think we should. I think we should let middle-income families keep a little more of what is already theirs, their hard-earned money, and that tax relief package that was passed by Congress was designed exactly for the middle class. My mind keeps going back to the single mother working at an aircraft company in Wichita, KS. She has three children. She is working hard trying to keep the three kids in school, properly clothed, never going hungry, living in a good home. Should she be able to keep more of her hard-earned money? I think so. Yes, Mr. Speaker, she should.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, I believe that we are all aware that we need to balance the Federal budget, and the reason it is no longer being argued is because the Republican Party heard the cries of the American public who said we must balance the Federal budget. It really is common sense, but it has been a generation since we have balanced the budget. For a long time the Democrats were in control and they did not even consider it, would not even consider a balanced budget. The same with tax relief. It was not considered until the Republicans got control and took the cries of the American people to the floor of the House and made them heard, and now we are talking about how big the tax relief should be and who should get it. And it is very clear that when you give $500 per child tax relief, that goes to the most poor as well as those who are making more. Now when we talk about capital gains, the IRS has told us that tax relief in capital gains, 75 percent of the recipients will make less than $75,000. So there has been a lot of bad information about who is getting tax relief and who is not. The Treasury Department is trying to manipulate the numbers to push more people into the wealthy category than actually exist there so they can focus on bogus numbers. But the truth is, the Republican Party is going to provide tax relief for middle-class people, for working poor, for people who need the tax relief. Because people do two things with their money once they get tax relief. They either spend it or save it. Both are good for our economy. In an era when we are balancing the budget and we have limited spending, I think it is important that we take time to set national priorities. One of those national priorities that I think we need to set is the need for research for the gulf war illness that has plagued tens of thousands of our servicemen and women. We really do not know how many Americans are affected by exposure to chemical warfare agents. Some 700,000 men and women served America in the gulf war. According to the Department of Defense, at least as a minimum, 20,000 soldiers were exposed to a chemical agent at Khamisiyah, according to the DOD. However, as many as 120,000 gulf war veterans may have been exposed, according to the CIA. The real truth is we have no idea how many people are suffering from gulf war illness. We do not know how many were even exposed. And as time goes by, more and more of those are showing up with symptoms. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, the symptoms are fatigue, joint pain, gastrointestinal complaints, memory loss, emotional changes, impotence, and insomnia. This is just some of what gulf war vets are living through every day. And so far, we have not given priority to finding the cure for this, finding the cure for our servicemen and women who served in the gulf war. Thanks to people like Representative Dan Thimesch, from the 93rd District of the Kansas House of Representatives, he has brought this issue to my attention and to the attention of the entire State of Kansas, and made it a priority there that we address the needs of people who are suffering from this illness. When we establish these higher priorities, we need to shift money. When we are trying to get to balance the budget, we have these priorities that we have so many efficient programs, so we need to take the money from inefficient programs and move it to higher priorities like curing Gulf War illness. Americorp is one of those programs that is very inefficient. We all know that it was designed as paid volunteers. The problem that we are having in Americorp is that we cannot keep people on the job. They sign up, start drawing their pay, and then quit showing up to do their paid volunteer work. According to the Corporation of National Service, the annual direct compensation package for an Americorp volunteer is $15,900. Now, if this is an accurate figure, this is more than 42 percent of what the young people with real jobs between the ages of 15 and 24 make every year. Incidentally, the directors of the Americorp program do not even use the word ``volunteers.'' They prefer to call them ``members,'' because if you go to the dictionary and look up the definition of ``volunteer,'' you will see that there is nothing to do with pay. It is only when we get to a big government approach to volunteers that we decide to pay them to do what 89 million volunteers do every year. In Kansas we had an interesting situation at the Cheney Reservoir. A dozen Americorp paid volunteers showed up to help clean up around the lake by request of the Cheney Lake Association. By the end of the first week, more than one half of the paid volunteers simply quit showing up for work. In Colorado, Americorp built hornos. Hornos is a mud oven that was used by the residents of Colorado some 4,000 years ago to cook their food. But now this mud oven is available to travelers to stop by, collect some wood, cook their food in this primitive oven. So Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I would say that we need to establish higher priority, eliminate Americorp, and shift the money to curing gulf war illness.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, one way to think about our tax policy is to consider two opposite cases. Under a tax regime that took every penny of what you earned, that would certainly be considered tyranny. Under a tax regime that allowed you freedom to do whatever you wished to do with that money that you earned, that would be considered maximum freedom. Well, today we can move our tax regime toward the direction of more freedom and away from the direction of more tyranny. ``Tyranny'' means absence of freedom. It means that a truck driver who earns $100 after driving 100 miles finds that he is not free to do what he wishes with that money because the Government takes a quarter to a half of it. He is taxed on the coffee he drinks. He is taxed on the fuel that he burns in his truck. He pays taxes on the truck. He pays income taxes. No wonder he feels ripped off. It is time to move to more freedom and less Government tyranny. It is time for more tax relief and less Government waste.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, few issues are more closely linked to the idea of freedom than the issue of taxation. If America is to remain the land of opportunity, it can only be so if the people are free, free from a government that stands in the way of Americans pursuing their dreams. My family came to Kansas as immigrants in 1893. They arrived virtually penniless. But they knew that through hard work, the sky was the limit. They followed the Kansas motto, ``Ad astra per aspera,'' to the stars through difficulty. Like others, they came to America to escape limits on their freedoms, whether religious, economic, or political, and they came to pursue their dreams. But when a government takes more and more of the fruits of our labor, it becomes more and more difficult to pursue our dreams. The Government's power to tax Americans, to take away from our dreams, has grown too great. It is time to cut back on the Government's power. It is time to bring back the idea that America is the land of opportunity.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity because I have kind of a unique perspective. I am probably the only Member in Congress, I believe I am the only Member in Congress, that actually came out of aerospace, and I worked on some of the specifications for the B-2 so I know that the mission was not just to fly over Russia. It was to fly anywhere globally and attack any target that was protected by surface-to-air missiles. But the reason I support the B-2 is really twofold. No. 1, it is economical in terms of human risk. If my colleagues look at the initial strike in Desert Storm, there were in excess of a dozen targets. It took 75 aircraft, placing more than 140 servicemen at risk by those initial strikes, and yet that same group of tasks, those same targets, could have been accomplished by just two B-2's, placing only four pilots at risk. So in human terms of human risk, this is a very economical weapon to have in our inventory. And the second one is just the pure cost of maintaining the 75-plus aircraft, the procurement, the maintenance, the keeping them up. If we balance that with the cost of B-2's, it is more economical. So it may be costly, but yet it is economical, and vote no on the amendment.