Mel Watt

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. I hope the poor little person in Nebraska that the gentleman was talking about----

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. We are not talking about clairvoyance, we are talking about knowing or reasonably expecting. That is the same, the same identical legal standard that exists in the United States of America. This is not clairvoyance we are talking about. It is the same legal standard that every manufacturer in the United States is subjected to.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank that chairman for yielding to me and for organizing this important African-American History Month special order and doing so and taking over in the place of our colleague, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Stokes]. I think it would be remiss if we did not send our special regards and wishes for a speedy recovery to our colleague, Lou Stokes, and hope that he gets back here soon and continues to provide the kind of leadership he has provided to us over a period of time. The theme for this special order, African-American Women, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, is particularly appropriate. I would like to do three short things, given the lateness of the hour. First of all, I want to go back to a special order or an insertion that I did in last year's African-American history special order and pay tribute to a special woman. Apparently I was a year ahead of my time because the theme last year was not necessarily African-American women, but I did attribute to a special African-American woman who has had a special impact in my congressional district in North Carolina. Her name was Charlotte Hawkins Brown, who was the founder of the Palmer Memorial Institute, which is located in Sedalia, NC. At the age of 18, Ms. Charlotte Hawkins at that time accepted a teaching position in a school called the American Missionary Association, near Greensboro to teach at the Bethany Institute near Greensboro. And that school went out of existence after about a year. She committed herself to founding a school for women because of the fact that North Carolina had the second highest illiteracy rate in the country at that time. She traveled back to Massachusetts to raise money for this purpose, did some singing at the seashore, waited tables, sought out donations, worked in various jobs and finally realized the dream of opening the Palmer Memorial Institute in the year 1902. That institute continued until Charlotte Hawkins Brown died on January 11, 1961, and the school actually continued until the year 1971. So that I can make sure that Charlotte Hawkins Brown gets paired with all the wonderful, powerful women whose names have been mentioned this evening by other Members of Congress, I wanted to restate the important role that Charlotte Hawkins Brown has played in our history. Second, I want to pay tribute to Harriet Tubman, and I want to do it in a kind of a backhanded way. And I do this without any disrespect to Harriet Tubman. But there is a gentleman in North Carolina by the name of Hal Sieber who has actually researched this thing and determined that the Underground Railroad started in Greensboro, NC. He has written a book called the ``Holy Ground'' in which he has gone and researched this. In that book he writes the following: ``The legendary national underground railroad system most often associated in later history with the conductor, Harriet Tubman, assisted the escape of thousands of African Americans from captivity. It was founded in the year 1819, actually one year before Harriet Tubman was born in Greensboro, NC, in the woods at New Garden Friends Meeting House.'' This first route of the Underground Railroad coursed through Greensboro, NC, north through western Virginia and across the Ohio River to Richmond, IN. The first recorded passenger of the Underground Railroad was John Moses Dimrey, according to Hal Sieber's historical analysis. So I want to pay my utmost respects and memories to Harriet Tubman but at the same time remind my colleagues that based on all the information we have now been able to develop, the Underground Railroad actually originated well before Harriet Tubman. It originated in my congressional district in North Carolina. So I will make that the second part of my tribute to African-American women yesterday, today and tomorrow, and then the final tribute I want to make is to the African-American colleagues that we have here in this House of Representatives and in the Congress of the United States House and Senate: Those important women, Corine Brown of Florida, Eva Clayton of North Carolina, Cardiss Collins of Illinois, Eleanor Holmes Norton of the District of Columbia, Sheila Jackson-Lee of the great State of Texas, and we have heard from earlier this evening Eddie Bernice Johnson from Texas, Cynthia McKinney from Georgia, who has led this redistricting fight so vigorously in the State of Georgia, Carrie Meek from the great State of Florida, whom we have also heard from earlier this evening, whom I always refer to as Grandma, Carol Moseley-Braun, Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, from Illinois, Barbara Rose Collins from Michigan and of course my colleague Maxine Waters from California. As you, Mr. Speaker, have indicated, these women have stood firm in the face of adversity and been shining examples of how progress can be made with dignity and with honor and with integrity and with commitment, and it would be remiss of me if I did not pay special tribute to them for their contributions as we are paying tribute to African-American women. Yesterday they were here. Today they are here. And many of these women who I have mentioned here will be here tomorrow leading the fight for justice and equality in this country.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I think my colleagues know me well enough to know that I seldom come to the floor to debate a bill when I do not know how I am going to vote on that bill. This is a bill which has some real advantages to it. I think we do need to increase the level of competition in the telecommunications industry, and this bill heads us in that direction. But there are also some very troubling things about this bill, and I am really having a hard time balancing those troubling aspects against the benefits of the bill. Would it be irresponsible of me to vote to give away the capital of the United States of America? That is in essence one of the things this bill does. The 70 billion dollars' worth of assets that the United States Government now owns is being given away to the richest people and industry in America under this bill. That is the spectrum value, I am told. So I am troubled, deeply troubled, by the notion that we could at the same time that we are taking $70, $100, $200 billion away from the poorest people in this country, be turning around, on the other hand, and giving away $70 billion of our assets. I am troubled by that. I hope I can get some guidance before the vote.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I am just trying to get some further clarification here, because the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Bliley], has indicated that they are not giving this spectrum away. Am I clear that in the process of loaning this spectrum, when you get back what you are going to get back from them ultimately, they are giving you the old capacity back, not the new capacity?

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, if they use the new capacity, would that not be the equivalent of giving you back what would be the virtual equivalent of black and white television as opposed to much more advanced capabilities, the equivalent of color television? I know it is beyond that, but I am simplifying it. We are not talking black and white versus color, but capacitywise, is it not substantially more?

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, is it not true that the old spectrum is inordinately less valuable than the new digital spectrum?

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, now that I have heard all the explanations, I would say that this is like giving away the dirt road and the interstate highway, and, once this is all over, we are going to be given back the dirt road to auction off the somebody else.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I was elected to this body in 1992, and I was told that I would be serving with some of the most committed and brilliant people in America working for the interest of our country. I have been on the losing end of a lot of votes since I have been in this body, but this is the very first day I have ever been in this body where I have been absolutely embarrassed. This is no way to run a government. The Republicans gave us one-tenth of a loaf this morning. My mama always said take one-tenth rather than nothing. That is fine. They gave us two-tenths today. They gave us Meals on Wheels this morning, now they are giving us the wheels to serve those meals tonight. Next week they will be back with a whole new list of items. This is no way to run a government and the American people will ask the Republicans to answer to them for it.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I just want the gentleman to know that there are a lot of people on this side who agree that you have been kicked in the head.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Moakley] for yielding this time. I have tried to lower my voice in the context of this debate because I am having trouble understanding what my Republican colleagues are trying to accomplish here. I do not know how they rationally justify shutting down the Government during the negotiation, either partially or fully. I think what we have is a bad case of incompetence on the part of our new governing majority in the Congress, and I often wonder when I talk to my constituents, if I were running this Government and I ran it the way this Congress has run the Congress for the last session, the first session of this Congress, what they would call me. I can only call them incompetent. I wonder what they would call me if I ran this Government the way they are running this Congress.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I had made some effort to stay out of this dispute to the extent that I could in terms of the debate, but several of my constituents have called and expressed severe concern about the direction that we are headed and concern that I had not been as vocal on this issue as they expected me to be as their Representative. The people who called me are real citizens of this country. They are constituents of mine in my congressional district. They are a Federal prison guard who is continuing to work because he has a critical position in the prison system, and despite the fact that he continues to work, he is not now being paid on a timely basis. Although he acknowledges that he may be paid in the future, he asked me, ``What should I tell my creditors in the meantime?'' And I had no answer for him. They are VA hospital employees who care for our veterans, and live in my congressional district and work at a VA hospital located in my congressional district, who continue to provide services to their patients at veterans hospitals but are not currently being paid. They are people who had a real estate closing scheduled to close so that they could avoid a foreclosure on their house, and when they got ready to close, they were advised that the FHA had closed its doors and they could not close their loan. They are people who had sought to go to England for a special training program, who were advised that they could not be issued a passport for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that they had been provided. I had no answers for them, because I have thought that all along this dispute is absolutely insane. There is little if any connection between the continuing operation of the Federal Government and the resolution of the larger budget issue that we face. Notwithstanding that, my Republican colleagues have succeeded in, as they always do, reducing this major dispute to a one-sentence simple- minded kind of expression--``Let's have a 7-year balanced budget.'' Well, they told us that they were going to operate our Government, or try to make it operate, like the private industry operates. Well, I do not know of any private industry that can tell me how much income they are going to have 7 years from now. I do not know of any private industry that itemizes the expenditures that they will make 7 years from now. I do not know of any individual, either in this House or outside this House, who can tell me how much income they will have, CBO numbers or otherwise, 7 years from now. I do not know of any individual either in this House or outside this House that can itemize for me what expenditures they will make 7 years from now. So we have got this kind of simple-minded ``there is something magic about 7 years'' that my colleagues cannot live up to, and they have boxed themselves in and they are holding the American public hostage to their simple-mindedness. So I want to call on my colleagues, in conclusion, Mr. Speaker, to, please, come to your senses. This makes no sense. Let us open the Government. Let us keep negotiating about these budget issues and get them resolved and do what the American people sent us here to do.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I do not really think there is a Member in this body who would not like to go home for Christmas. So this is really not about whether we want a recess or do not want a recess. It really is about whether it is responsible to recess without having a continuing resolution, and we believe it is not. So let me talk about this continuing resolution thing for just a second so that people understand. Without a continuing resolution, we are going to have 270,000 Federal employees out of work, but the Speaker has committed to pay those employees. That makes absolutely no sense. Without a continuing resolution passed either today or tomorrow, 4.7 million families will not get aid to families with dependent children. That is 14 million children. Listen to what I am saying: 14 million children who do not have any say in this budget fight, who do not have a dog in this fight, the most vulnerable, the poorest people in this country these people would leave exposed without the benefit of their AFDC benefits. Now, one of them got up and said, well, that is not a problem because the States are going to step into this void. There are 30 States that have legislation on their books that prevent them, prohibit them from stepping into this void if the Federal Government does not live up to its responsibility. Since when did we start telling States you have got to fulfill the responsibilities that the Federal Government has undertaken already? An unfunded mandate if I have ever heard of one, and we have spent 3 weeks, 4 weeks, 5 weeks talking about how unfair unfunded mandates were. This is ridiculous. It is irresponsible. And we ought to defeat this resolution.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. If you are going to shut the Government down, then shut it down.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. You are responsible for shutting the Government down while you stand here and go home and enjoy Christmas. You are irresponsible.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I have talked to some of my Republican colleagues in private about this matter, and I want to say it publicly to the balance of my colleagues. If we do not pass a continuing resolution today or tomorrow at latest, 4.7 million families who are on AFDC are in risk of not getting their AFDC checks come January 1 of next year. There are consequences that go with that, and I want to remind my Republican colleagues that they are playing with fire, if they think people will sit by and idly wait on them to play budget games with their lives and their ability to eat. They came forward with a continuing resolution for veterans yesterday, and I am calling on my colleagues today to come forward with a continuing resolution to address this serious problem.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I have two questions for my Republican colleagues this morning. How in the world does one justify giving a $240 billion tax break to the richest people in the United States when they are cutting $270 billion from Medicare and $180 billion from Medicaid? Second, how does one justify shutting down the Government when the President and the Democrats refuse to give in to that insane, mean- spirited approach to balancing the budget? Imagine that, the rich get richer, the poor and the elderly get sicker, and Gingrich does, in fact, steal Christmas.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, this is not rocket science that is going on here; it is kind of like when you have done something that you do not want to talk about and you try to change the subject. That is exactly what my Republican colleagues are trying to do. They have got a budget that an overwhelming majority of the American public does not like, and they do not want to talk about their budget. So they bring something to the floor that has no relevance to what is going on to all, and they try to change the subject. That is what this debate is all about. It is a waste of time. Before I came to this body, I used to practice law, and I used to get so frustrated when we had domestic cases and the party with the money would say ``I am not even going to support my children while we have got a debate going on, while we have got differences between the wife and the husband.'' That is exactly what is happening in this body as we speak. We have got people out of work, the Government shut down, our children are starving, and the parties are saying ``We don't care about it, because we have got a dispute going on.'' The people with the money, the majority party, has said we will not even give you a continuing resolution to feed the children of America while this dispute is going on, because we do not like you and we do not like your proposals. Reject this rule and this resolution.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, over the last 30 days or so, I have really started to worry about whether I am in the right place. I am worried about whether we are following somebody who has any sense of responsibility to the American people. A Speaker who would close down the Government because he had to get off the back of a plane; a Speaker who would lead us to default on the obligations that the U.S. Government has to people that it owes money to; a Speaker that would close down the Government 2 or 3 days before the Christmas holiday. Yet, we spend our time dealing with trivia that has no meaning, like this bill.