Dave Weldon

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 373, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.'' Amendment No. 50 Offered by Mr. Whitfield to the Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute No. 13 Offered by Mr. Shays.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it appears that the political parties have come full circle. At the beginning of the century, the Republican party, under President Teddy Roosevelt, was the party of reform. As we approach the end of this century, the Republican party is once again the party of reform on almost every single issue. Education? The Republicans passed education savings accounts and school choice initiatives that are being enacted across the country in the States with Republican governors. Welfare? It took a Republican Congress to reform a broken system. A system that everyone knew was broken for many years, but was immune to change. The Tax Code? Republicans in the House passed a bill to sunset the Tax Code and Republicans have crossed the country discussing the flat tax and national sales tax options. Medicare? Medicare was on track to go bankrupt in 2001, but Republicans in Congress forced the first real Medicare reforms in history this past summer. Mr. Speaker, the Republican party is the party of reform, of new ideas, innovation, and a bold new vision for the 21st century.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. As a veteran myself and a Floridian, I rise in very, very strong opposition to this gentleman's amendment. I want to share something with all of my colleagues, whether they are from east of the Mississippi or west of the Mississippi or north of the Mason-Dixon line or south of the Mason-Dixon line, that veterans that come into my district, let me say this, the veterans in my district, the vast majority of them are not born and raised in my district. I will tell my colleagues where they are from. They are from Maine. They are from New York. They are from New Jersey. And they come to my district, and they want to know why they cannot get seen, why they cannot get the care that they used to get up north or up in the midwest in Florida. Now, this amendment is a very, very simple amendment. It is a very, very common sense amendment. It says, now that we have had 30, 40 years of millions of veterans moving from the northeast and the midwest into the sunbelt, that we will finally, for the first time, put the money where the veterans are and not where the bricks and mortar is. I would encourage all of my colleagues to remember not their provincial square on the map but the veterans themselves who fought, many of them sacrificed lost limbs in defense of liberty, in defense of freedom, in defense of our country, and put the money, put the dollars where the veterans are and not where the bricks and mortar are. I encourage all of my colleagues to vote no on the Hinchey amendment.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. As a physician who still practices medicine, I rise in strong support of this rule. I have worked in managed-care settings and I have worked in fee-for-service settings. The important issue here is can we, in Washington, pass legislation that will help restore the doctor-patient relationship and, importantly, help restore quality health care within managed-care networks? Now, my good friends on the Democrat side of the aisle have their bill; we have our bill. We are going to have a very interesting debate here this morning. I think the important issue, which speaks of how much better our Republican bill is, is the fact our bill is the bill that is not going to drive up costs, where the Democrat bill will; and, importantly, our bill is going to enable people who are uninsured to have access to health care and help them to more easily afford health care. I would encourage all my colleagues to support this rule. Listen to the debate during general debate and the debate on the amendments and, in the end, I believe our bill is going to pass. Our bill is the better bill for restoring quality, for restoring the doctor-patient relationship, for reducing cost and giving the uninsured better access to health care.

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I am a practicing physician. And I do not plan on staying in this body. I plan on returning in a few short years to my practice. And I think it is a wonderful thing that we are having this debate today. We both want to do what we can to restore the doctor-patient relationship. We both want to do what we can to return quality as number one in health care in the United States. They have their plan. We have ours. Now, I believe that there is an important feature in our bill that makes our bill the better bill over their bill. But I want to address a few points made by my colleague the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske). I served on the task force that produced this bill, and one of the most important things that I was going after was timely access to specialists. And contrary to the claims that were made by him and the claims by others, we have important language in our bill that will require people in managed care entities to have timely access to specialists. Here is the difference between their bill and our bill, and I will tell my colleagues about it. I was on a radio talk show last week where a lady called in and she was saying some bad things about her HMO and she said, ``The other HMO I was in was just as bad. I had switched.'' I said, ``What do you mean, you switched from one HMO to another HMO? Are you in the FEHBP plan?'' And she said, ``Yes.'' And I said, ``Well, you know, I am in that, too; and there are some better plans that you could select. Why didn't you select one of those better coverage plans?'' And do you know what she said to me? ``Well, we cannot afford it. That is why I am in an HMO.'' Now, we are to be led to believe by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle that their bill which is going to place all these government mandates is not going to drive up costs for that lady? Let me tell my colleagues something. Every month in my practice a clerk from my billing office brought a stack of charts of working people who were not able to pay their bills and I did what thousands of other physicians all across America do; I wrote off those bills, thousands of dollars every year. Why? Because those people had no health insurance. Now we are led to believe by these folks that they here in Washington are going to make all these HMOs do all these wonderful things that are mandated in their bill and it is not going to drive up costs, it is not going to increase the number of uninsured? Let me tell my colleagues something. We have a good bill here that is going to work very hard to restore quality and it is not going to drive up costs. Indeed, we believe the provisions in this bill, which allow small employers to pool, which has malpractice reform, is actually going to drive down costs. It is going to allow more people to get insurance. We have, in my opinion, the better bill. And I can say that as somebody who is going to go back in a few short years to be working in the system.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to the errant comments of my colleagues, ill-informed colleagues on the other side of the aisle, regarding the year 2000 census. Let me suggest that the very same Democrats who self-righteously assure us that the Commerce Department under President Clinton will be immune from politics, if given the opportunity to conduct the census by sampling, would be the very same people who would be screaming, ``Don't play politics with the census'', if a Republican President were trying to do the same thing. In fact, there is not a single Democrat who would be supporting sampling if the sampling computer magic were not being conducted by the political appointees of the Commerce Department. And let us not forget that the administration that my colleagues suggest is a paragon of integrity is the same administration that used the IRS to smear Billy Dale and the White House travel office employees, the same administration that politicized the Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1996 to illegally approve citizenship for criminal aliens, and, of course, it is the same administration that has done such a good job regarding missile technology secrets from the Communist Chinese.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the veto override. I would like to address an issue that has been brought up repeatedly by the other side that most of these partial birth abortions, or a substantial portion of them, are done for medical necessity. There has only been one study published on this procedure. It was the original report that appeared in the American Medical News by the originators of this grisly procedure, Drs. Haskell and McMann; and they described about 100 cases. Eighty-five percent were purely elective abortions. So these were elective terminations of pregnancy of a healthy infant. So they are killing a healthy infant this way. Of the 15 percent that were for medical defects, the majority of them were for cleft palate and cleft lip. So to come here and to propose this disingenuous canard that we need this procedure in the face of those kinds of facts to me is totally unacceptable. I encourage all of my colleagues to vote in support of this veto override.

Mr. WELDON of Florida. The alternative procedures, in my opinion, are just as gruesome and grisly. And I have actually seen some of them. In my opinion, late terminations of pregnancy should be illegal. The bill which the gentleman is talking about I am sure includes the provision that all liberals who are pro-abortion want, which is a provision to protect the health of the mother. And that has been defined to include mental health. And the vast majority of women who want to get an abortion claim it for that reason, it is for their mental health that they want to terminate an unborn baby.

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Madam Speaker, if the gentleman would continue to yield, I disagree, as do many people in the United States, with the decision of the Supreme Court on this issue.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I want to add one more thing. I have gone into the Space Station processing facility of Kennedy Space Center, and I have gone into the first elements. I want to tell my colleagues that the people who are working on this program are excited and ready. The kids are excited to see this program flying in the sky. The potential benefits that can accrue to mankind are huge. They are not even imaginable.

Mr. WELDON of Florida. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to the Roemer amendment and I encourage all my colleagues to vote ``no.'' We have been engaging in this debate for many, many years and it is true that each year more and more Members vote against killing the Space Station and in support of continuing this project. The reason I believe is obvious. This project has a tremendous potential to yield incredible benefits to mankind. Balancing the budget is a very, very noble task and it is certainly something that is important to our children. Indeed, it is a very good thing for us to do that. But I can tell you from my experience of talking to kids in my district, while they recognize balancing the budget is good and fixing Medicare is good and cleaning up the environment is good and even improving education is good, nothing excites them more than telling them and teaching them about our space program and the Space Station and its potential. Indeed, I have talked to teachers all over this country, and they all invariably tell me, teachers of math and science, that there is nothing that motivates their kids and their class more than the Space Station and talking about the manned space program. Here to my left is a diagram of the Space Station when it will be fully assembled and complete. I am very happy that the chairman of the committee spoke about the international partners involved with this. We have the Europeans who have spent over $6 billion; the Japanese, $4 billion; the Canadians, $1 billion. This project is on the verge of being a huge success. We have no idea of the potential spin-off benefits to mankind. Indeed, I spoke on the floor of this House 1 month ago about a product that is a spin-off of our space program called Quick Boost that has the potential to improve the efficiency of air conditioning units all over this country and has the potential to save energy costs equivalent to the entire cost of our manned space flight program from its very beginnings, from the beginning of the Mercury Program to this date. I encourage all of my colleagues to, again, resoundingly reject the Roemer amendment and vote ``no'' on the Roemer amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield to my very good friend and colleague, the gentleman from the great State of Alabama (Mr. Cramer).

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise in full support for H.R. 59, the National Right to Work Act. I am from a Right to Work state and I know first-hand that employee freedom and prosperity go hand in hand. Figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show that workers in forced union dues states are losing thousands of jobs as well as their freedom. Just listen to the advantage that Right to Work States have had over forced union dues states between 1997-1996: Non-agricultural employees in Right to Work states have increased by nearly 70% while the increase in forced union states was 35%. Manufacturing employment in Right to Work states have increased by almost 15% while there was nearly a 15% decrease in forced union states. Construction employment in Right to Work states increased by almost 50%, nearly 15% higher than in forced union dues states. Manufacturing production workers in Right to Work states increased by almost 10%, while decreasing by 20% in forced union dues states. Manufacturing establishments in Right to Work states increased by 20%, while decreasing by .3% in forced union states. Personal income in Right to Work states has increased by 405%, 82% higher than in forced union dues states. Hourly earnings by manufacturing employees in Right to Work states have increased by 135%, 13% higher than forced union dues states. The average weekly earnings of manufacturing production workers in Right to Work states have increased by 145%,15% higher than in forced union dues states. Mr. Speaker what do these numbers translate into Jobs. Between 1983 and 1993, Right to Work states created over 500,000 jobs, while forced union states lost almost 900,000. Mr. Speaker, not only are residents of forced-unionism states paying in lost jobs, they are also paying for the cost of compulsory unionism out of their wallets. Invariably, compulsory unionism leads to union official-inspired strikes, slowdowns, inefficient work rules, featherbedding, and a ``hate-the-boss'' mentality which substantially increase the cost of goods, services, and state and local taxes. The result is the ``Right to Work boon.'' The average urban family living in a Right to Work state has an after-tax, cost of living- adjusted household income of $36,540--$2,852 more than a family in a forced-unionism state. As said by former United States Senator Sam Ervin in his autobiography Preserving the Constitution, ``Right to Work laws remove the motive of the union to subordinate the interests of the employees to its wish, and, thus, leave it free to conduct negotiations for the sole purpose of obtaining an employment contract advantageous to the employees.'' conclusion Right to Work states offer an economic environment free from much of the Big Labor's imposed ``featherbedding,'' and work rules which reduce the value of employees' wages by driving up production costs. Ultimately, this only serves to reduce the number of jobs in their state. Mr. Speaker, no one should be forced to join a labor union as a condition of employment, and every American should be given the same economic opportunities shared by most employees in 21 states. I urge you to schedule a roll-call vote on HR 59, the Nation Right to Work Act.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the legislation. I commend the author, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) for crafting this piece of legislation. As many know, I practiced medicine prior to coming to the House, to include working in emergency rooms. I can testify to all of you, one of the things an emergency room doctor fears in the course of his practice is to have a minor child come into the emergency room unaccompanied by a parent or legal guardian in need of acute medical care. The reason they fear that is because if you sew up a laceration or give a medication and find that the parents were unhappy with that particular intervention, you can get yourself into a lot of trouble. Indeed, in some States you can actually be charged for assault for providing needed medical care to a minor child. But in the interpretation of Row v. Wade, in many States, I believe 30 of them, that doctor can perform an abortion, without any fear of being charged with assault or prosecution. However, he cannot give that child aspirin for a headache. Indeed, the school nurse cannot give a child aspirin for a headache. The technician who works in the jewelry store cannot pierce the ears of a minor child without parental consent, but in many States that same minor child can go and have an invasive procedure, a surgical procedure, an abortion, a procedure with the associated risks of hemorrhage, infection, infertility, death, but the child cannot have their ears pierced. Twenty States have appropriately responded to the will of the people, who have recognized in those States that this kind of a legal logic is crazy, and they have passed reasonable parental consent laws. But we have a situation right now, today, where children are being carried across State lines without their parents' knowledge to have abortions performed. Now we have before us today, before the House of Representatives, I believe a very reasonable and appropriate statute which makes that process illegal. It respects the laws in those States, and I encourage all of my colleagues to vote yes on this legislation.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, on June 18, my wife and I adopted a newborn baby boy and I was unable to be in Washington for votes. Due to the adoption, I missed votes on June 18, 19, and 22. Had I been present I would have cast votes as follows. I would have voted Aye on the following Roll Call votes: 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 251, 254, 255, and 256. I would have voted No on the following Roll Call vote: 242.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise to speak in opposition to the gentlewoman's point of order, and I would just like to say that the point she is trying to make, I think, runs contrary to the whole tradition of what we do here in the House in these appropriations bills. It is the right and the prerogative of any Member to rise and put limitations or specifications on how money is going to be spent, and this man's amendment, the gentleman from Oklahoma, is very simple and straightforward. We all know that abortion is a very controversial issue, it is controversial in this body, it is controversial with the American people, and the House of Representatives has repeatedly voted, for example, that no Federal dollars will be used for performing abortions. The so-called Hyde amendment language easily passes the House with overwhelming majorities, and I think the reason for this is obvious. Even though many Members may feel that they are personally pro-choice, they think it is totally appropriate not to be spending Federal dollars for performing abortions, and to ask that the Food and Drug Administration not use its funds for putting abortion drugs on the market I think is a very reasonable proposal. Mr. Chairman, I would strongly recommend the Chair rule against the gentlewoman's point of order and that the gentleman's amendment be allowed to be debated and voted on according to the proceedings of the House.

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Coburn amendment. I encourage all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote in support of the Coburn amendment. As the gentlewoman from New York alluded to, the issue of abortion is very controversial. The American people are very divided on this issue, and there are many people who feel, as I do, very strongly on the sanctity of human life. The House of Representatives and the Senate have repeatedly voted to restrict the use of Federal dollars when it comes to this issue. The best example is the Hyde amendment, which prohibits the use of Federal dollars for performing abortions. We have a very simple amendment here. We ask the Food and Drug Administration not to get involved in this issue and not to get involved in administering or testing or approving drugs for the chemical inducement of abortion. As to this issue that is being brought up that some of these drugs are safe and effective, I really want to speak to that point. As a physician, I took the Hippocratic oath. In the Hippocratic oath you do no harm. To say that these drugs are safe and effective, when in effect they are lethal for the unborn child growing in the womb of the woman, is a very deceptive and distorted use of the English language. I would encourage all of my colleagues to seriously, those who are pro-life, obviously, those who take a pro-life position, but in particular those who may be personally pro-choice but may feel that it is appropriate to not be using Federal dollars for these kinds of purposes, consider that millions of Americans object to Federal dollars being used for these kinds of purposes. I think it is a perfectly reasonable amendment. I think it is a well- thought-out amendment. I do not think there should be any confusion over there at the FDA as to what this is about, despite the claims by some that these words are somehow mysterious. As to the claims of why there are so few pharmaceutical companies doing contraceptive research, that has nothing to do with these claims that it has some implication with those who oppose abortion. It is the trial attorneys and all the litigation. That is why there are a limited number of pharmaceutical companies doing research. It is very expensive. Then when you do put a product on the market, if anything goes wrong with those products, you get every lawyer in this country looking to draw up a lawsuit in the case. I think this is a very good amendment. I would encourage all of my colleagues to vote yes.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I want to commend my colleague from Florida, the distinguished Chairman of the National Security Appropriations Subcommittee, for drafting a bill that maintains careful balance between our modernization priorities, our requirement for a trained and ready force, and the needs of our men and women in uniform and their families. This is no easy task. With each new crisis around the world, we ask for more and more from our fighting forces while the amount of money that we provide continues to shrink. So again, I applaud the Chairman of the National Security Appropriations Subcommittee for working hard to ensure that our military is prepared to meet ongoing and new challenges around the globe. I would also like to commend the Department of Defense for working hard to put into place best business practices wherever possible to squeeze every penny out of its operations. Every penny saved by running the Defense Department better is a penny returned to much needed and underfunded modernization and readiness programs. In particular, I want to commend the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) for its efforts to procure commercial-like launch services for the GeoLITE and NRO-1 satellite programs. By using existing commercial launch vehicles and commercial payload processing services, NRO can take advantage of cost savings and streamlined procurement schedules that are inherent to commercial purchases and operations. I strongly encourage the NRO to continue and expand its outsourcing of commercial payload processing services. By lowering the costs while at the same time maintaining flexibility to implement its mission, the NRO is ensuring that it is ready to meet the great demands placed on it by our national security decision makers and our war fighting commanders in chief. For several decades, even the initials N-R-O were classified and could not be used publicly. Now, with the end of the Cold War, not only can we talk about the once super secret NRO, we can give the agency credit for its activities, including its push to contract for services like commercial payload processing.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would again yield, I just wanted to add one more point. In talking to a lot of parents in my congressional district who have serious concerns about the quality of education in the United States, one of the big issues that I find comes up more and more is an area where I think a lot of our schools are failing, and that is it is not just in the academics. It is not just in the ABCs, but in the basic fundamentals of character development. As many people know, we threw that issue out the school house door 30 years ago and we are reaping a lot of the benefits of that, or the negative benefits of that. There is more to educating a kid than just teaching them how to read and write and to do arithmetic. There is more to being a good citizen. And that is really what it is about. We want to raise up people to be good citizens. We want them to be involved in their communities. We want them to be good parents. We want them to grow up to be hard- working people, people who will succeed in the marketplace. Our schools, particularly many of our public schools, are failing in that element of education in the area of teaching character and virtue. And at least what I hear from a lot of parents, particularly some of our inner-city communities, is that they want school choice for that reason. They not only want to find a school that will better teach their kids academically, but they also want an educational environment where their kids will be positively influenced as citizens, as individuals, in areas of character and virtue. That is one of the other big, big reasons why I would like to see a real marketplace. Now, how we go about doing that, we can debate this issue, whether it is through a tax credit or school voucher or something along those lines. But after all, is not it the people's money anyway? We tax them, we take their money, property taxes, income taxes, and then we create this government-run system. And in many communities, that government-run system, we take the money from them, we set it up, but it is failing their kids. And the parents are saying I would like to take my money and go elsewhere. The way it works out is only the wealthy people who have the money to go elsewhere can go elsewhere. But many of the working families, poor families, they are locked into schools that are failing their kids. So I am really happy the gentleman brought up this issue tonight. I think it is a critical issue. I think it is an issue that we as Republicans need to continue to push. Education in my opinion is going to be a more and more critical issue in the years ahead. We are moving from this industrial-based society to this information-based society which is very, very computer dependent. Where knowledge and ideas are going to be critical for success. And how we educate our kids in the areas of science and technology is going to be critical. We need an educational system for the 21st century. A new age is dawning. We are leaving the 20th century and moving into the 21st century. Do we want to keep this educational system that has served us well up until now, and is not serving us well now, at least in many of our communities? Are we willing to be bold and to be brave and to move ahead and try something new? So, I thank the gentleman for bringing this issue up and I have been very pleased to be able to join with the gentleman this evening to discuss this issue. Mr. Speaker, being the son of a schoolteacher, it has always been an issue that has been very dear to me. My mom taught school and, indeed, we were talking about public schools for a while. I am a product of public school education, not only for elementary and secondary school, but as well for college. I went to a public college. I think what we are talking about is improving education in America, helping our kids to be smarter, but, as well, helping our schools to be better. The best way to do that, the best way to do that is to create a real bona fide marketplace where we have competition. Whenever anybody talks about competition in an environment where there is no competition, those who have the monopoly will always scream and yell and say no, no, no, we do not want that competition. It is going to hurt the system. It is going to make things worse. I would assert that the fear of change is all we are seeing there. We need to harken back to the words of FDR: ``We have nothing to fear but fear itself.'' If we are willing to make the changes necessary, we can see that we have an educational system that will carry our Nation boldly into the 21st Century so that we can continue to lead the world in the future. I want to thank the gentleman for joining him in this special order. It has really been a pleasure for me to be here with him.

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Utah as well. So it is not money. Of course, then, we can always just point to Washington, D.C. and the simple fact that it is one of the highest in the Nation, $8,000 a student. It has some of the worst schools with some of the worst academic performance that we can find anywhere in the United States. It is not an issue of money. I reiterate, I come back to this essential point that we are debating or discussing here tonight, we are both on the same side of this debate, which is that if we can give parents that ability, and if the opposition will stop fighting this and it will allow us to try to test this hypothesis, I believe it will work very successfully. Again, I want to thank the gentleman for bringing this issue up tonight. It is a critical issue. It is a very, very important issue. There are lots of indicators out there that, in the United States, our kids are not able to compete as well as they should. We used to lead the world in education. Our kids were coming out of school the best educated in the world. One of the interesting facts in all of this is that, at the college level, we continue to lead the world. At the university level, we are leading the world. But at the college and university level, we have a marketplace. We have choice. Everybody knows that. Once you get to that stage in life, you select the environment you want and the place where you want your kids to go to school. But up until that point, for many parents, they are locked into a public system frequently because of financial issues. So lo and behold where you have the marketplace in a higher education, we lead the world. I say if we can get a marketplace at the K through 12 level, we will again lead the world in education, and all of America will benefit for that. I believe the world will benefit for that because, when America leads, the whole world prospers.

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I certainly agree with everything the gentleman is saying. It is also a debate about empowering parents. I believe and I trust the gentleman believes the same way, that the person who is most concerned about the child and the child's education is the mom and dad. It is not necessarily the bureaucracy here in Washington or the Members of this body or the National Education Association president located in Washington, D.C., but it is actually the mom and dad. When you empower parents to be able to select an educational environment that is best for their kids, they will do that. I trust moms and dads to select the best education for their kids. I think a certain amount of the opposition that comes from the left on this issue, this critical issue of school choice, is a lack of trust of parents. Do we trust the moms and dads of America to select the best educational environment for their children or do we not. I would assert that, if we could overcome the obstacles of the education bureaucrats and the National Education Association and the left wing elements within the Congress of the United States and we could just learn to trust parents and give parents the power, the ability to select an educational environment for their kids that is best for them, they will do so. Academic performance will improve. SAT scores will go up because kids will be in a better academic environment. As I said earlier, the place where this is most critical is in our poor communities. The place where it is most critical is in many of our minority communities. The place where it is most critical is in many of our inner city communities. I dare say that, many of the communities that people like the gentleman and I represent, the public schools are good. But there are many communities in the United States where the public schools are failing, and they are failing miserably. There are some people who would argue that they need more money. We have been hearing that for many years. But one of the most amazing facts is that the amount of money that goes into these schools correlates poorly with the quality of educational performance of the students. Indeed, there is a considerable amount of data that some of the most poorly funded schools in the United States frequently have some of the best academic performance. Specifically what I am talking about is I have seen data out of places like South Dakota where I think they are one of the lowest levels of the Nation, but academic performance is extremely high.

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WELDON of Florida. I thank the gentleman for yielding, Mr. Speaker. I was sitting in my office going through some mail, and as well, I was listening to the gentleman's comments about education. That, of course, is a very important issue for me and the people of my district. Indeed, it is a personal issue for me, as well. My mother was a schoolteacher, and some of the sentiments the gentleman was were sharing in the letter that he was reading were sentiments that my mother had shared with me; that though she was a member of the NEA when she taught, she thought that the NEA had lost its focus and had moved away from quality education, and simply had become a labor union pursuing the traditional goals of most labor unions, which is higher wages and benefits for their members and job security, and that quality education for children is a side issue for the NEA. I think some of the things that we have seen going on in Washington, particularly regarding issues like dollars to the classroom, I want to thank the gentleman for his leadership on that issue and the work that he does to promote that issue. I think the people in the gentleman's district should be proud of freshmen like the gentleman, and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Joe Pitts), who have been really trying to push that legislation through. We spent here in Washington, I think we spent over $30 billion on education, but a disproportionately large amount of it does not end up in the classroom. It does not end up helping the kids. It gets sucked up by bureaucracy. This legislation I think is a piece of legislation that is long overdue, because it directs the dollars away from bureaucracy in Washington and in our State capitals and to the classrooms. I do not know what the gentleman's experience has been in visiting his schools in his district or talking to his teachers, but my experience has been it is just very, very tight at the classroom level. We have a lot of classroom teachers in my district who use their personal monies, these are their post-tax dollars coming right out of their wallets, to buy things like supplies, papers, and special materials that are not offered by the school district. I really think that is a shame. Let me furthermore add that the decline in education in the United States and the falloff in performance I think is a great tragedy. It is a testimony to the fact that Washington's involvement in education has not been helpful at all. Specifically, SAT scores have declined over the past 30 years. Many colleges and universities have had to institute remedial courses, teaching their students the basics of composition and mathematics, arithmetic, because those subjects were not taught in school, and very often it is in the public school systems where the failures are the greatest. Might I add also that I think one of the greatest tragedies is to see the National Education Association opposing any effort to implement school choice for parents. Specifically, we have tried repeatedly since I have been here in the Congress, and I know the gentleman has taken part in this debate, and I want to thank the gentleman for his help in this, to try to set up a school choice program in the District of Columbia. There are many people who argue that we in the Federal Government have no role in setting up school choice programs out in the States and at the State level. I think those are legitimate arguments. I am from Florida, and I think what we are doing in Florida should be the responsibility primarily of parents and our county and local officials and the State officials, and the Federal Government should not be involved. But we have jurisdiction over the District of Columbia. It is very clearly spelled out in the Constitution. To set up a school choice initiative in the District of Columbia to give parents, specifically low-income parents, I am talking about here, the ability to choose a school for their children I think is a very reasonable thing to do. To see the NEA and to see so many of our colleagues on the Democrat side of the aisle opposing these initiatives year in and year out, I think the last proposal was 2,000 students. If the public school system in the District of Columbia was outstanding, you could perhaps make some legitimate arguments that this is not necessary. But in reality, it is one of the most expensive school districts, something like $8,000 a student, and yet the dropout rate is sky high. There is an extremely high number of students who cannot perform on basic, remedial testing. The system is failing. The thing that bothers me the most about this issue is rich people have school choice. I used to practice medicine before I came here to the House, and all my doctor friends exercised school choice. Yes, some of them enrolled their kids in the public system, but some did not. Some enrolled their kids in private and parochial schools. But it is those very low-income families in the inner cities of many of our cities in the United States, particularly here in Washington, those low-income families that have no choice, and those are the places where the schools are the worst; and to set up a pilot program, 2,000 students, give these low-income families the ability to choose an educational environment that will better serve their kids, and to see the NEA consistently opposing this, all I can conclude is that it is out of fear. Because if school choice is not going to work, if the parents are not going to like it in the end and if it is not going to improve academic performance, why will they not let us find out? FDR said, ``We have nothing to fear but fear itself.'' If school choice, a pilot school choice program for the District of Columbia, is so bad, why do they not let us test the hypothesis and see if it will work? I would assert to the gentleman, my good friend, that the reason they do not want us to test it, it gets right back to what the gentleman was talking about 10 minutes ago, which is, they know it will work. They know if it works, there will be demand for more of it in the city of Washington, and then the city of Milwaukee will be demanding more, where they already have it; and then they will be demanding it in L.A., New York, and Philadelphia. The NEA is afraid of that. They are afraid that it is going to work. That is why they oppose it year in and year out.

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I wanted to comment on the point, which is an excellent one, which is making education more of a free marketplace. It is amazing that we here in the United States, the Nation that has championed the value of the free market and how the free market has the ability to do a better job than the government, and how the free market has the ability to provide better services than in a socialized system, indeed that was the great battle of the Cold War which was whether a market system built on freedom was better for the common man, or a command and control, government-run economic system which, of course, was the Soviet, Marxist Leninist model. Yet in the United States, we have relegated education to the government sector exclusively. Now, as I said earlier, that is not true in that wealthy people can exercise choice and, therefore, there is a limited market. But I am talking about the common working man. Might I digress to say that I have met a lot of working class families in my district, families that are struggling to make ends meet, who specifically sacrifice personally to send their kids to private or parochial schools. But one of the big arguments that the NEA and the left has made against school choice, which I think is an argument totally without merit, is that it will destroy public schools. We hear that over and over and over again that Republicans, because we want school choice, want to destroy the public school system. They are the champions of the public school system and, therefore, their position is right; that school choice should not be allowed. Well, first of all, I think this is about educating our kids and what is the best educational environment for our kids. I thought the debate was not about preserving a socialized public system run by the government, but about making sure our kids get the best education they need so that they can go on to make sure that the United States continues to be the greatest country in the world and continues to lead the world in science and technology and medicine. It is not preserving this institution because we have gotten used to it. Now, I would assert that if we have school choice in the United States, that our public schools will survive. Indeed, I think our public schools will get better, because we will have a real competitive marketplace at that point and the public schools will have to compete with the private sector more effectively. They will no longer have a monopoly. I think that some of the public schools in my district will succeed fabulously. One of the towns in my congressional district, Sebastian, has a brand-new high school with all the latest high-tech facilities and the greatest teachers we could ever find anywhere in the United States are in that high school. I would wager that if we implemented school choice more broadly across the United States, and if it were implemented in my district, that Sebastian High School, Sebastian River High School would succeed fabulously. A public school. Why? Because I think they will be able to compete. So let us not argue that implementing school choice is going to destroy public schools. Public schools are not that bad. I mean, to make that argument is almost to admit they are bad. Now there will be some public schools that will not survive. But those are the public schools that should not survive. I am reminded of a speech Newt Gingrich gave this morning about New York City, about how last year in New York City there were 500 restaurants that closed and went out of business. Sounds ominous. Sounds bad. But there were 1,300 new restaurants that opened. Now, I would wager that some of those 500 restaurants that closed, closed because they did not serve very good food. Most people would probably say they should have closed. So if we institute school choice in America, yes, we will have some public schools that will close. But I would argue that those are the public schools that should close and those are the public schools that should close because they are not educating our kids. That is the core of the argument. Most public schools in my district, and I would wager that most public schools in the gentleman from Colorado's district, will succeed and thrive and they will be able to be competitive and the people who will benefit from this will not be the people who occupy the NEA headquarters in Washington, D.C. And that is because that is not what this argument is about. It is about our kids and making sure our kids gets the best education.