Dave Weldon

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, the American people expect all of us-- Democracts and Republicans--to work together to improve the education for our children. This bill, the A-PLUS Savings Accounts for children, will expand education opportunities for all children in grades K-12. We owe this to our children. As Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer put it, the ``great crisis in American education is not at the university level. It is at the elementary and high school levels, where thousands of kids--particularly inner-city minority kids--are getting educations so rotten that their entire life prospects are blighted.'' Indeed, do any Members of this Congress send their sons and daughters to D.C. public schools? Does the Vice-President? Does the President? No, they do not. Why, because they know that their children will not be prepared for college or the workforce. As one of Jesse Jackson's campaign organizers has noted. I believe that the Clintons should not be the only Americans in public housing with an opportunity to send their children to a private school. This bill will help all parents send their kids to any school they choose so that their children can get the best education possible. All children will benefit because any relative, individual, or business could contribute up to $2,000 in annual contributions per child to an account that will help pay for educational expenses. The money could be used for any school: public, private, parochial, or home school, or it could be used for tutoring, school uniform costs, or children with special needs. In addition, this bill addresses other problems in our classrooms which sorely need help; literacy programs, phonics, teacher testing and merit pay, and tax-free state college savings programs. The bill has all the right elements for education success: common sense, more dollars directly to the classroom, scholarships for needy students, and strategies that will lead to better teaching and learning. Let's put the interests of all children first, not Washington lobbyists and special interest. Let's pass H.R. 2646.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I rise in support of this bill and encourage all my colleagues to vote in support of it. The current Tax Code is complex, confusing, corrupt, costly and coercive. Even experts do not agree on the Tax Code. Some studies actually show that the IRS itself gives the wrong answers to questions from taxpayers up to as often as 40 percent of the time. Money magazine gave a hypothetical tax return to 45 different tax preparers nationwide. The result? Forty-five different responses, ranging from paying 123 percent too much in taxes to 14 percent too little. Thirty-three of the 45 preparers exceeded the acceptable range of error by $1,000. And for these erroneous tax returns, the tax preparers charged from $300 to $4,950. The current Tax Code is costly to our economy. It costs Americans between $157 to $22 billion per year just to prepare the taxes. This $157 for each person could be invested in schools, businesses or in savings. Enforcement for the Federal Government itself costs $13.7 billion per year. Businesses spend between $4 and $7 in keeping up with the taxes they owe for each $1 in taxes they pay. It costs taxpayers 5.3 billion hours to comply with the code. This is more than it takes to produce all the cars and trucks in America and is equal to 2 weeks of American productivity nationwide. H.R. 3097, the Tax Code Termination Act, is simple. It directs Congress to enact a new Tax Code by July 4, 2002. What is so bad about that? It ends the existing Tax Code on December 31 of that year, six months after the initial enactment of the new code. Calls for a fairer and flatter Tax Code are made in this bill. It will enable the American people to have a national debate about how they want the Tax Code to change and become fairer and more simple. It will ensure that the Tax Code is replaced with one that has been vetted out by the American people and not decided by special interests in Washington. Mr. Speaker, this bill is a good piece of legislation. The American people are fed up with the complicated Tax Code laws that they now have to live under. They want more, they demand more, they deserve more. They deserve a better system, and what is more important, we are heading into a new millennium, a new century, a new age, and we need to have a Tax Code that will enable America to continue to be competitive and lead the world. Mr. Speaker, I encourage all my colleagues to vote in support of this legislation.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this budget which will move this nation in the right direction. It provides important tax relief for my constituents, including eliminating the marriage penalty which makes married couples pay higher taxes just because they are married. The marriage penalty is morally wrong and I am pleased that we are moving forward to eliminate this unfair tax. This budget provides tax relief while funding programs that are very important to the 15th District of Florida. In particular, I am pleased that the budget provides stable funding for NASA, by funding NASA at least as high as the president's budget. On page 164 of the budget, it states that the budget, ``Assumes the administration's funding levels for NASA.'' This will guarantee stable funding for the Space Shuttle, Space Station and other critical NASA programs important to my constituents who work at Kennedy Space Center (KCS). I thank the Chairman for hearing my request on behalf of my constituents and responding positively.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, to look at American policy of helping China develop its missile and rocket programs, one can only ask who is minding the store. While most Americans would think that we should not be arming our adversaries, apparently there are some in this administration who think otherwise. This is liberalism at its most mindless and most dangerous. How else to explain the administration's policy of helping Communist China develop its missile and rocket program? How else to explain the administration's decision to allow the Commerce Department to overrule the Justice Department and the Pentagon in matters of national security? How else do we explain the administration's decision to help China to perfect its Long March missile? How else do we explain the administration's policy of arming the same country that reportedly has 13 long-range strategic missiles pointed at the United States? I cannot explain it, and I do not know how the administration is going to attack their accusers this time. It is the American people who are demanding answers.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.J. Res. 78, a Constitutional Amendment restoring religious freedom, of which I am a cosponsor, because I believe strongly that it is necessary to restore the rights of individuals to freely express their religious convictions wherever they may be: the workplace, a school, or on government property. It is essential that we ensure the religious liberties guaranteed in the Constitution to all Americans. I believe that in many instances, the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction and, in response to fears of lawsuits, government and school officials have been overly restrictive and, in many cases, have denied individuals their Constitutional rights to express their religious views in the public sphere. Also, in the workplace some employers have silenced religious expression because of fear of lawsuits by employees who are intolerant of religious expression. It is wrong for a teacher to give a child a failing grade because the child chose to write their school assignment on Jesus Christ. It is also wrong to stop a child from saying a blessing over their meal at the school cafeteria. Also, it was wrong for the courts to rule that a moment of silence at public school is unconstitutional because it could be used by students for silent prayer. These acts have silenced religious expression and run counter to the First Amendment. This Constitutional Amendment declares that people have a right to pray and to recognize their religious beliefs, traditions, and heritage on governmental property and in schools. In addition, it states that the government cannot require people to participate in religious activities, discriminate against religion, initiate or designate school prayers, or deny equal access to a benefit because of a religious affiliation. I rise in full support of this amendment which will remedy the damage done by past court decisions that have silenced religious expression.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman for yielding. I just want to stress the point that you were just making, that the burden of this so often does fall to the women, particularly when marriages fail. Much of the consequences of that falls to the women because, frequently, they do end up with the children and they have the added responsibility of raising the kids. For the government to be establishing and maintaining tax policies that discourage marriage, to me, borders on criminal. The people who, more often than not, pay the real price for this are the wives, the mothers, and obviously the people who are really paying the price are the kids. I was going through earlier some of the statistics on the impact on children. I have this chart here, and it is really very, very dramatic if you actually look at the numbers: 72 percent of juvenile murderers coming out of broken homes or single-parent homes; 60 percent of rapists; three of four teen suicides; twice as likely to drop out of school. It has an impact on the parents. The parents have shorter life expectancy, poorer health, lower economic well-being. Let me just say there are a lot of single moms and single dads who do a great job, and I meet them every day in my district. My hat is off to them, and I applaud them and their work. Many, many great Americans have been raised by very many heroic single parents going it alone; but as any one of them will testify to you, it is much, much harder. God ordained the two-parent family, and raising kids is just tough. Anybody who has done that knows that is a fact. I have done some numbers for the impact that this bill has for people in my district. What I did is I looked at a schoolteacher, two schoolteachers. They meet at school in Brevard County where I live in Florida. If they were making $30,500 a year, they get married, their combined income is $61,000 a year. So $30,500 single; they get married, $61,000. If they file as singles, they would pay $3,592 in Federal taxes, for a total of $7,184. So they are living together out of wedlock, and that is their tax burden. When they get married, when they walk down the aisle, when they go to church and have their marriage blessed, their tax goes up to $8,563. That is $1,379 that they will pay as a marriage penalty. In my opinion, that is obscene to have a Tax Code here in Washington that would actually apply that kind of a penalty on people who do the common-sense thing of getting married. It is for that reason that I have fought for this. I have supported this. I just wanted to underscore what we were talking about earlier, because the people who will oppose this will point to all that money that the Federal Government will not get anymore, and they will make these arguments that it is going to hurt the environment or it is going to hurt education or it is going to hurt the elderly or the poor. The real issue here, the real debate is, is the Federal Government going to grow at double the inflation rate, or is it going to grow at the inflation rate? The inflation rate is about 2 percent, 2.5 percent. There are people here who want to grow the Federal Government at 3\1/2\ and 4 percent per year, and they do not want to pass this marriage penalty. I say, let us pass the marriage penalty, that we can manage business here in Washington with a little less money and give a little more money to working families. That is such a critical issue here. These are working families, working moms. These are the people who are literally the backbone, the foundation of our country. More often than not, they are trying to raise kids. We are just trying to make it a little bit easier on them. Yes, we can have the money to protect the environment. We can have the money to pay for programs for the poor and the needy. We can have the money to pay for a national defense and the other needs and still do this. I see the gentleman from Indiana is going to go into that in a little bit of detail. He has a chart that I think demonstrates that very nicely, so I yield back to him.

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I just wanted to close out my contribution to this special order to say how pleased I am to see us moving in this direction, and that we may be able to pass the repeal of the marriage penalty. Many people ask me, how did you get into politics? You are a doctor, and most doctors do not go into politics. The way I got involved in it is I actually started a community group in the county that I live in called the Space Coast Family Forum. We call it the Space Coast because we launch the shuttle there, and as well, the Titan and Atlas rockets, and many may have seen the shuttle launch we had yesterday. It was a beautiful launch. But we formed that group, myself and other people, because of our concern about the breakdown of the family in the United States. I felt very strongly, as do the others who helped me join together to form that group, that the family was the foundation upon which our society was based. It was really strong families that made for strong communities that made for strong States and nations. It was not great policies that emanate from the Capitol in Washington, D.C., but it was just strong communities that really made a difference. One of the reasons I went further and ran myself, and became a candidate, and got elected, is I wanted to be able to come here and make a difference, and to do something to help families, to help working families. I am very pleased to see that we are heading in this direction. The President has made statements to indicate that he will support this. I am very pleased that the Committee on the Budget has incorporated provisions to allow for the end of the marriage penalty in this. I am very pleased to be able to support the gentleman and those others who have been involved with this effort.

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to commend the gentleman not only for convening this special order on this very important issue, but as well for being one of the leaders in the Congress and introducing H.R. 3734, the legislation to repeal the marriage tax penalty. I believe the institution of marriage was ordained by God. If you travel all over the world, it is very obvious that it is a universal institution, and its obvious primary function is to be the place where new citizens, future citizens, are nourished and raised up and learn to become contributors to society. I am talking, obviously, there about our children. To have provisions within our Tax Code, to have provisions within the law of the Government of the United States that discourage marriage and encourage people to live outside of wedlock, to me is almost criminal. To allow the very existence of this marriage tax penalty to develop in our Tax Code to me is an offense, not only to the American people, but as well to common sense. Prior to getting elected to Congress I practiced medicine. I am a physician by training. I was able to see this firsthand, and I remember it very well, seeing people, particularly senior citizens, often who were widowed and living together out of wedlock, setting a terrible example for their children and their grandchildren. But like the couple in your district that you mentioned, they were doing so primarily because of the tax burden that they would face if they were to walk down the aisle and get married. I have to say it literally breaks my heart that we have to actually fight here in Washington, D.C. for these kinds of common sense reforms. To me, the people back home described this to me as being a no-brainer, but yet we have to struggle and fight and argue. But I am very, very pleased that we have a commitment from the chairman of the Committee on the Budget, we have the vast majority of our Republican Conference strongly behind this, and we even have some of the Democrats getting behind this, which is always refreshing when you are talking about reducing taxes and we see Democrats standing up for that, and I want to commend the gentleman again. Let me just add, the points that the gentleman made about the impact on children, this is another reason why this is so critical, because if you look at what is the primary indicator for health in a community in terms of issues like drug abuse, issues like illiteracy, juvenile crime, the liberals will tell you, oh, it is income, and in reality it is not income. The thing that correlates most with problems like drug abuse, declining educational scores and juvenile delinquency, it is actually the amount of fatherlessness in that community. It is actually an intact family that is the best indicator of the health of that community. To have a Tax Code that is actually encouraging people not to get married, to me it is crazy. I strongly commend the gentleman, and I do hope that all of our colleagues will support this effort. Now, it will come at a price. It will cost us, the Federal Government, money to get rid of the marriage penalty. But, amazingly, as I understand it, it will mean a reduction in spending of 1 percent over the next 5 years, which to me is a price well worth paying. That, might I add, is just discretionary spending. I am not including entitlement spending in that mix. As I understand the numbers on this over the next 5 years, it means the difference between Washington spending $9.1 trillion versus $9.0 trillion. It is a $100 billion difference. A lot of money, $100 billion, but, in my opinion, this is clearly the right thing to do. I think Washington can tighten its belt a little bit so that the American families can have a little bit more money. The gentleman was talking about a couple that wants to take a honeymoon. I will tell you what this boils down to for a lot of couples in my Congressional District. It boils down to things like being able to afford braces for the kids; being able to set money aside for college or not; it means new tires for the car or not. So I say, let us put Washington on a little bit of a diet, and let us give married couples a little bit of a break, and let us pass this. I do commend the gentleman for, again, convening this special order. Twenty-one million American families will be affected by this. That is not a small number of people.

Mr. WELDON of Florida. If the gentleman would yield for a question, now, if I understand the gentleman correctly, we can pass this marriage penalty while actually letting the government continue to grow. The issue just is, how quickly will the Federal budget increase? In other words, are we going to increase at a rate of the inflation rate, or are we going to increase government spending? Am I correct?

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak out on Space Day, which is actually celebrated May 21, it was yesterday, a day set aside to celebrate the anniversary of John F. Kennedy's bold challenge to land a man on the moon. The space program, as we all know, has matured tremendously. We now have the space shuttle program, which has been a tremendous success, being able to go up and return with a crew and do all kinds of very sophisticated things while on orbit, such as repair the Hubble telescope, and soon it will be launching the elements of the space station. We have all heard about the tremendous scientific breakthroughs that have been the fruit of our space program. I know I, as a physician, saw that on a daily basis when I was practicing medicine prior to being elected to the House. Some of the technology from the space program is used on a daily basis, such as the imaging technology with MRI scanning and CAT scanning, as well as a lot of the materials science used in cardiac catheterization and prosthetic hips. But today I rise to talk about what I think may prove to be ultimately in the end one of the greatest breakthroughs that has benefited people here on Earth from our space program, and to talk about that I need to talk about a product made by a company in my district. It is called Quick Boost, and I have a can of that in my hand right here. You put this stuff in your air conditioning unit in your car and it will cause your air conditioning unit to run about 10 to 20 percent more efficiently. Now, what is really interesting is they have a version of this that they will be releasing on the market very soon that will go in your home air conditioning unit that will cause your home air conditioning unit to run 10 to 20 percent more efficiently. Why am I talking about this product? This product is a spin-off of the space program. Yes, it was NASA who had the need to develop more efficient air conditioning units on spacecraft that caused the technology to be developed that has gone ultimately into this product. And this product has the potential to cause the consumption of electricity to decline in the United States. It has the potential to allow us to save billions of dollars on electricity costs as well as reduce our demands for foreign oil, and probably what is more important is that families all across America, particularly those living in the South that run air conditioning units all year round, may be able to save up to as much as $20 a month, $2250 a year, which is more than equal to their tax portion of what is going to fund our space program. Our space program is having a profound effect on our culture, on our society, and there is probably no better example than this product called Quick Boost made by a company in my district, Mainstream Engineering. So for those people in this House of Representatives who frequently get up and claim that we should not be spending this money on our space program and that we should be applying it to education or health care or better roads and bridges, all of which are very worthwhile things, I challenge them to stop and think and look at all of the benefits that have accrued to us here on earth from our space program: whether it is the medical technology, whether it is through the better prediction of weather, or, yes, right down to something like this, a product that is going to decrease our reliance on foreign oil, that is going to decrease the consumption of electricity. It will actually be good for the environment, because we will be burning less fossil fuels; and, indeed, it will help families all across this country to save a little bit of money each year, money that they can better use for their children's education, money that they can better use for braces for the kids or new tires for the car. So the space program is more than just sending rockets up to space, it is more than just motivating our kids in science and technology, it is more than just exploring the new frontiers. It is about helping us here on earth. It is about learning ways to do things better. I would encourage all my colleagues who have opposed funding for the space program to look at this breakthrough, to look at this technology and the billions and billions and billions of dollars of savings that it will cause our Nation in the years ahead and to rethink their position on the space program. I encourage all of my colleagues to vote to increase NASA's budget, because these are the kinds of breakthroughs that not only will help the United States, they as well have the ability to help all of mankind and all people throughout the world.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. I want to just share with my colleagues here, Mr. Chairman, when I was in the Army Medical Corps, every month at the end of the month my Secretary would bring me a stack of patients who were unable to get in to see me for an appointment, because we were too busy. We did not have enough doctors in the clinic. I would go through that stack and I would be able to see which ones were going to end up in the emergency room. I did not like it. I did not like it at all, but at least I knew the emergency room was there when they got sick. Now, today, we have closed the emergency room to them, or we have closed the whole facility. We have turned our back on these people, Mr. Chairman. I encourage everybody to vote in support of this amendment. If this is a flawed amendment, I say vote for it and let us fix it in conference, and let us move the process along. When people say, we were not promised medical care when we retired, do not believe that. Everybody said that. I spent 6 years on active duty. We heard it all the time, do your 20 and you will get health care when you retire. We have turned our backs on these people. I commend all my colleagues for bringing this to the floor, and I encourage everybody to vote in support of this.

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

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I thank the Chairman of the Committee for yielding me the time, and I thank the ranking member for supporting my amendment, which is included in the en bloc amendment. And I encourage all my colleagues to vote for the en bloc amendment. My amendment is an amendment to fence off the funds for the modernization of the eastern test range located in Cape Canaveral in my district in Florida, as well as the western test range in California. For years now, DOD, because of multiple demands from all of these overseas deployments, has been raiding various accounts, to include the account for modernizing our test ranges. The result is that the range modernization programs are falling way behind. I recently witnessed a launch of a probe to Mars being scrubbed at Cape Canaveral because of the failure of a tube. Yes, a tube. We are relying on antiquated technology to keep our launch ranges operational. This is a disgrace. Support the modernization of our ranges. This is a critical issue to our national security. I encourage a yes vote on the en bloc amendment.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 169, I was inadvertently detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.'' Amendment A-4 Offered by Mr. Hunter

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. I rise again in opposition to this amendment. We have debated this amendment now every year since I was first elected to the Congress. Prior to coming to the Congress, I was a practicing physician in Florida and, prior to going into private practice, I spent 6 years in the U.S. Army Medical Corps. Indeed, I was in the medical corps when this policy was first established under the Reagan administration. I can tell my colleagues that the policy was well received by the people within the medical corps, the men and women. The reason it was so well received is the same reason that it is very controversial here. There are lots of Members who feel that killing the unborn child in the womb is morally wrong and that we should not be doing that. To use a military treatment facility and to ask our men and women in uniform, many of whom have very, very strong objections to this procedure, they do not consider it a medical procedure, they consider it killing, is just wrong. I can tell my colleagues that when I was on active duty, when this ban went into effect, it was very, very well received by the nurses, by the physicians. They did not like doing it, and today, still, they do not like doing it. I would encourage all of my colleagues to vote no on this amendment. Those who would claim that no taxpayer dollars are being used, I disagree with that. They are using the facility. They are using the materials. They are using the infrastructure, the electricity that is there. I say, do not use in any way tax dollars for this kind of purpose. The reason people do not like this is the same reason they could not find any doctors to do it in the first place, and that is because it is ending a human life. People will try to dehumanize this whole procedure and call it something else, but in reality it is taking a living human being in the womb and abruptly ending its life. I think it is wrong, and I urge all my colleagues to vote no on this.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I have some questions for the other side of the aisle, questions that I am absolutely 100 percent sure I will receive no answers for. I am sure that I will receive no answers, because for nearly three years now the other side has made it abundantly clear that they have no interest in discovering how the Democratic National Committee raised nearly $3 million in illegal campaign contributions from communist China; no interest in discovering how the White House came to possess 900 FBI files of Republicans; no interest in discovering who in the White House ordered the FBI and the IRS to investigate Billy Dale and the other White House Travel Office employees in order to smear them. My questions are, do you think that Webster Hubbell's statement on his jailhouse tapes that ``I need to roll over one more time,'' is indicative of a crime? Do you think that Webster Hubbell's statement with respect to overbilling that ``I will not raise those allegations that might open it up to Hillary,'' is not indicative of a crime? Do you think that Mrs. Hubbell's great fears she will lose her job if her husband tells the truth about what he knows is not relevant to the committee's investigations? Questions, yes, Mr. Speaker, that I am sure fellow Americans we will not a receive answer to, not a single one.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, who is the victim here? Webster Hubbell, who was President Clinton's third highest ranking official in the Clinton Justice Department, embezzled nearly half a million dollars from his law partners. This is the kind of person that the President appointed to be the third ranking official within the Department of Justice: Webster Hubbell, whom Clinton donors gave more than $700,000 after he was forced to resign from office. Webster Hubbell, who paid less than $30,000 in taxes after receiving more than $1 million in income in 1994. And we note that there is evidence that he did not actually even earn this income. Webster Hubbell, who plea bargained with Judge Starr and then refused to cooperate with Judge Starr and who then took the fifth amendment before the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight. Now the Democrats are trying to portray him as the victim. Mr. Speaker, the Democratic Party has long been the victimization party, but this is the mother of all misplaced victimhood. Why does the other side not address instead their hero's jailhouse comments: needing to roll over one more time?

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the Tauzin amendment regarding fresh look. H.R. 1872 holds much promise for expanding consumer choices and lowering consumer costs of international satellite communications. This amendment would jeopardize all of that. A key reason H.R. 1872 will benefit consumers is that it will end the current monopoly that COMSAT enjoys by statute as the sole reseller of INTELSAT and Inmarsat services in the United States. Currently users of these satellite systems have no choice but to go through COMSAT to purchase INTELSAT and Inmarsat services. In some cases, such as some telephone and television services, there are few or no choices except to use the INTELSAT and Inmarsat satellites. A recent study estimated that U.S. customers would save $1.5 billion over 10 years once monopoly access to INTELSAT and Inmarsat ends. H.R. 1872, the bill before us, permits COMSAT's customers to renegotiate their contracts once the monopoly is ended. Fresh look is an established way to transition from a monopoly market to a competitive market. The FCC has applied the fresh look policy before when new competitive choices were made available to customers. It has allowed customers to renegotiate long-term contracts entered into when no competition existed. Today COMSAT is the sole U.S. reseller or distributor of INTELSAT and Inmarsat services. Each and every user of those satellite systems in the United States has no choice but to enter into a contract with COMSAT for these services. These are long-term contracts. The bill will end this monopoly. Thus, it is critical to creating the new competitive environment that customers be given the opportunity to renegotiate, take a fresh look at the long-term contracts they entered into when the statutorily created monopoly was in force. Without fresh look, these customers will be locked into long-term contracts and denied the benefits of the new competitive choices. Competition will truly be meaningless if all customers are locked into long-term contracts. I know there has been a lot of smoke generated about this and how this would operate as a taking of property. I do not believe that giving customers an opportunity for a fresh look at their contracts would result in such a taking. This is not a new policy. The FCC has applied it successfully in several occasions. Moreover, the courts have never accorded contracts the status of protected property because contract rights are subject to changes in the law. COMSAT is a creature of Congress and Congress expressly retained broad rights over COMSAT and the right to change the 1962 law. Fresh look does not punish COMSAT. COMSAT and its customers are free to continue their contracts. As long as COMSAT provides high quality services at competitive rates, underlying competitive rates, it has nothing to fear. Customers will be the real winners here and whether they stay with a newly competitive COMSAT or choose a new alternative will be their choice. Fresh look is pro-consumer. It gives users the right, not the obligation, to renegotiate their contracts in light of the new competitive choices. It is essential to end the monopoly. I urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment. Let me just add. I was very pleased to see this, a letter from one of the satellites users, CSX and its subsidiary Sea-Land, a large maritime shipping company, recounting its use of fresh look regarding 800 number portability. When fresh look was implemented for 800 numbers, CSX saved $4.5 million per year. CSX wrote the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bliley) stating, ``We look forward to using the similar opportunity as provided for under H.R. 1872 so that we can pay competitive prices, rather than monopoly prices, for satellite services.'' Any claim that users do not want fresh look is false. All Members should vote against this amendment. It will harm consumers and prevent competition from developing.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I too oppose the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella). The Morella amendment is premised on the notion that H.R. 1872, as reported out of the committee, would work a taking of COMSAT's property. This proposition seems to me to be entirely unfounded. To begin with, I am at a loss to see any property that would be impacted by the bill. The term ``property'' has a particular legal meaning. It is not just a unilateral expectation, as the opponents of this bill have suggested, but rather an entitlement based upon a mutually explicit understanding. The fact that COMSAT or its shareholders may have made investments with the expectation that COMSAT would continue to operate as the monopoly provider of INTELSAT and Inmarsat's services in the United States does not give them a property interest in those investments. Half the equation is missing. To constitute property protected by the fifth amendment, COMSAT would need to show that these expectations were based upon a mutuality of understanding sufficiently well-grounded to create an entitlement protected at law. Of course, any such claim would collide headlong with the reality that when Congress established COMSAT in the 1962 Satellite Act, it expressly reserved the right to modify COMSAT's role in the market at any time. To the extent that COMSAT and its shareholders made investments based on the provisions of the Satellite Act, they did so presumably knowing of the risk that Congress might some day do so. It is absolutely baffling to me that COMSAT could think that Congress created an entitlement, a property interest, by the terms of the Satellite Act. In any event, even if COMSAT had identified a protected property interest that would be impacted by H.R. 1872, the legislation hardly would reach the level of a regulatory taking, quote-unquote, under the Supreme Court's cases. The bill will without a doubt adjust the benefits and burdens of economic life, quote-unquote, and end one of the last government protected monopolies in the telecommunications field. It would not, however, take any tangible property or vitiate any specific right or assurance conferred by the government. I therefore urge the Members to oppose this amendment.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Madam Speaker, I am a product of the public school system. I went to primary and secondary, as well as college and medical school, through public schools. Indeed, my mother was a public school teacher. But yet, I support this bill, and I think this bill is a very good bill. And, frankly, I am appalled at the kind of language that people are using to describe this concept. I mean, this is a very, very limited, small scholarship program; and to use this kind of language that I think incites fear in people, frankly, I just do not understand it. We have a very serious problem in the D.C. public school system. Sixty-five percent of D.C. public schoolchildren test below their grade level, this despite spending about $7,500 per student. The Washington Post, not exactly a Republican newspaper, reported that 85 percent of the D.C. public school graduates who enter a university need remedial education. Forty percent of the high school students either drop out or they shift over to a private school. Now let me tell my colleagues something: Rich people have school choice in the city of Washington. Indeed, the President, the Vice President, how many Members of this body send their children to the D.C. public schools? We are talking about giving a limited number of students a scholarship and to see how well it goes over, to see if the families like it, to see if the children like it. And they use this language like we want to destroy public education all across America. In my opinion it is an outrage to use these kind of terms to describe a simple, very limited scholarship program. I think what you fear most is that this is going to be a success and the parents in the Washington D.C. area will ask for more of it. That is what you really fear. In my opinion, this piece of legislation is something that everybody should support, particularly those who are really interested in education. Let us put the issue to rest. If this is such a bad idea, will we not find out with this scholarship program? You will be able to stand up and say, ``I told you so.''

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. I am a physician. I did my internship and residency in San Francisco in the early 1980s. I remember when I got there as a young intern being told that there were people coming in with strange conditions. And I remember the first article that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine and came out of the Veterans' Administration Hospital in Los Angeles that initially described AIDS. After serving some time with the Army in Georgia, I went into private practice in Florida, and I did indeed practice infectious disease with the only infectious disease specialist in the county, a county of about 400,000 people, who saw AIDS patients. I had the opportunity to treat lots of AIDS patients and get up in the middle of the night, go into the emergency room, admit them to the hospital. And I have to say, I had the sad experience of seeing a lot of young people in the prime of their life die from complications of AIDS. So, needless to say, I am very interested in any effort that we can pursue to help control the spread of AIDS. Now, there have been a lot of studies that have been quoted by a lot people that assert that needle exchange programs cut down on the transmission of infectious disease, and there have been quite a few studies quoted by people on our side of the aisle that there are other studies that confound that. So we have a situation where we have some studies that contend that there is a benefit from needle exchange, and then there are some studies that show that needle exchange programs do not work or indeed may actually make matters worse. I can quote from some of those studies, but I believe some of my colleagues who have preceded me have already quoted from some of those studies, so I choose not to do so again, but to simply point out that one of the confounding problems with some of the studies that contend that there is a benefit is that they frequently do not control for other aspects that go along with the needle exchange program, like counseling, like education that is incorporated into the needle exchange program. And indeed there are studies that actually suggest that those things, when we actually go into a community and engage in counseling and intervention with the drug abuse community exclusive of needle exchange, we can actually see a dramatic reduction in the instance of AIDS. I am specifically thinking about a study that came out of Chicago which showed the seroconversion rate, that is when people convert from being without AIDS to having AIDS in their bloodstream, amongst the IV drug-abusing community fell from 8.4 percent to 2.4 percent. That is the conversion rate, a dramatic 71 percent reduction. So, in conclusion, I think this is a very controversial issue, and I think it is extremely appropriate that the Federal Government not get involved in promoting this. And if they want to have one in Hartford or other places, I think certainly we should not prohibit them from doing that. But this is good legislation. It keeps the Federal Government out of an issue that I think on a scientific basis is very controversial.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, founded more than half a century ago, the Voice of Democracy Scholarship Program allows high school students a chance to compete in a broadcast script writing contest. The competition, sponsored by the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the U.S. Ladies Auxiliary, conducts this annual speech competition and provides the winners with a scholarship. I am very pleased that this year Scott Wilson, 18, from Palm Bay High School was selected as the winner from the state of Florida. I commend him for his hard work both in this competition and as demonstrated in his academic achievements. In recognition of his selection as the winner of this competition, I am hereby submitting his speech to the Congressional Record for printing. 1997-98 VFW Voice of Democracy Scholarship Competition ``My Voice in our Democracy'' (Scott Wilson, Florida Winner) Stop and listen. Listen to the past, to the glorious voices of our Democracy. Do you hear them speaking? Their words softly vibrate with each ring of our liberty bell, and echo loudly in the crash of a judge's gavel. They whisper from the forgotten pages of our Constitution, and scream from the dying lips of a fallen soldier. Their words are of freedom, justice, and equality and their voice is the voice of democracy. Stop and look. Look to the future. Behold, the golden sun of the twentieth century casts its final rays over the ever-darkening horizon, and the dawn of a new millennium rises. Yet now, many have forgotten the timber of democracy's magnificent voice. Its whisperings are barely audible now, diminished by the passage of time. The voice of democracy must be amplified by the megaphone of a new generation, so that the America of tomorrow will need not strain to hear its mighty declaration. But it begins with me. I must be the first megaphone. America will hear my voice in our democracy. In 1775, American democracy was but a newborn babe, struggling to snap the umbilical cord of a tyrannical British monarchy. Lack of unity heightened the struggle, as colonial Tories, too timid to jump from the safety of the nest, clung tightly to their mother country. Meanwhile, true American patriots, few in number, desperately needed a spokesman. And in the Virginian House of Burgesses, Patrick Henry stepped to the platform. Henry strongly felt that the colonists should arm themselves for a war with Britain, in which they would cast off the bitter yoke of political enslavement. He is forever remembered for seven, soul-stirring words which emulated the very heart of the American revolution: ``Give me liberty, or give me death!'' And later, at the genesis of the American Constitution, Henry was among the creators of the Bill of Rights, which insured the people of their basic freedoms. Yes, in the turbulent age of the Revolution, the voice of freedom was calling, and Patrick Henry answered its call. Today, the voice of freedom is still calling through the corridors of time searching for someone to magnify her majestic voice. I will be that someone, who like Patrick Henry, steps to the platform in defense of freedom's voice. And when I behold the basic freedoms of man covered by a menacing storm of political scheming and deceit, I will help to pull back the clouds to reveal the rainbow of liberties that is the American birthright, and the democratic promise. Since the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation, the United States has grappled with the issue of racial equality. But like a boxer that beats the air, we have landed few direct punches to the face of inequality's true opponent-- discrimination. And even in the 1960's, racism had not yet received its rightful knockout blow. That is, until Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., stepped into the ring. In August of 1963, 200,000 protesters marched to the Lincoln Memorial, and stood as sheep about its reflecting pool, listening to their shepherd speak these moving words: ``I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal.'' Today, nearly thirty-five years later, we still dream his dream, because when the vote of equality was calling, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., answered its call. But like freedom's voice, the voice of equality searches for someone new. Here again, I will be that someone, who climbs into the ring of combat. And when I pass through the peaceful fields of equality, freshly trampled by the deafening machine of unfounded discrimination, I will glean from the lives of the past, and sow the seeds of democracy for future generations, so that in due time, they will reap an abundant harvest of racial tranquility. And now I ask you: As the dawn of the new millennium rises, who will rise up with it, to echo the voice of democracy in the approaching age? Who will it be that opens the eyes of Americans to the truth of human equality? And who will it be that ensures future Americans of their right to freedom and justice? The past is speaking, but will you the future listen? The past is challenging, but will you the future respond? I am listening, and I will respond. I will be the new megaphone, that amplifies the democratic voice when freedom's rainbow cannot be seen, when justice's gavel is strangely mute, and when equality's harvest is trampled underfoot. America will hear me shout: ``Freedom!'' ``Justice'' ``Equality!'' Assuredly, my voice will be heard in our democracy.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to the disingenuous statements made by liberal colleagues on the other side of the aisle. The other side talks as if one side of the aisle is on the side of the angels and supports campaign finance reform and the other side is against campaign finance reform. How ironic that the side that made a mockery of campaign finance reform laws in the 1996 elections now feels qualified to adopt a holier-than-thou attitude on this issue. The truth is that the reforms that they are seeking are not even constitutional, which I guess is not surprising, given that post- sixties liberals are no longer champions of free speech. The liberals want to limit political speech. We do not. I think the American people are well qualified to decide this issue, once they know the facts.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I thank the Chairman for yielding time to me, and I commend him and the Ranking Member on this legislation and, in particular, for including funds for the widening of U.S. Highway 192. Mr. Chairman, U.S. Highway 192 is a dangerous two-lane road that connects the south Orlando-Kissimmee-St. Cloud area with the coastal communities of Palm Bay and Melbourne, communities of about 250,000 combined. I became interested in the widening of this road when a physician colleague of mine lost his wife on this road when a truck crossed the midline and she was killed. Ever since then, my wife will not allow me to drive on this road with her at any time. Just last week, a truck crossed the midline. The driver was killed, closing the road, a major highway connecting two major areas in Florida, closing the road for a week because of herbicide that was spilled all over the road. Widening U.S. 192 is not pork. Widening U.S. 192 will save lives. Closing a road for a week because of a midline crossing accident involving a truck hurts our economies. It will save lives. It will be good for our communities. It will be good for the economy. I challenge those who would call this pork to come to my district and talk to the people who have to travel on this road, a road that should have been widened 10 years ago. Again, I thank both the Chairman and the Ranking Member.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Yes, that is right, and I want to thank you for yielding to me, and I certainly want to commend you and the other Members of the freshman class of the 105th Congress for the leadership roles you have been taking. And in listening to the discussion tonight, the gentleman from New Mexico, I think, is representing his district very well, and likewise I think the people of Colorado have been well served by many of the initiatives that you have been putting forward. And I think freshmen, they are fresh, and we always need a fresh look around here. This place can get pretty stale at times, and getting people coming in from the marketplace, from the outside world coming in, I think is a very good thing. I thank you for yielding. I wanted to talk a little bit about a piece of legislation that I introduced today, along with my good friend and colleague, the gentleman from Ohio (Sherrod Brown), the Patient Choice and Access to Quality Health Care Act of 1998, H.R. 3547. As most of my colleagues know, prior to coming to the United States Congress, I was a practicing physician. I practiced internal medicine, specifically general internal medicine. I took care of a lot of senior citizens, people on Medicare. I took care of a lot of people with chronic illnesses, diabetes, arthritis. I practiced for 8 years in private practice. Prior to that, I had practiced in the army. And in private practice, I had the opportunity to do some managed care, and I have to say that I have seen the good side and the bad side of managed care, I have seen the good side and the bad side of standard fee-for-service medical care, and there really is no perfect system. Any system has its good points and its bad points, but clearly today in America we are seeing a trend that I think is very dangerous. It is a trend within the managed care industry to compromise quality for the sake of saving the bottom line; in other words, putting dollars ahead of patients, and I think that is wrong. In particular, there are some managed care entities that are compromising quality so much for the sake of profits that it is putting pressure on some of the honest and well-run managed care entities. And this country has many things about it that makes it great, and I cannot within the confines of the time yielded, describe all of those things. But one of those things, as we all know, is that we have the best health care system in the world, the best quality health care, the most innovative care. So this piece of legislation, the Patient Choice and Access to Quality Health Care Act, is a reasonable proposal, I think, to rein in some of the excesses of the managed care industry. Specifically, the bill has provisions that assures adequate access to specialty care for in-network care; also some provisions for grievance for enrollees. Also, there are provisions required of the plan to notify the enrollees when they are enrolling of what restrictions they may have on access to various types of specialists. Importantly, there is a provision that places restrictions on health care providers being provided financial incentives not to refer patients. We have provisions in existing Medicare law prohibiting plans from allowing doctors to get extra money for referring patients, but we do not have any provisions that prevent plans from giving doctors money for not referring patients, and in this legislation we limit that or we prohibit that specifically. We also have a provision in here, a so-called gag prohibition against gag clauses that would allow doctors to freely communicate with their patients. There is also an out-of-network provision, where if patients choose to, they can exercise that option and the plans will be allowed to charge patients extra for going outside the plan. This is a very, very reasonable piece of legislation. It is a bipartisan piece of legislation. It does not require the creation of vast new bureaucracies that would have to monitor the entire industry. It will allow managed care to continue, but it places reasonable restrictions on managed care restrictions that I would like to point out will serve well to maintain quality. Most of the provisions in my legislation are provisions that were voted on in this body previously and passed overwhelmingly by this body, by the Senate, and signed by the President. Specifically, these are all provisions that we already placed on the Medicare plan, and some of the provisions as well are already preexisting within Kennedy- Kassebaum legislation that was passed last year. I think this bill will go a long way to deal with many of the problems and the frustrations that we see today in the health care marketplace. We all know that there are many excesses within the managed care plans that exist out there. I was reminded recently, as a physician I still practice occasionally, and I spoke to a nurse not too long ago who was complaining to me that her mother, elderly mother who lived in another State, not in Florida, who was enrolled in a managed care plan, had fallen and broken her nose. She could not breathe through her nose when lying down, so she had to sleep sitting up. And the managed care entity was refusing to pay for fixing this problem, it is called a rhinoplasty, claiming that it was cosmetic surgery on an elderly lady. Clearly, this was totally inappropriate. Fortunately, the managed care entity relented and finally paid for the rhinoplasty. Now this is a minor incident, and I can tell you that I have heard much, much worse cases. Indeed, there are cases out there where people have suffered severe harm as a consequence of denial of appropriate medical care within managed care entities, including cases where there have been deaths. So in my opinion, legislation is long overdue, and this piece of legislation that I am putting forward is a reasonable proposal, it is a bipartisan proposal, and I would encourage all my colleagues to look at this legislation, and I encourage all my colleagues to sign on to it.