Frank Wolf

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss).

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, the committee appreciates the importance of the Eisenhower Parkway extension to the gentleman's district in the State of Georgia and recognizes the commitment Congress has made in the past with funding for the project.

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I completely agree. We want to crack down on poaching of Forrest Gump in the gulf and people are doing that.

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Florida for making me aware of the very intense growth of the Southwest Florida area and the planned expansion of the Southwest Florida International Airport. Because of its location, it is a wonderful place to visit, I understand, particularly in the winter, not always in the summer. The Southwest Florida International Airport is essential in maintaining Florida's balanced airport system. This project is worthy of a long-term commitment, a very long-term commitment by the FAA. I will do all I can to ensure the conference report on the transportation appropriation contains language to encourage the FAA to grant Southwest Florida International Airport's request for a letter of intent.

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

Mr. WOLF. If the gentlewoman will continue to yield, Mr. Chairman, the gentlemen from New Jersey, Mr. Franks and Mr. Frelinghuysen, have spoken to me about this. I think it is a wonderful amendment, and we accept it.

Mr. WOLF. That is correct.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I thank the majority leader for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, the entire country was shocked and saddened to learn of the terrible tragedy that happened on Friday afternoon, when U.S. Capitol Police Special Agent John Gibson and Capitol Police Officer Jacob J. Chestnut were killed in the line of duty. I want to express my condolences to the families of these two brave men. They were both true heroes. They gave their lives to protect the lives of the rest of us. The Capitol is really like a campus in many respects; people all know each other, it is a small community. So when a tragedy like this hits, it affects all of us very deeply. There are no words that can adequately express the sorrow and the grief that we all feel as a community over this terrible loss. My dad was a Philadelphia policeman for 20 years, and I know how difficult the job can be and the uncertainty that begins each day for the officer's family. My hearts goes out to the families of Special Agent Gibson and Officer Chestnut, and all of the men and women of the Capitol Hill Police Department and all of the policemen around the country that give their lives. Our heart also goes out to Angela Dickerson, the young woman who was wounded during the shooting. We also recognize the trauma and the experience by so many others who were there on Friday afternoon. Our thoughts and prayers are with them all.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Christensen), for yielding me this time. Madam Speaker, let me stipulate at the beginning, because I feel so passionate about this, I want to stipulate that there are good and decent people on both sides of the issue. I believe that. I mean that. I do not question anybody's position on this issue. But I believe that the administration's policy is fundamentally immoral and this Congress is ready to ratify a fundamentally immoral policy, a policy that has no morality behind it. Did my colleagues see today's Washington Times? ``China conducted tests as Clinton visited.'' And then it goes on to say, ``China continued to supply missile technology to Iran and Pakistan last year and also sold Iran poison gas equipment,'' and then tested it when the President was there. Madam Speaker, did my colleagues also see the story out of the Pentagon yesterday saying that our Special Forces will be training the Chinese People's Liberation Army? Are they going to train them so they can invade Taiwan? Are they going to train them to shoot better when they do whatever they do? Why would the Clinton administration support the training of the Chinese People's Liberation Army by American men and women? That is immoral. That is immoral. Nuclear proliferation. China gave the technology to Pakistan, which then triggered India to test their nuclear weapons, which then triggered Pakistan to test their nuclear weapons, which has brought disorder and made it a dangerous subcontinent. China did that. No one else. We are not going to take away MFN. This vote is not to take away MFN. This vote is to send a message to the Chinese government. We know the Senate will not do it. We know the President would never sign it. So this is not a vote for engagement or disengagement or taking away MFN. It is a vote to send a message. Human rights. There is no progress. Bishop McCarrick, who is one of the three people the President sent to China, sent a letter up yesterday asking us to take away MFN to send a message. There is no progress on human rights in China. There are more people in jail today in China than there were when the President landed in China. Catholic priests are in jail. Bishops are in jail. I was in Beijing Prison Number 1 with the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith); 240 prisoners that we saw working on socks to export to the United States are still in jail. Protestant pastors are being persecuted. Tibet. I visited Tibet last year. China has plundered Tibet. For those who care about culture and history, China has destroyed the buildings. There are TV cameras monitoring the streets. The public security police are all over. They have destroyed 4,000 monasteries. Lhasa is nothing more than basically a dirty Chinese city because of what they have done. So in human rights, there is no progress. There is regress. We are going back with regard to weapons proliferation, with regard to trade. We have a $50 billion trade imbalance and it's going up 20 percent a year. They send us 30 to 40 percent of their goods, which could be made by American workers. We send them .02 percent of our goods. Slave labor camps. Remember Solzhenitsyn's book ``Gulag Archipelago''? There are more slave labor camps in China today than there were when Solzhenitsyn wrote the book ``Gulag Archipelago'' about the former Soviet Union. We are sending a message. The message is that we care. The American people are not where the administration is and the American people are not where this Congress is. The policy of this administration is fundamentally immoral and MFN for China will ratify a fundamentally immoral policy. Now, I am all for jobs. I have got a 90 percent Chamber of Commerce voting record. But jobs, jobs, jobs. It says in the Bible that ``man does not live by bread alone.'' What about the monks in Dracphi Prison? What about the Buddhist nuns that have been tortured? What about the Catholic priests, some persecuted for 30 years? We've heard very little talk about that. Madam Speaker, I strongly rise and urge those who are searching, those who are thinking, those who are undecided, we are not voting on MFN today. We are really voting on whether or not we want to send a message. Do we want to send a message of hope, a message to the Catholic bishop who was there because he gave Holy Communion? Do we want to send a message of hope to the Dracphi Prison, which I went by in Tibet where the man who took me by was even afraid, because he risked his life to take me by so I could take a picture of it. Or do we want to send a message that all we care about is the policy of business, and we will train the Chinese People's Liberation Army, and we will allow them to test their missiles when our President is there, because fundamentally all we care about in this country is business and we do not care about human rights. That is the issue. I urge support of the Solomon amendment, whereby we will not be denying MFN but we will be sending a message of hope to the Chinese people and those who are being tortured in the prisons. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.J. Res. 121, to revoke Most-Favored-Nation (MFN) status from China. I do so because since current U.S. policy has been in place--a policy of so-called ``constructive engagement''--there has been no progress on human rights in China. No progress on weapons proliferation. And no progress on trade. It is a failed policy and this House should vote to put some backbone into this policy of appeasement. Year after year we debate this issue. Year after year the House votes to continue MFN to China. Year after year, the Chinese Communists in Beijing continue to harshly control religious practice; imprison religious leaders and dissidents; plunder Tibet; sell weapons to Iran, Pakistan and other rogue or unsafeguarded countries and engage in unfair trading practices. Congress must send a message to Beijing that we are serious about our values, our national security and our commitment to fair trade. Our policy on China is amoral--and I would argue that it borders on being immoral--because it is focused on preserving good relations with a brutal regime in order to help American companies get business deals. It is a one-sided policy that ignores the most fundamental values of the United States. First, on the issue of human rights. There has been absolutely no progress since President Clinton de-linked trade from human rights in 1994 and no progress since the President's recent trip to China. In fact, more dissidents are in jail today than before the President's trip. As Air Force One was landing, Chinese democracy activists and religious leaders were being harassed and detained. The Washington Post reports today that yet another dissident has been given a three-year jail sentence--part of a continuing pattern of tightening repression in the weeks following the President's trip. Just days after the President left China, 11 dissidents who tried to register a political party advocating democracy were detained by the Public Security Bureau. Five remain in detention. Last week, some 100 dissidents released an open letter calling for their release. Most of them are under suveillance or house arrest. Religious persecution persists. Christians are still being put in jail for holding Bible studies in their homes, meeting with other believers, conducting Catholic mass and distributing Bibles. Leaders in China's underground church are constantly under surveillance, placed under house arrest, interrogated and pressured to close down ``house'' churches. Many are arrested or sent to labor camps. Over the past year, the number has gone up. There are still a number of Catholic bishops in jail on account of their religious activity. None have gained their freedom. More have been arrested. Mercifully, the Chinese released 78-year-old Bishop Zeng from prison several months ago because his health was failing, but he is still under house arrest. The Chinese government also revoked the passport of a 96-year-old Cardinal, Cardinal Kung, who lives in the United States in exile. A large number of Protestant house church leaders are in fail. Not one of the 30 religious prisoners on the list presented to the Chinese government during the President's visit or the visit by the 3-person religious delegation in February have been released. There has been absolutely no progress. In Tibet, the Chinese government continues to destroy the Tibetan culture, imprison dissidents including a large number of monks and nuns, restrict religious activity, monitor monasteries, denigrate the Dalai Lama, and leave millions of Tibetan people without hope for a better future. Since the debate on MFN last year, I have visited Tibet. I saw first- hand the repression taking place. Absolutely nothing has improved for those people. Lhasa is no longer a Tibetan city. Surveillance cameras are all over. So are Chinese security officials. I heard story after story of harsh repression. Prisons are a growth industry. Tibetans are sinking further and further into despair as Chinese immigrants rush to settle Tibetan lands. Chinese karaoke bars and prostitutes line the streets, many across from the Potala Palace, the historic home of the Dalai Lama. Young Tibetan men, denied a meaningful role in society, are idle and increasingly alcoholic. They are without hope. China is sinking millions of dollars into Tibet--for roads, factories and telecommunications, energy, housing and so on. Lots of people are getting rich, but very few of them are Tibetans. Most are Chinese. China's constitution allows the state to claim all natural resources for its own, and Beijing is making millions on Tibetan virgin lumber and minerals. At the same time, Tibetans are being robbed of their language and their culture. They are told it is inferior. Chinese propaganda spews out of the public address system and public security cameras record private conversations. Monks and nuns are forced to choose between undergoing ``patriotic re-education campaign'' and denouncing the Dalai Lama or being expelled from the monastery and sent to prison. Tibetan refugees--monks and nuns forced out of their monastery, children sent out by their parents to be schooled, the young seeking an opportunity simply to live as Tibetans, and the elderly hoping the see the Dalai Lama before they die--continue to risk their lives to flee over the highest mountain passes in the world into freedom There has been no progress in Tibet. Absolutely none. Uighurs in Northwest China--who are predominately Muslim--are also being persecuted. They are deprived of their right to religious freedom and having their culture destroyed. Nothing has improved for them either. So on the issue of human rights--there has been absolutely no progress. In fact, things are getting worse. Second is the issue of weapons proliferation. So maybe human rights has not improved, but haven't we at least been able to work with the Chinese to get them to stop proliferating weapons of mass destruction and make America safer? No. There has been no progress here either. Thanks to China, the world is a more dangerous place today. China has continued to sell missiles and missile technology to Pakistan, despite continuous pledges not to do so. Because China helped advance Pakistan's nuclear program, India decided to resume nuclear testing. Several days later, Pakistan conducted its own nuclear tests. Now we have an arms race in Southeast Asia. We put sanctions on Pakistan and sanctions on India. But we continue to kowtow to the Chinese government. China also sells nuclear technology to Iran and helps Iran's missile program. China is helping the Khartoum government build a pipeline to pump oil out of Sudan--a country that sponsors terrorism and engages in genocide against its Christian population. China is helping the junta in Burma. China's friends are this world's most ardent enemies of democracy. So sadly, there has been no progress on preventing China's proliferation of weapons and weapons technology. I should also note that China is also modernizing its military and building ICBM missiles capable of hitting the United States. The Washington Times revealed yesterday that six more were built in the first four months of this year. A secret Air Force intelligence report released recently said China's new mobile ICBM's ``will be a significant threat not only to U.S. forces deployed in the Pacific theater, but to portions of the continental United States.'' China is the only country with missiles currently pointed at the United States, in spite of claims otherwise by some in our government. Third, fair trade. Our policy has not helped open China's market to U.S. goods. Today, China's trade surplus with the United States is almost $50 billion. In May, it was up 24 percent over April. While China's trade surplus with the U.S. continues to skyrocket, American goods are being kept out of the Chinese market. China sends 30-40 percent of its merchandise exports to the U.S. In contrast, the U.S. sends only .02 percent of its merchandise exports to China. What about the huge Chinese market? The real story is that 80 percent of China's total imports are re-exported to the rest of the world. Harry Wu--who spent 19 years in China's gulag on account of his beliefs--advocates revocation of MFN to send a message. He says ``the undoubted primary beneficiary of foreign trade in China is the Chinese Communist Party. . . . As the Chinese economy grows so does the power of the Chinese Communist Party.'' China forces American companies to turn over technology and transfer production to China in exchange for doing business there. China not only uses this technology to modernize its military, but also to compete with American companies and American workers. America is losing jobs to China. So the current policy has resulted in no progress toward promoting more fair trade with China either. No progress on human rights. No progress on proliferation. No progress on trade. The sign of a failed policy. The Clinton administration says the way to achieve progress in these three areas--human rights, proliferation and trade--is to continue our policy of ``constructive engagement.'' The same administration confirmed yesterday that U.S. special forces will begin training Chinese PLA troops to ``develop rapport and understanding.'' It is also the same administration that allowed two American companies to export sensitive satellite technology to China--which proliferation experts say significantly improved China's missile program--allegedly in exchange for campaign donations. In my view, this administration doesn't have much credibility on this issue. They have achieved nothing with their current policy besides some good soundbites and photo-ops. It is a failed policy. I'd rather listen to the advice of Wei Jingsheng, one of China's most noted dissidents. He has spent 18 years in prison for his outspoken views on democracy. He says that voting to revoke MFN for China is the ``most concrete and most effective means available to address Chinese human rights and political reforms and gives President Clinton real power to represent the American people in his discussions with the Chinese communists over the questions of trade conditions, human rights, regional and global security and other issues.'' I submit his entire statement for the record. He also says his conditions in prison improved when the Chinese really believed that MFN would be taken away. Archbishop McCarrick, one of the religious leaders who went to China earlier this year as part of a religious delegation, also believes the House of Representatives should send a message to Beijing by voting to revoke MFN. He urges a strong vote in favor of H.J. Res. 121. He says ``A strong vote to deny MFN status to China should strengthen the Administration's commitment to putting human rights at the top of the China agenda and send a strong signal that the status quo is not acceptable.'' I also submit his letter for the record. There are many reasons to revoke China's MFN status. But, there are good people on both sides of the issue. I want to end by addressing those who think revoking MFN is a blunt instrument. Remember, that at the end of the day, Congress will not take away China's MFN. The vote today is not really about revoking MFN, it's about sending a message. A message of hope to the Christians, Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists suffering for their faith. A message of hope to the political dissidents who still bravely speak out for justice and freedom despite the risk of going to prison. A message of hope to these men and women being beaten, tortured, raped, imprisoned and killed for their beliefs. This vote is also about sending a message to the regime in Beijing. A message that we are serious about our values, our national security and our commitment to fair (not just free) trade. If you vote in favor of H.J. Res. 121, you will be sending a message, not taking away MFN. I urge you to send this message. How long will we continue to rubber stamp our current policy--a policy of appeasement? A policy that is amoral and not in line with the values of the American people. Let's put some strength back into our China policy. Let's put some morality back into our China policy. Vote YES on H.J. Res. 121. Madam Speaker, I also include for the Record newspaper articles and letters from various organizations discussing the current situation in China with regard to many of the areas I have spoken on: [From the Washington Times, July 22, 1998] China Conducted Test as Clinton Visited (By Bill Gertz) China test-fired a rocket motor for its newest long-range missile during President Clinton's recent visit to China, Pentagon officials said yesterday. The July 1 motor test for the DF-31 missile was part of China's ongoing strategic weapons modernization effort, which included producing six new long-range missiles in the first four months of the year. In commenting on a report in The Washington Times about the surge in ICBM production, the State Department said yesterday that China's strategic nuclear modernization will not affect efforts to develop a cooperative security relationship with Beijing. ``The U.S. and China are building a cooperative security relationship, as symbolized by the agreement of the two presidents not to target strategic nuclear missiles at each other,'' State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said, referring to last month's summit. ``At the same time, we are aware that China continues its limited efforts to modernize its nuclear forces,'' he said. Asked about The Times' report, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen declined to comment. ``If it's an intelligence report, I wouldn't comment,'' he told reporters at the Pentagon. Pentagon officials with access to intelligence reports told The Times that the test-firing of the new solid-fuel rocket motor is part of efforts to develop Beijing's newest ICBM, the DF-31 road-mobile missile. When deployed in the next several years, the missile will be the second mobile ICBM in the world. Russia's SS-25 is now the only mobile ICBM in service. The officials said the test was unusual because it came during Mr. Clinton's June 27-July 3 visit. A U.S. official who is an expert on missiles said he believes the Chinese intentionally timed the test to coincide with Mr. Clinton's visit. The official noted that Secretary of State Warren Christopher traveled to China several years ago to discuss human rights and the Chinese responded by arresting dissidents before, during and after the visit. ``President Clinton said proliferation would be high on his agenda [during the summit], and by testing this key component for a new long-range missile when they did, the Chinese have made clear their lack of respect for both the president and his message,'' the official said. This official does not believe China has ``de-targeted'' its long-range missiles away from U.S. cities despite its recent pledge. The CIA reported earlier this year that 13 of 18 CSS-4 missiles are targeted on U.S. cities. The Chinese apparently knew the rocket motor test would be detected by U.S. spy satellites or other electronic listeners, Pentagon officials said. The test was carried out at the Wuzhai Missile and Space Test Center, located about 250 miles southwest of Beijing, they said. Highly classified intelligence reports on the test were sent to Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright in China as she accompanied the president, the officials said. According to reports by the Air Force's National Air Intelligence Center (NAIC) the DF-31 is a single-warhead missile with a range of more than 4,500 miles in the ``late stages'' of development. Its solid-fuel propulsion is a major improvement over liquid-fuel CSS-4s, the current mainstay of the Chinese ICBM force. ``The DF-31 ICBM will give China a major strike capability that will be difficult to counterattack at any stage of its operation,'' said a December 1996 NAIC report labeled ``secret.'' ``It will be a significant threat not only to U.S. forces deployed in the Pacific theater, but to portions of the continental United States and to many of our allies.'' A map accompanying the report showed that the DF-31 could hit targets throughout the western United States along a line running southwest from Wisconsin through California. The DF-31 will give China a strategic missile design ``similar to those of current generation Russian missiles,'' the report said, noting that the missile will probably be fitted with decoys and chaff to defeat missile defenses. Deployment of the DF-31 is expected within the next year and a half at the earliest, the report said. China also is building a second mobile ICBM, the DF-41, that will have a range of more than 7,000 miles. It will be deployed soon after the DF-31. Regarding the new CSS-4s, Pentagon officials told The Times that China delivered six of the ICBMs to the People's Liberation Army nuclear forces between January and April. The surge in production, which was spotted by U.S. spy satellites and other electronic monitors, is part of a defense industry restructuring that will result in the closing of Beijing's sole ICBM production facility, at Wanyuan, in central China, within the next several months. Two more CSS-4s will be produced before the shutdown, they said. The underground production facility at Wanyuan is being relocated to a missile production center near the industrial city of Chengdu in central China, the officials said. The CIA estimates China has 18 CSS-4s. The new missiles are the ``Mod 2'' version of the systems. ``This is a very serious problem,'' said House Majority Leader Dick Armey. The majority leader said he has many questions about the Chinese missile program, including why the United States did not learn earlier about Beijing's weapons proliferation efforts, which he called ``frightening,'' and how China acquired the technology to build missiles. ``We have a lot of serious, very serious, questions,'' he said. The biggest question: ``Does my grandson have to learn to duck and cover like I did when I was a boy?'' Mr. Armey asked, referring to nuclear air-raid drills common in schools during the 1960s.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I was unable to be present for rollcall 266 on Wednesday, June 24. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on passage of H.R. 4103, the fiscal year 1999 defense appropriations bill.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express deep concern about one provision in an otherwise good bill--a provision changing Most-Favored- Nation trading status to Normal Trade Relations. This provision was not part of H.R. 2676 when it was passed overwhelmingly by the House with my support last November. It was not part of the bill passed overwhelmingly by the Senate last month. It was snuck into the conference report at the last minute. How disappointing. What's the big deal about changing the name of Most-Favored-Nation trade status? MFN has come to symbolize something much more than just nondiscriminatory tariffs. MFN was the rallying cry for many groups and other human rights champions who fought for freedom on behalf of those trapped behind the Iron Curtain during the dark days of communism. MFN has come to symbolize a struggle for freedom of emigration, freedom of religion and human rights. MFN was the term the Romanian people knew when the United States finally took away nondiscriminatory trade status from Nicolae Ceasusescu--a dictator who was terrorizing his own people, bulldozing churches, turning Bibles into toilet paper, torturing political dissidents, and using those who desired to emigrate as bargaining chips with the West. When we took away MFN, the Romanian people heard about it on Radio Free Europe. MFN symbolized more than normal trading relations when the United States suspended Poland's MFN status after it invoked martial law in 1983. To the Polish people, suspending MFN was a clear statement that the American people stood with Lech Walesa, the Solidarity movement and all those struggling to throw off the chains of communism. MFN means more than tariffs to the people of Tibet and China, who desire, but do not have, freedom and basic human rights. To them, awarding MFN to the Chinese dictators without conditions--as the United States has done since President Clinton de-linked trade from human rights in 1994--carries the message that the United States government cares more about trade than it does about human rights. MFN is more than just a name and that's why many want to change it. Those who support this name change know that the American people are increasingly concerned about extending Most-Favored-Nation status to a country like China which persecutes people of the Christian, Buddhist and Muslim faiths. They know the American people are increasingly concerned about giving Most-Favored-Nation status to a country that locks up Catholic bishops and priests--some for a decade at a time--for conducting Mass or pledging allegiance to Pope John Paul II. A country that imprisons Protestant pastors and laypeople for holding Bible studies, house church meetings or distributing Bibles. A country that allows forced abortion and sterilizations of women as a way to enforce a brutal population policy. A country which has plundered Tibet, imprisoned and tortured hundreds of Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns, demolished 4,000-5,000 monasteries, and is destroying the culture of the Tibetan people. Some who favor this name change--believe it will be easier to convince the American people that our trading relationship with China is normal. But what's normal about a trading relationship which has allowed China to amass a $50 billion trade surplus with the United States but still restricts most American goods from entering its market. There's nothing normal about trade relations with China and the American people will not be fooled. MFN is a symbol of a time when the United States was willing to put principle before profit in our relations with foreign governments. Changing the name today ends that era. I plan to vote for H.R. 2676 because it increases taxpayer rights when dealing with the IRS and requires the IRS to be more accountable to the Congress and the American taxpayer. However, I am deeply saddened and concerned that an otherwise good bill has been tainted by this bad provision.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I want to call to my colleagues' attention a story on the front page of the June 16 New York Times titled, ``Those Seductive Snake Eyes: Tales of Growing Up Gambling.'' The bad news is that gambling is growing. The worse news is that gambling addiction is growing fastest among young people. The article says, ``There is a growing concern among experts on compulsive gambling about the number of youths who--confronted with state lotteries, the growth of family-oriented casinos and sometimes lax enforcement of wagering laws--gamble at an earlier and earlier age and gamble excessively.'' The story quotes a recent Harvard Medical School study which was conducted by Dr. Howard Shaffer which found that the rate of problem gambling among adolescents is more than twice the rate for adults. This article is shocking. It cites stories of young people who have hit the bottom young--and all because of gambling. One young man got hooked on gambling as a teenager. The problem was so bad, his parents had to put locks on all the rooms and closets in the house so he wouldn't run out and sell the family belongings to gamble. He has been to prison twice for credit card fraud and writing false checks. Later in the article, he talks about how he first got interested in gambling. When he was growing up, he used to help his grandmother pick lottery numbers at a neighborhood store, and he used to go with her on her gambling trips to Atlantic City. He would wait for her outside the casino, peering in the window and wishing he could play, too. The article talks about another young person who started gambling when he was 13 years old. With his buddies, this teen used to pay craps near his house, place bets on pick-up basketball games, and play a dice game called ``see-low.'' Now he is in a treatment center for drug and gambling problems. The New York Times piece said that in one high school in the Northeast U.S., kids said they knew a fellow student who was a professional bookie who booked bets right there at their high school. Amazingly, that school set up a mock-casino as part of its prom night festivities. The school principal said the students had no problem with the various games--they knew them well and apparently needed no coaching. But this is a problem everywhere, in all of America. According to the article, a Louisiana State University study conducted last year found that among Louisiana young people aged 18 to 21, one in seven were, and I quote, ``problem gamblers, some of them pathological--youths with a chronic and progessive psychological disorder characterized by an emotional dependence on gambling and a loss of control over their gambling.'' Everyone is worried about tobacco use among teenagers, and I am, too. But we've got another problem, and we really need to pay attention. I hope this country wakes up. I hope our governors wake up. I hope this Congress wakes up. [From the New York Times, June 16, 1998] Those Seductive Snake Eyes: Tales of Growing Up Gambling (By Brett Pulley) Atlantic City--Like a first kiss, getting the car keys for the first time or walking into a bar and buying a first drink, gambling has become a rite of passage for young people on their way to adulthood. With casinos in 26 states and lotteries in 38, youths who have watched their parents choose from a hefty menu of legal gambling activities right in their backyards are going on dates, spending their prom nights and joining college classmates at the nearest casinos. Along with this change in the American cultural scene, there is a growing concern among experts on compulsive gambling about the number of youths who--confronted with state lotteries, the growth of family-oriented casinos and sometimes lax enforcement of wagering laws--gamble at an earlier and earlier age and gamble excessively. These experts fear that the proliferation of youthful gambling will lead to more cases like that of a young Philadelphia man who became an addicted gambler as a teen- ager. For the young man, now 27, the ``bottom'' came after he had made two trips to prison for credit card fraud and writing false checks, attempted suicide and robbed his family. ``By the time I was 17, my parents had put a lock on everything in the house--bedrooms, pantries, closets,'' said the man, Michael, who is in a treatment program for compulsive gamblers. Like other addicts in recovery programs, Michael agreed to be identified only by his first name. ``If I could take 30 towels out of the linen closet I would sell them for $10 to place a bet,'' he recalled. A study conducted last year by Louisiana State University found that one in seven Louisianians ages 18 to 21 were problem gamblers, some of them pathological--youths with a chronic and progressive psychological disorder characterized by an emotional dependence on gambling and a loss of control over their gambling. Dr. Howard Shaffer, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, recently conducted an analysis of nationwide studies of gambling addiction. He found that the rate of problem gambling among adolescents was 9.4 percent, more than twice the 3.8 percent rate for adults. ``Young people have been gambling since the beginning of time,'' he said. ``But I think now, for the first time, young people are growing up having lived their entire lives in a social environment where gambling is promoted and socially accepted. ``It used to be that young people said, `I'm 21, let's go have a drink.' Now they say, `I'm 21, let's go gamble'.'' Children get their lessons in wagering all around them-- from the sports trading cards that they buy hoping to find one with an instant and large monetary value, to the chocolate chip cookie company that advertises during Saturday morning cartoons, offering $1,000 to the lucky child who buys a package with the chocolate chips missing. And although children have been gambling for years, the fundamental principle of gambling--buying a chance to win more money--is indeed more pervasive in the lives of young people than it has ever been, some experts say. The local governments that sponsor lotteries, as well as the casino industry and other businesses, do their part, whether intentional or not, to enhance gambling's appeal in the eyes of the young. Lottery scratch cards have bright, cartoonish graphics. Video poker machines resemble the video machines that a generation of children have grown up playing. Video arcades for children along the Boardwalk in Atlantic City include reconditioned slot machines that work just like the real thing but offer prizes instead of money. And the casino industry, by surrounding itself with amusement parks and attractions that appeal to the young, has given parents a reason to bring children along when they visit places like Atlantic City and Las Vegas, introducing adolescents to casinos and cultivating future gamblers. ``Market-savvy managers are grooming the next generation,'' said Marvin Roffman, a Philadelphia-based gambling analyst. ``The kids go to the amusement park for the day, and when the family gets back to the hotel room, Dad is talking about how he did at the blackjack tables and Mom is talking about how she did at the slots. The kids are listening and it's making an impression on them.'' With so many other things to worry about, like teen-age pregnancy, drug abuse and drunken driving, many parents and educators say they have not yet focused on gambling as one of their major concerns. ``I know we have students, probably a large number of students, who gamble,'' conceded William Steele, the principal of Atlantic City High School. On the desk in his outer office, there is a stack of pamphlets for students to read about compulsive gambling. And although the school's student resource center lists counseling for problem gambling as one of the services it provides, Mr. Steele admitted that little has been done to encourage students to seek help for gambling problems. ``It's not an area that we have taken a keen interest in,'' he said. It is true that like other rites of passage, gambling will prove harmless in the long term for most of the young people who try it. Dr. Shaffer said that many teen-agers experimented with gambling and lost interest as they became adults. One primary reason that teen-agers are so interested in gambling, he said, is that adults have failed to inform them of the dangers. ``I think it's because of the whole social milieu that we've provided these young people,'' he said. The Problem--Teen-Agers Losing Control of the Dice While much is left to be learned about the long-term impact of gambling's pervasiveness, it is already quite clear that some youths are destined to have problems with their gambling. Gambling experts estimate that 10 to 15 percent of youths who gamble become ``problem gamblers,'' meaning they suffer some loss of control over their gambling behavior. And according to the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey, of those who experience more severe problems and become pathological gamblers, most are people who start gambling before they reach 14. One such case is that of Malcolm, a 17-year-old youth from Plainfield, N.J., who at 13 was playing craps in his neighborhood and wagering on pick-up basketball games and ``see-low,'' a game played with three dice that is popular among teen-age gamblers. ``I always gambled, so I thought that I may have a problem,'' Malcolm said. After a recent conviction for marijuana possession, Malcolm was sent to New Hope Foundation, an in-patient addiction center in Marlboro, N.J. Compulsive gambling was diagnosed, and now he receives treatment for both drug and gambling problems. Cole DiMattio, one of Malcolm's counselors at the center, said that it was Malcolm's interest in gambling that led him to drugs. ``All of his gambling,'' Mr. DiMattio said, ``looking for that crowd, brought him into the drug culture.'' When he was a child, Malcolm said in a recent telephone interview, his parents often played the state lottery and visited the casinos in Atlantic City. ``They didn't take me with them'' he said. ``But I wanted to go.'' Valerie Lorenz, executive director of the Compulsive Gambling Center, a treatment program in Baltimore, said that while many teen-agers were compulsive gamblers, few sought treatment while they were still in their teens. ``It just takes a while for the addiction to develop,'' she said. Michael is a case in point. He traced his interest in gambling back to growing up in Phiadephia, where he helped his grandmother pick lottery numbers at the corner store and joined her on frequent trips to Atlantic City, an hour's drive away. He recalled standing outside the old Playboy casino, peering through its gigantic window. ``I stood outside that glass and watched my grandmother and thought, all I ever want in life is to be on the other side of that glass,'' he said. He got on the other side before long, he said, and by 15 he had used fake ID's and was a regular at the casinos, receiving free limousine rides to and from Philadelphia and compliementary hotel rooms from casinos that rarely qestioned his age. Betting $100 to $2,000 a hand on blackjack, he financed his gambling any way he could. He said he robbed local prostitutes several times and in a single week wrote $35,000 in bad checks at the bank where his father was a vice president. ``One of those prostitutes could have blown my head off,'' he said. ``But it didn't matter, as long as I was able to stay in action, that's all that mattered.'' He is now married, working at a bakery and living in southern New Jersey. He attends meetings of Gamblers Anonymous, he said, and has not placed a bet in four years. But not all young problem gamblers are able to withstand the travails wrought by their excessive wagering. Last November, just after running up a $6,000 debt betting on the World Series, Moshe Pergament, a 19-year-old college student from an affluent Long Island family, decided to end his gambling, and his life. He bought a toy handgun and drove erratically on the Long Island Expressway, causing police officers to stop him. When he was pulled over, he aimed the gun at the officers, who responded by shooting and killing him. The police said they found letters in Mr. Pergament's car that revealed the gambling debt and his intention of having the police shoot him, a phenomenon known as ``sucide by cop.'' The Policing--Officials Watch, Trying to Respond In parts of the country where gambling has flourished especially fast, the problem with under-age gambling is particularly acute. In Louisiana, a state that has long had horse racing and back-room card games but over the last decade has added riverboat casinos, video poker machines, a state lottery and casinos operated by American Indians, officials were jolted into action after the Louisiana State University study found that youths there were three times as likely as adults to become problem gamblers. The study, conducted by the department of psychiatry, surveyed 12,066 adolescents grades six through twelve in public and private schools in the 1996-97 school year. The Louisiana State Legislature this year raised to 21 from 18 the minimum age for playing the state lottery and video poker machines inside more than 5,000 bars, restaurants and truck stops. Most states require lottery players to be at least 18. About half the states with casinos or video poker and slot machines allow 18-year-olds to play, while the other half, including Nevada and New Jersey, require those gamblers to be at least 21. The majority of states with parimutuel betting on events like horse racing, dog racing and jai aiai allow 18-year-olds to bet. In Louisiana, after a local television reporter used an undercover camera recently to show that under age gamblers were easily boarding the more than a dozen casino riverboats docked around the state, state gambling regulators are now threatening to rescind the licenses of casino operators who cannot keep under-age gamblers off their boats. In other states with legalized gambling, there are similar concerns. A citizen watchdog group in Illinois, for example, recently filmed under-age students drinking and gambling on the state's riverboats. The state gaming board then took steps to enforce age minimums. ``The truth of the matter is under-age gambling is a little like under-age drinking,'' said John Kennedy, Louisiana's secretary of revenue and a member of the state gaming control board. ``Minors, by definition, don't have the reasoning power of adults. If you don't have the reasoning power than you can't know your limits.'' Still, many teen-agers simply do not want to wait until they are old enough to gamble. In Atlantic City last year 38,502 juveniles were escorted out of the city's 12 casinos, according to the state's casino control commission. An additional 52,364 under-age would-be gamblers tried to enter a casino and were turned away. Too often, though, experts say, enforcement is lax. A familiar scene played itself out recently at the Tropicana Casino here. Madelyn Carabello was locked in a hypnotic trance as she dropped coins in a slot machine and watched the reels spin to a stop. After she had been playing for an hour and a half, a security guard approached her and asked for identification, then escorted her out. If her flawlessly youthful face, striped denim jeans and tennis shoes were not enough to tip the casino's security staff that it had an underage gambler in its midst, surely the gold pendant around her neck was a dead giveaway. It was a large heart, surrounding the numeral 19, her age. But despite her age, it was not the first time that Ms. Carabello, a freshman at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, had gambled in a casino. She recalled the eagerness with which she and 10 classmates boarded a gambling boat on their prom night in Miami. ``We heard that you only had to be 18'' to gamble on the boat, she said. ``I had heard how it was in a casino, that you could win money and stuff. I was like, `Okay, let's do it.' '' Youths gamble because they see everyone around them doing it, not because they care that lotteries are sanctioned by the state or that casinos are legal, said Henry Lesieur, president of the Institute for Problem Gambling in Pawtucket,

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I just read today in The New York Times on the front page an article entitled, ``Those Seductive Snake Eyes: Tales of Growing Up Gambling.'' The bad news is that gambling in this country is growing. The worst news is that the gambling addiction is growing fastest among young people. The article says, There is a growing concern among experts on compulsive gambling about the number of youths who, confronted with State lotteries, the growth of family-oriented casinos, and sometimes lax enforcement of wagering laws, gamble at an earlier and earlier age and gamble excessively. The story quotes a recent Harvard Medical School study which was conducted by Dr. Howard Shaffer which found that the rate of problem gambling among adolescents is more than twice the rate for adults. Twice the rate of adults, and these people are going to soon be adults. The article is shocking. It cites stories of young people who have hit the bottom at a very young age, and all because of gambling. One young man got hooked on gambling as a teenager. The problem was so bad his parents had to put locks on all the rooms and closets in the house so he would not run out and sell the family's belongings to gamble. He has been to prison twice for credit card fraud and writing false checks. Later in the article he talks about how he first got interested in gambling. When he was growing up, he used to help his grandmother pick lottery numbers at a neighborhood store, and then he used to go gambling with her on trips to Atlantic City. He would wait for her outside the casinos peering into the windows wishing that he could play. The New York Times piece said that at one high school in the northeast U.S., kids said they knew a fellow student who was a professional bookie who booked bets right there at the high school. Amazingly, that school set up a mock casino as part of its prom night festivities. The school principal said the students had no problems with the various games. They knew them all well and apparently needed no coaching. This is a problem everywhere in America, all over this country. According to the article, an LSU University study conducted last year found that among Louisiana young people age 18 to 21, 1 in 7 were, and I quote, ``problem gamblers, some of them pathological, youths with a chronic and progressive psychological disorder characterized by an emotional dependence on gambling and loss of control over their gambling.'' Everyone in this country is worried about tobacco use among teenagers, and I am too, but we have another problem, Mr. Speaker, that all of us have to address, and that is the problem of gambling in this country. I hope the country wakes up, although I believe the country is far ahead of the Congress and far ahead of the elected officials, because every time gambling is on a referendum, they vote it down. But I hope the governors wake up, all of them who are trying to ply gambling and raise money by lotteries, I hope they wake up. Lastly, I hope this Congress wakes up. And I will tell my colleagues, nobody in this Congress who cares about people and talks about these problems ought to be taking any political activity money from the gambling interests, because if my colleagues will read this story in today's New York Times to see how this is ruining our young people, how then can one rationalize that one has taken money from the gambling interests? Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues, I plead with my colleagues, read today's New York Times and see what is happening to our young people.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor J. Williard Lineweaver, better known in his community as Bill, who recently retired as Mayor of the Town of Warrenton, Virginia, after 39 years of public service. Bill's dedication to the community has resulted in the preservation of Warrenton's small-town charm, and there is little doubt that his legacy will continue for many generations to come. Bill has served the Town of Warrenton as an elected official since 1955 and became Mayor in 1974. Born in Rockingham County, ``the Mayor'' moved to The Plains/Middleburg area in 1929 and graduated from Marshall High School in 1939. He is a former president of the Virginia Municipal League, an organization which represents local governments before the General Assembly. Bill has also served as moderator of a televised debate for the United States Senate and as a member of the Governor's Advisory Council. Currently, he is serving on the Vint Hill Economic Development Authority, the Fauquier County Airport Committee, and as a member of a number of other town groups. President Theodore Roosevelt once said that ``The first requisite of a good citizen in this Republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his weight.'' Bill Lineweaver is a man who has pulled many times his weight for nearly four decades. Those of us who have had the privilege to know him and work with him over the years know that he exemplifies what a good public servant should be. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in applauding Bill Lineweaver for his work and commitment. He will always be ``the Mayor'' in the hearts of the citizens of Warrenton.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman. I want to express my extreme disappointment with this rule. Representative Nadler had an amendment to this bill which was not made in order. That amendment would have eliminated bankruptcy claims on debts incurred in or adjacent to gambling facilities, or debts that the creditor should have known were intended to be used by the debtor for gambling purposes. A 1997 SMR Research Corporation study on personal bankruptcy, which I will include for the record, examined the high-risk activities which contribute to bankruptcy. The report reviewed three serious addiction problems in America--drugs, alcohol and gambling--and their effects on personal bankruptcies. Of gambling, the report said, ``It now appears that gambling may be the single-fastest growing driver of bankruptcy.'' It also showed a definite correlation between the presence of gambling facilities and a growth in personal bankruptcies. The report made a number of recommendations for dealing with the rapid increase in personal bankruptcies related to gambling. The first was, ``Make it tougher for customers to obtain cash advances at gambling casinos.'' Mr. Chairman, Mr. Nadler's amendment would have been a very important step in stemming the tide of gambling-related bankruptcy. But since it was not made in order, we have been denied the full and open debate that is crucial to better understanding this problem. Therefore, I will vote against this rule. The Personal Bankruptcy Crisis, 1997 demographics, causes, implications, & solutions Wild Growth In Filings: More Bad News Ahead. Age, Income, Education, Population Density, & Geography. Lawyer Advertising & The Loss Of Stigma. Why The Tide Of Financial Catastrophes Is Rising. New Ideas To Reduce Bankruptcy Losses. the purpose of this study In 1996, SMR Research issued a 56-page study on the causes of wildly rising personal bankruptcy filings. We knew the subject was timely, but little did we imagine the media coverage that would follow. The 1996 study was mentioned in major newspapers and magazines across the land, on television, and even became the subject of two stories in the Wall Street Journal. Fate is strange. Publicity is nice, but the 1996 study was not exactly a typical SMR production. The explosion in bankruptcies had caused a lot of demand for information from our lending industry clients, especially unsecured lenders. We put together the 56-page piece as a section of our 1996 annual credit card market study, and later offered the bankruptcy section by itself to non-credit card issuers. Although 56 pages might look big to some folks, it was the shortest research study we have done since 1985. We found ourselves making conclusions in the 1996 study with some statistical backing, but not always definitive proof. This study, by contrast, is indeed a standard SMR Research work. The scope is much greater, and allows us to cover the subject completely, with a meaty section on solving (or at least mitigating) the personal bankruptcy dilemma. Where the 1996 study focused solely on some of the core causes of bankruptcy, this study covers the full nature of the problem. We look at the common misperceptions about bankruptcy and provide the statistics that show why they are such vast over- statements. Unemployment is not the primary driver of bankruptcy, nor is the overall consumer debt load. Lender marketing and easy credit also are not the prime cause. In fact, there is no single prime cause of bankruptcy. In this study, you'll see coverage of many things that result in bankruptcy, with some quantification of which ones are the worst. The additional space allows us to cover things we couldn't cover last year, like the connection between bankruptcy and gambling--perhaps the fastest-growing problem of all. In addition, this study, for the first time we know of, shows the demographics of bankruptcy, using our county-level statistical database that goes back to 1989. Regarding solutions to the problem, they are not easy. The bankruptcy spike is based at least in part on serious, intransigent, worsening socio-economic problems. This underlying core puts upward pressure on filings, and the upward pressure really explodes when you throw lawyer advertising and bankruptcy's loss of social stigma into the mix. Still, we are quite confident that there are steps available to creditors to help control their own bankruptcy loss exposure. We think the best solution of all may be the most radical, which is for creditors to adopt some of the risk-control techniques of the insurance industry. This would mean using actual geographic loss statistics as a supplemental aid in credit scoring, pricing, and marketing. This material appears starting on Page 157. SMR has been following the bankruptcy subject, and has been building its databases of filings, for eight years. After all that time, we finally have created a research study that we believe addresses all the central issues in the bankruptcy crisis. We appreciate your patronage and hope you get good value from the research. Stu Feldstein, President. discounted additional copies of this study Clients who would like to distribute this study to other executives at the same location can take advantage of two discount programs. We will ship all the additional copies you want at $292.50 (85% off the original copy price) as long as supplies last. Or, clients can make their own copies of the study on their own premises for a copyright licensing fee of $100 per copy you wish to make. To take advantage of this program, just decide how many copies you wish to make and call us at 908- 852-7677. We can provide you by fax with a simple 1-page copyright licensing permit. Additional copies at discount prices are available only for distribution within your organization, not for unauthorized resale or distribution outside your company. We appreciate your cooperation. Research of this kind is expensive to undertake, and we must be able to sell enough of it ourselves to continue the work in the future. gambling and bankruptcy It now appears that gambling may be the single fastest- growing driver of bankruptcy. Once limited to Nevada and New Jersey, casino gambling has spread very rapidly through many states. Indian reservation casinos have been one new mode for this growth, and riverboat and coastal gambling boats have added more. If you have not been tracking the spread of gambling, you may be in a shock about how pervasive gambling facilities have become. Note that in the state of Nevada, there are only 17 counties (most of them very large). But across the nation, there are now 298 counties that have at least one major legal gambling facility; a casino, a horse or dog racing track, or a jai alai game. That's the count in one recent guide to U.S. gambling facilities, and it does not include such things as places where state lotteries or bingo parlors are available. The lotteries and bingo parlors tend to involve small-ticket gambling, whereas the other facilities obviously involve the larger dollars per customer. the three additions & changed mores When we published our shorter study on the causes of bankruptcy in 1996, we had suspicions about gambling. But we had not yet put together enough solid data and information to make conclusions, therefore we said little about the subject. Actually, since we were looking at events that can cause insolvency, we were suspicious in 1996 about all three of the serious addiction problems in America: alcoholism and drug and gambling addiction. We remain suspicious about all three of those problems. But of the three, it's quite clear that gambling is the fastest-growing phenomenon. For those who make and supply alcohol, drugs, and gambling, all are very large businesses. But you don't have to be a sociologist to see that societal mores are changing most rapidly on gambling. Over the last 20 years, state governments themselves have entered the gambling business with lotteries. We see no states as yet that have gone into the heroin trade or where the government itself advertises Jim Beam. So, the concept of gambling now has the tacit blessing of government. Meanwhile, private entrepreneurs have created dazzling and sophisticated facilities that have eliminated the ``sleaze'' from gambling and turned it into a recreation. Las Vegas is now a city-sized adult theme park with attractions for the kids, too. American Indians, operating on reservations beyond the authority of state laws, have seized on casinos as a new method to generate cash and improve their standard of living. Cruise ships of all sorts have set up table games and slot machines. Hard-bitten gamblers of old played poker at tables in a friend's kitchen or sat in cold bleachers to watch the horses. Today's gamblers enjoy the finest food, free drinks, the best entertainment, super-quality hotels, and the widest variety of gambling adventures that have ever been available. And, of course, all of this now happens at places much closer to most of the larger population centers. Gambling can indeed be fun these days--but some smallish percentage of gamblers do develop problems that translate into bankruptcy. statistics, gambling, and bankruptcy As in so many aspects of bankruptcy, perfect data related to the gambling problem don't exist. No one has asked all the bankruptcy filers if gambling contributed to their financial problems, and we strongly suspect that if filers were asked that question, many would be too embarrassed to answer honestly. But we can look at evidence in many other ways. Recently, for example, we input into our county-level records the numbers of gambling places that exist in each county, if any. We obtained the information, covering more than 800 casinos, race tracks, and jai alai ``frontons'' from the 1997 edition of The Gaming Guide: Where to Play in the US of A, published by Facts on Demand Press of Tempe, AZ. The directory provides street addresses and zip codes for the gaming establishments. We used the zips against SMR's Zip Code/County Matching database to put the right numbers of facilities in the right counties. Then, we aggregated the bankruptcy rates of those places and compared them to those of counties that have no gambling at all. The bankruptcy rate was 18% higher in counties with one gambling facility and it was 35% higher in counties with five or more gambling establishments. This exercise probably understates the seriousness of the problem, since many counties that have gambling facilities also have very small populations and actually draw their customers from other places. So, when we look only at counties with more sizeable resident populations and gambling facilities, we see even greater evidence of the problem. a look at the map The effect of gambling on bankruptcy seems quite clear when you look at a map. Among all the counties in Nevada, for instance, we find that the closer you come to Las Vegas and Reno, the higher the bankruptcy rate. In New Jersey, casinos are permitted only in Atlantic City--and that's also where the resident population has by far the highest bankruptcy rate. Generally speaking, the closer you come to Atlantic City, the higher the bankruptcy rate in New Jersey. One exception to this rule is Cape May County, just south of Atlantic City, where the bankruptcy rate is not so high. But Cape May also is a big retirement place with a high average age in the population. As shown in our demographics section, high-age populations do not have high bankruptcy rates. In California, the two counties with the highest bankruptcy rates are Riverside and San Bernardino. They also happen to be the two counties closest to Las Vegas. The fourth-highest bankruptcy rate in California is in Sacramento County, which is closest to Reno. In Connecticut, the map hardly matters. Connecticut is so tiny that everyone has access to the gambling parlors in the middle of the state. This is a state that used to have a bankruptcy rate far below the national average. But Indian casino gambling is now huge and well-entrenched. The smaller of the Indian casinos, the Mohican Sun in Uncasville, boasts 3,000 slot machines. In Connecticut, the bankruptcy rate per capita has risen more than twice as fast as the national rate of increase since 1990. what the experts say: scope of the problem, and the credit card connection Aside from these observations, we set out this year to interview many of the leading U.S. experts on gambling, gambling addition, and the financial impact of gambling. Their studies have suggested, fairly consistently, that more than 20% of compulsive gamblers have filed for bankruptcy as a result of their gambling losses. They also show that upwards of 90% of compulsive gamblers had used their credit card lines to obtain funds for gambline and then lost. The same studies show that problem gamblers have a lot of credit cards on which to draw. ``One of the things we know about problem gamblers is that they tend to have lots and lots of credit cards and those credit cards have been maxed out in terms of their credit limits,'' said Rachel Volberg, one of the leading researchers into problem gambling in the U.S. and internationally. Volberg is president of Gemini Research, a consulting firm in Roaring Spring, PA. She is a frequent ``expert witness'' on the problem in state legislative hearings and has done research under contract for various government units in Oregon, Colorado, New York, California, Michigan, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, Iowa, Connecticut, and Canadian provinces. Volberg is not the only researcher to note the connection with credit cards. ``It's not unusual for problem gamblers to have eight to 10 credit cards,'' adds Henry Lesieur, professor of criminal justice at the University of Illinois, Normal, another leading authority on compulsive gambling. The amount gamblers owe is quite large. According to studies of Gamblers Anonymous members in Illinois conducted in 1993 and 1995 by Lesieur, the median average lifetime gambling debt of those surveyed was $45,000, and the median amount owed at the time they entered GA was $18,000. The median is the midpoint of a list of numbers, with 50% of the numbers being higher and the other 50% being lower. However, the mean average debts of problem gamblers were far higher than the median amounts. The mean average lifetime gambling debt of those surveyed was $215,406, with three people saying they owed $1 million or more. The mean debt upon entering GA was $113,640, including one person who said he owed $1 million and another admitting to owing an incredible $7.5 million. In another study dated April 1996 by the University of Minnesota Medical School, a survey of problem gamblers in Minnesota found the average lifetime gambling debt was $47,855, although individual amounts ran into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The median amount was $19,000. Recent debts--those accumulated in the past six months--averaged $10,008, while the median amount was $4,500. In late 1995, the Minneapolis Star Tribune examined 105 bankruptcy filings made in that city in which it was determined that gambling was a factor. The results of the study appeared in a five-part series that ran in the paper in December 1995. The newspaper found that of the $4.2 million of total debt declared by the 105 filers, $1.14 million--or 27%--was comprised of gambling losses. Almost half of the 105 filiers--52, to be exact--claimed they had gambling losses. Their average debt was $40,066, which was more than the average annual income of $35,244. The average gambling loss was more than $22,000. Filers carried an average of eight credit cards, although many had 10 or 15 cards and one person had 25. And heavy debts were being carried on each card. counties with gambling have higher bankruptcy rates Let's return to the county-level data. In the table that follows, we divided up the country amount counties with gambling facilities and those without. The differences in bankruptcy rates between them are striking. It's quite clear that those counties with legal big-ticket gambling have higher bankruptcy rates than those counties that don't have gambling, and those counties with many gambling houses have higher bankruptcy rates than those places with just a few. We examined more than 3,100 counties. For the entire United States, the personal bankruptcy filing rate per 1,000 population in 1996 was 4.20. But the national rate for purposes of comparison to counties was 4.22 (using 1996 bankruptcies divided by 1995 populations; the 1996 county populations were not available when we did this analysis). For the 2,844 counties without gambling, the bankruptcy rate was lower, at 3.96. According to The Gaming Guide, there were 298 counties that had legalized gambling within their borders. In these counties, the bankruptcy filing rate in 1996 was 4.67, or 18% higher than for those counties with no gambling. When we subdivide the universe of counties with gambling between those with five or more locations and those with four or less, we learn more. The places with the most gambling facilities have a much higher bankruptcy rate. Of the 298 counties with gambling, 275 had only one to four facilities. Their combined 1996 bankruptcy filing rate was 4.53 per 1,000 residents, or 14% greater than the 3.96 rate among counties without gambling. However, in the 23 other counties with five or more gambling facilities, the combined bankruptcy rate was 4.33, a whopping 26% higher than the 4.22 national bankruptcy rate and 35% higher than at counties with no gambling at all. Many of these counties with 5+ gambline facilities are in Nevada, but most of them are not.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to make something clear. I have some concerns about this resolution, especially with regard to the provisions which I believe single out Federal employees and retirees for unnecessary and unfair reductions. I am encouraged by the statement of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Davis) that the $1.6 billion in savings from the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight will not mean benefit reductions in the Federal employees health benefits program or any other pay or benefits of civil service or Postal Service employees or retirees. With that assurance, I will vote for the resolution to move the process forward, but it does not mean that I will vote for it when it comes back in the conference report. I will weigh it then. One other thing, if I could just get the gentleman's attention. I would urge the gentleman from Ohio that when he looks at the final agreement to remember the poorest and the most vulnerable in our country. In the Bible, there are 244 references to the poor; 172 in the Old Testament, 72 in the New Testament. The oppressed are mentioned 45 times. I must tell the gentleman, in this whole body, both sides, that the passage of the highway bill, which was laden with pork barrel spending projects, was very troubling to me, especially the full court press lobbying efforts and the hiring of certain lobbyists to get certain projects in that bill. I just wanted to say that the way the Congress, I believe, has pursued the recent highway bill, which funds $216 billion over the next 6 years for surface transportation, while transportation funding is necessary, I believe that the Congress got greedy, and we have effectively blown the budget caps and all that for a lot of special pork barrel projects. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich).

Mr. WOLF. Well, I appreciate the gentleman's comments. Next week, I will send the gentleman a letter on this issue that I would like to share. I know probably no one will read it, and many will think it is too preachy, but it will be a letter to the entire Republican caucus on this issue, which includes the passage of the unfortunate highway bill.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I rise in very strong support of this resolution. The resolution calls for the release of prisoners. The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) and I went into prison. In fact, this is Beijing Prison Number 1. This is the back of the head of the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith). These were prisoners, Tiananmen Square prisoners, and we picked the socks up off the line that the prisoners were making. There were 1,000 to 2,000 people killed, but there were men, many of them or most of them, and I see the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Chris Smith) in the back there, who remembers vividly when we went in the Beijing Prison Number 1. What it says was Hosiery Factory, when it was basically a very, very brutal prison. For their families, it is absolutely important to pass the resolution. It is not a free vote, because I will tell the Members, tomorrow morning on Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia and Voice of America, if you will, this will go on, that the United States Congress has passed this. What it will say is that the people's body, the United States Congress, has passed this resolution. If you were a mom or dad who had had your son or daughter killed, and I have brutal pictures of those who have been run over by tanks, this would send a message. But for those who are in prison and languishing, it will send a message: One, he ought not to go to Tiananmen Square, and I am one who has been opposed to MFN; but two, I think for the children, for the prisoners that are in there who made these socks, and these have golfers on them and they do not play golf in China, they are for export to the United States, this resolution is a good resolution. I strongly hope that it is passed by an overwhelming margin, because tomorrow in Beijing when they hear, I think it will send a positive message, and the prisoners in Beijing Prison Number 1 and throughout the gulags will find out about this resolution. Their moms, their dads, their wives, their families within the next couple of weeks will tell them, and that will give them hope. I appreciate the sponsorship of this, and I strongly support this, and hope it can be almost by unanimous vote.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, I rise to commend the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hall) for traveling to Sudan to see firsthand what is taking place. He saw starvation, devastation, basically an entire generation of people have been lost. The people of Southern Sudan are voiceless. They have no big law firms downtown to represent them. They have no powerful lobbyists. They have no interests in this Congress. I am pleased that the gentleman from Ohio took the time to go to be a voice for the voiceless. Let us hope with his trip, we can begin to put together a process whereby we can bring peace to Southern Sudan and not lose another generation. I thank the gentleman from Ohio for his efforts. Madam Speaker, I rise today to commend my good friend Rep. Tony Hall for traveling to Sudan to see first-hand what is taking place there. He saw devastation and starvation--an entire generation lost on account of the brutal war that has been raging for over a decade. Slavery, terrorism, starvation, and genocide--all are occurring on a regular basis in Sudan. Now is the time to do more to bring peace to Sudan--a place where over 1.5 million people have died. The Sudanese people cannot take much more. An entire generation has already been lost. The people of Southern Sudan are poor and voiceless. They have no access to high-priced lobbyists or expensive public relations firms. They are relying on the American Government to help them. They have no other hope. I am glad my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hall), went to look at the atrocities taking place in Sudan. I look forward to working with him to help bring an end to this brutal war.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, last week, the House of Representatives passed the Freedom From Religious Persecution Act, H.R. 2431, by an overwhelming vote. I wanted to share with my colleagues a letter from Wei Jingsheng, one of China's most noted political dissidents, who was watching in the gallery the vote and who was also watching on television in another Member's office, who said that the vote on H.R. 2431 was, and I quote, ``a blow sent to oppression and a vote for freedom.'' He went on to say, ``I am encouraged by the friends in the United States Congress and it gives hope to all those struggling on behalf of Chinese.'' Mr. Speaker, I want to personally thank the 375 Members who helped send this message of hope. But, passing H.R. 2431 in the House of Representatives would not have been possible without the help, though, of many, many people. I want to take this opportunity to thank the men and women here on Capitol Hill who worked long and hard to move forward this bill. I am grateful for their dedication. I would especially like to thank Steve Rademaker, Chief Counsel of the House Committee on International Relations; Joseph Rees, Staff Director and Chief Counsel on the Subcommittee on International Operations on Human Rights; Brian Gunderson, Deputy Chief of Staff for the Majority Leader; Heidi Stirrup, Policy Advisor to the Majority Leader; and Gardner Peckham, Foreign Policy Advisor to the Speaker. I also appreciate the tireless efforts of Carolyn Bartholomew with the office of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), Bob Zachritz with the office of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hall), and Steve Golob and Rick Kessler with the office of the gentleman from California (Mr. Berman), Mark Lagon with the office of the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox), and Amos Hochestein with the office of the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Gejdenson). Finally, I want to express my appreciation to Anne Huiskes, my senior legislative assistant, who has worked for over a year to bring this bill to the floor, pouring her heart and her soul into this effort to help make a difference in the lives of the persecuted people of all faiths around the world. I deeply appreciate all of the efforts of the many people, some named and many more unnamed, who helped pass this important piece of legislation on behalf of those around the world who really have no other voice. As Wei Jingsheng said, passing H.R. 2431 sent a positive message to oppressed people everywhere. Your work here in the Congress helped send this message, and I am truly grateful.

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I have a letter from Wei Jingsheng, who spent 17 years in prison, who was earlier with us today. He said, ``I strongly believe that the freedom of religious belief is one important component of man's fundamental human rights.'' And he goes on to say, ``The true situation may be difficult for Americans to imagine, and it is difficult for the Chinese to imagine. If I did not see it myself, a man in prison for 17 years, I would not imagine the shameful and despicable means.'' Many of these groups around the world all support this bill, but they are afraid to come forward because if they do, they may very well be killed. We get communication daily from groups in all these countries that say they support what we are doing, but they are afraid to come forward publicly.

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. I appreciate the comments of the gentleman, and I appreciate the comments the gentleman made about my very good friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hall). I second those, and completely agree. Passing this bill will say to the world that the United States will no longer remain silent while people of faith are being tortured-- because that is what this bill covers--enslaved, abducted and killed for their religious beliefs. Passing the bill will shatter the silence. There are troubling things taking place all over the world. In the past decade in Sudan alone, 1.5 million Christians and Muslims and Animists have been killed for their faith. Starvation is that government's weapon of choice, liberally spiced with high altitude bombing in the villages, and mass murders. And there is slavery, the selling into slavery in Sudan of young Sudanese boys and girls. In China, Catholic priests and bishops are imprisoned today, as we now speak, some for decades, simply for offering holy communion. Protestant pastors are thrown in jail for having house church services, and Muslims suffer persecution, as do Buddhist monks and nuns in Tibet. In Tibet, where I have been, China's government has systematically destroyed up to 4,000 to 6,000 monasteries, and the government tightly controls all of the existing monasteries. Many around the world are enduring hardships simply because they practice their faith. They endure mostly in silence and away from the public spotlight and with little hope of improvement. This bill would apply to all faiths, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Buddhist and all others. This bill is moderate, it is balanced, and this bill gives the President total waiver authority, meaning that if the President does not want this bill to go into effect, it will not go into effect. Finally, the bill, I think, will send a message to help so many people. It is a bipartisan effort, Republicans and Democratic Members alike, with 131 cosponsors. I will tell Members, on three different occasions I personally have looked into the eyes of young boys in southern Sudanese refugee villages who have lost their moms and dads and had nobody to care for them. I have seen the monasteries that are plundered in Tibet and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) and I have been to Beijing Prison No. 1 in China. Cardinal O'Connor of New York wrote a letter yesterday where he said, ``The Freedom From Religious Persecution Act could begin the desperately needed process of ending the legitimizing of such persecution. In my judgment,'' Cardinal O'Connor said, ``its passage would be an act of historic proportions.'' Catholic Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, who just returned from China said, and I quote from a letter yesterday, ``The bill represents a modest step that reflects the growing awareness that this vital human rights issue has too often been overlooked, and a growing conviction that the core American values, including religious liberty, must play a proper role in foreign policy.'' Other supporters of the bill, and there are so many, are the International Campaign for Tibet, the Christian Coalition, the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference, the Family Research Council, the National Jewish Coalition, the Anti-Defamation League, the Religious Action Center for Reformed Judaism. The Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the American Family Association, Prison Fellowship Ministries, the Union of Orthodox Congregations of America, the Salvation Army, the Catholic Alliance, B'Nai B'rith, and many, many others. This bill is also supported by so many others that we will put their names in the Record. Mr. Speaker, when this bill hopefully becomes law, America will reaffirm for the world that we still honor those words that Jefferson penned where he said: ``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men women are created equal, endowed by their Creator, by God, with life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'' These words by Jefferson were not just for Virginians, they were not only for Americans, but they were for people around the world. Passage of the bill will reaffirm the words of President Reagan where he said, ``We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few, but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings.'' The last two points. If this bill were to fail, can we imagine what the prison wardens would say to those who are imprisoned in Sudan today, those who are in the ghost houses? What that would say would be that nobody cares. On the other hand, when this Congress passes this bill, and those in Yei and Torit and little villages in southern Sudan and those in little villages in China, as they tune into their crystal radio sets and listen, they will know that the people's House, the United States Government, the United States Congress has stood on behalf of those who are persecuted. And it will send a message, as Natan Sharansky said when he was in the old Soviet Perm 35 and he heard that the Congress stood for him; it will send a message that we stand for the least of these and we stand with them boldly, whereby those words of Jefferson hold true for everybody around the world. Mr. Speaker, I urge and plead that everyone support this bill. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2431, the Freedom from Religious Persecution Act. Passing this bill will say to the world that the United States will no longer remain silent while people of faith around the world are being tortured, enslaved, abducted and killed for their religious beliefs. For too long the U.S. has remained silent on this issue--passing H.R. 2431 helps shatter that silence. There are troubling things taking place in the world. In just the past decade, the government of Sudan has killed or allowed to starve over a million of its own people. The fallen--mostly Christians, Animists and some Muslims in southern Sudan--are victims of a religious war. Starvation is that government's weapon of choice, liberally spiced with high-altitude bombing, mass murder and even selling Sudanese boys and girls as slaves. In China, Catholic priests and bishops are in prison--some for decades, simply for practicing their faith. Protestant pastors are thrown in jail just for holding house church services. Muslims suffer persecution, as do Buddhist monks and nuns. In Tibet, the Chinese government has systematically destroyed up to five thousand Buddhist monasteries. The monasteries still standing have a cadre of Chinese police to monitor what goes on. The government tightly controls the activities of the monks and nuns and even pictures of the Dalai Lama are forbidden. In Pakistan, Ahmadi Muslims and Christians are victimized by the ominously named ``blasphemy'' law under which those who speak against the prophet Mohammed can be given the death sentence. Just last week, as we prepared to debate this bill, one of Pakistan's leading Catholic bishops, Bishop John Joseph committed suicide to protest a death sentence handed down to Christian Ayub Masih. Bishop Joseph reportedly said just before putting a shot through his head ``It is no longer possible for my people to live in Pakistan.'' Many around the world are enduring hardships simply because they practice their faith. They endure mostly in silence and away from the public spotlight and with little hope for a brighter tomorrow. The Freedom from Religious Persecution Act is for them. It would apply to people of all faiths--Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Buddhist and others. The bill establishes the Office of Religious Persecution Monitoring at the State Department--a permanent mechanism to monitor religious persecution overseas. Countries found to be engaged in ``widespread and ongoing'' persecution which involves abduction, enslavement, killing, imprisonment, forced mass relocation, rape, torture or the imposition of particularly severe fines, would be named and subjected to four punitive actions. These actions are: (1) A ban on non-humanitarian foreign aid; (2) A ban on visas to individuals known to be responsible for persecution; (3) A ban on U.S. support for loans by international financial institutions to offending countries, and (4) Two narrowly-targeted export bans which ban the sale of items used for torture to offending countries and the direct export of goods to entities responsible for persecution. The bill is moderate and balanced. It provides the President with the authority to waive the sanctions when national security interests would be served or if waiving the sanctions would ``promote the objectives of the act.'' Finally, the bill imposes sanctions on the government of Sudan until it ceases its massive campaign of religious persecution--the same sanctions that were imposed on the government of South Africa in the 1980's for its immoral apartheid policy. When America speaks out, it makes a difference. Just ask noted Russian Jewish dissident Natan Sharansky, who languished for years in Soviet gulags as a prisoner of conscience. He sent a letter to a group of religious leaders gathered to talk about this bill, ``When the West stood up for its most basic values and spoke up for persecuted Soviet Jewish communities, Soviet chains around churches and political dissidents began to shatter.'' This bill has broad bipartisan support--over 131 cosponsors. It is supported by a broad coalition of religious and civic groups. For example, Wei Jingsheng, one of China's most well known and well respected political dissidents, supports H.R. 2431. I quote from his recent letter: I have personally witnessed the oppression and exploitation of religious groups and individuals that occurs today in China. The true situation may be difficult for Americans to imagine, and it is difficult for the Chinese people to imagine. If I did not see it myself, even I would not imagine the shameful and despicable means the Communists use against religious believers . . . I feel that if a government such as China which for such a long time totally denied the rights of freedom of religion to its citizens cannot receive sanction, than it is completely unjust. I urge the friends of human rights to support this effort. I submit Wei's entire letter for the record. He knows that pressure works--he's out of jail today because the U.S. pressed for his release. Cardinal O'Connor of New York says, and I quote, The Freedom from Religious Prosecution Act could begin the desperately needed process of ending the legitimizing of such persecution. In my judgment, its passage would be an act of historic proportions. Archbishop Theodore McCarrick says, The bill represents a modest step that reflects growing awareness that this vital human rights issue has too often been overlooked, and a growing conviction that core American values--including respect for religious liberty--must play proper roles in shaping the U.S. foreign policy agenda. Both letters are submitted for the Record. Other supporters of the bill include: the International Campaign for Tibet, the Christian Coalition, the U.S. Catholic Bishops' Conference, the Family Research Council, the National Jewish Coalition, the Anti- Defamation League, the Religious Action Center for Reformed Judaism, the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the American Family Association, Prison Fellowship Ministries, the Union of Orthodox Congregations of America, the Salvation Army, the Catholic Alliance and B'Nai B'rith. The bill is also supported by a number of groups representing ethnic groups suffering persecution like the American Coptic Association, the Cardinal Kung Foundation, the Free Vietnam Alliance, the Pakistani- American Association, the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam and Southern Sudanese in America. And there are many, many more. A total list of supporters is submitted for the Record. All have worked tirelessly to pass this bill and I thank them for their efforts. When H.R. 2431 becomes law, America will reaffirm for all the world that we still honor those ringing words in the Declaration of Independence that, ``We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men [and women] are created equal * * * endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.'' These words by Thomas Jefferson are not for America alone, but for people everywhere. And passage of this bill will reaffirm the words of President Ronald Reagan, spoken on a different occasion, when he said, ``We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few, but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings.'' I urge you to vote for H.R. 2431. It will help people of faith everywhere. Organizations in Support of H.R. 2431 American Baptist Evangelicals American Coptic Association American Copts of California American Family Association Anti-Defamation League Assyrian Academic Alliance Assyrian National Congress Assyrian National Foundation B'Nai B'rith Campus Crusade for Christ Cardinal Kung Foundation Catholic Alliance Christian Coalition Christian Legal Society Christian Reformed Church Christian Solidarity International Concerned Women for America Empower America Ethics and Public Policy Center Evangelical Free Church of America Evangelicals for Social Action Family Research Council Focus on the Family Freedom House's Puebla Program Institute on Religion and Democracy International Campaign for Tibet International Christian Concern International Fellowship of Christians and Jews Iranian Christian International National Association of Evangelicals National Jewish Coalition National Religious Broadcasters Open Doors with Brother Andrew Prison Fellowship Ministries Religious Action Center for Reformed Judaism The Rutherford Institute The Salvation Army Seventh Day Adventist Church Southern Baptist Convention U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference Union of American Hebrew Congregations Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America Voice of the Martyrs World Evangelical Fellowship-Religious Liberty Commission The Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights Under Islamization Advocates International Agape International American Coptic Association American Coptic Union Asian Christian Ministries Assyrian International News Agency Assyrian National Congress Assyrian Political Review Bangladesh Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary Bet-Nahrain Canadian Coptic Association Christian Amnesty Christian Copts of California Christian Voice of Pakistan Coptic American Friendship Association Coalition Committee of Experts Coming Home USA

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, today the House will vote on the freedom from religious persecution bill, which covers only cases of torture, enslavement, abduction, and death. Noted Russian Jewish dissident Natan Sharansky said, ``When the West stood up for its most basic values,'' as this bill does, ``and spoke up for persecuted Soviet Jewish communities, Soviet chains around churches and political dissidents began to shatter.'' Noted Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng sent a letter yesterday and said, ``If I did not see it myself, even I would not imagine the shameful and despicable means the Communists use against believers.'' This bill gives the President total and complete waiver authority. Cardinal O'Connor of New York, in a letter yesterday said, ``The Freedom from Religious Persecution Act could begin the desperately needed process of ending the legitimizing of such persecution.'' Failure to pass the bill would send a message to all of the dictators all over the world that it is open season for people of all religious beliefs. I hope and I pray that this bill will pass with an almost unanimous vote.