Heather Wilson

Mrs. WILSON

Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I appreciate the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) having this discussion today, Mr. Speaker, because I think Congress is just really beginning the hard work of developing the legislation to address this problem. All of us agree that we have a problem that we have to deal with. It is a problem brought about by marvelous advances in medical care that did not exist at the time that Medicare was established. We look at what the pharmaceutical industry has brought to the quality of life in America. We have a much longer lifespan and a much higher quality of life because there are miracle drugs that are available today that were not available 10 or 15 years ago, but the cost is often very high. I heard about this a lot when I was at home over our recent break. There was a little lady who came in to see me at one of our town hall meetings. Her name is Jean Welch. She did not say anything during the meeting itself, but she came up to me afterward. She has trouble walking now. She gave me a little envelope, and just whispered into my ear, don't look at this now, but when you go home, I want you to know that this is half of what I spend on prescription drugs every month. I just want to you to know. So I went home and I pulled out of this little envelope a receipt from Wal-Mart for over $360. If someone is on social security and they have that high a price for paying for their prescription drugs, it is a real burden, and it is something that we have to address. I think maybe I would like to just take a minute here, if I might, to talk about how we are grappling with this issue and what the choices are that face us as a Nation and as a Congress, and how we are beginning to sort through those choices. There are issues really in three areas. One is the scope of coverage. We know that about half of American seniors now have some kind of prescription drug coverage. They have some kind of insurance, but we also know that about one-third of our seniors have no coverage at all. The rest have had some kind of coverage, but it is very, very limited. So how do we craft a program that allows continuing choice for those who have insurance that they want now, and does not overly burden the Federal government and take away choices from seniors who have exercised their right to choose? So the scope of coverage is one of the issues that we have to deal with. How do we administer this program? There are a number of options that have been proposed in a lot of different pieces of legislation here, but I think they kind of fall into three groups. We could have a government-managed benefit, as we do with a lot of other Federal Government programs, with regional entities to purchase and administer our drug program. We could have private insurers that take care of this, and we would give seniors some kind of a voucher or a credit in order to buy prescription drug insurance. That would not have some of the burdens that go along with being a government-run program. Or, a third proposal that has been floated is to allow the States to manage this and administer the program. So there is not one prescription drug proposal, there are a lot of different ways that we could do this, and those are ways that we are grappling with here in the Congress starting this week. There is also the problem of who we cover. All of us know that we need to cover low-income Americans and low-income seniors. But there is also the problem of those that may not be low-income, but they have huge, high drug costs. That was one of my concerns with the initial proposal that came out that said, yes, we are going to give everyone coverage, it is going to cost us somewhere between $300 and $600 a year to buy it, and by the way, there is no coverage beyond the first $2,500 worth of costs. Well, my husband handles the insurance in my house, but even I can figure out that I do not need the insurance for the things I can afford, I need it for the things I cannot afford. So if we have caps at $2,500, that does not help Jean Welch after May or June. We need to think about those who have high costs, as well as those who have low income. There are a lot of models for reform that the Congress is beginning to grapple with and grapple with seriously. I am very pleased that the Speaker has asked the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means and the chairman of the Committee on Commerce, who have all of the expertise on these programs, to get together, to have the public hearings, to begin to craft a proposal that solves a very real problem that real Americans face every day.

Mrs. WILSON

Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support this resolution with respect to Catholic education, but to also share with my colleagues some of the history of Catholic schools in America, and particularly Catholic schools in the southwest. In 1598, Juan de Onate came up the Rio Grande, and he included eight Francisan friars in his expedition. They reached the east bank of the Rio Grande River near its confluence with the Chama River, close to the present site of Espanola and established a permanent settlement. That is over 400 years ago, before Jamestown became Jamestown and the Catholic church was in the southwest. The friars began teaching to the pueblos and mostly other children were taught at home for the first 100 years or so but in the 1800s, the Spanish government, cooperating with the Catholic church, began to establish schools in the territory of New Mexico. In 1850, the Bishop of Santa Fe, Juan Baptiste Lame, began to expand Catholic schools in New Mexico and brought the Sisters of Loretto to Santa Fe and the Christian Brothers came shortly thereafter to establish a school which still exists, Saint Mike's. The importance of these institutions and the history of New Mexico cannot be underestimated. Twenty percent of the people who participate in the constitutional convention in 1910 that established the Constitution for the State of New Mexico were graduates of Saint Mike's High School. These two institutions, the Sisters of Loretto and the Christian Brothers began a long tradition of Catholic schools in New Mexico as they expanded many more schools throughout the territory. It was only 1891 when New Mexico started establishing a system of public schools, and even then Catholic schools retained their importance. Four of the first teaching certificates issued in Albuquerque, my home, under this new public school law, were to Sisters of Charity. That was 300 years after the Catholic church began educating new Mexicans. Today there are five Catholic high schools in New Mexico, 29 elementary schools. To put that in context, there are a little less than 800 public schools in the entire State of New Mexico. The great thing is how many kids go on. They graduate from Catholic high schools. In my hometown, Albuquerque, St. Pious High School has a graduation rate of 100 percent, and between 95 and 100 percent of those kids go on to college. They do a great job. They have impacted our history and our culture and our life, and we thank them very much for it.

Mrs. WILSON

Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the chairman for yielding time to me, and thank the Committee on Resources, and particularly the chairman, for bringing this bill up. As we approach the end of this session of the Congress, there are a lot of things we are trying to wrap up. This is one that has been pending for some time. This Rio Arriba legislation authorizes the transfer of a little more than 400 acres of Federal land in the Old Coyote Ranger District Station near Coyote, New Mexico, and it would give it to Rio Arriba County so they can have that land and those buildings for county purposes and public purposes. They are going to use those buildings for a community center, for a fire station, for their storage and road maintenance equipment, and I think it is a win-win situation. The Federal government no longer wants to maintain those buildings and has moved to a new ranger station about 6 miles away, so this is a good land transfer bill. This bill passed the Senate in the last session of the Congress, did not pass the House in the waning days. When we finish this here today, it will go to the President for his signature. He has already indicated that he is supportive of this legislation. This is often the case in the West, we need to do these little Federal land transfer bills because so much of the West is owned by the Federal government. I thank the gentleman for his attention to this matter, and I commend particularly Senator Domenici for stewarding this through.

Mrs. WILSON

Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona. I listened with interest to the discussion this evening, and to the comments of my colleague from North Dakota, many of which I agree with, we do need to look at Social Security over the long term. We also need to begin to draw the line in the sand this year, because we have the opportunity to do that for the first time this year. I wanted to call my colleagues' attention to a chart that was actually prepared by the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston), because I thought it was a good chart to explain where we are to folks who are interested in watching this nationally. We have had deficit spending in this country for 30 years, until last year. And the reason that we do not have deficit spending now is really a combination of things. One is a very strong economy. But there also must be a will in Washington, and it starts in this House, because all of the spending bills start here, to control Federal Government spending. A commitment to balance the budget in the same way that all of us at home have to balance our own checkbooks. It is that responsible approach to government spending that we are now close to completing here in Washington for the next fiscal year. I want to commend the President of the United States tonight for signing the defense bill. That defense bill turns the corner in restoring our national security. It includes a 4.8 percent pay raise for those on active duty. It will start the process of recruiting and retaining high quality military personnel. It will mean that we will begin replacing all of those spare parts that have been lost in expeditions overseas. We need to restore our national defense, and the defense appropriations bill begins to do that, and I want to commend the President for having signed it today. There are other bills that we still have not completed action on, and we will do so and sit down with the President and his advisers and work through each of these bills to make sure that we have a series of spending bills that adds up to no more than $592 billion, which is the total amount we have in the checking account for the next year. We have set aside another $115 billion or so that is Social Security money. That is the money we are putting in the IRA this year for our retirement. Every family knows that if they took the money they were supposed to put in their individual retirement account or that was supposed to be in their pension fund and they spent it this year, it would not be there when they retired. So we are making the commitment this year, because we finally are within shooting distance of being able to meet that commitment; to not touch retirement, we are not going to raise taxes, we are going to balance the budget, and we are going to emphasize education and national security. And within that context, I think we can come up with a very good budget blueprint. And I thank the gentleman for his time.

Mrs. WILSON

Mrs. WILSON. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's remarks, and I also appreciated the Diet Coke and his willingness to back his team in spite of certain defeat. Mr. Speaker, it is a real pleasure to be here tonight to talk about some things that I think are important to this country. I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and the President to working out these final elements of these bills. We have drawn a line in the sand, as the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) said. It is a line in the sand that says we are not going to raise taxes, and we are not going to cut Social Security. Within that, we will work with the President. Our priorities within that playing field are national defense and education. But we are willing to work with him to achieve something that is important for us and for our children. And that is our message tonight.

Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is right. There are over 350 members of this House that voted yes on that final conference report.

Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Speaker, where does all of this leave us? Where are we now on the cusp of the final couple of weeks of this congressional session? We have set some parameters. We are going to keep the balanced budget. We made that commitment in 1997. We achieved it earlier than we thought we were going to. We are going to keep a balanced budget. We are going to stop using Social Security to pay for this year's government programs. I have to say I read with interest the comment of the White House Chief of Staff in the Washington Post this morning. Even the White House Chief of Staff recognizes that the Republicans key goal is to not spend the Social Security surplus. That is our goal. The President has accepted that as the goal and one of the parameters within which we work. I commend him for that in recognizing that Social Security should be off limits. We are not going to increase taxes. This House and the Senate have soundly rejected any increase in taxes. We should be having tax relief in a time of plenty, not increases in taxes. We are going to pay down the public debt next year by about $150 billion, and I am very proud of that accomplishment and being part of that. We are going to strengthen national defense. The President should sign the bill. It is on his desk for defense spending. It is a real increase in defense spending that will stop the erosion and the decline. If he is concerned about America's role in the world, if he is concerned about a new isolationism, it is not coming from this Congress. We are committed to maintaining a strong national defense and increasing defense spending. We are going to improve education. I see for our children a very bright future. It is one that we are all trying to build together. But we have got to be committed to it. We have to stick to our knitting. We have to get the job done, set the parameters, work in good faith with our colleagues across the aisle and with the President of the United States. But I think that the future is there for us to see and take a few steps back from the political skirmishing of today. I have to say it must be really tough to be in the minority. I have never, thankfully, been in the minority here. But sometimes I think that there is a small group of folks here who believe that their only job and their only role is to resist and to criticize rather than to govern and to shape. I believe that together we can govern and shape. If we take a little bit of a step back from protecting Social Security and resisting the temptation to increase taxes, protecting our national defense, and improving education, to see things in a little bit bigger context, 3 weeks from now, we are going to be celebrating the 10th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It has been a marvelous 10 years. We have achieved great things. We have resisted the temptation to turn in on ourselves. I remember very clearly the week that that wall came down. It was a life-changing experience for many Americans and for many Americans in uniform. Very often, the aftermath of a great war is a rank thing. It certainly was in the First World War of this century. We resisted it after the Second World War because of the Cold War. Ten years ago, I think there was a real fear that America would turn in on itself, but we have not. We are building a strong foundation for a new century. All of us who serve in this body should be proud of that. We have a series of spending bills. They are pretty solid, based on some pretty solid foundations. We are committed to working with the President on the final ones, as long as they do not touch Social Security. We do not increase taxes, and we keep the focus on defense and education. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham).

Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Speaker, that of course was not the point at all. The whole point of the program was another Federal program where one gets local governments to carry most of the bill, constrain on what they can use the money for. I have to commend the Committee on Appropriations for saying wait a minute. Twenty-three years ago, the Federal Government passed something called IDEA, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. It is the special ed law. They promised that 40 percent of the extra cost would be paid by Federal Government. Every school district in this country has to comply with the Federal special ed law. But for about 35 years, the Federal Government was only paying 8 percent of the cost, which meant all that money that can be going to smaller class sizes or pencils and paper in school so parents do not have to bring it in from home or computers in the classroom and bricks and books and all of the things we desperately need for teacher training, all of that money had to go to pay the Federal Government's responsibilities. So this bill this year increases, again, substantially Federal aid to special ed. Let us fund the things we have already committed to fund before we start new government programs.

Mrs. WILSON. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mrs. WILSON. One of the things that I liked most about the tax package that was sent down to the President, and it was a tax package for over 10 years, that it would allow us to plan for what our spending levels would be and to plan for some tax reduction, and to encourage people to save. One of the provisions that I liked about that most, probably next to the marriage penalty, which really bothers me, I think we should honor marriage and not tax it, but one of the ones that I liked most next to that was the increase in allowances for IRAs. Right now one can only put in $2,000 tax deferred every year into their individual retirement account. It would have increased it to $5,000 a year. The gentleman struck on something that I would like to talk about this evening, too, and we have not talked about it much, and that is a commitment to education. We talked about defense and the bill that is on the President's desk right now. He has an opportunity to really make clear his commitment to America's engagement in the world, and his commitment to America's national security and go ahead and sign that bill. But there is one other issue that is a priority in this year's budget cycle, and that is education. We have not yet dealt with the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education bill on the house floor. But today we spent the whole day talking about the reauthorization of the elementary and secondary education bill. We need to make sure that these kids we talk about who are just entering the work force and those kids who are just entering kindergarten have the skills to achieve their dreams, and that means a continuing commitment in this country to education. The bill that is probably going to come to the floor has an increase over what the President requested for education. The differences will be in where the priorities are in that budget. The President wants 100,000 new teachers. He is only, of course, willing to fund a third of that and tell local school districts, ``Raid your supply account and your utilities account and all your other accounts, and put on some more taxes to match this, and then we will give you that one-third. And, oh, by the way, it is only for 5 years.'' It sounds very much like the cops program that did not get a lot of cops to the street, but local chiefs of police pretty quickly figured out that this was not such a good deal after all.

Mrs. WILSON. I would definitely agree.

Mrs. WILSON. I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Bilbray) for those remarks. That idea that there is no turning back, that we cannot turn back the clock of history, it takes so much effort to change the culture of an institution, to change the expectations of people from being one of spending Social Security to one of protecting Social Security. The question really is how do you institutionalize this so that it is not a fight every single year, and it is not a negotiation around the fringes every single year, that it is just not an option; that it is as impossible in the Federal Government to take away our retirement as it is in State government and local government.

Mrs. WILSON. How long is it that we have been doing 13 appropriations bills to fund the government?

Mrs. WILSON. Would the gentleman educate me a little bit?

Mrs. WILSON. I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Bilbray) for his remarks. On that point, when we set out our budget at home, if we were to take the money we put in our IRA and spend it this year for car payments or for rent or for entertainment, to go to the movies, we would not expect it to be there when we retired. But that is what the Federal Government has been doing for the last 30 years and we need to stop doing that and be responsible about it. I have to say that while we had kind of a somewhat extreme group down here this evening, this is not really a partisan issue. I think probably fully two-thirds of this body recognizes that we are gradually coming up with a change in attitude about what Federal Government is all about, and that we should not spend Social Security every year; that we should have a balanced budget; that there is no need to increase taxes in time of peace and prosperity; and that we should spend money on priorities like national security and education. So I think that it would be wrong to characterize this as a completely partisan fight. In fact, it is really not. I think there is really a vast majority in this body that wants to protect Social Security.

Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Speaker, I do not know what the situation was in California and particularly in San Diego, but in New Mexico we cannot, by law and by the Constitution, we cannot spend more than we have come in. Did the gentleman have to live under those rules?

Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Bilbray).

Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I think we need to share something here. This is not talking about projections, this is talking about reality on what has happened to the Social Security Trust Fund. Here is 1984, and we start seriously dipping into the trust fund to pay for current government programs. Of course, in 1995, before I was here in Congress, is when there was a change in control of the Congress, and in 1997 when the Balanced Budget Act was passed. We see the reductions in spending from Social Security under Republican control. We are now down to where we should be, which is we should not be spending Social Security for current government programs. Our whole point here is that there is no turning back. We need to plan for the future in Social Security, make sure it is there not only for today, that the check is there on time and in full today; but that it is there for my colleague from California when he retires and long after that, when I retire, and even much longer after that, when my other colleague from California's children retire. That is what it is about.

Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Florida. She is one of the great leaders in this House on national security and always brings to these discussions kind of a soberness and thoughtfulness that I really appreciate. It is particularly true that I appreciate it on an evening like this when some of the things that I heard in the run-up to this discussion that we have had here among our colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle, it was full of some hyperbole and some things that just were not true. It bothers me when we start playing partisan politics with something as important as national defense. I notice my colleague here from California (Mr. Cunningham), who is a Navy guy, but despite that, I yield to him.

Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Speaker, I watched with interest the debate that we have seen this evening here, and I think we need to set the record straight on a few things and talk to the American people a little bit about where we are and where we are going to go. We are now close to the end of the budget process for this next fiscal year and we have set some parameters. They are pretty clear. We are going to keep the budget balanced. There is going to be a real balanced budget for the first time since 1969. We are going to stop using Social Security for this year's government programs. We are going to prevent new taxes from being put on the poorest of American people. We are going to pay down $150 billion of publicly held debt next year. Within those parameters, the content of the bills is largely negotiable, but those principles are inviolable. Stop the raid on Social Security, no new taxes, keep the budget balanced. How did we get here and what are the priorities within those bills? In 1997, before I was elected to Congress, the people here before me passed the Balanced Budget Act. At the time they were called foolhardy for expecting that we could actually balance the Federal budget by 2002. The reality is that because of good economic times and a real will by this body to control Federal Government spending, we have balanced the budget early. Last year, we paid down $60 billion of publicly held debt and $140 billion this year. Last year we were able to balance the budget if you count Social Security, and the Congressional Budget Office just announced last week after closing all the books that because tax revenue was coming in at a much higher rate than was anticipated, we actually had the first real surplus in Federal spending since 1969. We have turned the corner with respect to Social Security, we have stopped using Social Security for this year's government programs, and there is no turning back. In January of 1999, the President came here to this room to give his State of the Union address. He talked about his vision for this country and what he wanted to see and explained the budget that he was about to send up to this Hill. That budget planned on spending 40 cents of every surplus dollar for Social Security this year. It also included $19 billion in new taxes and fees this year alone with a 10-year projected increase in taxes of $260 billion. For those of you who think that that was just about a tax on cigarettes, we are really talking about a 55- cent tax on cigarettes and who could be against sin taxes, that is not true. If you go through the budget that the President sent up here, in addition to increases on tobacco taxes, which do affect generally very poor people, there was half a billion dollars for a harbor service fund, there was $1.1 billion for an increase in aviation fees, there was $1.5 billion in Superfund taxes, there was half a billion dollars on food safety inspection user fees, there was another $108 million for agriculture fees, there were FDA fees and justice and bankruptcy filing fees and Coast Guard fees and Federal Railroad Administration rail safety inspection fees, customs fees, National Transportation Safety Board fees, Social Security Administration fees, all of these adding up to $19 billion in new taxes and fees. The President and his spokesmen said that their budget was responsible and they made the hard choices by using 40 cents of every dollar that was surplus for Social Security and adding on $19 billion in new spending with new taxes and fees. Well, we put that to the House yesterday. We voted here on the President's taxes and fee increases. Was that what we wanted to do at a time of economic plenty? Not one Member of this House was willing to stand up and say yes, we want to increase taxes, we want to support the President's proposal for increased spending and increased taxes. There is no will in this House or in this country for an increase in taxes. And there should not be, because we can control spending and do it responsibly. We passed a budget earlier this year that set out some priorities, that said we were not going to touch Social Security, we were not going to increase taxes or fees, and we were going to put the priorities in that budget in two particular areas: Education and national defense. Then we began our annual process of passing 13 spending bills that reflected those priorities. If there is one thing Speaker Hastert has done around here, he has told us again and again and again, ``Let's just get the job done.'' Our job is to legislate, our job is to pass these bills, our job is to get these spending bills done no matter what. He has done a very good job of keeping us on task. Where are those 13 bills? The President has vetoed the District of Columbia bill, and we are now working on the second version of that. The Energy and Water bill became law on September 29. The Legislative appropriations bill was signed by the President on September 29. Military Construction has passed both houses. The conference report was done. It was signed into law on August 17. The Transportation bill, signed on October 9. The Treasury-Postal bill, signed on September 29. The VA-HUD bill was signed today, and I appreciate the President's commitment and willingness to sign that bill and not hold it up for some omnibus appropriations bill yesterday. Just today we passed out the conference report from the House on Commerce, State, Justice and the Senate should be doing it soon and it will be to the President. The Agriculture bill is with the President as is the Defense bill. He has not chosen yet to sign or to veto those bills. The Interior bill is very close to coming back to the floor of the House in a conference report and being sent to the President. All of these things have been done on a much faster schedule than in the 103rd Congress which was the last time that my colleagues from the other side of the aisle were in charge here. But at that time, they were in late October or early November when they were passing the bills and they used all of the Social Security surplus. We are trying to be responsible here, not use a dime of the Social Security surplus, be responsible in our spending, put the emphasis on education and national security, and get the job done. I was very disappointed to see that the President vetoed the Foreign Operations bill. In his budget that he brought up here in January, he proposed a 30 percent increase in foreign aid. Now, most folks when they hear people talk on a national level about the commitment to national security do not really know what is in the foreign aid bill. The foreign aid bill does not include America's national security programs. It is not the Defense bill. It also does not include funding for the State Department which is where most of our diplomatic work is done. It does include some other programs that have to do principally with foreign aid. When I read the President's veto message, it is almost as if he is talking about another piece of legislation. He is talking about another sign of a new isolationism and that it fails to address critical national security needs. There is no element of this bill that addresses America's national security. That bill is still waiting on his desk for signature. But the rub really comes in the third-to-the-last paragraph of his veto message, where he says the overall funding is inadequate. The President asked for a 30 percent increase in foreign aid and wanted new taxes to pay for it. We are not willing to raise taxes, we are willing to do the responsible thing, and we have level-funded the foreign aid budget. He vetoed it because he wanted more money in the bill. Where is that money going to come from? It is going to come from Social Security. And we are not willing to touch Social Security. But there are some things in that aid bill that are increased. We increased the child survival programs by $60 billion. We increased UNICEF. We were not willing to increase funding for the IMF, particularly after the revelations of graft in the program in Russia. That did not make any sense at all. Yet the President wants $4 billion in increases to foreign aid. He also wants, as part of that $4 billion, $900 million of debt relief for foreign nations at the expense of debt relief at home. That is not something that we are willing to do. The foreign aid bill was a good, solid, reasonable bill that funded things at a constant level and set some priorities within that bill. It was good budgeting. But I do want to address the President's concern and fearmongering about a new isolationism. I am a free trade Republican. I believe that America should be engaged in the world. I am a veteran of the United States Air Force. I think we should have forward basing of American troops, strong relationships with our allies. I started my career as an Air Force officer and then got involved in arms control and working with our NATO allies in Europe. I strongly support America's involvement and engagement in the Middle East and am very concerned about developments in Asia and emerging threats to the United States both in ballistic missiles and in weapons of mass destruction. It also happens that I have a master's and a Ph.D. in international relations and know a little bit about 20th century diplomatic and international history. In fact, I went to the same school that the President of the United States did on that subject. This bill on Foreign Operations is an adequate and reasonable bill. I do not think that this debate or the reason for the veto was about foreign aid or foreign policy. I do not think it was about that at all. I think it was about money. All of this comes down to money. We want to save it in Social Security, we think it should stay in your pocket, we think our priorities should be national defense and education, and the President wants to spend it. He now has on his desk the Defense appropriations bill. For the last 10 years, we have seen the erosion of America's national defense. Korea is now posing a ballistic missile threat to the United States, and in the last fiscal year we finally turned upward on America's national defense spending. But I think we need to be very clear about where we are and why it is so very important for the President to sign this bill. Between 1960 and 1991, 31 years, the United States Army conducted 10 operational events. In the past 8 years, the Army has conducted 26 operational events. Twenty-six operational events in the last 8 years. That is 2\1/2\ times the number in one-third the time. At the same time we are drawing down the size of our military. Since 1990, the United States Air Force has shrunk from 36 fighter wings down to 20 and at that same time has sustained a fourfold increase in its commitments. A fourfold increase in its commitments. We are burning out our aircraft and we are burning out our people. And it is showing up in their unwillingness to stay in the military. We should not be surprised that the military has not been able to meet its retention and its recruitment goals. I represent Kirtland Air Force Base. When I go out there and talk to a young family and talk about how long they are deployed, 150, 170, 200 days a year in far-flung places and then they have to come home with pay and benefits that are lower than they have really ever been relative to the civilian workforce, retirement benefits that just are not there anymore and they have to justify to their families why they should keep doing this. They just cannot do it anymore. They are exhausted, they are worn out, and we need to turn the corner. The Air Force missed its recruiting goal this year by 7 percent. They are 5,000 people under strength and they are short 800 pilots. That is not because of a lack of commitment of this House. We are turning the corner and determined to increase spending on national defense. The bill that the President has in front of him does that for the first time. Our United States Navy, the pride of the seas, is 18,000 sailors short. There are ships that come in and a helicopter will go out and pick up the skilled operators and seamen on that ship and move them over to the one that is going out in order to keep the ships at sea. The operations tempo is too high, the pay is too low, the retirement benefits were cut in 1980 and again in 1986. But last year we turned the corner and we are going to continue to fund national defense. The bill that the President has on his desk and that I am asking him tonight to sign has a 4.8 percent increase in military pay. It includes funding at $4.5 billion more than the President requested. It is a $17.3 billion increase over fiscal year 1999. It has an increase for readiness to take care of some of the shortfalls we have seen, spare parts and training. We need to make sure that our forces have the spare parts and the training they need to do the job when they are called upon to do the job. Mr. Speaker, I got an e-mail message from a young man from New Mexico, he is a first lieutenant in the Army and was deployed during Kosovo as a maintenance guy with the helicopters, the Apaches that went down and never actually saw operations in Kosovo. He was so frustrated. He went into the military as a young officer, raring to go, and found that the extra duties that were placed on him for peacekeeping and all kinds of other things were just diminishing their ability to do the real mission, and that is why they were unprepared when they went to Kosovo. They had never trained, they had never practiced for a real mission because they were doing so many other things, and they were short funded on flying hours and training hours and ammunition. We are going to try to turn this around and get the spare parts and the training and depot maintenance that we need. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida, particularly on this point.

Mrs. WILSON

Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Speaker, I wish to bring to your attention an honor bestowed upon Deborah A. Sloan, a teacher at Zia Elementary School in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Ms. Sloan was selected as a participant in the Fulbright Memorial Fund Teacher Program. Ms. Sloan, was selected from a national pool of more than 2,700 applicants for this honor. As a member of the Navajo/Hopi Tribe and a distinguished teacher she is an outstanding representative of the rich, diverse culture in New Mexico. Ms. Sloan joined 200 educators from throughout the United States to travel Japan. They visited primary and secondary schools, colleges, businesses and cultural sights to learn about effective educational tools and techniques. As a representative of New Mexico schools she shared her knowledge and insight regarding education with people from throughout the United States and Japan. Her participation is a tribute to her dedication and commitment to the children of Zia Elementary and the future of our community. Please join me in thanking Deborah A. Sloan for contributions she is making to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Mrs. WILSON

Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Speaker, about a year ago, Zig and Charlene Piscotti came to visit me in Albuquerque. Their daughter is disabled, and she works at Kirkland Air Force Base, and she works as an hourly employee. But they told me they had to be careful to make sure that their daughter could not get more hours than she could afford because she could potentially lose her eligibility for Social Security. They knew that they were not going to be around forever. Their daughter is in independent living. She is doing very well. But the last thing they wanted was their daughter to lose Social Security benefits because they knew, if she lost those benefits and then had a reduction in her hours, it would be very hard and time consuming for her to get back on those benefits. This bill is for Michelle. It allows her easy-on provisions so she can go back to work as much as she wants to at Kirkland Air Force Base and do as well as she possibly can in the work force without that fear of not being able to get back on Social Security if her hours are cut back. I commend the gentleman for bringing forward his bill.

Mrs. WILSON

Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Speaker, I wish to bring to your attention Elizabeth Emery of Albuquerque, New Mexico, a gold medalist in the women's individual time trial cycling event at the 1999 Pan American Games. Elizabeth started cycling at the age of 27. To some this would be described as a late start, however through hard work and commitment she made up for the time lost. Elizabeth Emery serves as a role model to young people, especially young woman. Her outstanding gold medal performance proved what can be accomplished when you set a goal, and work hard. We know that young women who are involved in sports are more likely to stay in school, set and achieve their goals and make positive life choices. Ms. Emery is a successful woman athlete we can all learn from. Please join me in commending her for proudly representing the United States and securing a spot on the US Team to compete at the 1999 World Cycling Championships, October 1999 in Italy.

Mrs. WILSON

Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Speaker, I wish to bring to your attention the heroic acts of twelve years old Aaron Adoberavoski and nine year old C.J. Trujillo. Aaron is a seventh grader at Kennedy Middle School and C.J. is a fourth grader at Tomasita Elementary School in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In April 27, 1999, these two young boys were riding their bikes around Sandia Vista Park when they saw a man eluding some police officers. After a short while, the boys spotted a bag of money dropped in haste in a tunnel just off the park. The bag contained $1,900. The money had been stolen earlier from a Norwest Bank branch in a Furr's grocery store. C.J. and Aaron found a police officer at the park and turned the money over to him. Too often we do not recognize the positive things kids do. Aaron Adoberavoski and C.J. Trujillo showed that honesty is often its own reward and they were willing to act without hesitation. Please join me in thanking Aaron Adoberavoski and C.J. Trujillo for this act of citizenship. They are true models of honesty and integrity in our great community of Albuquerque, New Mexico.