[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 2 (Wednesday, January 26, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: January 26, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
COMMENTS ON THE STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] is recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. OWENS. Madam Speaker, today is the day after the State of the
Union Address, and I have been asked to make many comments by the
press, by constituents, on the State of the Union Address. It is a very
important occasion for our Nation, and our lives should be focused on
it.
We heard last night certainly one of the greatest State of the Union
Addresses ever delivered in this Hall. We heard last night the voice of
a great leader of the Western World. We heard a President that sent a
clear message to Washington that he is ready to take charge. We heard a
President send a clear message to the establishment that he will not
tolerate their tricks, he will confront them head on on what matters
most.
If I had to give a grade to the President's State of the Union
Address, I would give it an A minus, and I only say ``A minus'' because
we cannot afford, as Congresspersons and legislators, to admit that the
executive branch has done anything perfect because there would be no
need for us if we have a perfect executive. All we would have left to
do would be to rubber stamp whatever he has proposed and go home. The A
minus gives us room for a rationalization of our being.
Madam Speaker, there is room for some improvement on the President's
program. There is room for improvement, and a dialog with the Congress
is necessary in order to make those improvements, and I am pleased to
say that the gap between where the Congress is, and where we ought to
be at the end of this session, and what the President had to say last
night, is a very small gap.
I am also pleased to note that this is a President who is a moderate
man who really believes in citizen participation. He is not just a
great communicator, meaning he communicates to people, but he does not
listen when they communicate back. I think this is a President who very
much welcomes participation at every level. He welcomes the
participation of the people around him at the White House, he welcomes
the participation of the Cabinet, he welcomes the participation of the
Members of Congress in making vital decisions for this Nation. I think
he is really listening. I think he is capable of this, and he is
capable of understanding.
Madam Speaker, we are fortunate to have President Clinton as our
President, and I think the speech last night demonstrates that quite
dramatically. I just want to comment on some parts of his speech, and,
as I give him an A minus, indicate that there are some areas where I
profoundly disagree with the President. Nevertheless I think the A
minus is in order. I think the President's emphasis is in the right
place. I think that when we are evaluating anything that the whole is
not the sum of its parts. I may disagree. I may have a problem with
some parts. But, when we look at the whole and look at what the
President chose last night to dramatize and to emphasize, to
prioritize, when we look at that, we can have no quarrel with the
speech on the whole.
The President focused first on the most important issue, and that is
the issue of health care. Health care reform is No. 1. Health care
reform and what we do on health care in this Congress this year is a
major step in the defining of modern America. It is going to define how
this Nation is going to operate and how this Nation's attitude, the
general demeanor of the Nation as it goes into the 21st century, how
that is going to be defined by what we do on health care.
All wrapped up in the health care issue is this whole matter of just
how concerned are we about each other. All wrapped up in the health
care issue is the question of do we care. Is there a majority in
America, a caring majority, that really cares about each other?
We do not have to love each other, we do not have to agree on every
point that we all espouse to, but do we care enough about each other to
want to make certain that the basics are in place, that something as
basic as that which guarantees life, that which guarantees a minimum of
suffering, that which guarantees that the miracle of modern medicine
will be made available to every American regardless of what his
pocketbook looks like, regardless of his ability to pay?
We value life. We are saying, as we move into health care legislation
that we believe. The President was saying in essence that he believes
that he wants to put the full weight of his political power behind the
notion and the policy that every human being is sacred, every American
is sacred and every American's life should be treated in that way, that
it is sacred and, therefore, it deserves to be preserved. One life is
equal to another in terms of any attempt to preserve it, any attempt to
make certain that people live as comfortably as they can, as long as
they can, with respect to their own individual health. That is a big
statement for America.
I will not say that President Clinton is unique and that he alone is
the one who tried to make the statement. It goes back quite a ways, as
my colleagues know. President Truman tried to espouse the same policy,
and tried to translate that into political reality and to get it passed
in legislation. And he failed. We have to be bipartisan, as the
President was last night, and say that even President Richard Nixon
recognized that there was something wrong with a great modern
industrialized nation not having a guarantee to all of its citizens for
equal access to health care.
{time} 1440
Even President Nixon--and I am no fan of President Nixon, with his
general attitude, his policies, and his mean spirit--recognized that
the social fabric of America, the social fabric of our Nation will be
threatened if we do not at least give the basics, if we do not follow
up on Social Security with health care security.
Thank God for Franklin Roosevelt, thank God for the New Deal, and
thank God for all those brave people who participated in the New Deal
with Franklin Roosevelt. Social Security paved the way. It took 20
years before Social Security really passed. It was a long, long fight,
but it was a basic building block.
Social Security became the basic building block. I do not think we
could be contemplating massive health care reform today, if we had not
first had Social Security. But even after that great accomplishment,
even after the American people have made it quite clear that any
administration or any legislator who dared to touch Social Security and
tried to take Social Security away, would find himself out of a job. If
the whole Congress and the President would dare to act in some way so
as to really threaten Social Security, we would probably find ourselves
facing revolution. The way the Canadians speak about their health care
is the way Americans feel right now about their Social Security.
Having experienced it, having enjoyed the benefits of it, having felt
the security of it, they would never let anybody take it away. We would
have fighting in the streets before we would ever allow anybody to take
Social Security away.
We are able, I think, because of the building blocks in Social
Security, as provided for us, to move on now and join the other
industrialized nations of the world. Germany, Japan, Italy, Great
Britain, most of the industrialized nations of the world offer
universal health care to their citizens in varying degrees of quality.
But basically the principle is there. They see every one of their
citizens as being equal. They see every life of every member of their
nation as being sacred, and they try to preserve it and try to give the
benefits of modern medicine to everybody.
So let us run to catch up. We have a lot of catching up to do with
our industrialized nations in many ways. They have a lot of catching up
to do in some ways with us. We are still the model for the world in
democracy and in the way our executive branch and our judicial system
function. There is nothing like it in the world. It is unparalleled. We
still have a great deal to offer the world that it does not have, but
in many ways we are savage and uncivilized.
We are savage and uncivilized in the way we handle gun control in
this country. We are savage and uncivilized in the way we squander our
health care resources. We spend more on health care than any other
industrialized nation. We spend twice as much as our neighbor to the
north, Canada, and yet we cover fewer people. We provide less health
care in terms of long-term coverage and in terms of total coverage. In
many ways we must be humble enough to look to the other industrialized
nations and use their example for ourselves. Health care is one of
those areas.
We should be grateful that President Clinton is pushing us, that he
is providing the momentum and the leadership necessary for us to
scramble to catch up. We should be grateful that he has made a clear
statement. He draws a line in the sand on health care.
When I say the speech merits an A-minus, but I have many
disagreements with it, you can balance all my disagreements with the
speech off against his position on health care, and it wipes it out,
because he is firmly on a platform which says, ``I will not accept any
bill which comes to me that does not provide for universal health care
with an adequate benefits package. I will not accept it,'' and he would
use his pen to threaten to veto it when he has already made it clear
that he went through his first year, the whole first year of his term
and never had to veto a bill. That sends a clear message to all the
game players, all the operators, all the wise guys, all the old
establishment cronies, and all the phonies. It sends a clear message to
them that this President means business.
This President knows the American people are behind him. This
President knows that from every part of this Nation, as he said last
night and in every congressional district, there are people who will
clearly say to those who say we have no health care crisis that ``you
are really naive. You are either naive or you are lying if you say we
don't have a health care crisis. Don't go into my district or go into a
senior citizens center and tell them they have no health care crisis.
I'm not sure you will get out of there alive. Don't do it. Don't tell
that to all the people who are on the brink of getting off welfare and
would like to get a low wage job, a low-paying job.''
The one thing that prevents these people from moving is the fact that
they cannot get health care coverage. They do not want to move because
they do not want to jeopardize their families. You can always get
Medicaid
if you are on welfare, so why take a minimum wage job and scramble and
struggle to make ends meet, and the minute one of your kids gets sick,
there is no way you can survive? You have to go back on welfare in
order to get Medicaid.
So if you put things in their proper perspective, you start out with
health care. That is 90 percent of the A-minus, the fact that the
President took a clear position, the President sent a clear message
that he means business and he wants a health care reform package that
is not a phony, not a fraud. He wants everybody covered. He wants an
adequate package, and there he stands. He is willing to fight for it. I
think every Member of Congress should stand behind him. Let us move
past this area of savagery. Let us move America past this area of
primitive society where we stand as the only industrialized nation
which permits our citizens to remain uncovered.
We have the most. We are the richest nation that ever existed in the
history of the world. We have the most. We have a mentality sometimes
that makes us think we are poor, but we are the richest nation that
ever existed in the history of the world, and to have our citizens not
have basic health care coverage is not just a shortcoming, it is a sin
and it is a crime.
The President in his speech pointed out the fact that in his first
year there were monumental achievements. When you add them all up, the
year as a whole was a monumental achievement. The President started his
speech by calling the attention of the American people to what he had
achieved in his first year. I think it is very necessary for the
President to do this because the press and the media have certainly not
given him the credit. The press and the media have certainly not
acknowledged the kind of accomplishments that were achieved in
President Clinton's first year.
As a freshman President, as a new President, I think his record
probably remains unbeaten over the last 50 years. You cannot match that
record of accomplishment. It was a budget that cut the deficit by half
a trillion. I am quoting the President, and I agree with him 100
percent. He gave us a budget that cut the deficit by half a trillion
dollars and cut spending and raised income taxes only on the very
wealthiest of Americans. There was tax relief for millions of low-
income workers to reward work over welfare. That is the earned income
tax credit.
NAFTA is one of his great achievements, according to the President. I
do not agree. In my opinion, that is a negative achievement, but we too
congratulate the President on being able to accomplish what he promised
in his campaign speeches. He promised that. It was started by the
Republicans, and with bipartisan support, it passed. So he promised it,
and he delivered.
The Brady bill, which is now the Brady law, had been threatened with
a veto ever since I have been in Congress. The Brady bill had been
kicked around all over the place, but finally the Brady bill is now in
law. The Brady bill is a very tiny step forward. The Brady bill only
requires people to wait for a short period of time while their
background is checked before they can buy a gun. The Brady bill will
not do very much to control the proliferation of guns on the streets of
America. But the Brady bill is significant, is monumental, in that it
is a breakthrough. It is the only significant gun control law passed in
America in the past 50 or 60 years, the only significant step toward
controlling guns. A very significant step it was, because despite the
fact it was only an antiseptic bill, only a bandaid on the larger
problem of the proliferation of guns in our society, you know, we have
200 million guns out there already. In America there are 200 million
guns already out there. You know the gun industry in America is about
$20 billion a year. Twenty billion dollars a year to manufacture these
little toys of death, these little weapons of death. We sell them as if
they are hardware, toys. We play with them, and yet it is a very deadly
kind of cultural feature.
I heard the President say part of America's culture is the right to
own guns. He certainly is always going to stand behind that. I think
that is a point I disagree with him. I think that is part of our
culture we ought to assault wholesale. We all ought to deal with trying
to exorcise that part of our culture, some surgery to take away that
part of our culture. The romantic affairs, love affair with the gun, is
something Americans should try to dump. That is an addiction we ought
to try to get over. It is a deadly addiction. When you compare what
guns are doing in our society to what the absence of guns in other
industrialized societies means, then you can see. Less than 100 people
in Great Britain 2 years ago died from gunshot wounds or were killed
with guns. Less than 50 people in Japan. Shockingly small numbers in
Italy and Germany. While we had numbers like 14,000 people killed with
guns, there were less than 100 killed in Great Britain. When you look
at the two societies, you have to say something about the civilization
factor. We may be civilized in many many ways, but when it comes to
guns, we are an uncivilized nation. We are a savage nation. And we have
to come to grips with that, because that is destroying our children.
More and more the victims of guns are young people. If we have $200
million in the society today and the industry is a $20 billion
industry, how many do you think we will have next year, and the year
after that?
By the year 2000 how many guns do you think there will be in the
American society?
The teenagers in my congressional district tell me that they can get
a gun for $25 right now. If you want a gun, you can get a gun, the
basic six shooter, for $25. Next year they will go down if there are
more guns, and the law of supply and demand means the price will go
down. By the year 2000 a gun will cost you between $5 and $10. Is it
any wonder that more and more young people have guns? Is it any wonder
that more and more teenagers have guns, more and more schools are
trying to take steps to deal with guns?
We got metal detectors, we got all kinds of situations in the high
schools and the big cities. You got complaints from the rural areas
about large numbers of students bringing guns to school.
So the Brady bill, which is now the Brady law, was a very important
step forward, but let's all recognize it was just one step forward.
It broke the back of the illogical, unreasonable, blind resistance
that has been waged by the National Rifle Association over the last 50
years. The National Rifle Association has taken a stand that any law
which affects guns in any way is a threat to American liberty. Any law
which affects guns in any way is a violation of the Constitution.
Of course, they use the second amendment to prop that up. They insist
that the second amendment gives every American the right to own a gun.
Well, the courts have ruled several times that the second amendment
does not give every American the right to own a gun. The language of
the second amendment is very clear. It talks about Congress shall make
no law which prohibits the maintenance of a militia. A militia can be
maintained. A militia in 1994 means the National Guard. A militia means
the police. People who are constituting authorities have the right, of
course. We have the rights as States to maintain those. That is the
right that is guaranteed by the second amendment of the Constitution.
It does not give every individual the right to own a gun.
There have been numerous court cases which have ruled that the States
have the right, the localities have the right, and certainly the
Federal Government has the right to regulate the ownership of guns by
individuals in any way they see fit. They can regulate guns, they can
require licensing, they can place taxes on them. They can ban all
handguns if they want to. They can do anything they want. The
Government has that power, and not an iota of the Constitution will be
violated. It will not violate the Constitution.
So the National Rifle Association, standing on very shaky grounds,
very successfully has perpetuated the notion and made every American
feel that they have the right to own a gun. Any time you talk about gun
control, you are threatening their rights. If you talk about gun
control as a way to bring down the high cost of health care, because
one of the highest costs of health care in Washington, DC, and Houston,
TX, and Detroit, MI, and New York, NY, one of the highest costs of
health care is the traumas that take place, especially on the weekend,
at emergency rooms, where gunshot victims are brought in. That is a
very expensive form of health care, dealing with gunshot victims.
I visited Toronto, Canada, almost 2 years ago, to tour the health
care system there and see how the Canadian health care system worked,
by visiting doctors, hospitals, patients, et cetera. We went to the
general hospital in Toronto on a Friday evening, and the place was so
quiet. I said, this must not be the main hospital, is it? This is not
the main emergency room. Where is your regular emergency room? There
were only two people in the emergency room.
They said, you know, we don't have any great flood of emergencies on
the weekend. I said surely on the weekend, on Friday night, Saturday
night, Sunday, you must have lots of victims of violence. You must have
a lot of gunshot victims. And he said no, no, no, we had about 25 cases
of gunshot wounds over the last year. Twenty-five cases of serious
gunshot wounds in the biggest hospital in Toronto, Canada, 25 per year.
In one hospital in my district, they have 25 gunshot wound cases in 1
week, 1 weekend. If the guns are not there, if people are not selling
guns as if they were hardware or toys, then the number of people who
are injured by guns or killed by guns goes down. There is a definite
correlation. We are all logical people. We are all well-educated
leaders. We don't have to have diagrams drawn for us. There is a
definite correlation between the number of guns in our society and the
number of people who get killed with guns, the thousands of people who
get killed.
The Brady bill was a breakthrough, but I disagree with the President
when he says he will always defend the right of Americans to own guns.
He is only willing to get rid of assault weapons, automatic weapons. I
will buy that. Any step is a step forward. Let's get rid of all the
weapons, but let's understand that the culture of the gun, the culture
of the gun and the culture of violence in America, must be attacked
head on. They must be eradicated, and you can't do that if you are
going to treat guns as a basic part of our culture and never challenge
the existence of the right to own guns.
The President also said that the tax cuts help 9 out of 10 small
businesses invest more and create jobs. Those tax cuts were passed last
year. The President also said that more research and treatment for
AIDS, that was passed last year. We got more childhood immunizations.
We talked about these things a lot under previous administrations, but
we only made tiny steps in trying to deal with them. We got more
childhood immunization as a result of legislation passed last year,
more support for women's health research, support for college loans for
the middle class, a new national service program for those who want to
give something back to their community and earn money for higher
education. A dramatic increase in high-technology investments to move
us from a defense to a high-technology economy. A new law, the Motor-
Voter Act, to help get people to register to vote. And last but not
least, family and medical leave. The first bill we passed last year was
the Family and Medical Leave Act. Some people in my district try to
play down the Family and Medical Leave Act and say it is not that
important. After all, I can take off and not get paid. We can take off
and not get paid. To know your job is going to be waiting for you when
you get back is important. Great. We would like to see the workers take
medical leave and get paid, as they do in Germany, as they do in
France, but we are not that civilized yet.
{time} 1500
We just made the first step. At least the Government guarantees if
you work for an employer that has 50 or more employees, you are
guaranteed to get a job back, a very important step. If it was not
important, why did President Bush veto it twice. Why did certain
quarters, certain special interest groups in America fight so long
against it, if it is not important.
Family medical leave was passed as our first act last year, and it
was very important. All passed, all signed into law as the President
stated.
These accomplishments were all commitments that he had made when he
sought office, and they were all passed by the Congress.
I salute the President and his achievements, and I salute the fact
that in his speech last night he stood up to those people who have
attempted to minimize his accomplishments.
I have heard the President himself say on previous occasions that he
does not believe in the lame game. He said that more than a year ago.
I hope by now, after being kicked around by some very nasty people
here in Washington, that he clearly understands that you have to play
the blame game and fix the blame where it is. Otherwise, they will fix
the blame for what they have done on you.
I will not go into Whitewater in great detail right now, because I
would like to discuss Whitewater at some other date at great length,
the implications of Whitewater and the savings and loan mess, the
savings and loan swindle, how a whole long list of people in Government
who have connections to savings and loans were never investigated.
There were never any calls by the loud voices that now call for an
investigation of Whitewater. They never called for an investigation of
Silverado. Silverado in Colorado, does anybody know anything about
that? The son of a President was on the board of Silverado. Nobody
called for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor to look into the
Silverado swindle. Much more was involved in terms of dollars than were
involved in Whitewater.
There is a whole need to explore fully the implications of the
persecution, the special persecution that is taking place in the case
of Whitewater, how all the people who were so silent, some on the
Banking Committee, so silent about the billions of dollars that went
down the drain in savings and loans.
Some savings and loans have elected officials connected with them.
Illinois had a few elected officials. Savings and loans went down the
drain. They had elected officials connected. Texas, California got a
lot of elected officials connected with savings and loans that went
down the drain, and nobody called for Special Prosecutors. Nobody
called for investigations of the kind that should have gone forward.
Maybe we should have had a Special Prosecutor to deal with all the
savings and loans that had elected officials connected with them in any
way. We could call that a prosecutor for S&L hot water. Any maybe we
will get around to that eventually and not single out Whitewater as
some great example that has to be explored over and over again.
Let us look at the whole picture and whatever happened at Whitewater
will fall into perspective. You can see it in comparison with the whole
and see how tiny it probably is compared with the billions that the
American people are paying right now to make up for the money that was
stolen out of savings and loans across the Nation.
I will not go into that in great detail. I want to come back to the
President's speech. As I said before, I give it an A-minus. It was a
great speech, but I have disagreements.
When the President says, ``Next month I will send you one of the
toughest budgets ever presented to Congress. It will cut spending in
more than 300 programs. It will eliminate 100 domestic programs and
reform the way Government buys its goods and services. This year we
must make the hard choices again to live within the hard spending
ceilings we have set,'' I agree with the President that we ought to
make hard choices. But I wonder about those 300 programs that are going
to be cut. I would like to see the list of 300 domestic programs that
will be cut. I wonder again about the 100 domestic programs that are
going to be eliminated completely. There is no virtue in numbers, to
say I am going to eliminate a certain number of programs. They may be
very tiny programs with a few hundred thousand dollars and, because of
their small size, to have somebody make a judgment that they are
worthless is wrong. It is illogical. The value of a program that is
only appropriated for $1 million may be far greater than a program that
is spending a few billion dollars. Because it is spending less does not
mean that it is a less desirable or less needed program.
I worry a great deal about cutting 300 domestic programs and
eliminate 100 domestic programs. I worry about that even more, when you
consider what the President said about the defense budget. Again, my
most profound disagreement with the President in his speech last night
was his pledge not to cut the defense budget. He will not cut the
defense budget anymore, and he requested that Congress cooperate with
him and support him on not cutting the defense budget. That is my most
profound disagreement.
It is still an A-minus speech. It is still a great speech, when you
consider the pluses, but this is a minus which must be dealt with, and
here is the place where I hope that the President and his willingness
to enter into a dialog with Congress, the fact that he is a great
communicator and a great believer in participation and decisionmaking,
I hope he hears us.
I hope the Members of Congress will speak loud and clear to the
President in disagreement. To make a statement that you are not going
to cut the Defense budget anymore, while you tell us you are going to
cut 300 programs and eliminate 100 domestic programs, is to close the
door to a dialog which is unbecoming and out of step with the
President's general way of proceeding.
I hope that we are going to be able to balance these defense programs
against the domestic programs. I would wager, without even knowing
which programs he is going to cut, I would wager that the 300 programs
he is going to cut, added to the 100 programs that he is going to
eliminate, proposes to eliminate, if you add all of it up, 400
programs, some cut, some eliminated, they would not equal the cost of
one Seawolf submarine. They would fall far short of the cost of one
Seawolf submarine. One Seawolf submarine costs $2.3 billion. They
certainly would not get up to one nuclear aircraft carrier. One nuclear
aircraft carrier costs $3.5 billion.
When you are talking defense and you make the cut in defense, you are
talking big money. If we cut a few useless weapon systems out of the
defense budget, we have large amounts of money to transfer to more
worthwhile activities. So if you are not going to cut the Defense
budget and you are going to leave all those worthless weapons systems
in place, some that would not be any good if we had a fight, because
they were never on sound ground, the missile systems on the star wars,
some of the aircraft that is in the pipeline, there are a number of
places where experts have challenged the utility of these devices and
these weapons, again, even if we had a war.
But since we do not predict any war with another super power, why do
we make pledges not to cut the Defense budget? Why not at least be
objective enough to take a close look at the Defense budget, take a
look at all those nooks and crannies in the Defense budget. Because
over the last 50 years, since the end of World War II, the cold war and
everything that went into the mystique which created the military
industrial complex, all of that created a situation where Defense has
gotten almost everything they have asked for.
There were years when no matter what they asked for, and the American
people would be surprised at what went through the Defense budget,
programs for counseling, for reading, for family problem solving. All
kinds of programs went through the Defense budget. And if you look in
the Defense budget, you will find all manner of things there.
It is the most bloated budget. It is where the money is. As Slick
Willie's son used to say, when he asked him why he robs banks, that is
where the money is. If you want to look for budget cuts and you want to
look for ways to streamline the Government, go look at the Defense
budget. We have got depots in the areas surrounding Washington, depots
which still have hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of junk in
them. I say ``junk'' because anything that is no longer useful, as far
as the military is concerned, is junk.
They may more aggressively find ways to sell it, sell it to Third
World countries. And we are not talking about weapons. I am talking
about tiers. I am talking about medical jackets for doctors of a kind
they do not make anymore.
All of us looked at ``60 Minutes,'' and we saw some of the examples
in the warehouse. One hundred billion dollars' worth of stuff is stored
in warehouses that we cannot use anymore. We are talking about the
continuation of the funding for overseas bases.
{time} 1310
We do not want to close any bases in America. We do not want to throw
any communities out of kilter economically, necessarily. We can take
time for that.
However, why not close the overseas bases in Japan and Germany? We
have been talking about it for some time. Billions of dollars are being
spent to keep the bases going overseas. Let us take a close look at
this Defense budget. Let us even look closely at some traditional
things nobody has ever thought about.
Do the Members know how much it costs to educate a young man or a
young woman at West Point? Do they know how much it costs to educate
one, compared to Harvard and Yale and Princeton? The cost of educating
one student at West Point is about four times the amount of money we
spend to educate a student at Harvard or Yale or Princeton.
Why do we have to spend so much money per student in the military
academies? West Point is the highest, but the others are too high,
also. Nobody has ever taken a look at the budget. When we try to find
out what is the budget of West Point, you find out, ``What budget? We
just spend money. We don't have a budget.''
If we take a look closely at these kinds of expenditures and things
that the military takes for granted, there is money to be saved. We can
save money which we can use, I assure the Members, to help keep some of
these 300 programs that are going to be cut and the 100 that are going
to be eliminated.
It is like the Hans Christian Andersen Story, where the Emperor has
no clothes on, and nobody would say that the Emperor did not have any
clothes on. The establishment around Washington does not want to say
the Defense Department is still the place where there is a huge amount
of waste. We can make a lot of cuts.
Nobody want to talk about the CIA, our spy apparatus, and the rest of
the intelligence budget, which most people agree is about $28 billion.
The cold war is over, and yet we are still spending $28 billion. I
suppose the President meant them, too, when he said we are not going to
cut Defense any more. They consider themselves part of Defense.
We cannot look at the CIA and ask, ``What are you doing now that the
cold war is over? How many of your jobs are make-work jobs, very
expensive make-work jobs? You are making work for yourselves in various
ways, and we cannot challenge that because everything is secret?
What have you done lately to deserve a $28 billion budget,
intelligence community? You could not predict the collapse of the
Soviet Union, when the big Soviet Union was collapsing, and you,
outrated intelligence agency, could not tell us it was collapsing.
You could not accurately tell us what was happening in Haiti. You
told us things about Jean Bertrand Aristide which were later proven to
be false. A hospital in which you communiques say he was treated for
mental illness, that hospital did not even exist. The doctor you say
treated him did not even exist in Canada. CIA, why should you not be
cut?
Mr. Speaker, I hope that the President will reconsider that we can
have a meaningful dialog about this great pledge not to cut the
military. That is where the money is. Instead of cutting 300 helpless
domestic programs and eliminating 100 programs, let us have a dialog.
Let us communicate. Let us examine objectively where the money is
going, and let us decide on ways to spend it that are most productive
for America.
The President does talk about some good things that my district,
people in my district, have waited a long time for programs to help
people get jobs. I like what he said, and I quote,
We must work with the private sector, connect every
classroom, every clinic, every library and every hospital in
America to a national information superhighway by the year
2000. Instead access to information will increase
productivity. It will help educate children and provide
better medical care and create jobs. I call on Congress this
year to pass legislation to establish the information
superhighway.
I am a librarian. I know how important information is. I know the
power of information. I know we live in the age of information. I have
spoken to Vice President Gore on several occasions. I have communicated
to as many people as I know that the superhighway, the super
information highway, should be available to everybody, that we have got
to find a way to make sure it is not just a monopoly of the rich. They
agreed.
One way to make it available to everybody is to put it in schools and
in libraries. They have set up an advisory board to work on the
information superhighway. I do not know of a single teacher or a single
educator or a single librarian who sits on that information
superhighway advisory committee, but there is room for dialog. I am
sure that we will make a correction. I am sure the Vice President and
the President will listen. That is very important.
It is important to create jobs. The young people in my district need
to know what kinds of jobs are involved. They need to know that our
Government is gong to help them to train and to get the education
necessary to be involved in those jobs.
The President goes on to say, ``As we expand opportunity and create
jobs, no one will be left out. No one can be left out.'' To quote the
President further:
We will continue to enforce fair language in fair housing
and all civil rights laws, because America will never
complete its renewal unless everyone shares in its bounty.
We can do all these things, put our economic house in
order, expand world trade, target the jobs of the future, and
we will, but let us be honest, this strategy cannot work
unless we also give our people the education, the training,
and the skills they need to seize the opportunities of
tomorrow. We must set tough world-class academic and
occupational standards for all of our children, and give our
teachers and students the goals to meet them.
I know what the President means. I sit on the Committee on Education
and Labor. I welcome the fact that he has had vigorous participation in
the effort to move the education agenda forward. It is not just words
and rhetoric, but this President has been involved in moving the agenda
forward.
We have passed out of the House of Representatives the goals 2000
bill. We have passed the schools to work bill. We are going to pass the
Safe Schools Act, and a number of other school-related bills. This
morning my subcommittee passed out of the subcommittee the drug-free
schools bill, so we are moving. We are moving, with the support of the
President, on education.
On employment, I like what the President had to say in his State of
the Union address. I quote the President,
The only way to get a real job with a growing income is to
have real skills and the ability to learn new ones. We simply
must streamline today's patchwork of training programs and
make them a source of new skills for people who lose their
jobs.
Reemployment, not unemployment, will be the centerpiece of
our program for economic renewal, and I urge you to pass it
this year.
Unlimited applause was due the President on that one, and he needs
it. His activities over the first year have laid the basis for moving
forward with jobs programs. To quote him again:
Just as we must transform our unemployment system, we must
also revolutionize our welfare system. it doesn't work. It
defies our values as a Nation.
If we value work, we cannot justify a system that makes
welfare more attractive than work. If we value personal
responsibility, we cannot ignore the $34 billion in child
support that absent parents ought to be paying to millions of
mothers and children. If we value strong families, we cannot
perpetuate a system that penalizes those who stay together.
Can you believe that a child who has a child gets more
money from the government for leaving home than for staying
with their parent or grandparent? That is not just bad
policy, it is wrong, and we must change it.
I agree with the President 100 percent. I agree with this part of the
address 100 percent. Those who say that the liberals, the progressives,
are not ready to tackle welfare reform, that their hearts are bleeding
and they want to be soft on people who do not want to work, they are
lying. We have consistently said we know, and I have a large number of
people on welfare in my district, we know from first-hand experience
that people would rather work than be on welfare.
We know that when they go to look for jobs, there are no jobs. We
know that if a hotel or a new enterprise of any kind advertises 10
jobs, they will have a thousand people show up for those 10 jobs.
Sometimes they have several thousand people, people spread in long
lines around the block, people getting into fights for a handful of
jobs.
Mr. Speaker, we agree 100 percent with the President. We value work.
There is no reason why people on welfare should not get off if their
job is there, but make sure that the jobs are there. We are behind the
President 100 percent.
I am in favor of a comprehensive welfare program. I am in favor of
the President's 2-year rule, where people, and to quote the President,
and I am going to quote in great detail,
To all those who depend on welfare, we offer this simple
compact: We will provide the support, the job training, the
child care they need for up to two years, but after that,
anyone who can work must work; in the private sector if
possible, in community service if necessary. We will make
welfare what it ought to be, a second chance, not a way of
life.
I agree with the President. I think most progressives agree, most
liberals agree. If we are going to provide the support, the job
training, the child care, if we are going to make it possible by
providing the jobs, then we are all together. The people on welfare
want the jobs, we want them to have the jobs, but make certain that we
do not perpetuate a fraud. Let us not be cruel and pretend there are
jobs when there are no jobs.
{time} 1520
If you are going to have a 2-year rule, and I do not know how you
arrived at the 2-year rule, those people who say 2 years on welfare,
that is enough, get off, I say okay, let us experiment with that. But
how did you come to 2 years? Are you saying that every American
deserves 2 years of help from the Government and that is all, no more?
I will buy that. If every American deserves 2 years help from the
Government and no more, everybody is equal, I might buy that.
But are you saying also that the farmers who have been receiving farm
subsidies for more than 2 years should be cut off? A farm subsidy,
paying farmers not to grow a certain amount of grain, or paying them to
store grain, whatever the farm subsidy is, that is the American
taxpayers helping an individual. Now, if everybody deserved no more
than 2 years of help, then cut the farmers off who have been on more
than 2 years.
When we have flood insurance, some people build their homes in areas
where they have floods again and again, are you saying that two times
and it is all over, that the Federal Government should not help rebuild
their homes when a flood has taken place? I mean, one person is no
different than another. You need help. Your home has been flooded.
In earthquake areas, you choose to live in an earthquake area. An
earthquake is made by God, but it is your choice to build your house in
an earthquake area. Let us forget whether it is God or man, you need
help. People who are victims of earthquakes need help. Are we saying
that we will give you help twice, 2 years, and then after that no more?
Of if there is a hurricane, as happened in Florida, we will give you
help for two hurricanes, and no more?
Or is that all wrong? Would a more scientific way to do it be to
calculate the cost? People who are on welfare get between $10,000 and
$15,000 a year. A family of four on welfare, depending on what State
you are in, gets between $10,000 and $15,000. Let us take the higher
figure. If they are on 2 years, they get $30,000 from their government.
Their government helps them with $30,000 worth of help. Should we make
that a rule, that every American who is in trouble of any kind,
everybody who needs assistance gets $30,000 worth of help and no more?
If you are going to pull these years out of a hat, the 2-year rule,
then let us be scientific about it, and let us decide on what you are
doing. Thirty thousand dollars worth of help and no more, that sounds
reasonable.
The people who are getting Federal deposit insurance to cover their
deposits in the banks, why do we cover more than $30,000? Why not just
cover $30,000, so that when the banks fail, as have the savings and
loans, the American people are not out $500 billion. You know the
savings and loans swindle is predicted to cost us $500 billion before
it is all over. Now let us not be in that position again. Let us say if
you have a deposit we will insure no more than $30,000. We have a new
rule, the Government assists people up to $30,000 and no more. That is
not so outrageous, because there are some countries where they do not
have any Federal deposit insurance, the government does not help you at
all. They have private insurance. And then there are other countries
like Great Britain where they have a very limited amount of Federal
protection, government protection over your bank deposits. This is not
unusual. So, all Federal deposit insurance will be limited to deposits
of $30,000 and no more.
Overseas embassy services. Some Americans travel all of the time. The
majority of Americans never travel. They cannot afford it. The services
of the embassies, the passports, all of the things that they do for
people who travel, $30,000 worth over your lifetime, and no more.
If we are going to look closely at Government assistance, how much
you should be given, then why not have a uniform rule across the board?
Do not misunderstand me. I support the basic principle of giving
people all of the help we can to get off welfare, give them a job, 2
years and no more. But I want to spread that principle so that every
American who gets any kind of assistance, any subsidy, and I am not
talking about Social Security, I am not talking about insurance, I am
not talking about health care, I am talking about a subsidy that goes
to some and not others, then any American who gets that kind of subsidy
should have a limitation of 2 years.
Let us take a look at welfare reform. We look forward to a dialog
with the President on that, and look forward to a dialog with the
President on all of these things, including crime.
Progessives, they say, are soft on crime. But I am all in favor of
three things and you are out, Mr. President. I do not think it is going
to accomplish very much if you do not eliminate guns in our society. I
think we are still going to have large numbers of people killed with
guns, but I am all in favor of trying the policy of three times and you
are out.
I am all in favor of putting 100,000 police on our streets with
Federal aid. We need them in my district. But if you are going to put
100,000 more police, or any additional police out there, I also want
the law to state that we want more efficient, more effective, and more
competent police departments. Law enforcement is one of the most
incompetent, inefficient areas of activity in our Nation. They blunder
more, they waste more money, and corruption is a major problem. I hope
the law will have in it some stringent provisions against corruption. I
have seen in my district massive corruption at two precincts where the
police were the worst criminals. We had a commission where they
confessed. And nobody talked about harsh punishment for police. Anybody
who has been sworn to uphold the law as a policeman, is sworn to uphold
the law as a peace officer, any judge should have double the punishment
of other people committing the same crime. We ought to build that into
our Federal aid. Let us give communities help, give them more police,
but let us also deal with some of the problems that are out there. The
ineffectiveness, the inefficiency, the blundering of our police
departments, let us deal with that.
In closing, I want to make it clear that despite my criticism and my
comments I think the State of the Union Address on January 25 was a
landmark in American history, especially modern American history. I
think the President gave a world-class performance. He won an A minus.
He provided leadership.
I look forward to the second year of the 103d Congress. I think it is
going to be a great year for history, a great year for the American
people. I think we are going to start with our emphasis where it needs
to be. At the end of this year, every American is going to be
guaranteed health care security, every American is going to be able to
breathe a little easier. Most of all, I think the mean-spirited of our
Nation will be tackled head on, and we will be not a mean-spirited
nation, rich but talking poverty, but a nation in spirit as generous as
it is wealthy.
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