[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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