[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 115 (Tuesday, August 16, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 16, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
  WHITEWATER DEVELOPMENT CORP. AND THE MADISON SAVINGS & LOAN DEBACLE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Holden). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of February 11, 1994, and June 10, 1994, the gentleman from 
Indiana [Mr. Burton] is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of 
the minority leader.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, it appears that the White House, 
President Clinton, and his supporters continue to try to do damage 
control involving the Madison Savings & Loan debacle and the Whitewater 
Development Corp.
  Last week I talked about Jean Lewis, who was the investigator with 
the Resolution Trust Corporation that was investigating Whitewater and 
the Madison Savings & Loan affair.
  She sent two criminal referrals to the Justice Department, to the 
attorney in Little Rock investigating these allegations. She sent the 
first criminal referral to the U.S. attorney in Little Rock, I think, 
in September 1992.
  At that time a gentleman named Charles Banks was the U.S. Attorney. 
Now, shortly after that, when President Clinton was elected, he fired 
all of the Republican U.S. attorneys across the country and replaced 
them with his own people, and he replaced the gentleman in Little Rock 
with his former law student. Her name is Paula Casey. She was appointed 
by Bill Clinton. He taught her when she was studying law. She worked 
for Bill Clinton in his campaign, and her husband was appointed to a 
State job by Governor Clinton. So obviously she had a bias toward 
President Clinton. I think she probably, because she was a friend of 
his and was appointed by him, wanted to protect him from any 
involvement in the Whitewater mess.
  Neverless, Jean Lewis sent to the attorney in Little Rock, the U.S. 
attorney, a referral stating that over $100,000 in Madison funds were 
illegally funneled into the Whitewater Development Corp. to pay the 
company's bill. She identified at least a dozen companies that siphoned 
Madison funds to Whitewater. The Clintons, Bill and Hillary Clinton, 
were identified as ``potential beneficiaries of the check-kiting 
scheme,'' her memo stated, and I went into this before, but tonight I 
want to go into it a little bit more, because there are some new 
developments that happened over the weekend.
  Her memo stated that James McDougal and his partners in Whitewater, 
including the Clintons, were intelligent individuals, the majority of 
them attorneys, who must have concluded McDougal was making the 
payments for their benefit. She also said, ``If you know your mortgages 
are being paid but you are not putting money into the venture, you also 
know the, venture is not cash-flowing, would you not question the 
source of funds being used for your benefit?'' She also said, ``It was 
my belief that the losses to Madison from the Whitewater account alone 
would easily exceed $100,000.''

  Now, the second referral took place in September of 1993, and Mrs. 
Lewis' second criminal referral filed in that year charged Madison 
Savings & Loan had illegally diverted $60,500 to Bill Clinton's 1984 
campaign for Governor.
  Her referral charged that the campaign was an alleged participant in 
the illegal conspiracy. Obviously Bill Clinton would have known about 
that. The referral also contained additional information on the 
relationship between Madison Savings & Loan and the Whitewater 
Development Corp., and then in October 1993, Paula Casey, the U.S. 
attorney who was a law student taught by Bill Clinton, who was 
appointed by Bill Clinton, whose husband had been appointed to a State 
job by Bill Clinton, and who was a personal friend of Bill Clinton, she 
formally declined to investigate the first criminal investigation that 
was sent by Miss Lewis to Mrs. Casey.
  After Jean Lewis' second criminal referral had been reported to the 
press, Paula Casey recused herself from the case. The Justice 
Department officials in Washington then determined an investigation had 
to be opened, and Mr. Fiske took over the entire investigation in 
January of 1994.
  On November 10, 1993, Jean Lewis was removed from the Whitewater case 
allegedly because of a personality conflict. She was doing too good a 
job digging around and finding out things and bringing to the attention 
of the U.S. attorney violations of the law which could have resulted in 
several criminal indictments, and so she was removed from the case 
because of a ``personality conflict'' with the attorney on the case.
  In a letter typed that day, she said she was ordered off the case by 
``powers that be.''
  In February 1994, on February 2, after both of her referrals were 
made public, Jean Lewis was visited by April Breslaw, an RTC attorney 
from Washington, DC; according to Mrs. Lewis, April Breslaw pressured 
her to change her conclusions about the criminal referrals in Madison 
Savings & Loan and Whitewater. Mrs. Lewis said April Breslaw told her 
people at the top would be happier if they had answers to the questions 
about Whitewater that would get them off the hook. Miss Lewis said two 
of the head people April Breslaw was talking about were the RTC Deputy 
Chief Officer, Jack Ryan, and RTC General Counsel Ellen Kulka. Jean 
Lewis recorded the meeting. Congressman Jim Leach heard the tape and 
said it substantiated her account of the meeting that they were trying 
to get her off of everybody's back, particularly the White House. Both 
Kulka and Ryan worked directly under Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger 
Altman, the RTC's Acting Director and close friend of the President.
  That very same day Roger Altman had a secret meeting at the White 
House with White House Counsel Bernie Nussbaum to discuss the 
Whitewater-Madison investigation.
  Jean Lewis, even though she was taken off the case, refused to change 
her views or statements and sought protection as a whistleblower under 
Federal law.
  Now we come to this weekend, and it was reported that Jean Lewis has 
been relieved of her position with the RTC, as well as two of her 
superiors. They have taken them, and not only taken them off this case, 
as they did with Miss Lewis, but now they have removed them completely 
from the RTC.
  I quote now from the paper. ```They have been placed on leave, and I 
have no further comment,' said Gene Jankowski, a spokesman for the 
agency's Kansas City office. However, an agency official in Kansas 
City, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the three will be under 
investigation for `certain matters pertaining to their job 
performance.'''
  So because she has blown the whistle and sent two criminal referrals 
to Mrs. Casey down in Arkansas, the U.S. attorney down there, a friend 
of Clinton's, she is now losing her job.
  Now, Miss Lewis wrote nine criminal referrals that are at the heart 
of the Whitewater affair, including the one that named Bill Clinton's 
1994 gubernatorial campaign as a beneficiary. Some $12,000 in Madison 
Guaranty Savings & Loan Association funds were deposited into Clinton's 
campaign account at another bank. Those conclusions were being probed 
by Special Counsel Robert Fiske, replaced last week by former Reagan 
and Bush administration official Kenneth Starr. Starr is expected to 
investigate those matters and whether depositor funds were diverted 
from Madison to the Whitewater Development Corp., owned by S&L owner 
James McDougal and then Governor Clinton and his wife.
  Lee Ausen, who supervises both Iatorio and Lewis, was placed on 
administrative leave as well. They are trying to get him out of his 
job. The document said all three were instrumental in forwarding the 
criminal referrals to the Justice Department in the face of initial 
opposition within the Resolution Trust Corporation.
  The move drew immediate reaction from Jim Leach here on Capitol Hill, 
the ranking Republican on the Banking Committee. Mr. Leach said,

       I am sure the RTC wouldn't take this step lightly, but this 
     would appear to be a blatant effort to discredit the work 
     product of a criminal investigative unit that has embarrassed 
     the powers that be,

  That is, those at the White House and those who support the White 
House.
  Beyond that, Mr. Leach said it is a little early to say anything more 
about it.
  However, the article goes on,

       Their performance was called into question by critics in 
     recent weeks, particularly during the congressional hearings 
     on Whitewater. During the hearings, RTC attorney April 
     Breslaw complained that Lewis surreptitiously recorded a 
     conversation in which Breslaw told her top agency officials 
     would be happy to conclude that Whitewater had not caused a 
     loss to Madison.

  So she was upset because, when she went in there trying to get Miss 
Lewis off the back of the White House and was asking these tough 
questions and sending criminal referrals down to the U.S. attorney in 
Little Rock, Paula Casey, that she tape-recorded that conversation, and 
Miss Breslaw was very, very upset that her words were not only spoken 
but were recorded and that she could not back out and say she did not 
say it when she was trying to get all of this investigation stopped.

                              {time}  1900

  This whole case stinks to high heaven. This administration is doing 
everything they can to stop the investigation into Whitewater and into 
the Madison Savings & Loan debacle. Now today they have gotten the 
three people who had the most to do with the criminal referrals to 
Paula Casey, the attorney in Arkansas, they are trying to get them 
fired. They are being removed from their job because they are doing 
their jobs.
  This is--you could expect this in the old Soviet Union when the KGB 
was in charge over there, but you sure would not expect it in this day 
and age in the United States of America.
  I want to talk a little bit about Paula Casey. She is the U.S. 
attorney in Little Rock. As I said before, she worked on Bill Clinton's 
Presidential campaign in 1992, she was also one of his law students. 
Her husband was appointed to a State job by then-Governor Bill Clinton. 
Jean Lewis, as I just said, made these two criminal referrals, and they 
did not do anything about them.
  Paula Casey let them sit on her desk and would not do anything, even 
though it stated that $100,000 from Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan was 
illegally funneled into the Whitewater Development Corporation. After 
it sat on her desk all year, Paula Casey, who was appointed by Bill 
Clinton, refused to investigate it. And then the heat was turned up by 
the press.
  In 1993 the second criminal referral from Jean Lewis was made, and it 
charged that the money was diverted, $50,000, to Bill Clinton's 1984 
gubernatorial campaign for reelection.
  After the second referral, things got so hot in Little Rock that she 
rescued herself from the case. But why did she not rescue herself from 
the case in the first place? Because that was the time when we could 
have gotten to the bottom of this thing. She let it sit there, sit 
there, sit there, so the coverup could continue.
  So why did Jean Lewis's first criminal referral sit on Paula Casey's 
desk for over a year without any action being taken on it? We are 
talking about $100,000 of taxpayers' money.
  Why did Paula Casey refuse to open an investigation into Whitewater 
and Madison Savings & Loan? Why did not Paula Casey, the U.S. 
attorney appointed by Bill Clinton, recuse herself from the first 
referral? She has a very serious conflict of interest. I mean it is so 
apparent. They would have investigated Bill Clinton's connection to 
Whitewater, Madison Savings & Loan. She was appointed by Clinton, 
taught by Clinton, her husband got a job from Bill Clinton, and yet she 
would not let somebody else investigate it. Why not?

  Why did Paula Casey not recuse herself from the second criminal 
referral only after it had been revealed in the press? It is obvious 
why: Because it got too hot.
  Are Paula's Casey's actions on this case being investigated by the 
Justice Department's ethics office? And if they are not investigating 
that, then why are they not? Because the Justice Department should be 
looking into her nonaction for over a year in that first referral.
  Now, David Hale, I want to talk about him and Paula Casey's 
connection here. At the time of the first criminal referral from the 
RTC was gathering dust on her desk, Paula Casey, the U.S. attorney 
appointed by Bill Clinton, was negotiating with David Hale. David Hale 
was the head of the Capital Management Services, Inc., a small-business 
investment company. He pleaded guilty in Federal court to making 
fraudulent loans. According to the Wall Street Journal, among his bad 
loans were $300,000 to a company controlled by Susan McDougal, a 
Whitewater partner with her husband, and Bill and Hillary Clinton.
  Some $110,000 of this loan may have ended up in the Whitewater 
account.
  He told reporters that he was pressured by then-Governor Bill Clinton 
to make the loan to Mrs. McDougal for the $300,000. Mr. Hale was a 
former municipal court judge appointed by Bill Clinton. Paula Casey, 
when she found out all about this, as U.S. attorney down there, should 
have recused herself from this case immediately. One she found that 
out, she should have gotten out and had a special prosecutor start 
investigating this. There clearly was a conflict of interest in 
negotiating with a person who had information on the possible 
wrongdoing of Bill Clinton as Governor of Arkansas, but she chose to 
let it sit on her desk for a year and not do anything about it.
  She was obviously trying to hold the lid on this thing. There was 
lively correspondence between Randy Coleman, Mr. Hale's attorney, and 
Paula Casey. Mr. Hale was seeking a negotiated plea bargain, as people 
who know they are going to go to jail do. That is a normal thing. I am 
not sure he should let him off, I do not think he should.
  Nevertheless, he was trying to negotiate a plea bargain. What he was 
trying to do was say, ``Listen, I will go under cover. I will not tell 
anybody about this. You don't have to tell anybody. You can wire me, 
you can put a wire on me and I will go out and talk to all the people 
involved in the scheme, this $300,000,'' including, I suppose, the 
Clintons, ``and then if you think the information that I gather in this 
plea bargain agreement through the wire and the undercover 
investigation, then maybe you will give me a lighter sentence.''
  She would not negotiate with the guy. Evidently she did not want him 
to go undercover to find out all the information on the Whitewater-
Madison case and $300,000 loan.
  In one of the letters Mr. Coleman wrote to her, Mr. Hale's attorney, 
he said, ``I cannot help but sense the reluctance of the U.S. 
attorney's office to enter into plea negotiations in this case. I 
cannot help but believe that this reluctance is born out of the 
potential political sensitivity and fallout regarding the information 
which Mr. Hale could provide to your office but at the same time it is 
information which would be of substantial assistance in investigating 
the banking and borrowing practices of some individuals in the elite 
political circles of the State of Arkansas.'' Now, who do you think he 
was talking about there?
  He was talking about Bill and Hillary Clinton.
  ``I can certainly understand the reluctance of anyone locally to 
engage in these matters, political realities being what they are.'' In 
other words, because of all the political pressure down there and 
because of the political pressure he knew would be on the attorney 
appointed by Bill Clinton, Paula Casey as the U.S. attorney down there, 
he knew the political pressure would be so great that they would not 
try to get to the bottom of it.
  And he said, went on to say, ``Would it not be appropriate at this 
point for your office to consider terminating your participation in 
this investigation and to bring in an independent prosecutorial staff 
who are not so involved with the history of the personalities and 
circumstances of the case?'' In other words, ``let's bring somebody in 
from outside who will really investigate this thing and prosecute those 
who need to be prosecuted, who are not tied to all these political 
leaders down there, including Bill and Hillary Clinton, and who may be 
involved as direct beneficiaries, according to Mr. Hale, of this 
$300,000 loan.''

  Regarding Mr. Hale's offer of information, Mr. Coleman says, ``I have 
offered an informal pro offer of Mr. Hale's information for evaluation 
of its quality and content, but it received absolutely no interest,'' 
from your office, ``in the process.'' I added the words ``in your 
office.''
  Now, in subsequent letters, Mr. Coleman reiterates Mr. Hale's 
willingness to provide information for an undercover operation.
  In the view of Mr. Coleman, Paula Casey was not seriously interested 
in Mr. Hale's offer of information. When Mr. Hale was publicly 
indicted, any chances of an undercover investigation went right out the 
window because once it was made public, it was too late.
  Again, Paula Casey should have recused herself from the case in the 
beginning, but since she did not, she should have obtained information 
from Mr. Hale in order to thoroughly investigate this case. Paula Casey 
recused herself in November, but by then it was too late to wire Mr. 
Hale, to have an undercover investigation, to find out who was involved 
in all this chicanery that led to this $300,000 loan, part of which he 
says went into the Whitewater Corp.
  So here are some questions that need to be answered once again: Why 
did she not, Paula Casey, immediately recuse herself from the case? Why 
did she show so little interest in the information that Mr. Hale 
offered? Did Bill Clinton or anyone at the White House or the Justice 
Department pressure her not to recuse herself from the case? Did Bill 
Clinton or anyone else at the Justice Department tell her not to pursue 
the information Mr. Hale offered? And was Paula Casey's lack of 
interest in pursuing Mr. Hale's information in the best interest of the 
justice process and the American people?
  You know, Mr. Speaker, the more we get into this, the more you can 
see, and I know the American people do not have the ability to look 
into this like Members of Congress do and like I have, but the more you 
get into it, the more it stinks. And the more you get into it, the more 
you see how they are moving people around trying to keep the lid on the 
Whitewater-Madison Guaranty Bill Clinton gubernational connection. It 
is just unbelievable.
  And now they have gone so far as to take three people who sent 
criminal referrals to Paula Casey down in Arkansas and they are firing 
them. They are laying them off. Mr. Speaker, I will tell you, I hope 
the media will really dig into this. They have been starting to 
investigate it. I appreciate the media for doing that.
  But there is so much to this that needs to be brought to the 
attention of the American people, I do not see how the White House can 
keep the lid on this much longer, I really do not. But they are sure 
doing their very best, dead-level best to do it.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I want to say to my colleagues tonight I hope they 
will read the article that was in the paper today and start asking 
questions, and I hope many members of the media will. I will be back in 
the weeks to come to get into more questions about the Whitewater-
Madison Guaranty, Paula Casey, Jean Lewis, Mr. Hale connection.
  I would just like to say if Jean Hale is paying any attention to 
this, Mr. Speaker, she really deserves the accolades of the American 
people for sticking to her guns. She has been under so much pressure, 
she has been under so much pressure to back off in this RTC 
investigation. She has, I think been physically and mentally hurt by 
all of the adverse pressure that has been brought to bear upon her. But 
she has hung in there. She is a tough lady. And If she happens to be 
paying any attention, at least some Members of Congress, some people in 
this country, think she is to be congratulated for being such a 
hardworking, patriotic person who is doing her job as an investigator 
for the RTC.

                              {time}  1910

  Mr. Speaker, with that I will end my special order, but I want to 
yield to the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Taylor] so he can 
conclude his.
  Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the 
appearance of the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Burton] here tonight in 
talking about this injustice. I would like to continue to point out a 
few things about the crime bill.
  Mr. Speaker, we are talking about common sense. We are talking about 
a need to have tough crime laws, well funded crime laws, but we are not 
getting them in the billion-dollar crime bill.
  A lot of people have asked, first of all, ``Is this really a crime 
bill?''
  The response is, ``Not exactly.''
  You ask the question, ``Doesn't this take out 19 assault weapons that 
are a scourge in the cities and causing crime all across the country?''
  And the response is, ``Not exactly.''
  The gun control portion of the crime bill goes far beyond 19 assault 
weapons. In fact, the assault weapons, Mr. Speaker, that most people 
think about, the automatic weapons of mass destruction, are already 
illegal under previous Federal law. One cannot make them more illegal. 
Even changing some of the semiautomatic weapons to full automatic 
weapons is a violation of Federal law, and here again you cannot make 
that more illegal. It does, however, affect hundreds of sports weapons 
and weapons that today most people do not think of as automatic 
weapons.
  I mentioned earlier this evening that my son's shotgun that he hunts 
turkeys with is classified as an automatic weapon because it meets two 
criteria, and that is all it needs to meet of the list of criteria for 
shotguns that will determine that it is an automatic weapon. It holds 
six shots. It can only hold five. It has a curved stock, and it can fit 
a bayonet which has three.
  As I pointed out, my son has not been bayoneting any turkeys, so he 
is not much of a threat with this weapon. I suggested he put a bayonet 
on it and try it, but I heard from the society against the bayoneting 
of turkeys that was formed this evening and objecting to that. I am 
saying that somewhat in jest, but, when we think that there are weapons 
that we think of as ordinary sports weapons that will be classified 
under this law as automatic weapons, you see that it is not exactly 19 
assault weapons that it is going after, but a number of weapons that 
meet the criterion of assault, as defined, and we find that only a 
small fraction of the crimes in my State, less than one-hundredth of 1 
percent nationwide, it is less than three-tenths of 1 percent of the 
crimes committed are committed with these large assault weapons, and 
then we ask the question:
  ``Did the President ask to increase law enforcement for this body?''
  Well, not exactly. He came before the budget presented to the 
subcommittee on appropriations on which I sit on Commerce, Justice and 
State, and he asked to cut 847 FBI work force, he asked to cut 200 
agents from DEA, and he asked to cut the INS. Now that is not exactly 
bolstering law enforcement.
  But you say, ``I read a hundred thousand police are going to be added 
to the streets of this country.'' Well, not exactly. When you look at 
the funding that was passed by Congress; in fact we passed it today 
already through the conference report, there is enough funding, about 
$13,000 per officer, and it is estimated the cost of maintaining that 
officer is between 45 and 65,000. It is estimated that you would be 
able to put approximately 20,000 officers on the street, not a hundred 
thousand, and they are not there for long periods of time. First of 
all, they have to be recruited, not from reserves or necessarily 
officers that have applied at police departments already. The have to 
be a special quota of people based on race, and sex, and other sorts of 
things. This may meet the criterion of a given city, and it may not, 
but they will only be there for a few years, and then the Federal 
Government withdraws the funding. The funding runs out, and it is left 
up to the local communities then to fund those police, and so, if they 
cannot fund them today, it is not likely they will be able to fund them 
tomorrow, so even the 20,000 police disappear.
  And then we ask the question, ``Does this legislation give stronger 
sentences and tougher sentences?'' You know, there was all the talk 
about three strikes and you're out, and stronger sentencing, and all 
that sort of thing, and so you ask that question, and the answer is not 
exactly. It releases 16,000 convicted drug pushers because it abolishes 
the mandatory sentences for those drug pushers.
  In the racial quota section of it----
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. I would just like to say to my colleague I 
wish you would restate that because I think the American people really 
need to know that this bill is going to--it is a crime bill supposedly, 
and it is going to release 16,000 convicted drug dealers back on the 
streets, 16,000. That is amazing.
  Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. By abolishing the mandatory sentence 
that is now in existence, all of these will have a chance to appeal and 
will probably be released on time served, and so it is expected that 
some 16,000 convicted drug pushers will be released, and in the future 
there will be no mandatory sentences, as there are today, for drug 
pushers. Now most people do not think of that as strengthening 
sentencing for crime.
  Then, as the bill was originally presented, the racial quota section 
of it actually abolished capital punishment, if you can believe the 
National Association of District Attorneys. Their statement was that 
the racial justice quota system would abolish capital punishment. Now 
the conference has removed that, and so it is not part of the bill that 
came before us the other day, but it was in the original bill presented 
by the President, and most people would not seen that as toughening 
sentencing by abolishing capital punishment.
  And then there is the question of the truth-in-sentencing, and 
everyone wanted to see a situation where the sentences that were given 
in the States were required to be carried out. In other words, the 
provision called for 85 percent of the sentence to be served before the 
individual was eligible for parole.
  The bill, as it is now before us, has been watered down 
substantially. To receive funding local States only have to make 
progress toward longer sentences. They are not required to see that the 
convicted felon serves 85 percent of their sentence, as was originally 
proposed. They only need to see that they make progress in that 
direction. Here again that is not what most people would think of in 
getting truth-in-sentencing and in toughening sentencing.
  And then finally does the bill give $10.5 billion for prisons as the 
conference report claims? Well, not exactly. What it gives is $2.2 
billion less than that because it is estimated that the conference 
report for purposes--that is $2.2 billion in the non-trust spending, 
and this has been referred to on Capitol Hill as funny money, and so 
the committee has said that it will never be spent, it can only be used 
as a figure to balloon that figure up to $10.5 billion. So, you are not 
getting 10.5 billion as the conference report suggests for prisons. You 
are getting $2.2 billion less than that.
  Today's appropriation committee, the Subcommittee on Commerce, 
Justice and State, appropriated $15.567 billion for crime prevention 
and the judiciary. That is passed. It does not require the passage of 
the crime bill for that to be enacted. It puts back to 1992 levels the 
number of FBI personnel that were recommended to be removed, and even 
some removed in the last Congress, and it reinstates INS agents. It 
also puts back DEA agents. It adds substantial conference spending to 
stop illegal immigration. There is $284 million for illegal immigration 
initiatives. There is over $130 million to help the States offset some 
of the costs for jailing illegal aliens. There is $54.5 million, will 
allow the hiring of hundreds of additional Border Patrol agents and 100 
new support personnel.

                              {time}  1920

  There is additional funding for DEA and FBI to 1992 levels. So this 
Congress is making progress on real crime spending, on real crime 
control. I think the reason that both Democrats and Republicans killed 
the rule was because it is being pushed as something that it is not. 
When the American people ask, did we pass a bill that would be tough on 
crime, that would provide money for real crime prevention, I think this 
body wants to say something more than ``not exactly.''
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Let me just add a couple of other concerns I 
had. I was not going to talk about the crime bill, but since my 
colleague has done such an eloquent job of discussing it, there is a 
couple of other concerns I had.
  Both the House and Senate put provisions in the bill which dealt with 
sex offenders who would move from one State to another, convicted sex 
offenders that would rape women or molest children. There was a program 
that was to be initiated in the legislation which would inform 
communities through computerization if a person was a convicted section 
offender, if they applied for jobs in day care centers or in other 
places where they might have an opportunity to perpetrate those kinds 
of crimes or atrocities on women or children again

  That provision was changed dramatically in the bill to where it 
really is not going to be able to do the job that we wanted. I think 
everybody in this country that is conversant with the child molesting 
that is going on, the rapes that are taking place, and the violent 
attacks on women, though that this provision was something that was 
essential and should have been in that bill. They watered it down in 
conference committee. So when the rule came back, I think many people, 
myself included, thought that that was something that should have been 
left in there, and that was one of the reasons why we voted against the 
rule.
  The last thing that concerns many of us is the $9.3 billion, 9,300 
million, that they have in there social programs.
  Now, midnight basketball might be something that is beneficial in 
certain communities, and maybe we ought to do something like that. I do 
not know. But why not vote on that separately, on a straight up and 
down vote, instead of adding it into this bill as part of a social 
engineering program?
  There is so much money that is being spent, at a time when our 
deficit is out of control and the national debt continues to rise in a 
very rapid planner.
  So I think that what we should do, there was an article in the paper 
today talking about bringing these amendments up one at a time and 
allowing the American people to judge their Congressmen and 
Congresswomen based on the votes we cast on each one of these 
provisions. Do we wanted $9.3 billion for these social programs, 
midnight basketball and everything else? We should be allowed to be 
accountable for that, instead of having it in a 700-page bill. Do we 
want provisions in there to make sure every community in the country 
will know if a convicted child molester or rapist comes in that 
community and gets a job that might allow him to do it again? There are 
things that we should be talking about. These are things the American 
people would like to see us vote on. But we are not getting a chance 
to. They are bringing it out in a bill that thick that nobody has read. 
We are going to find out when we go home a lot of things we have not 
talked about are in that bill. That is doing a disservice to the 
American people.
  We do not need any more omnibus bills, these Christmas-tree bills 
with everything under the sun in them that we cannot possibly read or 
understand until 3 or 4 days from the time we get the bill to the time 
we pass it.
  So I agree with my colleague. There are a lot of things wrong with 
this bill, and I think we should defeat the rule and the bill in its 
present form. If we make some changes that make it palatable, let us 
have time to study it before we pass it.
  Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. I would like to say just briefly, most 
people did not understand what the vote on the rule meant. The closed 
rule means that we would not be allowed to make any amendments, as the 
gentleman has suggested we should be making to this bill. The public 
would not see any debate, there would be no opportunity for amendment. 
It would have to be voted on, the entire $33 billion, up or down in one 
swoop. I think the public wants to see more deliberation by this body. 
They want to see more individual votes, and have some understanding of 
each part.
  I appreciate the gentleman taking the time to point this out for the 
public.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. I agree with you. If there is one thing the 
American people want, it is accountability. You do not get it in this 
bill.

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