[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 41 (Friday, March 22, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H2706-H2712]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              A BUSY WEEK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] is recognized for 60 
minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, we are concluding today's session, the 
session for the week, going home. And it has been a very busy week. I 
will not say it has been a very fruitful week but certainly we have 
been very busy.
  I am looking forward to going home and talking to my constituents for 
12 hours in an all night teach-in that I will be holding at the Borough 
of Manhattan Community College from 7 p.m. Saturday night to 7 a.m. 
Sunday morning. We are having this all night teach-in because there is 
just not enough time to talk about all of the things that need to be 
talked about in this very critical period in the life of our Nation. 
There are forces moving very rapidly and overnight they want to remake 
America.
  The Speaker of the House has said that politics is war without blood 
and that he wants to remake America, and we are trying to remake 
America in a very short period of time. The fallout is hurting a lot of 
people.
  In New York State and New York City it seems that the Governor and 
the mayor want to get ahead of the Republican majority here in 
Congress. They are have instituted certain cruel harassing programs 
that are worse than anything we have yet passed here in this House. So 
our people need to know a whole lot about what is going on. We need to 
talk about just exactly what is happening, and there is not enough time 
to do it in a regular day.
  Mr. Speaker, also, if we want to get people together who are experts 
and can throw some light on this subject, they are too busy, they 
cannot stay long or, if we have an opportunity to talk, the amount of 
time available is too little. So I will have a marathon teach-in, all 
night long, 12 hours.
  We are going to talk about the fiscal future of New York City, the 
fiscal future of New York City. The discussion begins with a discussion 
of what is happening here in Washington because the fiscal future of 
New York City is inextricably interwoven with the policies that are 
generated here in Washington, our Capital. I am going to start by 
talking about the fact that New York City is often discussed on the 
floor of the House of Representatives. People often talk about New York 
City and New York State. It is the favorite target of the Speaker of 
the House. Speaker Gingrich often refers to New York State and New York 
City as a welfare State and a welfare city. For that reason, the people 
of New York need to understand the perspective of our relationship with 
Washington better.
  We are called a welfare State, welfare city. We are often accused of 
draining, being a drain on the Nation, and yet New York City pays taxes 
to the tune of $9 billion more into the Federal Government than it 
received back in 1994. New York City, the city alone, paid taxes of $9 
billion more to the Federal Government than it received back from the 
Federal Government in various forms of aid.
  In that same year, 1994, New York State paid $18.9 billion more. The 
total of New York State, the city and all the other parts of New York 
State, paid $18.9 billion more to the Federal Government than we 
received back from the Federal Government. The year before that, in 
1993, New York State paid $23 billion more to the Federal Government 
than we received back from the Federal Government. So New Yorkers need 
to know in this all-night teach-in we are going to start by talking 
about the fact that our city is not bankrupt. Our city is not broke. 
Our State is not bankrupt. Our State is not broke.
  Mr. Speaker, it is baffling. We do not quite understand why Members 
on the floor of the House of Representatives like to single out New 
York City. New York City is often singled out, and New York State, for 
its high expenditures on Medicare and Medicaid. Well, after we take 
away our high expenditures for Medicare and Medicaid, which are the 
highest in the country, I admit that. I can think of no more noble way 
to expend public funds than by taking care of the sick, the infirm, the 
elderly in nursing homes. That is a noble way to expend funds.
  Yes, if there is waste, we want to get rid of the waste. If there is 
corruption, we want to get rid of the corruption. We do not have any 
money to spend for anything except the intended purposes. But even if 
we take away the high expenditures for Medicare and Medicaid, New York 
City is still paying more and New York State is still paying more to 
the Federal Government than they are getting back from the Federal 
Government. Stop and seriously consider it.
  According to the formulas in the way things are arranged here in 
Washington, New Yorkers, New York City people have to pay for 25 
percent of their Medicare costs, and then again the State pays another 
25 percent, which means that New York State pays 50 percent of its 
Medicare costs while Mississippi only pays a small fraction of its 
Medicare costs. Most of it is paid by the Federal Government, and other 
Southern States pay only a small fraction of their total Medicare and 
Medicaid costs. The rest is paid for by the Federal Government.
  The result of all this is that in 1994, the Southern States 
combined--I mention the Southern States because often the Blue Dogs and 
the Republicans and various people are the ones who are criticizing New 
York. Certainly the Speaker of the House is from Georgia and he is a 
major critic of New York. The Southern States combined receive $625 
billion more from the Federal Government in terms of aid than they pay 
in to the Federal Government.
  Mr. Speaker, Mississippi gets the highest amount. In 1994, 
Mississippi got $6 billion more from the Federal Government than the 
people of Mississippi paid in taxes to the Federal Government. In 
Georgia, in 1994, the people got $2 billion more from the Federal 
Government than the people of Georgia paid to the Federal Government. 
The county in the country, in all of the United States of America, the 
one county which received the highest per capita in Federal aid, the 
highest amount of money in Federal aid was the county represented by 
the Speaker of the House.

  Speaker Gingrich's county received more money per person from the 
Federal Government than any other county in the United States of 
America. So why is New York City constantly being lambasted? Why is New 
York State constantly being lambasted? I suppose we should call upon 
some psychologists and students of human nature because not only was it 
the case in 1994, when New York paid $18.9 billion more to the Federal 
Government than it received in Federal aid, but in 1993, we paid $23 
billion more to the Federal Government than we received in Federal aid. 
But this has been the case for the last 20 years.
  The last 20 years, New York State has consistently paid more into the 
Federal Government than it has received from the Federal Government. 
Why do the States that are recipients of the money who always pay less 
to the Federal Government than they receive become the critics of New 
York? That is a challenging study of human nature. Why are we kicked in 
the pants and why are we spat upon because of our generosity?
  If we were to have complete States' rights as some Members are 
proclaiming economic States' rights, and if everything was block 
granted and the

[[Page H2707]]

State was left on its own, New York would have no budget problems. If 
we had the $18.9 billion from 1994, and probably 1995 will show a 
similar pattern, if we had the money that we pay into the Federal 
Government, which is so much greater than we get from the Federal 
Government, we could balance our budgets. We could take care of all our 
problems.
  In my all-night teach-in, I want to let New Yorkers know this. I am 
going to let the people who live in my district know this, constituents 
know this, because they are assuming a posture of fatalism. Too many 
people, too many people, those who are using the day care centers and 
do not find that they are able to find places anymore, those who are 
being laid off in various city departments, those who are being denied 
public assistance, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, harassed, 
too many people have given up already, and they say that the city 
cannot do any better.
  It is not a matter of an administration which is unduly harassing 
people who need Aid to Families with Dependent Children. It is a matter 
of the situation is such that the city cannot do any better. The city 
is almost broke. It is about to go bankrupt. It cannot do any better. 
The all-night teach-in is designed to let people know this is not true, 
that New York City is a wealthy State, New York State is a wealthy 
State, and there are many ways we can do better.
  So I am looking forward to this all-night teach-in because it will 
give us a chance to have the kind of dialog necessary in this critical 
period when there are forces moving to remake America. They want to 
overnight change the way America is. They want a revolution. 
Revolutions are always dangerous because the people who are the 
strongest are sometimes the dumbest, and the people who are the 
strongest and the dumbest can do a lot of damage before you can get 
them back under control.
  It has been a busy week, and we have seen some of this dumbness 
played out here in Washington. Some of the stupidest are here in 
Washington.
  At this very moment, the 32,000 young people in New York City who got 
jobs last summer in the Summer Youth Employment Program do not know 
whether they are going to be able to get jobs this time because it is a 
federally funded program. Last year, 32,000 young people were employed 
in the Summer Youth Employment Program in New York City. Across the 
country, in other big cities, and in some suburban areas, youngsters 
were employed in summer youth employment programs who could not get 
jobs in any other way.

                              {time}  1500

  That program has existed for the last 20 years. It has been steadily 
cut. When I was commissioner of the community development agency 
responsible for parts of the program in 1968, 90,000 young people in 
New York got jobs in the summer program. It went from 90,000 in 1968 to 
32,000 in 1995. The reduction was so great that we went down to one-
third the total amount of the original program. But it is still a very 
important program.
  We do not want to go from 90,000 to zero, and right now there is zero 
in the budget for the Summer Youth Employment Program. There is no 
budget for the Summer Youth Employment Program. That kind of stupidity 
is still prevailing here in Washington.
  I do not know why the Republican majority targets programs for young 
people. I do not know why they went after the School Lunch Program and 
reduced the School Lunch Program. I do not know why they went after the 
Title I Program. Title I has been reduced by one-seventh, $1.1 billion 
taken from tile I designed to help youngsters in elementary and 
secondary schools across the country. Ninety percent of the school 
districts in America get some part of title I funds. Why is the 
Republican Majority insisting on going after young people?
  We are supposed to be a family-oriented Congress and we hear the 
words ``family orientation,'' ``family values'' all the time, but the 
children are the target of the Republican majority in this Congress. 
They went after school lunch programs, they have gone after title I 
programs.
  The only body in the history of Washington since the very beginning 
of the Head Start Program, the only body to cut the Head Start Program 
is this Republican-controlled majority here in the House of 
Representatives. We cut Head Start by $300 million. That cut is still 
hanging over the head of the Head Start Program.
  Head Start cut back $300 million; title I cut by $1.1 billion; Summer 
Youth Program last year was about $650 million, that is cut, now zero 
at this point. All of those actions by the Republican-controlled 
Congress and House of Representatives add up to a war on children. The 
war to remake America is first a war on children, a war on education.
  The President released his budget earlier in the week. As I said 
before, it has been a busy week. The President released his budget and 
in that budget he has less for a tax cut than the Republican-proposed 
budget. He is proposing, I think, $100 billion over a 7-year period in 
tax cuts.
  Among the tax cuts that President Clinton proposes is a cut which 
would allow parents who are paying tuition for children to deduct 
tuition costs. Up to $10,000 in tuition costs can be deducted under 
President Clinton's tax cut plan. I think there is no more noble tax 
deduction that you could give than a tax deduction that relates to the 
education of young people.
  I have three sons and all three of my sons are out of school already, 
but I assure you it was a very difficult period to put three sons 
through college. I was glad when the last one graduated and only a few 
years ago I paid off the last parent's loans.
  It was a very difficult situation when it comes to putting young 
people through college. It gets more expensive all the time, and so 
President Clinton has moved in a direction which will help family. I do 
not think you can have more of a family orientation than that. At the 
same time it will help the economy of the country by providing the kind 
of high-skilled, highly trained individuals that we get only when 
people go to college. There is a certain kind of training needed now 
that requires that you go to college.

  In addition to that, the President's tax cut includes the $500 per 
child tax deduction increase, an increase of $500 per child. Again, it 
is family-oriented, and I must say that the Republicans also have that 
in their proposed tax cuts. At least we are guaranteed that there will 
be agreement on a tax cut, a tax deduction for children, $500 per child 
increase in the coming budget because both groups agree.
  But, in general, the President has stayed the course and kept in his 
budget the money which allows for increases in education. Not only does 
the President not accept the cuts of Head Start or the cuts of title I 
or the cut of the Summer Youth Employment Program, but the President 
puts additional money in there for education. The only basic increase 
in the President's budget is money for education and job training. 
Those are the two areas that are increased.
  We know that Americans are suffering, families are suffering a great 
deal of anxiety now because of the fact that there is a great gap in 
the income of the 10-percent who make the most money in this country 
and those at the bottom whose wages have stagnated in the last 20 
years.
  There is a need to deal with that in many ways and one way, of 
course, to deal with that is to make sure we have the proper education 
and the proper training. We cannot emphasize too much the necessity to 
take the initiative on education and maintain the initiative on 
education.
  During this busy week we also took up the immigration bill. The 
immigration bill is very important to me and to my district. I do not 
know of any other district in the country that probably has as many 
legal immigrants as my district has. I have not checked it, so I do not 
know, but I know that according to the last census 150,000 of the 
581,000 people in my district are not citizens; 150,000 of the 581,000 
people in my district are not citizens, and I interpret that to mean 
that they are legal immigrants because the illegal immigrants do not 
allow themselves to be counted. Illegal immigrants do not come forward 
and do not get counted.
  The people who have been counted and who have admitted that they are 
not citizens is a staggering number of

[[Page H2708]]

150,000 in my congressional district. The 11th Congressional District 
of Brooklyn has more than one-third of all the immigrants who are legal 
and who are counted in the census in New York City. New York City has 
between 400,000 and 500,000 legal immigrants and 150,000 of them are in 
my district.
  The immigration bill is very important. These are people who are 
hoping to become citizens. We have an intense drive on telling 
everybody who can become a citizen, do become a citizen as rapidly as 
you can. You need to defend your own interests, your own rights.
  We think that the attack on immigrants reflected in the immigration 
bill, that attack is unwarranted. We think that the attack on 
immigrants is un-American. Never before have the people of America 
attacked immigration. Immigration has always been the great source of 
new life and new blood in America. We are a country of immigrants.
  Why all the sudden are immigrants considered bad people? Immigrants 
helped to build the country. Right now in the country we have fewer 
immigrants than any period in history. In New York City we have 400,000 
to 500,000 immigrants, whereas 20 years ago 1.5 million people in New 
York City were immigrants.

  Why are we attacking immigrants with such intensity and hostility 
now? Is it because the immigrants now are not white? Most of the 
immigrants are Asians or Hispanic, or they are people of African 
descent from the Caribbean area. Is the attack another form of racism? 
I think so. We have fewer immigrants.
  According to a New York Times editorial, the immigrants in New York 
earn on average greater income than a lot of other people who have been 
there longer than they have been. The immigrants in New York put back 
into the economy a large amount of money because they serve as 
entrepreneurs or are very active in many different ways in the economy 
of the city. The immigrants of New York are a benefit to New York.
  In fact, one of the things I am going to talk about in the all-night 
teach-in that I will be hosting at Lower Manhattan Community College 
will be diversity and the contribution of immigrants to New York City.
  One of the great strengths of our city is that it is a diverse city. 
The population is one of the most diverse in the country, just as the 
population of the country as a whole is a diverse population, and that 
is one of the great strengths of America.
  People of all kinds from all over the world live here. It is not a 
weakness; it is definitely a strength. We should not, through hostile 
immigration legislation, turn our backs on what is a self-evident 
truth. All of a sudden we have grown very stupid and very dumb.
  We are blinded by racism which tells us that we do not want Hispanic 
immigrants or we do not want Asian immigrants or any black immigrants 
from the Caribbean area. We are blinded by the truth of the matter, and 
that is that immigrants have always contributed to our Nation through 
immigration and our diversity puts us in a position that is 
advantageous in the rest of the world.
  As we move in this so-called global economy and the United States is 
competing for global markets with other nations, because of our 
diversity we will always have a salesman out there in that marketplace, 
no matter where the marketplace is, we can have a salesman that looks 
just like the people there, who talks like the people there, and who 
can share a cultural heritage of the people there, whether you are 
talking about the Pacific Rim countries or you are talking about China. 
China is now the third largest economy in the world. We have a lot of 
Chinese in this country. They are not in any way a liability. The 
Chinese are an asset.
  There are a lot of Koreans. Korea is a bustling economy. I visited 
Korea a few years ago, the City of Seoul, where three of my relatives, 
a uncle and two brothers were in the Korean war. They were in Korea 
during the time of the war, and they know the City of Seoul as a city 
which was totally demolished by the communists.
  The City of Seoul is one of the most beautiful cities in Asia now. 
The City of Seoul has probably more people than the City of New York 
right now. Not only did they rebuilt the city for the residents 
individually, tremendous rows and rows of apartment houses and stores 
and all kinds of buildings, but they have built into the city a park 
system which is second to none to take care of the open air needs of 
their citizens.
  We have a lot of Koreans in New York. We have a lot of Koreans in the 
rest of the country. We will interchange with them in a very profitable 
way in the future. The diversity helps New York City. The diversity 
helps the Nation as a whole.
  I would like to report good news. In the debate on the immigration 
bill somebody convinced somebody, because we had bipartisan support, 
for a separation of the legal immigrant issues from the illegal 
immigrant issues. Many have counseled that for some time and begged for 
it. We thank the President and the White House for coming out at the 
last minute, but they did come out in support of a separation of legal 
immigrant issues from the issues of how to take care of illegal 
immigrants.
  Nobody is going to stand on this floor and countenance illegality of 
any kind. Illegal immigration is a representation of the inadequacy of 
our Government to take care of its basic business of guarding the 
borders and making certain that certain laws are enforced. Illegal 
immigration is a signal that there is a tremendous incompetence in the 
way that we handle certain matters. We should move to end that 
incompetence.
  Maybe we are not allocating enough resources. We should move to do 
that. But we should not be preyed upon by illegal immigrants, just as 
we should not be subject to the ravages of any other kind of illegal 
activities. We did vote and I am happy to report to my constituents and 
to many others that basic issues of how to handle legal immigration, 
how to establish new numbers, how to deal with families being reunited, 
a number of issues were separated out, and this bill in the end finally 
dealt mostly with illegal immigration.
  There were some bad moments, and there was a provision voted in that 
said that immigrants coming into this country must be proficient in 
English. That, I think, is a step in the wrong direction, and there 
were some other things that I consider steps in the wrong direction, 
but we did get the separation of the legal immigration issues from the 
illegal.
  One other thing was voted down, and that was an attempt by the 
corporations to bring in selected personnel so that they could drive 
down the costs of doing business. The same people who argue that we 
should limit immigration in general, the same people who have made war 
on immigration in general suddenly want to make an exception. They want 
to bring in computer programmers. They want to bring in people from 
countries where salaries are much lower for technicians and 
professionals, and use them to undercut the wages of professionals and 
technicians in this country, including nurses.
  In particular there was a specific vote on nurses. Now, at a time 
when we had a need for nurses, nurses came from other countries and 
filled that need and many or some have become citizens. I do not want 
to make war on any particular ethnic group or country that provided 
nurses when we needed nurses, but this Nation does not need to import 
nurses from abroad at this point. They are closing nursing schools in 
New York City and New York State. There are nurses who are being laid 
off in hospitals, large numbers of nurses experiencing great anxiety at 
the restructuring of hospitals in ways that utilize less nurses and 
endanger the welfare of patients.
  Nurses are planning a big march here in Washington for May 10. 
Independent nurses are coming to Washington on May 10 because they are 
very upset and very concerned, not only about what is happening to 
their profession, but also concerned about the implications of what is 
happening to their profession to the health of their patients.
  I applaud the independent nurses who will be coming here on May 10. I 
applaud the action taken by the Members of the House of Representatives 
yesterday to vote down the provision which would allow more foreign 
nurses to come in and undercut the salaries and

[[Page H2709]]

the working conditions to nurses that are here already.
  Finally, today, in this busy week we voted on the repeal of the ban 
on assault weapons. In my all-night teach-in which is focused on the 
fiscal year of New York City that will take place tomorrow, Saturday, 
from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Sunday morning, we will not focus a great deal on 
crime and violence and the ban on assault weapons but certainly it will 
be a part of the discussion.

                              {time}  1515

  You cannot discuss New York City without discussing the need to 
lessen the amount of crime. You cannot discuss New York City without 
dealing with what guns have done to New York City and the surrounding 
area or what guns have done to the Nation as a whole. You cannot 
discuss New York City without understanding that the city cannot 
survive with its very strong gun control policies and laws unless we do 
something in the Nation's Capital to relieve New York City and all the 
other big cities of the burden of guns.
  There are too many guns in America. Too many guns in America. We are 
the only industrialized nation, other than South Africa, which permits 
widespread ownership of guns, and as a result we have too many murders 
and too many deaths by gunshot wounds. It was 16,000 people 2 years 
ago. I do not know what the latest figures are because they are not 
compiled completely, but 16,000 people in 1 year died from gunshot 
wounds in America.
  At the same time less than 100 people died as a result of gunshot 
wounds in Japan and the same thing was true in Britain and in Germany 
and in France. Very small numbers of people died as a result of gunshot 
wounds in countries which have policies which restrict the ownership of 
guns.
  We voted in the last Congress to get rid of, to ban the manufacture 
of assault weapons in this country. Under Ronald Reagan we had already 
voted to ban the importation of assault weapons. So we didn't want to 
bring assault weapons from outside. Last Congress we decided we don't 
want to manufacture them in this country. That is all the ban on 
assault weapons did, it stopped the manufacture of assault weapons in 
this country. It specified the kind of weapons.
  So why do we have it on the floor today to repeal it? Why did we have 
on the floor a law to get rid of a law which had gotten rid of assault 
weapons?
  Across America the public pays a high toll. Yesterday, in the suburbs 
of New York City, a man with a rifle killed a policeman and held all 
the law enforcement officers at bay for 12 hours before they finally 
got into his house and found that he had killed himself. The pattern 
plays itself out over and over again. The large numbers of guns 
generate violence at a level that would not exist if the guns were not 
there.
  Yes, people will be violent. Yes, people will get angry, but the more 
guns there are, the more deadly the violence; the more deadly the 
anger. Any civilized nation should be able to clearly see that if you 
lessen the number of guns, you will lessen the number of deaths due to 
gunshot. You will decrease the murder rate, you will decrease the 
serious crime rate.
  We say we care about the public. We say we want to lower the dangers 
for crime. We say we want to make people feel safer, but we come to the 
floor, and we repeal in a law--and it was not a close vote. I do not 
think they have enough votes to override a veto, but it was not a close 
vote.
  The repeal of the ban on assault weapons took place. That has great 
implications for New York City, and we will talk about it because the 
health and welfare of the city, the ability of the city to expand its 
major industry and the major industry in New York City is tourism.
  People come from all over the world to see New York City. Every 
educated person who knows about cities in the world want to see New 
York City at some time in their lifetime. We are going to try to make 
it cheaper for people to come there. We also have to make certain 
people feel safe. And the safety of New York City is dependent on 
policies that take place in Washington.
  We have very tough gun control laws. You cannot own a gun in New York 
City without a gun permit. You cannot own a gun in New York State 
without a gun permit, and the criteria for issuing guns in New York 
State and New York City are very, very strict. But people bring illegal 
guns in from Virginia, from Texas, from all over the country because we 
still have illegal guns being sold in many States. Guns being sold are 
not illegal in those States, but they are illegal in New York. But they 
are transported to New York.
  We need to make guns illegal, the purchase of guns illegal anywhere 
in the country. But that is not our total major subject. It has a 
bearing and it is most unfortunate that we voted today, the majority 
voted today to repeal the ban on assault weapons.

  Next week we will have another busy week. We are going to deal with a 
minimum health care bill. We have gone away from 2 years ago from a 
comprehensive bill offered by the Clinton administration, a 
comprehensive health care bill which wanted to move the country toward 
universal health care. We were moving in the right direction. We were 
moving in the direction to catch up with the rest of the industrialized 
nations.
  All of the industrialized nations of the world, again except South 
Africa, all of the industrialized nations of the world except South 
Africa have universal health care programs except South Africa and the 
United States. In this country we still have 40 million people, many of 
them poor children, who are not covered by any kind of health care 
plan; 40 million.
  So we were moving 2 years ago, a little more than 2 years ago toward 
a comprehensive health care plan which would deal with the provision of 
health care for all families and for all individuals.
  Now, next week, we are going to have what I call a minimum, a bare 
minimum health care bill on the floor. We are going to be discussing a 
health care bill which is only going to make a few cosmetic changes in 
the way health care service is delivered. We are going to deal with 
portability, an ability to allow people to carry their health care plan 
from one company to another if they change jobs.
  We are going to deal with people who retire and how they deal with 
the health care of those who have retired. We are going to deal with a 
few little issues affecting people who already have health care plans. 
We will do nothing next week, nothing, absolutely nothing, zero, to 
help people who have no health care plans whatsoever.
  I think in this proposal next week there will be some Democratic 
proposals which will take the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill, and Democrats 
have agreed, generally, to support what Kennedy-Kassebaum are proposing 
and not to support what the Republican majority will put on the floor 
next week.
  We will take the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill and try to add a provision 
for equal deductibility for entrepreneurs and some small businesses. In 
other words, we are going to try to have people who are on their own 
now, who have their own business be able to make the same kind of 
deductions on their taxes for health care that many corporations are 
allowed to take now. In other words, we call it the equal deductibility 
for entrepreneurs provision.
  That is a small change, again, but it is very important. The large 
amounts of people have been thrown out of their corporate jobs. They no 
longer are tied to a big health care plan. They are on their own, as 
entrepreneurs and small business people, and they need a health care 
plan which deals with their problems. If they were able to deduct more 
of their health care payments from their taxes, it would solve a big 
problem for a large number of Americans who have been caught in the 
middle. So we want to add that.
  The other thing that is important about next week is that there is no 
discussion in next week's schedule for Medicaid. Medicaid is a health 
care plan that does cover poor people, very poor people. You have to 
meet a means test. You have to be eligible in order to get Medicaid.
  Now, Medicaid is not being discussed next week, but a shadow, a 
deadly shadow, a deadly silence hangs over Medicaid. There have been 
proposals that Medicaid will be changed drastically. Not only will the 
budget for Medicaid be cut, but the eligibility requirements, the fact 
that in the law

[[Page H2710]]

the Federal Government stands behind the payment for health care of any 
person who meets the means test, any person who is poor enough to 
qualify for Medicaid will receive Medicaid, that entitlement will be 
taken away. The entitlement is threatened.
  Not only has the entitlement been threatened by the Republican 
majority here in this Congress, but the entitlement is also threatened 
by the Governors' Conference. Both Democratic and Republican Governors 
have agreed that they would like to take away the Federal entitlement. 
They want to take away the Federal entitlement and have the States 
totally in charge of the health care of the poorest people.
  They want to run the Medicaid Program under a block grant 
arrangement. A block grant arrangement means the Federal Government 
will give the State a set amount of money, and when the State runs out 
of money the State is supposed to make up the difference or the State 
will cut off the service. It means that we have gone a long way in the 
30 years since Medicaid started, but we will be going backward rapidly.
  Medicaid is the one definite step toward universal health care 
coverage for everybody. Medicaid is the one step the Government has 
taken in that direction.
  By the way, it is important to point out that Medicaid, two-thirds of 
the money spent for Medicaid goes to cover the cost of nursing homes 
for the elderly. Two-thirds of the Medicaid funds go to cover the cost 
of nursing homes for the elderly. Only one-third goes to poor families. 
So you are jeopardizing the ability of elderly people to have nursing 
home care when you deal with taking away the entitlement for Medicaid.
  Many elderly people have Medicare, but if you are really ill for a 
certain period of time, even with Medicare, it costs you a certain 
amount of money. You have to pay some portion of the cost. And when 
people are ill for a long time and run out of money, they move from 
Medicare to Medicaid in order to qualify, in order to be able to pay 
the fees for a nursing home.
  So nursing homes are filled with people who started out that they 
were middle class before they got so ill that they ran out of 
resources, and they are, in the end, paid for by Medicaid in nursing 
homes. So all of this is threatened.
  There is a shadow hanging over the head of Medicaid, a deadly silence 
about Medicaid in this capital. The White House is too silent, the 
leadership of the Senate is too silent, the leadership of the House is 
too silent. When all this silence settles, past experience has shown us 
that the silence means that somebody is about to pull a fast one; that 
suddenly we will find Medicaid on our desk one day, a rapid movement to 
the passage of Medicaid legislation, and it will not be good 
legislation. There is going to be a rapid attempt to rush through a 
take away of the entitlement for Medicaid.
  We must be vigilant. We must watch. At my all-night teach-in I intend 
to talk to my constituents about the need to watch and be vigilant 
about Medicaid, the need to make certain every elected official at the 
State, city, and Federal level is aware of the fact that there is a 
great threat to Medicaid, the entitlement.
  There is a double need to put the pressure on the Congress. There are 
many Congressmen who say they do not want anything to happen to 
Medicaid, but they are sitting silent and nothing is happening while 
the deadly silence surrounding Medicaid moves in on us like a fog, that 
is the kind of fog that strangles people with asthma.
  So next week will be a busy week as we consider health care. I hope 
that my colleagues who care about health care for poor people will be 
vigilant and watch for a possible last-minute trick on Medicaid.
  Finally, let me just talk about the all-night teach-in in a little 
more detail. Why are we having an all-night teach-in? As I said before, 
there is so much that needs to be said until we have to set aside the 
time to say it.
  We cannot have a town meeting which lasts for 2 hours and people are 
ready to run. There are experts who need to talk. We can't hear them at 
any other time because they are busy during the day on various jobs and 
there are people who have grievances and who are living in the middle 
of the results of this so-called revolution to remake America, people 
who have great anxiety about what is come.
  Some people in New York City and New York State are already suffering 
because the Governor of New York State and the mayor of New York City 
have gotten ahead of the revolution here in Washington.

                              {time}  1530

  They need to be heard. So we are going to have an alternating 
situation where we will spend part of the time listening to people who 
have a great deal to tell us about specifically what is happening in 
their lives and their agencies and their institutions, and the other 
time will be for experts who will explain to them the nature of what is 
happening politically, the nature of what is happening economically.
  And then another part of the time will be used to talk about creative 
solutions to the problem. We do not want to have 12 hours of whining. 
We have people who are coming to make vision statements, to tell us how 
we can solve the problems that are afflicting our big cities in general 
and specifically how we can solve some of the problems that are 
afflicting New York City.
  We are going to break it up into segments and there will be 1-hour 
segments. We will start off with vision statements. James Forbes, one 
of the leading ministers in New York City, will led off with a vision 
statement. We have the actor-activist Archie Davis who is going to make 
a vision statement about where he thinks New York City ought to be 
going.
  Why do we have a person like Archie Davis? Because New York City's 
future is all tied up with the tourism industry. The one industry that 
is growing in New York City is tourism, the major industry.
  Now, tourism strikes most people in America as a strange industry. We 
have been acclimated and educated not to understand how much money is 
generated by people traveling into a place and spending their money.
  The average tourist coming to New York City spends $600 a visit. The 
$600 goes into the economy, it creates jobs, it creates revenue, it 
creates a whole atmosphere which allows other entrepreneurs to be able 
to develop their businesses and profits.
  So tourism is a big industry. It is a big industry all across the 
country, by the way. Many big cities have had a great increase in 
tourism, other than New York City. In fact, New York City, the tourism 
rate of growth has slowed down because other cities are being visited 
by tourists in greater and greater numbers.
  We have to deal with that and make certain that in the coming next 5 
to 10 years, we take actions to encourage more people to come to New 
York City.
  But tourism to the Members of the Congress who say they have vision, 
tourism to the Members of the Congress who want to go forward to the 
year 2000 and talk as if they are a member of the cyberspace generation 
and they know everything and they are going to lead us into a great new 
future, tourism to them is not an industry.
  The Congress criticized the President for spending money to promote 
tourism. We have just closed down in the Department of Commerce the 
office of tourist promotion. The office that is designated to promote 
tourism in the U.S. Government is gone. There is no agency in the U.S. 
Government promoting tourism in the Nation as a whole. We are the only 
nation in the world, the only industrialized nation that does not have 
at the national level an ongoing effort to promote tourism, to get 
people to come from all over the world into our Nation and its cities, 
countryside, whatever, and spend their money. We are the most backward 
people in the world on that issue. We do not see it. We had an effort 
going forward. The President even had a conference on tourism. The 
White House had a conference on tourism. I tried to get a report on the 
conference. They do not have the money to print up the report.
  I congratulate the White House for its vision, I congratulate the 
Department of Commerce for its vision, but it came under attack from 
this Congress. The Neanderthals of this Congress have defended giving 
McDonald's Federal subsidies in order to promote hamburgers abroad. We 
give Federal subsidies to the fur industry to promote

[[Page H2711]]

furs abroad. We give subsidies to a number of those industries to 
promote those industries abroad. The same Neanderthals cannot see that 
McDonald's does not need any help to promote hamburgers abroad but we 
should be promoting our own cities, our own wonders. The Grand Canyon 
is something that people all over the world want to see. It is not a 
city, but people all over the world are willing to spend money to come 
see the Grand Canyon.
  The sea coasts, the gulf coast of Florida, the California coast, all 
kinds of great features we have in this Nation that people all over the 
world want to come and see. The exploding middle class throughout the 
world wants to travel.
  One of the features of middle-class people is that they have 
disposable income. When the disposable income gets through taking care 
of the immediate normal luxuries, the immediate normal luxuries dealing 
with the TV set, refrigerator, a house, the next level of desire that 
takes over is the desire to travel.

  This is a pattern of middle-class people all across the world. They 
want to travel once they reach a certain level.
  Just consider for a moment what happens in an economy like the 
Chinese economy. The Chinese economy is now the third largest economy 
in the world. Overnight China has eclipsed a number of nations and 
become the third largest economy in the world. How did they do that? 
Because one of the features of economies is that economies are very 
much interrelated with people. If you have a billion people, 
automatically you have an advantage. If you can ever get yourself 
organized and have that society organized in a certain way, a billion 
people will automatically generate a lot of wealth.
  Consider yourself out there selling shoestrings or pencils to a 
billion people. Just a shoestring or a pencil sold in China, you have 
got hundreds of millions of people who are going to buy it. Just the 
impact of the numbers is staggering.
  This Nation has a little more than 250 million people. Two hundred 
fifty million people is one-quarter of the Chinese population. It is 
expected that in the next 4 or 5 years, China will have a middle class 
which is about one-quarter of its population. That means that 250 
million Chinese will be in that middle class in the next 4 or 5 years. 
If one-tenth of those 250 million decide to travel to America, you have 
25 million people coming into this country just from China in the next 
4 or 5 years. There will be a great boom in tourism.
  Then you have the other Asian countries. Japan already has the second 
largest number of tourists coming into this country. I think Germany 
has the largest number. Japan has the second largest number. But you 
will have a big boom, a big increase when the other Asian/Pacific rim 
countries increase their travel into this country. Then you have 
eastern Europe where people have not been able to travel and there is a 
new middle class in eastern Europe. Then you have South Africa. And we 
should not leave out the booming middle class in South America. So 
there will be a great increase in all the cities of tourism. And it 
would be greater if you had some kind of planning setup at the level of 
the Federal Government.
  New York City needs a planning process. It could double the number of 
tourists. The number of tourists that came into New York City was 24 
million last year. Twenty-four million tourists came into New York, 
most of them from other parts of the United States. About 5 million 
came from foreign countries.

  If in 5 years we could double that amount of tourists coming into New 
York City, we could double the amount of money earned from tourism. How 
much money does tourism generate in the economy of New York City? Last 
year it generated $54 billion. Do you hear what I say? In various 
forms, $54 billion.
  Of that amount, $13 billion was collected in revenue by the city, 
revenue collected in various ways: Revenue collected from the hotel 
tax, which has been lowered greatly now, revenue collected mainly from 
the income of those people who work in the tourism industry, and as a 
result of the tourist industry, they had an income and they paid taxes. 
Revenue collected as a result of the increase in the property values. 
Revenue collected in the restaurant tax. Everybody eats when they come 
to New York, or when they go anywhere else.
  So just one industry, if we were to take a creative approach to 
increasing it. How do you increase the tourism industry in New York 
City? Any business traveler to New York knows right away our biggest 
problem. Our biggest problem is the high cost of hotels. The high cost 
of accommodations in New York is a barrier to more people coming. We 
now have 24 million a year and almost 25 million expected this year. 
Then if we remove the barrier of the high cost of hotels, we could have 
millions more.
  In New York, most people who come stay in hotels. If you go to Paris 
or to Rome or to Berlin or anywhere in Europe, they have high-priced 
hotels, they have hostels for youth, they have dormitories for 
families, and they have camping grounds right in the city for people 
who want to just camp. They have all kinds of alternative 
accommodations so that the tourist does not have to spend all of their 
money on accommodations, on housing.
  If they do not have to spend all their money on housing, then they 
put the money into the economy in restaurants, they go to visit 
museums, they go to plays and shows and other forms of entertainment. 
At the same time, all of them eat, of course, in a restaurant, and many 
of them buy large amounts of retail goods in the stores.
  So a simple feat has to be performed in New York. But nobody has ever 
looked at the situation and said, ``Let's do that.'' They have said 
instead, ``New York is getting less and less money from taxes, we're 
going to go broke, so let's cut the services of the schools, let's keep 
cutting the schools.'' The schools in New York have become a joke 
almost because we keep cutting. ``Let's cut the schools. Let's cut the 
day care. Let's cut the senior citizens' programs.'' And finally, 
``Let's cut health care. Let's sell hospitals.'' The mayor is proposing 
to sell hospitals, or lease hospitals.
  A more creative approach is to improve the industries that are 
naturally growth industries in our city. Medical-related industry is 
also a natural growth industry. We should not be selling hospitals, we 
should be expanding hospitals.
  Because a population of 8 million people, it is hard for most people 
to comprehend. Eight million people in one place, very compact, very 
dense, 8 million people is a population that not only needs health care 
services but they are diverse.
  Any disease known to mankind, you are going to have it in New York 
City because of the diversity of the population. Which means that any 
cure, any regimen, any protocol that can be developed for a disease or 
for a condition can be developed in New York City. Medical research 
should not be leaving New York City as it is now. The medical research 
industry should be expanded in New York City. That is another source of 
income for the city.
  The city has a million schoolchildren, a million kids in our public 
school system.
  It has 200,000 college students in the City University of New York 
system. We have great private schools like New York University, 
Columbia University, Fordham University. You add up all the students in 
higher education and you are talking about 300,000 to 350,000 students 
in higher education within the borders of New York City.
  So education byproducts, educational technology products, any 
computerized products, any products requiring imagination and 
creativity, the production of those kinds of products should be 
encouraged in New York City.
  Those are the kinds of things we are going to talk about in the all-
night teach-in. We want to answer the doomsayers. We want to answer the 
people who stand on the floor of the House and say that New York City 
is a drain on the Federal Government because it has too much welfare 
and too much of our Federal money goes to take care of Medicaid and 
Medicare and other problems in New York City. Not only is that a lie, 
it is a big lie.

  Currently New York City is paying more money into the Federal 
Government than we are getting back. I cannot repeat the figure too 
often. In 1994 we paid $9 billion more in taxes to the

[[Page H2712]]

Federal Government than we got back from the Federal Government. New 
York City alone.
  New York State as a whole paid $18.9 billion more to the Federal 
Government than we got back from the Federal Government in 1994.
  In 1993, the figure was $23 billion. New York State paid $23 billion 
more to the Federal Government than we got back in various forms of aid 
from the Federal Government. So New York City is not a basket case 
dependent on the Federal Government. On the contrary, there are many 
States in the country that get more from the Federal Government than 
they pay into the Federal Government, and they are the problem.
  Mr. Speaker, in closing, I just want to remind you that we cannot 
talk too much about the present condition that we find ourselves in in 
the country in general. And in New York City on this Saturday night 
from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., 7 p.m. Saturday night to 7 a.m. Sunday morning, 
we will have an all-night teach-in giving everybody an opportunity to 
deal with the problem that New York City has as a result of the attempt 
to remake America.

                              {time}  1545

  The Republicans in this House of Representatives have said that they 
want to remake America. The Republicans in this House of 
Representatives have said that politics is war and blood, they do not 
care if some people have casualties. We do not want New York City 
residents to be casualties. We do not think they have to be casualties. 
We think this city, our city, can defend itself, first by energizing 
its assets.
  We do not think the mayor is correct when he says that the only way 
he can solve the city's problems is by cutting the budget for 
education, cutting the budget for schools, the only way to solve the 
problem is by cutting the hospitals, selling the hospitals, the only 
way to solve the problem is by harassing the people who need welfare, 
whose children are on aid to families with dependent children. We do 
not think we need to close our nursing homes. We think the seniors of 
New York can be taken care of in the future as they have in the past. 
We have some of the best senior citizens centers in the country. We 
want to keep it that way.
  The city has the resources. We want to talk about what the city has 
to do in terms of changing Federal policies and changing State policies 
which strangle the city. We want to talk about certain policies the 
city itself promulgates. The city gives too much tax incentives to 
businesses to stay. The city allows the State to trick it into a 
formula where they give school aid on the basis of attendance rather 
than on the basis of enrollment. There are a number of policies that 
have to be changed. In addition to changing policies, and all New 
Yorkers have to fight to get these policies changed at the Federal, 
State, and city level. We have to take actions to get more creative 
efforts launched by the city to increase those industries in the city 
which are naturally compatible with industries for New York City, 
industries related to tourism, industries related to medical research, 
industries related to education and students and the talent of the 
faculty and students of our colleges and universities, and those things 
can happen and provide a positive answer to the problem of the remaking 
of America.

  Yes, if America is to be remade, do not try to do it in 2 years. We 
do not need a revolution. We can have an evolution. Part of the 
evolution of cities like New York should call upon their citizens and 
get the best possible wisdom from those citizens to deal with the 
problem of remaking our cities into forms which allow them to be self-
sufficient and self-supporting.
  We can take care of our own problems. We need the Federal Government 
to get off our back in New York. Everybody needs to know they have to 
participate if we are to do this. I will see everyone at the all-night 
teach-in at Manhatten Community College, corner of Chamber Street and 
West Side Highway, from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. I urge all interested persons 
to join us there, and we will have a dialog that is good for the city, 
good for the State, and good for the country.

                          ____________________