[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 105 (Thursday, July 30, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H6753-H6754]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            THE QUESTIONABLE VALUE OF NEW GOVERNMENT STUDIES

  (Mr. TRAFICANT asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

[[Page H6754]]

  Mr. TRAFICANT. Madam Speaker, a new government study says if you are 
rich, you will live longer. If you are educated, you will live longer. 
If you do not smoke, you will probably live longer. If you can avoid 
cancer, you will live longer.
  No kidding, Sherlock. After $1 million, our government is telling us 
what Grandma told us years ago: If you smoke, you will probably die; if 
you do not get an education, you are not going to get a job; and if you 
do not have a job, you are going to be poor and you are not going to 
eat.
  Beam me up. What is next? Do we give these people more millions to 
tell us if you commit suicide, you will not live long? If there is any 
consolation to poor people in America who happen to smoke and do not 
have a job, I never heard of anybody committing suicide by jumping out 
of a basement window. There is some dignity in poverty. Poor people are 
God's people, too.
  Madam Speaker, I think we should slow down the money for these 
scientific mind-benders.

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