[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 144 (Friday, November 3, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H11835-H11840]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    REMEMBER ELECTIONS ARE IMPORTANT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, nothing shocked me more, left me less 
prepared than the sudden burst of sanity that swept this hall just an 
hour ago when we decided to finally leave town.
  Mr. Speaker, I am hardly prepared to deliver these remarks, but 
seeing as no one else wishes to address the House at this time, I have 
put together a few notes of a speech I thought I would be delivering 3 
hours or 4 hours from now. What is apparent, as we leave town, is that 
elections are important, that whether we get a patients' bill of 
rights, whether we get Medicare to provide coverage for 
pharmaceuticals, whether we get Federal aid for education and for 
school construction, and I will be talking about that a little later, 
whether we protect our environment and protect the women's right to 
choose, increase the minimum wage, protect Social Security, all of 
these things are on the line next Tuesday.
  Mr. Speaker, until we left town, there was the illusion that the 
country could get these democratic proposals adopted in what I call 
``Democrat-lite'' form, that we would pass some bill that seemed to 
address the issues that we Democrats have put on the agenda, like the 
issues I just mentioned, education, health care, that we have put these 
issues on the agenda, but that the majority would pass some sort of 
``lite'' version of these bills, and at least make the country think 
that these issues had been dealt with.
  Mr. Speaker, now as we adjourn, the words ``do nothing Congress'' 
rings in our ears, for we have accomplished not even the minimum 
required of this Congress. In fact, a Senate and a House both 
controlled by the majority party have not even sent to the President 
for his analysis all of the 13 appropriations bills that should have 
reached there in September.
  So we have a do-nothing Congress, a Congress that has not addressed 
the issues that we Democrats have put on the agenda. It has not 
addressed them, even in some sort of mild or illusory form. We have an 
election coming up that will help us address those issues.
  Before I move off of this topic, I do think that it was wrong to 
criticize our colleagues who were not here yesterday, participating 
with us in this charade where this House pretended that we were going 
to reach a compromise on all of the issues, even though the Senate, 
including the Republican Senate leadership, had already left town. 
Those in the majority who would criticize, the gentleman from New York 
(Mr. Lazio), our colleague, for not being here yesterday should not 
have issued that criticism to a Member of this House.
  I know that the gentleman from New York (Mr. Lazio) had campaigning 
to do in New York and chose not to join us yesterday, but we were 
hardly doing important work.
  But at this point, I want to focus on the school construction issue. 
The tax bill that we just passed out of this House dealt in a poor way 
with the crisis that is facing this country; and that crisis is the 
need to build new schools, to refurbish older schools, to renovate 
schools, to wire schools for the Internet, to do the things that are 
normally

[[Page H11836]]

done by school districts by issuing school bonds.
  The tradition in this country has been for this Congress to help 
school districts issue school bonds and to do so by using the Tax Code 
for us to provide a subsidy to those who hold school bonds, so that 
investors will buy school bonds, even though they yield a rather low 
rate of interest.
  We have done this in the past by providing an exemption from taxation 
for all of the interest paid on school bonds and other municipal bonds. 
We need to do more, because even when we exempt the interest, the 
school bonds end up having to yield 5 percent or 6 percent and many 
school districts cannot afford to pay 5 percent or 6 percent. So we on 
the Democratic side said we need to provide for the issuance of $25 
billion worth of a new kind of school bond with even greater benefits 
under the Federal Tax Code and even lower costs to the school district.
  We did not design to bond where the interest was not merely tax 
exempt, but instead the school district did not have to pay interest at 
all, but the bond holder, instead of getting even a reduced interest 
payment from the school district, received a tax credit for holding the 
bond. An outstanding way to use our Tax Code to turn to school 
districts that would otherwise have to pay $100,000 a year to service a 
particular bond, tell them they can raise that same amount of money, 
build that same size of a school and only make annual payments of 
$66,000 a year, a greater Federal subsidy for those school districts 
that issue school bonds to renovate and build new schools.

  We thought that it was necessary to provide this $25 billion of 
special aid to our local schools over a 2-year period, roughly $12\1/2\ 
billion a year. The Republicans decided instead to provide per year 
less than half of what was necessary, but rather to provide $5 billion 
a year over 3 years on a per-year basis less than half.
  They also, and this troubled me, weaseled the Davis-Bacon provisions 
so that these school bonds could be used to build substandard schools 
at substandard wages for those building them. We do not need slipshod 
workmanship. We do not need substandard schools. We do not need to 
weasel around the Davis-Bacon action that has assured that our public 
buildings built with Federal dollars are built well.
  Mr. Speaker, we have a very watered-down version of the Democratic 
proposal, which is clearly insufficient, but what is worse is that the 
same tax bill which came before this House, and which most of us on 
this side voted against, also provided for another method of helping 
school districts, a method that costs the Federal Government well over 
$2 billion, but was actually worse than nothing.
  What was this? How do we figure out a way to pretend to help school 
districts and actually hurt them? We changed the arbitrage rules, or at 
least the majority would have us change the arbitrage rules in the Tax 
Code. What are those rules? The rules say this: If a public entity, a 
school, a city, is going to issue tax exempt bonds for a public 
purpose, they need to use the money for that public purpose. This 
avoids the possibility that some school district would issue a lot of 
bonds at a real low interest rate, so they borrow money cheap. Instead 
of using the money for a public purpose, they would just use the money 
to invest on Wall Street.
  We have arbitrage rules for a reason. That is if the Federal 
Government is going to subsidize borrowing, the borrowing should be for 
something like building a school, not building a portfolio.
  But what the Republican bill would do is change those rules and 
identify that change as our way of helping school districts, a special 
encouragement from the Federal Government. Here, school districts, is 
how we are going to help you. How? Issue the bonds, issue tax exempt 
bonds. We are not going to let you issue those credit bonds because 
those would help you too much. The Democrats wanted to give you that 
much help, but the Republicans want to provide that only in very small 
quantity, issue regular tax exempt bonds, pay 5 percent or 6 percent 
interest and then take the money to Wall Street. We are sure you will 
earn 8 percent or 9 percent or 20 percent or 80 percent or 2000 percent 
on your money, and you will be allowed to keep the profit.
  This is the Republican way of building schools, by building 
portfolios. This is how Orange County, California went bankrupt a few 
years ago. We should be trying to build a school on Elm Street, not a 
skyscraper on Wall Street.
  We should not be turning to schools and saying we will not provide 
you with adequate help to issue bonds and use the money to build 
schools, but we will instead encourage you to issue bonds and use the 
money to play the market.
  I know that our friends on Wall Street would prefer that, a whole new 
customer, but I was surprised to find the real impetus for this 
proposal. It comes from people I used to work with, the tax lawyers who 
are subspecialists in tax exempt municipal bonds.
  Mr. Speaker, I am sympathetic with them. You see, I was a tax nerd 
for a lot of years. For over a dozen years, I practiced tax law, and 
after a day of reading the most complex regulations printed in the 
finest print, I had but one solace, one joy, one redemption, and that 
was that my job was not quite as boring as those of my colleagues who 
subspecialized in the tax law of municipal bonds, even among tax nerds 
that is regarded as a boring job.

                              {time}  1200

  So this tax provision that is stated to try to help our schools was 
in essence designed to provide excitement to tax bond counsel, to say 
they are not just going to issue bonds and build schools and deal with, 
frankly, excessively complex provisions in doing it; but instead they 
are going to issue bonds and then, with the members of the school 
board, go play the market with the money.
  Mr. Speaker, we need schools. We need to see them built soon. We need 
the school districts to handle their fiscal affairs safely. That is the 
chief problem. The way to deal with it is to provide Federal subsidies 
to school districts who are issuing these school bonds by making those 
bonds tax credit bonds.
  There may, in fact, be another problem, and that is that my former 
colleagues, the tax bond counsel, lead excessively boring lives. But it 
would be cheaper to buy a Ferrari for every bond counsel than it would 
be to urge school districts across this country to play the market and 
keep the supposed profits as the federally encouraged way for the 
Federal Government to help them finance school construction.
  So when we return for our lame-duck session, if someone is concerned 
with the lack of excitement of tax lawyer subspecialists, let them put 
forward a bill to provide a free Ferrari to every bond counsel. But if 
we are concerned with building schools, let us not change those 
arbitrage provisions. Let us not pretend that we are helping schools by 
urging them to gamble school bond proceeds.
  Instead, let us instead adopt the plan that is bipartisan, that has 
been in this House for over a year that was put forward by the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), and by the gentlewoman from 
Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson). To put forward that bill and pass a full 
$25 billion of tax credit bonds to provide the maximum possible 
assistance to local schools.
  Let me now launch into a second topic, a topic about which I have 
addressed this House in the past; and that is the mischaracterizations 
of statements made by the Governor of Texas. I refer not to his 
comments about events long ago in Kennebunkport, but rather his own 
description of his tax plan.
  I do not know whether it is because the Governor has not read and 
fully understood his tax plan or whether the Governor just cannot get 
away from constantly mischaracterizing it to the American people. But 
there are several myths that are repeated, frankly, almost every day on 
the campaign stump. I would like to set them straight.
  The first is that the Bush plan would provide a tax relief to every 
taxpayer. This is simply false. See, Mr. Speaker, there are 30 million 
Americans who pay FICA tax, have it pulled out of their wages by the 
Federal Government every year, but who do not pay income tax. These 30 
million Federal taxpayers receive not one penny of tax relief from

[[Page H11837]]

a candidate who has promised tax relief to everyone.
  Now, I should caution that, of these 30 million taxpayers, a little 
fewer than half receive the earned income tax credit which we on this 
side of the aisle have fought for so hard and so long. So ultimately, 
one could say their total combined Federal tax liability was at zero. 
That may be the case. It may be that the Governor's proposal simply 
shortchanges 15 million Americans.
  But to repeat on the stump every year, every day, again and again, 
that one has a proposal which will provide tax relief to all American 
taxpayers while leaving out 15 million Americans who pay money to the 
Federal Government in excess of any credits they receive who are 
Federal taxpayers, no matter how one counts it, these 15 million should 
not be left out.
  But if the Governor wants to leave them out of his plan, he ought to 
have the integrity to say so and tell us that, yes, he wants to provide 
almost half of his tax relief package to the best-off 1 percent of 
Americans, but that he wants to give not one penny to those who clean 
up in nursing homes and in buildings, those who wash cars and those who 
clean up at restaurants. He wants to provide not one penny to 15 
million of the most struggling, hard-working families in America who 
pay taxes. He ought to have the courage of his conviction. He ought to 
be forthright.
  There is a related aspect of the Governor's proposal, and that is the 
brouhaha over whether he is, indeed, providing over or close to half 
his benefits to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans.
  This is clearly the case, but not something the Governor is willing 
to acknowledge. See, in the debates, he said that his plan provided 
only $223 billion of tax relief over a 10-year period to the wealthiest 
1 percent.
  Now, $223 billion even over 10 years sounds like a lot of tax relief, 
but it is a lot more than that. See, the Governor, in his fiscal 
statements in adding up his program, the Governor leaves out the repeal 
of the estate tax.

  Now, in talking vaguely about his tax plan, in firing up the troops, 
he says he is going to eliminate the death tax. But in talking about 
the fiscal effect of his program, he forgets the fiscal effect of 
eliminating that tax.
  Now that fiscal effect can be hidden by phasing in the elimination of 
the tax and using fuzzy phase-in figures. But the fact remains that, 
over a 10-year period, once it is fully effected, the repeal of the 
estate tax will cost $50 billion a year. That is $500 billion over 10 
years. Virtually all of that saving goes to the wealthiest 1 percent of 
Americans. A little bit is shared by percentile number 2, the people 
who are in the second percent of the wealthiest Americans.
  I mean, that is, I guess, what the Governor has to consider to be 
really sharing the wealth with everybody. He includes, not just the 
wealthiest 1 percent, but a small piece goes to that second 1 percent, 
leaving out only 98 percent of Americans.
  So we are talking about a plan which not only provides $223 billion 
of tax relief to the wealthiest 1 percent on their income tax returns, 
but virtually another $500 billion on the estate tax, well over $700 
billion of tax relief.
  I wonder frankly why the Governor would state that he is only 
providing $223 billion. Again, he ought to have the courage of his 
convictions. He ought to be forthright; and he ought to have integrity. 
Integrity requires that he admit that it is, indeed, true that, under 
his plan, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans receive more than he 
proposes to spend on strengthening our military and education and 
health care and pharmaceuticals for our seniors combined.
  The most important issues facing us receive less help than 1 percent 
of Americans and, frankly, 1 percent that perhaps need it least.
  Now I want to emphasize I have sympathy for all taxpayers. I wish we 
could abolish all taxes. They are each painful. But when we start to 
provide tax relief, to the extent that we can afford to provide tax 
relief, should we not focus on Bill Gates' maid before we focus on the 
as-yet-unborn Bill Gates, Jr. and his eventual estate tax return? 
Should we not focus on people struggling to get by rather than people 
struggling to hold on to multibillion dollar empires?
  I strongly support estate tax reform, which we can do at a rather 
modest cost. At a rather modest cost, we can make sure that every 
family in America will not pay a single penny of estate tax on its 
first $2 million of assets.
  We can provide that, when those assets are locked up in a farm or a 
family held business, that we can draw the line at $3 million or $4 
million. That is the kind of estate tax reform that we can easily 
afford. But the absolute abolition of the estate tax is so expensive 
that, when the Governor adds up his own program, he leaves it out.
  It is troubling to me that the press has not picked this up. But eyes 
begin to glaze over, I see a few eyes glazing over now, as figures are 
reviewed. But we are in a great debate about figures. This is not a 
popularity contest, but rather is a focus on who will be running the 
largest economy in the history of the world.
  Which brings me to another issue, and that is, how has this economy 
run so well and who deserves the credit. I think we all agree that the 
lion's share of that credit goes to American working families, American 
scientists and executives and entrepreneurs whose hard work and 
ingenuity has built a new economy, the envy of the rest of the world.
  But wait a minute. Our people were hard working and ingenious in the 
mid-1980s, the late 1980s, and the early 1990s. In fact, during that 
period, Alan Greenspan was running the Federal Reserve Board. But Alan 
Greenspan at the Federal Reserve Board, the ingenuity of American 
entrepreneurs, the hard work of American people all together gave us a 
terrible economy in 1991.
  What was missing? A key ingredient was missing. That ingredient was 
fiscal responsibility here in Washington.
  Now, I realize that it is in the Governor's political interest to 
ignore that key ingredient, to say that we can have prosperity as long 
as Americans work hard. Well, Americans have always worked hard, but we 
have not always been prosperous.
  It is in his political interest to say that we can always have 
prosperity as long as Americans work hard because he does not want to 
admit that the Clinton-Gore administration provided that key element 
that had been previously missing in our economic life, and that was 
fiscal responsibility. That fiscal responsibility is the hardest thing 
to accomplish in Washington.
  I think the public understands the pressures on us and how often we 
buckle to those pressures. Here in Congress one can be very popular, 
standing behind this podium or that podium, and calling for a reduction 
in taxes or calling for an increase in those items of expenditures 
which are popular. Many of us have done that.
  But imagine how difficult it is for a President, for a political 
leader to stand before the country and suggest exactly the opposite on 
both fronts, how only incredible leadership fortitude can turn to a 
Congress and to a country and say, yes, we would be more popular if we 
cut taxes, but we are not going to, or at least we are not going to do 
so to an irresponsible degree.
  Yes, there are pressing priorities and pork projects that would be 
popular either nationally or in a particular region, and we are going 
to resist so many of them.
  Back in 1991, scholars wondered whether America was ready for self-
government, because, after all, the incredible pressure to have lower 
taxes and higher expenditures seemed to be in control here in 
Washington.
  The Clinton-Gore administration came here and with great pain and 
with the political loss of some people who lost their careers in this 
House for the benefit of the country, we passed some very difficult 
bills, and that was hard.

                              {time}  1215

  And then as the country got more prosperous and there were increased 
pressures from those who say, oh, the deficit is down, let us abolish 
the estate tax, as we had to stand up to those who would squander the 
surplus, the Clinton-Gore administration stood there again and again.
  How easy it would have been for this Federal Government to have 
engaged in an orgy of profligate spending and irresponsible tax cuts. 
But the Clinton-

[[Page H11838]]

Gore administration prevented that from happening. It is not easy. And 
that is why we enjoy the combination of hard work and ingenious effort 
from the American private sector and fiscal responsibility to levels 
that would absolutely have dumbfounded anyone who was looking at the 
situation just 8 or 9 years ago, a level of fiscal responsibility that 
almost matches the hard work and ingenuity of the American people.
  What worries me most is that, for political reasons, the Governor has 
said that what goes on in Washington does not matter. Yes, he is under 
tremendous political pressure to say that 8 years of Clinton-Gore did 
nothing for the country's economy. But when he does this, he must argue 
that fiscal responsibility had nothing to do with the country's 
economy. And if that is true, then what is to prevent us from engaging 
in a wild frenzy of spending and tax cuts and deficit spending at that?
  When the Governor builds the rhetorical and philosophical foundation 
for the belief that what goes on in Washington has nothing to do with 
our prosperity, he grants a license to Washington to do whatever we 
want since it does not risk our prosperity.
  The facts are clearly otherwise. In the absence of fiscal 
responsibility, this economy will not work. It will not work because, 
under George Herbert Walker Bush, we had deficits of over $250 billion 
a year. What does that deficit mean? It means that those thinking of 
investing in bonds, those thinking of investing in stocks believe that 
we are going to have inflation in years to come, demand high interest 
rates, high rates of return and, as a result, a business cannot get the 
capital it needs to expand. It means that in a country that, frankly, 
does not save enough, the Federal Government is going into the private 
markets and scooping up almost a quarter, sometimes even a third, of 
the valuable capital not for investment, which is what capital is for, 
but, rather, scooping it up and using it just to deal with ongoing 
Federal operations.
  When I say scooping it up, what I mean is that there is a certain 
amount of money to be invested by the private sector in stocks and 
bonds and bank accounts, and a Federal Government that runs a deficit 
issues more and more bonds, receives more and more of that investment 
capital, and leaves less and less capital available to build homes and 
to bill businesses.
  So fiscal responsibility is important and whatever political 
advantages there may be for saying that what has gone on in Washington 
in the last 8 years has nothing to do with our prosperity over the last 
8 years should be repudiated.
  Now, I want to deal with the argument that is made usually by 
Republican Members of this House. They start with one chart, which I am 
going to show you, a Republican chart. I have had it redone. And then 
they reach a particular conclusion without showing you the second 
chart.
  You will see the chart put forward by Republican speaker after 
Republican speaker showing that Federal receipts as a percentage of our 
GDP have grown.
  Why is that? It is not because we have changed tax provisions. We 
have changed rather few. It is because the country is more prosperous. 
People now find themselves in higher tax brackets even when those 
brackets are adjusted for inflation because they are doing well in the 
market, they are exercising stock options. This is not everybody, but 
it is enough to drive higher Federal receipts.
  But this chart is often put forward by the Republican side to argue 
that there must be some huge explosion in liberal spending in this town 
that is responsible for these increases in Federal receipts as a 
percentage of GDP.
  Let me go on to the second chart. This is the chart they will not 
show you, Federal Government expenditures as a percent of GDP dropping 
every year, every year. Well, expenditures are going down as a percent 
of GDP receipts are going up.
  Is this some liberal conspiracy to spend more money? Obviously not. 
Expenditures are on their way down. What we are doing is paying off the 
huge multi-trillion-dollar national debt. And it is about time. We are 
building up a surplus in the Social Security fund which we have locked 
up there for Social Security beneficiaries. And it is about time. It is 
just in the nick of time.
  The chart that shows that Federal receipts are up simply shows that a 
more prosperous Nation will pay higher capital gains taxation, higher 
estate taxes, simply because more prosperous people pay more taxes. The 
chart here shows that fiscal responsibility has reigned on the 
expenditure side in this Federal Government and that we have begun the 
long period of paying off our national debt, the vast majority of which 
was run up during the Reagan-Bush administrations.
  So we on the Democratic side get criticized for paying the debt run 
up during their administrations. It just shows you how absurd some of 
the fiscal analysis has been.
  Now, at this point let me address the most fiscally irresponsible 
proposal that has been put forward in this campaign, and that is the 
plan of Governor Bush to promise the same trillion dollars to two 
groups of people.
  Now, when I first got to Congress, everybody said Social Security is 
in deep trouble, that Social Security may not be able to survive. And 
after a while, we improved the economy so that more workers are paying 
more money into Social Security, and we are now in a position with a 
few very minor additions to the Social Security trust fund that have 
been proposed to ensure that the Social Security system is solvent for 
50 or even 75 years.
  But no one thinks that there is just a huge pile of unneeded money in 
the Social Security trust fund except perhaps the Governor of Texas. He 
has promised to take a trillion dollars over the next decade and put it 
in special extra accounts for young workers. This is money that is 
needed to pay Social Security benefits to older workers and our 
retirees. He makes this promise; and he promises whole new benefits, 
you will be able to play the market, you will get rich, you will have a 
lavish retirement and even more.
  Social Security has always been there to provide security for those 
who live into their retirement years and who otherwise, without Social 
Security, would not have that as a source of income and might not have 
any other source of income.
  But one thing with Social Security is, when you die, you are done. 
There is a small death benefit. But we cannot afford to turn to the 
sons and daughters of a man or woman who dies at age 66 and say, well, 
you know, your parents did not live as long as expected. Actuarially, 
they should have lived to age 80. We planned to pay them until age 80. 
Here is a big check. We cannot afford to do that.
  The reason we cannot afford to do that is that next door there will 
be another senior who will not only live to age 80 but will live to age 
1001, and if you are going to be able to afford to make Social Security 
benefit checks to those who live far longer than expected, you cannot 
write huge residual checks to the families of those who live shorter 
than expected.
  But Bush has promised huge checks inheritable by the heirs of those 
who participate in this new Social Security system and extra retirement 
bordering on luxury combined with a whole new inheritable benefit.
  How does he propose to provide this trillion dollars of extra 
benefits to buy the votes of younger Americans? At the same time, this 
trillion dollars is needed to pay retirement benefits to those who are 
presently retired.
  Well, the story is not quite as simple as I make it out to be. The 
Governor is correct when he says that Social Security is scheduled to 
have a $2.7 trillion surplus by the year 2010. So if you have a $2 
trillion-plus surplus, what is the matter with the Governor buying some 
votes by giving away a trillion dollars of it or not giving away but 
providing additional benefits not previously there?
  The problem is that we need a $2.7 trillion surplus in Social 
Security and more to prepare for the baby boomer retirement, that 
demographic bulge when you raid the surplus held in Social Security to 
the tune of a trillion dollars on the theory that there will still be 
plenty of money left there in 2010, you assure the bankruptcy of Social 
Security in a year, approximately 2020.
  Because once the baby boomers retire and for as long as we are 
receiving Social Security benefits, there will be a

[[Page H11839]]

need to pay out of Social Security more than it is taking in. And that 
is why you need a large surplus in Social Security in the year 2015 or 
thereabouts when the baby boomers start to retire.

                              {time}  1230

  So we have a candidate for President who promises a trillion dollars 
to two different groups of people: those who are older and those who 
are young. He can do it by raiding the Social Security trust fund which 
he correctly points out has well over $2 trillion in it and could be 
used to provide massive benefits and special accounts to the tune of 
well over $2 trillion so long as we did not care what happened to the 
solvency of Social Security after 2010. I for one think that we should 
worry about the solvency of Social Security. It is not so dire that we 
should scare people into thinking Social Security will not be there for 
them when they retire. But there is not such a huge surplus that we can 
provide whole new benefits to new voter blocs unconceived of at the 
time Social Security was put together to be paid for out of supposedly 
huge surpluses in the Social Security trust fund.
  Mr. Speaker, that really concludes what I wanted to say about fiscal 
policy. I want to focus next on events in the Middle East.
  We all pray for peace in the Middle East, but it is important that we 
focus on the reasons for the rioting, the reasons for the conflict 
breaking out recently. We are told that this conflict broke out because 
General Sharon, the leader of the minority side of Israeli politics, 
chose to visit the site where Solomon's Temple once stood, the site 
where Jesus confronted the money changers, that he chose to visit that 
site and that the Palestinian Authority found that visit, just the fact 
that he was visiting, so offensive that they have begun weeks of 
violent confrontations.
  Let me put this into context. First, Mr. Sharon contacted the 
Palestinian Authority and indicated his desire to visit the site of 
Solomon's Temple, the site that is the holiest site in the Jewish 
religion, so holy that many Jews will not visit there because it is too 
holy to visit; but he chose to go there, and I respect that. And he was 
told, fine, visit that site. Simply do not go into the mosques that 
have been built there. He reached that agreement. It was choreographed 
that soon after this planned, expected, and scheduled visit by Mr. 
Sharon, the Palestinian Authority unleashed its malicious, disguised as 
disorganized, rioters in announced, planned days of rage for the 
purpose of causing as much violence and death as possible. But even if 
Mr. Sharon's visit had not been scheduled and approved, a statement by 
the Palestinian Authority that Mr. Sharon cannot visit the Temple Mount 
and to do so will cause violence, what does that mean?
  I know that Israel, as to every holy site under its control, has an 
absolute policy that everyone of every religion, and three great 
religions have holy sites in a relatively small area there, everyone is 
entitled to visit. Certainly that policy should apply to the Temple 
Mount in the center of Jerusalem, Israel's capital. But to say that a 
Jew cannot visit that site, does that mean a Christian cannot visit 
that site? I hope not. Because over the centuries, much blood has been 
spilled by the right to establish the right of pilgrims to visit the 
holy sites in the Holy Land.
  And then we are told, well, it is not because Mr. Sharon is a Jew but 
because his politics are controversial, that it was somehow appropriate 
for the Palestinian Authority to react angrily to his visit. Wait a 
minute. What if Israel said that Reverend Sharpton could not visit 
Bethlehem, or Pat Buchanan could not visit Bethlehem because they have 
controversial positions, positions that many Israelis and many American 
Jews disagree with? If we are going to say that access to the holy 
sites is not available to those with controversial political positions, 
then we have ended the time when the holy sites are available to all 
pilgrims of all religions. It is the responsibility of the Palestinian 
Authority to make the holy sites available to everyone who wishes to 
visit. And if they are incapable of doing so, they should turn not only 
legal control but physical control of those sites over to Israeli 
security forces so that the Israelis are in a position to assure 
access, and we, all of us of all faiths, are free to visit.
  I am troubled, also, but intrigued by the recent decision of the 
Palestinian Authority to send some of its wounded people to Baghdad for 
treatment. Now, our heart goes out to anyone injured in this conflict, 
whether that person be an innocent bystander or whether that person be 
someone engaged in physical violence. Once they are wounded, our heart 
goes out to them. But this does not mean we can ignore the implications 
of sending these people to Baghdad for treatment. What does it mean?
  First, it means that all the discussion of the sanctions against Iraq 
being bad and being harmful to the people of Iraq are exploded. Iraq 
not only has the medical capacity to treat its own people, it is 
bringing in people from two countries away to provide medical 
treatment. This is proof that through the export of oil under the oil 
for food and medical supplies program, Iraq is able to generate as much 
in the way of food and medicine as it needs. In fact, Iraq has been 
exporting both food and medicine; and now by importing patients, they 
in effect are exporting medicine or medical care as well.
  The fact is that the people of Iraq are being held hostage by Saddam 
Hussein. He would starve millions with full warehouses of food. He 
would starve millions if he thought that by their death they would 
create a picture on CNN that would compel the United States to 
eliminate the controls on his economics and allow him to export all the 
oil he wants, keep all the money, spend none of it for food, probably, 
and spend it all building his military. He would kill millions of his 
own people if he thought that would give him the chance to build 
nuclear weapons. And it does not matter what sanctions we impose, he 
will starve people to create the pictures he needs to pressure the 
United Nations to let him spend all his money, or all that he would 
choose to, on nuclear weapons.
  The second thing that is interesting about the sending of these 
individuals for treatment to Baghdad is that it shows the close 
alliance between Arafat and some of those around him on the one hand, 
or at least many of those around Arafat on the one hand, and the 
Butcher of Baghdad on the other. Those who are wounded in this Intifada 
have a certain celebrity status in the Arab world. The Egyptian 
Government, the Jordanian Government, many governments in the area with 
fine hospitals and a dedication to the peace process would have happily 
accepted for treatment all those injured as a result of these 
unfortunate occurrences. They would have received better treatment in 
Amman or Cairo than could be available in Baghdad, but they were sent 
to Baghdad as a sign of solidarity between the Palestinians and Saddam 
Hussein and an endorsement and a thank you to Saddam Hussein for 
resisting the peace process.
  Even when it comes to the treatment of those injured, there seems to 
be less attention paid to the individual who is hurt and more attention 
to building a consensus for war.
  I finally want to point out that the entire discussion in the Middle 
East is land for peace. But all too often the discussion is about land 
and not about peace. The discussion is about this acre or that acre and 
whether Israel will make this territorial concession or a further 
territorial concession or be driven from this or that parcel. Whether 
the Israelis will be driven from Joseph's Tomb which will then be 
destroyed in an act of religious savagery or antireligious savagery, 
all the discussion is about what land Israel will give up. We need to 
have a discussion in land for peace with the other side of that 
equation, peace; and peace is more than a day without a riot or a day 
without a bomb.
  Peace is the universal recognition throughout the Middle East that 
Israel is a natural part of that region. If Israel is to make the 
territorial concessions which it has offered to make, it is entitled to 
the kind of peace the Netherlands enjoys. Does the Netherlands have the 
most powerful army in Europe? I do not think so. No huge air force. 
What the Netherlands has is universal acceptance throughout its region 
that there could not be a Europe without a Holland. And that is why one 
could not even imagine that people would be demonstrating in Paris 
shouting for the eradication of the Netherlands. No one is marching 
through Madrid screaming death to the Dutch. But

[[Page H11840]]

if you recast that to the Middle East, not a day goes by, certainly not 
a week goes by without a huge demonstration in one of Israel's 
neighbors in which thousands of people call for the extermination of 
the Israeli state and the Israeli people. That is not peace. And the 
end of those actions is not even being discussed.
  Peace is more than a day without a riot. Peace is every textbook 
published by every government from Tehran to Tunis to Rabat 
acknowledging that Israel is an inherent part of the Middle East with a 
right to live. And if instead what is being offered to Israel is this 
shallow, temporary cease-fire, then one need not wonder why Israelis 
are reluctant to make territorial concessions. Land for peace is not 
land for a temporary lull. Because once territorial concessions are 
made, those concessions are permanent, measurable, and irreversible. We 
need an establishment of peace which is permanent and irreversible. 
That begins by a dedication to the Palestinian Authority to insist that 
every governmentally paid textbook everywhere in the Middle East shows 
Israel as an organic part of the Middle East with every right to be 
there. It does not mean huge territorial concessions by the Israelis in 
return for a handshake that can later be reversed.
  Now, I recognize that even the description of peace I have provided 
is ephemeral and that the hope that Israel would be accepted someday in 
the Middle East the same way that says the Netherlands is accepted in 
Europe may go beyond any reasonable expectation. But clearly an Israel 
that is willing to give up 90, 95 percent of the territory in question 
is entitled to every possible effort that might lead in 50 years to the 
kind of peace that Israel deserves.

                              {time}  1245

  I believe that that concludes my remarks, except to say that when 
this Congress returns, we may have to deal with the possibility of a 
unilateral declaration of statehood by the Palestinian Authority. Such 
a declaration would be a renunciation of the peace process, a 
renunciation not only of Camp David but also of Oslo, and such a 
renunciation must be met by the United States with complete 
repudiation. It should include all of the steps outlined in a bill 
passed this House just a few weeks ago, which should also include the 
immediate movement of the American Embassy to Jerusalem, where it 
should have been all along.

                          ____________________