[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 23802-23803]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



               CHILD ABUSE PREVENTION AND ENFORCEMENT ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 19, 1999, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Ewing) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. EWING. Madam Speaker, I come today to the floor for a couple of 
reasons. Later today we are going to be considering H.R. 764, the Child 
Abuse Prevention and Enforcement Act. We call that CAPE. I just wanted 
to come here this morning during morning hour and talk a little bit 
about what we are trying to do with this important piece of 
legislation.
  I go back quite a ways with this bill, which is sponsored by the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Pryce). Before that, it was the gentlewoman 
from New York (Ms. Molinari). We recognize that there is a very serious 
problem with child abuse. The bill is not a panacea nor does it answer 
all the questions raised in this important area of social concern. But 
what it does is allow what I think is really good government, and that 
allows for the money which we are now spending in many regards which is 
tied up with government bureaucracy and rules and regulation, to allow 
those at the local level to have flexibility in using this money in 
child abuse prevention programs.
  Just look at the statistics: 3 million cases of child abuse and 
neglect. That is 9,000 reports a day. This bill is a step towards the 
goal of trying to achieve better use of the resources which we have out 
there to fight this growing problem in American society.

                              {time}  0915

  It bothers me when I look at young couples, and we talk to people and 
some of my own children, they have had grandchildren, when we talk to a 
parent, and they are doing everything they can to be sure that the 
child that they are going to have is healthy, not taking medicine for a 
cold, not taking an aspirin, not touching liquor or tobacco, things 
that we know could injure the child. Then we have the disparity on the 
other side of the equation where a child does not get that kind of 
care, does not get that kind of nurturing once they have been born.
  That is who we want to try and help are those who are having trouble, 
who are under difficult pressures in our society so that they can be 
able to raise their child in a good atmosphere and that that child can 
grow and be nurtured to adulthood.
  It is so important to our society because the child that is abused 
will very likely follow that same pattern when they grow as an adult. 
So today, when we take up H.R. 764, it is a small step in the direction 
of correcting and assisting in this very major social problem.
  The other thing that I wanted to talk about a minute today was a 
report that

[[Page 23803]]

I saw in the newspaper about the failure of the administration to seek 
or to report to us about seeking assistance on repaying for the Kosovo 
operation.
  We all know, I think, that, in this Congress for sure we know, it has 
cost us billions of dollars in Kosovo. We have shelled out probably 
easily 75 to 90 percent of the cost of that operation. It was really an 
American operation under the guise of NATO.
  I think it was well founded when we put in the legislation that we 
sent to the President that he signed, that he agreed to report to us 
his efforts in trying to get contributions from our allies who took so 
much credit for what was done there and yet paid so little of the cost 
of that. I think that it is important that this administration come up 
with the report that is already now 2 weeks late.
  Let us know what they are doing, make efforts to be sure that we get 
some assistance. As we go around the world, as we do our share of 
keeping peace in the world, we want to do that as American citizens. I 
do not think as American citizens we want to be taken advantage of, 
that we want to pay for all of that when there are others in this world 
equally able to share in that burden.
  So I say to the administration, let us have the report. Let us know 
what they are doing. We should be able to do easily as well as we did 
when President Bush was President and we got $53 billion reimbursement 
for the Persian War, which was a very nice shot in the arm for the 
American budget and the American taxpayers.
  So I say, Mr. President, let us know what you are doing. We really, 
really need your report on this.

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