[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 21]
[House]
[Pages 30062-30068]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           OPTIMISTIC ABOUT SECOND SESSION OF 106TH CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ewing). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the emotion of the previous 
candidate, the previous speaker, and I think that it is altogether 
fitting that we not come to the floor and waste the time of anybody 
unless we do feel strongly about what we have to say, and I certainly 
feel strongly about the remarks I intend to make at this point.
  We are nearing the end of a session, it is a matter of hours now, and 
I think all of us feel very strongly about what was or was not 
accomplished during this first session of the 106th Congress. I think 
we should look forward to the second session of the 106th Congress with 
optimism. I am optimistic about the second session of the 106th 
Congress, and I am going to talk about the reasons why I am optimistic.
  I regret greatly the fact that we have not dealt with very crucial 
issues. We did not even put the minimum wage increase on the floor for 
a discussion. We refused to have a dialogue and to share with the 
American people the concerns of many of us that in a time of 
unprecedented prosperity, when great amounts of money are being made by 
the top 5 percent of the population, the population with the income in 
the top 5 percent, we are not willing to give an increase of $1 an hour 
over a 2-year period to the people who are at the very bottom earning a 
minimum wage. I regret that greatly.
  I regret the fact that we have not done an HMO patients' bill of 
rights.
  I regret the fact we have not dealt with campaign finance reform. 
This House at least passed a bill, and the other body did not deal with 
it.
  I regret the fact that we are still refusing to come to grips with 
the magnitude of the problem with education. Everybody talks about 
education, but we have just been allowed to play around at the fringes 
by the Republican majority this year.
  We did at least deal with reauthorizing Title I, which is the most 
stable Federal participation in the elementary and secondary education 
process. We did at least tinker around with that.

                              {time}  1615

  We tried to make it worse by reducing the amount of funds being 
directed to poorest children. There are some problems there. But at 
least we put it on the table, we brought it to the floor, and we dealt 
with it. We have not dealt with school construction. We have not dealt 
with the magnitude of a kingpin problem.
  If we do not deal with the physical infrastructure of the public 
education system, we are sending a message that we really do not care 
about the system. All the other things we do will not matter if the 
physical infrastructure cannot carry out the task that we have set for 
our public education system.
  But I am optimistic about that. I am optimistic about the fact that 
we will come to grips with the problem of school construction and the 
large amounts of resources that are going to be needed for that. The 
fact it is going to require billions and billions of dollars is no 
reason to back away from it. Because we are able to come up with 
billions of dollars for an interstate highway system and the 
continuation of the highway program.
  We authorized $218 billion in the last session of the 105th Congress. 
We saw the problem as being big. And despite the fact that nobody wants 
to be tagged with the label of being a big spender, that highway bill 
certainly spent large amounts of money to deal with a monumental 
problem.
  We should look forward to the second session of the 106th Congress 
with optimism. Because the fact is that the public out there clearly 
has made it obvious what their priorities are. And eventually the 
Republican majority is going to respond to what the public is saying 
through the polls and through the focus groups and understand that next 
year's election cannot go forward with a record of ignoring what people 
are saying over and over again about education, about Patients' Bill of 
Rights, about the minimum wage. All these things have to be dealt with.
  I am optimistic about the year 2000, our first year of the 21st 
century and the second session of the 106th Congress. I am optimistic 
about it because of the fact that it is a presidential election year.
  Presidential elections are always pregnant with surprises. I am 
optimistic that we are going to have some positive surprises. We can 
have negative surprises, too. We do not want another presidential 
election year where a Willie Horton commercial surfaced and the whole 
spirit of that Willie Horton commercial pervades during the campaign 
and the electorate is treated to an appeal to go down to the lowest 
common denominator and racism becomes an overriding factor in the 
election.
  Or the election that Ronald Reagan kicked off at Philadelphia, 
Mississippi.

[[Page 30063]]

When Ronald Reagan ran for President, he went to Philadelphia, 
Mississippi, the place where three civil rights workers had been slain; 
and he kicked off his campaign there sending a message, which later was 
communicated in terms of the new position of the Republican party.
  They abandoned the civil rights partnership that they had up to that 
time with the Democrats, and they became the party which promoted anti-
affirmative action and a whole series of things that led downhill, to 
the point where when Ronald Reagan left office and George Bush became 
President, there was a burning of churches throughout the South.
  We had generated that kind of spirit at the time. I hope that we do 
not have those kinds of surprises. I hope that we will be able to not 
spend all the time fighting a rear-guard action, a defensive action, 
and can focus on positive matters. We could have some positive 
surprises. We could have some positive surprises which create a 
dialogue in this election which allows American people to really take a 
hard look at where we are now and where we can go in the 21st century.
  The first year of the 21st century can be seen as a gateway into a 
new way of governing, a new way of dealing with the problems, an 
intellectual and mental opportunity to set our sights differently; and 
it could end up with some real positive achievements as a result.
  First of all, I want a positive and adequate response to the number 
one concern of the American people. And that is education. We want a 
real adequate response, not a tempered nickel-and-dime response.
  The response has to include not only the obvious problems that we 
need with respect to more funds for more teachers, more funds to deal 
with computers, but also the tremendous amount of funding that we need 
in order to deal with infrastructure problems, the construction repair, 
modernization, making schools more secure, et cetera.
  The polls indicate a demand for this kind of action, and we are going 
to have to respond. There can be some other positive surprises that are 
taken which redound to the credit of the whole process and the American 
people could benefit.
  Every presidential candidate, and there are more of them now, and as 
we get more presidential candidates, then we have more ideas 
introduced. I do not think that this is a bad thing. I think each 
presidential candidate may be good for one idea.
  I want to disclose the fact right away that I am an early Al Gore 
supporter. I am not going to hide that from people listening. But I 
think that the other candidates can have some good ideas.
  I think Mr. Buchanan is a candidate I can never live with because Mr. 
Buchanan has declared that American should be a white Christian 
country, which means that he really does not think there is a place 
solidly for me and my children and my grandchildren; and he says a lot 
of other things that I could never agree with.
  But Mr. Buchanan should be applauded for his idea on trade, that this 
American Nation occupy a kingpin position, where we can almost dictate 
the terms for world trade, has given in over and over and over again to 
demands and rules that tie the hands of American workers.
  We have negotiated our trade policies for the benefit of their top 5 
percent, the top income bracket. They have done very well on the kinds 
of things we have negotiated with world trade.
  Now we have a new agreement with China, which compounds the problem 
and we go on into the same abyss. I cannot agree more wholeheartedly 
than any Buchanan supporter with that particular aspect of his platform 
that trade is a bit of a sell-out for the American worker and we must 
do something to stop that. He has that one good idea. I would like to 
identify with that.
  I would like to identify with Mr. Bradley's proposal that the Federal 
Government should be about doing things that are big and all 
encompassing. That certainly is something I would like to see Mr. 
Bradley develop in more detail.
  I do not want a health care plan of the kind that he proposes where 
he wants to get rid of Medicaid. I think that is ridiculous. That is 
being big and stupid. That is being big and destructive. This is a big 
idea that could really cause a lot of suffering among people who are on 
the very bottom and among many of my constituents.
  If you get rid of Medicaid in the process of trying to improve health 
care, you are going backwards and not forward. So I do not agree on 
that with Mr. Bradley.
  But I hope he has some proposals on school construction and what the 
Federal roles should be in education, which are comparable to the role 
that they would be playing in a thing as important as education. I hope 
that Mr. Bradley will challenge the other candidates to come forward 
with big ideas.
  We had a big idea when we decided to build the Transcontinental 
Railroad. The Federal Government built the Transcontinental Railroad, 
not private industry. We subsidized it. It was a big idea when we 
decided to create the land grant colleges and universities. Big idea. 
The Federal Government pushed that and created it. Big idea with the GI 
bill that offered education to every returning GI after World War II. 
Those big ideas paid off.
  Medicaid was a big idea. Social Security was a big idea. All these 
big ideas, by the way, have been pushed and sponsored mostly by 
Democrats. And Democrats again should step up and provide the big idea 
at present.
  We have to look at the school construction problem as being in the 
same category as the Transcontinental Railroad, as the interstate 
highway. We have to move in that way.
  Mr. Gore, of course, has many ideas that I identify with. Mr. Gore 
has been there as we have had this transition of our government taking 
a very active role in the transition of our society into a sort of 
cyber-civilization, a new kind of civilization based on the Internet 
and computer and all the things related to that; and they have made 
proposals that have been very worthwhile for education and for our 
school system. I would like to see that continue.
  And even bigger things should be made to happen by a person with Mr. 
Gore's background and experience and record. The track record is that 
the E-rate, which provides a 90 percent discount to the poorest schools 
for telecommunication services, was a product of this administration, 
which Mr. Gore is part of. The whole wiring of the schools and certain 
technology, literacy programs, have all come out of this administration 
that Mr. Gore has been a part of. We want to continue that kind of 
massive transformation of education and of society in general.
  So I was talking about positive surprises that we may see in this 
election year, new kinds of activities to create a more dynamic 
dialogue, new ideas. And I have covered Mr. Buchanan, Mr. Bradley, Mr. 
Gore. And finally we come to Donald Trump, who recently made his entry 
into the presidential race.
  I want to applaud Mr. Trump for producing an idea. I certainly am 
still a Gore supporter, but Mr. Trump has an idea which deserves 
examination. Mr. Trump has an idea which really is a blockbuster, it is 
revolutionary, it is sweeping, and it deserves to be considered.
  Mr. Trump's idea is not so authentic that I can say that nobody else 
has thought about it at all, but he goes much further than most of us 
have gone. Certainly his idea that we should have a greater amount of 
tax on the richest Americans. Mr. Trump wants to impose a tax on the 
people who have assets above $10 million.
  Now, stop and think how many people do you know would be affected by 
that kind of tax. He wants to tax only people who have assets above $10 
million, and he wants to tax them one time at a rate of 14.5 percent 
and use the money realized from that tax to pay off the national debt. 
And then he wants to take the money that was being used every year to 
pay the national debt and funnel that into the system to cover the 
needs of Social Security; and there would be additional money left 
over, of course, for the safety net, Medicare, schools, education.

[[Page 30064]]

  It is an idea which is quite broad and sweeping and has received 
quite a bit of ridicule by the people who have reacted immediately. 
However, before we dismiss it as being ridiculous, I think we ought to 
take a hard look at it.
  I certainly find that it is compatible with a bill that I introduced 
a few months ago, H.R. 1099, a bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code 
of 1986 to provide more revenue for the Social Security system by 
imposing a tax on certain unearned income and to provide tax relief for 
more than 80 million individuals and families who pay more in Social 
Security than they pay in income taxes.
  Now, I did not go as far as Mr. Trump did. Mr. Trump wants to tax 
unearned income assets. He wants to tax them far more broadly than I 
have proposed. And he wants to do that in order to get rid of the 
national debt.
  I only propose a slight increase in taxes of people who have great 
assets, unearned income; and I wanted enough to be able to have that 80 
million group of individuals and families who are paying now more 
Social Security tax than they are paying in income taxes.

                              {time}  1630

  Over the last two decades, the biggest percentage jump in taxes has 
been the payroll tax. The Social Security tax, the Medicare tax, 
combined, they have created a larger percentage increase in taxes than 
income taxes have increased. That means that the people at the very 
bottom who have no choice but to pay the payroll taxes are paying a 
greater percentage now than they were paying 20 years ago. They got the 
biggest percentage increase. We need to have some relief for those 
people.
  That was my concern when I introduced H.R. 1099. I said the way to 
deal with that is to tax the unearned income, the assets of the richest 
people in order to get enough money to provide the relief for the 
poorest people. Mr. Trump says he wants to provide relief for the 
middle-income people as well. If you have a 14.5 percent tax on the 
assets of all people who have more than $10 million in assets, his 
economists calculate that would be enough to pay off the national debt. 
And once the national debt is paid off, you can use the interest we pay 
each year on the national debt in order to certainly make Social 
Security more secure and also to provide additional money for the 
safety net programs, including education and Medicare.
  He wants to demand some things for that. He wants to get rid of the 
estate tax and do a few other things. But one should not lightly 
dismiss his proposal. Some people have said already, why do 14.5 
percent one time? If it is a good idea, maybe you could do it over a 
10-year period less, and it would not be such a shock to the economy. 
That makes sense. But the principle is established. The principle he is 
establishing is that the richest people in America can afford to come 
to the aid of the economy and the country and set a whole new standard, 
a whole new pattern for the way we deal with the budgeting in America. 
It is as revolutionary almost as Thomas Jefferson. The King of England 
thought Thomas Jefferson was a nut when he proposed that all men are 
created equal, that that was ridiculous. The one time that Thomas 
Jefferson had a chance to have an audience with the King of England, 
the King of England turned his back on Jefferson. He would not even 
talk to him. That revolutionary idea that all men are created equal was 
considered ridiculous in 1776. Now Trump says all rich people should 
step forward, and he is rich himself. He says that he is worth $5 
billion, that his assets total $5 billion. He says that he would have 
to pay almost $700 million in this new tax that he proposes. And he is 
willing to do it. He says there are many other rich people who could do 
it, too, and never know that they lost that amount of money. They would 
never know it is gone.
  I heard on a talk show in New York City yesterday, a couple of other 
rich people called in and said that they do not mind some version of 
this, they would not mind paying more taxes if it will help provide for 
decent health services and decent educational services. It is something 
that the rich can ponder. They would be indeed history-making. Never 
before in the history of mankind have those with wealth and means come 
forward and said, we will make a revolution from the top, from the top 
we will begin to deal with a problem of the redistribution of the tax 
burden. We always talked about the redistribution of the wealth and it 
would scare the hell out of people. They say you are a Communist if you 
talk about redistribution of wealth too loudly. But here is a rich man 
who says, let us redistribute the tax burden, let us have the people 
who are mega-millionaires and billionaires, making so much money now 
that it is hard for us to comprehend.
  What is Bill Gates worth? Every day it jumps by billions. At the end 
of last year, I heard he was worth $40 billion. But he agreed to give 
away $40 billion a few months ago. He must be worth $60 billion now, 
some people estimated yesterday in the talk show. I do not know. I 
doubt if he knows. Because of the nature of wealth creation, it is not 
dependent on oil in the earth, the number of barrels that can be 
pumped, it is not dependent on mining gold, it is dependent on 
intellectual capital, people buying intellectual products, his 
software, his various other ventures. It is mushrooming all the time. 
Of course if you get a trade agreement with China, with more than 1 
billion customers out there, a certain percentage of those are middle-
class, well-educated, they are going to use computers too, and 
software, et cetera, et cetera. There is no end, it is infinite, the 
possible wealth of Bill Gates and the people in the various information 
technology industries, Cisco, ITT, it goes on and on. Wealth being 
created on a scale that we cannot even comprehend. If we are at this 
point in history accumulating wealth at that scale and most of the 
wealth, a large percentage of it is redounding to the United States 
population, 1 percent, 5 percent, the people at the very top, then is 
it not in order to stop and think about the fact that these people can 
never spend it, that it would be no harm to them to pay a greater 
percentage of this money than they now pay in taxes?
  The Roman Empire at the point when its armies were bringing in large 
amounts of booty, large amounts of treasures were won by war, violence. 
They brought back the treasures, they made Rome rich beyond anybody's 
comprehension at that time. The Roman Empire leaders decreed that all 
the citizens of Rome should be paid. Because they had so much money, 
they got rid of all the taxes and they said they should be paid a 
certain amount of money every year, every citizen. They had that much 
money. And the citizens of Rome were defined in a small category. As 
soon as they started that policy, all the suburban Romans and all the 
rural Romans and everybody nearby moved into Rome. Of course it went 
bankrupt. It was a policy that was doomed to failure because if you 
define citizens of Rome as the people who live there, more people are 
going to come in to live there, and the booty, the treasures that they 
brought back from their violent conquests was not infinite. There was 
not a Bill Gates Windows 95, Windows 98 and other software products 
which as long as there are human brains and there are human brains out 
there working together, they will keep producing intellectual products 
for sale. There is a limit to how much violent conquest can produce. So 
the Roman policy failed. But it was a revolutionary kind of policy, to 
think that the treasury of a government is so great that we will give 
every citizen some part of it.
  What Donald Trump is saying now is that we have such prosperity now 
and the people in his class, the billionaires and the mega-
millionaires, are making so much money until they would not really miss 
it if you were to tax them 14.5 percent of their assets and get rid of 
the national debt overnight and use that interest you pay on the 
national debt for other things.
  I think you can see now that an idea like that arouses great optimism 
in me. I am optimistic if that is going to be interjected into the 
debate in this presidential election. All we have been hearing so far 
about taxes is the flat

[[Page 30065]]

tax, and everybody that I know, every honest economist has said that 
that is a Steve Forbes rip-off, that the flat tax will produce 
definitely more money for the people who have the most money already. 
Unfortunately, the other candidates have not talked loudly about taxes 
at all because the word ``tax'' is something we politicians try to 
avoid. Just by itself the word ``tax'' arouses great animosity among 
voters. Here is a man who announced his candidacy by talking about 
taxes. I think it is so significant that it should not be ignored. We 
should use it as a key for a new kind of discussion. It should set the 
tone for a new kind of discussion.
  Mr. Speaker, I am going to submit for the Record the article that 
appeared in the New York Times on November 10 which discussed Mr. 
Trump's launching his presidential career by proposing a new tax. I am 
going to just read a few excerpts from it before I submit it. This is 
an article by Adam Nagourney on November 10, 1999, in the New York 
Times:
  ``Trump, describing the first proposal of his exploratory 
presidential campaign, said the government should impose a one-time 
14.25 percent tax on the assets of individuals and trusts worth $10 
million or more. That would raise $5.7 trillion, he said, enough to pay 
off the national debt in a single year. And eliminating the debt, Trump 
explained, would save the Nation $200 billion in annual interest 
payments, money that he said could be used for tax cuts and ensuring 
the stability of the Social Security system.
  ``The New York developer chose an unusual forum to unveil what he 
describes as a policy cornerstone of his prospective campaign: a 
rolling series of radio and television interviews.'' In a rolling 
series, he will deal with these proposals again and again.
  ``Trump's plan met a response that ranged from incredulity to 
ridicule from a number of economists Tuesday. They suggested that a 
14.25 percent tax would be impossible to get through a Republican-
controlled Congress that has previously championed a $792 billion tax 
cut this year. Beyond that, they said that even if it passed, it would 
be problematic to measure net worth and then to tax it.''
  And on and on it goes. There could be many objections made to this 
proposal. Mr. Trump said himself that his own net worth is $5 billion 
and that under his plan, he would owe $750 million in taxes in this one 
year. But he would profit, it says in parentheses, because a part of 
his plan calls for a repeal of the 55 percent estate tax. I mean, there 
are some pieces in there where you are going to be trading off for this 
plan.
  Now, why am I trumpeting it here and do I think it could ever occur? 
I do not think so, but why not a modified version of this? Why not take 
a hard look at the assets of the billionaires and the mega-
millionaires? I think Germany already has an asset tax, an asset tax 
of, I think, 1 percent. So an asset tax is not out of the question. But 
can we change the dialogue? The dialogue now says we will never have 
universal health care. We cannot even have a decent patients' bill of 
rights because it costs too much money. The dialogue now says we can 
never have all the money we need for education. Even the improvement of 
education in small ways costs so much money that we are retreating from 
that. They wanted to move away from the President's proposal to give 
more teachers for the classrooms and to bring down the ratio of 
children in the classroom to the teacher. After agreeing to that last 
year, they now want to bring it down very low, and with the recent 
proposals that have been discussed in these budget negotiations I 
understand have been concluded, they will honor the pledge and we will 
have that program restored at a slight increase, $1.3 billion I hear 
instead of $1.2 billion but they are going to have a proviso that 
allows them to take part of the money and do other things with it.
  Mr. Speaker, $1.3 billion is a lot of money. I do not take lightly 
sums of money when they get to the million dollar mark. It is hard for 
me to conceive of a million dollars. I am the son of a poor factory 
worker who all his life worked for minimum wages. So it is all 
important. It is all big. But when you look at the needs that are there 
and you look at the needs that are there in education in modern terms, 
50 years ago we would not think of spending $3.5 billion on an aircraft 
carrier. Fifty years ago nobody would have thought of an F-22 system, a 
series of planes that would cost billions and billions of dollars, or a 
B-1 bomber. You would not have 50 years ago talked about being able to 
conceive of a CIA, a Central Intelligence Agency which costs $30 
billion a year to run. So in modern terms to spend $110 billion over a 
10-year period to build schools is conservative, not radical. We need 
that kind of money. And if we happen to get that kind of money by 
having new taxes, the only taxes we should think about are taxes on the 
people who can afford to pay more taxes.
  I am optimistic that the debate cannot be avoided. I am optimistic 
about the fact that each presidential candidate's campaign will have to 
step up to the plate and talk in new terms about the way we fund our 
government and offer new kinds of excuses about not being able to 
provide a decent health care system as well as a decent education 
system.
  I include the entirety of this article for the Record, Mr. Speaker.

                [From the New York Times, Nov. 10, 1999]

      Trump Proposes Clearing Nation's Debt at Expense of the Rich

                          (By Adam Nagourney)

       Preparing to embark on his first trip as a prospective 
     candidate for president, Donald J. Trump Tuesday presented a 
     plan that he said would pay off the national debt, bolster 
     Social Security and slash taxes by billions of dollars. Trump 
     promised to accomplish all this at no cost to ordinary 
     Americans, by forcing the rich to pay for it.
       Trump, describing the first proposal of his exploratory 
     presidential campaign, said the government should impose a 
     one-time 14.25 percent tax on the assets of individuals and 
     trusts worth $10 million or more. That would raise $5.7 
     trillion, he said, enough to pay off the national debt in a 
     single year. And eliminating the debt, Trump explained, would 
     save the nation $200 billion in annual interest payments, 
     money that he said could be used for tax cuts and ensuring 
     the stability of the Social Security system.
       The New York developer chose an unusual forum to unveil 
     what he described as a policy cornerstone of his prospective 
     campaign: a rolling series of radio and television 
     interviews. The proposal comes a week before Trump is to fly 
     to Florida for a series of campaign-style events in Miami,the 
     first of three such trips planned for the next month.
       ``The phones are going off the hook,'' Trump reported, as 
     he combined a discussion of his economic ideas with a 
     description of what he described as the public's giddy 
     reaction to his foray into economic policy-making. ``I've 
     never seen anything like this. Do you make Page 1 with this 
     one?''
       As a matter of politics, Trump's proposal--simple in its 
     concept and framed in populist terms--seems aimed directly at 
     the people who have supported the Reform Party since Ross 
     Perot first called it to arms with, among other things, a 
     call to wipe out the national debt. Trump, should he run, 
     said he would seek to become the Reform Party's candidate for 
     president.
       It also had the advantage of lessening any liability Trump 
     might believe he could suffer because of his own reputation 
     as a man of wealth. The developer put his own net worth at $5 
     billion, and said that under his plan, he would owe $750 
     million in taxes (though his estate would ultimately profit 
     if another part of Trump's plan were enacted: the repeal of 
     the 55 percent estate tax).
       Trump's plan met a response that ranged from incredulity to 
     ridicule from a number of economists Tuesday. They suggested 
     that a 14.25 percent tax would be impossible to get through a 
     Republican-controlled Congress that championed a $792 billion 
     tax cut this year. Beyond that, they said that even if it 
     passed it would be problematic to measure net worth and then 
     to tax it.
       ``I don't think the plan makes much economic sense,'' said 
     Stephen Moore, director of fiscal policy studies at the 
     libertarian Cato Institute. ``The fact is that most people's 
     wealth that has been built up over 10, 20 or 50 years is 
     wealth that has already been taxed.''
       Trump's main opponent for the Reform Party nomination, 
     Patrick J. Buchanan, offered a harsher assessment of Trump's 
     plan. ``This is serious wacko stuff,'' Buchanan said by 
     telephone from Albany.
       Buchanan predicted that Trump's plan would cause the 
     wealthy to move their holdings beyond the reach of the 
     Internal Revenue Service. ``I can't think of a better idea to 
     cause capital flight out of the United States,'' Buchanan 
     said.

[[Page 30066]]

       Trump said he had come up with the idea on his own and 
     worked out its details with some private economists. He 
     declined to name them.
       He rejected criticism of his idea, demanding: ``Where is 
     Gore's plan? Where is Bradley's plan? Where is Bush's plan? 
     They don't exist.''
       Still, it was clear that some parts of Trump's proposal 
     remained unformed. For example, of the $200 billion in 
     interest costs that would be saved, he said he would apply 
     half to the Social Security system and the rest to tax 
     reduction.
       Trump said that $20 billion of that would pay for 
     eliminating the inheritance tax. Asked how he would allocate 
     the rest, he responded: ``All different taxes across the 
     board. That would be determined and worked out.''

  I also want to just backtrack a minute and say as we close out this 
session, I talked about a number of things that I wish we had covered 
that we did not cover.

                              {time}  1645

  I was delighted when this morning I saw them put on the calendar a 
bill which dealt with something which I was concerned with some time 
ago and never saw any action on. Suddenly I got a notice that we had 
put H.Con.Res. 128 on the calendar, and that is a resolution to express 
the sense of Congress regarding treatment of religious minorities in 
Iran, particularly Members of the Jewish community.
  Now, I said to my staff, I want to go over and speak on that. I have 
been waiting for that. Back in August, on August 28, I read an article 
in the paper and it talked about the fact that 13 Jews would not be 
tried in Iran as spies for Israel, and I talked to some people on the 
Committee on International Relations, and they said yes, we are going 
to bring up a resolution to deal with that, and it never happened.
  In August of this year, we were still very much preoccupied, of 
course, with Kosovo and ethnic cleansing. One article I read, not the 
one I read in the paper, but a larger article in a magazine, it talked 
about the fact that in Iran and Iraq and the Arab countries, there was 
massive removal of Jewish communities going on for the last 25 years. 
Large numbers of Jews in large Jewish communities in these countries 
had been moved. Nobody ever brought forth an international outcry about 
ethnic cleansing, but ethnic cleansing of that kind has been going on 
for a long time. Now we only have tiny Jewish communities, very small 
amounts of Jews still in countries like Iran and Iraq, and here is a 
situation where a small group has been singled out for persecution.
  On August 28, the article reads as follows: ``Iran's courts are 
prepared to try 13 Iranian Jews on charges of spying for Israel. Israel 
has repeatedly denied any link to the 13 who face a near certain death 
sentence if convicted under a 1996 law punishing spies for Israel or 
the United States.'' The case took on a new gravity after an official 
was quoted as saying ``the accused belong to a spy network directly 
linked to Israel and that they were spying for the United States.'' 
Quote, ``This regime was definitely involved in the spying,'' end of 
quote, an unidentified official said in today's issue of the 
conservative Tehran Times, which is close to Iran judiciary and 
intelligence services.
  The newspaper said the official had also alleged that the 13 were 
spying for the United States. The official was also quoted as saying 
``an unspecified number of Muslims had also been arrested in connection 
with the case. The charges mean that the defendants are likely to be 
tried in one of Iran's hard-line revolutionary courts.''
  That was August 28 of this year. Today we put on the calendar a 
resolution regarding the treatment of religious minorities in Iran, 
because I hear that those 13 are still awaiting trial and the trial 
will take place soon. I do not know why we took that off the calendar. 
It is very important now because this week we have had to see the 
phenomenon of the joyous approval of an agreement with China, World 
Trade Organization agreement; China is going to be admitted to the 
World Trade Organization, and all of the persecutions of the Chinese 
Communist government and all of the things that they have done, 
suddenly they have been pushed in the background.
  Mr. Speaker, I would hate to see the day arrive when we are going to 
allow Iran to join the World Trade Organization and we are going to 
negotiate a trade agreement with Iran and not deal with all of these 
problems.
  Today there is an article in The New York Times about the wartime 
accounts found in Swiss banks. Instead of them being a small amount 
that Swiss banks agreed to, they said they only had 755 accounts of 
Jews who were killed in the Holocaust; yet it turns out that they have 
45,000, 45,000 accounts that they now admit were accounts of the Jews 
in the Holocaust. Are we going to talk about prosecutors and Swiss 
bankers at the world court tribunal the way we are considering the 
prosecution of people who are responsible for the massacres in Kosovo 
and Bosnia?
  Mr. Speaker, I just think that as we close out, there should be room 
on the calendar, and I hope that if there is going to be any more 
business unrelated to the budget, but certainly we will bring back that 
resolution as we close out and let the world know that the ethnic 
cleansing, we do not have to send bombers and we did not send bombers a 
long time ago to bomb Iran and we have not advocated that activity and 
I certainly do not propose that we do that, but our moral authority 
should be brought to bear another kind of ethnic cleansing that Jews 
have been doing in all of these Arab countries, especially in Iran, and 
now the continuation of it in such a bold way certainly ought to be 
brought to the attention of the American people and the Congress ought 
to weigh in and give its own moral opinion.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to continue the train of thought that I set forth 
before that we are closing out the first session of the 106th Congress 
with great disappointment, but I am optimistic that the second session 
will be very productive, because I think the stage for a second session 
which is more productive will be set by the presidential debates and 
the presidential contests, as well as the contest for a new Congress. I 
do not want to imply that I do not think that the contest to elect a 
new Congress is less important than the presidential election.
  We intend to have a Democratic majority, and that Democratic majority 
will be based on the fact that the people look at the lack of 
achievements of the first session of the 106th Congress and begin to 
demand a change and vote for a change.
  It is certainly of great need in my district, New York City. It seems 
that the newspapers and the powerful people that control decision-
making have suddenly discovered that the board of education in our city 
is on the verge of collapse, and that education, the educational 
deficiencies that we have talked about for many years are true.
  All of this is being brought to a head by a class action suit that is 
now going forward in the Federal court at 60 Center Street in New York. 
The Federal court is hearing a case brought by a group called the 
Campaign for Fiscal Equity, and the case is being brought against the 
State of New York because the conditions in the city schools are 
partially that way because of the lack of fair State aid, or fair 
distribution of State aid.
  New York City, with 38 percent of the children in the State, receives 
only 35 percent of the State aid money; and that is a great improvement 
over the way it was 5 years ago. Over the years, the gap has closed. 
There was one point where we received far less in State aid where 
communities outside of New York City and upstate received a far greater 
percentage of State aid per pupil. The court case, the plaintiffs are 
charging, and rightly so, that we do not get enough money to live up to 
the requirement of the State constitution that all children be educated 
adequately. We need more money in order to provide adequate education.
  They have gone further and said that the schools that are suffering 
either in New York City or in the big city of Buffalo, big cities like 
Buffalo and Syracuse are in some of the suburban schools. Those schools 
are all schools

[[Page 30067]]

that have minority youngsters, either African American youngsters or 
Hispanic youngsters, so that there is a racial component. The suit is 
charging two things, not only that the State has failed to provide the 
funds necessary for an adequate education for all children, but the 
State is also discriminating, because the pattern is that the places 
that are getting less money per pupil, per child, happen to be places 
where we have concentrations of minorities.
  Now, that court suit has generated more attention from the press to 
the great problems that exist in New York City schools. As a result, 
one day last week we had the New York Post carry articles about the 
fact that the cafeterias of certain schools in the poorest areas had 
rats and roaches, signs of rats and roaches in the cafeteria. The same 
day there was a big article in the Daily News about the fact that in 
those same schools where the minorities are concentrated and of course 
youngsters are concentrated, up to half of the teachers are not 
certified to teach. Where we need the best teachers we have the worst 
teachers because of the problem of the lack of certification.
  The problem of certification of teachers goes on as being discussed, 
and I welcome that discussion in the newspapers. We cannot really take 
full advantage of the President's fight that I think now has been won, 
the battle has been won, to provide more teachers to the classroom who 
are qualified if we do not have certified teachers. So it is imperative 
that the unfinished business of this Congress be followed through next 
year by providing more funds and more programs to generate more 
teachers. We have to have a greater pool of teachers because we are in 
a situation now where because there is a great shortage of teachers, 
the best teachers, the teachers who passed the tests and are certified, 
they leave New York City and go to the suburbs, and we are left with 
those who are unqualified and are not certified in large numbers.
  This is just one of the many problems. The New York Times has an 
editorial which talks about the bidding for teachers.
  Now, am I laying this problem solely on the doorstep of the Federal 
Government? No, I am not. But bidding for qualified teachers requires 
more funding. Most of that funding would not come from the Federal 
Government. So I would like to add that it is very important for the 
Federal Government to continue its role as a stimulus. The Federal 
Government's role in education is a very small one proportionally. We 
only provide 6 or 7 percent of the total education funds in this 
Nation, and that includes higher education. So the other 93 percent of 
the funding for education comes from the States and from the local 
governments.
  We must set standards for the States and local governments in certain 
critical areas and force them to spend more of their money on 
education. In my own City of New York, last year they had a surplus of 
$2 billion, more revenue was collected, $2 billion more than was spent. 
But the mayor of the city and the city council has to bear part of the 
blame for this also, chose not to spend a single dime on education. We 
cannot blame the Federal Government for that.
  These problems that are being unearthed with respect to lack of 
certified teachers, poor conditions in the cafeterias, et cetera, they 
must be approached from the city level as well, and the State level; 
the State Government had a $2 billion surplus also.
  These are very prosperous times, and we had surpluses. The New York 
State legislature, both the legislature and the assembly, passed a bill 
to spend $500 million to repair schools, for schools that need repair 
most. There are schools that still have coal-burning furnaces; there 
are schools that have asbestos problems; schools that have lead in the 
pipes. They wanted to deal with some of those problems, but the 
Republican governor vetoed a bill to provide $500,000 for that.
  So we cannot blame it totally on the Federal Government, but the 
example has to be set by the Federal Government. The role of the 
Federal Government in education, as small as it is, has been a very 
positive one because they have stimulated new standards at the State 
level, new kinds of competencies. We never had State education plans 
before the Federal Government got involved under Lyndon Johnson. We 
never had standards, discussions about standards in curriculum. There 
are a whole set of positive things that have happened in education as a 
result of Federal leadership. Federal leadership provided the impetus, 
and that is as important as any other thing that the Federal Government 
does.

                              {time}  1700

  If we make them, expose them to their own constituencies, the States 
and cities will spend more money for education, but we can only do that 
if the Federal government takes a greater initiative.
  I have always said that at the dawn of the 21st century we should see 
ourselves as creating a new cyber civilization. That cyber civilization 
demands that there be more brain power. Brains are going to drive the 
next century. Everybody agrees on that, and if that is the case, we 
should give our highest priority to the development. No individuals in 
America should be left in a situation where they do not have the 
fullest opportunity to develop their brain power.
  To do this, we need to launch a highly visible effort to revamp the 
infrastructure of the school systems of America. H.R. 3071, a bill I 
have introduced which calls for spending $110 billion over a 10-year 
period, is the kind of adequate response that we need to the problem of 
decaying infrastructure.
  Me and my colleagues who were here 2 hours ago speaking on the floor 
talked about the atrocities with respect to overcrowding in their 
schools across the country. We can only deal with that if we have a 
massive Federal intervention which, in addition to providing the funds 
needed to build some schools, would stimulate the States and cities to 
also participate.
  I am optimistic about next year. For those people who called me and 
said, well, they are closing out the year and you have no money for 
construction, are you not sad, no. I never expected this year to end 
with new money for construction. Even H.R. 1660, offered by the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), which all members of the 
Democratic Caucus support and we have been pushing, even that token 
response was not allowed on the floor.
  I am not surprised. Next year the Republican majority will have to 
respond. Next year the candidates for president will have to respond. 
The American people want and demand that our education systems be 
revamped. We have to start with a substantial action like school 
construction and repair, and new school security.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. 
DeLauro).
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York for 
yielding to me.
  Mr. Speaker, I wanted to call attention. Earlier this afternoon there 
were speakers on the floor who challenged a press conference that was 
held this morning. I wanted to, and my colleague, the gentlewoman from 
New York (Mrs. McCarthy), wanted to try to set the record straight on 
this press conference.
  In fact, there were several of the Democratic women who today 
unveiled a sad symbol of this Congress' inaction on the very important 
issue of gun safety, gun safety legislation. The Columbine clock was 
unveiled. It ticks off the days, the hours, the minutes, the seconds 
since the Columbine tragedy, which was at 1:30 p.m. on April 12, 211 
days ago, 211 days and 3 hours.
  It represents the inaction of this Congress on an issue of absolute 
importance to American families, to their families and to their 
children.
  Since April 20, many of my colleagues, many of the Democratic women 
in this House of Representatives, have worked hard to address the issue 
of gun safety and gun violence in a very thorough and thoughtful way, 
but for the last 7 months the Republican leadership has consistently 
obstructed every single attempt to pass

[[Page 30068]]

meaningful gun safety measures in this body.
  This is done so despite overwhelming support among mothers, fathers, 
sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, grandmothers across this great 
country of ours to pass sensible measures: child safety locks, closing 
the loophole on background checks at gun shows, banning the importation 
of the high capacity ammunition clips.
  This is legislation that was passed in the Senate, a bipartisan piece 
of legislation, a compromise piece of legislation. We are asking that 
the Conference Committee on Juvenile Justice which takes up the issue 
of gun safety please meet, do something, respond to the will of the 
people in this country. In fact, it is a conference committee that has 
met one time, one time; no debate, no discussion, no clarity of thought 
on what direction we take on gun safety measures in this country.
  No one here is grandstanding. No one here is saying, let us not have 
a piece of legislation because what we want to do is to keep this issue 
around. That is not why we were sent here. We were sent here to do the 
people's business in the people's House.
  Every single day 13 children die from gunfire in this country. It is 
wrong. That is why we had the clock, as a way to say the days, the 
hours, the seconds, the minutes are being ticked off and our kids are 
dying. Guns are getting into the hands of criminals and children. It is 
wrong.
  If we are not going to do anything about it in this final day, these 
final days of the 106th session, we commit to the American public that 
we will spend every single day, minute, hour, and second of the next 
year of this session working hard to pass gun safety legislation in 
this country to protect our families and protect our children.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I am optimistic about gun safety passing, and 
it is because of the gentlewomen here.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. 
McCarthy).
  Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Speaker, hopefully we will bring this 
issue up next year and work for it and get it passed.
  Mr. Speaker, I also want to address some of the things said earlier 
in this Chamber and try and set the record straight. Number one, there 
is an awful lot of us that do not want this to be a political issue.
  I personally do not think it should be a political issue. To me, it 
is not a Republican or a Democratic issue, it is the issue of the 
American people. That is why we had the clock, the Columbine clock, to 
remind people, because there has unfortunately been that terrible 
incident that woke up the American people to the gun violence that we 
sit here and talk about.
  I of all people certainly do know what it is to remember the violence 
in this country. In a couple of weeks, it will be the 6th year 
anniversary of the Long Island Railroad Massacre, where my husband was 
killed and a number of my neighbors were killed, and my son was 
injured, and an awful lot of people were injured on that.
  We do not want the American people to forget the pain that is left 
with so many victims, so we here in Congress are trying to stop future 
pain to our children and to American citizens.
  It can be taken off the table as far as a political issue. Let us all 
meet together at a conference. That is all we have been asking for. We 
are hearing this and that. I am on the conferees, and we have not met.
  I have to tell the Members, if the NRA amendment had passed in this 
House, it was more than just being imperfect, it was dangerous. If the 
NRA amendment had been law over the first 6 months of 1999, 17,000 
people who were stopped by our current background check system would 
now be armed. In fact, if the 24-hour policy had been in effect, we 
know of cases where murderers, rapists, and kidnappers would be walking 
around with guns.
  This has nothing to do with second amendment rights, this has to do 
with keeping guns out of the hands of criminals. That is what we are 
supposed to do. But fortunately, and I will say this, Republicans and 
Democrats did work together, and together we prevented the NRA 
amendment from becoming law.
  I think that is important here, because when we speak to the people, 
the American people, and it does not matter whether they are 
Republicans or Democrats, they want something done. That is what this 
House is supposed to be doing.
  That is why we had the Columbine clock, to remind the American people 
that we still have time to do something before we leave. I know there 
are many of us that are willing to work through Thanksgiving, through 
Christmas, to make sure that our citizens are safe.
  We have all tried to work in a bipartisan manner. We certainly have 
had people on both sides of the aisle support my amendment, which would 
have closed the gun show loophole, made sure that criminals and 
especially children do not get their hands on guns. I think that is 
what we have to do.
  We should have passed safety reform in this Congress, real gun safety 
reform that keeps the guns out of the hands of felons. That is what we 
did not do in this Congress, and I am sorry for that, because each day 
that we have not done something we continue to lose victims across this 
country. We continue to see too much pain. That is not what this 
country is about.
  I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens) and I thank my 
colleague, the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), for letting 
us answer these questions.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for joining me.

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