[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 24379-24385]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                        ISSUES AFFECTING AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. McINNIS. I have come this evening, colleagues, first of all I 
appreciate the opportunity to visit with you. Of course, we are trying 
to wrap up the session. I have got several comments that I want to make 
this evening in regards to a great bill that passed today on the Sand 
Dunes of Colorado, making it a new national park. I want to comment a 
little about the Colorado canyons. I want to talk a little about the 
death tax and the marriage penalty. I have a full agenda.
  But I have to tell you before I start this, I cannot allow this last 
hour to go unrebutted. Colleagues, as you know, there were no 
Republicans involved in the last hour of discussion. It was all 
Democrats. And the four Democrats, whom I respect as individuals, but 
professionally, let us call it what it is. All four of these are 
supporting Al Gore for the presidency, and there is nobody to stand up 
for George W. Bush.
  The best way to criticize George W. Bush is to go out and frighten 
the senior citizens, throw out these scare tactics. I could not believe 
what I heard in the last few minutes; scare the senior citizens, tell 
them how terrible it is, George W. Bush, how terrible the Republican 
leadership is in the House of Representatives; tell them how nothing is 
ever going to get done.
  That is not how we accomplish things around here. I have urged my 
colleagues on the Democratic side over there, join with us.
  We had a panel, and my colleague knows this, we had a panel, a non-
partisan panel, put together to save Medicare; nonpartisan, meaning we 
had Republicans and Democrats, and we had Republicans and Democrats who 
worked together. You know what? After a long, arduous journey, with 
lots of technical roadblocks to overcome, they came up with a good 
solid recommendation. And it was not the Republican leadership that 
rejected it in the House. The Senate leadership did not reject this. 
Who rejected it was the President. The President rejected the 
nonpartisan solution.
  So where are we with this? When we talk about health care, when we 
have a nonpartisan coalition, Democrats and Republicans, who have come 
together for a solution, and that solution is rejected at the last 
minute by the administration, what do we have to do? We have to start 
at square one, and that is what is happening.
  We have got to come up with a solution. We are not going to come up 
with a solution, and I say with due respect to my Democratic colleagues 
who spoke in the last hour, we are not going to accomplish it with 
scare tactics. Really, you may get some political advantage here in the 
next 2 weeks, but the fact is, in the long run, it does not serve 
anything to scare these people.
  My parents are seniors out there too, and I know most of my 
colleagues out here have colleagues who are seniors. We do not want to 
scare them. Let us figure out a solution for them.
  My rebuttal, these are my remarks, this is my rebuttal page. I want 
to go over a couple of these things they talked about.
  You know, they talked about a solution. I am not sure what solution 
they are talking about, but it seems to me that the solution that they 
talk about, which is not the solution that the bipartisan panel came up 
with, the solution they talked about is to increase the size of the 
government responsibility in your health care. One-size-fits-all. One-
size-fits-all.
  In other words, you, citizen A, and you, citizen B, go to the same 
doctor, whether you like it or not, and here is how much you are going 
to get, regardless of what you think your needs are.
  By the way, the government, I heard one of my colleagues, with due 
respect, one of my Democratic colleagues who spoke in the last hour, he 
said there is no such animal as a government-run health care HMO.
  You know what? The largest health care system in the Nation is run by 
the United States Government. Medicare. Medicaid. Look at the Veterans 
system. And the worst run system in the United States is run by the 
United States Government, Medicare and Medicaid. And you are willing to 
stand up and say, increase the government's involvement in everybody's 
health care, have the government really run the program to provide 
health care for the people of America?
  That is exactly what Hillary Clinton attempted to do. That is exactly 
what she attempted to do 8 years ago. But now what you are trying to do 
is piecemeal.
  Look, be up front with the people that we represent. Tell them that 
on a piecemeal basis we are going to try and put a cloud on top of you 
called ``socialized health care.'' It means a lot bigger government. It 
means a system just like Medicare, that is run just as poorly as 
Medicare.
  To my Democratic colleagues who like throwing scare tactics out, go 
talk to your local medical provider. Ask him what it is like to do 
business with Medicare. Just ask him. Ask him what it is like to do 
business with Medicaid. Go out there. I know this is true in the rural 
parts of the country, because I represent a rural part. Go out and ask 
rural doctors and rural hospitals, hey, is it a good deal doing 
business with the government? How efficient is the government Medicare 
reimbursement system?
  Ask them about it. Ask them how efficient the Medicare coding system 
is in our health care system that the government runs. And the 
response? You know what the response is going to be. It is terrible.
  I have got doctors in my own district ready to stop taking Medicare 
patients.

[[Page 24380]]

They are ready to stop taking them because it is such a hassle to deal 
with the government-run health care program.
  Now, it is fundamentally unfair for anybody to stand up here and say 
that any colleague, whether they are Republicans or Democrats, that any 
colleague does not care about the health care of our seniors. That is 
nothing but an abused and overused scare tactic.
  I am a Republican, obviously. I do not know one Democrat, I do not 
know one Democrat, even the Democrats that I have the most vigorous 
differences with, I do not know one Democrat who is opposed to some 
kind of health care, you know, wants to provide health care, wants to 
help our seniors or help all of our citizens. On the other hand, I do 
not know one Republican that is against helping our seniors, that is 
against trying to improve our health care system for all citizens.
  So, for some of my colleagues to stand up here and say the Republican 
leadership is against the senior citizens, George W. Bush's plan is 
against them, come on, be fair about this.
  Look, let us have a fair dispute. Let us have a fair debate on this 
floor. We can begin the debate by acknowledging that there are certain 
facts upon which we all agree. Everybody in these Chambers, everyone in 
these Chambers agrees that our health care system constantly needs to 
be revised.

                              {time}  2145

  We have to look for ways to improve prenatal care. We have to look 
for ways to make sure every woman gets a mammogram. We have to make 
sure our seniors have the kind of care so that they can afford 
prescription services. We all agree with that.
  Mr. Speaker, I have never seen a Congressman or Congresswoman in my 
career, never seen one, that stood up and said that they are against 
mammograms and we should not offer them. I have never seen a 
Congressman or Congresswoman in my career that stood up and said that 
they are against senior citizens and that they want them to have high 
prescription care services. I have never seen a Congressman or 
Congresswoman, Republican or Democrat, in any of these cases that says 
that they are against better health care for the citizens of the United 
States.
  So to stand up here and have the audacity to say, well, the 
Republican leadership does not want health care for seniors, and George 
W. Bush does not care about seniors and there is no big government 
thing. Come on. That is not a fair shot. That is not a fair debate.
  Look, we can take shots. We can take the shots, but my colleagues 
have other people listening to them. They have seniors listening to 
them and they can be scared. These people can be scared. That is 
exactly the same type of tactics we are seeing being used on Social 
Security. George W. Bush comes up and says we cannot exist with the 
current status quo. Oh sure, my generation can make it. The generation 
ahead of me can make it on the current status quo with Social Security. 
But what about the young people of this country, who, by the way, their 
contributions are funding our generation?
  So we get these scare tactics thrown in. How are we ever going to 
have a government that can really come up with good solutions if we are 
going to have these scare tactics over and over again?
  It was amazing to me that in this last hour, unrebutted, that my four 
colleagues from the Democratic sides, unrebutted, time after time after 
time, threw out scare tactics about the Republican Party. They never 
said one decent thing, not one decent thing about the Republicans. 
Never. They implied, no, they made it very clear. They did not imply, 
they made it very clear that Republicans do not want prescription 
services; they do not want to help the senior citizens; they do not 
want this; they do not want that; they help fund these TV 
advertisements, as if the Democratic party is never doing anything like 
that at exactly the same point in time.
  Come on, we need a solution here, and to do it we have to work across 
the aisle. To do it we have to commit to each other, Republican to 
Democrat, Democrat to Republican that we will not begin the process 
with scare tactics. Darn right we can scare the senior citizens. And 
what my colleagues are trying to do is scare them to the ballot box 
instead of helping them to a solution. They are trying to scare them to 
the ballot box instead of helping them to a solution. That is wrong.
  Those seniors out there, every citizen in America, those young people 
out there, those people without insurance, those people who have to pay 
$700 a month for prescription services, they are not looking to be 
scared to the polling booth. They are not looking to be scared into 
their vote. They are asking us, they are begging us to help them with a 
solution. After listening to this last hour of unrebutted statements 
and scare tactics, I want to say, look, calm down, come back and go to 
work with us, just like we did with the bipartisan commission.
  Take a look at the Republicans and take a look at the Democrats that 
were on that bipartisan commission. This was not loaded with Republican 
leadership. This was not loaded with Democratic leadership. Neither 
party had a ringer in there. We had some very dedicated people who 
wanted to come up with a solution, who thought the best way to approach 
it was a committee with both parties involved in it, with people who 
were respected and knowledgeable on the subject. And that is exactly 
what occurred. Unfortunately, it was rejected at the last moment by 
President Clinton.
  We did not use scare tactics in there. We came up with a solution. 
And that is the way this should be done. Come back, come to work with 
us. That is what we are asking our colleagues to do.
  Now, let me move on for a few minutes. I want to talk about a good 
bipartisan effort that we had today, and it shows that bipartisanship 
can work. It shows that when we put aside the vigor of our party right 
before the election, we can work on something and we can come together 
and do something pretty darned fruitful. And that is what we did today. 
We created a new national park in this country. This national park is a 
diamond in the rough. It is a national park which will exist for 
thousands of generations to come. It is a national park that 200 years 
or 300 years from now people will look back upon our generation, just 
like we look back on the generation that created Yellowstone and 
Yosemite and places like that, and say that somebody was really 
thoughtful about this, somebody was smart enough to put this into a 
park and save it for future generations.
  Today, on a strong bipartisan vote, we created a new national park, 
America's newest national park, and it is located in the State of 
Colorado. I would like to spend a little time tonight first of all 
thanking my colleagues for their bipartisan support. There was 
opposition to this, and I will go through some of the points that the 
opposition made, but first of all I want to give my colleagues some 
dynamics of where this park is located.
  First, a little about the 3rd Congressional District of the State of 
Colorado. The 3rd Congressional District is here outlined in the blue, 
where my pointer is. To give my colleagues an idea, this is Colorado, 
that is Denver, Colorado, that is Colorado Springs, Colorado, and down 
here is Pueblo. This is a highway called I-25, which goes from Wyoming, 
up here, down to New Mexico.
  The 3rd Congressional District is a very interesting district in our 
country. First of all, almost all of my colleagues vacation in this 
district. We have the world premier ski resorts in this district. This 
district is the highest district in the Nation in elevation. I like to 
joke about the 3rd Congressional District, and in good humor say that 
once you go out of the district of the 3rd, it is downhill from there. 
It is because we live in the highest place in the Nation. Our ski 
resorts, Aspen, Telluride, Beaver Creek, Steamboat, Durango, Grand 
Junction, Breckenridge, and I could just go on and on with these 
premier ski resorts, the Alpines, the Rocky Mountains, the 14,000-foot 
peaks, the 56 mountains in Colorado, 54 of them in the 3rd 
Congressional District, over 14,000 feet.

[[Page 24381]]

  It is a spectacular area of the country. It is also an area which has 
huge amounts of Federal land ownership. Take a look, for example, at 
our borders, then go east of our borders to the Atlantic Ocean. There 
is very little Federal land ownership. But go from our border in 
Colorado and come throughout this district and go on to the Pacific 
Ocean and there are tremendous amounts of Federal land ownership. So 
for those of us in the West, geographically, there is a dramatic 
difference in the West versus the East. One, in rainfall. It does not 
rain in the West like it does in the East. And number two, the location 
of Federal lands. Most, by far the majority, the greatest majority of 
Federal lands are located in the West. They are not located in the 
East.
  So when we talk about Federal lands and what happens with Federal 
lands, there is very little pain felt in the East. The pain is all felt 
in the West. That is why we have heard people say ``the war on the 
West.'' A lot of times we in the West are concerned about people in the 
East dictating to us our life-style, which does not apply to them in 
the East because they do not have the Federal lands. So we have very 
fragile feelings because we are very dependent on a concept called 
multiple use. These lands of the Federal Government were created and 
originated with the idea of lands of many uses, many uses: 
environmental uses, park uses, transportation uses.
  For example, in my district almost every power line, every road, 
every cable TV, all our water, many of our rivers, they all have to 
come across on Federal land; or the water is stored on Federal land or 
it originates on Federal land. The key to our life-style, just the 
survival of our life-style out there are these Federal lands. We take a 
lot of pride in them, and I think that was demonstrated today with the 
creation of this national park.
  Now, the national park that I am going to talk about involves the 
Sand Dunes. We see here an arrow pointing where the Sand Dunes are. 
That is the Sand Dunes, the national park we have created. It is a big 
chunk. This district, for example, the 3rd Congressional District, 
geographically is larger than the State of Florida. It is larger than 
the State of Florida, just this congressional district that I am 
privileged to represent. Down here, tucked away, is something that is 
absolutely amazing. It is a unique situation of one. Nowhere else in 
the world do we find what I am about to show my colleagues, and that is 
what we today put into a national park.
  Let me point it out. We call them the Great Sand Dunes. We call them 
the Great Sand Dunes. Take a look at this. Maybe my colleagues would 
like to look at this picture here and say, well, they are sand dunes. 
Amazing, but somebody must have painted in all these Alpine rocky peaks 
behind it, these 14,000-foot peaks. Somebody must have painted that in, 
because nowhere in the world would there be massive sand dunes tucked 
in between 14,000-foot Alpine peaks. Well, there is somewhere in the 
world. It is located right here in the Sand Dunes at Alamosa, Colorado.
  There are a lot of dynamics to these sand dunes that the average 
person, in fact some of our opponents to this called it nothing. They 
said this was nothing but a pile of sand. Fortunately, 366 of my 
colleagues today were able to have a vision beyond the so-called pile 
of sand. They had the ability to realize the diamond we held in our 
hands was a lot more precious than the opponents realized it was. We 
had the vision to look into the future and say, my gosh, look at the 
ecosystem, look at the ecological system, the biological system, the 
environmental, the water resources, the wildlife resources. Look what 
is contained within this unique setting found nowhere else in the 
world.
  These mountains are not painted in. That is the exact setting. We see 
these sand dunes. Take a look at the sand dunes in one month. By the 
way, a human being would be about, well, we could not even see it. It 
would be at the end of a pinpoint. Probably not even that. A little 
teeny, teeny dot on these sand dunes, to give an idea of how massive 
these sand dunes are. If we took a big semi-truck, it would look about 
like this little thing out here right here.
  If we looked at these sand dunes a month from today, a month from 
today, they would be different. Someone might say, wait a minute, it 
does not look quite the way it looked a month ago, and it is not. These 
sand dunes are constantly changing. Nowhere else in the world do we 
have a stream, a mountain stream that runs in waves. It runs in waves 
and that is how it carries the sand. The stream dries up just about the 
same day every year, within the same period of time every year. The 
stream water all of a sudden disappears, and then what happens is the 
winds start to come in, and the winds at first are slow but they are 
dry.
  As my colleagues know, in the West it is a dry climate. We are not a 
humid area. It is a dry arid area. The winds come in slow at first. 
They dry the sand without blowing it. They dry the sand and prepare the 
sand to be moved from down here in the streambeds that come off these 
high Rocky Mountains as a result of the snow. It comes down these 
streambeds, and at the right time the sand is dried, and then the winds 
start to pick up more velocity. Then pretty soon the winds are heavier 
winds, and that is what begins to carry the sands. Then all of a sudden 
we see formations on these sand dunes, like you have never seen in your 
life.
  We could observe it on a daily basis if we had the kind of technical 
binoculars, or whatever type of thing would measure that. But on a 
monthly basis with the human eye we can begin to see those changes, and 
it is all a matter of sequence. It is all a matter of sequence. And the 
people of the San Luis Valley for generations have known how special 
this is. They know how unique it is, and they have come to the 
government of the United States and they have said help us preserve it 
as a national park. This is so beautiful, it is so basic to the 
heritage of our families, we want it to be basic to the heritage of all 
future generations. We want all future generations to enjoy what 
families like the Salazars enjoy down there in the San Luis Valley, or 
like the Kriers, or the Santis, or people like that down in that 
valley, the Entzes and families like that.
  They have come to us, and today we have responded on a bipartisan 
basis. Both Republicans and Democrats got together to give 366 votes in 
favor of this. There were only 34 people in this Chamber who voted no 
against naming this a national park. Only 34. I can tell my colleagues 
that they put up a heck of a fight. We met opposition to name this as a 
national park from the first day we proposed it. But the facts overcame 
the opposition.
  I have to say there was a lot of support to name this a national 
park. It did not start with my colleague Senator Allard in the Senate, 
who did a fine job carrying this and passed it out of the United States 
Senate without one ``no'' vote. It passed out of the U.S. Senate with 
no ``no'' votes. Unanimous. It did not start with myself, who decided 
to carry the bill in the House, and 9 years ago stood on one of those 
mounds with a gentleman named Bob Zimmerman and his family, and he said 
to me this should be a national park. Bob Zimmerman told me this should 
be preserved for all future generations; that we have to preserve the 
system that we have.

                              {time}  2200

  It did not all start right there. It started from the generations and 
generations of families. What happened in the last year, in fact on of 
these sand dunes stood Senator Wayne Allard; Senator Ben Campbell; Ken 
Salizar, the Attorney General of the State of Colorado; myself; Bruce 
Babbitt, the Secretary of the Interior. And during that little 
conversation we had on one of those sand dunes, of which we were just a 
tiny spec in this vast wonderful world of sand, we decided that we 
should respond to the community's wishes.
  And we began to respond. First of all, the State legislature in 
Colorado, the State House of Representatives, passed

[[Page 24382]]

overwhelmingly supporting this designation as a national park. Then the 
State Senate did the same thing on their resolution, overwhelmingly.
  I can tell my colleagues, Gigi Dennis, a good friend of mine, she led 
the fight over there on the Senate side. And I can tell my colleagues 
that Lola Spradly on the House, she led over there. Russell George, 
Speaker of the House. I can name name after name. Matt Smith. A lot of 
different people got together in the State House and out of the House 
and the Senate they sent a message to the Government of Washington, 
D.C., make this a national park. We support your efforts. Help those 
communities preserve this for future generations.
  But it did not stop there. The Governor of the State of Colorado, 
Bill Owens, a well-respected, very powerful, powerful in a positive 
sense, the Governor of the State of Colorado and his wife, the First 
Lady of the State of Colorado, they gave this their strong endorsement. 
The Attorney General Ken Salizar, and Ken Salizar has generations of 
family down there, Ken Salizar went to bat. We had the gentleman from 
Colorado (Mr. Udall). We had the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. 
DeGette). We had a number of different people who have come together as 
a team to create the new national park in Colorado.
  I hope all of you, just as you have experienced the ski areas in the 
Third Congressional District, most of you have skied in either Aspen or 
Vale or Telluride or Purgatory or Powder Horn or Steamboat or 
Breckenridge or any of these different areas, come enjoy this. Many of 
you in this room have enjoyed the Rocky Mountain National Park.
  Colorado will now offer to the people of the United States, to the 
people of the world, the State of Colorado will soon have four national 
parks in that pristine country that I talk to you about all within a 
2\1/2\ hour drive or 3 hour drive. It is exciting. It is spectacular. I 
invite my colleagues to come down and see it.
  Let me talk just a little more about what else is contained here. We 
know that within this range there is an underground aquifer. We do not 
have the technical expertise to understand all of the fingers of that 
aquifer. In other words, we have a large pool of water underneath the 
ground, and we know it contains a huge quantity of water and we know 
that that water is fundamental, it is basic to the entire system that 
operates here. We know that that water is fundamental to the farmers 
and to the ranchers and to the communities and to the crops that they 
grow.
  But we also know one other thing. We know that if that water is 
sucked out of this aquifer underneath this, there is not a human being 
alive that can describe the consequences. Oh, we know they will be 
negative. We know that taking the water from underneath this and moving 
this out of a valley to help the growth of another region to move it 
out of this region and move it to another, we know that the result 
would be, at a minimum, like the Owens Valley in California where they 
dried up an entire region for the benefit of the growth of another 
region. But what we do not know are totally the consequences of 
draining that aquifer because we technically do not have the expertise 
today to figure out where all that water goes.
  And water is a sustainable resource. It is the only renewable 
resource known to man. It is the only resource that can be used and 
reused and reused and reused. It does not disappear. It recreates 
itself. And with water, one person's waste or excess water is another 
person's water. And so we have to be very careful about those water 
resources.
  We had a lot of people involved in water, a lot of water experts: 
Dave Robins; Ray Kogovsek, former Congressman; Kristine, who works with 
Ray; the Northern Water Conservancy District; Colorado River District. 
We had a number of different water experts that say this is a good 
national park, this should be named a national park. And that water, if 
ever they could get to the water, you need to leave that water in the 
valley or you stand the chance of collapsing something that is unique, 
as I said, known nowhere else in the world.
  This is exciting. It is kind of fun. You can get up there in the 
summertime actually and you are able to literally ski down there 
without skis on your feet. The wildlife is unbelievable.
  What we are hoping to do with this, by the way, and some of the 
opponents, as I said earlier, some of the opposition to this bill today 
said, well, this is nothing but a pile of sand. And I am quoting them. 
``This is nothing but a pile of sand.'' Let me tell you, on this pile 
of sand, 34 people bought the argument that this is nothing but a pile 
of sand. But 366 of you realized, and it is like you had telescopic 
eyes, you realized that this is not just a pile of sand, that these 
mountains, these 14,000 peaks, these sand dunes represent a remarkable 
geographical finding. It is like hitting pay dirt. And it is something 
that ought to be preserved. And 366 of you today on both sides of the 
aisle said this should be a national park, this should be honored by 
all Americans for all future generations for its uniqueness.
  What we know about the park today, and I could go through a lot about 
what we do know, but what we do know about the park today is a fraction 
of what we will know about the park in just 10 years. It is a minute 
fraction of what we will know about the park in 20 years. And there is 
no comparison of what we know today as compared to what we will know 
about that park in 30 years.
  And every year the knowledge we get about this park will only further 
justify, will only further justify the fact that we had enough gumption 
to stand up here despite the opposition and with the assistance of the 
U.S. Senate and with the assistance of the State House of 
Representatives, the State Senate, the Governor, and the Attorney 
General, we had the gumption to stand up and preserve it for future 
generations.
  Now, I want my colleagues to know that I am a strong advocate of 
private property. There are no takings as a result of this national 
park. There are no in-holdings in this national park that are not aware 
of this. In fact, the major in-holdings are held by the Nature 
Conservancy District.
  We have elk herds. We have elk. We have falcons. We have eagles. You 
name it. We have a lot of wildlife in this area. We have a ranch called 
the Baca Ranch. The controlling owners of that ranch want to see this 
national park, and they want the Baca Ranch to be a part of it.
  Right now the Baca Ranch is inaccessible to the ordinary person, 
inaccessible because it is private property. These owners would like to 
see it a part of the park so that people regardless of their economic 
standing, regardless of where they come from, whether it is the United 
States or Mexico or Canada or South America, regardless, they are going 
to be able to go onto the Baca Ranch and enjoy the full diversity of 
the sand dunes.
  Take a look at just the watershed resources that we have on the great 
sand dunes. I will just hold this up temporarily long enough to read 
the paragraph.
  ``The dunes watershed consists of two unique mountain streams 
originating in the pristine Alpine tundra. These waterways flow through 
ancient forests of spruce and fir. Slipping quietly past culturally 
scarred ponderosa pine and colorful aspen groves, they cut along the 
base of the tallest sand dunes in North America. They flow through the 
vast grasslands. And they end in a closed desert basin, all within a 
span of a few miles. This area, combined with the tall dunes and the 
integral sand deposits, encompass an entire system containing abundant 
diversity and special scenery. These dramatic contrasts, snow-capped 
mountain peaks and green forests above towering dunes, constitute a 
unique American landscape with scenery and diversity comparable to 
other national parks in our country and stand out as one of the best in 
the entire world.''
  That is what it is about. I want to congratulate the 365 Members, or 
365 Members because obviously I voted for it, 365 of my colleagues that 
were able to see beyond this so-called pile of

[[Page 24383]]

sand, that their vision allowed them foresight into the future and gave 
them vision into the future about future generations.
  We were just talking about health care. We talked about Social 
Security. I am going to talk for a few minutes here shortly about 
taxes. The fact is we need as leaders people who have the vision to 
look into the future.
  I think the greatest accomplishment I can have as a United States 
Congressman and I think the greatest accomplishment that my colleagues 
can have as United States Congressmen is that years down the road 
somebody will look back and say, you know, we are glad that the 
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) or we are glad that so-and-so or 
we are glad that this person had the vision to see just how important 
it was that the Ray Blunts, that the different parties involved here 
had that kind of vision. Because it is so important, because it is so 
important in our leadership role that is we provide something for the 
future.
  And in the meantime, while we have provided it for the future, all of 
us get to enjoy it. All of us can go out there. We get to run in the 
sand. We can watch the wildlife. We can hunt. We can fish. We can 
travel around and see exactly what it is. And we do it without taking. 
There is no taking it. It has to be willing seller. There are no in-
holdings that are getting taken advantage of. That is the beauty of 
this thing, and that is why 366 people stood up today despite intense 
opposition, which by the way only resulted in 34 votes, but despite 
intense opposition on a ratio greater than ten to one, the people of 
these Chambers stood up today and said, future America, all of the 
world deserves to have this as a national park.
  I can tell my colleagues I stand up here with a great deal of pride 
and honor, first of all to be a congressman from the State of Colorado, 
and, second of all, to represent the Third Congressional District of 
Colorado, and I stand up here with a great deal of honor to be the 
Congressman of the district that has America's newest national park, 
the Great Sand Dunes. And we are going to change it, no longer a 
national monument, the Great Sand Dunes National Park.
  In conclusion on the park, first of all, many of my colleagues have 
been to Colorado to the Third Congressional District. They have skied 
it. They have hiked our 14,000-foot peaks. You have rafted our rivers. 
As you know, we are famous for fly fishing, mountain biking, you name 
it, horseback riding, off-road vehicles on designated trails. We have 
got lots of things to draw you to this district. Now we have one more 
thing.
  For those of you, I want you to know that the communities of Alamosa, 
of Mount Vista, San Luis, Conejas, all of these different areas down 
there, the valley will welcome you with open hands. And study the 
history and the historical basis of the people and how they have lived 
on these lands all of these years. And you are going to walk away from 
this, you will walk away from these great sand dunes, you will walk 
away from there very, very inspired, not just by geographically and 
biologically and environmentally that you have seen, you are also going 
to walk away from there inspired to know that every United States 
Senator serving today by unanimous vote supported this and 366 Members 
of your Congress stood up and voted just today to create this new 
national park. I am proud of all of you for having done that.
  Let me move now to an entirely different subject very briefly. I 
should point out here the Colorado canyons. I pointed this out today. 
My posters are a little worn, colleagues. You will have to excuse that. 
But last night it was signed by the President. This is the State of 
Utah. This again is a big chunk of the western portion of my district. 
This is the Colorado River.
  Colorado is very unique when it comes to water. I thought I would 
spend a couple minutes and talk about water. Colorado is the only State 
in the Union where all our free-flowing water goes out of the State. We 
have no free-flowing water that comes into the State of Colorado for 
our use. And in Colorado, within the boundaries of Colorado, in our 
district, the Third Congressional District, again it is outlined by 
this blue line, within this district right here, 80 percent of the 
water in Colorado comes from that district. Eighty percent of the 
population of Colorado resides outside that district.
  So you can see that because of the tremendous water resources that 
are in my congressional district, we have lots of trees, lots of 
understandings, and we have lots of discussions that are ongoing as to 
the best utilization of that water.

                              {time}  2215

  One of those discussions that came again just like the Great Sand 
Dunes National Park, that started at a community level, was the 
Colorado Canyons. That bill was signed by the President last night. It 
was supported again on the bipartisan basis. And it protected the water 
rights of the Colorado River for Colorado people. Although I can tell 
you the water in the Colorado River, it is called the mother of rivers, 
it provides drinking water for 23 million people, including the country 
of Mexico. It is a huge water resource. We know how to protect it. But 
we want to protect our rights, too. This bill protected Colorado water 
rights for Colorado people. This bill created a national conservation 
area. It created a wilderness area up on the top. We got in our 
community everyone from our county commissioners to our city council to 
our environmental organizations to our ranchers, to just community 
citizens, to people who cared, we put all of this together. I as a 
facilitator and others as a facilitator were able to come up with this 
compromise and we call this the Colorado Canyons bill. I am very proud 
of that. Again, another accomplishment by the people of Colorado to 
protect the resources of Colorado for future generations, while at the 
same time allowing current generations to enjoy the utilization of the 
resources that we have in the fine State of Colorado.
  Let us shift gears completely and let us talk for a minute about 
taxes. I think it is very important. Because I have heard a lot of 
political rhetoric lately about tax cuts. There are some tax cuts that 
have taken place and there are a couple of tax cuts that ought to take 
place that I think when you sit down with the average American, one, 
they appreciate the fact that the taxes were cut or, two, they think 
these taxes should be eliminated. I can start out with the death tax. 
Do you think that our forefathers when they drafted the Constitution 
had in their wildest imagination that this government that they were 
creating, this new concept of democracy that they were putting 
together, would see death as a taxable event? That your death would 
result in a money-making revenue source for the government that they 
were creating? Can you imagine our forefathers thinking that as a 
revenue-raising, income-raising event for the Federal Government there 
should be a tax on your marriage? That when you get married that we 
should have a marriage tax?
  Both of those taxes, the death tax and the marriage tax, should be 
eliminated. How can you argue with that? Regardless of the impact on 
the budget. Look at the basic concept, the fundamental question. Should 
we tax the event of death? Is death a taxable event? By the way, when 
we tax it, are we not a nation that wants to encourage family farms and 
ranches and small businesses to go from one generation to the next 
generation? And furthermore ask the question, does the death tax not in 
fact discourage that going from one generation to the next generation? 
Is this a country that should be discouraging families from 
transferring their business from mom and dad to kids, from those kids 
to their kids, from those kids to their kids? What made America great 
and what makes us great today is our family, the family foundation, the 
family block. A death tax has no place in our society in my opinion. I 
do not care who it taxes. By the way, it does not just hit 2 percent of 
the population as some like to say. It hits everybody in the community. 
When that money is taken out of a local community and is

[[Page 24384]]

sent to Washington, D.C. for redistribution, and it never goes back 
anywhere close to the percentage back to that community from whence it 
came, in the same proportion, not even close. And there is a difference 
out there on this tax and there is a difference in this presidential 
election. George W. Bush has made it a commitment, he will eliminate 
that tax. And by a bipartisan vote on both sides of the aisle, 
Republicans and Democrats, although the President vetoed it, in fact 
the President not only vetoed the elimination of the death tax which 
both sides of this aisle supported, he and Vice President Gore proposed 
it actually increase this year by $9.5 billion. In their budget this 
year they actually had an increase of $9.5 billion in the death tax. 
That is a fundamental difference between the bipartisan, Republicans 
and Democrats, conservative Democrats, not the liberal Democrats but 
the conservative Democrats that supported that elimination, that is the 
difference between that team and the liberal Democrats' and Al Gore's 
proposal on the death tax.
  I am not trying to be partisan here, but let us call facts as they 
are. Let us call it as it is. Who is for the death tax and who is not? 
Who is going to stand up and be counted to get rid of this death tax? 
The same thing for the marriage penalty. That was vetoed by the 
President. By the way, there are Members, conservative Democrats and 
Republicans, who say get rid of this marriage tax. No, what you hear 
from the liberals is, ``Hey, let's tax the rich, let's transfer the 
wealth, let's move money from those who work, let's move money, let's 
transfer money, not create capital, transfer.'' It is all a question of 
transfer. The transfer agent is the United States Government. It is 
right here in Washington, D.C.
  Let me ask you this: If one of my colleagues just won the lotto 
tomorrow and you won $50 million, and you want to distribute it around 
the country, help people out, help people with health care, help people 
buy open space, help people with hardships, would you send that $50 
million to Washington, D.C. for redistribution to be handed out on your 
behalf? Of course you would not. Do you think Ted Turner or the 
Kennedys or any of those people send their money to Washington D.C. for 
disbursement? No, they create their own foundations because they know 
through their own foundations they can with some efficiency, a great 
deal more efficiency, put that money to work. It is the same concept 
with taxes. Do you think those tax dollars are more efficient in your 
pocket or more efficient in the pocket of the United States Congress 
and the President of the United States?
  Clearly we ought to have some taxes. We have to fund the military. We 
have to fund highways. We have to fund social services. We have to fund 
Social Security. Medicare, Medicaid. We have obligations. The average 
taxpayer out there does not disagree with those obligations. What the 
average taxpayer disagrees with is the lack of efficiency. The 
government waste, the size and the increasing size of the government. 
This is a distinguishing issue in this upcoming presidential race.
  Take a look at which side really has the history and has a record. 
Forget all the talk they talk about. Just look at the record. Which 
side, the conservatives or the liberals, increase the size of 
government? Take a look at the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson and 
figure out, was it the liberals who got the government to increase, was 
it the liberals who put it into the deficit for 40 some years or was it 
the conservatives? I am not talking about right-wing conservatives, I 
am talking about moderate people who say, I understand I have to pay 
some taxes but I want some justification.
  Let me talk to you about a couple of the tax cuts. There is one very 
important tax cut to every one of you and every one of your 
constituents that we in the Republican Party with the help, by the way, 
of conservative Democrats passed and it benefits every one of your 
constituents that owns a home. Probably the largest tax break they have 
gotten in their life. We passed it off here and guess what happened? 
Nothing collapsed. Washington was able to survive. No program on social 
services collapsed. No child went hungry in a school. Our military did 
not miss any planes or jets as a result of this. All the dire 
circumstances of allowing the person who made the money to keep a 
little more of the money, none of these dire circumstances of not 
letting that money go to Washington occurred.
  I hear the same kind of scare tactics today. George W. Bush talks 
about a tax reduction, a cut in the taxes for everybody, not just this 
group, not just this group but everybody. George W. Bush said the other 
day, the target ought to be everybody, it should not be a little tiny 
target based on class warfare. It should be a target for everybody. I 
will show you a tax that we made a target for homeowners which is a 
broad target. It used to be when you sold your home, if you sold your 
home for a profit, for example, you bought a home for $100,000, you 
sold a home for $350,000, which means you made a profit of $250,000, 
you were taxed on a $250,000 profit. That was what you were taxed on, 
$250,000. On a couple if you bought a home for $200,000, you sold the 
home for $700,000, you had a profit of $500,000, you were taxed on 
$500,000. That is the old regime. That is the old let the government 
grow bigger. That is the old look for anything you can to make it a 
taxable event. Tax death, tax marriage, tax an individual's sale of 
their home.
  Most people in this country, the biggest investment of their lives 
will be their home. The proudest investment they will have in their 
lives outside of their children, but physical investment will be their 
home. Where most people will spend time in their lives will be their 
home. And the government has to tax it when you sell it? Come on.
  A couple of years ago, the Republican leadership, with almost 
complete support, I think complete support from the Republican Members 
of Congress, as well as support from conservative Members of the 
Democratic Party, and granted the liberal side of the party will never 
vote to reduce your taxes. I can assure you, take a look at the 
history. You can tell that the liberal aspect, the liberal politicians 
will always want to grow the size of your government. The liberal 
politicians will always want to take individual rights and form it as a 
pool, as a group. They sacrifice the individual right to the benefit of 
the group right. They will transfer wealth, they will transfer money 
from those who work and give it to those who do not. It is just a 
liberal concept. There is a fundamental difference.
  The same thing showed up on this tax cut, this tax reduction bill. 
These are the kind of reductions that George W. Bush talks about. These 
are the kind of tax reductions that we put into place. After our bill, 
and this says ``After Republicans,'' and I have got to tell you, we had 
a lot of Democratic support, conservative Democrats, not the liberal 
but the conservative Democrats who supported this. Now, look what 
happens. Our individual, let us say Jane Adams bought the house for 
$100,000, she sold it for $350,000, she made 250. She was taxed on 250. 
Under our bill Jane Adams buys the house, same conditions, for 100, 
sells it for 350, makes $250,000 and that is her tax right there. Zero. 
That is her tax. Zero. And this is now law.
  Even in the old days under the old regime, you only got one tax break 
in your entire life on the sale of your home and that is if you were 
older than 62 and you only got a tax break, I think up to $140,000. We 
did not just give that tax break to individuals. We said, in our 
country, most homes are owned by couples. Most homes are owned by 
couples. What are we going to do for couples? We said, hey, for 
couples, we double it. If you have got a couple, we are going to allow 
the first $250,000, the first $250,000 per person to be tax free. So if 
you live in a home, and most of us live in homes that today have 
appreciated. In other words, they are worth more today than they were 
when we bought them. That is called profit. I am not talking about 
equity. I am talking about profit. Most of us live in homes where if we 
sold the home, we could sell it for a profit. Under the old regime, 
money would have come out of

[[Page 24385]]

your pocket and sent to Washington, D.C. simply because you sold your 
home. That is the only reason that money would be taken out of your 
pocket and sent to Washington, D.C., simply because you sold your home. 
We changed that. When we changed it, now when you sell that home for a 
profit up to $250,000 per person regardless of your age, renewable 
every 2 years, that money goes in your pocket for redistribution in 
your community instead of going out of your pocket to Washington, D.C. 
for redistribution in the bureaucracy that Washington uses it for.
  You should have heard the cries back then. Just like I hear today 
when George W. Bush talks about a modest tax reduction for everybody, 
you hear these scare tactics: ``Oh, my gosh, we're going to have the 
deficit tomorrow. School children won't get lunches. We're not going to 
get medical care. It's going to cost us.''
  Look at what happened. It is the same thing when we reduced the 
capital gains tax, which again with the help of conservative Democrats, 
again no help from the liberal Democrats, but we did get help from the 
conservative Democrats and the Republicans, we reduced capital gains 
from 28 percent to 20 percent. We had the same scare tactics out there. 
Oh, my gosh, the sky is falling. Reducing taxes on the American people? 
What a disaster. How could the Republicans and the conservative 
Democrats even possibly envision a tax reduction? It will destroy the 
country. Lowering capital gains from 28 percent to 20 percent, boom, 
the economy went up. Just like that. More tax dollars came in. You 
lowered the taxes, you had more economic activity, you had more 
creation of capital and your economy shot up like a rocket and we have 
been enjoying that for 3 or 4 years now since the reduction of capital 
gains.

                              {time}  2230

  Same thing on this. Did the sky fall in when people started to keep 
the money they made on the sale of their house? Did the sky fall in 
because the money individuals, regular working folks out there, because 
the money they had they made on the sale of their house did not come 
back to Washington, D.C., was not redistributed by Washington, D.C.? 
Did the sky fall in as a result of that? No, of course it did not.
  We now have more than any other time in history greater homeownership 
by a larger population than ever in the history of this country. Our 
economy has improved. It did not go down. The sky did not fall in.
  So when I hear these people out there talk about scare tactics 
because George W. Bush has the courage to stand up and say, look, it is 
easy to criticize. It is easy to envision that Washington, D.C., ought 
to be managing our money instead of us. We earned it. Washington did 
not earn it. We earned it. It is amazing that these scare tactics seem 
to be working out there. That somehow a tax cut, allowing the person 
who made the money to keep a larger percentage of that money to reduce 
the size of government, the sky is going to fall in.
  Not being presumptuous, but if George W. Bush is fortunate enough to 
be elected President, we are going to see a tax cut not for a targeted 
group of people, not for the low income or the high income, but for 
everybody. And we are going to see a tax reduction that benefits the 
economy. Just like when the Republicans took capital gains and dropped 
it from 28 percent to 20 percent; just like when the Republicans took 
this tax on the sale of a home and reduced it for the first $500,000 
for a couple to zero. Let Americans keep that amount of money in their 
pocket and renew it every 2 years, we will see an economic resurgence.
  We are going to see a healthy economy because the fact is the more 
dollars we allow our citizens to keep, the dollars which they worked 
for, the stronger our economy will be. If we take a look, and by the 
way the Wall Street Journal has done splendid editorials on this, if we 
take a look at the three or four major tax reductions this last century 
in our government and take a look at what happened to the economy after 
that tax reduction, we will find that in every case, no exceptions, the 
economy improved. The economy was strengthened, and we actually had an 
economic boom which followed every one of those.
  Why? Because the person that makes the money has a deeper 
appreciation for the money and is wiser in the utilization of that 
money than is the bureaucracy of Washington, D.C., which does not have 
to work for the money. It is simply getting their money by transfer. 
Our constituents get their money by work. They go out and create 
something and work and offer a product, they offer something of 
benefit. They create that capital. In Washington, we do not create 
capital. We get our money by transfer. We reach out to the people who 
work. We reach out to the people that create a profit, and we suck that 
money out of their pockets by transferring it to ours.
  As a result of that, since the government did not have to work for 
the money, the government tends to be much less efficient, much 
sloppier, could care less in many circumstances how the dollars are 
spent, and we could show example after example of government waste, 
than does the individual.
  The individual, that young man or young woman or that person, middle 
age or seniors that went out and spent their working day putting that 
money in their pocket, at 5 o'clock they get off shift and go home, 
they are very careful about how they spend their money. They watch 
their budgets. They try not to waste their money and they manage it. 
The taxpayer knows how to manage the money much better than we do in 
Washington, D.C.
  What happens? The consequence of what I am saying, what happens when 
we allow the taxpayer to keep a few more dollars in their pocket and 
the government reduce its size and take the dollars that are absolutely 
necessary but no more? What happens when we allow that taxpayer to 
manage more money? The money is managed in a much more efficient way. 
And when the money is managed in a much more efficient way, what 
happens is that the economy strengthens and it begins to grow.
  Mr. Speaker, what happens when the economy strengthens and begins to 
grow? There are more tax dollars that are originated that come to feed 
the government. It is a plus for the government. It is a plus for the 
taxpayer. It is a plus for our society.
  So when we hear these scare tactics, just like we heard the hour 
previous to mine, scare tactics about health care, when we hear these 
scare tactics about Bush's tax reductions or the Republicans, take a 
look at examples that have occurred. Take a look at the capital gains 
taxation. Take a look at this household tax, and we will find out that 
is exactly what it was. Just like the health care, nothing much more 
than scare tactics.
  Mr. Speaker, let me wrap up by saying to my 366 colleagues who voted 
for the creation of America's newest national park, let me say to those 
366, their vision will come back generation after generation after 
generation. They can be proud that during their congressional career 
this should stand out as one of the highlights. Many generations into 
the future will look back and say: they did the right thing. They had 
the vision for future generations.

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