Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his leadership on this issue. I think what is very interesting on this issue is that we are finding people from different philosophical perspectives, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Conservatives, Progressives, Liberals, Moderates, coming together and making one very strong point. And while our analysis may be different, the bottom line that we all agree on is that it is simply unacceptable that the people of the United States year after year are forced to pay by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, many of which are manufactured right here in this country.

As the gentleman from Minnesota knows, several years ago I took some of my constituents, and I was the first Member of Congress to do that, and being in Vermont we are right near the Canadian border, so we went from Franklin County, northern Vermont, over the border, and we had with us a number of women who were struggling with breast cancer, a terrible illness. They were able to purchase, and the gentleman has it right in his hands, a widely prescribed breast cancer drug called Tamoxifen.

These women could not believe their eyes when they ended up paying one-tenth the price, 10 percent of the price, in Montreal than they were paying in the State of Vermont.

Now, my view is that the time is long overdue for the Members of the United States Congress, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, to stand up to what I believe is the most powerful lobby in the history of our country. The pharmaceutical industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars fighting every effort here in Congress. No matter what the idea is, they have fought it.

My understanding now, and my colleague can correct me if I am wrong, is that they are running ads all over the country against the concept of reimportation. They are lying about people's political beliefs. They are putting up and funding phony front organizations to represent their interests. And the point to be made, in my view, is that it is absurd that year after year, when the pharmaceutical industry leads all other industries in the profits that they make, when they have enough money to pay their CEOs exorbitant compensation packages, when they have enough money to have over 600 paid lobbyists, and, my friends, there are only 435 Members of the House, yet they have 600 lobbyists, former leaders of the Republican Party, former leaders of the Democratic Party, they are besieging the institution, that we cannot walk the hallways without bumping into a representative of the pharmaceutical industry telling Members of Congress, please, do everything you can to make sure that Americans continue to pay the highest prices in the world.

The last point I would make, and my friend from Michigan touched on this issue, I happen not to be an advocate of free trade. I think free trade in the last number of years has been a disaster for American workers, et cetera. But for all of those people in Congress, a majority of people, who think that it is okay to bring in products from China, to bring in vegetables from Mexico and Latin America, to bring in beef and pork bellies from Canada, if all of that is okay, how come we cannot bring FDA safety-regulated prescription drugs from Canada, which has a regulatory system quite as strong as the FDA? I would love our colleagues to tell me that answer.

That is amazing.

Mr. Speaker, common sense would dictate, is it not far more difficult to regulate the vegetables or the beef or pork that are raised on farms and ranches, what pesticides are they using, who knows, it is very difficult to regulate, but it is okay to import that product into the United States. But when you have prescription drugs manufactured in the United States and approved by the FDA, sent to Canada, approved by their regulatory system, all of a sudden we cannot regulate it. On the surface it is absurd and laughable, and anyone who makes that case should be laughed out of this institution.

The gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) and I did a study. We requested of the CRS to take a look at the Canadian prescription drug regulatory system. We are not dealing with some Third World in Canada. What the CRS told us is that the Canadian prescription drug regulatory system almost always is equivalent to the FDA in the United States, which makes the argument that the drugs coming in would be unsafe totally ridiculous.

Mr. Speaker, I am pro-choice. I am proud of it. I have always been, and I will always be. But for the pharmaceutical industry to lie about the pro-life people just shows the desperateness as to where they are. What they are nervous about and what this Special Order is about is people from different political parties coming together on behalf of the American people and saying, enough is enough, pharmaceutical industry, you cannot rip the American people off. I think we have them on the run, and if we keep our fiber and keep working together, we will win this effort.

I want to thank the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) for his leadership efforts on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra).

There is no question that there are people in this country who are literally dying or suffering because they cannot afford the high prices that they are forced to pay in this country. It is not acceptable that an industry which is so wealthy and so profitable can continue to force Americans to suffer in that way.

It excites me that we are coming together regardless of philosophy or party to say enough is enough. I look forward to that vote. I think we have them on the run, and I think the literature that the gentleman showed is just an indication of how desperate and panicky they must be. I would say to the American people it is a sad state of affairs when an industry has to stoop to that level. I think Congress has caught up to them, and I think we are finally going to represent effectively the American people on this issue.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Chairman, let us think for a moment about what our great Nation can be and then think at the same time about the direction in which we are going. And this legislation, this appropriations bill reflects the fact that we are moving in a very bad direction. The reality is that in our great Nation, we have the capability of providing a decent life for all of our people. The middle class should be expanding, not declining. Poverty should be going down, not increasing. Unemployment should be going down, not up. We should be taking care of the most vulnerable people in our country, the elderly, the sick, the children, not seeing them exposed more and more to the dangers that impact upon their lives. We should be asking the wealthiest people in this country to help make our entire Nation great, not provide trillions of dollars in tax breaks for people who do not need it.

That is what the United States of America is about. That is where we should be going, a good life for all of our people, not extraordinary wealth for a few, the decline of the middle class and an increase in poverty. In terms of our elderly, think about what millions of elderly people are trying to do today, as we speak, in an attempt to survive on Social Security. They are trying to figure out how can they afford to pay the outrageously high cost of prescription drugs which the pharmaceutical industry imposes on us. They are thinking about in the cold weather, States like Vermont, how can they heat their homes when oil prices go up and they have inadequate sums of money. They are thinking about what happens to their family if they need home health care, if they need a nursing home. They are thinking about the pleasures that they receive, few as they may be, when they are getting Meals on Wheels delivery to their homes. These are frail people who cannot leave their homes, who every day have someone knock on the door giving them sustenance. These are people who once or twice a week go to a congregate meal program which gets them outside of the home, which enables them to socialize with their friends, which enables them to see a social worker which adds years to their lives. And then think about what this bill does and what the right wing Republican agenda is all about. What the agenda is about is to defund the basic programs in this country that protect the littlest children and the oldest people, that provide people with a basic minimal standard of living.

We have got to defeat this legislation, cut back on these huge tax breaks, and make sure that all Americans get the kind of help that they need.

Offered By: Mr. Sanders

Amendment No. 9: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Mr. Speaker, I am not really a Blue Dog.

Mr. Speaker, the Republican proposal ignores the most important prescription drug issue facing our country: cost containment and the need to end the national disgrace by which our citizens are forced to pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. If we do not pass this motion to recommit, the pharmaceutical industry will have succeeded in keeping prices high and their profits high.

This motion to recommit removes the poison pill in H.R. 1, the so- called Cochran amendment, and establishes a real prescription drug reimportation program with Canada. This provision alone, without costing the taxpayers one penny, will do more to help seniors and all Americans get affordable drugs than the $400 billion being spent by the Republicans.

Offered By: Mr. Sanders

Offered By: Mr. Sanders

Amendment No. 3: Add at the end of title I the following

new section:

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Let us be clear what this is about. This is not about saving the family farm. This is not about protecting small business. This is about over a 10-year period giving $160 billion in tax relief to the richest 2 percent of the population. Ninety-eight percent of the people get nothing.

What these folks are trying to do by running up huge deficits and a huge national debt is to end up cutting back disastrously on Medicare, Medicaid, education, and veterans' protection. No money to ease the waiting lines at VA hospitals all over America, but $180 billion for the richest 2 percent of the population.

This is an insult to the middle class and to the working families of this country. It should be defeated.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time and applaud the gentleman for all of the work he has done on affordable housing for this country.

Today we are considering legislation which encourages Members of Congress ``to participate in and support activities to provide decent homes for the people of the United States.''

I have no problem with this legislation. It would be very nice if Members of Congress worked together to build a few hundred units of affordable housing. The problem is that in the United States of America today, we have a housing crisis, and we do not need a few hundred units of new housing, we need hundreds of thousands of units of new housing. It is not acceptable for people to say it is so nice, we are volunteering our efforts.

Madam Speaker, we have children sleeping out in the street all over America. We have working families working 40 hours a week living in their cars, and Members of Congress building a few hundred housing units might make for good press releases and photos in newspapers, but it does nothing to address the housing crisis in this country.

While the affordable housing crisis in this country deepens, President Bush's proposed housing budget is 63 percent less than it was in 1976 during the last year of the Ford administration. While more than 3 million Americans will experience homelessness this year, including 1.3 million children, President Bush proposes to eliminate a $574 million a year program to revitalize public housing and recently refused to fully fund public housing operating expenses. While 4.9 million American families pay more than 50 percent of their limited incomes on housing, President Bush has proposed to block grant the Federal section 8 rental assistance program which would raise rents and jeopardize rental assistance for tens of thousands of families.

While President Bush says he supports expanding homeownership, the reality is that his initiatives have not produced a single home buyer in 2.5 years, and since the President took office, housing foreclosures have increased by 39 percent and home loan delinquencies have increased by 26 percent.

Last year the Bush administration care so much about affordable housing that they worked to defeat legislation that I introduced to provide the tools necessary to construct, rehabilitate and preserve at least 1.5 million affordable housing rental units over the last decade through a national affordable housing trust fund.

Madam Speaker, we are not going to give up. Just a few months ago, I reduced the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund, a proposal that would not only provide real solutions to the affordable housing crisis, but would also lead to the creation of some 1.8 million new jobs and nearly $50 billion in wages. This legislation currently has 200 tripartisan cosponsors, including 11 Republicans.

This bill currently has 200 tri-partisan co-sponsors, including 11 Republicans, and has been endorsed by over 4,000 groups representing labor unions, business leaders, religious organizations, environmental groups, bankers and affordable housing advocates.

At a time when 4.9 million Americans families are paying more than 50 percent of their limited incomes on housing and at least 800,000 people, including 200,000 children, are homeless on any given night, the federal government has a responsibility to correct this crisis.

If the Republican leadership and the Bush Administration truly wanted to ``participate in and support activities to provide decent homes for the people of the United States'' they would join me in supporting a National Affordable Housing Trust Fund and get this bill signed into law as soon as possible.

Mr. Chairman, I am at a disadvantage. After hearing you and the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) and I am sure the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson) soon after, there is not much that I can add to what you have said.

Let me reiterate a point that you made. I hope the viewers appreciate this.

You are a Republican, the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) is a Democrat, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) is a Republican, I am independent, and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson) is a Democrat. Two Democrats, two Republicans and an Independent. And there are a lot more of us who are not here tonight.

What that should tell the American people is that there is widespread anger, frustration and disgust with what the pharmaceutical industry is doing to the people of this country.

Three years ago, I became the first Member of Congress to take a group of American citizens over the Canadian border in order to buy medicine. We went to Montreal. The reason that we did that is, I wanted not only to help hard-pressed Vermonters, mostly women, who are having a very difficult time paying for their prescription drugs, but I wanted to help show the country the absurdity of the situation, where the same exact medicine manufactured by the same exact company is sold in Canada for a fraction of the price that it is sold in the United States.

As we have discussed, it is not just Canada. It is Europe; it is Mexico. The American people pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. In that trip to Canada, one of the moments that I will not forget is that we had women with us who were struggling with breast cancer, something I know the gentleman from Indiana (Chairman Burton) has a personal interest in. Women fighting for their lives were able to pick up Tamoxifen, a

widely prescribed breast cancer drug, for one-tenth of the price that is being charged in the United States of America. Of course, it is not just Tamoxifen; it is drug after drug after drug sold for a fraction of the price.

I think the gentleman said it well, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton), and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) made the point, too, and the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen), it seems to me we are looking at two separate things.

On the one hand, we are seeing researchers who are making enormous breakthroughs; and the result of that is that we are saving lives, we are easing pain, we are prolonging life. That is the good news. All of us here have a great deal of respect for those researchers in the drug companies and in the United States Government, in universities, foundations who are doing that work. I thank them so much for what they are doing.

But then there is another side of the pharmaceutical industry. Those are the people who sit at the heads of these corporations who are concerned about one thing alone, that is, making as much money as they possibly can. They do not lose a night's sleep if elderly people die because they cannot afford the medicine they need or if their health deteriorates.

Of the many outrages that we have talked about here, the huge amount, hundreds of millions of dollars, that floods Washington or State capitals in order to maintain high prices, there is another outrage that I do not think has been mentioned tonight. While elderly people cannot afford the high price of medicine, the CEOs and the top dogs of these companies receive huge compensation packages.

In 2001, C.A. Heimbold, Jr., former chairman and CEO of Bristol- Meyers-Squibb, ended up his compensation with $74,890,000. Not bad; but that is not all. Mr. Heimbold also received stock options that same year amounting to over $76 million. One year, one man, $150 million. Then they tell us they just cannot lower the cost of medicine so that seniors in Vermont or Indiana can ease their pain or protect their lives.

Year after year while we continue to pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, year after year the pharmaceutical industry is the most profitable industry in the country. More profitable than media, more profitable than banks. The pharmaceutical industry leads the list.

The issue here, and the gentleman has touched on this, I say to the chairman, the issue really here is will the United States Congress have the guts, and it is going to take some guts, to stand up to what I believe is the most powerful force in the United States of America.

I was interested, Mr. Speaker, to hear the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) say they have already gone down to Indiana and tried to work against him because of his willingness to stand up on this issue. If I am not mistaken, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) told the same story, that they had gone to Minnesota, as well.

The gentleman and I know that when Members of Congress fight hard for consumers, lots of money comes into a campaign, mostly against Democrats; but I am sure they will go after Republicans, as well.

What we have to deal with now is to ask our colleagues in the Congress to have the guts to stand up to the campaign contributions, the advertising, the visiting of the editorial boards, the TV ads, all that we will see, the unlimited sums of money, hundreds of millions of dollars. Do we have the courage to say no to those people and protect the American consumer?

I believe that if tonight is an example of the potential of what we can do, standing together, regardless of philosophy or party, we can protect the American people and take on this industry. I thank the gentleman very much for calling this Special Order.

If the gentleman will yield further, Mr. Speaker, I think the point the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) made and we all made is that over 1 million Americans now purchase their meds in Canada, and the number is growing every day.

The chairman and I and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson), we said to the gentleman from the FDA who was before the subcommittee, okay, you tell us you are very concerned about the safety aspect. We have a million Americans. Tell us how many of them have been made sick by receiving adulterated or counterfeit medicine. Out of 1 million people, the answer is zero.

Now, we are all going to sign or we are on a request to the GAO to do something a little different. I think that if the FDA is concerned about health and safety, they should do a study telling us how many Americans are dying or seeing a deterioration of their health because they cannot afford the prices that the industry is charging them today. I have the feeling we are going to see a number a heck of a lot larger than zero. So maybe the FDA should worry about health and safety in terms of prices, rather than hounding people who are buying affordable and safe medicines in Canada.

Mr. Speaker, the issue that we are now going to be discussing, which is the concentration of ownership in the media and the implication of more media deregulation as proposed by the Bush administration and passed today by a three to two vote by the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC, is, to my mind, one of the very most important issues facing our country.

The reason for that is very clear. Today, we have a handful of very large corporations who, to a very significant degree, control what we see, hear and read; and I think this chart tells the story, and it is a story that not a lot of Americans are totally familiar with.

When people watch television they say, well, there is CBS, there is a company called CBS. Wrong. CBS is owned by Viacom, and Viacom owns not only the CBS network but UPN Network, MTV, Nickelodeon and many other television networks. Viacom owns Paramount Pictures, MTV Films, Nickelodeon Films. They own Simon & Shuster, Nickelodeon Books, Pocket Books, Scribner, Touchstone, heavy into publishing.

Viacom owns not only television and film and book publishing, they own 180 Infinity radio stations; they own television stations. And that is the same story that we see with all of the major media conglomerates, whether it is AOL Time Warner, which is heavy into the Internet, cable TV, TV networks; whether it is Rupert Murdoch's news corporation, owning 22 TV stations, owning Fox, owning various other types of publications. Clear Channel radio now owns 1,200 radio stations. Disney, that is the Mickey Mouse company, owns ABC; they own many, many other aspects of media.

And as bad as the situation is today with a handful, it is likely to become much worse as a result of the disastrous decision, three-to-two vote, by the FCC earlier today.

In terms of national concentration as a result of this vote, a national television network, we believe, may now be able to acquire dozens of lawful broadcaster stations and control up to 90 percent of the national television market. As a result of the decision today, as we understand it, a single corporation may now acquire in one city up to three television station, eight radio stations, the cable TV system, numerous cable TV stations and the only daily newspaper.

I come from a rural State, the State of Vermont, and what we are going to see in rural America, in small city after small city, town after town, is one company owning the radio station, the television station and the newspaper; and that does not to me seem and feel like the democratic Nation that we are supposed to be, because what democracy is about and what the framers of our Constitution had in mind is a strong First Amendment, a country where people had different ideas, and those ideas clashed, and we learned from the differing points of view.

Today, increasingly, we are hearing one point of view, and that is the corporate point of view, the point of view of large multinational corporations like General Electric who owns NBC or Disney who owns ABC, who have deeply vested conflicts of interest; and we will talk more about that later.

The key issue here is, do we think it is a healthy situation for a democracy to have a handful of huge, multibillion dollar conglomerates owning and controlling what the American people see, hear and read. I think it is not healthy.

There are many conservative organizations who, like the National Rifle Association, spoke out against it; Bill Safire, conservative columnist for New York Times; Trent Lott, conservative Senator, spoke out against it. Progressives, moderates, conservatives understand and appreciate that democracy is not about a handful of corporations controlling the media.

I am now pleased to yield to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen), and I want to thank him for all of his good work on this issue.

Madam Speaker, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) has long been involved in this issue, and we are pleased to have him with us this evening.

Madam Speaker, if the gentleman from Ohio could remain for a moment on this issue, because I want to dialogue with him on something that is interesting.

I think there may be citizens of our country who think, well, yes, this is an inside-the-Beltway issue; it really does not affect me very, very much. But I want to mention to my friend from Ohio on issues that I know he and I share similar concerns just what the implications of concentration of media are.

I know that my friend from Ohio is deeply concerned about our trade policy, a policy which now has over a $400 billion trade deficit, a policy which has cost this country millions of decent-paying jobs as large corporations throw American workers out on the street, move to China, move to Mexico.

I would ask my friend from Ohio, how often has he seen discussions of the issue of the deindustrialization of America and the loss of good paying jobs on television or in the editorial pages of newspapers?

Just dealing with General Electric, the point here again is that sometimes people turn on the television and they say there is NBC. Well, no, it is not NBC. This is a subsidiary of General Electric.

For many, many years, General Electric has been an anti-union company. The fact of the matter is that if you are a member of a union in the United States today, you earn approximately 25 percent more than an American worker doing similar work who is not a member of a union. That is just a fact.

I would ask my friend from Ohio how often he has seen programs on General Electric's media or in fact any other media talking about the advantages of being a member of a union? Now, I myself have never seen a program like that. Maybe my friend has.

I think my friend from Ohio put his finger right on the issue, and that is in our country today, there are tens of millions of families who are struggling hard to keep their heads above water. These are people in my State, and I am sure in Ohio, who are not working one job; they are working two jobs, three jobs. They are working 50, 60 hours a week. They are worried about their pensions, worried about their health care situation. It would seem to me that the media might want to focus on those issues.

I have the feeling in the back of my head that truthfully General Electric is not particularly anxious to educate people on those issues; not to talk about the horrendously unfair distribution of wealth and income that we have in this country; not to talk about the fact that the United States is the only Nation in the industrialized world that does not guarantee health care for all people; not to talk about the fact that our pharmaceutical prices are by far the highest prices in the world because we are the only Nation that does not regulate the pharmaceutical industry.

So the point that I am making here is that I do not want anyone to think this is some kind of abstract, obtuse, inside-the-Beltway issue that does not affect their lives. It does affect their lives. The media, to a significant degree, ignores the struggles and the needs of working families throughout this country, not giving them the information they need.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman and some people in Seattle initiated a public meeting in Seattle.

Mr. Speaker, when people go to a newsstand and they see hundreds, if not thousands, of magazines, they say, Wow, look at the diversity of opinion. And we all know there are hundreds and hundreds of television stations out there.

I would remind the gentleman that in the last days of the Soviet Union, which was a totalitarian society, some people had the impression that there was one newspaper and one television station and one radio station. Wrong. There were hundreds, if not thousands. The only problem was that all of them were either controlled by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union or the government of the Soviet Union.

The gentleman's point exactly. All kinds of outlets; the problem is, controlled by, in that case, two institutions.

Well, we do not have two institutions, we have more, six, eight, nine institutions. But every day, and as a result of this deregulation effort, that number is going to be smaller and smaller. So do not kid yourself when you say hundreds of television stations and radio stations; ask who owns them.

I think the gentleman is absolutely right in two regards. Number one, there is enormous concern over this issue from one end of this country to the other. Just a few days ago I was in San Diego, California, with the gentleman from California (Mr. Filner), who held a public meeting on this issue, and the problem was, he had rented a hall that could only seat 200 people and 400 people showed up, so half of the people had to be outside listening to the meeting via speakerphone.

We held a meeting outside of Burlington, Vermont, we are a small city in a small State, and we had 600 people come out to hear Michael Copps, who has been one of the courageous commissioners on this issue, traveling all over the country.

There is massive public concern, and your point earlier about the outrage that, on an issue of this significance, Mr. Powell did not have public meetings all over the United States; and if he had, no question, based on your experience and my experience, hundreds of thousands of Americans would likely have come out to say, No, we believe in a democratic society, and a handful of people controlling the media is not what a democratic society is all about. I suspect he knew that, which is why he held one public hearing in the daytime in Richmond, Virginia.

I yield to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. Speaker, there is another aspect of this issue, and that is the aspects of localism. Vermont is different from Oregon, and we should pride ourselves on our differences and not see us become homogeneous. From 1981 to 1989, I was the mayor of the city of Burlington, Vermont, and when I

was mayor, there were four or five local radio stations who covered the news. We would hold a press conference, and there would be four or five takes on what we said. Now, if we are lucky, there is one radio station covering the news, and that phenomenon has gone on all over this country.

I remind my friends and colleagues that as a result of the deregulation decision today, there will be hundreds of cities and towns in America where there will be one company owning the local TV station, radio station and newspaper; and if anyone thinks that is not a dangerous situation, I would strongly disagree with that person.

I would point out, my friend mentioned Clear Channel, which was the company that really sprouted after radio deregulation in 1996 and now owns some 1,200 radio stations. It is important to recognize that Clear Channel not only owns radio stations; they own a lot more. Clear Channel is the largest concert promoter in the country, selling 66 million tickets in 26,000 events in 2001. Why is that significant? It is significant because if you are an entertainer promoted by Clear Channel, obviously you are going to get a lot more air time on their radio stations than somebody who is not. You could be the greatest singer in the world; but maybe if you are not promoted by Clear Channel, you might not get the opportunity to appear on those radio stations.

So I think the issue here is like anything else. We are living in a country where fewer and fewer large corporations own more and more of our Nation. That is a bad situation in general; but I think what we recognize when it comes to the media, it is not just bad from an economic sense in terms of stifling competition; it is bad in what it does to the clash of ideas and diversity of opinions.

We have heard from people, for example, who are involved in African American broadcasting, and what they are saying is they are losing their stations being bought out by the large conglomerates. The same is true with Latino stations. Again, fewer and fewer large companies, homogeneous-type broadcasting one end of the country to the other, fewer ideas for the American people.

I would just pick up on that point from my friend from Washington. If there is anything good about what has happened in the last few months, what has been good is that more and more people are now aware of what is happening in this issue than was previously the case. As my friend from Washington indicated, we are going to be introducing probably several pieces of legislation not only to undo the damage of today's decision but to create a situation in which we improve upon what existed yesterday.

My friend mentioned earlier that hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people, progressives, moderates, conservatives, people in the NRA, people in the conservative President's Parents Television Council, people from all across the political spectrum have communicated with the FCC to the tune of some 750,000 communications. Yet despite the fact that the communications were overwhelmingly in opposition to more media deregulation, the FCC moved in that direction.

My friend might be interested in knowing, why does that happen? How does it happen? I would point out one of many reasons and that is the power which is not limited just to the FCC but the power that the industry has over the regulators. Sometimes people think that the regulators regulate the industry. In truth, given the role that money plays in Washington, more often than not it is the industry that regulates the regulators. The Center for Public Integrity recently reported

that over the last 8 years the FCC took staff and members on some 2,500 junkets that were paid for by the industry. Industry paid for trips for FCC commissioners and top staffers to be flown to hundreds of conferences, conventions, and broadcast industry events in Las Vegas, coincidentally Las Vegas, 330 trips to Las Vegas for FCC members and staff, New Orleans, New York, London, San Francisco, Miami, Anchorage, Palm Springs, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, all over the world. The industry was paying for the visits and the travel done by the members of the commission and the staff.

I would say to the 750,000 people who communicated with the FCC, the 750,000 people who said do not deregulate the industry more so that a tiny handful of companies will control what we see, hear and read, I would say to those people and to the Members of Congress not to give up on this issue. We suffered a setback today which was not unexpected. I think we all knew what was going to happen. But the fact that so many people from the State of Washington or the State of Oregon or the State of Vermont and all the States in between, that so many people are now aroused about this issue, are upset at what happened, are going to fight for a more democratic media, is a positive thing.

Clearly now the ball falls to the people in this Congress to undo the damage done by the FCC. I know that I will be working with my friend from Washington and my friend from Oregon and people from all political points of view to undo the damage done today so that we create a media that we are proud of, where the American people become not just the best entertained people in the world but the best informed people, where the media gives our democratic society the ideas and the information that people need in order to make informed decisions in a democratic society.

We have got our work cut out for us. I have not the slightest doubt in my mind that the vast majority of the American people stand with us and do not want to see a few corporations controlling the media, and our job now is to take that support and to convert it into strong legislation.

I thank the gentleman from Washington and the gentleman from Oregon for their very thoughtful remarks. This is an issue of huge consequences. We have got to go forward together to undo the damage done today.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the subject of my Special Order this evening.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, my friend says it cuts taxes for almost everybody. The last tax proposal the gentleman brought up here gave as much in tax breaks to the richest one-tenth of 1 percent, those people who are millionaires, as to the bottom 89 percent

of the people. Does my friend think that is fair?

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

I thank my friend for yielding. I appreciate that.

Here is my question. The Wall Street Journal poll today showed massive opposition to this tax proposal and that more than half of the American people, 55 percent, said they would prefer the government to spend more money on health care coverage. The people want health care. They want Social Security.

Can my friend respond to that?

But he is still losing. The polls are very clear. The people want health care and Social Security.

I thank my friend for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is a fraud. It will do devastating harm to this country. It is an embarrassment that the Republican leadership brings it up, and it should be defeated.

Mr. Speaker, point number one. This bill is grossly unfair. My Republican friends, it is not the millionaires and billionaires who are struggling. It is the middle class. It is working families who are struggling. Yet your bill gives $93,000 a year in tax breaks to the millionaires, but 36 percent of the American people get nothing, and 53 percent of the households would receive a tax cut of under $100. So the people who need the help get nothing; the millionaires get the lion's share.

Number two. When you give hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks, you endanger the middle class. This will lead to drastic cutbacks in education, in Medicare, in Medicaid, in Head Start, in the programs that working families depend upon. Shame. Cutting back on education and Head Start to give tax breaks to billionaires.

Number three. What a legacy to leave to our children and grandchildren. The national debt now is almost $6 trillion, huge debt payments every single year. Your tax breaks for the rich will drive the national debt up by several trillion dollars. What a gift to give to our grandchildren.

Fourth point. You talk about creating jobs. That is what you told us 2 years ago when you brought forth your tax breaks for the rich. You told America it was going to create jobs. In the last 2 years, we have lost 2 million jobs after your tax breaks for the rich. This proposal will do nothing more. If you want to create decent-paying jobs, build affordable housing. Protect workers right now who will lose their jobs at the State and city levels. Tax breaks for the rich do not create jobs.

Lastly, and maybe most importantly, the American people are seeing through this fraud. The Wall Street Journal/NBC poll says today nearly two-thirds, 64 percent, of the people who were polled said there were better ways to boost the economy than tax cuts. Only 29 percent said tax cuts were the answer. These guys say, big government, terrible, terrible.

What you are really saying is you do not want the elderly to have prescription drugs. You do not want the kids to have an education. That is what you mean when you rant and rave against the government.

But here is what the people say. Fifty-five percent said they would prefer the government to spend more money on providing health care coverage, compared to 36 percent who said no.

Mr. Speaker, in my view the issue that I and some of my colleagues are about to discuss, which is concentration of ownership in the media and the implications of more media deregulation as proposed by the Bush administration and FCC Chairman Michael Powell, is one of the very most important issues facing this country. One of the ways that we can know how important this issue is is precisely by how relatively little media attention has been paid to it. The growing concentration of corporate ownership of media in the United States is in fact one of the least discussed major issues in this country because the media itself is in a major conflict of interest and chooses not to discuss it.

As bad as the situation is today, and when we examine this chart we will find out how bad it is, how few major multinational conglomerates like Viacom, AOL Time Warner, Disney, Clear Channel, News Corporation and a few others, to what degree a few major corporations control what we see, hear and read, as bad as it is, it is likely to become much worse, much more dangerous for the future of democracy in this country if, as is proposed on June 2, the FCC votes for further media deregulation, regulations that have been on the books for years to protect localism, to protect diversity of opinion, to protect the clash of ideas.

Needless to say, there are many people and many organizations all across this country regardless of political orientation who are strongly opposed to changing these regulations and who do not want to see more media consolidation in this country. Millions of Americans do not want to see the handful of corporations who determine what we see, hear and read become three, become two, become one perhaps as a result of mergers and takeovers. These groups range across the political spectrum from progressive groups to conservative groups. According to the Associated Press yesterday, and I quote, ``The National Rifle Association joined the ranks of consumer groups, musicians, writers and academics who oppose easing the restrictions.

``The NRA asked its members to write Powell,'' that is the FCC Chairman, ``and lawmakers in support of the existing rules, said Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's executive vice president.'' Quote from Mr. LaPierre: ``These big media conglomerates are already pushing out diversity of political opinion.''

Further, we have heard recently from organizations representing black broadcasters and Latino broadcasters. We have heard from musicians. We have heard from a wide spectrum of people who say what America is about is freedom, and we cannot have freedom if we do not have a clash of ideas. And it will be very dangerous for this country when a tiny number of multi-multibillion-dollar international conglomerates own virtually all of our newspapers, all of our radio stations, all of our television stations, all of our book publishing companies, all of the companies that produce the films that we observe.

At issue now is the FCC's review of rules that seek to protect localism so that back home they will have local news, that there will be a local radio station telling them what is going on in their community, that will preserve competition and diversity. These rules, among other things, currently limit a single corporation from dominating local TV markets. Do people want to live in a community where all of the local television stations are owned by one company? These rules that we have in place right now will prevent the merging of local television stations, radio stations, and a newspaper. Do people want to live in a community where one company owns their local TV station, owns the newspaper and owns radio stations? Do they think they are going to hear different points of view when that happens?

These regulations deal with the merging of two major television networks so that we will have just a few networks controlling all of the TV stations facing our country. Honest people might have differences of opinion on this issue, but one would think that there would be massive amounts of public discussion all over America. I can tell the Members that in my small State, the State of Vermont, which is one of the smallest States in this country, we recently had a town meeting on this issue, and 600 people came out to hear FCC Commissioner Michael Copps talk about that issue. We should be having town meetings like that all over America, and in my view and in the view of many of us in Congress, the FCC should delay making any decisions on June 2 and let the American people get involved in the process.

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege now to yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) who has been very active on this issue. I thank the gentlewoman for being with us.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman.

Before I yield to the gentlewoman of Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), I want to just emphasize a point that the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) just made. I think sometimes when people turn on a television or they pick up a newspaper, they say, well, a company owns this newspaper, and a lot of companies put out different newspapers, different types of television stations, and so forth and so on. What people are not aware of is the degree, the number of separate companies that one large corporation owns.

Let me start off with an example and go to Viacom. I suspect that most people have never even heard of Viacom. Who is Viacom? What is Viacom? So let me tell the Members a little bit about Viacom. Viacom is a huge multinational corporation that owns TV stations, radio stations, TV networks, and many other media outlets. For example, this is just Viacom, just Viacom. When we turn on CBS network, that is Viacom. We turn on the UPN network, Viacom. MTV, Nickelodeon, TV Land, CMT, TNN, VH1, Showtime, Movie Channel, Sundance Channel, Flick, Black Entertainment, Comedy Central. One would think they are watching different companies. They are not. That is Viacom.

They get off the TV now, drive into work, turn on the radio. There are 180 Infinity radio stations owned by Viacom.

What about local television stations? We have got the big CBS. What is about the local television stations? They must be locally owned. Wrong. We have 34 stations that Viacom owns in Philadelphia, in Boston, in Dallas, in Detroit, Miami, Pittsburgh, among other places.

They are in radio. They are in television. But at least when I go from the movies I am getting away from this corporation, right? Not quite. When we watch Paramount Pictures, it is Viacom. MTV Films, Viacom. Nickelodeon, Contentville, the Free Press, MTV books, Nickelodeon books, Simon & Schuster.

I am into music now. That is not Viacom. Wrong. Famous music publishers: Pocket Books, Viacom. Star Trek franchise; Scribner's Publishers, Viacom. Touchstone, Spelling Entertainment, Big Ticket TV, Viacom Productions, King World Productions, all one company. One company. And they say it is not enough. We do not own enough media. We need to own more media. Break down the regulations so we can own more television stations, we can own more book publishing companies, and so forth. A very dangerous trend.

Now it gives me a great pleasure to yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), clearly one of the outstanding Members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

I am assuming you were prepared to pay for that ad?

What we have now, and I think people should be aware of this, is it a bad situation when the media does not provide adequate coverage for different points of view, and that is what we are seeing. What the gentlewoman is saying is that when individuals want to buy time at the going rates, they are not even allowed to do that. That is an outrage, that is unacceptable, and we are seeing more and more of that.

If I like your point of view, you can buy an ad on my radio station; if I do not, sorry, we do not want your money.

If I could interrupt for a moment, we are a Nation which, as I think everybody knows, is pretty equally divided. The last election, Mr. Gore and Mr. Nader received somewhat more votes than Mr. Bush and Mr. Buchanan. Congress is almost equally divided. The Senate is almost equally divided. Polls show a certain number of people are Democrats, an equal number are Republicans, and you have a lot of independents out there. This is not an extreme right-wing country. It just is not.

I would ask people to think for a moment about the phenomenon of talk radio. In a Nation which is divided pretty equally politically, people on the left, people on the right, let me just mention the folks who are on talk radio: Rush Limbaugh, G. Gordon Liddy, Oliver North, Sean Hannity, Armstrong Williams, Blanquita Collum, Michael Savage, Neil Boorts, Bob Grant, Bob Dornan, Michael Medved, Michael Reagan, Matt Drudge, Laura Schlesinger, Don Imus, Michael Graham, Ken Hamblin, Laura Ingraham, and many, many others.

What do they have in common? They are all extreme right wing.

And now let me read you the names of the progressive voices.

That is it. There are not any. There are not any. Liberal voices, virtually none.

Now, how come in a Nation in which more people voted for Gore than for Bush, there are no national voices speaking for working families, speaking for the middle class, speaking for the environment, speaking for women's

rights? No voices. I am not talking about a minority; I am talking no voices.

Is that an accident? Well, as the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) was saying, I do not think it is an accident. I think one has to be very naive not to see the connection between the large corporations who own the media, their desire for lower taxes for the rich, their desire to take American jobs to China, where people are paid 20 cents an hour, their anti-unionism, their lack of respect for the environment, and the fact that talk radio is dominated by these right wing forces.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for all of her efforts on this issue. I think her appeal is exactly right. Why should the American people not be able to participate in this debate?

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

Mr. Speaker, after being begged to do that.

Mr. Speaker, if I might, I would mention to my friend that the FCC has a Web site that people can currently e-mail to, and the overwhelming majority of people who are contacting the FCC are saying, do not go forward with more deregulation, which I find interesting. And the gentleman's point is well taken. I think that there would be tens of thousands of people from California to Maine coming out to these hearings if they had the courage to meet the people rather than just talk to the big corporate bosses.

Mr. Speaker, before I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson), I want to touch on another aspect of this. People may say, well, this is outside the Beltway. Maybe Members of Congress are complaining, they did not get a good story, they are angry about their lack of courage. That is not the issue here.

The issue here is that in a democratic society, we do not know what goes on unless all issues of importance are discussed. It is not whether somebody gets a good story or whether they are on TV or not; it is whether whole segments of American life get the discussion that they need.

Now, we know, we know that we have seen everything that we ever wanted to see about Michael Jackson, about all the other scandals that we have heard about. But here is an issue that gets very little discussion.

We have been told that with all of the explosion of technology, with the global economy, with the use of computers and e-mails and faxes, what we are told, which is true, is that the productivity of the average American

worker has substantially increased. That is the good news. The bad news is that the tens of millions of Americans today, despite the increase in productivity, are working longer hours for lower wages. The reality is that in America we have lost several million jobs, decent-paying jobs in the last few years because of a disastrous trade policy where companies are throwing American workers out on the street and running to China. Have we seen much discussion about that on the TV? in the newspapers? I do not think so.

The reality is, the middle class in this country is shrinking. The rich are becoming richer. The richest 1 percent own more wealth than the bottom 95 percent. How does that touch into the media? What the media does, to a large degree, is deflect attention. Here is a scandal, we hope you get involved. Here is a ball game, maybe you are interested in that. But do not worry if your job goes to China; do not worry if the minimum wage has not been raised in years and you are making $5.15 an hour. You do not have to worry about that. Do not worry if a pharmaceutical company has contributed tens of millions of dollars to the Republican Party so you end up paying the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. You are too dumb to worry about that. We have another scandal for you.

So the issue does relate to the lives and well-being of every American in our country. We have a right. We are not stupid people. We believe in democracy. We understand honest people have differences of opinion, but we want to be able to discuss the most important issues facing the middle class, facing working families. And we are not able to do that because of the enormous conflicts of interest that exist between these very, very large corporations.

And I thank the gentleman for his efforts.

Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson) is courageous and active on this issue, and I thank her for being with us.

Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on a point that the gentlewoman made. She mentioned Clear Channel; and some people say yes, well, Clear Channel is a radio network, but they are much more than a radio network. And the point that I am trying to make and that all of us have been trying to make today, getting back to this chart, is that a handful of giant media conglomerate corporations are owning more and more of what we see, hear, and read; and this is not what a democracy is about.

I would remind my colleagues in Congress and all Americans that in the last days of the Soviet Union, which was a totalitarian society, people thought, well, I guess they had one newspaper and one television network, and that was it. It was a totalitarian society. That is wrong. There were dozens and dozens and dozens of different newspapers, different magazines, different television stations, all over the totalitarian Soviet Union. The only problem was that all of those television stations, radio stations, newspapers, and magazines were only controlled by either the government of the Soviet Union or the Communist Party. Many, many different outlets, but limited ownership. What we are seeing here is many, many outlets and increasingly fewer owners.

Let me say a word about News Corporation; people probably do not know. What is News Corporation? Well, it is owned by a gentleman named Rupert Murdoch, who was born in Australia, part of a newspaper publishing family in Australia. News Corporation today owns much of the media in Australia. Big deal. Well, they also own much of the media in the United Kingdom. They own a lot of the media in Eastern Europe. They are increasingly owning more media in China. And guess what? They already own a whole lot of media

and other companies in the United States, and they want more.

So what you are looking at is one man who happens to be a right-wing billionaire controlling huge amounts of media all over the entire world, which makes him, in fact, one of the most powerful people in the world.

In the United States, news corporations owned by Mr. Murdoch, 22 television stations, including stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Washington, Minnesota, Houston, Orlando and Phoenix. He owns the Fox Broadcasting Network. He owns Fox News. He owns Fox Kids, Fox Sports, the Health Network, the National Geographic. He owns TV Guide. He owns the TV Guide Channel. He owns Fox Sports, radio, the Golf Channel. He also is not content with broadcast media. He happens to own the New York Post. And this is really a small number of what he owns. He owns the Times in London, one of the leading papers in the United Kingdom. He owns the Sun in the United Kingdom, one of the large circulation tabloids there. He owns the News of the World. He owns the TV Guide Magazine in the United States. He owns a conservative magazine called the Weekly Standard.

But that is not all that he owns. He owns Harper Collins, one of our major publishing houses. He owns Regan books. He owns Amistad Books. He owns William Morrow and Company. That means if you want to get a book published, you have got to go through these guys.

Not only that, he has tremendous impact on sports in America. People say, I do not care about books, but I really am interested in sports. Well, he happens to own or at least be part owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Los Angeles Kings, the Los Angeles Lakers, the New York Knickerbockers, the New York Rangers.

Well, I am not interested in sports, but I am interested in music. He owns Festival Records. He owns Mushroom Records, and he owns much, much more.

Now, the point here is it is not just Mr. Murdoch and news corporations. I have talked about Viacom before. It is not just AOL- Time Warner. It is not just Disney. It is not just Clear Channel. It is a handful of corporations that control more than you think they do, and the end result of that is that entire issues of great concern to the American people are not discussed at all because these guys really are not interested in discussing it.

I read recently that Mr. Bush's proposal for $720 billion in tax breaks is gaining support in America. Well, I can see why: Because there has been relatively little opportunity in the media for those of us who disagree, who think that it is a bad idea that the richest \1/10\ of 1 percent get as much in tax breaks as the bottom 89 percent. How many people know that? How many people know that as a result of that budget, there will likely be cutbacks in Medicaid, Medicare, veterans needs, education, environmental protection? Because if you give away all of that money, you will have less for the needs of working families and the middle class.

How many people know that if you do that huge tax break, you are going to end up with a $10 trillion national debt that we are leaving to our kids and our grandchildren? Not a whole lot of discussion about that because Mr. Murdoch and the guys who make tens of millions of dollars a year want tax breaks for the rich. They want the American taxpayer to subsidize them, to give them billions of dollars in corporate welfare.

Do you think General Electric, which owns NBC, is going to be talking about all the welfare that General Electric gets through its nuclear power efforts? Maybe, but I do not think so. Do you think that General Electric, which owns NBC, will be talking about all the jobs that GE destroyed in the United States, all the American workers they threw out on the street as they moved to Mexico and China? I do not think so.

So this issue is not some kind of inside-the-Beltway abstract issue. It gets to the heart and the soul and the core of what America is about, and that is if we are to remain a democracy where honest people have honest differences of opinion, we have got to get all of the information. We cannot have a handful of conglomerates who have their own special interests determining what we see, hear and read. And that is why, just to recapitulate what all of my colleagues who have been up here have said, it is enormously important that on June 2 the FCC does not go forward and further deregulate the media so you will end up with even an even smaller number controlling what we see, hear and read.

At the very least, Mr. Powell has got to stop the process. He has got to have public hearings all over America. We need studies to understand what this will mean, what more deregulation will mean to the quality of American democracy, what it will mean to the ability of communities to get local news, what it will mean to small businesses and the ability of small businesses to function within the media area.

This is an enormously important issue. I would hope that anyone who needs more information about this can go to my website at Bernie.House.gov.

I hope that more people will get involved in this extremely important issue. I want to thank all of the Members of Congress who have been here today.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) for yielding me the time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this rule. Yesterday I requested that two amendments be allowed, neither one of which was accepted.

Mr. Speaker, I first became involved in the issue of pensions in the State of Vermont when hundreds of employees of IBM contacted my office because one day they learned that the promises that had been made to them in terms of their pension benefits was simply being pushed under the rug and being dismissed; that, in fact, the company had converted from a defined benefit pension plan to a so-called cash balance benefit plan; and that for many of the older workers, their benefits would have been reduced by up to 50 percent. People that had worked at the company for 20 or 30 years wake up one day and say, sorry, forget everything that we told you, because we are going to cut your pension benefits by up to 50 percent if you are an older worker.

It turned out it was not just IBM, but companies all over this country. In Vermont IBM workers fought back. We had a town meeting with some 7- or 800 workers coming out, spread all over the country, and IBM had to rescind that proposal. But the reality is that the Bush administration has now come up with an idea that would make it easier for companies to slash the pensions of their workers by moving to cash balance programs.

My amendment would do a very simple thing that some good companies have already done. Kodak has done it. Motorola has done it. To some degree IBM has done it. CSX, John Snow, Treasury Secretary's company has done it, and that says that if one is an older worker working for the company for at least 10 years, or they are 40 years of age, they will have the choice about which proposal they will take, and older workers, of course, will stay with the defined benefit pension plan.

The second amendment that I introduced was a very interesting one, and I said if the Republicans think that cash balance payments are such a good idea, and we all have our pensions, why should we not go to cash balance benefits? The answer is that cash balance benefits will substantially lower the pensions that Members of Congress have. Of course, the Members of Congress will not reduce their own pensions, but they are prepared to force millions of American workers to lower their benefits by going to cash balance benefit plans. So my proposal said that if the President's idea goes forward, on that very day, Members of Congress will move to cash balance benefit pension plans as well and see the same reduction in their benefits as do millions of American workers. Amazingly enough, they did not put that amendment on the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

I rise in strong support of the George Miller-Rangel substitute, and this substitute includes legislation that I introduced last month that now has 133 co-sponsors and has been endorsed by the 35 million members of the AARP and the 13 million workers in the AFL-CIO. And this legislation is a very simple piece of legislation included in this amendment, and it says that when a company converts to a cash balance plan after promising its workers a certain pension benefit that one cannot simply, like that, cut somebody's pension by up to 50 percent.

They cannot renege on the promise that they made to that worker and one of the reasons why that worker worked at that company for 10, 20 or 30 years. I ran into this experience in Vermont when hundreds of IBM workers called me up and they said that the promise that the company had made to them was rescinded and the pensions that they had been promised were now out the window. In Vermont, the IBM workers fought back, and they fought back all over the country; and as a result, IBM partially withdrew what they did, and they ended up protecting the older workers and Kodak protected older workers and Motorola protected older workers. But the reality is that millions of American workers today are at risk in seeing huge reductions in the pensions that they were expecting.

Pension anxiety is running rampant all over this country, and if we do not pass this amendment, workers will have good reason to worry that the pensions promised to them will not be there. What this amendment says is very simple. It says that if one is 40 years of age or if one has been with a company for 10 years and is on a defined benefit plan and the company goes to cash balance, they have got to give them a choice. What is wrong with giving workers a choice and not taking away the benefits that they had worked their whole lives for? I would like my Republican friends to tell me that. Some of the good companies have given workers a choice. We should give workers a choice right here. That is the amendment that I have included in this bill.

But there is another issue that was not included. The Members of the United States Congress have a defined benefit pension plan. And the amendment that I offered said if they think cash balance is such a good idea, why do we not adopt it in the Congress? If they want to tell millions of American workers to see a substantial reduction in their pensions, why do we not do the same thing? If it is good for the workers of America, surely it must be good for the Members of the Congress. I offered that amendment. Everyone will be shocked to know the Republican leadership denied it.

Mr. Speaker, my friend said that we do not have to do anything. My friend said that it should be voluntary. What happened at IBM is that thousands of workers stood up and fought back. Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of other workers did not even know what was happening to them. They could not fight back. If the gentleman thinks that giving people a choice is a bad idea, why do the 35 million members of AARP think it is a good idea and the 13 million members of the AFL-CIO? Choice is right.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the outstanding performance of Saint Johnsbury Academy from St. Johnsbury, VT in the We the People . . . The Citizen and the Constitution national finals held in Washington, DC, April 26-28, 2003. These outstanding young people competed against 48 other classes from thoughout the Nation and demonstrated a remarkable understanding of the fundamental ideals and values of American constitutional government.

Adminstered by the Center for Civic Education, the program is the most extensive of its kind, reaching more than 26 million students at elementary, middle, and high schools. The national finals competition simulates a congressional hearing whereby high school students testify as constitutional experts before a panel of judges, and the students from Saint Johnsbury Academy performed brilliantly.

I would like to recognize Mr. Henry Eaton, the moderator for this outstanding group from St. Johnsbury Academy, and the students themselves: Ingrid Bengtson, Merril Bent, Alex Camelio, Brent Clayton, Simon Darling, Dave Goreau, John Limberakis, Ross Marklein, Caroline Milne, Monica Montany, Eric Rowe, Susannah Roy, Kelsey Stavseth, Alex Tausanovitch, and Ashley Ward.