Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, I rise also in support of this bipartisan initiative and commend the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Petri) for offering it. He came personally, at the invitation of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith), to central Texas last December and saw firsthand a variety of our pressing transportation needs with highways and public transportation, but also had a chance to see the important role that enhancement projects play in our community.

Unfortunately, there are some in this Congress, in the State transportation bureaucracies, and some of the trade associations and lobby groups who think if it is not asphalt or buying something to put asphalt on it is merely a transportation frill. In central Texas, we certainly know that this is not true. Transportation enhancement projects are, as the very name suggests, designed to enhance economic development and to enhance the quality of our lives. In our community, they have done both of those despite significant intransigence and disinterest by the Texas Department of Transportation, which has put one roadblock after another in front of our local enhancement proposals.

In Austin, Texas, for example, we have Plaza Saltillo, which would not exist were it not for enhancement funding.

Many of us will gather there soon for the Diez y Seis celebration. This has been an economic development magnet. It has had a multiplier effect for small Hispanic businesses in the area, and now we are seeing a number of developers, Hispanic and non-Hispanic, develop a wide range of residential housing in this transportation corridor. This enhancement project not only improves the quality of life for all in the neighborhoods who celebrate this important Hispanic holiday, but it has proven to be a key factor in the economic development of the East Austin community.

It is certainly true in terms of the quality of our cycling and pedestrian trails throughout central Texas. These trails enhance the quality of life. They have also become, thanks originally to the work of Lady Bird Johnson and now supplemented around Town Lake, the center of Austin where people are coming to host conferences, conventions, and business meetings. A real factor for many of our tech companies moving downtown is the fact that we have trails people can enjoy jogging and cycling on, and can bring their families to. Some of these trails, frankly, have become on the weekends, and at key times in the early morning and late afternoon, almost as congested as some of our highways.

We do not have enough of these projects to meet the needs of a growing community in terms of enhancing the quality of life or enhancing economic development, and we need more. We have had resistance at the State level already. If we turn it over entirely to the States, there will not be a dime coming to provide this key enhancement factor.

Looking at the data about transportation, there has been a significant amount of work on the revision of TEA-21 focusing on fairness and parity. The data suggests that about 7 percent of the trips made in this country are

not by car or public transportation, but by people on two wheels, on a bicycle, or walking. Yet, less than 1 percent of our transportation dollars are being committed to trail-type projects for cyclists and pedestrians. Now, that 1 percent will not be assured unless this Petri amendment is adopted. We know employers can provide parking spaces, and that many progressive employers are providing public transportation or metro passes. However, for cyclists these days the only incentive is strong legs and maybe a pat on the back. For a clean form of transportation, we need to maintain this bare minimum amount of funding under the enhancement program for cyclists to have a safe lane or trail to travel.

Our colleague from Oregon mentioned my constituent Lance Armstrong, and we were so pleased to honor him yesterday with a resolution. In his book he writes: ``I've spent my life racing my bike, from the back roads of Austin, Texas to the Champs-Elysees, and I always figured if I died an untimely death, it would be because some rancher in his Dodge 4x4 rammed me head first into a ditch . . . Cyclists fight an ongoing war with guys in big trucks, and so many vehicles have hit me so many times, I've lost count . . . One minute you're pedaling along a highway, and the next minute you're face down in the dirt.''

For Lance Armstrong, for the leadership of the Downtown Austin Alliance and many people who have communicated from central Texas, let us adopt the Petri amendment.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I understand Houston is a very special place, but is there some reason why it is so special that it is apparently the only city in the entire 50 States, in the entire United States, that has been singled out for this special treatment?

Mr. Chairman, there is a group down, I think, in San Antonio but they are just against all public transportation. They have an ideological commitment that they do not believe in public anything, I think; but they certainly do not believe in public transportation or public rail transportation. They are just against it as a matter of principle. If we had one of these extremist groups come in, could they use this as a precedent to apply to Beaumont and to Austin and to other cities across Texas and across the United States?

Mr. Chairman, we have had a referendum in the city of Austin; and by about a percentage point, a 1 percent point, the idea of a light rail system was defeated, and I am actually interested in seeing what the citizens of Austin think if this issue comes up again; but we do not have any Federal law requirement telling us if we do not approve it again that we will never be eligible for Federal funds, and in fact, we have some Federal planning funds that are in the transportation authorization this last time, and I expect there is a good chance they will be in there again. But this would be the kind of precedent that could restrict people who want public transportation who do not agree with these right wing ideologues and extremists that are against all public transportation. This would be a precedent where they could come in and interfere with the people in my district.

Mr. Chairman, if I understand the history of this, this would not be the first time that a Federal-elected official had interfered in the desire of the people of Houston, the support of the business community in Houston to get public transportation; but it would be the first time that instead of just one individual going down and interfering in it, it was written into Federal law where the full force and effect of Federal law would interfere with the will of the people of Houston.

Mr. Speaker, I am here this afternoon principally, as with our colleague the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), to honor my constituent Lance Armstrong. I join in offering hearty congratulations to a heroic American, Lance Armstrong. This proud Texan, cancer survivor, public health advocate, Olympian and now five- time Tour de France champion has captivated the imagination and won the hearts not only of Texas, but of our Nation and the world. However, I believe it is fair to say that nowhere is the enthusiasm for Lance's achievements greater than in his hometown of Austin, Texas.

We have an old French embassy from the days of the Republic of Texas there, and our relationships with France are good, so we mean no disrespect in saying that among us Austinites we refer to it as the ``Tour de Lance'' because he has had such success in representing our State and our country in this world athletic competition.

Lance was in Austin last Sunday night to be honored at the University of Texas Longhorn football game and victory, and he is honored there most every day by his many neighbors who applaud his success.

While we are proud to have Lance wear the red, white, and blue of our country and of the U.S. Postal Service team when he is in a race, we prefer to see him in yellow, when he crosses that finish line in that yellow jersey, a sign of courage, a sign of victory. It is appropriate for Lance's team to be sponsored by the Postal Service: while not faced with too much snow, despite rain and considerable heat and gloom of night, he stayed the course as a swift competitor for all of his appointed rounds.

Lance is a champion, defined not by his setbacks but by his relentless determination to overcome them. Indeed, this year's victory particularly was symbolic of the often rocky road that Lance Armstrong has ridden. Not until after a painful struggle through searing heat and a frightening crash late in the race did the true fortitude of the real Lance Armstrong emerge for all to see, a familiar grimace on his face, avoiding any obstacle in the way and leaving his closest competitors in the dust. Just as not so long ago when faced with his very steepest climb in life, Lance persevered and pushed himself to beat daunting challenges against long odds.

In Austin, we began development of the Lance Armstrong bikeway. This cross-town trail is a fitting tribute for his accomplishments, and it will be a safe route for community cyclists and pedestrians who want to get off the road when they exercise or commute to work. It is one of the examples of the worthwhile projects resulting from the transportation enhancements program this House will consider this week.

Lance has joined with those of us who are members of the bipartisan House cycling caucus on a number of occasions and has been active in promoting cycling. It is not just the people who wear a yellow jersey or race competitively who can enjoy the many benefits of cycling.

I hope the House will honor him not only with this resolution today, but by its actions in maintaining our commitment to the transportation enhancement program that will be on the floor on Friday.

Lance Armstrong also voices his concern in Austin and here in Washington through the Lance Armstrong Foundation, a foundation that he set up to encourage other nonprofits in their efforts to promote cancer survivorship. They are doing an outstanding job in Texas of raising this issue in cooperation with other health organizations here in Washington, D.C.

This Congress can pay tribute to Lance by seeing that we have the resources dedicated to cancer survivorship that are so very important to millions of Americans and adopting legislation to advance this important issue. The Cancer Survivorship and Quality of Life Act expands and coordinates the activities of the National Institutes of Health and the Center for Disease Control with respect to cancer survivorship research.

So to Lance we say thanks for your contributions to our country, particularly to central Texas, and your inspiration to children, to cancer survivors and to athletes worldwide. Congratulations on your success not only on the bike but, most importantly, for all of your successes in life. You have taught us the importance of survivorship; it is that we have so much for which to live.

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

I am pleased to join our colleagues in honoring our former colleague, Steve Horn. It is sometimes said that someone is a gentleman and a scholar. Steve Horn is genuinely both. He contributed mightily to the House and worked with people of both parties, and I am pleased that he is being recognized today.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to question these agreements, reluctant in support, not because my interest in expanding international commerce has waned over the years, but reluctant because of this Administration's consistent refusal to support a balanced, bipartisan trade policy.

Like most of its foreign policy, the Administration's guiding principle is not moderation, but arrogance. It pursues go-it-alone, one-on-one trade deals like these instead of reforming the structure that would promote more multilateral world trade.

These agreements perhaps represent a perfect fit for this Administration, whose approach toward environmental protection and worker rights ranges from conscious indifference to open hostility, an Administration that apparently views a few attacks on health and safety laws by a foreign multinational investor trading partner as more of a help than a hindrance.

All the hullabaloo that we heard this morning about these agreements is more symbolic than it is real. The economic impact of these agreements is minuscule: less than one-hundredth percent of our gross domestic product for Singapore and less than five-hundredths for Chile. Not much to crow about for an Administration whose trade policy has followed rather crooked twists and turns.

Its enthusiasm for giant subsidies to giant agribusiness corporations impedes and distorts our efforts to expand world commerce. It cannot even permit trading catfish without demanding that the catfish be called something other than ``catfish.''

And, of course, this very day, efforts are under way to deny seniors in America the right to reimport FDA-approved prescriptions from Canada.

Against this backdrop of protection for its buddies, this bill represents the crowning achievement of this Administration in trade, free trade with the important, but tiny, island of Singapore. I am not willing to say ``no'' to this modest achievement, but we should recognize that it speaks more of failure than of success.

As a model for the future, the provisions on investor protection, on workers' rights, on environmental protection are a complete failure. Those provisions are not the result of hard-fought negotiations. In the case of Singapore, for example, that country was willing to accept most anything the United States tendered on these issues. And the Administration requested just as little as possible to justify a pseudo-claim that it cared about these issues.

As a precedent, these agreements deserve just as little respect as this Administration has now shown toward the stronger, but still very flawed, U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement.

Freeing markets is very important, but so is freeing children from sweatshops. In contrast with its willingness to protect catfish farmers, the Administration is indifferent to the lakes in which those fish swim. These agreements do not guarantee that governments have the right to prevent a public nuisance like pollution of our air or water without paying compensation. The Administration is willing to protect special interests from foreign lumber competition, but not the forests that our families enjoy and the wilderness areas that are so important to our global future.

Countries should have the right to insist that electric utilities include devices that reduce air pollution, the right to limit roads into forests, and insist on replanting as a condition to investment. Expanding the investor-state language in these agreements to derivatives, stocks, and bonds raises questions about future demands for post-Enron-type accountability that may well reduce a corporate insider's short-term return on investment, even though the reform increases the security of the public as a whole over the long term. There is a great danger that these agreements will be misconstrued to facilitate challenges to all of these.

Bipartisan support for more international trade has been greatly weakened by this Administration's consistent indifference to meaningfully opening up trade to public participation. More is required than allowing a few hand-picked industry representatives with national security clearances in the back door to review documents. When key decisions are being made behind closed doors, shielded from the press, the public, and watchdog organizations like the Sierra Club, we all lose.

Reacting to its defeat in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit recently, to force disclosure, the U.S. Trade Representative audaciously began classifying documents, and the Administration issued an Executive Order blocking the public's right to know about what was happening on trade--hardly ``free and open trade'' when it is closed to the people of America, even though our trading partners know what secrets are under way.

How trade affects our water, our food and working families should not be a trade secret. America's most important export--democracy--is weakened by ``star chamber'' trade policies.

It is possible to promote more world trade, economic growth, and opportunity without undermining our environment and facilitating child labor, but only by pursuing a different course. Open government is not inconsistent with opening markets. It is the only path that will ultimately lead to our achieving that goal.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time, and I join him in this effort to see that the previous question is defeated.

Mr. Speaker, last week, America witnessed a vivid example of how tyranny can begin in this country. The same Republican leadership here in the United States Congress that has blocked the Armed Forces Tax Fairness Act, that has blocked relief for working families on the child tax credit, that same Republican leadership was so eager to thwart the opposition that the chairman of one of the committees called in the police to break up the Democratic opposition organizing some alternatives to an important piece of legislation.

This is how tyranny can begin in America, and it is certainly not unique to what happened. This is further evidence of the extremism occurring in this Congress.

It is very tied to what my colleague from Texas has been talking about that occurred in the State of Texas. Indeed, it has nothing and everything to do with what happened in the Texas legislature. Nothing, in the sense that all we were trying to do in the United

States Congress was not to walk out, but to walk into participation, just as we have done with the child tax credit, to say that working families ought to have an opportunity to get their taxes cut also and get this credit for their children.

We wanted to participate, not to walk out. So it has nothing to do with Texas in that sense, where legislators legitimately broke a quorum; but it has everything to do with what happened in Texas with regard to the misuse of law enforcement resources, of becoming a police state.

In Texas, what happened is that immediately after this lawful action by the State legislators, the majority leader of the Republican Party, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), here in the House, came out and said, call out the G-men. He opined that this was a proper matter for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, for the U.S. Marshals Service, for the United States Attorneys Office; and ever since he voiced that opinion that these people ought to be involved in a political dispute in Texas in order to advance his power grab, his political interests, we have been trying to find out from John Ashcroft how much of those resources were allocated. And guess what? We have not gotten one bit of information from them, unlike the Federal Aviation Administration, which has disclosed the truth and revised its procedures, recognizing that the FAA has a little bit more to do with air safety than advancing the political interests of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) and the Republican Party.

The Homeland Security Department provided us a half truth. They only wanted to look at one incident, not how all of their resources were used. But the Justice Department has gone them several better, by providing no truth, no answers with regard to how these Justice Department resources were misused, and that is why the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost) is advancing this effort today, because we need to know that information.

In America, our freedoms will not be taken from us all at once, but they can ebb away; and when we see police-state tactics here in the Congress, for the first time in the memory of this institution; when we see a powerful figure like the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) summoning in the G-men to use them for political purposes; when we see the Department of Homeland Security diverted from protecting us against terrorism into using their resources for personal political ends, that is something Americans should be very concerned about.

I was pleased to see the Houston Chronicle today editorialize on this very matter [``Not Police Matter: Leave Law Enforcement Out of Legislative Tussles,'' Houston Chronical, July 22, 2003], saying that we should leave law enforcement out of these legislative disputes, whether it is in Austin, Ardmore, or the United States Capitol. By following the lead of my colleague, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost), and defeating the previous question, we will advance this concern; not just fighting amongst each other, but fighting for something important.

Mr. Speaker, there is no small amount of irony that the bill in question before the committee today was H.R. 1776. The democracy that our forebears brought to being in this land requires our continual vigilance. We are reminded of the words of James Madison that there are more instances of abridgement by gradual encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpation.

Mr. Speaker, a committee chairman today ordered the police to evict Members of this Congress from a committee room on the edge of the markup. When Officer Spriggs arrived in that room,

the committee library, he was not looking for the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark). He was there, as he said, to clear the room on the instructions of the chief of staff of the committee chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means.

My friends, this is how tyranny begins. It is our responsibility to stand against a police state, to stand in favor of open dialogue rather than to permit a bill to pass with only the votes of one party and move toward a one-party state.

Mr. Speaker, this important motion to instruct conferees must be considered in context of what has happened here today and what has happened here this year. Today we have seen arrogance boil over with the order from the Committee on Ways and Means chairman to have the Capitol Police remove some of our colleagues and me from a committee room where we were attempting to develop our alternatives to pension protection for every worker in the United States. It is that same committee from which this child tax credit arose.

The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen) has made clear that one of the groups that will be most significantly impacted by the decision on this motion to instruct are the children of our military families. In fact, it is a very significant amount. According to the Children's Defense Fund, a quarter of a million children are in active-duty military families who will not qualify for this child tax credit unless the gentleman from Maryland's (Mr. Van Hollen) motion is not only approved today but followed by the conference committee.

But this is not the first time that the Committee on Ways and Means, the same committee whose chairman sent the police out after Democratic colleagues on the committee today, has shown disinterest in the plight of our military families. Indeed, there is a bill that has been sitting on this desk since March 27 of this year called the ``Armed Forces Tax Fairness Act.'' That bill passed the United States Senate unanimously, 97 to nothing. That bill would ensure that there would be no taxes applied to the small $6,000 death benefit payable to the families of those who are killed in conflict such as in Iraq, and it would provide certain other benefits to military families.

When that measure came before the House Committee on Ways and Means, proceeded to do things like stick on an amendment to help foreign gamblers who bet off track at American racetracks, to help companies that make tackle boxes, to help a variety of other special interests, and they loaded it up. And to add the final indignity, they added to that bill called the ``Armed Forces Tax Fairness Act'' a provision to grant amnesty to those corporations that renounced their American citizenship and posted their mailbox in Bermuda to dodge their fairshare taxes to pay for what is happening in Iraq and what is happening in America.

That bill, that disinterest Republicans show here against the instant bill we now consider, the child tax credit, and the fact that children in 200,000 military families have been left out by this Republican majority, by their refusal to accept the thinking in the gentleman from Maryland's (Mr. Van Hollen) motion, it is somewhat ironic that this very week when the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen) makes his motion, I understand that the United States Government has decided that it will expend money to pay about 200,000 to 250,000 Iraqi military officers. The Members heard that right. Iraqi military officers, to pay them 200,000 of 250,000 a stipend, with either our tax dollars or money they find over in Iraq, I guess.

Why not do something for the children of 200,000 of our military families who have been left out by the same Republican majority that showed the callous indifference to let the Armed Forces Tax Fairness Act sit up here since March 27? Because they want to use legislation like this to advance another agenda. And what is that agenda? It is an agenda that says if we sap the strength of the Federal Treasury enough, we can totally dismantle our Government.

We know this week that America has, even according to the White House, the largest deficit in the history of the United States, that we are headed toward a debt ceiling that keeps going up, $10 trillion of debt, and instead of targeting the relief to these military families and to these civilian families that are out there working in our hospitals, in our nursing homes, picking up the garbage, doing the dirty work of our society but working, trying to advance themselves and provide for their children, many single-mother households trying to provide for their children and work at the same time, why do those people get left out?

What the Republicans propose at this time is to add to the largest deficit in the history of the United States about another $80 billion to address the child tax credit because they say if we cannot provide most of this relief to the people that make well over $100,000, we are not going to do anything for those thousands of military children. We are not going to do anything for the person who is out working in the nursing home. They do not deserve this benefit.

The truth of the matter is it has become very clear listening to the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), the same person who called out the police today, that he is not really concerned whether this bill passes or not. He made it clear when he talked to the Wall Street Journal stating that ``there are worse things than the [child tax credit bill] not happening.'' There may be worse things than in a single week deciding to pay Iraqi military officers, 250,000 of them, at the same time we deny relief to children in 200,000 military families, but it is hard to conceive what he has in mind.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take that time.

Mr. Speaker, it is an old truism that the best defense is a good offense. We have seen that here this afternoon in a quite effective way because Republicans, unable to defend their misuse of the United States Capitol Police against Democrats meeting in the Ways and Means library, have taken the offense in what I consider a very offensive way against our colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark).

After the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark) was told to ``shut up'' by another member of the committee, he responded with an insult, perhaps not appropriate, but certainly after significant provocation. To suggest that the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark), a man of 72, surrounded by 20-plus Republican colleagues of lesser age, posed any threat to anyone is ludicrous on its face, and though it is not ordinarily done, since it has been done and incompletely by my colleague, the transcript uncorrected though it is, of the Committee on Ways and Means reflects that after the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark) was told to shut up and he insulted his colleague who made that comment, that he then proceeded to say, come on, come on over here and make me, I dare you.

The transcript then reflects that laughter occurred and that thereafter, after additional comments by the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark) that the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) declared recess is over, the classroom has been resumed.

Now some Americans and undoubtedly some commentators will be inclined to trivialize this entire incident as being mere childish behavior, with wrongs on both sides. There were no wrongs on both sides today.

The Capitol Police were not called out, as the transcript indicates, as the gentleman from California's (Mr. Thomas) silence indicates, because of anything that the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark) did, said, or implied. To suggest otherwise, indeed the suggestion of my colleague from Texas (Mr. Brady) that the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark) instigated this incident is an outrageous slur on the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark) who is a person of integrity, even though sometimes of sharply worded comments.

The Capitol Police were targeted not on the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark), but Officer Spriggs, who came into the library, indicated they were asked to clear the library where the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark) was not even present.

We cannot allow our Federal law enforcement resources to be diverted for partisan political purposes such as occurred today. Even at this very moment, the Inspector General to the Department of Justice is investigating the misuse of the U.S. Attorney's Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Marshal's involvement in tracking down courageous Texas State legislators who

made a stand against a similar partisan power grab. Just as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) called the Federal Aviation Administration to track down those Democrats, just as the Department of Homeland Security went after a cotton farmer from Texas to find out about his airplane, the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) today diverted the Capitol Police from their important work in preserving public safety here in the Nation's capital for partisan political purposes.

This attempt to break up a meeting of Ways and Means Democrats is unprecedented for either party I believe in the history of this Congress. We did not walk out as our Texas State legislative colleagues so justly did. We attempted to walk into the process, having been handed moments before a bill that affects the pensions and the retirement security of millions of Americans, Republicans and Democrats, across this country, but yet as we attempted to walk into that process and develop and present our alternatives, the police were called here in the Capitol to stop us from doing that job.

Americans who share the concern of the abuse, indeed of the extremism, of the majority need to be concerned about what happened here. It was not some fight among Members of Congress acting childish was a serious infringement on our democracy. Americans who are worried about us becoming a Nation of citizens who are supposed to choose between saying ``me too'' and shutting up, these Americans cannot afford to be silent. No party, no person has a monopoly on the truth.

Dissent is not some inconvenience in this Congress or in this country, and it certainly does not warrant calling out the Feds, whether it is the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) calling out for the G-men in Texas or the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) calling out for the Capitol Police in Washington.

It is the cornerstone of our democracy that we have dissent and differences of opinion in this country, and yet it is the strength of our democracy. We will not be intimidated. We will not back down. Too many Americans, working families who need our help, also need our voice.

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

She is certainly to be commended for the leadership that she has shown on this issue, having originally raised this entire matter before the Committee on the Budget back in February and for bringing up the matter quite eloquently and appropriately tonight.

But I would have to say in all fairness the stronger arguments for the motion have been made by the gentleman from California. He has presented compelling arguments in favor of this motion by making clear that the conference committee has not even met during the time that it has been here and by indicating that he considers any nonbinding expression by this body, no matter how many Members there might be who voice their concerns, to be of little interest to him and the members on the conference committee and by suggesting that he thinks that providing the tax credit to working families out there, some of whom are paying a quarter or a half of their income in taxes to Federal, State, and local governments through payroll and other taxes, that they do not deserve any relief.

All of those suggest the reason why we should not let a single day go by

without raising this issue to the American people. Because at the end of this month, as the gentleman told us a little while before, in an election year, thank God we do not let election year politics get involved in any other tax policy. Everybody else in the country is going to get their tax credit relief, unless they are among the 6 million working poor families in this country, and they will be left out. But thank God the Republicans are only concerned about election politics for other Americans, not for those people who are struggling to make ends meet.

The military tax fairness bill has been sitting at this desk, I believe, for 2 months; and among the families that will be hurt by failing to follow the motion to instruct that the gentlewoman from Connecticut is proposing are our military servicemembers who are fighting on behalf of this country right now in a combat zone in Iraq. Those individuals will not get the full benefits of the child tax credit unless this motion is not only adopted tonight, but implemented by the conference committee.

Mr. Speaker, once again Republicans insist on a fiscally irresponsible bill that will benefit the wealthiest and in this case the healthiest at the cost of at least $174 billion added to our already soaring national debt.

Mr. Speaker, despite the bright sunshine outside, it really is a dark day for so many Americans who are working hard just to make ends meet. This bill is the natural companion to a measure written by the same folks that are presenting this bill, which previously denied a child tax credit to poor working folks. Tax cuts, no matter what the economic conditions, no matter how pressing are the other priorities we have in our country, such as protecting our families from terrorism, tax cuts, we are always told, can cure any ill in our society, unless of course you are poor and working, in which case your kids are not worthy of a child tax credit.

Thanks to the intransigence of the House Republican leadership, there are now 6 million working American families, they are folks like cafeteria workers and teachers' aides, nursing home employees, those working at our hospitals doing the tough work, they will receive no check for their children this year like other Americans. Their bid to gain a little economic independence, to share in the economic benefits of the American Dream, it will come and go on July 4 unfulfilled because of the refusal of this House Republican leadership and their desire to go on recess not only for July 4 but to continue their recess from reality.

For these same families that were deliberately excluded from the recent tax cut as well as for many other working families, House Republicans add more insult to injury by encouraging employers to terminate or to weaken any group health insurance coverage through which some of these employees may be covered. This bill is also the natural companion to the next bill that we are about to take up, the bill to repeal Medicare as we have known it, since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it into law. We know this is not new. They have opposed Medicare since before President Johnson wrote his signature to make it a reality. Newt Gingrich wanted it to wither on the vine. Earlier this month, Mr. Gingrich declared, much as our colleagues are here today, using the very same words that they got from Newt Gingrich, that it was an ``obsolete government monopoly.''

Only yesterday we heard the same language from the sponsor of this measure: ``To those who say that the bill would end Medicare as we know it, our answer is, `We certainly hope so.' ''

``Old-fashioned Medicare isn't very good,'' said Bill Thomas, the sponsor of this legislation and the companion measure to repeal Medicare tonight.

Some of us think old-fashioned Medicare has worked pretty well for the millions of Americans that it has served since 1965, and we want to strengthen it, not see it undermined through into privatization.

The bill before us this afternoon does something very similar to what the later bill proposes to do to Medicare and, that is, to weaken, at great cost to our Treasury, our employer-based health care system. By totally excluding employees unless they are in plans that deny any assistance on at least the first $1,000 or $2,000 in medical bill coverage, this bill will encourage even higher deductibles. And it will be a struggle for a cafeteria worker to pay their first $1,000 or their first $2,000 or more-thousand under these new high-deductible plans.

The same plans will encourage more small employers to stop providing coverage at all and to protect themselves individually through these MSAs and to terminate costly health insurance for their other employees. It will encourage group health plans to reduce covered services, increase copayments.

In short, through these three bills, we see Republican indifference from cradle to grave for children, for workers, for seniors.

Mr. Speaker, since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Medicare into law over massive Republican resistance, Republicans have never ceased in their determination to end Medicare. We all remember the partner of the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who insisted that Medicare should be allowed ``to wither on the vine.'' He has been chattering again this month, that Medicare is an ``obsolete government monopoly.''

The gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) joined him yesterday by declaring, ``To those who say that [the bill] would end Medicare as we know it, our answer is: We certainly hope so.'' ``Old fashioned Medicare isn't very good,'' he added.

The gentleman may not like reporters, especially if they report, but really there is nothing new or inconsistent in this statement and many that he has made for years. He just referred a few moments ago to Medicare as ``yesterday's Medicare,'' denigrating and deriding it. ``Yesterday's Medicare,'' ``old fashioned Medicare'' has served millions of Americans pretty well.

The one problem we have with it is not the result of a defective Medicare. Rather the failure to deal with the outrageous, predatory pricing of prescription drugs has resulted from the sustained collusion of House Republicans and pharmaceutical manufacturers. We can do something meaningful about that, but this bill is not it.

What of this plan that seniors are finally offered tonight? It is basically a ``pay a lot and get a little'' plan. If you are a senior and you have been hoping and praying we would finally be able to overcome this Republican resistance and deal with prescription drugs, what do you get from this bill according to its own clear language? Well, this year you get nothing. Next year you get nothing. The year after that you get nothing. Oh, yes, you are entitled to a discount card. It is as valuable as one of those cards you pull out of a cereal box. With it and a dollar or two you can get a cup of coffee, but it does not guarantee you a cent of reduction in the cost of your medications.

Finally, in 2006 you get all their much ballyhooed help. If you have $4,900 in drug bills, and that is mighty easy to get at today's outrageous prices, you pay $3,500, and you get $1,400 paid for you, and that is only if you also pay an unknown premium, already estimated at least $35 per month. And such incomplete coverage at such a cost tells us what this initiative is really all about. This is a plan to eliminate Medicare and force seniors out into inadequate private insurance plans. This is not a prescription drug. This is a prescription for disaster.

I hope that our Republican colleagues continue holding up this poster about ``strengthening Medicare'' that they have been showing here because it looks like the type of solicitation scams that so many seniors receive weekly. Their poster shows seniors out frolicking on the beach because of all the benefits they will get, when in fact seniors will be denied the very protection they so desperately need on their prescription drugs. That is because those who are proposing this bill are the same folks, who tried to undermine Medicare from the time Democrats and Lyndon Johnson got it passed through Congress in 1965, and they have not relented until this very moment.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to place in the Record the report from NBC news correspondent Norah O'Donnell entitled ``Prescription Drug Benefit Imminent'' from yesterday's MSNBC.

Mr. Speaker, Austin, Texas is the proud capital of the Lone Star State. And we say rather modestly there that we are the live music capital of the world. We do so because of an immense amount of talent and a great interest in music in our community. But of late there has been music of a different type.

We have had the Republican majority leader, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) trying to call the tune and forcing the leaders of our State to dance to his tune. Indeed, he has spent so much time in Austin arm twisting and cajoling State legislators, huddling a week ago today with the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Speaker of Texas House, that just this past Friday he was named by Texas Monthly as one of the 10 worst members of the Texas legislature, not of the United States Congress. It is difficult to determine for which body he is devoting the most time.

Against that backdrop, we consider this legislation. The problem that we face today is that no matter how much

we appropriate for homeland security to protect us against terrorism, if its resources are being diverted to political purposes, such as fulfilling the desires of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), then we will not have the protections that the American people deserve. We know that the Department allocated some of its resources to searching for Texas legislators who were involved in legitimate opposition to the DeLay Redistricting Plan.

The Department first assigned a former Republican Congressional candidate from Texas as the Inspector General to conduct an ``independent'' investigation to decide whether the resources had been misallocated. When that gentleman, after his biased and partisan background on this matter was exposed, recused himself, and then another person was appointed, we were assured that she, as an Inspector General at the Department of Homeland Security, would get to the bottom of this.

She assured us she would explore all aspects of the misuse of the Department of Homeland Security, but then produced a report that only looked at the sole issue of the Department's inability to find a cotton farmer from Plainview and where his plane had gone. I hope they are able to do a better job with terrorism than they did in locating an airplane of a former Democratic Speaker of the Texas House. She did not, as promised, conduct a broad examination of misuse of any resources in any part of the Department. Though she told us she would get to the bottom of who required that this investigation be undertaken, she did not do that and her report is silent on whether any federal office holders or their employees were involved.

As with the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States Attorneys Office, the U.S. Marshals Service, we have received no information in response to repeated requests about how they may have been misused by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) or others in this investigation in the State of Texas. In fact, we have a stone wall and we have asked the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), well known as ``the hammer'' to tear down that stone wall. To date we have nothing but silence and excuses and stonewalling with reference to these matters.

What relevance does that have to today's appropriations request? All the relevance in the world. If the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Marshals Service or the Department of Justice can be used for partisan political purposes like this and all it takes is a call from someone with a badge, what is there to prevent a sheriff somewhere in America who wants the Department of Homeland Security to help with a divorce investigation to involve them in this? If there is a local police chief who wants to do some opposition research on the opponent of a local mayor who is up for reelection, who will prevent the Department of Homeland Security from getting involved in that? If you have a local police officer who is suspicious of a political or religious group, what is there to prevent the Department of Homeland Security from responding to his request.

Well, from what we have learned in ``Texasgate'' so far, one would say there is very little and that this episode only reinforces the concerns of many Americans that this Department, well intentioned as it may be, would bring us a new America in which the watchword is ``spy on our neighbors.'' There is very real concern about government resources that should be dedicated to protecting American families and instead could be misused for personal or political gain.

Until we get a full and complete disclosure from all the participants in this scandal, we will not have a complete answer as to whether Americans are adequately protected, and that is the purpose of defeating this motion for the previous question on this rule. In this way, we can attempt to get to the bottom of this and to ensure that the resources are not diverted from where they should be to protect our families, into protecting some political partisan who is trying to reshape America in his image.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, is the gentleman aware that the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security has not reported on any aspect of whether homeland security resources were used other than the aircraft and has specifically declined to report on which individuals may have asked that homeland security resources be diverted for this purpose? In other words, the investigation is incomplete.

Mr. Speaker, just to complete the record, it is very clear that the office of Inspector General did not explore anything other than one aircraft. They did not explore the other misuse of the response of the Department of Homeland Security; and, second, it is clear that they failed to provide or even pursue evidence on the

question of which Federal officials may have asked for this misappropriation of resources. Finally, to complete the record, history shows that it was Abraham Lincoln who was among the first to use this tactic of defeating a quorum.

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

Mr. Speaker, perhaps President Bush is wrong about this bill. Perhaps the 94 Members of the Senate who voted on this child tax credit measure are wrong, and perhaps all of the Democrats who have supported relief now, not some day, with reference to the child tax credit are also wrong, that all of us who together have supported meaningful relief that is paid for, that does not add a death tax to future generations of Americans, perhaps all of us are out of line and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), standing there along with his minions who insist on having an approach that is different than that and killing this child tax credit, perhaps they are right.

But I rather expect they are not just right, but far right, extremists and outside of the mainstream of American thinking; that those who work very hard, be they police officers, be they teachers' aids, be they home health care workers, be they the people that empty the bedpans in the nursing homes and do the hard work in our society, that they deserve a chance too. I believe that it is today, with the obedience to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) and his thinking out of the mainstream, that our Republican colleagues have sentenced this child tax credit to death, death by conference committee.

Many Members will remember that death by conference committee was the appropriate execution method used to kill the Patients' Bill of Rights, so people in this country still do not have the rights they need to protect themselves from the giant insurance HMOs that often deny them the health care they need.

Today, by sending this bill to conference, this is an attempt to kill a proposal that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) never wanted this House to consider, and today again rejects.

It means for people in Texas almost 1 in 4 families will not get the child tax credit relief that they deserve. It means 1.3 million, 1,312,000 children, will not have tax relief that they deserve; they will instead be saddled with a giant debt tax as a result of the approach that is being proposed.

Mr. Speaker, as I am sure is the case with each of those who have spoken tonight, I come to these remarks with a heavy heart, one of the more difficult remarks that I make here I guess for two reasons, both because of my affection for Al and because he is not here to help me with the speech.

As I look back over the floor, I see the spots where I would see Al sitting with John Buckley and Janice Mays and Dan Maffei, with Beth Vance and other members of the staff of our committee, knowing the loss that each of us speaks of tonight as a Member is a loss that has been suffered by his colleagues who worked with him, the closest as staff members on the Committee on Ways and Means.

But I think of the many times that I have been here when I was over there vigorously scribbling the final notes of what I might say in rebuttal to some argument I heard when Al would come over and note something that had been omitted from the debate and totally change my speech; or when having concluded that the strongest argument for our side was a particular bit of data, I would turn to Al and have him indicate that it really was not quite as solid as perhaps the sheet that had come out from one of the various groups particularly interested in the matter might have indicated and that a stronger argument was to be found somewhere else.

Al did all this with that sense of gentleness, of cooperation that has been spoken of by others here tonight. He was a remarkable individual.

Also, I still have a collection of e-mails from Al because, as others have also pointed out, Al would see some bit of contradiction. One of them I came across was one that in a simple message said I was struck by the following sentence in the President's speech last night, preceded by an analysis by Al of the contradictions between what the President said and what the President and his administration had done.

Al has provided the kind of careful insight to public policy, the kind of careful analysis of the numbers but also with an understanding of the human condition, an understanding in a life varied in experience, filled with love from his family and from his colleagues, and he brought that special insight to us so that it was not just a matter of regurgitating the numbers but of putting flesh and bone on those numbers and translating them into what they meant to ordinary American citizens in a way that few people I met here, either elected or unelected, have a capacity to do.

As I think about the tragic loss of Al, something that came so unexpectedly to all of us, to his family, his friends, his colleagues, I think that while I will add a few more specifics in my extended remarks here tonight, that I would want to reflect on Al's commitment to words like dedication, industry, loyalty and integrity and would

say that when it came to issues like retirement security, like assuring that people could get health care, like guaranteeing that there was at least a little sanity in the budget process, and I initially met Al working with the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) and with his predecessor, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Sabo), as a young member of the Committee on the Budget, on issues like tax fairness that have been so important to me personally, that Al was committed to those issues.

His tragic passing reminds us that we never know how long our tenure and our ability to serve what we view the public interest is going to be, and I think we are called upon in remembering Al to remember the causes that were most important to him and to redouble our efforts in his spirit and on his behalf to fight for fairness, to oppose hypocrisy, to stand up for what is right for the American people in much the way Al would do if he could be here offering us suggestions tonight.