Floor Statements

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

You know, I want to clear up a couple of facts. The other side has been saying this provides tax relief, reducing taxes for 10 million, millions of people. No, it's not. People's taxes are not going to go down. If this bill passes, 23 million people will not see lower taxes next year. They may not see a tax increase.

This is not about cutting people's taxes. This does not provide tax relief. This prevents tax increases on some and raises taxes on others. So let's be very clear here; what the majority is trying to do and what their new rules do is they say, if you want to bring a bill to the floor to address the alternative minimum tax, you better raise taxes, because that's the only legislation we'll accept.

What the majority is doing is they're saying, by not raising taxes on people, we're giving them a tax cut. Holy cow. That is new logic. We are simply saying, let's not raise taxes. That's it. Period. End of story.

This tax law was never meant to be. It was never designed to tax all of these people. We all agree on this. And so I find it kind of puzzling that we're bringing this bill to the floor, which we know will not pass law. The other body won't even bring it up for a vote, so it just shows how bound and determined the majority is to raise taxes, how bound and determined they are to put on this new glide path of going to taxing our economy, our society, our workers, our families more than we have in the history of our country.

They are saying, we don't like the alternative minimum tax, but we want those tax revenues. So instead of taxing people this way, we are going to tax people that way and get all this new money into the Federal Government.

Mr. Speaker, the problem in Washington is not revenues; the problem is spending. Both sides could do a better job on spending. I freely admit that. Let's focus on controlling spending and not raise taxes.

Madam Chairman, today, the House will consider H.R. 3685, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2007. In essence, the bill would expand the protections of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act that prohibit discrimination on the basis of color, religion, national origin and gender to include sexual orientation. As H.R. 3685 has undergone various iterations over the previous months, I have spent a considerable amount of time weighing the implications this legislation would have on our society as a whole. My gravest concerns lie with how religious institutions would be affected. The protections afforded to these groups by our country's founders have been upheld for centuries, and I would not support any legislation that would erode those freedoms.

H.R. 3685, however, provides explicit and concrete exemptions for religious institutions that are similar to the ones included in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Specifically, religious organizations, define as ``a religious corporation, association, or society; or a school, college, university, or other educational institution or institution,'' are exempted from complying with the requirements of this law. Effectively, where religious institutions are currently allowed to make hiring decisions on the basis of religion, this protection will be extended so these organizations can continue this practice. In addition, I feel strongly that non-denominational institutions, that is, religious institutions not affiliated or supported by a specific denomination, should be included in this exemption. With passage of the Miller amendment, H.R. 3685 will be adequately modified so that the hiring practices of non-denominational institutions are equally protected and will not be affected by the bill.

Given this, I intend to support the legislation pending before the House. I believe individuals should be judged based on merit and their ability to perform the tasks required rather than on perceived characteristics and unrelated biases.

One of the essential roles of the Federal Government is to protect the equal rights of individuals. H.R. 3685 is not a bill that grants special rights to a certain class of people. If this were the case, I would oppose the bill. This legislation simply protects the equal rights of individuals from workplace discrimination. Indeed, Congress is not alone in its attempt to end sexual orientation discrimination in the workplace. In fact, my home state of Wisconsin has had a very similar law in place since 1982. The legislation the House will consider is an extension of this type of protection. Congress has historically acted to protect workers from discrimination and I believe H.R. 3685 meets this objective.

I thank the distinguished ranking member of the subcommittee for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, if you're not going to vote for this trade agreement, you're probably not going to vote for any trade agreement that's before us.

This trade agreement is a no-brainer. This trade agreement is a bipartisan agreement. This trade agreement shows what you can get accomplished when we all work together.

This trade agreement recognizes the fact that we have one-way trade right now with Peru, and with this agreement we have two-way trade. Ninety-seven percent of all of Peru's exports come into the U.S. duty free; only 2.8 percent of our goods go to Peru duty free. This lets us send our stuff there duty free. This gives us the same opportunity to send our exports as we already give the Peruvians.

Now, what we hear often on the floor about why trade agreements are so bad, it's usually the trade deficit. Well, here is one interesting statistic, Mr. Speaker; 85 percent of the trade deficit comes from countries we don't have trade agreements with. You see, when we get trade agreements, we get good agreements for our country. We get the rule of law. We get enforceable contracts. We get access to their markets. Why is that important? It's important to get access to other markets because 97 percent of the world's consumers are not here in America; they're overseas. Ninety-seven percent of the world's consumers are elsewhere outside of this country.

We are a mature country, a fast economy, a mature economy. We have a high standard of living relative to the rest of the world. And if we want to enjoy that high standard of living, if we want to build on that high standard of living, if we want to fulfill the American Dream, which our parents and grandparents always taught us, which is, in America, you leave the next generation better off than your generation, you've got to find more markets and more consumers for our products.

We cannot possibly consume all that we make and all that we do because only 3 percent of the world's consumers are here. That's why we have to open markets; that's why we have to have access.

This is a good agreement for foreign policy reasons. This is saying to the reformers in Latin America, we're with you. This is saying to the human rights movement, to individual rights, to democracy, we are with you. America stands with you. That is so important at a time when you have a threat knocking on the door from people like Chavez next door in Venezuela.

Let me just read a few statistics of some of the recent successes of some of our recent free trade agreements with respect to our exports, which creates jobs, and how this has helped grow America's standard of living.

Since we've had free trade agreements with these countries, here is the success: Our exports to Jordan, up 92 percent; our exports to Chile, up 150 percent; our exports to Singapore, up 49 percent; our exports to Australia, up 25 percent; our exports to Morocco, up 67 percent; our exports to Bahrain, up 40 percent. Our exports are up 15 percent this year alone. That's one of the reasons why our economy grew at an astounding rate of 3.9 percent last quarter alone, because of exports. And we all know, the statistics are very clear, that exports produce good-paying jobs.

So, Mr. Speaker, this is a chance to strike a blow for enforceable contracts, for the rule of law, for worker rights in Latin America, and for jobs here in America.

Again, as I mentioned in the start, this is a no-brainer. I want to thank the chairman of the Ways and Means, Mr. Rangel, for his work on this. I want to thank our ranking member, Mr. McCrery, for his work on this. And I also want to thank the people who really sweat this thing out at the negotiating table, the people at the USTR, and our Ambassador, Susan Schwab, for all of the hard work they put into this. This is one step in the right direction. Panama and Colombia are two more steps in the right direction.

I urge adoption of this.

Offered By: Mr. Ryan of Wisconsin

Amendment No. 1: Strike title VI.

Madam Speaker, I was absent for legislative business conducted after 3 p.m. on October 31, 2007, due to a family matter that required my personal attention. As a result, I missed rollcall votes 1025 and 1026.

Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on rollcall vote 1025, final passage of H.R. 3920, the Trade Adjustment and Assistance Act of 2007.

In addition, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall vote 1026, a motion to instruct conferees to H.R. 3043, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2008.

We've got a Rudy Guiliani situation here.

Purple Halloween pails with witch decorations. We've got the Sponge Bob Square Pants Address Book and Journal. We've got the Thomas and Friends Wooden Railway toys. We've got the Go Diego Go Animal Rescue Boats. Very Cute Expressions. Children's toys gardening tools and the Robbie Ducky Kids watering can.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

As we look at this bill, which we received this morning, it still has the same policy, just a little different cosmetics. I don't think our constituents want us to vote for a bill that makes it easier for illegal immigrants to get tax-paid health care. This bill does that.

I don't think our constituents want us to vote for a bill where we spend our constituents's tax dollars to pay for insurance that people already have. This bill does that.

I don't think our constituents want us to vote to create a new middle-class entitlement. This does that.

This bill also is only one-half paid for. That's right, they only pay for half of this law, and they have an enormous budget gimmick that when you add it all together doubles the cost of this bill.

So if the goal here is ultimately to get universal health care so that everybody has insurance, which I think most of us all share, this is not the pathway to do it.

If you take a look at what it costs to fund 3.9 million people who are uninsured, that leaves us another 43 million people uninsured. At the spend rate, at the cost of that, if we want to fund everybody, it's another $400 billion. That would add $8 trillion to the debt we have for our kids and our grandkids.

By doing it this way, by creating an enormous new entitlement, you are making matters worse for the baby boomers. You are making this enormous cliff we have of entitlement spending that much deeper.

Madam Speaker, there is a better way to getting universal access to affordable health insurance. This is not the way. We believe in patient-centered health care, not government-centered health care. We don't think bureaucrats should be running health care, whether they are an insurance bureaucrat or a government bureaucrat.

We think patients and their doctors should be running and making health care decisions. Unfortunately, this bill does not do that. This bill puts the government squarely in the middle and says if you want health care, you got to get it from the government. That's not what we believe in. That's not what we should be doing. That's why we should be voting against this bill.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the Truth in Accounting Act of 2007, which I am introducing today along with Ms. Bachmann, Mr. Kirk, and Mr. Cooper. I am hopeful that this bipartisan legislation will shed greater light on the long-term fiscal challenges facing our Nation and will encourage Members to take a greater interest in addressing our out-of-control entitlement spending. At the same time, I am also hopeful our approach illustrates a potential way forward for the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) as they continue to discuss different options on how to account for our social insurance programs in the Financial Report of the U.S. Government.

This legislation, which is similar to a bill introduced last session by Mr. Kirk, Mr. Cooper, and Mr. Chocola, consists of three main components. First, it requires the Financial Report to include an audited calculation of the net present value of our primary social insurance programs, such as Medicare and Social Security, among others. Second, it requires the President consider this value when making a budget proposal to Congress and fully reveal the impact of his proposal on our long-term fiscal situation. Finally, it also requires the Secretary of Treasury and the Comptroller General of GAO to testify before Congress and provide their assessment of our Nation's long-term fiscal exposures on an annual basis. I would like to briefly discuss each of these components in greater detail.

The proposal to include the net present value of the Federal government's fiscal exposures comes from last year's Truth in Accounting bill. This provision would give the American public a clearer picture of the dire fiscal situation that we are facing, and it would require the Federal government to take responsibility for addressing this issue. According to

the latest reports of the Medicare and Social Security trustees, we are staring at 75-year fiscal exposures of $32 trillion and $4.7 trillion for each of these programs, respectively. This means that the current level of projected revenues for these two programs is nearly $40 trillion less than is needed to pay for our projected spending on them over the next 75 years. If you include the other obligations of our government, our overall fiscal exposures are greater than $46 trillion over this time period, or about $375,000 for every full-time worker in the U.S.

We cannot leave this problem unaddressed. The long-term health of our economy is at severe risk, as are the benefits that have been promised to our constituents. Including this figure in the Financial Report will finally force the federal government to level with its citizens and admit the daunting fiscal challenges we face. Furthermore, highlighting this problem will help encourage Members of Congress to take it more seriously, and to work on a bipartisan basis to address it.

I am also hopeful that this aspect of our proposal can help FASAB find a compromise solution to its current impasse over a new set of accounting standards for our social insurance programs. Earlier this year, FASAB released a proposal that would recognize a liability for Social Security and Medicare once a beneficiary had completed 40 quarters of work in covered employment, the period of time required to qualify for these benefits. The liability would show up on the audited Statement of Net Cost and Balance Sheet contained within the Financial Report. This view was met with substantial controversy and FASAB is not expected to move forward with it.

While I believe that FASAB's primary approach has a great deal of merit, I understand the critiques made against it. Opponents justifiably pointed out that this proposal fails to credit the government for the revenues that these programs are projected to receive over the same time period and perhaps inappropriately calls these commitments ``liabilities'' even though they do not represent contractual obligations. In addition, the primary proposal could make the current measure of accrual liabilities unusable since the size of the Social Security and Medicare components would dwarf the liabilities of other programs and possibly hide their own set of problems and concerns.

Our proposal addresses all of these concerns. It would fully account for projected revenues, would use the terminology ``fiscal exposures'' instead of ``liabilities'' to reflect the true nature of the obligation, and would leave the current accrual measures untouched so they could still be used by policymakers. At the same time, it would ensure that a measure of our fiscal exposures is on the audited portion of the Financial Report for the first time ever. I am hopeful that this is the type of compromise that FASAB could accept. While it may not go as far as some of the board members and some Members of Congress may hope, I believe that it makes real, although admittedly incremental, progress at uncovering the true nature of our long-term obligations.

The second component of this bill comes from an amendment Mr. Cooper offered during consideration of the House Budget Resolution in 2006, which passed the Budget Committee in a bipartisan manner. I strongly support this proposal and commend Mr. Cooper for his leadership on the matter. I am hopeful that the Budget Committee, of which I am the Ranking Member, will seek to permanently enact this provision. I look forward to working with Mr. Spratt and other distinguished Members of the Committee to accomplish this.

Finally, this proposal would require the Secretary of the Treasury and the Comptroller General of the GAO to testify before Congress on our fiscal exposures. The Secretary of the Treasury would have to testify on the Financial Report, which is a document that far too few Members of Congress, let alone the public, are aware of. While Members such as Mr. Cooper and Mr. Kirk have done a great job in recent years in starting to build awareness of this document, this proposal would take the next important step.

The Comptroller General would also have to report to Congress on the full extent of our fiscal exposures on an annual basis. This would go a long way toward ensuring that Members of Congress and the public start paying attention to these daunting figures. Our current Comptroller General, Mr. Walker, has fought vigorously on this matter and has done an excellent job of alerting people to the challenges we face. This would give him a regular forum in which to do so and allow him to continue performing an excellent service to the Nation.

Before I close, I would like to thank the other lead cosponsors for allowing me to join their effort. This issue is something that Mr. Cooper and Mr. Kirk have worked diligently on for years and I am glad to be a part of the latest version of their bill. Ms. Bachmann also deserves immense credit for drawing on her financial background and striving to become a leader in Congress in this area. She was instrumental in putting together this legislation and ensuring the participation of such a strong bipartisan coalition.

I am truly hopeful that our fiscal exposures will not continue to go unnoticed and that we can help build congressional support for entitlement reform. The challenges we face are too big to ignore. If we do not level with the American people about the true nature of this problem and seek to address it, we will be jeopardizing the economy and standard of living of future generations.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to acknowledge an extraordinary staff member who has moved on after 20 years with the House Budget Committee, Jim Bates.

James T. Bates, the Committee's Republican chief of staff, recently accepted a position as associate program director at the Office of Management and Budget. Ordinarily, that would be a significant, though not surprising, step in a career dedicated to Washington fiscal policy. But there is nothing ordinary about this case.

Jim Bates's two decades of service represents the longest tenure of any Budget Committee staffer. He served in various capacities during this time, including those of minority counsel, chief majority counsel and deputy chief of staff before rising to the top slot in late 2004. In each of those roles he demonstrated a singular dedication.

He came to be known as a true believer in the value of congressional budgeting; a stickler for adhering to the budget disciplines written in law and in convention; and a thoroughly convinced proponent of the institution of the Budget Committee. He is as closely identified with the committee as is the Congressional Budget Act itself. It is nearly impossible to think of one without the other.

Mr. Speaker, you can't go back over the last 20 years and look at the enforcement of the Budget Committee, the preservation of the Budget Act, without thinking of Jim Bates.

Jim started with the committee in January of 1988, a time when the Republican minority offices were across Highway 395, on the second floor of the Ford Office Building, then simply called Annex Two. He worked initially as a budget analyst, covering Income and Social Security, but before long he found his real niche as committee counsel. Here, he mastered the intricate details and subtleties of the Budget Act; he vigorously protected the committee's jurisdiction, and, when possible, expanded it. He also developed a unique understanding of budget arcana, something I can clearly testify to, such as the Gramm- Rudman baseline or the pay-as-you-go rule.

Here are some highlights of his congressional career: he participated in the famous Andrews Air Force Base negotiations that produced the budget agreement of 1990. In 1993, he coordinated drafting the narrowly defeated Penny-Kasich amendment. In 1997, he anchored the legislative language for the Balanced Budget Act, which a year later produced the first budget surplus in nearly four decades. Shortly thereafter, he developed a bipartisan plan for the first comprehensive budget process reform since the Budget Act was created in 1974.

In 2005, he oversaw the staff work that led to that year's Deficit Reduction Act, the first in a long time. In 2006, he was immensely helpful to me in writing the Legislative Line Item Veto Act, designed to allow the President to strike individual spending items without violating Congress's constitutional prerogatives.

Jim is an avid fisherman, which shows a greatness of soul. He is a fan of the renowned author Ray Bradbury, which reflects a creative mind. He might misplace his car keys or his BlackBerry, but he has never lost his conviction about budgeting, or his integrity. Yet, of all Jim's qualities, perhaps the most important is the trust that he has earned from Members and colleagues alike. It is because of that trust that when I was chosen to be the Budget Committee's ranking Republican last December, my first and easiest decision was keeping Jim as the chief of staff. He was and still is simply irreplaceable.

Mr. Speaker, let me close simply by saying that there aren't a lot of people in this town who really understand how the Budget Committee works, how this budget process works, let alone people who really know the best ideas and ways of making it work better. Jim Bates is one of the handful of people in this town who knows this. You can count the people on one hand who really know the Budget Act, know how to make it work and know how to make it work better. Jim Bates is one of those.

This institution, this Congress, both from the Democrat side and the Republican side, owe a large debt of gratitude for the service of this fine servant, Jim Bates.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, Racine, Wisconsin, native and author Kevin Henkes is to be commended for his numerous literary achievements. Recognized as an outstanding children's author, Henkes has contributed to the national landscape of children's literature and delighted children with his thoughtful mixture of words and art. Born in Racine, Henkes attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He currently lives in Madison with his wife, Laura, and their children. Several of Henkes' books have garnered awards, including the prestigious Caldecott for Kitten's First Full Moon in 2005. He also received the Elizabeth Burr/Worzalla Award for a Wisconsin author/ illustrator for Kitten's First Full Moon (2005), Sun and Spoon (1997), Protecting Marie (1995), and Words of Stone (1993). On October 14, 2007, the Racine Public Library will honor Henkes when one of his works, Julius, the Baby of the World, is performed as a musical for over 4,600 first- and second-grade students and the general public. The Downtown Rotary Club, Friends of the Library, Hughes House, Johnson Foundation,

Junior League of Racine, Kiwanis Club of West Racine, Over Our Head Players, the Racine Community Foundation, and the Racine Public Library Endowment Fund have all contributed to this celebration.

Madam Speaker, The Racine Public Library is to be commended for its years of service to the people of Racine, WI. On October 14, 2007, the library will celebrate 75 years of preschool storytime. The Junior League of Racine, which has sponsored the storytime since it began in 1932, and the Choral Arts Society of Southeastern Wisconsin have partnered to bring to the stage a musical version of the beloved children's classic, ``Julius, the Baby of the World.'' It will be performed for over 4,600 first- and second-grade students, and the event will celebrate both the Racine Public Library's commitment to children and Racine native and children's author Kevin Henkes. Participants in this great celebration include the Downtown Rotary Club, Friends of the Library, Hughes House, the Johnson Foundation, the Junior League of Racine, the Kiwanis Club of West Racine, Over Our Head Players, the Racine Community Foundation, and the Racine Public Library Endowment Fund. The Racine Public Library has the distinction of being the first in the Nation to present preschool storytime in 1932. Since then, the library has continued to pursue innovation and remains dedicated to children's programming.

It's socialized medicine and then people are going to private health care. You say that it's a Democratic ploy and we have all this Republican support. The President says he's for the program, but 840,000 kids would get knocked off of it. It just doesn't work.

So I'm glad we're here to clean it up and come do our job. So good seeing everybody.

Did I announce last night, I wanted to announce before we close that Kelly Pavlik from Youngstown won the middleweight title on Saturday and what a great kid he is.

So Youngstown, Ohio, is now the home of the WBO/WBC middleweight champion of the world.

We just hang out in the glow.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, a couple of things: number one, we are not dedicating enough time to this debate. A half-hour is not enough time to debate what this is really all about. This is not just about health care, health insurance for low-income children. If that is all this was about, then we could pass this with 2 minutes of debate, unanimous consent, voice vote, everyone would agree.

That is not what this debate is about. This debate goes far beyond that, and the American people deserve to have a much more honest, much more thorough debate about what really is being discussed here.

This is a misleading bill. This is a misleading debate. This is misleading, number one, because this is really all about whether or not the Federal Government should run health care for most Americans or not.

All of us in this room, Republicans and Democrats, believe that Americans ought to have access to affordable health insurance. All Americans. We all believe that. The question is, should the government run it, or should health care be a decision between patients and their doctors? Let's have a debate about that.

The reason this is a misleading debate is because this bill takes more health insurance away from children with private insurance than it gives to children without insurance. We are taking more people off of private insurance than we are giving to uninsured children. If we wanted to just give uninsured children health insurance, let's do it.

This bill is misleading because it gives children health insurance for 5 years, and then it pushes them off a cliff. I call it the majority's ``bait and switch SCHIP funding.'' It says 5 million children get it now; 5 million children 6 months into 2012 get nothing. $41 billion is hidden out of this bill. Who believes that that is going to happen? In order to contort their way into their PAYGO rule, they are giving on the one hand and taking out with the other.

But what this debate is really about is putting the government in the middle of that decision between the patient and their doctor. I don't want a bureaucrat running health care. I don't want an HMO bureaucrat running health care, and I don't want a government bureaucrat running health care. I want patients running health care with their doctors.

That is what this debate is really about. This debate is about getting more and more and more government in the middle of the health care decisions between patients and their doctors. This is a debate about getting us on that path toward government-run health care. That is a big debate. It deserves more than a half-hour of debate.

And, unfortunately, the majority is misleading the American people by saying this is only about low-income children, when they are bringing us a bill that displaces kids off of private health insurance, goes to virtually to anybody of any income if a State wants to, and goes way beyond the idea of insuring low-income children.

Let's give low-income children health insurance, and let's have a big debate on whether the government ought to be running health care in America or not.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this. My friend from North Dakota said in the debate a minute ago that the minority doesn't want the government to help business. That was kind of an odd characterization. Here's what the minority wants: We want Congress to keep its word. And what do I mean when I say that? In the beginning of this Congress, Congress said that they were going to pay for things as they go. We were going to have this vaunted PAYGO rule that when we commit new spending, we will pay for it. We won't do deficit spending. What does this bill do? This bill thumbs its nose at the PAYGO system.

I think the best description of how this bill is not paid for was written in Congress Daily this morning, and I quote: ``The House will take up legislation today to renew the Federal Government's Terrorism Risk Insurance Program despite concerns that it violates PAYGO rules. CBO has ruled that the bill, which would reauthorize and expand the program for 15 years and cost the Federal government $3.7 billion over 5 years, $10.4 billion over a 10-year period. House leaders pulled the bill last week because it carried no offsets, but Democratic leaders found a way around the problem by requiring that if an attack occurred, Congress would have to vote again in a fast-track procedure to release the funds contained in the bill.'' Well, to do it justice, it's about $8.4 billion net cost, just to set the record straight for the minority.

What they're basically doing here is they're declaring this an emergency when an emergency hasn't even occurred yet. They're basically declaring this emergency spending, outside of the budget rules, not paid for, $8.4 billion, before an emergency has even occurred.

I've seen gimmicks in my day, Mr. Chairman, but this one takes the cake. This violates PAYGO. If it doesn't do it technically, it sure does it in spirit. So if we're going to say we're going to pay for legislation, then, by golly, let's pay for legislation. This doesn't do that. Not to mention the fact that this crowds out the private sector. Not to mention the fact that this tells all the insurers, go ahead and release this insurance, and if a terrorist attack occurs, we'll have some emergency legislation that pays for it after the fact. It's kind of like telling the homeowner, you don't have to pay premiums on your insurance until after your house has been burnt down, then pay your premiums and then we'll give you your payback. It doesn't work like that. That's not how insurance works. That's not how taxpayers pay their bills. That's not how Congress should operate. And, more importantly, that is not the rules that this Congress said it would operate under.

This violates those rules. If not technically, it sure does so in spirit. And I think when Congress says it's a new day, that we're going to pay for our spending, by golly, that's exactly what Congress ought to do, and that is not what this Congress is doing.

For this and many other reasons, Mr. Chairman, this legislation is flawed. It should be defeated. It encourages a crowding out of the private sector. And more importantly, it doesn't pay for the promises that are being committed here today. That is wrong. That violates the rhetoric and the principles that the majority has set out for itself.

Mr. Chairman, I urge a ``no'' vote.