Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) for his comments and remind people that the 1964 Civil Rights legislation that prohibited discrimination included an exception, as the gentleman from Ohio has indicated, for religious organizations using their own money for religious purposes. No one anticipated at that time that one would take Federal money and try to discriminate in employment based on religion. Let us be clear. If you can discriminate based on religion and what church or religious organization you belong to, you can essentially discriminate based on race.

Now, the question before us is whether or not, in a government-funded program, you can declare that you do not want to hire people of certain religions. Now, the problem that occurs is that if you can discriminate with Federal money, well, why can you not discriminate with your own money? If you have a group of people running a manufacturing firm and they are all of the same religion, why should they have to hire somebody of a different religion? Because it is against the law. Because we have such a sorry history of discrimination in our country that we just decided that we were not going to allow discrimination based on religion; that it is so ugly that we are going to prohibit it by law, and we did. You cannot hire people with Federal money,

you cannot hire people with your own money and discriminate against them solely because of their race, color, creed, national origin, or sex. That is the law.

Now, we can change the law. You can start allowing discrimination. You can have somebody come around and say, Well, we are running a manufacturing firm and we do not want to work with people of a different religion; or, We do not want to work with people of a different race. We can change the law. That is our prerogative, and that is what we are doing with this bill if we pass it in its present form. We will be saying to the public that we hire everybody but Catholics or Jews. That is about as ugly a situation as there is. I do not know how you can dress that up and have it come out anything other than ugly. I mean you can put lipstick on a pig, but you cannot pass it off as a beauty queen, and you cannot say, We do not hire Catholics and Jews, and try to pass that off as anything but ugly discrimination.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, just so we know what we are talking about, I would like to know whether or not if the bill passes in its present form, you can take Federal money and have a policy of not hiring Catholics and Jews; if it passes in its present form with the Federal money. Now, the church can do what it wants with the church money. That exemption is not affected. But under this bill in its present form, can you have the policy of telling people that you are the best qualified, but we do not hire Catholics and Jews?

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

Mr. Chairman, I think we need to remember what we are voting on. This amendment includes all of the provisions of the Community Services Block Grant, for which there is strong bipartisan support. It includes two improvements on the bill. One I do not believe is that controversial, but you never can tell. It just says you cannot run a worship service on the government dime. That is, if you are contracted to provide a government service, you cannot have a worship service in the middle of the government program. If you want to have worship, it has to be separate and apart from the government service, so people getting the government services can get the full benefit of the program without having to be subjected to proselytization or religious instruction. That part, I do not think, is controversial; but you never can tell.

The other part, of course, is the discrimination provision. We have had trouble in the past trying to get down exactly what we are voting on in this, but I think we have come to the time where everybody acknowledges what is going on.

In 1941, President Roosevelt signed an executive order prohibiting discrimination in any defense contract. In 1965, President Johnson signed an executive order, no discrimination in any Federal contract. That has been the law of the land since that time. If you want a contract with the government to run a program, you cannot discriminate based on religion. Now, that does not require you to change your mission or anything. It is just if you are using Federal money, you cannot discriminate.

Now, if you cannot get along with people of other religions, whose problem is it? Traditionally, that is your problem. If you cannot get along with people of different religions, that is your problem; that is not their problem. And if you are trying to get a government contract and just for one reason or another do not want to hire people of other religions, that is your problem; and you have been ineligible to run a government program, personally, faith-based, or otherwise.

According to this, if you cannot get along with people of other religions, it is their problem. The victim is the one that gets hurt in this situation. The minority religions, the ones you want to discriminate against, are the ones that get hurt. That is a change in the law.

Now, remember the present law under title VII, you cannot discriminate against people with your own money. You cannot take money out of your pocket and start hiring people and say on this construction project, I am only hiring people that belong to this church; you belong to another church. Although you are the best carpenter that applied, you are not going to get the job, solely because of your religion. You cannot do that with your own money. Why should you be able to do it with Federal money?

Now, we have heard this thing about the pro-choice groups do not have to hire people that are right-to-life. We have a concept in law called a protected class. There are certain groups of Americans that historically have been discriminated against so badly that we have had to pass laws to prohibit it, have a protected class.

Our history on racial discrimination and religious discrimination is so ugly that we made it illegal to discriminate. So there is a difference between the NRA not hiring people because of their position on gun control and the NRA saying we are not going to hire Catholics and Jews, or we are not going to hire blacks. That is different, because race and religion are protected classes.

Now, these are not gifts to the church. They are contracts to provide government services. If you cannot provide government services the way everybody has been providing them since 1941, the question is, whose problem is it? I believe it is your problem. If you cannot get along with other people and do not want to hire people because of their religion, that is your problem; you are ineligible for government contracting.

This bill in its present form would change that. If you cannot get along with other people, that is their problem, not your problem. We ought to go back to the traditional way, since 1965 on all contracts and since 1941 on defense contracts, that if you cannot hire people, regardless of their religion, then you are not entitled to contract with the Federal Government to provide those services.

We need to adopt the Woolsey amendment. It validates the Community Services Block Grant program. It says that you cannot have discrimination in employment and you cannot run worship services on the government dime. That is the way it ought to be, and that is the way I hope it is if this substitute is adopted.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this is slightly different from the language in the substitute. It requires religious organizations to separate any religious activities from CSBG activities to ensure that such programs meet current constitutional standards.

Several speakers from the other side have mentioned that you should not be able to proselytize during a government-funded program, and that is consistent with this amendment.

The language tracks language that was recommended by the Bush administration's Justice Department during the 107th Congress' consideration of President Bush's faith-based legislation in H.R. 7. It also tracks the H.R. 7 language that was reported by the House Committee on the Judiciary and passed by the full House.

In his testimony to Congress, the Bush administration Department of Justice argued, ``Justice O'Connor requires that no government funds be diverted to `religious indoctrination,' thus religious organizations receiving direct funding will have to separate their social service programs from their sectarian practices.''

The current provisions in CSBG do not meet the current constitutional standard required.

Specifically, the current provision provides that only ``no funds provided directly to a religious organization shall be expended for sectarian worship, instruction or proselytization.'' This language fails to address whether religious organizations can include a religious message in publicly funded services and also fails to answer the question of whether volunteers can be used.

Mr. Chairman, if we do not pass this amendment, we are essentially creating a system where the Federal Government officials will have to pick and choose which religious organization will get the benefit of using publicly funded programs to advance their religious views. Such a policy violates the Constitution and violates their religious liberty to believe their own religion and not be subjected to the views of others as a condition of receiving government-funded services.

In addition to failing to adopt these safeguards, it raises a concern as to how we measure the success of a faith-based program. The administration has said that faith-based institutions are better and more successful, but common sense will tell us that some faith-based programs are better than secular programs, but some secular programs are better than faith-based programs.

To that end, on what basis are we measuring the success of a program if it incorporates religion? Are we weighing the Baptist approach to drug treatment against the Muslim approach?

This amendment answers the simple question, Can you conduct a worship service in the middle of a federally funded program with volunteers or not? This amendment simply answers ``no.'' If you want to conduct a worship service, those activities must be voluntary and separate from the government-funded program. On the other hand, the House can reject this amendment and require some program participants to participate in sectarian worship services as part of the government-funded program.

I hope we adopt the position taken by the Committee on the Judiciary in H.R. 7 and agree to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment is simple. It is the specific, straight up-and-down vote on the discrimination amendment without ducking and dodging. It asks the question whether you can take the Federal money and discriminate or not, either you can have a policy of hiring no Catholics and Jews or not or hiring just people that belong to a church that happens to be all black or all white or not.

We know that if we can discriminate based on religion, we can discriminate based on race. We know also, Mr. Chairman, these are not gifts. They are contracts to perform government services.

In 1941, President Roosevelt signed an executive order, no discrimination in defense contracts. In 1965, Johnson expanded that to all contracts. That has been a good policy; and if you cannot work with others, it is your problem. It is not their problem. Since 1965, that has been the law of the hand.

Under the bill, it is the problem of the person being discriminated against. Now we hear talk about rights. This is the first time I have heard about the right of someone to discriminate. We usually talk about the right of someone to apply for a job and be free from discrimination based on employment, but now we have to focus on the right to discriminate. That is wrong to tell somebody that they are the best qualified, that someone is the best qualified for a federally funded job, but we do not hire people of your religion. It is wrong to tell someone if the faith-based organization has won a new contract, it is wrong to tell the group of employees on the job that we will hire everybody except people of a certain religion. That is wrong.

It is either right or wrong to discriminate, Mr. Chairman. I hope my colleagues will say it is wrong by adopting this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the first vote be the Woolsey vote and then my votes after that, because if the Woolsey amendment is adopted, my votes will not be necessary.

Offered By: Mr. Scott of Virginia

Amendment No. 1: Page 12, after line 22, insert the

following (and make such technical and conforming changes as

may be appropriate):

(j) Nondiscrimination.--Section 678F(c)(1) of the Community

Services Block Grant Act (42 U.S.C. 9918(c)(1)) is amended by

inserting ``religion,'' after ``color,''.

(k) Employment Practices.--Section 679(b) of the Community

Services Block Grant Act (42 U.S.C. 9920(b)) is amended by

striking paragraph (3).

Offered By: Mr. Scott of Virginia

Amendment No. 2: Page 12, after line 22, insert the

following (and make such technical and conforming changes as

may be appropriate):

``(j) Limitation on Use of Funds; Voluntariness.--Section

679(c) of the Community Services Block Grant Act (42 U.S.C.

9920(c)) is amended by adding at the end the following:

``If the religious organization offers such an activity, it

shall be voluntary for the individuals receiving services and

offered separate from the program funded under subsection

(a). A certificate shall be separately signed by religious

organizations, and filed with the government agency that

disburses the funds, certifying that the organization is

aware of and will comply with this subsection.''.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the bill in its present form. Instead of passing the bipartisan bill to help family farmers, we have substituted a controversial bill that violates traditional bankruptcy principles.

For centuries, American bankruptcy laws had the principle that if people get over their heads in debt, they can cash in all of their assets, pay off all the debts they can, and then get a fresh start. For policy reasons, a few assets have historically been exempted and a few debts have historically been nondischargeable, especially those that have been incurred by fraud, a result of crime, or through abuse of the bankruptcy system. Yet the principle has always been the same: cash in all you have and get a fresh start.

This bill violates the basic principle. People who incurred debts because of illness, unemployment, business failure and have debts they can never pay off will be denied an opportunity to get a fresh start. They will be stripped of every penny of income after basic expenses of food and rent without reasonable allowance for unforeseen emergencies such as automobile repairs, which will inevitably come up. People in these circumstances will be in economic slavery for 5 years and will probably be worse off at the end of 5 years than they were before.

The bill has no rational measure of determining a person's ability to pay off debts. If someone can pay off $10,000 in his debts over 5 years, that is $167 a month, then he is not entitled to a discharge. A person could cosign a spouse's business loan only to have the spouse die or disappear. If that person has a $50,000 salary, he may find himself owing $1 million, never even able to make interest payments, and that person would be denied relief under this bill. A person with hospital bills could have hospital bills of hundreds of thousands of dollars. That person will be denied relief under this bill. This will cause many Americans who have unforeseen business failures, health problems, or unemployment to find themselves unable to pay their debts and be trapped with no way out. And for 5 years that person would have nothing to lose.

Mr. Chairman, if our goal is to create a situation where people are stressed out with nothing to lose and to maximize the chances that a person would totally lose control and terrorize a community or its coworkers, this is it. Last year in Washington, D.C., we saw the impact of financial distress. A North Carolina farmer drove his tractor into the pond near the National Mall and was quoted as saying, ``I am broke. I am busted. I am out.'' No one in the community is safe when we have increased the number of neighbors who feel like they have nothing to lose.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, we have to consider the impact the bill will have on small business entrepreneurs. How many people will be willing to take a chance on a new business if any failure will result not just in bankruptcy but no relief for the family for 5 years? No bank in the future will lend a business any cash, especially one in financial distress that actually needs the money without the personal signature of the owner. And so who will risk not only loss of everything but also risk family poverty with no relief for 5 years if the business fails?

Long ago we decided that there would be no debtors prisons in America. This bill represents an effort to take a giant step backwards towards that bygone era.

So I urge my colleagues to reject this bill in its present form so that we can return to the original bill and help family farmers.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Cannon) suggested that what I said was not accurate, I ask what did I say that was not accurate?

If the gentleman would yield, I said that people who have $2 million in debt that could pay $10,000 of that debt that they obviously can never pay will not be able to get relief under this bill. Is that true?

Mr. Chairman, I said that somebody who can pay off $10,000 but can never pay off the $2 million, are they denied relief under this bill?

They can pay $10,000 on a $2 million debt. The fact is they can never pay off the debt. They will be denied relief under the bill. Is that right?

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, so that someone who owes $2 million in debt can pay $10,000 and can never pay it will be in economic slavery because every dime they make over food and rent will go into the fund to help pay the $10,000.

Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, so every dime that they make over food and rent goes into the fund to help pay the $10,000. If that is all they can pay, they have to pay that so they are down to food and rent for 5 years although they can only pay $10,000 on a $2 million debt. They cannot get relief from the $2 million under this bill. And the gentleman agrees with that.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland for taking the leadership on this budget.

We have a difficult situation; and rather than use adjectives and slogans, I like to use charts so we can see what is going on year by year. If we look at the budget deficit, and this is the budget without the Social Security and Medicare, which is supposed to be saved for Social Security and Medicare when we need it, this is the deficit year by year. And we see that we have got the Johnson, Nixon, Ford administrations. It dropped a little bit under Nixon-Ford. Under Carter it stayed about the same. People remember that under Reagan and Bush, the first Bush administration, deficits came about. But not enough credit is being given to what happened under the Clinton administration because without a single Republican vote in the House and without a single Republican vote in the Senate, we passed a deficit reduction plan that resulted in not only an elimination of all of that deficit but an actual surplus, a surplus without counting the Social Security and the Medicare surplus. If we count those, it is even higher than that.

Some of the Republicans want to take credit for some of this. And they say in 1994 the Republicans took over Congress; so in 1995 when they were sworn in with the Republican Congress, they ought to get some credit for this. But let us remember history. When they came in, they passed massive tax cuts, primarily for the wealthy, and President Clinton vetoed those budgets. They passed them again and threatened to close down the government if he did not sign them, and he vetoed them anyway. And they closed down the government, and he vetoed them anyway. Trying to take credit for a budget plan when their plans were vetoed, even with the closure of government, their plans were vetoed; and we were able to maintain this line by vetoing their bills. They cannot get any credit for the green.

However, we do see when President Bush was sworn in, they passed the same kinds of tax cuts, primarily for the wealthy, and what happened? We see what would have happened down here if President Clinton had signed it. We see exactly what would have happened. We have skyrocketing deficits.

Now, this is actually not quite as low as it ought to be. This is a couple of months ago, so it is actually a little worse than this.

The on-budget deficit for this year, the total deficit, the $477 billion the gentleman mentioned, does not count about $175 billion in Social Security and Medicare funds that were spent first before you went in debt another $477 billion. Almost $650 billion in total on- budget deficit, because we are supposed to be leaving Social Security and Medicare money for Social Security and Medicare.

Let me put these numbers in perspective. If you add up all of the money that we receive from the individual income tax, everybody's individual income tax, the total is less than $800 billion this year. We are pushing $700 billion in on-budget deficit. It is just totally out of control. This, I think, shows it.

I do not see how anybody who voted for the red can explain what is going on with the budget without starting off with an apology. And as far as we are concerned, we, the Congressional Black Caucus, voted for the green and against the red. So you cannot blame us for this.

Less than $800 billion.

They had to spend the Social Security and Medicare

surplus before they got to the $477 billion that the gentleman mentioned as a unified deficit. Less than $800 billion in individual income tax. That includes everybody.

To show how this deficit also looks, let us look at another way of looking at it, and that is, of the budget, how much of today's budget is paid for with borrowed money?

When President Clinton ran up a surplus, obviously we were not borrowing any money to pay for the operation of government. But when this administration came in, we started borrowing money, and in fact this year almost one-third, and with the new numbers, more than one- third of the on-budget spending is paid for with borrowed money. You borrow it from Medicare and Social Security, and then you borrow the rest, and over one-third is paid for with borrowed money.

You can see, we have not done that since World War II. We are in a peacetime economy, and we are borrowing a higher percentage of the Federal budget. The spending we have in the Federal budget, a higher percentage is paid for with borrowed money than at any time since World War II. This is irresponsible.

Now, how did we get in that mess? Well, we had tax cuts. Who got the tax cuts? I remember one candidate during the campaign, President Bush, said the vast majority of his tax cuts will go to those at the bottom. Let us see what that looks like on a chart.

The bottom 20 percent, the next 20 percent, the middle 20 percent, this is about what they got, the percentage of the tax cut they got. Then the fourth 20 percent. The upper 20 percent got 70 to 80 percent of the tax cut. In fact, the top 1 percent got more than half of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. The top 1 percent got more than half.

Now, just in case people want to know what they got out of it, because people say, you got a lot, you got a little, in terms of those who made over $1 million, that is what you got. If you made only $500,000 to $1 million, that is what you got. If you made $200,000 to $500,000, or $100,000 to 200,000, or $75,000 to $100,000.

As you get to what most people actually make on average, all of them, some pay a little more tax, depending on the number of children and deductions and whatnot, but $40,000 to $50,000, you hardly need any ink to draw the bar. Millionaires, off the chart. That is who got the tax cut.

When you run up all this deficit, you have debt; and debt is somewhat esoteric, but interest on the national debt is cash money. You have got to pay it.

Now, this black line is the interest on the national debt which we would have paid if we had not messed up the budget in 2001 with all these tax cuts. Under the Clinton Administration, when they left office, the projections at that time, before we messed up the budget in 2001, we would have paid off the entire national debt held by the public around 2008 to 2009. We were scheduled to pay zero interest on the national debt.

Instead, we offered those people the big tax cuts, ran up the debt, increased the debt and increased the interest on the national debt, so by 2008, 2009, 2010 we are going to be spending $300 billion on interest on the national debt rather than zero, because we ran up the debt, we were fiscally irresponsible.

Now, again remember, less than $800 billion, everybody's individual income tax; the first $300 billion, gone, interest on the national debt that we would not have had to pay.

We were told that we needed to get into that mess, run up the debt, run up the interest on the national debt, to create jobs. Let us see how we did.

This is the number of jobs created every 4 years since Harry Truman was in office. Harry Truman created jobs. Eisenhower created more jobs than we had when he came in; this is about 4 million. Kennedy, Johnson, Johnson, second administration, about 6 million. Nixon and Ford, everybody creating jobs. Clinton, almost 10 million first term, another 10 million the second term.

From 40 yards away, with bad vision, you can tell who is the worst since the Truman administration.

Now, every time something goes wrong, it is always 9/11. Three million jobs lost since the President came in office. 9/11 could not possibly be the cause of this any more than the Korean War stopped Truman from creating jobs. The Vietnam War did not stop Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon from creating jobs. The hostage situation in Iran did not stop Carter from creating jobs. The Cold War was going on all this time, Reagan, Bush. Clinton had Somalia, Grenada. Everybody is still creating jobs until you get here.

One of the problems, however, as you get into this situation, is Social Security. This is the cash flow for the Social Security trust fund. These purple lines represent the surplus we talked about that is bringing more money into Social Security than we are spending today. That will go on until about 2017. Then we start going into deficit.

This line at about 2022, 2025, that is $300 billion. That is about $1,000 for every man, woman and child in America. For a family of four, $4,000. Every man, woman and child, $1,000. When you get around 2032, you are up to $600 billion, or $2,000 for every man, woman and child. By 2037, a $1 trillion a year shortfall.

I admit if you look at this, you may conclude that there is nothing we could have done about that. $800 billion for individual income tax, you would have to spend all of that just to maintain Social Security by 2037. So maybe it was a lost cause. Maybe Social Security was a good idea, but it could never work.

Until you look back. You remember this chart where the top 1 percent got half the tax cut? The 2001, not 2003, just the 2001 tax cut, if you took the money that the top 1 percent got in the 2001 tax cut, and instead of giving a tax cut to the upper 1 percent, put that same amount of money into the Social Security trust fund, you would have run up the surplus to a point where you could have paid Social Security benefits without reducing benefits for 75 years. Or you can give the top 1 percent a tax cut and worry about this $1 trillion deficit when you get to it.

We made the choice. Excuse me, they made the choice, because the gentleman and I opposed the tax cuts and would have preferred making Social Security secure for the future, would have preferred paying off the national debt so we would not have had $300 billion a year to deal with in just a couple of years. We had other priorities: health care, Social Security, veterans benefits that this House voted to cut by $19 billion last year. We had other priorities. But we could have solved this with just what the top 1 percent got in the 2001 tax cut. They could have gotten all they got in the 2003 tax cut, just the 2001.

So when we look at this chart, you cannot create a chart like this by accident. You cannot have every single year under the Clinton administration, without exception, being better than the last, and every year in the Bush administration being worse than the last.

Let me tell you a little bit about this up-tick. Things will continue to get worse. But by 2014, technically, we might be back in balance if we do not do anything. If we do not do anything; that is, if we do not change present law.

The President has suggested that we make the tax cuts permanent, do not let them expire. If we are to go back into balance, we have to reject that initiative. The President has said, let us go to Mars for $1 trillion. If we want to get back into balance, we have to reject that initiative.

Let us privatize Social Security, take some money out, not put more money in the trust fund, for $1 trillion, to privatize Social Security. If we expect to go back into balance, we have to reject that initiative.

In other words, we have to reject all of the President's initiatives just to get back to balance. And if we do, we would have run up the debt so much in the meanwhile that we will be paying over $300 billion in interest on the national debt, rather than zero that we would have paid had we not messed up the budget.

Again, anyone who voted for the red and against the green ought to start off with an explanation of their vote and an apology.

And Maryland is suffering from the same budget crunch that Virginia is suffering from, all the States, virtually all the States are suffering from, where we are cutting back on services, cutting back on transportation, cutting back on health care, knocking people off of Medicaid. We are trying to provide more health care, and we are knocking people off. We are not creating jobs. We did not extend the unemployment benefits for those who are in areas of extremely high unemployment.

Tuition has gone up. Your property taxes have gone up. Education funding, we are underfunding No Child Left Behind by $9 billion. And so the money that the States expected to get from No Child Left Behind they are not getting.

The State House of Delegates in Virginia voted 98 to one to reject the No Child Left Behind because they found that the unfunded mandates were not offset by the money that was supposed to come. Now, we knew when we passed that there were complicated mandates, expensive mandates in that bill, but the authorized spending would more than compensate for those mandates. Unfortunately, we did not send the money that we promised. We sent the mandates, did not send the money.

And so when you add up all those, would people rather have had decent public school education, would they rather have had decent health care, better roads, lower tuition? You add all those up, the little tax cut, and when you add it up, and unless we have a profound new direction, we will not be able to pay Social Security. You ask people whether they would rather have Social Security after 2017 or the $300 tax cut today, I think most people would say let us take care of Social Security first. And if I can get a tax cut, I would like one; but let us take care of Social Security first. We did not do that. We took care of tax cuts first.

And we are going to look at that Social Security chart, and who knows what we will be able to do in 2020 and 2025. Now, a lot of people pushed the ideas of personal responsibility. And the suggestion is that if there is no Social Security, your retirement will be your personal responsibility and we will not have Social Security. Like, what is the problem if you lose Social Security? You know, I got mine, I got investments. Is that the attitude?

Or should we adopt the philosophy that we have had since Franklin Roosevelt was President that senior citizens ought to be able to retire with some dignity. And whatever happens to their investments, whatever happens to the stock market, you ought to be able to have at least a minimum amount of money coming in for necessities, rent and food. And if all else goes badly, you ought to be able to have that.

And we are in a situation now where unless there is a profound change in direction, we will not be able to pay Social Security after it stops running a surplus. As a matter of fact, in this budget we have now, it is a 10-year budget, goes to 2014, we have, they say, it goes in the balance, but that includes a $275 billion Social Security surplus. Just in 3 years in 2017, it goes from $275 billion surplus to no surplus. We just had in 3 years a $275 billion hole in the budget. What provisions have been made for that? None. None. We will worry about it. And the challenge, quite frankly, I would say to my good friend, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings), the challenge is getting someone to acknowledge that there is a problem.

We had a Committee on the Budget meeting yesterday. We heard that when you look at this chart the economy was good. Good? We heard that the budget deficit was manageable. You cannot get anyone to acknowledge that there is a problem. If we do not have a profound change in direction, we cannot pay Social Security. We cannot get anyone on the other side of the aisle to acknowledge that that constitutes a problem. If one does not acknowledge that there is a problem, one is certainly not going to come up with a painful solution. That is the problem that we have, this problem we have in this Congress today that making the tough choices is painful.

We made the tough choices in 1993 and suffered in the next campaign. Republicans picked up 50 seats with the budget vote, that responsible budget vote, as a primary issue in the campaign. And so we suffered because of that. But it was the right thing to do. I do not think anybody that voted for that budget, even those that lost their seats as a direct result of that vote, I do not think they think it was the wrong thing to do. When the 218th vote was cast, the Republicans started chanting bye-bye Marjorie. She had cast the 218th vote that passed the bill. And they waved bye-bye Marjorie and defeated her in the next election using that vote.

It is hard to put the magnitude of this mess into perspective; $300 billion more interest on the national debt in 2008, 2009 than we should have paid. Should have been zero. $300 billion. Do you know how many people you can hire at $30,000 apiece with $300 billion? 10 million. 10 million. Just deal out $30,000 jobs. 10 million. Do you know how many people are listed as unemployed in America today? Nine million. You can hire every unemployed person in America, offer each and every one a $30,000 job, and have money left over with the additional interest on the national debt that we are going to have to pay because the budget has been messed up, and we are going to be paying $300 billion in interest on the national debt rather than zero if we had stuck to the fiscal responsibility that was exercised when President Clinton vetoed irresponsible bills.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to comment on one of things our colleague from Washington, D.C., said about cutting spending as the answer.

We had a hearing over on the Senate side a couple of days ago, and one of the witnesses suggested spending as the answer, but had to acknowledge that to get close to balancing, you would have to eliminate Federal funding for health care, Federal funding for transportation, totally eliminate Federal funding for education, and that

would only get you back to balancing, not enough to pay off any of the national debt.

So if you are not going to do that, you ought to be honest. Also, when you talk about job loss, everybody says, well, you know, it was not our fault, it was not our fault. The fact is, when we were fiscally responsible in the 1990s when President Clinton was vetoing the massive tax cuts, we created jobs. As soon as this budget passed, we started losing jobs. That is what happened. Now you can explain it one way or another.

Finally, let me say that we do not often discuss it, but there are national security implications running up a big deficit. When we had to come up with 87 billion more dollars to continue the war in Iraq, we had to borrow the money. How much more money can you borrow? Suppose something else came up? When President Clinton left office, we had a $250 billion surplus, counting the Social Security surplus; and if we needed $87 billion, we could come up with $87 billion. Now we have to find people to borrow $87 billion from.

The fact is that many national governments are now holding hundreds of billions of dollars of our debt. Some are not our traditional allies. China, suppose we got into a negotiation with China over weapons of mass destruction, over trade policy, and in the middle of the negotiations they said, We are not going to buy a $100 billion of your paper next year unless you agree with us, unless you let us produce weapons of mass destruction, unless you agree with us on the trade deal, what would we do? Because if they stopped buying the paper or, even worse, if they sold it, interest rates would go up to double digits overnight. There would be nobody to buy it. So there are national security implications in running up this kind of debt.

Finally, we just have to acknowledge that balancing the budget is tough. There are no easy solutions. You cannot produce popular tax cuts and popular spending and think you can end up with a balanced budget. You have to make the tough decisions. That is what we did in 1993. They were politically unpopular, but we did the right thing. And that is what we need to get back to today; otherwise, it will get worse before it gets better and we will be spending hundreds of billions of dollars more than we need to in interest on the national debt, and we will have no way to address the Social Security shortfall that is right around the corner.

Mr. Speaker, today, I am introducing in the U.S. House of Representatives the ``Identity Theft Investigation and Prosecution Act of 2003'' with my colleagues Rep. Howard Coble, the gentleman from North Carolina, Rep. John Conyers, the gentleman from Michigan, Rep. Ed Case, the gentleman from Hawaii, Rep. Martin Frost, the gentleman from Texas, Rep. Barney Frank, the gentleman from Massachusetts, Rep. Howard Berman, the gentleman from California, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, the gentlewoman from Illinois, Rep. Barbara Lee, the gentlewoman from California, and Rep. Dennis Kucinich, the gentleman from Ohio, as original cosponsors. This bill will address the issue of identity theft and fraud immediately by

providing the Department of Justice, DOJ, with resources specifically for that purpose.

With the advent of the Internet, identity theft has grown exponentially in recent years. The Federal Trade Commission, FTC, recently released a survey showing that 27.3 million Americans have been victims of identity theft in the last five years, including 9.9 million people in the last year alone. According to the release, last year's identity theft losses to businesses and financial institutions totaled nearly $48 billion, with consumer victims reporting $5 billion in out-of-pocket losses.

While most identity thieves use the information to make purchases, according to the FTC release, 15 percent of victims--almost 1.5 million people in the last year--reported that their personal information was misused in nonfinancial ways, such as to obtain government documents, for tax fraud, and other non-financial purposes. The most common nonfinancial misuse took place when the thief used the victim's name and identifying information upon routine stops by law enforcement officials, or while attempting or committing a crime. Identity theft prevention and detection can assist in preventing terrorism, as well.

The Identity Theft Investigation and Prosecution Act would provide 100 million dollars to the Department of Justice, DOJ, for dedicated enforcement of the laws against identity theft and credit card fraud. While states can enforce similar state laws, today's interstate travel, Internet and technology realities make it difficult and cumbersome for state prosecutors to effectively address national and international identity theft and credit card fraud scams.

We already have sufficient laws to address identity theft. It is a serious crime to use someone else's identity and credit to steal money, goods, services or to use the information to perpetuate other frauds. The problem is that there are not sufficient dedicated resources where they are most needed to have a significant immediate impact on the matter. We have developed the ``Identity Theft Investigation and Prosecution Act of 2003'' to do just that.

Much effort is underway to prevent and limit identity theft and fraud through consumer education, consumer hotlines, public service announcements, more sophisticated identity theft detection and cutoff mechanisms, law enforcement and consumer advocacy training, etc. Yet, it is not enough to effectively address the problem. Although credit card companies wipe out most credit card fraud debts for the victims, the thieves are rarely pursued or prosecuted. The DOJ devotes some resources and enforcement toward identity theft, but it is not a high priority in its law enforcement scheme to pursue enough cases to have an impact. Identity thieves know they can pursue their crimes with a high degree of impunity. This bill would enable the DOJ to establish a large, national enforcement program to go after identity theft and abuse.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding me the time.

Mr. Speaker, I have the honor of serving in this body as a Representative from Virginia, the home State of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson who authored the statute on religious freedom which served as a model for the religious freedom provisions in our Bill of Rights. So I am pleased to rise in support of H. Res. 423, recognizing

the fifth anniversary of the signing of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 and urging renewed commitment to eliminating violations of the internationally recognized right to freedom of religion and protecting fundamental human rights.

I want to thank my distinguished colleague from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) for his sponsorship of this resolution.

I agree with the provisions, the whereases in this resolution: whereas religious freedom is an absolute right and all people are entitled to do with their own souls as they choose; whereas the right of freedom of religion is expressed in the declaration on the elimination of all forms of intolerance and discrimination based on religion or belief adopted and proclaimed by the United Nations and many other organizations; whereas freedom of all individuals to adopt, believe, worship, observe, teach and practice a religion individually or collectively has been explicitly articulated; whereas religious persecution is not confined to a country, a region, or a regime; but whereas all governments should provide and protect religious liberty. I agree with all of those principles, but I feel compelled to point out that this House has not always followed the principles articulated in the resolution.

For example, just a few months ago, this House in the Head Start reauthorization bill, by a very close vote rejected the long-standing principle that teachers could not be fired or denied employment solely because of their religious belief. Instead, we adopted a provision which allows the 8 percent of the Head Start programs which are faith- based to discriminate based on religion, with Federal money, not the church money, but with the Federal money. Ironically, that vote to allow the discrimination came one day after congressional leaders participated in a ceremony praising the 40th anniversary of the March on Washington. Ironic because one of the few articulated purposes and successes of the March on Washington was a prohibition against employment discrimination with Federal money.

Head Start, since inception, has prohibited employment discrimination based on religion, and hopefully the Senate will reject the House action and reaffirm the prohibitions against discrimination with the Federal money.

So, Mr. Speaker, as we celebrate the International Religious Freedom Act and condemn religious intolerance, we ought to renew our own commitment to that principle here in the United States and condemn efforts to allow employment discrimination with Federal money based solely on religious beliefs.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, the Federal Prison Industries program, or FPI, has been around since the 1930s. Under the law, Federal agencies are required to buy needed products from FPI if FPI can meet their order. The purpose of the program is to teach prisoners real work skills so that when they are released from prison, as they ultimately will be, they will be able to find and hold a job, they will be able to support themselves and their families, and they will be less likely to commit additional crimes.

It is clear that the program works to do just that. Follow-up studies covering as much as 16 years of data have shown that inmates who participate in prison industries are 14 percent more likely to be employed and 24 percent less likely to commit crimes than others who did not participate in the program. While this certainly benefits offenders and their families, there is a more important public policy perspective, and that is that the real benefit for all of us is that as a result of the program, they will be less likely to commit crimes. We are prepared to spend billions of dollars in prison construction and prisoner upkeep in our efforts to reduce crime. This is a program that reduces crime while it pays for itself.

Now, H.R. 1829 will result in fewer inmate jobs with increased taxpayer costs and an increase in crime. The CBO estimates that it will cost over a half a billion dollars with at least $177 million of that in additional security costs to guard the inmates who are made idle by this bill. The other part of the half billion dollars is attributable to the cost of vocational education and other alternatives to replace FPI when those jobs are lost. However, nothing guarantees that the half billion dollars will actually be funded, other than the phantom promise of an authorization in the bill.

In addition to the half billion dollars of taxpayer funds for a program that now costs taxpayers nothing, there are other big losers in the bill. About 75 percent of the roughly $600 million that FPI takes in goes back into the purchase of raw materials, equipment, and services from the private sector businesses in order to purchase supplies for FPI products. There are thousands of these businesses and they hire thousands of workers. Over 60 percent of them are small, minority- and women-owned, disadvantaged businesses. For many of them, FPI is their only client. So a high number of these private sector jobs held by law-abiding citizens will be gone immediately with the elimination of mandatory source of FPI, since there will be no reliable FPI revenues or orders.

And when these jobs are lost, they will not be made up by the business leaving FPI and going into other private businesses. The whole of the FPI revenues constitute less than one-quarter of 1 percent of Federal agency purchasing, about the same as it was in 1935. With the entire private sector market and 99.75 percent of the Federal market, spreading the remaining one-quarter of 1 percent of the Federal market over all of the private sector businesses is not likely to create any jobs. It will simply be absorbed in the existing workforce with little effect on work levels. Less than 25 percent of Federal agency purchases go to small businesses, so the bulk of the business taken away from FPI will go to big business, be absorbed, and not create any businesses to offset those that are lost.

Now, critics say that FPI has resulted in substantial job losses for law-abiding citizens. The furniture and apparel industries are two of the industries most often cited. But when asked, representatives of these industries conceded that FPI sales represent an insignificant or negligible portion of their industries, and if such industries are having problems, it is not due to the impact of FPI. I have been told that 600,000 jobs were lost over the last 10 years in the textile industry. There are roughly 7,000 prisoners working in textiles in FPI, and certainly we cannot blame a few thousand prisoners for the loss of 600,000 jobs.

All able-bodied inmates in the Federal system are required by law to work. Few offenders enter prison with marketable work skills. The vast majority do not have credible work habits such as showing up for a job and working cooperatively and productively with others. Such habits are required to maintain an FPI job. These are the same requirements and same habits required to be productive in desirable workers anywhere, and that is why inmates with FPI experience have been found to be significantly more employable than those who do not.

With the elimination of parole, with the elimination of good conduct credits, Pell grants, and the elimination of other incentives, the Federal Prison System has little to offer to a prisoner for self- development. One shining exception is FPI. Non-FPI inmate jobs pay about 12 cents an hour to about 30 cents an hour, while FPI jobs pay up to $1.25 an hour and are not paid for with any taxpayer money. To hold down an FPI job, an inmate must have completed high school or be making steady progress toward obtaining a GED, and maintain a record of good behavior.

This is true not only for those already in an FPI job, but also for those on the waiting list, as well as those who are trying to establish eligibility to be placed on the waiting list.

Some have suggested that vocational education is a good substitute for FPI work experience. While the vocational experience is important and ought to be available to all inmates who can benefit, not all inmates can benefit, and the timing is important for those who can. The average sentence for prisoners in the Federal system is 8 years. The average length of a vocational education program is about 2 years or less and is generally thought to be better delivered towards the end of the sentence, right before release. In any case, the question becomes what to do with the other 6 years of the sentence prior to or after completion of vocational education. And the next question, of course, is who is going to pay for the vocational education. The FPI program pays for itself.

I am the first to concede that there are problems with FPI which should be fixed. When a small business making a single product already has a government contract and depends on the continuation of that contract for its viability, the FPI should not be able to take that business away through the use of mandatory source.

But this bill should be fixing the problem, not gutting it by taking away all of FPI's primary business sources all at once. While the bill suggests that lack of competition is the problem, it takes away FPI's ability to provide services, even though services have to be provided on a competitive basis. There is no mandatory source provision for services; there is just for products. The bill prohibits FPI from providing services to businesses even when there is no business or labor in the United States interested in providing the service.

We are already seeing the effects of the Department of Defense restrictions on FPI procurement that we passed last Congress. Information from the program indicates that it has already had to close 13 factories and eliminate over 1,700 inmate jobs. They expect to eliminate 500 additional jobs before the end of the year.

Now, we should fix the problems, but we should do so in a way that assures the viability of a vital crime-reducing program. The GAO has been asked to study the impact of inmate employment, prison security, private and public employment, and public safety. The information will be available in April. With these issues at stake, we should not demolish a program with a record of contributing significantly to prison security, inmate and private job generation and public safety without first assessing the study information.

Congress has the oversight responsibility for the safe and efficient operation of our prisons and for the protection of the public from crime. Real work opportunities in prison have been shown not only to provide for safer, more manageable prisons, but also for substantially less recidivism upon release among those inmates who participate in

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee), a member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. Majette).

(Ms. MAJETTE asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

Mr. Chairman, before the gentleman speaks, could the Chair advise us how much time we have left?

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, if this bill passes, we will very seriously jeopardize the viability of the Prison Industry programs that will reduce the number of prison jobs. It will actually reduce the number of business opportunities because right now we are only talking about one-fourth of 1 percent of the Federal procurement. In addition to all of the private procurement going on, obviously eliminating the prison work and one- fourth of 1 percent of just the Federal part of the entire market share will make no difference to anyone. If they cannot get a contract now, they certainly will not be able to get a contract if this bill passes. We do know, however, that crime will go up if this bill passes. It does not cost the taxpayer any money. It works. I would hope that we will defeat the bill.

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

Mr. Chairman, I would first like to start off with an agreement with my friend from North Carolina, who indicated when he was in the State Senate, as I was in the State Senate in Virginia, often bills would go to a study and that would defeat the bill. That is true because after they studied an issue, they would find that the bill had no merit. It also helped bills because after they studied a bill, they would find that it had more merit than they thought. So there is nothing inherently wrong with sending it to a study to get the facts. The study is already underway. The information will be to us by April, and there are a lot of statements that have been made on this floor as to whether this bill will hurt or help small business.

We know right now that FPI spends 75 percent of all of its revenue on purchasing supplies from outside of the prison system. Small businesses, 62 percent of the 75 percent is spent with small, disadvantaged or women-owned businesses. Only 23 percent of Federal purchases generally are spent this way. So there is a question of whether small businesses will be better or worse off if this bill passes. But let us get a study. Let us study the effect.

Last year we passed amendments similar to the provisions in this bill that affected the Department of Defense. What happened as a result of those provisions? Thirteen factories have closed, 1,700 jobs have been eliminated, 500 more jobs are expected to be eliminated in the near future. There has been a temporary upward blip in jobs in Federal Prison Industries because of the war in Iraq, but we need to study to see what the long-term effect will be.

Finally, we need to know whether or not we are going to actually appropriate the money for on-the-job training programs and the other programs in the bill. FPI pays for itself. Are we going to actually appropriate the money, or will we just let the crime rate go up? Because if we eliminate the jobs without any replacement, crime will go up.

These are the kinds of things we will learn from a study, and that is why I am delighted to stand up and support the pending amendment, and I hope it is in fact adopted.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this is a ``truth-in- legislating'' amendment. We have been told that the underlying bill phases out mandatory source. This amendment would actually provide for a 5-year phaseout of the mandatory source law, which is what the proponents say the bill does. Unfortunately, the bill, in fact, immediately eliminates the mandatory source program and replaces it with an agency preference program where an agency may be required to make a purchase or may not, and there is no way to know whether it will actually replace the number of jobs without significant erosion of the program. After the 5 years, agencies under the bill do not even have to go through a preference process, and if one reads the language left after my amendment strikes out the agency preference program, we still have the bill, but with a 5-year phaseout of the mandatory source rule now in effect.

Now, if anybody believes that there is a 5-year phaseout of the current mandatory source rule under the bill, rather than an immediate elimination, just read the bill. Page 4 of the bill, starting on line 20, says ``agencies shall solicit an offer'' from FPI. Nothing wrong with that.

But note that the words no longer require a purchase, which is the current mandatory source law.

Proponents of the bill would have you believe that the public wants agency bureaucrats to have the option of buying furniture or office supplies with all the bells and whistles and all the colors, shapes, and sizes that the private sector can muster, rather than having them promoting the proven public policy of promoting meaningful work experience for inmates, most of whom would not be imprisoned in the first place if they had the work place skills and knew how to hold down a job.

Now, FPI was created in 1934. And the point of the 1934 law was, as a matter of sound public policy, that we should carve out a little minuscule portion of Federal agency purchases to provide marketable work skills and productivity to prisoners so that they will be productively occupied while in prison and be able to get a job when

they get out. Now, this program has been shown that it works. Not only has it shown that inmates who participate in FPI are significantly more likely to find productive employment, but they have shown that they are 24 percent less likely to commit a new crime upon release. That means 24 percent fewer victims.

The program and developers are aware that inmates constitute the least educated, least disciplined, least trained, least skilled, and least productive workforce around. The program requires an emphasis on manual work to employ as many people as possible. And as a result of all of those factors, the FPI estimates that it takes four inmates to do the work of one properly trained private sector employee.

That is clearly not the intent of the developers of the program to have inmates compete with the private sector, or that inmates be prevented from doing any work that could be done by the private sector. In 1934, any FPI work could have been done by the private sector, and that is still the case today.

The whole of the FPI revenues constitute less than one-quarter of 1 percent of Federal agency purchasing. And with the entire private sector market and 99.75 percent of the Federal market, spreading the remaining one-quarter of 1 percent of the Federal market over the entire private business sector is not likely to create any new jobs. So it would simply be absorbed in the existing workforce.

On the other hand, almost 80 percent of the revenues that FPI takes in goes back to purchase raw materials through the Federal procurement process and a subcontractor with private sector businesses producing FPI products for agencies. Now there are hundreds of these businesses. They hire thousands of workers. Over 60 percent of them are small, minority, women-owned or disadvantaged businesses, and for many of them FPI is their only client. A high number of these private sector jobs are held by law-abiding citizens, and they will be immediately gone with the elimination of the mandatory source of FPI since there will be no reliable orders or revenues.

When we put restrictions on the mandatory source program in the Department of Defense last year, we saw a significant erosion of inmate jobs without any indication that industry jobs in the private sector would increase as a result.

We should not be gutting this proven crime-reduction program that does not require taxpayer funding, suddenly, without knowing the consequences and without giving the prison system a realistic period to try to develop something to replace it. We should certainly not be doing this to give agency bureaucrats just a few more choices in furniture purchases.

Several of us have asked the GAO to study the impact on the prison system, FPI, the businesses, and the public from eliminating the FPI mandatory source provision. This will provide a meaningful transition. And I would hope that we would adopt the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. Chairman, I am not sure which section this amendment is in. I would hope that it would not prejudice amendments in previous sections.

Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment. It allows the Attorney General to protect public safety. If the Attorney General concludes that, in order to protect public safety, he needs the continuation of the prison industries program, he ought to be able to respond to that crisis in a way that responds to the crisis and not just send a letter to Congress to hope something might get done while the crisis is going on.

The warden apparently can do this now in the bill, but that is fairly unrealistic because the warden would have to report to the Attorney General that he cannot do his job in order to trigger that element of the bill. That is obviously not a realistic thing to think that a warden would volunteer to the fact that he cannot do his job as a condition to protect public safety.

I would hope that this safety valve amendment would be adopted so that our public safety can, in fact, be protected.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, section 7 limits the ability of FPI and State Prison Industries programs to do services and reflects the reality that promoting competition is not what proponents of FPI want. Presently, there is no mandatory source on services as opposed to products, and so straight competition is the only way that FPI can get a service contract. The bill will limit the ability of FPI to get service contracts and actually eliminate the ability of State prison service programs in State prisons.

The mandatory source in products is being eliminated in the bill. Restricting FPI's ability to continue to perform service contracts as it does now with no particular replacement will only serve to further replace inmate work opportunities. There appears to be no justification for prohibiting States from continuing their service contracts in a bill designed to reform the Federal Prison Industry program.

I am told by Delco Remy, an international company which contracts with State and Federal inmates to break down auto parts for reusable materials to produce new auto parts, I have been told by that company that

600 law-abiding Virginians, along with 300 State and Federal inmates, will lose their jobs as a direct result of this bill, and about the same number of law-abiding citizens and State and Federal inmates in South Carolina will lose their jobs. Ironically, the likelihood is that the jobs will not go to other law-abiding citizens in the United States, but will go to Delco Remy plants outside of the United States.

Other States have service contract programs as well, so it is likely that thousands of law-abiding citizens, as well as inmates, will lose their jobs as a result of this gratuitous, unrelated provision attacking State programs in a bill designed to restructure the Federal Prison Industry programs.

One of the major problems of the bill is we are taking actions without full knowledge of the consequences. That is why several of us have requested a GAO study of the potential impact of this bill, including the impact of the provision outlawing service contracts. The information will be available in April, and that is why we should wait for that information and in the meantime adopt this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, the first item of this amendment was developed and agreed to recently with the proponents of the bill. It is a proposal to authorize FPI to develop a specific program for inmates to produce goods and provide services for charitable organizations. Although I fear that the funds authorized to develop the project may not be ever appropriated, if the funds are appropriated, I see it as a way of providing, for some of the inmates, work opportunities to compensate for the jobs lost by the passage of this bill.

So I have included that provision along with other pilot projects that I believe should be examined for their potential to make up for the job loss as well.

Mr. Chairman, the other parts of the amendment are as follows. There is an offshore repatriation, there is a Federal Prison Industry enhancement, and a not-for-profit provision. These provisions are not new to the proponents of the bill. In the last Congress, the supporters of the bill and the opponents of the bill, along with their staffs and along with the staff of FPI, worked to develop a compromise proposal on various parts of the bill restructuring FPI to present to the rest of us.

A compromise proposal was developed and many of the elements agreed to are reflected in the bill before us. These pilot authorities would complete the rest of the compromise proposal that we appeared to agree on last year.

Specifically, on the offshore repatriation provision, FPI would be authorized to produce commercial market items for private companies to sell and distribute which have been produced offshore for at least 3 years, provided inmates are paid at least twice the foreign market wage for producing the product. This is to ensure that the lower wage is not the focus of the pilot, and also provides for protections for any businesses or workers engaged in the production of these products in the United States, including a challenging procedure which would halt production

if any product that a business or worker could show is actually being produced, or has been produced in the United States in the past 3 years.

The other provision is Federal PIE. FPI would be authorized to produce items for the domestic commercial market provided inmates are paid prevailing domestic market wages. This would allow FPI to pilot a program similar to the Federal Prison Industries Enhancement programs, or PIE, already in operation under Federal law for State Prison Industries programs but not for the Federal Prison Industry program. Under this program, FPI would be allowed to pilot the production of products or services for which there is not a domestic labor force available. There are also strong protections against American worker displacements in this pilot. And again, the language is the language developed by representatives of three Members working with FPI staff.

There is a not-for-profit provision. This involves producing goods or services for not-for-profits at a negotiated rate that would not otherwise be paid for by nonprofits or done by noninmate workers for pay.

During the pilot programs this amendment would authorize, there would be extensive input from the International Trade Commission and the Department of Labor. Any activity under them would be reported to the public and any potential affected parties for comment. All actions taken by FPI relative to the projects would be done in public meetings.

We are talking about pilot programs for proposals. If the pilots do not work or create programs, as some have expressed, then we could simply put a stop to them. But if we are going to take away jobs, if we are going to take away the only reliable basis the prison system has had to ensure real work opportunities for prisoners because one-fourth of 1 percent of the Federal procurement expenditures are deemed too much of a market share for a program which has been proven to reduce crime, it would be irresponsible for us to not at least test other ways to give the program some actual continued reliability. I would hope that my colleagues would support the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, my goal is to make sure that we have the provision of significant job opportunities for prisoners that will reduce crime. FPI does it with no cost. The gentleman from Michigan has suggested by his assurances that we might be able to come up with alternatives that will actually provide jobs another way and reduce costs. It might cost something. But I think the main focus ought to be the provision of jobs so we can reduce crime. It has been proven that these programs reduce crime.

With the gentleman's assurance that we can work together and possibly come up with some accommodation to replace the jobs that may be lost in the underlying bill, I will ask to withdraw the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, as I indicated in my remarks, this would be part of the amendment that I just withdrew. This would actually provide meaningful job opportunities for inmates. It would therefore reduce crime. It has the added advantage, it would help nonprofit charitable organizations get goods and services they may not be able to get. It does not have the advantage that it is paid for by itself. We would have to appropriate funds. But because it accomplishes all of the goals that we all have stated as goals for the prison industries program, I would hope that we would adopt this amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, for the reasons I have already articulated, I think this would be a good amendment, and I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

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

This bill makes DNA technology available to our criminal justice system in a way that effectively enhances the efficiency and certainty in exonerating the innocent, as well as identifying, prosecuting and convicting the guilty.

In recent years, the advent of DNA evidence has shown us, unequivocally, we have been convicting and incarcerating innocent people, while allowing many guilty people to go free. As a result of DNA identifications, many offenders have been convicted. At the same time, 138 convicted and sentenced individuals have been exonerated by DNA evidence, including 12 who were on death row.

The numbers of suspects who have been excluded as offenders at the outset of criminal investigations is even greater. The FBI reveals that 25 percent of suspects who are DNA tested are, in fact, exonerated.

This bill includes the provisions of the Debbie Smith Act, which authorizes significant funding to process DNA analysis for evidence. Many evidence kits are not now analyzed simply because of lack of funding, which means that many offenders are evading justice just because of lack of funds. This bill will mean they will be tracked down and prosecuted.

Virginia is a leader in solving crimes and DNA technology, and all States will benefit from the provisions of the Debbie Smith Act. The Debbie Smith Act is from Virginia.

While DNA technology has provided uncontrovertible proof that innocent people have been convicted and sentenced, DNA evidence covers only a small portion of those who are ultimately found to be innocent. One frequent reason for innocent people being convicted and sentenced, even to death, is incompetent and ineffective counsel. This is also the reason why many convictions are overturned. So we are pleased that there are minimum standards assured in the bill for qualifications of attorneys who will represent potential death row inmates.

Mr. Speaker, this will actually also mean that not only innocent people will not be convicted, but also many of the convictions will in fact be upheld on appeal.

I urge my colleagues to support the legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary for his leadership on this issue. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, we need to do much more to prevent dangerous firearms from falling into the hands of would-be terrorists and other violent criminals.

We could start by renewing the current assault weapons ban. We could also strengthen criminal background checks and close the gun show loophole so that rogue gun dealers will not be able to evade the current spirit of the law and sell guns to criminals and suspected terrorists. Finally, we need to protect us from firearms that cannot be detected by metal detectors or x-ray machines.

The bill before us today achieves the last of these objectives. It renews the Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988, also known as the Plastic Gun Law, which makes it illegal to manufacture, import, possess, or transfer a firearm that is not detectable by walk-through metal detectors or airport x-ray machines.

Renewing the ban on plastic guns is vital. The gun industry clearly has the technology to manufacture firearms that cannot be detected by metal detectors or x-ray machines. As early as 1986, the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment determined that the ``technology does exist to manufacture certain firearms which would be completely or almost completely nonmetallic'' and that ``plastic handguns may be available on the commercial market quite soon.''

Indeed, shortly thereafter, in 1986, an attempt was made by Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi to purchase more than 100 firearms produced in Austria and constructed almost entirely out of hardened plastic.

With the ongoing war on terrorism, it is even more important than ever that we take an aggressive stance against dangerous weapons that make our society vulnerable to future terrorist-related attacks. H.R. 3348 was introduced with this in mind; and while I would strongly prefer to make this bill permanent and not just an extension, I think the extension is an important step in the right direction, and I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, the Federal Prison Industries program, or FPI, has been around since the 1930s. Under the law, the Federal agencies are required to buy needed products from FPI if they can meet the order. The purpose of the program is to teach prisoners real work skills so when they are released from prison, they will be able to find and hold jobs to support themselves and their families and be less likely to commit more crimes.

And it is clear that the program works to do just that. Follow-up studies covering as much as 16 years of data have shown that inmates who participate in prison industries are more likely to be employed and less likely to commit crimes than others who do not participate in the program. And while this certainly benefits the offenders and their families, that is beside the point from a public policy perspective. The real benefit is that all of us, as a result of the program, are less likely to be victims of crimes. We are prepared to spend billions of dollars in prison construction and prison upkeep in our efforts to reduce crime. This program reduces crime and pays for itself.

H.R. 1829 will result in fewer inmate jobs, with increased taxpayer costs and an increase in crime. The CBO, for example, estimates it will cost at least $177 million just in extra security costs to guard the inmates made idle by this bill.

The total revenues of FPI represent a very small percent, approximately \1/4\ of 1 percent of Federal agency procurement dollars, about the same as it was when it started in 1934. Furniture and apparel industries are two industries in which FPI does most of its work; but when asked, a representative of these industries conceded that FPI sales represent ``insignificant'' and ``negligible''

portions of their industries. And if such industries have problems, it is not due to FPI. On textiles, for example, I was told that 600,000 jobs were lost over the last 10 years. Where there are approximately 7,000 prisoners working in textiles in FPI, we certainly cannot blame 7,000 prisoners for the loss of 600,000 jobs.

The program generates almost as much business as it takes in by pumping three quarters of the roughly $600 million it takes in back into the economy to purchase supplies and whatnot, primarily from small minority and women-owned and disadvantaged businesses. The FPI has received awards for spending almost 60 percent of its expenditures in these small and disadvantaged businesses.

I am the first to concede that there may be problems with FPI which should be fixed. When a small business making a single product such as an Army helmet is dependent on the Department of Defense for contracts for its operations, FPI should not be able to take away that business. But this bill should be fixing the problems not by gutting it by taking away all its primary source of contracts. And while the bill suggests that the lack of competition is a problem, the bill seeks to stranglehold FPI as a competitor not only by strengthening the prohibitions against activities in the commercial market but also in the government as well. We are already seeing the effects of a Department of Defense restriction in FPI passed last year. The information I have obtained from the program indicates that it has already had to close 13 factories and eliminate over 1,700 inmate jobs and expects to eliminate an additional 500 jobs before the end of the year.

We should fix these problems, but we should do so in a way that assures the viability of the vital crime-reducing program. With additional prisons scheduled to come on line over the next few years, we can ill afford to diminish the successful crime-reduction program. But for their crimes and imprisonment, they are indistinguishable from the rest of us; and treating them as if they are a foreign competitor and viewing the work as private businesses, we should not be in a position where the policy of the committee with oversight responsibility for the safe and efficient operation of our prisons should be at risk.

Mr. Speaker, these are important jobs. This program reduces crime. We can do better than just gut the entire program with a meat ax approach. We can improve the program without ending it. So I would hope that we would defeat the rule and, if the rule passes, defeat the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) for his leadership in this budget issue. We have seen a lot of charts, and I would like to remind the public of this chart right here which shows the deficit from the Johnson administration, Nixon, Ford, Carter, the deficit created during the Reagan and Bush years. And then when President Clinton came in, as noted, we passed a budget without a single Republican vote that created the momentum carrying up towards an actual surplus. We got ourselves out of the ditch into a surplus.

Some have suggested that since the Republicans used this vote and took over the House and the Senate, that they ought to get some credit for this improvement. Unfortunately, they should not get the credit because as soon as they took over, they passed trillions of dollars in tax cuts, and President Clinton vetoed those tax cuts. They threatened to shut the government down, he vetoed them again. They shut the government down, President Clinton stuck to his guns, vetoed it again, and as a result, this line continued up.

Unfortunately, when President Bush came in, he signed those trillion dollar tax cuts, and we see what would have happened a long time ago had President Clinton not vetoed those budgets.

Now, this goes down to an on-budget deficit of almost $700 billion. We have to put that into perspective and the fact of the line item individual income tax, how much revenue we get from individual income tax in the United States, less than $800 billion. In a couple of years, we are going to be almost $700 billion in on-budget deficit, spending almost $150-$200 billion in Social Security and Medicare, and then almost $700 billion in on-budget deficit.

We cannot sustain this for very long. Let us see what this next chart shows, the height of fiscal irresponsibility, because this shows how much of their budget was paid for with borrowed money. Back in the depression in World War II, obviously, a substantial amount was paid for with borrowed money, but we are getting to numbers now, and this goes to 2010, we are getting to numbers now that we have not seen on a sustained basis since World War II. This year we are breaking the record. Since World War II, we have not seen almost a third of the budget being paid for with borrowed money. Of course, during the Clinton years, the amount paid for with borrowed money went down due to the fact that it was actually a surplus. And as soon as President Bush came in, we started paying for the budget with borrowed money, and we are up in a couple of years with almost a third of the budget being paid off in borrowed money, and it looks like it is not going to get any better in the future.

How did we get there, we got there with tax cuts. And who got the tax cuts, the top 20 percent got most of the tax cuts. In fact, half of the tax cuts went to the upper 1 percent. Most people do not know how big the tax cut was because most people did not get very much. As we can see from the chart, the middle 20 percent did not get very much, and on down. By income, if the taxpayer made more than a million dollars, they would be off the chart, a $90,000 tax cut in 1 year. If all they made was $500,000 to $1 million, you got $13,000 in 2003. $200,000 to $500,000 on average got $2,000. And as we get down to $50,000 to $75,000 on average, the taxpayer hardly noticed what they got. Going down, we do not even need any red ink to show what they got. Most Americans do not know how big this tax cut was.

But we were told we had to cut taxes to create jobs, and the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) told us how many jobs have been created. We, in fact, lost jobs. On a 4-year basis back to Truman, everybody is gaining jobs. Eisenhower in his two terms, almost two million jobs. Everybody is creating jobs until we get to this administration. We have lost 3.1, 3.2 million jobs already lost in this administration.

We cannot blame this on 9/11 because going back to the Truman administration, and that includes the Korean War, coming forward it includes the Vietnam War, the hostages in Iran, Somalia, Grenada, the Cold War, everybody is still creating jobs, until we get to this administration.

This is a complicated chart, but it shows what the Republican-led Joint Committee on Taxation thought about the tax cuts. Since they are done with borrowed money, there might be a short-term spike in jobs that we should expect, but depending on which model we use, we will be losing jobs, at best, and end up where we started in the fullness of time. So the Joint Committee on Taxation told us this was a job killer.

When we run up deficits, we run up debt and interest on the national debt. This shows the interest on the national debt that has to be paid in cash. More actually has to be paid, because we have to pay interest on trust funds, but that is internal. This is what we need to come up with every year in terms of cash. By 2010, $300 billion every year just to pay interest on the national debt. This line here shows what we would have been paying had we not messed up the budget in 2001. The projection was that we would be paying no interest on the national debt by 2008, but instead because we messed up the budget, $300 billion a year.

This is happening at a time when the Social Security trust fund becomes a challenge. We see in this chart the Social Security trust fund. The blue is the surplus that we are running now. We are bringing in more in Social Security than we are paying out. We ought to keep it in the lockbox which has been referenced because, obviously, we are going to need it shortly. But unfortunately, we are spending it all. This shows the deficit. By 2030, it is almost $900 billion a year in shortfall that we are going to have to come up with every year to pay Social Security as promised.

Members may look at this chart and conclude maybe it was a lost cause, maybe we just could not pay Social Security, maybe it was just a matter of time before the thing went broke, but there is one little interesting fact. When we go back to this tax cut in 2001, this tax cut was so large that if we had taken what the top 1 percent got and instead of giving a tax cut to

the upper 1 percent, if we put that money into the Social Security trust fund, just what the top 1 percent got, everybody else gets what they got, just the top 1 percent, put that into the Social Security trust fund, we would have built up the surplus enough to have paid benefits under Social Security without reducing benefits for 75 years. For 75 years, Social Security would have been secure, or tax cut for the upper 1 percent. Those are the kinds of choices we have been making and the reason we have been fighting for fiscal sanity. If we do not get this straight, we are going to lose Social Security.

We cannot pay increasing interest on the national debt and this increasing deficit in Social Security without something having to go. By all likelihood, it is going to be the Social Security program unless we get things under control.

So I would hope we can get the budget under control and people will follow the leadership of the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) in maintaining fiscal discipline so we can have Social Security in the future for us and the next generation.

This is a very challenging chart, but as I said, if we had allocated the same amount of money as we had for the upper 1 percent in tax cuts, just 2001, we could have had a secure Social Security program for 75 years. Those are not the kinds of decisions we ought to be making. We have to reverse that direction, and that is why I am delighted to participate with the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) in this Special Order.

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

Mr. Speaker, the entire Persian Gulf War 12 years ago cost the United States less than $8 billion. The total cost of the war was over $60 billion, but because allies were participating our share was only 12 percent of the cost. Now we have already spent $79 billion on the present war in Iraq. We are asked to spend $87 billion more for a total of $166 billion so far.

To put the $166 billion in perspective, Mr. Speaker, the total appropriation for this fiscal year for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. Department of Education and Department of Labor and Department of State was less than $166 billion. On a per capita basis, $166 billion is more for each person in Iraq than the total annual government spending in the United States for each of our American citizens for everything other than Social Security and defense.

Although this is a huge expenditure, the administration does not even give lip service to explain how the bill will be paid, no outline of spending cuts or increased taxes. The administration says we cannot lend the money to Iraq because they are too far in debt, and yet the national debt in Iraq is approximately $4,000 a person. The national debt of the United States, $20,000 per person.

A vote on this bill represents the only opportunity Congress has to consider the President's policies in Iraq since October of last year, and the President's decision to invade unilaterally without allies has meant that we are paying 100 percent of the costs of the war in cash and in casualties, and a yes vote on this bill will mean that no significant attempt will be made to get international participation.

Mr. Speaker, we have had widespread reports of contracting fraud, and a vote on this bill means that we will get more of the same.

During the campaign, the President frequently insisted that no troops would ever be deployed without an exit strategy, and not only do we not have an exit strategy, we do not even have a good entry strategy. The President has acknowledged that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. No weapons of mass destruction have been found. Iraq was never an imminent threat to the

United States, and so we cannot get an exit strategy, if we cannot explain why we are there in the first place. A yes vote on the bill forfeits any congressional opportunity to require a meaningful exit strategy.

Now whatever, there are a lot of reasons to vote no, but if this passage of the bill would make us safer, we might want to vote yes. Unfortunately, even before the war, the CIA concluded that Iraq posed very little threat to the United States at that time, but would pose a threat if we attacked them. This policy, which includes the expenditure of $166 billion and the loss of many courageous lives, has failed to make us safer.

Mr. Speaker, because this bill represents such a huge expenditure and validates failed policies, I would ask that we defeat the legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule because it blocks amendments such as the one I would like to introduce which would increase the pay by $1,000 a month for anybody who is serving in excess of 6 months in Iraq.

Extended deployment strains all families, especially Reservists and those in the National Guard who have seen their deployments extended to 12 months. USA Today recently reported that one-third of Reservists and National Guard members suffered a cut in pay when called to active duty, especially those called up on short notice, those who have made personal business arrangements for a 6-month leave only to be told later that it is going to be a full year.

The cost of this amendment would be a drop in the bucket. If you figure that a third of those over there will be on extended deployment, that would cost about $50 million a month, $600 million a year, less than 1 percent of the cost of this bill.

Moreover, the amendment will not cost anything if the deployments are limited to 6 months, and at the same time it discourages the 12-month deployment.

Mr. Speaker, I ask that the rule be defeated so that amendments like this can be considered. Defeat the rule and allow other amendments.

Mr. Chairman, the entire Persian Gulf war 12 years ago cost the United States much less than $8 billion. The total cost of that war was $61 billion, but because allies were participating, our share was only 12 percent of the total cost. We have already spent $79 billion on the present war on Iraq, and now we are asked to appropriate another $87 billion for a total of $166 billion, so far.

To put the $166 billion into perspective, the total appropriation for this fiscal year (FY 2003) for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Transportation, the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Labor, and the U.S. Department of State was less than $166 billion.

And on a per person basis, $166 billion is more for each person in Iraq than the total annual U.S. Government spending for each American citizen for everything other than Social Security and Defense.

Although this is a huge expenditure, the administration fails to even give lip service to explain how the bill will be paid. No outline of spending cuts or increased taxes has been presented. The Administration has opposed lending any portion of the funds to Iraq because the Administration claims that Iraq is too far in debt already, even though the national debt in Iraq is approximately $4,000 per person while the national debt in the United States is approximately $20,000 per person. It therefore has to be assumed that all of the money will be borrowed by the United States government. At 5-percent interest, the annual interest on this $166 billion of additional debt will be $8.3 billion or $160 million per week. A yes vote on the bill commits this country to additional annual interest payments that are more than the annual cost of the entire Head Start program.

The vote on this bill represents the only opportunity Congress has had to consider the President's policies in Iraq since October of last year. The President's decision to invade unilaterally, without allies, has meant that we are paying 100 percent of the costs of the war, in cash and in casualties. In the Persian Gulf war, allies paid more than 85 percent of the costs; if they were paying only 50 percent of the costs of this war, we would save $80 billion and countless lives. Unfortunately, a yes cot on the bill will mean that no significant attempt will be made to engage the international community's participation.

There have been widespread reports of financial waste in Iraq. A few weeks ago, ``60 Minutes'' chronicled the profitable no-bid contracts enjoyed by Halliburton and others and pointed out that there were firms who could do much of the work for half of the price paid to Halliburton under those contracts. Last week, National Public Radio's ``Morning Edition'' described sweetheart deals and corruption. Questions have also been raised about the extravagance of the reconstruction of Iraq and whether more modest construction might accomplish the same goals. A yes vote on this bill will mean that no change in contracting procedures will be made.

During his campaign, President Bush frequently insisted that no troops should ever be

deployed without an ``exit strategy''. Not only do we have no apparent exit strategy, we also have no apparent entry strategy: the President recently admitted that Iraq had nothing to do with September 11th; no weapons of mass destruction have been located; Iraq was never an imminent threat to the United States. We cannot develop an exit strategy, if we cannot articulate what the entry strategy was. A yes vote on the bill forfeits a Congressional opportunity to require the administration to clearly establish an exit strategy.

Notwithstanding all of the reasons to vote ``no'', if the passage of the bill would result in a safer America, it would be worth the cost. Unfortunately, even before the war, the CIA concluded that Iraq posed very little threat to the United States at the time, but would pose an increased threat if we attacked them. A letter form CIA Director George Tenet to the Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, dated October 7, 2002, and printed in the Congressional Record stated that: ``Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or CBW (chemical and biological weapons) against the United States. Should Saddam conclude that a United States-led attack could no longer be deterred, he would probably become much less constrained in adopting terrorist actions.'' Certainly we cannot be any safer than the CIA said we were before we attacked; but, most recent reports describe more terrorists now gathering in Iraq than before the war. So, the policy which includes the expenditure of $166 billion and the loss of many courageous lives has failed to make us safer.

Because the appropriations in the bill represent more than the United States last year for the United States Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Transportation, the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Labor, and the U.S. Department of State; because there is no plan for paying the bill; because failed policies will be validated by the passage of the bill; and because we are in fact more at risk, not safer as result of those polices, I urge my colleagues to oppose the bill.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this request for nearly $87 billion to continue the occupation and rebuilding of Iraq and Afghanistan. This is money we do not have for a foreign welfare program. The burden on our already weakened economy could well be crippling.

Those who argue that we must vote for this appropriation because ``we must succeed'' in Iraq are misguided. Those who say this, have yet to define what it means--in concrete terms--to have ``success'' in Iraq. What is success in Iraq? How will we achieve success in Iraq? How will we know when we have succeeded in Iraq? About how long will ``success'' take to achieve and about how much will it cost? These are reasonable questions to have when we are asked to spend billions of taxpayers' dollars, but thus far we have heard little more than nice- sounding platitudes.

We have established a troubling precedent that no matter how ill- conceived an intervention, we must continue to become more deeply involved because ``we must succeed.'' That is one reason we see unrelated funding in this supplemental for places like Liberia and Sudan.

Mr. Chairman this reconstruction of Iraq--that we are making but a down-payment on today--is at its core just another foreign policy boondoggle. The $20 billion plan to ``rebuild'' Iraq tilts heavily toward creating a statist economy and is filled with very liberal social-engineering programs. Much of the money in this reconstruction plan will be wasted--as foreign aid most often is. Much will be wasted as corporate welfare to politically-connected corporations; much will be thrown away at all the various ``non-government organizations'' that aim to teach the Iraqis everything from the latest American political correctness to the ``right'' way to vote. The bill includes $900 million to import petroleum products into Iraq (a country with the second largest oil reserves in the world); $793 million for healthcare in Iraq when we're in the midst of our own crisis and about to raise Medicare premiums of our seniors; $10 million for ``women's leadership programs'' (more social engineering); $200 million in loan guarantees to Pakistan (a military dictatorship that likely is the home of Osama bin Laden); $245 million for the ``U.S. share'' of U.N. peacekeeping in Liberia and Sudan; $95 million for education in Afghanistan; $600 million for repair and modernization of roads and bridges in Iraq (while our own infrastructure crumbles).

There has been some discontent among conservatives about the $20 billion reconstruction price tag. They fail to realize that this is just the other side of the coin of military interventionism. It is the same coin, which is why I have consistently opposed foreign interventionism. There is a lesson here that those who call themselves fiscal conservatives seem to not have learned. There is no separation between the military intervention and the post-military intervention, otherwise known as ``nation-building.'' Fiscal conservatives are uneasy about nation-building and foreign aid. The president himself swore off nation-building as a candidate. But anyone concerned about sending American tax dollars to foreign countries must look directly at military interventionism abroad. If there is one thing the history of our interventionism teaches, it is that the best way for a foreign country to become a financial dependent of the United States is to first be attacked by the United States.

This request--which was not the first and will not be the last-- demonstrates in the most concrete terms that there is a real and concrete cost of our policy of interventionism. The American taxpayer paid to bomb Baghdad and now will pay to rebuild Iraq--its schools, hospitals, prisons, roads, and more. Many Americans cannot afford to send their own children to college, but with the money in this bill they will be sending Iraqi kids to college. Is this really what the American people want?

The real point is that the billions we are told we must spend to rebuild Iraq is indeed the natural outcome of our policy of pre-emptive military intervention. All those who voted for the resolution authorizing the president to attack Iraq have really already voted for this supplemental. There is no military intervention without a ``Marshall Plan'' afterward, regardless of our ability to pay. And the American people will be expected to pay for far more. This current request is only perhaps step four in what will likely be a 10 or more step program to remake Iraq and the rest of the Middle East in the image of Washington, D.C. social engineers and ``global planners.'' What will be steps five, six, seven, eight? Long-term occupation, micro-managing Iraq's economy, organizing and managing elections, writing an Iraqi constitution. And so on. When will it end?

There is also much said about how we must support this supplemental because to do otherwise would mean not supporting the troops. I resent this dishonest accusation. It is nothing but a red herring. I wonder if an American currently serving an open-ended occupation in Iraq would think that bringing him home next week would be a good show of support for our troops. Maintaining an increasingly deadly occupation of Iraq and bankrupting many of our reservists and national guard troops by unilaterally extending their contracts to serve in an active deployment is hardly ``supporting the troops.'' Perhaps that is why a Stars and Stripes newspaper survey of the troops in Iraq this week found that a majority had very low morale. And according to the same Stars and Stripes survey, an increasing number are not planning to re-enlist.

Conservatives often proclaim that they are opposed to providing American welfare to the rest of the world. I agree. The only way to do that, however, is to stop supporting a policy of military interventionism. You cannot have one without the other. If a military intervention against Syria and Iran are next, it will be the same thing: we will pay to bomb the country and we will pay even more to rebuild it--and as we see with the plan for Iraq, this rebuilding will not be done on the cheap. The key fallacy in the argument of the militarists is that there is some way to fight a war without associated costs--the costs of occupation, reconstruction, ``institution- building,'' ``democracy programs.''

I opposed our action against Iraq for two main reasons. I sincerely believed that our national security was not threatened and I did not believe that Saddam Hussein's regime was involved in the attack on the United States on 9/11. I believe what we have learned since the intervention has supported my view. Meanwhile, while our troops are trying to police the border between Syria and Iraq our own borders remain as porous as ever. Terrorists who entered our country could easily do so again through our largely un-patrolled borders. While we expend American blood and treasure occupying a country that was not involved in the attack on the U.S., those were responsible for the attack most likely are hiding out in Pakistan--a military dictatorship we are now allied with and to which this supplemental sends some $200 million in loan guarantees.

Our continued occupation of Iraq is not producing the promised results, despite efforts paint a brighter picture of the current situation. What once was a secular dictatorship appears to be moving toward being a fundamentalist Islamic regime--not the democracy we were promised. As repulsive as Saddam's regime was, the prospect of an Iraq run by Islamic clerics, aligned with Iranian radicals and hostile to the United States, is no more palatable. There are signs that this is the trend. The press reports regularly on attacks against Iraq's one million Christians. Those hand-picked by the United States to run Iraq have found themselves targets for assassination. Clerics are forming their own militias. The thousands of non-combatants killed in the U.S. intervention are seeking revenge against the unwanted American occupiers.

Mr. Chairman, throwing billions of dollars after a failed policy will not produce favorable

results. We are heading full-speed toward bankruptcy, yet we continue to spend like there is no tomorrow. There will be a tomorrow, however. The money we are spending today is real. The bill will be paid, whether through raising taxes or printing more money. Either way, the American people will become poorer in pursuit of a policy that cannot and will not work. We cannot re-make the world in our own image. The stated aim was to remove Saddam Hussein. That mission is accomplished. The best policy now for Iraq is to declare victory and bring our troops home. We should let the people of Iraq rebuild their own country. I urge my colleagues to vote against this supplemental request.