Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule and to the underlying bill.

Let us make it clear, the conference report and the bill before us will not prohibit any abortions. Alternative bills which would have outlawed late-term abortions have been rejected by the majority. This bill will not prevent any abortions.

The bill will prohibit a procedure. The abortion can still take place using another procedure, and I am not going to inflame the debate by describing in explicit detail the alternative procedures that may be used.

But I will point out that Nebraska had a law banning the so-called partial-birth abortion procedure. Three years ago the United States Supreme Court held that that law was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court said five times in its majority opinion and other times in concurring opinions, that in order to make a partial-birth abortion ban constitutional, the law must contain a health exception to allow the procedure where it is necessary in appropriate medical judgment for the preservation of life or health of the mother. That is what five Supreme Court Justices said is necessary to make the bill constitutional. All five are still on the Supreme Court.

In that case the Court said, The question before us is whether Nebraska's statute making criminal the performance of a partial-birth abortion violates the Federal Constitution. We conclude it does for at least two independent reasons.

They went on to say that the first reason was that it lacks the exception for the preservation of the health of the mother. The Court said, ``Subsequent to viability, the State may, if it chooses, regulate or even prescribe abortion,'' and then they put this in italics, ``except where as necessary in appropriate medical judgment for the preservation of life or health of the mother.''

It goes on to say that the governing standard requires an exception, now listen up, because now they put it in quotes, ``where it is necessary in the appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.''

The Court continues talking about the health exception by saying that ``our cases have repeatedly invalidated statutes that in the process of regulating the methods of abortion impose significant health risks.'' They make it clear that risking a woman's health is the same, whether it happens to arise from regulating a particular method of abortion or from barring abortion entirely.

Just in case we did not get it, the Court said again, ``By no means must the State grant physicians unfettered discretion in their selection of abortion methods. But where substantial medical authority supports the proposition that banning a particular abortion procedure could endanger a woman's health, Casey requires that the statute include a health exception where the procedure is `necessary in the appropriate medical judgment for the preservation of life or health of the mother.' ''

Now, the record clearly reflects that there is substantial medical authority supporting the use in some cases of this procedure.

Mr. Speaker, whatever our views are on the underlying issue of abortion, we ought to read the decision and apply the law.

Mr. Speaker, whatever our views are on the underlying issue of abortion, we ought to read the decision and apply the law. The Supreme Court in one decision said at least five times that the health exception must be included for the statute to be constitutional.

Furthermore, they put the exact phrase to be used, ``necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or the health of the mother,'' in plain text, in italics and in quotations.

Here we have a bill without the health exception. It is clearly unconstitutional, and we ought to reject the rule and the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to speak about what is not in this bill as well as what is in it. This bill is in stark contrast to

the bill which passed 2 years ago in that it does not include the provision that would allow employment discrimination with Federal dollars. In fact, the bill preserves current civil rights protections.

Faith-based organizations willing to comply with civil rights laws will be able to get funding under this bill just as they can today. And organizations which refuse to comply with the 60-year tradition of no discrimination with Federal funds will not be able to get funding under this bill.

When we talk about discrimination, let us remember that there was a time in America when people of certain religions were routinely denied jobs solely because of their religious beliefs, but we passed laws to end that invidious discrimination.

All of us can be supportive of the work of faith-based organizations and recognize that many can successfully sponsor federally funded programs, but we do not have to sabotage anti-discrimination laws to do that. And it is insulting to suggest that we can get investments in needy areas only if we turn back the clock on civil rights.

This bill allows us to support the work of faith-based organizations without sacrificing our hard-won civil rights protections. The language in the original bill that will allow faith-based organizations to proselytize to beneficiaries in public services and use Federal money to convert people to their own religion has likewise been dropped from this bill as well.

An individual in a homeless shelter should not be required to have to consider changing his religion in order to get a meal if that meal is paid for with Federal funds. The Constitution does not permit this and neither should we.

I hope this bill can be a positive step in the right direction, but all of us should be cognizant that although the old H.R. 7 is gone, there are currently several bills, individual bills, that would allow faith-based organizations to discriminate in employment based on religion with Federal funds.

We have already seen these provisions in the reauthorization of the Head Start bill that passed the House and the Workforce Investment Act, and I am sure that there will be others.

Mr. Speaker, this bill shows that we can do better than that. We can support good community organizations that do good work without sacrificing either civil rights protections or the Constitution.

We can accomplish this by providing them more money to do that work and providing guidance and navigating the Federal bureaucracy, and we do not have to undermine constitutional and anti-discrimination laws to do that.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to put some of the numbers in perspective. I serve on the Committee on the Budget and have looked at these numbers from the perspective of the budget. To put these in perspective, let us begin with the first Persian Gulf war, Desert Storm. The total cost of that war, $61.1 billion. Because we had international cooperation, we paid 12 percent of that cost, $7.4 billion. 12 percent. The first supplemental that we have already spent in the current Iraqi conflict, $79 billion. We have been asked for $87 billion more, a total of $166 billion. If we had had international cooperation, 12 percent of $166 billion is $20 billion. Because of the administration's decision to go it alone and attack unilaterally, a $20 billion problem has become a $166 billion problem. And so I commend the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus for asking what efforts will be made to develop the multilateral force that can share in this burden.

In addition, because we are already into deficit spending, this administration should articulate how the costs of

the war will be borne. If we are going to just borrow the money, then we have to recognize the context of borrowing additional money. In early 2001, budget projections were that within 10 years, we would run up a $5 trillion surplus, enough to pay off the entire national debt, meaning that we would have no interest on the national debt after about 2013. Because we have gone back to deficit spending instead of paying off the national debt, we have increased the national debt such that the interest on the national debt that we will be paying by 2013, instead of zero, will be about as much as we are spending for national defense. In that context, if we are going to borrow the money, let us recognize that we are going to have to pay interest on $166 billion at around 4 percent interest. That equals to over $6.5 billion a year, over $100 million every week, just in interest, without paying off the principal, just in interest for as far as the eye can see.

Let us put some of these numbers also in perspective as to what we spend on other priorities. $166 billion between the supplemental we have spent and the request that is before us. $166 billion. The Department of Education every year, we appropriate less than $60 billion. Transportation, $51.5 billion. Homeland Security Department, $35.8 billion. Those three departments combined, Education, Transportation, Homeland Security, less than $166 billion.

Let us put it into another perspective. In our budget, we expect this year to receive $790 billion in individual income tax. That is everybody's individual income tax, $790 billion. About 20 percent of the request and the supplemental, prior supplemental, amount to 20 percent of the entire individual income tax revenue. With these numbers in hand, the CBC's request for a coherent accounting of the funds is appropriate. It is especially appropriate when you consider the prior claims by this administration, such as the cost of the war will be paid by the oil revenues. Those projections turned out to be false. Therefore, this request needs to be supported by specific plans and documentation detailing how the prior supplemental was spent, exactly how this request will be spent, how it will be paid for, including the question of whether we will get multilateral help, what likelihood there will be for future supplemental appropriations to support the war effort. Those questions need to be answered before we can intelligently consider the request before us.

I want to thank the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus for bringing these questions to the forefront to make sure that we have this information before we vote.

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin on something we can all agree on and that is what President Bush said in August at an August fund-raiser. He said, ``I ran for office to solve problems, not to pass them on to future Presidents and future generations.''

We can all agree on that, but, unfortunately, the reality is that instead of paying off the public debt by 2011, as we had projected in 2001, this administration will leave the future generations with a debt of almost $7 trillion as of 2011.

Now, rather than get into rhetoric and everything, let us just use a chart so we know exactly what numbers we are talking about. This shows the deficit year by year from the Johnson administration, Nixon, Ford, Carter, the deficits that were run up in the Reagan and Bush years, and also shows the surplus that was generated by the time President Clinton left office.

Mr. Speaker, in 1993 we passed a budget without any Republican votes. The Republicans, after those votes were cast, campaigned against that budget that was passed, and picked up 50 seats in the House and control of the Senate as a result.

In 1995 after the 1994 election, the Republicans, with control of Congress, passed a budget with trillions of dollars in tax cuts. President Clinton vetoed that budget. They threatened to close down the government. He vetoed the next budget. They closed down the government, and he vetoed the budget again.

Because he vetoed those budgets, this trend went up until we had a surplus of almost $100 billion projected for 2001. And that is on budget. That is without touching the Social Security or Medicare surplus.

As soon as President Bush came in, he signed the trillion dollar tax cuts. And, wait a minute, this has $500 billion in deficits. This is the February

projection. This has been updated. It is no longer $500 billion. The latest figure is almost $700 billion in deficit that we will be running up.

Now, it is important to put $700 billion in perspective because if you look at the Federal budget and look on the line item revenue, individual income tax, what we get from the individual income tax in the Federal budget, it is less than $800 billion. We are running deficits now of almost $700 billion.

Now, when we run up deficits like this as far as the eye can see, one can understand how we got from where we were in 2001 to where we are now. In January 2001, we expected by 2011 to have run up a surplus of $5.6 trillion, enough to have paid off the national debt. By August of 2001, we had lost over $2 trillion of that surplus, and the surplus was projected to be $3.4 trillion. Now, most of this is Social Security and Medicare, because in August of 2001, we had actually spent all of the cash surplus and most of the Medicare surplus, and were headed into Social Security by August of 2001, before September 11; by January of 2002, the projected surplus, $1.6 trillion, almost all Social Security and Medicare surplus, or what was left of it, after we have dipped into it significantly.

By August of 2002, there is almost no surplus at all, that is, we have spent the entire Social Security, the entire Medicare surplus for the entire 10 years. By March of 2003, we are down to an actual deficit where we have spent all of the Social Security, all of the Medicare, and then $377 billion. By August of this year, we have gotten into so much deficit spending that the projected deficit, not surplus, deficit is over $2 trillion in that same 10-year period.

And what is the solution? The Republican agenda will run this up to $3.3 trillion unless that agenda is stopped. Mr. Speaker, a $5.6 trillion surplus projected when this administration came in. If their policies are followed in the next couple of months, $3.3 trillion in deficit, an almost $9 trillion difference. That $9 trillion, remember, less than $800 billion a year comes in under individual income tax; $9 trillion is $900 billion a year on average that we have deteriorated in our budget situation.

Now, as bad as that is, it is actually going to get worse, because those projections do not include some things that we expect to happen, like the tax cuts have been sunsetted; the President is expecting us to remove the sunset so that those tax cuts can continue. Protecting the middle-class families from the alternative minimum tax, that is the tax where if you have tax preference, tax cuts for the upper, very high income, high income, about a couple of percent, about 3 percent of the public pays the alternative minimum tax. That is, you cannot reduce your tax that you need to pay but by so much before you have to pay an alternative minimum tax. The effect of not protecting middle-class families from this alternative minimum tax will mean that they will lose the benefit of their child tax credit and many other tax benefits that they enjoy now. So if we protect them from that, that will cost even more, going right to the bottom line.

Providing a Medicare prescription drug benefit, all of those numbers, as bad as they look, do not include the prescription drug benefit that everybody is promising. It also assumes that we are not going to have any hurricanes or disasters or floods or earthquakes in the next few years. So it is going to get worse before it gets better. When we run up all of those deficits, we run up debt, and we have to pay interest on that national debt. Here is the interest on the national debt that we have projected to pay going down towards zero by 2011 or 2013, because there would be no debt; it would be paid off. Instead, this is the interest on the national debt that we are projected to pay. And if we look at the difference between what we have to pay and what we are going to end up paying, by 2010, that will be $1.6 trillion of additional interest on the national debt that we are going to have to spend because we have messed up the budget.

Put another way, these green bars represent the interest on the national debt that we were going to pay going down towards zero. These red bars, interest on the national debt that we are going to have to pay because we have messed up the budget and we have been running up deficits. This blue bar puts it in perspective. This is the defense budget. We are going to be spending by 2013 almost as much money in interest on the national debt as we are going to be paying for national defense. We get nothing for interest on the national debt. We do not get a single school book, we do not get a rifle for the military, we get nothing for interest on the national debt. And instead of zero, we are going to be spending almost as much on interest on the national debt as we do for national defense.

Now, to show how the interest on the national debt is affected, right now, if we take the entire interest on the national debt, divide it by the population and multiply by 4, we will see that the family of four's proportional share of interest on the national debt is now about $4,400. As the interest on the national debt goes up, by 2013, almost $8,500, a family of four's proportional share of interest on the national debt.

Now, how did we get there? We got there with tax cuts. And who got the tax cuts? This is divided up by quintiles, the bottom 20 percent and what they got out of the tax cuts. The next 20 percent, the middle 20 percent, what they got. The share of the fourth percentile, the top 20 percent, this is what they got. Half of the tax cuts went to the upper 1 percent.

To put it another way, if you are a millionaire, you got about $89,000 out of the 2003 tax cut. If you made $500,000 to $1 million, you get a little less than $20,000, and you can see what you got. Half the people get less than $100 a year out of the 2003 tax cut.

Now, we were told that we needed to cut taxes to create jobs. The millionaires got their tax cut; we ran the budget into a deficit in order to create jobs. And here is the job creation math. Mr. Speaker, $374 billion in tax cuts through 2003 only, and we are expected, if the plan works, to create 1.5 million maximum new jobs. That is the Treasury Department's estimates. We pass all of this stuff, give $374 billion in tax cuts, we can create 1.5 million jobs. That divides out to almost $250,000 for every job that they are trying to create. Mr. Speaker, $250,000 they have to work with to create jobs, if it works.

This chart shows the jobs created by administrations going back to the Truman administration, and it shows that it did not work. This actually needs to be updated because it says 2.5 million jobs lost. It is actually closer to 3 million now. If we go back to the Truman administration, every President is creating jobs. Eisenhower lost 200,000 jobs in his second administration, but he gained 1.9 million in his first administration. So every President since Truman, more jobs when they leave office after each administration than when they came in, except after this administration's budget was adopted.

Now, as we talk about 9-11, let us remember that back to the Truman administration includes the Korean War, it includes the Vietnam War, jobs are being created; hostages in Iran, jobs are being created; Somalia, the entire Cold War, Kosovo, everybody is creating jobs until this tax plan is adopted.

Now, actually, we should have known, because the Joint Committee on Taxation evaluated the 2003 tax cut and showed that if you cut those taxes, now some taxes stimulate the economy better than others. Some tax cuts stimulate the economy better than others. According to their analysis, the taxes cut in 2003 would show a short-term spike in jobs; but depending on which economic model we use, at best, we are going to end up right back where we started.

You will probably end up with fewer jobs than you started off with. This analysis was presented by the Joint Committee on Taxation. It has a Republican majority. And so we knew when we voted for the 2003 and 2001 tax cuts that we were killing jobs.

Now, when you have all of these deficits and you look at this chart, and the deficits that are going by, the deficits are the worst that we have had in American history. Now, there is one thing that the Social Security crisis is in front of us, and we need to make sure that we have money for the baby boomers when they retire for Social Security.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), who has

been a stalwart on fighting for fiscal sanity.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm). This is the chart he was referring to. We are enjoying surpluses in Social Security and Medicare, $165 billion projected next year in surpluses. But by 2017, 2018, that surplus is going to end. The baby boomers are going to retire, and instead of enjoying a big fat surplus, in a few years, just a couple of decades, we will have $300 billion deficit in the Social Security Trust Fund. We will be having to pay out $300 billion more than we are bringing in.

Mr. Speaker, I would want to point out as challenging as this chart looks, we are running up a little surplus, but we will shortly be into great deficit. And to put some of these other numbers into perspective, as we indicated, in 2001 we passed a tax cut that the top 1 percent got half of the value of that tax cut. Instead of giving the top 1 percent a tax cut, if we had directed that income flow into the Social Security Trust Fund, just what the top 1 percent got, not what everybody else got, we would have had enough money to pay Social Security benefits without reducing benefits at all for 75 years, or the top 1 percent can get a tax cut.

Guess what the majority in Congress voted for? They voted to leave this problem for another day and voted for a tax cut for the upper 1 percent. Those are the kinds of decisions that are being made and the kind of decisions that have to be changed.

Mr. Speaker, that is why I am delighted to recognize our friend from Hawaii who has been a stalwart new Member coming in fighting for budget sanity, the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Case).

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question since the gentleman brought up the issue of the $87 billion for Iraq. I remember back in the Persian Gulf War where the total cost of the war was about $60 billion, but because we had international cooperation, we only had to spend less than $10 billion, $7.4 billion out of that.

We have already had one supplemental already that was supposed to cover the cost of the war. Now, we are coming back with $87 billion. If we had had the international cooperation, instead of 87 would we not be talking closer to 10, and that is a direct result of this foreign policy?

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for fighting for fiscal sanity.

At this point, I would yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price) who has been a stalwart, helping other Members every Wednesday morning, helps us with the seminar on budgeting and other important issues. The gentleman from North Carolina has been working diligently on fiscal sanity, helping us to learn about the budget, bringing in speakers from the outside and I am delight to yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price).

I would ask the gentleman if he noticed that there is a problem, is the gentleman concerned that this administration does not even recognize that there is a problem?

Mr. Speaker, by that the gentleman means for every dollar in lost revenue, what effect does that have on the GDP, and whether or not you actually stimulated the economy, and what did you say for, if you extend unemployment compensation, for those that lost their jobs, as we usually do in a recession, end of 26 weeks, we extend it another 13 weeks just routinely, how much of a stimulus is that to the economy?

For every dollar in lost revenue, you stimulate the economy about a dollar seventy?

Mr. Speaker, what did you say about stimulating the economy by reducing the tax on dividends?

When you fund the tax cuts with borrowed money, you have to pay interest on the national debt which is a drag to the economy.

They borrow the Social Security surplus and the Medicare surplus. And depending on which projections are used, they are spending substantially more money than that every year, creating huge deficits and a $9 trillion turnaround, paying off the entire national deficit, to massive deficits and new debt and new interest on the national debt for years to come.

Mr. Speaker, the projection was by 2011 and 2013, we would have paid off the entire national debt and had no interest on the national debt to pay year after year.

Mr. Speaker, I want to end with this chart that reminds people of the hole that we have dug ourselves into. And when people ask what is the Democratic plan, I just point to the green because that was done without any Republican assistance, and here we are right now. As we look at how dire this situation is, we have to look forward to the Social Security situation where we will not enjoy a nice surplus year after year. We are going to have a challenge of deficits in the Social Security plan that we could have covered with just what the 1 percent got in the 2001, not the 2003, not what everybody got, but the top 1 percent got in 2001 would have been more than enough to cover all of this deficit. But we have a challenge with Social Security, and we are going in the wrong direction. I thank all Members that participated tonight because we have to remind people how bad a situation it is.

We can change directions as we did in 1993 and go back to fiscal sanity, go back and do a surplus, pay off the national debt, or we can continue in the direction we are going now. We will make those decisions in the upcoming weeks. I thank the gentlemen for participating.

Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, and I will not object, however, I do want to thank the chairman, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), and the ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), as well as the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble), for their hard work in getting the bill to the floor, and especially to my good friend and colleague, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), for developing the bill and introducing it with me.

I should also thank the House leadership and Senators Kennedy and Sessions whose bill we consider today.

Mr. Speaker, I want to first express my appreciation to Chairman Sensenbrenner for the heavy lifting he did to get this bill before us today. Not only did he make it clear that this matter was of the highest priority to him, but he directed his staff to get with everybody necessary to expeditiously develop a bill that we all could support. A reflection of his commitment to expediting this legislation is his agreement, despite his reluctance, to take up the Senate bill for House Floor consideration instead of our Committee bill. So, I want to thank and commend you, Mr. Chairman for your commitment to this legislation and your excellent and expeditious stewardship of this matter to this point.

I would also like to thank my friend and our Ranking Member, John Conyers, the gentleman from Michigan, for his support and assistance on this bill. And the leadership and determination of my Subcommittee Chairman and good friend, Howard Coble, the gentleman from North Carolina, must also be recognized. From the moment this matter hit the Subcommittee agenda, his strong and persuasive impact was felt in having it move forward. It was a pleasure to work with you on this, Howard. I must also thank Speaker Hastert, Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi for their strong support and accommodations in assisting this legislation to this point.

Of course, the spirit, purpose, and soul of this bill is personified in the efforts of its chief sponsor in the House, my friend and colleague Frank Wolf, the gentleman from Virginia. The passion and dedication he has given to this effort has fueled us all.

Prison rape has been shown to have a devastating impact on our prisons.

Not only does it cause severe physical and psychological trauma to its victims, but prison rape is recognized as a contributing factor to prison homicide, violence against staff, and institutional riots. Prison rape also increases the transmission of HIV/AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases, tuberculosis, and hepatitis B and C--all of which exist at a very high rate within U.S. prisons and jails.

Prison rape is a problem of sizable scope. Of the 2 million people incarcerated today, it is estimated that one in ten, or roughly 200,000, are victims of prison rape. And youths in adult prisons are 5 times more likely to be raped than adults. Yet, because it occurs in prison, like most other aspects of prison life, prison rape is, essentially, ignored as a societal problem.

And society pays dearly for ignoring prison rape. Inmates, often non- violent first time offenders, come out of a prison rape experience severely traumatized and leave prison not only more likely to commit crimes, but far more likely to commit violent crimes than when they entered. And the high incidence of rape within prison which leads to the increased transmission of HIV, hepatitis and other diseases there, in turn, increases the incidences of these dreaded diseases and it imposes threats and costs to society at large.

Prison rape is a crime with constitutional implications. The Supreme Court held in Farmer v. Brennan that deliberate indifference to the risk of prison rape violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. While prison conditions may be ``restrictive and even harsh,'' prison and jail officials ``must take reasonable measures to guarantee the safety of the inmates.''.

The bill requires an annual statistical study of the incidence of rape in a significant number of federal, state and county prisons and jails, and public reviews of institutions where the rate of prison rape is 30% above the national average rate. It also establishes a clearinghouse for complaints of prison rape to assist prevention and prosecution, and provide training and assistance to prison and jail officials. Further, the bill establishes a program to provide grants, from a total authorization of $40 million each year, to state and local governments and institutions for the purpose of enhancing the prevention and punishment of prison rape.

The bill also provides for the establishment of a Commission to develop standards for addressing and eliminating prison rape, and finally, the bill requires prison accreditation organizations to examine prison rape prevention practices as a critical component of their accreditation reviews.

In the end, and perhaps most importantly, the effort to combat prison rape is a moral imperative. Prison rape is nothing short of prison torture--the infliction of severe emotional and physical pain as punishment and coercion. Long after bodies have healed, the emotional trauma, shame and stigma of brutal and repeated prison rape lasts and embitters.

Whatever their crimes and whatever the prescribed punishment for them, in a humane society prison rape should not be a part of it. Prison rape not only derails justice--it destroys human dignity.

Again, I would like to thank Chairman Sensenbrenner, Chairman, Coble, and Chairman Wolf, the chief Sponsor of the bill in the House, for their dedication and diligent work on this issue. I would also like to thank Senator Ted Kennedy and Senator Jeff Sessions, the chief sponsors of the Senate bill. A reflection of the work they have done on this issue over the past 2 Congresses is the fact that it passed the Senate unanimously and in record time.

Further, I must thank the originators of this effort--Michael Horowitz of the Hudson Institute and Vinnie Schraldi of the Justice Policy Institute, for their vision, leadership and dedication in bringing this matter to the forefront

and keeping it going. They developed and led the amazingly diverse coalition supporting this bill, that is listed at the end of these remarks for the record. And I thank our staff--Katy Crooks, Bobby Vassar and Chief Counsel Jay Apperson of the Subcommittee, Robert Toone of Senator Kennedy's office and Andrea Sanders of Senator Sessions office, Nathaniel Zylstrap of Hudson Institute, and, of course, Committee Chief Counsel, Phil Kiko, whose heavy hand directed the staff effort, for their yeoman-like work on this bill.

I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time under my reservation, I again want to thank the chairman of the committee, and I hereby submit for the Record a statement on the bill as well as a letter in support of the legislation from a long list of organizations.

April 18, 2003.

Dear Mr. Speaker, Senator Frist, Senator Daschle, Majority

Leader Delay, and Minority Leader Pelosi: We write to

strongly urge your support for the Sessions-Kennedy-Wolf-

Scott Prison Rape Reduction Act of 2003, H.R. 1707.

Those of us who have signed this letter have many

disagreements on public policy matters, including a variety

of issues relating to criminal law and punishment. But we are

united in our unyielding determination to end the scourge of

prison rape and to enact the Sessions-Kennedy-Wolf-Scott

bill.

Of the 2 million prisoners in the U.S., a conservative

estimate is that one in 10 has been raped--more than 200,000

inmates! Further conservative research indicates that inmates

who are sexually assaulted are also victimized, on average,

nine additional times during their incarceration. In

addition, incarcerated youths are more likely to be raped

than are adult inmates and, when they are, more likely to be

acutely victimized and shattered.

The Sessions-Kennedy-Wolf-Scott bill is a moderate and

necessary response to this crisis. It is designed to

eliminate prison rape in a manner that is respectful of the

primary role of States and local governments in administering

correctional institutions and of the federal government's

obligation not to impose unfunded mandates on them and to

make the problem more fully visible to the American people

and those who can combat it. Additionally, the legislation

has been carefully drawn to ensure comprehensive study and

reporting of prison rape, and to reverse perverse prison

administration incentives that now often make it exceedingly

difficult for prison officials to engage in priority efforts

to abate prison rape.

The Sessions-Kennedy-Wolf-Scott bill is not only a means of

protecting inmates. Society pays dearly for ignoring prison

rape. Clearly, prison rape costs taxpayers greatly in

recidivism and increased violent crime and thus negates

federal programs designed to reduce the incidence of crime.

Inmates, often non-violet first time offenders, come out of a

prison rape experience severely traumatized and thus leave

prison far more violent than when they entered. The high

incidence of rape within prison also leads to the increased

transmission of HIV, hepatitis and other diseases, which in

turn imposes costs on all of society.

Fighting prison rape is also affirmatively mandated by the

Constitution. As distinguished from federal programs designed

to address problems ranging from teenage drinking to

declining education standards, the Sessions-Kennedy-Wolf-

Scott bill deals with plenary and constitutionally

inescapable federal responsibilities--this in light of the

determination of a near unanimous Supreme Court in Farmer v.

Brennan that deliberate indifference to prison rape

violates the 8th Amendment's cruel and unusual punishment

provisions.

In the end, perhaps most importantly, the effort to combat

prison rape is a moral imperative. Prison rape is nothing

short of torture--the infliction of severe emotional and

physical pain as punishment and coercion. And, long after

bodies have healed, the emotional trauma, shame and stigma of

brutal and repeated prison rape lasts and embitters. Thus,

prison rape not only derails justice--it destroys human

dignity.

The Sessions-Kennedy-Wolf-Scott bill offers great hope that

the brutality of prison rape can be sharply curtailed, and

our joint effort to enact it is thus a coalition of

conscience rather than convenience. As such, we take heart

from the Speaker's strong endorsement of the bill, and are

determined to see its effective, moderate provisions rapidly

brought into effect. As men and women of good will we will

not rest while the violence of prison rape continues, and we

strongly urge you to join us in an effort also certain to

bring credit on the United States at a moment when America's

need to show its commitment to democratic values has never

been higher.

Working with the bill's sponsors, we stand ready to meet

with you at your earliest convenience. If you would like

additional information or have any questions please contact

Marian Bell, National Policy Director for Prison Fellowship

Ministries, at (703) 478-0100 ext. 3630 or Vincent Schiraldi,

President, Justice Policy Institute, at (202) 363-7847.

Very truly yours,

American Values

Amnesty International USA

Center for Religious Freedom

Christian Coalition

Concerned Women of America

Focus on the Family

Human Rights and the Drug War

Human Rights Watch

Intitute on Religion and Democracy

Justice Policy Institute

Kids First Coalition

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Woolsey antidiscrimination amendment and against the part of the bill which would allow employment discrimination based on religion in the Head Start program for the first time since the program began.

Yesterday, the bipartisan leadership of the House and Senate celebrated the historic March on Washington and praised the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis), Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and others for their courageous demonstration 40 years ago. Let us not forget what that march was about because two of the demands of the March on Washington were:

``Withholding of Federal funds from all programs in which discrimination exists'' and ``a Federal Fair Employment Practices Act barring discrimination.'' Both of those demands were enacted within 2 years of the march.

Now, one day after the bipartisan celebration, we have a bill before us which undermines the same victories which were celebrated. But the Woolsey amendment will preserve the tradition of nondiscrimination in federally funded programs. That tradition goes back to 1941, when President Roosevelt issued an executive order prohibiting antidiscrimination laws that have not caused all these problems over all these years. In fact, today 8 percent of Head Start programs are sponsored by faith-based organizations, and Head Start officials recently expressed outrage that someone could tell a Head Start child's parents that they were not qualified to be Head Start teachers solely because they attended a synagogue rather than a church or a mosque rather than a temple.

Next year, we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education. That case spoke of the ravages of segregation when it stated that ``the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the Negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to retard the educational and mental development of the Negro children.''

Mr. Speaker, although the children in the Head Start programs may not be segregated, some will not miss the message their parents were not qualified to be teachers while parents of other children were qualified.

Mr. Speaker, we have a choice today. Preserve the equal employment opportunity principles and traditions established by President Roosevelt, Brown v. Board of Education and the March on Washington or change the law in such a way that someone will have to explain to some young Head Start students why their parents were not good enough to be teachers solely because of the family religion.

The vote on this amendment will determine what kind of Head Start the next generation will have.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment is simple. It preserves the law just as it has been since the Head Start program began. Faith-based organizations can and do sponsor Head Start programs. In fact, 8 percent of the Head Start programs today are sponsored by faith-based organizations. They administer the Head Start programs just as any other sponsor of a federally funded program, including compliance with traditional anti-discrimination laws.

The underlying bill allows many programs to discriminate in employment based on religion. Make no mistake, if there is discrimination based on religion, there can be discrimination based on race, because eleven o'clock on Sunday is still the most racially segregated hour of the week.

So if an organization can select employees based on which church, synagogue, mosque or temple someone belongs to, that will have racial overtones. There used to be a time in America when certain people were routinely denied the opportunity to even be considered for good jobs and all African American parents at one time or another had to explain to their children why they had to sit in the back of the bus or why they could not be considered for jobs at certain companies. That invidious discrimination was so ugly that our Nation passed laws to make it illegal to discriminate in employment based on race, color, creed, national origin or sex in most cases, even with private funds, but illegal to discriminate in all cases with Federal funds.

Now, churches can discriminate with their own money, but not with Federal taxpayers' money. If this amendment is not adopted, the days of invidious discrimination could return and some parents will have to explain to their children why other parents could become teachers but not them solely because of the family's religion. Just what kind of head start lesson is that?

So this vote is important because it will decide and we will decide tonight just what kind of head start our next generation will have.

Mr. Chairman, a couple of things that have been said that I think need direct response to.

One is you could serve more children if you allow people to discriminate. That is not true. You will serve more people if you put more money into the Head Start program. There are plenty of sponsors who are willing to provide services without discriminating.

Second, you lose your right to discriminate. You do not lose your right to discriminate with your church money if you sponsor a federally funded program, but you cannot discriminate with the taxpayers' money. I think that needs to be said in response to some of the comments previously made.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to draw attention to the 50th anniversary of the American Political Science Association (APSA) Congressional Fellowship Program.

The goal of the APSA Congressional Fellowship Program is simple: to help participants better understand Congress. It is the oldest such program on Capitol Hill, designed to place highly skilled professionals from a broad spectrum of backgrounds in congressional offices for nine months as legislative aides. Over the years, the highly selective, nonpartisan program has grown from its beginnings with six fellows in 1953 to the current program, which selects between 40 and 45 professionals who have built impressive records of accomplishment as political scientists, journalists, sociologists, domestic and foreign policy government specialists, health policy experts and international scholars. The relationship between the fellow and the Members of Congress is a symbiotic one as Members obtain access to new sources of expertise, while fellows obtain first-hand perspectives about life on the Hill. There is, after all, no substitute for practical experience to understand Congress as a living institution. I wish to place on record my support for it.

I have had the privilege to be associated with two APSA fellows in my office during the time I have been serving in the House of Representatives. As it turns out both are female journalists from foreign countries. Fardah Assegaf from Indonesia worked at the National News Agency of Indonesia, and served in my office in 1993. Michelle Phipps-Evans from Trinidad and Tobago worked at the Washington Afro American Newspapers and is serving this year. Both have been invaluable in the levels of writing and researching they have brought to the table. Each acted as full members of my staff advising me on various issues.

Other enrichment opportunities continue through the program with the Wilson Seminar Series, which augment the legislative experience with speakers closely involved in the legislative process. A state-federal legislative comparative program at the State House in Annapolis, Maryland, and the Canadian Parliamentary Exchange provide further education. During the Canadian exchange, fellows provide their northern colleagues with a one-week orientation to Congress and receive a similar program through the House of Commons in Ottawa, Canada.

Upon completion of the year on Capitol Hill, which often includes experience in both the House and Senate, the fellows return to their previous employment where their understanding of the political process becomes integrated and disseminated, with a kind of ripple effect among their colleagues. This knowledge of the workings of government enhances their future participation in the democratic process.

Mr. Speaker, I salute the APSA Congressional Fellowship Program, which has given over 1,800 individuals what can only be called an ``opportunity of a lifetime.''

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland for yielding.

The gentleman from Maryland is an outspoken advocate for education and knows the value of the Head Start program, so I rise in support of the Head Start program but in opposition to the Republican Head Start bill.

In 2002, the Head Start program served nearly 1 million children, over 62,000 infants and toddlers in early Head Start. Unfortunately, however, Mr. Speaker, only 60 percent of the qualified 3- and 4-year- olds are currently enrolled in Head Start, and early Head Start is only funded to serve 3 percent of the eligible infants.

We need to make a commitment to fully fund the Head Start program, and this is because money spent on Head Start is money well spent. For every dollar we spend on Head Start, $4 to $7 are saved in future expenses because children who participate in Head Start need fewer services in elementary and high school, and they are less likely to go to prison or end up on welfare.

During the Clinton administration, Head Start funding grew from $2.8 billion in 1993 to $6.2 billion in 2001. That is an average of approximately $425 million per year. Over the past 2 years, the President's administration has proposed only a total increase of $300 million, about $150 million per year. That is about one-third of the average annual increase over the prior 8 years.

There are a lot of problems with the Republican Head Start bill, but as the gentleman from Maryland indicated, one of the most glaring is the fact that it permits programs run by faith-based organizations to discriminate in their hiring practices with the Federal money; that is, it permits employment discrimination with Federal money, not the church money, but with Federal money.

Sixty-two years ago, on June 25, 1941, President Roosevelt signed an executive order that banned discrimination by defense contractors based on race, creed, color or national origin. Executive order 8802 was the first law prohibiting employment discrimination and marked the beginning of fair employment practices in the United States.

These protections against employment discrimination were expanded by subsequent Presidents. For example, Executive Order 11246, signed by President Johnson in 1965, expanded the prohibitions against employment discrimination to all government contractors, not just defense contractors.

Every President of the United States since 1965 has enforced these executive orders. Over time, various civil rights laws were passed that contained similar prohibitions against discrimination and employment based on race, creed, color, national origin or sex.

However, on December 12, 2002, President Bush issued an executive order that for the first time since 1941 actually rolled back the prohibitions against employment discrimination.

Under his executive order 13-279, religious organizations which received Federal funds would be permitted to discriminate in employment based on religion unless there is a specific prohibition.

Now, when the President says that we should remove barriers to faith- based organizations serving as sponsors of federally funded programs, he does not explain what the barriers are. Even without new laws, many faith-based organizations have sponsored federally funded programs for decades, and they administer these programs just like any other sponsor, including compliance with fair employment practices, and that is with positions paid with Federal funds.

Now, in fact, any program which can be funded under this administration's faith-based initiative can be funded without that initiative, without new legislation, and without executive orders if the sponsoring organization agrees not to discriminate in hiring with the Federal money. Not the church money, the Federal money. And today, in fact, 8 percent of the Head Start programs are sponsored by faith- based organizations. If the sponsor insists on discriminating on employment, a barrier exists and the faith-based initiative removes that barrier and allows the sponsor to administer the program and select employees paid with Federal money based on religion.

Now, there was a time in America when people of certain religions were routinely denied jobs solely because of their religious beliefs, but we passed laws to end that invidious discrimination. So when this administration talks about restoring publicly funded religious discrimination, let us remember the old adage that you can put lipstick on a pig, but you cannot pass it off as a beauty queen. Likewise, you can use poll-tested semantics and euphemisms, but you cannot pass this off as anything but ugly discrimination.

And let us take a look at the Head Start program. If the Republican Head Start bill passes, thousands of today's Head Start teachers could lose their jobs if they fail their employer's religious tests. Tens of thousands of already at-risk 3- and 4-year-old children could lose their Head Start teachers if the teachers happen to be of the wrong religion or do not contribute enough to their church. Tens of thousands of parent volunteers could lose their privilege of serving as volunteer teacher aides in their own children's Head Start classrooms based on their religious beliefs. These parent volunteers would be blocked from the opportunity to become trained and paid Head Start teachers solely because they do not share the federally funded employer's religious beliefs. And 29 percent of today's Head Start teachers started off as volunteers.

Now, exactly what kind of head start will children be getting when they see their parents denied the opportunity to become a teacher solely because of their religion? And because 11 a.m. Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour of the week, religious discrimination in Head Start programs will often mean that teachers of the wrong race will not be hired, thereby threatening 33 percent of the Head Start teachers who are African American and nearly 23 percent of the Head Start teachers who are Hispanic.

The result of the Head Start bill sponsored by the Republicans will be that in many federally funded Head Start centers all of the teachers may end up being of one religion and one race and one ethnicity. This is a return to the old days of segregation. If this bill passes, it will be done with Federal money.

I urge my colleagues to strongly consider just what they are voting for when the Head Start bill comes to the floor later this week. We should preserve decades of fair employment practices and reject Republican attempts to allow the most qualified employees to be rejected solely because they fail a religious test.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of Representative Jo Ann Davis and myself to recognize the outstanding service of Dr. Wayne Lett. Following 34 years of educational service, Dr. Lett will be retiring from his post as Superintendent of Newport News Public Schools on July 1, 2003.

Dr. Lett's career has been devoted to education and his efforts have been important to the lives of countless young people in Newport News. His achievements have been recognized by both local and national organizations. In 2001, Dr. Lett was named Virginia Superintendent of the Year by the Virginia Association of School Superintendents. He has provided leadership in many urban school organizations and has served as President and Vice President of the National Association of Federally Impacted Schools.

Dr. Lett's illustrious career in education began in 1969, following his graduation from East Carolina University with an A.B. in history and political science. He first served as a teacher, assistant principal, and personnel director in York County Public Schools. It was during this time that Dr. Lett earned his M.A. in history from Old Dominion University in 1972, a C.A.S. in education administration from the College of William and Mary in 1975, and an Ed.D in education administration from the same institution in 1984.

Dr. Lett's tenure in Newport News Public Schools began in 1984. After serving in a number of different administrative positions for the school district, Dr. Lett was named Superintendent in 1996.

Under Dr. Lett's leadership, Newport News Public Schools has made significant progress in the academic performance of its students. The number of fully accredited schools has risen from one to nineteen, access to rigorous coursework has been made a priority, tutoring and mentoring programs have been expanded, and the dropout rate has been reduced by more than 50 percent. During this time Newport News Public Schools has received more U.S. Department of Education ``Blue Ribbon'' designations than any other school division in Virginia. These are only a few of the many achievements that are the direct result of Dr. Lett's leadership.

Mr. Speaker, Representative Jo Ann Davis and I would like to congratulate Dr. Lett on his distinguished service and thank him for his great commitment to the education of our youth.

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

I rise in opposition to the rule and the bill, H.R. 1115, the so- called Class Action Fairness Act. This is an unfair bill that does nothing to resolve disputes. Moreover, the bill has a number of significant problems.

First, the bill will disrupt ongoing litigation because it applies to pending class actions. Some of those class actions that would be affected would be those cases against Enron, WorldCom, and Arthur Andersen for financial fraud; other major cases involving environmental damage or employment discrimination; and several drug companies involving problems with their pharmaceuticals. It is fundamentally unfair for Congress to change the rules for consumers midstream by including these pending cases and, therefore, making it more difficult to resolve disputes in a timely manner.

This bill is overly broad. It defines class actions not only to include class actions, but also State actions brought on behalf of the general public by State attorneys general. These cases are important consumer protection tools in some States, particularly California; and all of these cases would be considered class actions and subject to the provisions of the bill, even though they were not filed as class actions and even though they were brought by the State attorney general under State law.

Mr. Speaker, by shifting class actions to Federal court, H.R. 1115 will overload the Federal judiciary and increase delays. Criminal cases are always given priority in Federal courts; and because the courts are already overloaded with criminal cases, including many traditionally State cases that have been transferred to Federal jurisdiction over the past few years, State actions that are referred to Federal courts by this bill will be delayed. They also may get caught up in some judicial districts that have been dealing with terrorism cases or the temporary onslaught of other criminal cases. Adding in complex class action litigation to an already overloaded docket will only add to additional delays.

These delays will be exacerbated by the provision in the bill that grants an automatic, pretrial appeal and a stay of discovery during that appeal. Guilty corporations who use their appeals under the bill will be able to delay their inevitable judgment day by several years. A rule that was offered in committee by the gentleman from Massachusetts and myself would have specifically dealt with this problem, but that amendment was rejected by the Committee on Rules.

Mr. Speaker, many of the cases, in fact, should remain in State court. H.R. 1115 would often require Federal judges to apply State law when State judges have more familiarity with the law in their own States. This may result in mistakes being made in the application of State law, affecting both plaintiffs and defendants.

H.R. 1115 violates uniform rules of Federal procedure. For example, Federal courts will be required to apply one set of rules on diversity jurisdictions for everybody except class actions. There will be a separate rule for class actions. There will also be rules on removal, dismissal, remand, appellate review, and discovery where there will be rules for everybody, except class actions, another set of rules for class actions.

Now, there has been a whole lot of hoopla about so-called coupon settlements, about how legislation is necessary to address that problem when plaintiffs get a negligible recovery. Now, as the gentleman from Texas has pointed out, there are as many examples of Federal court abuses regarding coupon settlements as there are State court abuses.

But there is nothing inherently wrong with coupon settlements. If a business has been stealing only 50 cents at a time, the recovery for each individual class member will be minuscule. But a class action, even with a coupon settlement, will be effective in stopping the ongoing theft. One recent case involved a business which fraudulently calibrated its cash registers to steal small amounts of money from each customer. Now, how much will each customer be entitled to if they are cheated out of 3 cents? If you cannot have a favorable verdict when the individual damages are de minimis, you give an unscrupulous corporation a free pass, so long as they do not steal too much from each person.

Federal and State judges oppose this bill. The Federal Judicial Conference headed by the Chief Justice of the United States, the Conference of the Chief Justices which represents chief justices around the country, both oppose H.R. 1115. It is also opposed by the American Bar Association and consumer advocacy groups.

We have the responsibility to our citizens to ensure timely access to the courts for damages sustained. This bill will do nothing to help that issue. It will only give unscrupulous defendants new procedural schemes to delay justice, and justice delayed is justice denied.

Mr. Speaker, I ask that we reject the rule and reject the bill as unnecessary, unwise, and creating more problems than it solves. I urge my colleagues to oppose the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise to join the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary in supporting S.J. Res. 8 to call attention to National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. The purpose of this resolution is to increase public awareness of sexual assault and to recognize the important contributions of various individuals and groups across the United States that combat sexual assault.

Mr. Speaker, sexual assault victims are primarily young people with 44 percent of the victims under the age of 18, 80 percent under the age of 30. Sexual assault affects women, men, children of all races, social, religious, age, ethnic and economic groups and even prisoners. Yet less than 40 percent of sexual assault victims pursue prosecution by reporting their attack to law enforcement agencies.

Mr. Speaker, as we recognize Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month, Congress also recognizes that other tools are also important in preventing and addressing sexual assault. With advances in DNA technology, law

enforcement agencies have been able to identify and prosecute many offenders, and the potential exists to identify tens of thousands of additional offenders in unsolved rape cases. That is why it is so important that Congress provide additional resources needed to immediately eliminate the current backlog of rape evidence kits across the United States.

I look forward to working with my colleague, the gentleman from Wisconsin, in authorizing and funding the Debbie Smith Act and other bills aimed at reducing the DNA backlog.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) who is a lead sponsor of this resolution, an advocate for the issue.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her advocacy, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 1529, the Involuntary Bankruptcy Improvement Act of 2003, a bill which was reported by the Committee on the Judiciary with bipartisan support and without dissent.

I commend the gentleman from Wisconsin (Chairman Sensenbrenner) for moving so quickly to deal with a real and pernicious problem. This legislation is a good first step in providing bankruptcy courts with congressional guidance in dealing with the phenomenon of malicious and baseless involuntary bankruptcy petitions. It augments the existing powers of the bankruptcy court and makes clear Congress' intent to ensure that the targets of this abuse will have available to them meaningful protection from the lasting effects of meritless involuntary bankruptcy petitions.

An involuntary bankruptcy petition, even if no order for relief is entered, and even if dismissed expeditiously by the court, can inflict lasting damage. Credit reporting agencies generally list the filing of a bankruptcy petition on a person's credit report almost immediately. This can destroy the ability of an individual to obtain credit or to obtain credit on appropriate terms, even if the petition is wholly without merit. For this reason, the dismissal of the case alone does not provide adequate relief.

This problem is a real one. Cases have already been filed for malicious and harassing purposes. Congress must make clear that the bankruptcy system cannot be used to harass and injure people.

Mr. Speaker, there are other changes in the Bankruptcy Code that are equally pressing and equally noncontroversial. Many of these improvements have been unnecessarily held hostage to a larger and far more controversial bankruptcy bill, our family farmers and fishermen, the stability of our financial markets, and the rights of parties whose cases are unnecessarily delayed because of inadequate judicial resources deserve better. I hope we will be able to work with the chairman of the committee to deal as expeditiously with these problems as we have with this one. So I commend the chairman for his efforts, and I urge my colleagues to support the motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill.

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

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

As we have said, this chart tells the story. When people ask, what is the Democratic plan to get us out of the mess, the green is the Democratic plan. We ought to remember history on how that green was created, because as the gentleman has indicated, not a single Republican, 218 to 216 in the House, not a single Republican in the House, 50-50 in the Senate, not a single Republican in the Senate voted for the plan that started digging us out of this great deficit.

When the Republicans used those votes that created the green ink, they used those against us in the campaign and took over both the House and Senate. Now they want to take credit for some of the green. But remember, after the 1994 election, 1995, they passed these trillion- dollar tax cuts and President Clinton vetoed those tax cuts. In fact, they threatened to shut down the government, and he vetoed them again. In fact they shut down the government, and he vetoed them again.

We had gotten the budget deficit down from 290 down to less than 10 before they finally agreed to a budget that the President could sign. That is right up in here somewhere. All of this was without any Republican votes, so they finally jumped on the bandwagon right at the last minute.

When President Bush came in, the Republican Congress passed the trillion-dollar tax cut and President Bush signed those tax cuts. Here is what we have as a direct result.

Now, who got the tax cuts? This is by 20th percentile. The lowest 20 percentile got that little bit, here is the middle 20 percent, and here is the upper 20 percent. Right at about 50 percent is

what the upper 1 percent of the income got out of that tax cut. So we ruin the budget by giving tax cuts to the rich, and we are told that would create jobs.

Here is the job chart that has been referenced. The first chart is what was created during the Truman administration. Each administration, all the way through. Then they had 2\1/2\ million jobs lost.

This is the first Clinton administration and this is the second Clinton administration.

Over 10 million jobs created each 4-year term.

Minus 2\1/2\ million so far and dropping. We ought not refer to September 11, because this chart going back to the Truman administration includes the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the beginning and end of both of those wars, the Cold War, hostages in Iran, the first Persian Gulf war. All through that period of time, coming and going, through everything that has happened in the economy, jobs were created. Not after we passed this trillion-dollar tax cut.

I just want to point out, again, who benefited, because obviously people did not get jobs as a result. This is by income. We will see $10,000, $10,000 to $20,000, $20,000 to $30,000, and $30,000 to $40,000. We begin to see a little benefit here at $75,000 to $100,000, but those who are making over $1 million are off the chart.

Now, we should not be surprised that we did not create jobs. This is a study by the Joint Committee on Taxation, with a Republican majority, on how many jobs would be created if we passed this plan. We will see that there is a short-term spike in jobs, but right after that, at best we will end up where we started. Most of the models show we will end up with fewer jobs had we done nothing at all.

Mr. Speaker, this chart shows, and we can hardly see, compared to what the millionaires get, we can hardly see the benefit we get if we are in the $50,000 to $75,000 or less range. This chart shows what we would get.

The reason we are not creating many jobs is that by the time we have run up all the deficit and we are worse off than we started, it is because the tax cut was not targeted to those who will actually spend it. It was not targeted and the spending was not done in such a way that it would actually stimulate the economy. It would just help those in the upper-income brackets.

There were a number of other alternative ways of stimulating the economy. The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) indicated if we continue the unemployment benefits, those people what are used to a paycheck, no longer having a paycheck, will spend that money before the check clears. As soon as they get the check, they will deposit it and the money will be spent. They have overdue bills and they have things they have to buy. It is the only income they have. They will spend that money.

If we give a few thousand to a millionaire, if they wanted a television they would have bought a television. If they wanted a car, they would have bought a car already. They are much less likely to spend the money and help stimulate the economy.

One study was done on the dividend tax decrease; that for every dollar we lose in tax revenue, the economy is stimulated by 7 cents. Every dollar we put into unemployment compensation, the economy is stimulated $1.73. So if our goal is to stimulate the economy so everyone can benefit, there are other things we can do other than reduce the taxes on dividends, capital gains, and for those in the upper income.

First of all, I think we ought to suggest that if we are this far in the red already, we ought to be talking about something other than additional tax cuts. We use the adage around here that if we find ourselves in a hole, the first thing we ought to do is stop digging.

This chart is actually somewhat out of date, because on the more recent numbers there is more red ink down here than this chart shows. The present situation is actually worse.

But as the gentleman has suggested, they concocted a plan that they call $350 billion because they would pass a tax cut, but then in a couple of years they would what is called sunset it; that is, stop the tax cut and revert back to present law. Everyone expects that when you get to that point in time, that instead of a sunset we will have a sunrise, and continue the tax cut into the future.

If we assume, as everyone does, that the tax cuts will be eventually made permanent, it is not just $350 billion but approximately $1 trillion, three times bigger, particularly if we add on the interest and other fixes that have to be made when we have those kinds of tax cuts.

He has said on numerous times that if we run up significant deficits and increased debt that it will eventually have an effect on interest rates. It will increase interest rates. For a person with a mortgage, car loans, and credit cards, every time we increase interest rates we have taken money out of their pockets.

As we look at this, we just have to wonder how bad does it have to get before we notice that something is not right. As I indicated, we are not creating jobs. The Joint Committee on Taxation shows that in several years after we have passed this thing, as a direct result, we will have fewer jobs than if we had done nothing.

Now, running up debt has consequences. Even if we do not pay the debt off, we have to pay interest on the national debt. Under the Clinton administration we left a surplus that was in the process, by all projections, of paying off the entire national debt, debt held by the public, by 2008; and by 2013 or so, pay off the entire national debt. So as this green bar shows, the

interest on the national debt would be going towards zero.

Unfortunately, because of all the new debt we are running up, the interest on the national debt that we can actually pay in red is going up to almost $500 billion. To put this number, since it is a big number, in perspective, I have put in blue the defense budget. We are going to be paying, instead of zero interest on the national debt, almost as much in interest on the national debt as we are paying on defense.

Now, we can make it personal and divide the interest on the national debt by the population, multiply it by 4, so we have the family of four's portion of the national debt, interest on the national debt, just interest. Right now it is about $4,500. We are paying a family of four's proportionate share of interest on the national debt, and it is growing by 2013 to $8,500.

Now, the difficulty, the challenging thing about this is when we consider that chart and the Social Security cash flow, we are running about a $100 billion surplus in Social Security; but soon, by 2017, we will be running a significant deficit.

As the interest on the national debt is increasing, how are we going to pay the Social Security for the baby boomers on out?

Now, the egregious thing about the tax cut is if you look at this challenging chart and wonder how we can possibly pay Social Security in the future, we did some calculations and found that if, instead of the tax cut given to the top 1 percent, if that amount of money had been allocated to the Social Security trust funds, that would have been enough money to have paid Social Security benefits for 75 years without any reduction in benefits. We had a choice: make Social Security solvent for 75 years or a tax cut for the upper 1 percent. And this House and Senate passed a tax cut for the upper 1 percent and left Social Security who knows where.

I was just going to ask the ranking member, since we have run out of the surplus and Social Security, Medicare and other surplus, as you pass a tax cut, how is it funded if it is not under the PAYGO rules?

Now, we had the previous speaker before our Special Order suggest that it was wrong to give income tax relief for those who do not pay income tax. There are some that have lower income that do not pay income taxes, but I was wondering if they paid a payroll tax.

Now, do they pay a sales tax?

The suggestion was that we would just pick one tax, the income tax, and only those that paid, there are other taxes that a lot of people do not pay; a lot of people do not pay estate taxes. What portion of the people have estates when they die over $1 million?

So if we focus all of our tax relief on that, it would not surprise anybody that it would not be broadly based. It would just be aimed at the 1 or 2 percent. So it does not make much sense to complain that if we are trying to give tax relief to everyone, particularly when we are also trying to stimulate the economy, that we would give tax relief, however we can, to everyone, particularly those that might actually spend the money and help stimulate the economy.

We just want to remind people who asked what our plan is, our plan is the green. If we had our ways, we would be running up back into surplus with the stock market high, unemployment low. This is what we would do if we had the choice.

Unfortunately, this is where we are because of all the deficit spending and the tax cuts which basically went to the wealthiest Americans.

We have legislation pending in this body that would do that. Interestingly enough, that tax cut would be paid for under the standard that we had adopted helping to create the green, that if you pass a tax cut it ought to be paid for with other tax increases or spending cuts so that the tax cut does not add to the deficit. And we close some loopholes and do other things that pay for the tax cut that would give relief to those in the $10- to $25,000 range. And people have said that is close to the minimum wage. A full- time worker at minimum wage makes about $10,000.

So when you get up to 25, you are 2\1/2\ times the minimum wage. So it is just not the bottom of the scale. You have

gone quite a ways up of people that were left out that would be compensated and would be able to get the benefit of the tax cut without adding to the national debt, because in our plan that would be paid for, and that is the fiscally responsible way of doing it.

When we spend without paying for it, we run up debt and you have to pay interest on the national debt. This is a family of four's portion of interest on the national debt. It is going up year after year after year.

When President Clinton left office, the projection was at that time if you did not take any action the interest on the national debt, just maintain services, kept the Tax Code as it is, interest on the national debt by 2013 would be zero. Instead, a family of four's portion of the national debt would be $8,500 and rising. At the same time, the Social Security Trust Fund would stop running the surplus that we have been spending and turned into a significant deficit.

During the Presidential campaign, everyone had agreed that you would have a lockbox; you would not touch the Social Security money that was supposed to be for Social Security, and Medicare money collected for Medicare should be reserved for Medicare. Instead, we passed a $1 trillion tax cut and dipped into that spending, into great deficit.

You wonder how you could pay the Social Security challenge that is shown on this chart, because instead of a nice surplus that we have been spending, we are going to have to actually come up with even more money. At the same time, the interest on the national debt is increasing. We are going to have to come up with more cash to pay this. And the tax cut, the amount of money that went to the top 1 percent in 2001, not 2003, 2001, that tax cut to the upper 1 percent only would have been sufficient to cover all of this red ink, for 75 years, no reduction in benefits.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is unconstitutional.

The bill before us will not prohibit any abortions. Its supporters claim it prohibits a procedure, but the abortion will still take place involving another procedure, and I will not inflame the debate by describing in detail the alternative procedures that may be used. But I will point out that Nebraska had a law banning the same procedure. Nearly 3 years ago the United States Supreme Court held in Stenberg v. Carhart that that law was unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court said five times in its majority opinion and other times in concurring opinions that in order to make a partial-birth abortion ban constitutional, the law must contain a health exception to allow the procedure, quote, ``where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.'' That is what five Supreme Court justices said was necessary to make the bill constitutional. All five are still on the Supreme Court.

In that case, the Court said:

The question before us is whether Nebraska's statute making criminal the performance of a partial-birth abortion violates the Federal Constitution as interpreted in Planned Parenthood v. Casey and Roe v. Wade. We conclude that it does for at least two independent reasons.

They said the first reason was that the law lacked an exception for the preservation of the health of the mother. The Stenberg court reminded us what a long line of cases has held, that, and they say, ``subsequent to viability, the State may, if it chooses, regulate and even proscribe abortion,'' and they put this in italics, ``except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.''

It goes on to say, in quotes, in case we did not understand the italics, that the governing standard requires an exception, quote, ``where it is necessary in the appropriate medical judgment for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.''

The Court continues talking about the health exception by saying and mentions another quote:

Justice Thomas said that ``The cases just cited limit this principle to situations where the pregnancy itself creates a threat to health.'' He is wrong. The cases cited, reaffirmed in Casey, recognize that a State cannot subject women's health to significant health risks both in that context and also where State regulations force women to use riskier methods of abortion. Our cases have repeatedly invalidated statutes that in the process of regulating the methods of abortion imposed significant health risks. They make it clear that the risk to a woman's health is the same whether it happens to arise from regulating a particular method of abortion or from barring abortions entirely.

Finally, the Court says:

Nebraska has not convinced us that a health exception is, quote, ``never medically necessary to preserve the health of women.'' Rather, a statute that altogether forbids the partial-birth abortion creates a significant health risk. The statute subsequently must contain a health exception.

And if we did not get it, the Court reiterates again:

``By no means must a State grant physicians unfettered discretion in their selection of methods. But where substantial medical authority supports the proposition that banning a particular method could endanger women's health, Casey requires the statute to include a health exception when the procedure is, quote, 'necessary in appropriate medical judgment for the

preservation of the life or health of the mother.' Requiring such an exception in this case is no departure from Casey, but simply a straightforward application of its holding.''

Mr. Speaker, whatever our views are on the underlying issue of abortion, we ought to read the decision and apply the law. The Supreme Court in one opinion said at least five times that a health exception must be included for the statute to be constitutional. Furthermore, they put the exact phrase to be used, ``necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother'' in italics and quotations.

The majority proposes that we consider a bill without this unqualified health exception. The Court made it clear that such a health exception is required and, therefore, this rule that requires us to consider a bill without that exception ought not pass.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the House to defeat the rule so that we can have a bill considered with a health exception that might possibly be constitutional.

Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record a Statement of Policy from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists which says that this procedure may be necessary in some circumstances.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Statement of

Policy on Abortion

The following statement in the American College of

Obstetricians and Gynecologists' (ACOG) general policy

related to abortion, with specific reference to the procedure

referred to as ``intact dilatation and extraction'' (intact D

& X).

1. The abortion debate in this country is marked by serious

moral pluralism. Different positions in the debate represent

different but important values. The diversity of beliefs

should be respected.

2. ACOG recognizes that the issue of support of or

opposition to abortion is a matter of profound moral

conviction to its members. ACOG, therefore, respects the need

and responsibility of its members to determine their

individual positions based on personal values or beliefs.

3. Termination of pregnancy before viability is a medical

matter between the patient and physician, subject to the

physician's clinical judgment, the patient's informed consent

and the availability of appropriate facilities.

4. The need for abortions, other than those indicated by

serious fetal anomalies or conditions which threaten maternal

welfare, represents failures in the social environment and

the educational system.

The most effective way to reduce the number of abortions is

to prevent unwanted and unintended pregnancies. This can be

accomplished by open and honest education, beginning in the

home, religious institutions and the primary schools. This

education should stress the biology of reproduction and the

responsibilities involved by boys, girls, men and women in

creating life and the desirability of delaying pregnancies

until circumstances are appropriate and pregnancies are

planned.

In addition, everyone should be made aware of the dangers

of sexually transmitted diseases and the means of protecting

each other from their transmission. To accomplish these aims,

support of the community and the school system is essential.

The medical curriculum should be expanded to include a

focus on the components of reproductive biology which pertain

to conception control. Physicians should be encouraged to

apply these principles in their own practices and to support

them at the community level.

Society also has a responsibility to support research

leading to improved methods of contraception for men and

women.

5. Informed consent is an expression of respect for the

patient as a person; it particularly respects a patient's

moral right to bodily integrity, to self-determination

regarding sexuality and reproductive capacities, and to the

support of the patient's freedom within caring relationships.

A pregnant women should be fully informed in a balanced

manner about all options, including raising the child

herself, placing the child for adoption, and abortion. The

information conveyed should be appropriate to the duration of

the pregnancy. The professional should make every effort to

avoid introducing personal bias.

6. ACOG supports access to care for all individuals,

irrespective of financial status, and supports the

availability of all reproductive options. ACOG opposes

unnecessary regulations that limit or delay access to care.

7. If abortion is to be performed, it should be performed

safely and as early as possible.

8. ACOG opposes the harassment of abortion providers and

patients.

9. ACOG strongly supports those activities which prevent

unintended pregnancy.

The College continues to affirm the legal right of a woman

to obtain an abortion prior to fetal viability. ACOG is

opposed to abortion of the healthy fetus that has attained

viability in a healthy woman. Viability is the capacity of

the fetus to survive outside the mother's uterus. Whether or

not this capacity exists is a medical determination, may vary

with each pregnancy and is a matter for the judgment of the

responsible attending physician.

Intact Dilatation and Extraction

The debate regarding legislation to prohibit a method of

abortion, such as the legislation banning ``partial birth

abortion,'' and ``brain sucking abortions,'' has prompted

questions regarding these procedures. It is difficult to

respond to these questions because the descriptions are vague

and do not delineate a specific procedure recognized in the

medical literature. Moreover, the definitions could be

interpreted to include elements of many recognized abortion

and operative obstetric techniques.

ACOG believes the intent of such legislative proposals is

to prohibit a procedure referred to as ``intact dilatation

and extraction'' (Intact D & X). This procedure has been

described as containing all of the following four elements:

1. deliberate dilatation of the cervix, usually over a

sequence of days;

2. instrumental conversion of the fetus to a footling

breech;

3. breech extraction of the body excepting the head; and

4. partial evacuation of the intracranial contents of a

living fetus to effect vaginal delivery of a dead but

otherwise intact fetus.

Because these elements are part of established obstetric

techniques, it must be emphasized that unless all four

elements are present in sequence, the procedure is not an

intact D & X. Abortion intends to terminate a pregnancy while

preserving the life and health of the mother. When abortion

is performed after 18 weeks, intact D & X is one method of

terminating a pregnancy.

The physician, in consultation with the patient, must

choose the most appropriate method based upon the patient's

individual circumstances.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

(CDC), only 5.3% of abortions performed in the United States

in 1993, the most recent data available, were performed after

the 16th week of pregnancy. A preliminary figure published by

the CDC for 1994 is 5.6%. The CDC does not collect data on

the specific method of abortion, so it is unknown how many of

these were performed using intact D & X. Other data show that

second trimester transvaginal instrumental abortion is a safe

procedure.

Terminating a pregnancy is performed in some circumstances

to save the life or preserve the health of the mother.

Intact D & X is one of the methods available in some of

these situations. A select panel convened by ACOG could

identify no circumstances under which this procedure, as

defined above, would be the only option to save the life or

preserve the health of the woman. An intact D & X, however,

may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular

circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a

woman, and only the doctor, in consultation with the patient,

based upon the woman's particular circumstances can make this

decision. The potential exists that legislation prohibiting

specific medical practices, such as intact D & X, may outlaw

techniques that are critical to the lives and health of

American women. The intervention of legislative bodies into

medical decision making is inappropriate, ill advised, and

dangerous.

Approval by the Executive Board. General policy: January

1993. Reaffirmed and revised July 1997. Intact D & X

statement: January 1997. Combined: and reaffirmed September

2000.