Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, the last speaker just read part of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' statement. He said that they could identify no circumstances under which the procedure identified above could be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman. Then he stopped. The rest of it is, ``However, it may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of the woman, and only the doctor, in consultation with the patient, based on the woman's particular circumstances, can make that decision.''

We just want the whole statement in the Record.

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

Mr. Speaker, even if this bill were constitutional, it would not stop any abortions, just a procedure. The abortion would still take place using an alternative procedure. I am not going to inflame the debate by describing those alternative procedures; but this bill in its present form, without this amendment, is clearly unconstitutional.

This amendment would make it constitutional. The Supreme Court said in Stenberg v. Carhart that the ban on partial birth abortions was unconstitutional because the law lacked any exception for the preservation of the health of the; mother, and reading out of the case, it says subsequent to viability the State, in promoting the interests of the potentiality of human life, may, if it chooses, proscribe an abortion and in italics it says except where it is necessary in appropriate medical judgment for preservation of the life or health of the mother. This is what this amendment says. That was in italics.

Later down it says the governing standard requires an exception, and it says, where it is necessary in appropriate medical judgment for preservation of the life or health of the mother. That is the language of this amendment. It also says, our cases have repeatedly invalidated statutes, and the process of regulating the methods of abortion imposed significant health risks.

Finally, it says, but where the substantial medical authority supports the proposition that banning a particular abortion procedure could endanger women's health case law requires the statute to include a health exception when the procedure is, and listen up, necessary in appropriate medical judgment for the preservation of life or health of the mother.

That is what the Supreme Court said in June 2000. Five judges found that opinion. All five are still on the Court. They used the same language in this amendment in plain print, in italics and in quotes. They were serious about this legislation. We ought to read the case and apply the law and adopt the motion to recommit.

I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to place this debate in context because every time we cut veterans benefits, we pull out this resolution. Just a few weeks ago, we voted to cut veterans benefits by $28 billion. And so far those cuts have been restored, but many in this House, a majority, in fact, of this House, will have to explain those votes. Challenging the patriotism of those of us who voted ``no'' on those cuts will not cover up the fact that those votes were actually cast.

Mr. Speaker, we should acknowledge that the whole purpose of the underlying constitutional amendment is to stifle political expression that we find offensive. While I agree that we should respect the flag, I do not think it is appropriate to use the criminal code to enforce our views on those who disagree with us. The Supreme Court has considered restrictions on the Bill of Rights that are permissible by the government. For example, under the first amendment with respect to speech, time, place and manner may generally be regulated while content cannot. There are, of course, exceptions. Speech that creates an imminent threat of violence or threatens safety or patently offensive expression that has no redeeming social value, those may be restricted. But generally you cannot restrict content. The distinction is that you can restrict time, place and manner but not content. And so you can restrict the particulars of a march or demonstration, what time it is held, where it is held; but you cannot restrict what people are marching or demonstrating about. You cannot ban a particular march or demonstration just because you disagree with the message unless you decide to ban all marches. You cannot allow marches by the Republican Party but not by the Democratic Party.

Some have referred to the underlying resolution as the anti-flag burning amendment and they speak about the necessity of this amendment to keep people from burning flags. But, really, the only place we ever see flags burned is in compliance with the Federal code at flag ceremonies, disposing of a worn-out flag. If you ask any Boy Scout or any member of the American Legion, how do you dispose of a worn-out flag, they will tell you that you burn the flag at a respectful ceremony. This proposed constitutional amendment is all about expression and all about prohibiting expression in violation of the spirit of the first amendment. By using the word ``desecration,'' we are giving government officials the power to decide that one can burn a flag if you are saying something nice or respectful,

but you are a criminal if you burn the flag while saying something offensive or insulting. This is an absurd distinction and is in direct contravention with the whole purpose of the first amendment.

Mr. Speaker, in addition to the violation of the spirit of the Bill of Rights, this legislation has practical problems. For example, what is a flag? Can you desecrate a picture of a flag? Can a flag with the wrong number of stripes or stars be desecrated?

Mr. Speaker, during the Vietnam War, laws were passed prohibiting draft cards from being burned and protesters with great flourish would say that they were burning their draft cards and offend everybody, but then nobody would know whether it was a draft card or just a piece of paper. Mr. Speaker, what happens if you desecrate your own flag in private? Are you subject to criminal prosecution if someone finds out?

And finally, Mr. Speaker, I feel compelled to comment on the ridiculous suggestions that stealing and destroying someone's personal property is protected if that property happens to be a flag. That is wrong. It is theft and destruction of personal property. What this legislation is aimed at is criminalizing political speech. And so we should not politicize criminal speech we disagree with just because we have the votes.

I would hope, Mr. Speaker, that we would defeat the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the amendment offered by the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt). His amendment is an attempt to clarify how the underlying legislation will affect the first amendment as well as the rest of the Constitution. It changes the proposed constitutional amendment to read, ``Not inconsistent with the first article of amendment to this Constitution, Congress shall have the power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.''

So under the Watt amendment, a person could not be prosecuted just for the expression of opinion, or whether or not the sheriff is offended by that opinion; and, in other words, you should

not pass a law that provides for the criminal prosecution for someone who burns a worn-out flag while criticizing the administration at an anti-war rally if that same legislation allows someone to burn a worn- out flag if they say something nice about the administration while at a flag retirement ceremony sponsored by war supporters. The fact is that many consider peace rallies as vulgar and would like to throw the participants in jail. The fact is in many communities, the Bill of Rights is the only thing between those protesters and the jailhouse.

We should acknowledge that the ultimate purpose of the proposed amendment is to stifle political expression we find offensive. And while I agree that we should all respect the flag, I do not think it is appropriate to use the criminal code to enforce our views on those who disagree with us or to stifle political expression for those who happen to offend us.

The Watt amendment would make the proposed amendment consistent with the ideals of the Bill of Rights. It says that Congress could pass a law prohibiting the physical desecration of the flag so long as it is consistent with the first amendment. And so the underlying amendment is either consistent with the rest of the Constitution or it trumps the rest of the Constitution. Either the underlying amendment will override the first amendment or it will not. At least we ought to be honest and answer the question.

The Watt amendment says the underlying amendment will not override the first amendment and that any legislation passed under it has to be consistent with the first amendment. On the other hand, if the Watt amendment is defeated, then that action suggests that legislation passed under the constitutional amendment may not be consistent with the first amendment. And if it overrides the first amendment on speech, what else does it override? Does it override the first amendment in terms of religion? If you were to pass a statute establishing a national prayer for the protection of the flag, that would be inconsistent with the establishment clause. But does this constitutional amendment override the establishment clause? What about the equal protection clause? Can you pass a law that says some people can burn the flag but other people cannot, in violation of the equal protection clause? Will this legislation trump that? Or will the rest of the Constitution remain as it is?

My view is that this amendment is superfluous, that the rest of the Constitution is there. The chairman suggests that it codifies present law and, if so, if it does codify present law, this amendment as it is, you ought to say so. You ought to say whether or not it is consistent with the free speech provision of the first amendment, you can pass the law, or whether or not it is consistent with the rest of the Constitution, you can pass the law. It does not say so.

So I think we are stuck with the present law. The Watt amendment forces us to address the question.

Now, remember, as the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt) has pointed out, the underlying amendment does not prohibit anything, it just says that Congress may pass a law regarding the desecration of the flag. The real question is what standard are we going to use to judge what constitutes desecration and whether or not it has to be consistent with the speech provisions of the first amendment and the rest of the Constitution or not. This is what the Watt amendment is aimed at determining.

Mr. Speaker, I do not think we ought to repeal the Bill of Rights, and therefore, I urge my colleagues to support the Watt amendment.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in support of S. 330, the Veterans' Memorial Preservation and Recognition Act of 2003, and recommend its passage to my colleagues. This bipartisan legislation is designed to add increased protection to veterans memorials and enhance the recognition of veterans cemeteries. This bill is particularly timely shortly before Memorial Day and at a time when our military troops risked their lives on our behalf in Iraq.

Specifically, the legislation establishes criminal penalties for willfully injuring or destroying or attempting to injure or destroy any structure, plaque, statue, or other monument on public property commemorating the service of any person in the United States Armed Forces. The bill further requires the veterans cemeteries to be treated as sites permitting supplemental guide signs on Federal-aid highways.

The bill was introduced by the Senator from Colorado, Mr. Campbell, on February 6, 2003, and passed the Senate by unanimous consent on March 27, 2003. I urge Members to support the bill.

Mr. Speaker, 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. Res. 180, introduced by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), along with our colleagues, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Sweeney), the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Green), and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Holden).

H. Res. 180 is a bipartisan resolution designed to honor correctional officers and employees by acknowledging and supporting the goals and ideals of National Correctional Officers and Employees Week. The resolution directly honors correctional workers at all levels, local, State and Federal, including psychologists, chaplains, teachers, and kitchen staff.

Correctional officers and employees play a vital role in protecting and promoting public safety. They work in our county jails, in our State prisons and Federal penitentiaries. They have a tough job to do in a tough environment. And with the emphasis that Congress and State legislators have placed on eliminating incentive programs for inmates, such as parole, good conduct credits and funding for college courses, that job has been made only tougher.

Recently, by reducing inmate jobs in the Federal prison industries program, even more pressure will be put on correctional officers to maintain a safe and productive environment for prisons.

So it is fitting, Mr. Speaker, that we pause at this time to recognize and commend our correctional workers and employees for the very important job they do. To them we say thank you.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), the sponsor of the legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman from Ohio and the gentleman from Wisconsin for sponsoring this resolution, and I urge Members to support it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for leading the effort to commemorate Asian Pacific American Heritage month.

During this month-long commemoration, Americans of Asian Pacific heritage celebrate achievements and major contributions for almost 12 million American citizens of Asian and Pacific heritage. Whether we are seeking of arts, education, government, business, athletics, medicine, law, or the military, Asian Pacific Americans have not only contributed but excelled.

Several congressional organizations reflect this unique relationship between Congress and Asian Pacific Americans.

I recently joined my distinguished colleagues, Representative Issa, Representative Filner and Representative Rohrabacher, in founding Friends of the Philippines. The bipartisan membership comprises Members who are working to promote better relations with our longstanding ally, the Philippines. I am also a member of the India Caucus, which similarly works to promote a better relationship with India.

The bicameral and bipartisan Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus was created by Congressman Norman Mineta, who is now Secretary of Transportation, and Congresswoman Patsy Mink in 1994. Both have served as Chair of the caucus. In the 108th Congress, this Congress, Congressman David Wu serves as Chair and Congressman Honda serves as vice Chair of that caucus. 115 Members of Congress have joined the caucus and work together on policies and legislation that are of concern to Asian Pacific Americans. The caucus is working hard not only to educate other Members about the history and contributions of Asian Pacific Islanders but also to protect and advance the constitutional rights of all Americans.

My connection with the celebration begins with my maternal grandfather who was born in the Philippines. Around 1900 he immigrated to the United States aboard a naval vessel at an early age. He landed in Raleigh, North Carolina, and was adopted by a family in Raleigh. He became a pharmacist but unfortunately died before I was born.

The historic significance of this month involves two events that occurred in May which determined why this month was chosen to celebrate a week, and now a month, for Asian Pacific American heritage contributions. The first occurred on May 7, 1843, when the first Japanese immigrants arrived in the United States. The second occurred on May 10, 1869, known as Golden Spike Day, when the first transcontinental railroad in the United States was completed with significant contributions from Chinese immigrants.

Before Asian Pacific American Heritage Month was signed into law in 1992, it began as a week-long observance of Asian Pacific Americans' contributions to this country. In 1977, Congressman Horton introduced H.J. Res. 540, legislation to authorize the President to proclaim annually the first 10 days in May as Asian Pacific American Heritage Week. Congressman Mineta led the efforts to enact H.J. Res. 1007, which in 1979 began as an annual celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Week. In 1989, legislation was introduced to convert the week into a month, and in 1992 legislation was enacted to make the annual month an annual commemoration.

Mr. Speaker, I join the gentleman from California tonight as we urge all Americans to learn the history of Asian Pacific Americans and to celebrate their contributions to the culture and heritage of our Nation. I want to thank the gentleman from California for leading the effort to make sure that this was properly commemorated.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, and I am honored today to praise the NAACP Legal Defense Fund for inaugurating the Red, White, Blue and Brown Campaign to commemorate next year's 50th anniversary of the landmark decision Brown v. Board of Education and to help ensure that the spirit of Brown is fully understood and realized.

The decision is special to me because when the case was decided I was an elementary school student in a segregated public school. My father was a member of the local school board and was on the short end of many four-to-one votes as the decision was being implemented.

I served in the Virginia legislature with several members who had actually voted for and against so-called ``massive resistance.'' Massive resistance was Virginia's sad reaction to the Brown decision. Virginia took advantage of the language in the Brown decision which referred to the right to education with the phrase ``Such an opportunity where the State has undertaken to provide it is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.'' Under massive resistance, Virginia decided not to provide any public education at all rather than to integrate. As a result, schools in Prince Edward County were closed from 1959 to 1964.

In Prince Edward County, 117 African American students chose to strike rather than attend all black Moton High, which was badly in need of repair. Moton had no gymnasium, cafeteria, infirmary, or teacher restrooms. The overflow of students was housed in an old school bus and three buildings covered with tar paper. Local parents had repeatedly sought improvements from the local school board without success. Students initially wanted a new school building with indoor plumbing to replace the old school.

Strike leader, Barbara Johns, enlisted the assistance of NAACP attorneys. The lawsuit, Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, was filed in 1951 on behalf of the students by the Virginia NAACP attorneys Oliver Hill and Spottswood Robinson. The United States District Court ordered equal facilities to be provided for black students but denied the plaintiffs the admission to the white schools during the equalization program. Attorneys for the NAACP filed an appeal, which ultimately became consolidated with other cases, including Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

Because of the deplorable conditions in virtually every black segregated school, many suggest that segregated schools are illegal because they are always inferior and that that was the decision in Brown. In fact, the lesson of Brown is that segregation in and of itself denies equal educational opportunities. The court wrote in the Brown decision: ``We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other `tangible' factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal education opportunities? We believe that it does.''

A philosopher once noted that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. So I am delighted the NAACP Legal Defense Fund is instituting this initiative to remind people what Brown was all about and that the fight for equal educational opportunity did not end with Brown. The lesson of Brown still applies today.

Let us look at the issues we are debating as we speak: minority enrollment in State universities, not only affirmative action at the University of Michigan but also issues involving the vestiges of dual higher education systems in most Southern States; vouchers, the very scheme used in Virginia to fund segregated academies while public schools were closed; disparate funding of education, inner city schools spend significantly less per student than suburban schools; Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, whether a free and appropriate public education can be denied to individuals with disabilities; resegregation of schools, forty percent of black students in 2000 attended schools which were over 90 percent black; High stakes testing, we know that poor students, non-English speaking students, students with disabilities, as well as many minority students receive an education of lesser quality than their counterparts. The use of high stakes testing in educational decisions only exacerbates these inequalities, especially since many of those tests have been found to be racially biased. Even the President's

own faith based initiative, which for the first time since 1965 allows sponsors of federally funded programs to discriminate in hiring based on religion and, de facto, race, since 11 o'clock on Sunday is still the most segregated hour of the week.

So I am delighted that the NAACP Legal Defense Fund is instituting this initiative to remind people that the fight for equal education did not end with Brown. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund was there with the filing of Brown and remains vigilant and on the case today with this commemoration of the spirit of Brown to once again fight to have all children properly educated. While the legal defense fund may be best known for its work in Brown v. Board of Education, its historic involvement began in 1935, when the legal defense fund lawyers Charles Houston and Thurgood Marshall won the legal battle to admit a student to the University of Maryland.

Education has been the cornerstone of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund's push for social justice. The legal defense fund knows the truth of the language in the Brown decision, which states: ``It is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education.''

So I am pleased that the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, under the distinguished leadership of Elaine Jones, is continuing its long tradition of legal action in the education area. America is better because of that tradition.

Mr. Speaker, because of our sorry history of bigotry in this Nation, for decades it has been illegal to discriminate in employment and make decisions, job decisions based on race or religion. The only exception is churches and religious organizations can discriminate with their own money, but not with Federal money.

So let us be clear. If this rule passes, we will vaporize civil rights protections that have been in effect for decades. It is not going to make it easier for Federal organizations to get contracts; they still need to apply, compete, and are subject to audit. But any program that can get funded under this bill can get funded anyway; just do not discriminate in employment. And under those rules, Catholic organizations, Jewish, Lutheran, Baptist organizations get hundreds of millions of dollars today. And, Mr. Speaker, if we allow religious discrimination, we will be allowing racial discrimination, because many organizations are 100 percent African American or 100 percent white.

Now, Mr. Speaker, employment discrimination is ugly. You can put lipstick on a pig, but you cannot pass it off as a beauty queen. And you cannot dress up discrimination with poll-tested semantics and euphemisms and pass it off as anything other than ugly discrimination.

Let us defeat this rule and allow an amendment to maintain basic traditional civil rights protections.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina for his distinguished leadership on this budget issue. It is a very difficult issue and the gentleman has provided excellent leadership, and we thank him for that service.

The gentleman is right, I like to use charts, because we have heard a lot of descriptions, we have heard a lot of adjectives and projections. Let us just look at the numbers. This chart shows the numbers over the past few years of what the deficit has been, starting with Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, great deficits under Presidents Reagan and the first Bush. And we have heard comments about the 1993 vote when President Clinton came in, without a Republican vote in the entire House or Senate, very close votes, 218 to 216 in the House, 50-50 with Vice president Gore breaking the tie in the Senate. And, as a direct result of that, along with economic growth, every year was better than the one before until we went into a surplus. Social Security and the lockbox, Medicare in a lockbox and a $100 billion surplus after that.

The Republicans will say that after 2 years of the Clinton administration, they took over. That is true, and they offered the same kind of tax cuts that President Bush has signed, but President Clinton vetoed that bill. They threatened to close down the government. He vetoed it again. They closed down the government. He vetoed the bill again, and continued vetoing their irresponsible tax cuts year after year as the budget situation got better and better each year. Under his leadership, he had enough Democrats in the House and the Senate to sustain those vetoes and control the budget situation year after year, each year being better than the last.

When President Bush came in, he signed those irresponsible tax cuts and we see what happens. Actually, this chart, as bad as it looks, needs to be updated. We have not gotten the more recent numbers; it may in fact be off the chart.

People ask, well, if things are this bad, where is the Democratic plan? Well, the Democratic plan is in green. That is our plan; this is their plan.

Now, how did we get in this mess? We got in this mess with tax cuts and we have asked, well, who got the tax cuts? And you have heard the adjectives. Let us look at the graph. The bottom 20 percent, the next 20 percent, the middle 20 percent, the fourth 20 percent, and the top 20 percent, blue is the 2001 tax cut, green is the proposed 2003 tax cut. The same pattern.

Now, there is a line that is hard to see right at about the 50 percent mark. The top 1 percent get 50 percent of the tax cut that we enacted in 2001. So we have a budget mess. We got there with tax cuts to the wealthy, and we were told that the reason we needed to do that, the reason we needed to mess up the budget to give tax cuts to the wealthy was to create jobs.

Let us look at the jobs per administration, the second Truman administration, the Eisenhower administration, first and second, Kennedy, Johnson, Johnson, all of the administrations over the years, the job creation record, George W. Bush, President Bush, the worst job creation record since the Truman administration, a loss of over 2.5 million jobs.

Now, we are told that, well, what do you expect after September 11? Let us point out that this chart includes the Korean War. It includes the Vietnam War. It includes the whole Cold War, the first Persian Gulf War, hostages taken in Iran, it includes all of that, and still the worst in over 50 years.

So how bad does it have to get before we acknowledge that it did not work?

What did we get? We got debt. If we left the budget alone, we would have paid off the national debt by 2008. The projection in May of 2001, right after this administration came in, virtually no debt held by the public. Instead, in 2008 we are going to have almost $5 trillion in debt.

With debt, we get interest on the national debt. Let us look at the interest. The interest on the national debt, because the debt was going to zero, was going to zero, interest on the national debt. Instead, this red line is the interest on the national debt that we have to pay. And the difference as we go, the billions of dollars in additional debt by 2010, $1.6 trillion wasted in additional interest on the national debt that we would not have had to pay.

Now, let us put these numbers in perspective. The green is the interest on the national debt that we were going to pay going down to zero. Red is the interest on the national debt that we are going to pay. Blue is the defense budget. To show how much interest on the national debt we are going to end up paying and put it in perspective, instead of zero we are going to be spending almost as much interest on the national debt as we are spending on national defense.

Now, let us make it personal. Take the interest on the national debt, divided by the population, multiplied by 4, what is a family of four's portion of the national debt? Right now it is about $4,500 every year, interest on the national debt going to zero. By 2013, because we have messed up the budget, interest on the national debt, a family of four's portion of interest on the national debt, $8,500 and growing. That means the first $8,500, you get nothing, except pay for what has already been spent.

Now, the next chart shows how challenging a situation we have gotten ourselves into because this is the Social Security chart. Right now, we are not even balancing the budget, spending the Social Security surplus. We are not balancing the budget. But in 2017, because the baby boomers are retiring, we are having a deficit, almost $1 trillion, running up to about $1 trillion over the next 30 years. If we cannot balance the budget with a Social Security surplus and we are spending the surplus, what are we going to be doing out here when we have a $300 billion deficit, divided by 300 million people in America, $1,000 a piece, will be $300 billion, that is $1,000 for every man, woman, and child, for Social Security deficit, you end up with the interest on the national debt deficit. How bad does it have to get?

There is one more thing I want to mention. That is, I told my colleagues about the chart where 1 percent gets half of the tax cut. Instead of the tax cut for the upper 1 percent, if we had allocated that into a trust fund for Social Security, we could pay Social Security for the next 75 years without any diminution in benefits. Seventy-five years for the tax cut that the top 1 percent got.

Mr. Speaker, we cannot afford another tax cut. We need to go back to the green, the Democratic plan. What we are doing, what we have done to the budget is obscene. What we are doing to the budget is just unconscionable.

Mr. Speaker, it is less than what the top 1 percent got in 2001.

You cannot get to balance through spending cuts. As I indicated, the entire defense budget is about $400 billion. We are 500 billion and counting, slightly offset because we are spending $150 billion on Medicare and Social Security surplus that is coming in. But this is out of budget. The onbudget part of the budget, what is coming in and going out outside of Social Security and Medicare is $500 billion. The entire defense budget. Everything we spend outside of Social Security, Medicare, and defense and pensions, everything is about $800 billion. Everything. Foreign aid, FBI, prisons, NASA, everything, education, roads, everything. It is about 800. If you cut the government in half, you could not balance it as bad as it has gotten.

You cannot create a chart like this by accident. Eight consecutive years, each year better than the last; under the present administration, each year worse than the last and no help in sight. You do not do that by accident.

Mr. Speaker, this chart shows that the top one percent get half the tax cut that we enacted in 2001. The people in the lower brackets who are more likely to spend the money and stimulate the economy, you can hardly see the lines that they get. The top 20 percent get the lion's share of the tax cut and virtually nothing on down. All of the studies show if you give money to those who are most likely to spend it, you will stimulate the economy.

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

In general, IDEA is a good program which works well. As a society, we have decided that all children have a right to a quality education. In 1954 our country made it clear that ``all children'' included racial minorities, and under IDEA we made it clear that ``all children'' included those with disabilities. The dream that all children are entitled to a quality education is an expensive dream to achieve, but we have decided that we mean to achieve that goal.

Many years ago, Congress promised to contribute 40 percent of the cost of achieving that goal, and this bill provides only a modest increase in authorization; but if No Child Left Behind is a guide, the appropriations will not follow. If we mandated the appropriations in the bill, we could be sure that the money would follow the authorization, but that mandate is not in the bill. We should remember, Mr. Speaker, that the Federal legislation to protect the educational rights of children with disabilities would not be necessary if school districts did a better job in carrying out their responsibilities.

Prior to the Federal mandate of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, millions of children with disabilities receive no education at all. But this bill makes it more difficult for our children with disabilities to get the free and appropriate education to which they are entitled because many of the discipline provisions in the bill are inconsistent with that goal. Rather than making sure that children with disabilities are provided with good teachers who have appropriate training and professional development, the bill allows school districts to shuttle kids off to so-called interim alternative educational settings that will not provide a free and appropriate public education. In so doing, this bill makes it easier for local school systems to illegally place children with disabilities in inappropriate settings while at the same time reducing the parents' ability to challenge those placements. And so, Mr. Speaker, in the bill the removal of the current discipline protections will result in students with disabilities being expelled or removed for actions they cannot control.

Mr. Speaker, the revised discipline provisions in the bill were added to give school districts an opportunity to avoid providing the most challenging students with disabilities free and appropriate education; yet we should remember that even with the current protections, students with disabilities are already overrepresented among students who are expelled from schools. The elimination of the current discipline safeguards will remove the only legal safeguards that currently exist for these students with disabilities.

Mr. Speaker, for these reasons as well as others I ask my colleagues to oppose the rule and oppose final passage of H.R. 1350.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding so we can continue to discuss the budget situation we are in.

I like to use charts because one uses a lot of adjectives and uses a lot of spin. One cannot spin charts because they just show us what the numbers are. This chart, for example, shows the deficit year by year over the years. Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter. We all remember that deficits ran up under Reagan and Bush; and we also remember that when President Clinton came in with a Democratic majority, we cast the tough votes to create a surplus for the first time in decades. We also know that during this administration, the Republican Congress, after they took over Congress, passed huge tax cuts that were vetoed time and time again. The Republicans passed the tax cuts; President Clinton vetoed them. They threatened to close down the government. He vetoed it anyway. They shut down the government. He vetoed it anyway, and we were able to have a straight line right up to surplus. Unfortunately, President Bush did not veto those irresponsible tax cuts, and we see what happened all of a sudden.

If anybody asks what is the Democratic plan now, we just point to the green. When the Democrats had control of the budget with Clinton and enough Democrats in Congress to sustain his vetoes, this was the Democratic plan. This is the Republican plan. Once we run up all those deficits, we have to pay interest on the national debt. This chart shows what the interest on the national debt would have been had we not messed up the budget. That is the green line showing what the interest on the national debt would have been. The red line is what the interest on the national debt will be as a result of messing up the budget. To put this in perspective, the blue line is the defense budget. By 2013 we will be paying almost as much interest on the national debt as we pay for defending the United States of America.

We also can make this personal. This is what we call the debt tax. A family of four, take all the interest on the national debt, divide it by population, multiply it by four. Right now a family of four's proportional share of the interest on the national debt, about $4,400, $4,500. It was going to zero. But by 2013, $8,500 and rising. And how did we get in this mess? The tax cuts. And who got the tax cuts? We can say who got it, but let us look at the chart. The bottom 20 percent, the blue is the 2001 tax cut, the green is the proposed 2003 tax cut, and we see who got a little of the tax cut. There is a line right here that is hard to see, but it shows that one half of the tax cut went to the top 1 percent of the population.

As a result of these tax cuts, we also have to consider the effect that they had on Social Security. This is a chart of the Social Security trust fund.

We are bringing in more money in Social Security than we are paying out right now because the baby-boomers are retiring shortly, and we need to save the money for Social Security. We cannot balance the budget with a $150 billion surplus in Medicare and Social Security. In 2017 it is going to change. Look at what we are going to have to come up with as we go along.

Now, the interesting thing is it is challenging, and this is the $900 billion, over $1 trillion a year we are going to have to come up with in cash to pay this.

The embarrassing thing about this is if you go back to the tax cut, one-half of the tax cut of 2001, one-half, that is what the upper 1 percent got, had we, instead of giving a tax cut, allocated that amount of money to Social Security, we could have paid Social Security without reducing any benefits for 75 years. But, instead, we did the tax cut.

So we have jeopardized Social Security, we have ruined the budget in terms of deficits, we have run up the debt tax. And, why? To create jobs? Let us see how we did.

This is a job growth in the last 50-some years, going back to the Truman administration, Eisenhower-Nixon, Kennedy-Johnson, Johnson, Nixon, all the way through the worst job creation in over 50 years.

Now, we say, well, what do you expect? 9/11. That is why we could not create any jobs. But as you think of it, we were fighting the Korean War, we created jobs. We fought the Vietnam War, we created jobs. We had our hostages taken in Iran, we created jobs. We fought the Cold War all the way through. We fought in Grenada and in Panama. The Persian Gulf, we created jobs. Somalia, Kosovo, we created jobs. 9/11, why can we not create jobs?

We passed their plan. The worst investment growth since World War II. We had investment growth every year through the Korean War, Vietnam War, Cold War, all the way through, but not in this administration after we have wrecked the budget.

When we talk about sending people's money back on tax cuts, we are not sending their money back. As we pointed out, we are spending all of their money. What we are sending them back is their children's money that they will have to pay off.

My question is, how bad does this situation have to get? How much debt do you have to run up before you acknowledge that the plan did not work? How many jobs do you have to lose? We have lost almost 2.6 million jobs since this administration came. Unemployment is up. Long- term unemployment has tripled. How bad does it have to get before you acknowledge that it did not work?

We need fiscal responsibility. We need the Democratic plan and need to reject the plan offered by the Republicans that we are passing now.

I thank the gentleman for yielding so we could offer these graphs which show in numbers exactly how bad it is.

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

(Mr. SCOTT of Virginia asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)

Mr. Speaker, the conference report before us started out as an effort to quickly pass AMBER Alert, a bipartisan noncontroversial provision which had already passed the Senate. I am a cosponsor of the House version of the AMBER Alert so I am anxious to see that it be passed because it has been actually shown to help children. It will codify a program of grants and assistance to States and localities to establish a national communications system so that abducted children can be saved. As the gentleman from Wisconsin pointed out, that system works.

However, the bill now before us is loaded down with an array of crime sound-bite provisions that make the AMBER Alert bill just an afterthought in the legislation. The bill that has gone through the conference process, some provisions have been improved, some have been made worse; but I am unable to support the conference report at this time.

Mr. Speaker, the bill retains egregious provisions that expand the Federal criminal laws into areas traditionally left to State criminal laws. It expands the death penalty, despite the fact that almost 70 percent of death penalties imposed in the United States are found to be erroneous and the fact that over 100 people sentenced to death in the last 10 years have been subsequently shown to be innocent.

250 Members of the House, many supportive of the death penalty, have sponsored the Innocence Protection Act to provide reasonable assurances that fewer innocent people will be put to death. So we should certainly not be adding more death penalties before this act passes.

There are numerous provisions in the bill that create new mandatory minimum sentences, including the baseball-based sound byte, ``two strikes and you're out,'' which mandates life without parole for a second-offense requirement involving a minor. The offenses covered by that provision fortunately have been limited through the conference report process by eliminating some of the minor offenses involving a minor child, but it still includes as a child sex offense some consensual acts between teenagers.

The bill also adds a 5-year mandatory minimum for first offense crimes that are Federal crimes only because a person crosses State lines, such as when an 18-year-old and a 17-year-old conspire to cross State lines from Washington, D.C., to Virginia to have consensual sex. Just to show my colleagues how bizarre that provision is, if children are conspiring to cross from Virginia to Washington, D.C., to have sex, it would not be a child sex offense, and that is because consensual sex outside of marriage is not a crime in Washington, D.C., while it is in Virginia.

The bill also provides for a new wiretap authority in many of these cases including consensual sex and including some of the activities that do not even constitute a crime, and in some of those crime cases, bail may be denied during trial.

Of course, we are supposed to expect that prosecutors will ignore the law to carry mandatory minimum terms and not bring those cases. The reason we have mandatory minimums in the first place is because judges cannot be trusted to determine who should be sentenced to life and who should be sentenced to less, so we give everybody a life sentence. So our prisons are filled with people today who are serving time because they were convicted of just tangential involvement in somebody else's drug trade and end up serving more time than bank robbers.

We should let the sentencing commission and judges determine the appropriate sentences. Mandatory sentences have been criticized because they often require sentences which violate common sense in some cases, and that is why the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is a frequent critic. Not only do we mandate numerous mandatory minimums without regard to what the individual circumstances of the case might be, but one amendment, the Feeney amendment, reduces the discretion of the sentencing commission and judges to robot-like conformity without regard to how the sentence compares to equally serious offenses, nor does it recognize that circumstances can vary from one case to another.

There was a dramatic effort to fix that amendment, representing a brand-new version at the conference committee meeting, but it was ineffectual, as well as rife with errors. In just a cursory reading of that amendment, which was first seen by some of us at the meeting itself, it became clear that it had several major unintended effects. For example, it removed consideration in sentencing for exemplary military service. Another bizarre exchange occurred in which we were told that the word ``and'' actually meant ``or'' and it did not matter whether you had ``and'' or ``or.'' I do not know when the change took place, but the version before us now has the word ``or'' instead of ``and.'' Nevertheless the amendment still reduces the judge's ability to make the punishment fit the crime.

Most cases are sentenced within the sentencing guidelines range; and according to the American Bar Association, 79 percent of the departures from the guidelines are agreed to by the prosecution. I would like to insert the letter from the ABA into the Record at this point.

American Bar Association,

Chicago, IL, April 9, 2003.

Dear Senator: I write on behalf of the American Bar

Association to express deep concern about the Feeney

amendment, which has been incorporated in the conference

report to accompany S. 151, legislation to ban ``virtual''

child pornography. Although we are pleased to see that some

of the more offensive provisions of this amendment were

modified in conference, we continue to believe that this

provision would fundamentally alter the carefully crafted and

balanced system established by the Sentencing Reform Act,

without any of the customary safeguards of the legislative

process. Indeed, to the extent the amendment would give

prosecutors a unique and absolute power to check the

discretion of sentencing judges, it would have an unsettling

effect on the constitutional balance of power.

The Feeney amendment would legislatively overrule a

decision of the United States Supreme Court, United States v.

Koon, 518 U.S. 81 (1996), and amend central provisions of the

Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. It would void numerous

sections of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, and, for the

first time, amend the Guidelines by direct legislation. It

would preclude the exercise of judicial discretion in certain

cases, and make judicial departures in all cases subject to

de novo appellate review. It would impose very troublesome

reporting and oversight requirements on judges that will

certainly have a chilling effect on judicial independence,

and discourage the imposition of just sentences in many

cases.

Should Congress enact the Feeney amendment, all these

dramatic changes would be accomplished through a House floor

amendment to an unrelated bill, adopted without committee

hearings by either the House or the Senate, or the benefit of

consultation with the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the federal

judiciary, or the organized Bar.

The Feeney amendment is evidently a response to the

perception that judges have engaged in widespread abuses of

their departure power following the Supreme Court's Koon

decision in 1996. Based on the Sentencing Commission's

statistics, I believe there are reasons to doubt the accuracy

of this portrayal.

Although sentences below the guideline range are now more

common that in the early days of guidelines sentencing, the

primary responsibility for this result lies with the

Department of Justice. In FY 2001, of 19,416 downward

departures awarded federal defendants, approximately 15,318

came on government motion. Put another way, in 2001, 79

percent of downward departures in the United States were

requested by the Government.

Similarly, although the rate of non-substantial assistance

departures has increased since the Koon decision, the vast

majority of that increase is attributable to the fact that

the number of departures in the five `'fast-track'' border

districts more than tripled, from 1871 to 1996, to 5928 in

2001. In short, the increased rate of non-substantial

assistance departures since Koon is due primarily to requests

for such departures by the Department of Justice.

The foregoing figures do not, of course, present the whole

picture. The percentage of judicially initiated departures

has increased somewhat since Koon. It may well be that some

judicially initiated departures are inappropriate and that

some action to curb inappropriate judicial departures should

be considered. However, it would seem advisable to determine

the nature and extent of any problem with judicial departure

power before legislating a virtual end to that power. As

Senator Hatch wisely observed some years ago:

``[C]ongressional policy makers must take advantage of the

most current and complete information available when making

legislative decisions. Whenever possible, Congress should

call upon those with relevant empirical research, encouraging

those most knowledgeable of and most

involved with the guidelines--judges, prosecutors,

practitioners and the Commission--to express their views.''

I am informed that the U.S. Sentencing Commission is even

now in the midst of a study of judicial departures in white-

collar crime. Would it not be prudent to direct the

Commission to extend that study to departures generally and

report promptly to Congress on its results? (I understand

that the General Accounting Office has also undertaken a

study of departures, at the request of the House Judiciary

Committee.) Such a congressional directive could also

instruct the Commission to develop proposals to address any

deficiencies revealed by the study. Once armed with full

information, Congress could determine the true nature and

extent of any problem, and could, if necessary, craft an

appropriate, measured legislative response to any

deficiencies in departure practice left unaddressed by the

Commission.

The American Bar Association is confident that a period for

study of current departure practice would not only yield a

more accurate picture of any problems that may exist, but

could not fail to produce a better solution than the Feeney

Amendment.

The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 created a system of

distributed authority that was designed to ensure fair,

predictable sentences for defendants convicted in

federal court. As contemplated by the Act itself, the

Guidelines drafted by the Sentencing Commission and

approved by Congress channel judicial sentencing

discretion, but they do not eliminate it. This system

reflects two truths about the process of making sentencing

rules. First, no set of rules can anticipate the

circumstances of every individual defendant. Accordingly,

if justice is to be done, judges must retain the

flexibility to determine that some defendants do not fit

the mold envisioned by the Commission. Second, the

departure power is a means of providing feedback from

judges to the Sentencing Commission and Congress. By

studying departure patterns, the Commission can identify

those guideline rules that judges are consistently finding

to be inappropriate for certain classes of defendants.

In the Sentencing Reform Act, Congress conferred upon

Federal judges the power to depart whenever ``there exists an

aggravating or mitigating circumstance of a kind, or to a

degree, not adequately taken into consideration by the

Sentencing Commission in formulating the guidelines'' in the

enabling legislation that created the U.S. Sentencing

Commission, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3553(b). The Feeney Amendment is

inconsistent with the original judgment of Congress about the

necessity and value of a guided departure power and the

important role of judges in Federal sentencing. If passed,

the Amendment would severely compromise critical

institutional features of the Federal sentencing system.

By curtailing and burdening judicial departure authority,

the Feeney Amendment strikes a blow at judicial independence

and sends an unmistakable message that Congress does not

trust the judgment of the judges it has confirmed to office.

By overriding the Sentencing Commission and legislatively

rewriting the Guidelines, the Feeney Amendment threatens the

legitimacy of the Commission. The Commission was created by

Congress to ensure that important decisions about Federal

sentencing were made intelligently, dispassionately, and, so

far as possible, uninfluenced by transient political

considerations. Congress should accord the Commission and its

processes some deference unless and until the Commission has

demonstrably failed in its duties.

By bypassing the deliberative processes of Congress itself,

the Feeney Amendment reflects a profoundly troubling

disregard of the legislature's role in establishing Federal

sentencing policy. If passed, the Feeney Amendment would

alter core features of Federal criminal sentencing and

appellate practice. Yet the Amendment has never been the

subject of a hearing in either the House or Senate, and

neither house has had the benefit of meaningful consultation

with any of the institutions most affected by the Amendment.

The American Bar Association is firmly committed to the

maintenance of a just and effective Federal sentencing

system. I am confident that you and your colleagues will give

the Feeney Amendment the careful scrutiny it requires. I am

hopeful that such scrutiny will lead you to oppose the Feeney

Amendment and to support a careful study of judicial

departures by the Sentencing Commission. . . .

The bill before us defiantly enacts laws prohibiting such acts as what is called ``virtual child pornography.'' The United States Supreme Court gave us a bright-line test to determine whether or not computer- generated images can constitute illegal child pornography. The Court said that if the image is not otherwise obscene it must involve real children in the production to be illegal. Pornography which was produced without real children under the Ashcroft case is not illegal.

In a direct violation of that case, this bill prohibits such images, whether or not it was produced with real children, unless the defendant can prove his innocence.

The Court, of course, dealt with that issue and said that we could not require a defendant in an American judicial court to prove his innocence, so that provision is clearly unconstitutional.

Mr. Speaker, we have a number of problems with this case, including the mandatory minimums. I just want to point out that the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, United States Judicial Conference, the Sentencing Commission, the American Bar Association, the Federal Bar Association, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the Washington Legal Foundation, the CATO Institute, and a host of other sentencing and judicial system experts have pleaded with Congress not to impair the ability of courts to impose just and responsible sentences.

I would ask also that a letter from the NAACP also be inserted into the Record at this point.

National Association for the

Advancement of Colored People,

Washington, DC, April 10, 2003.

Re NAACP opposition to S. 151, the ``Child Abduction

Prevention Act of 2003.''

Members,

House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Representative: On behalf of the National Association

for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the nation's

oldest, largest and most widely-recognized grass roots civil

rights organization, I am writing to urge you to oppose the

conference report to S. 151, the ``Child Abduction Prevention

Act of 2003'' in its current form.

While the issue of child abduction is a serious, heart-

wrenching and too often tragic issue that deserves to be

dealt with aggressively at a federal level, Title IV of the

final bill would radically limit federal judicial discretion

to impose just sentences for almost all federal offenses; not

just those relating to child abduction. Because this

provision overrules a key Supreme Court decision and

constitutes a dramatic encroachment on the judiciary, it is

opposed not only by civil rights organizations across the

board, but also by Supreme Court Chief Justice Rehnquist, the

Federal Judicial Conference, the Federal Sentencing

Commission, the American Bar Association, the Federal Bar

Association as well as countless law professors, prosecutors

and public defenders.

The potential impact of this provision on the African

American community and on ethnic minority American

communities throughout the nation is almost incomprehensible.

Racial bias in our nation's criminal justice system is

widespread and well documented. For example, according to

reports from the US Department of Justice and the US

Department of Health and Human Services, people of color

commit drug offenses at a rate proportional to our percentage

of the US population, roughly 25% for African Americans and

Hispanic Americans combined. Yet almost 75% of the people

charged in this nation with a drug offense are either

Hispanic or African American.

The impact this racial bias has on our communities is

devastating. According to the US Department of Justice report

issued just last week, an alarming 12% of all African

American men between the ages of 20 and 34 are in jail or in

prison. One out of every three black men born in the United

States will spend time behind bars in their lifetime.

The federal prison system now holds over 160,000 inmates,

more than any single state prison system. Furthermore, the

federal prison population has more than quadrupled in the

last 20 years for mostly non-violent offenses even while the

rate of incarceration has actually slowed in many states.

Under Title IV, the growth rate is predicted to be

staggering.

I hope that you will consider the far-reaching impact this

legislation will have on individual lives as well as whole

communities and even our nation. I urge you again to oppose

the final conference report unless Title IV is eliminated or

at least amended to address only child abduction cases.

Thank you in advance for your attention to this matter. If

you have any questions, I hope that you will feel free to

contact me at (202) 638-2269.

Sincerely,

Hilary O. Shelton,

Director.

Mr. Speaker, for those reasons we should vote against this report and send the measure back to committee for serious consideration. Many of the problems can be fixed if we would seriously consider the bill in a regular deliberative legislative process.

So I urge my colleagues not to vote on the conference report, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) a member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to read just one paragraph of the letter the gentleman from Wisconsin just referred to.

``We are troubled that the sentence for the crime was reduced to 30 months upon the court's consideration of mitigating facts. Such a reduction for mitigating factors may be appropriate in other circumstances.''

In other words, Mr. Speaker, we did not ask for a change in the law, we just asked for a review consistent with the law. This bill changes the law, changes the standard for review. What the Congressional Black Caucus asked for was just a review under the current law.

Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Record the letter just referred to by the gentleman from Wisconsin from the Congressional Black Caucus.

Congress of the United States,

House of Representatives,

Washington, DC, August 6, 1993.

Hon. Janet Reno,

Attorney General, Department of Justice, Washington, DC.

Dear Attorney General Reno: As members of the Congressional

Black Caucus, we are writing to you because of our concern

about the sentencing of Officer Laurence Powell and Sergeant

Stacey Koon by Judge John Davies in the Rodney King civil

rights case.

We are troubled that the sentence for the crime was reduced

to 30 months upon the court's consideration of mitigating

facts. Such a reduction for mitigating factors may be

appropriate in other circumstances. However, we feel that the

defendants' special status as police officers, with special

duties owed to the public, should have militated against such

a significant reduction.

As you well know, the maximum possible penalty was ten

years and fines of up to $250,000. Your federal prosecutors

were asking for seven to nine years. Our federal sentencing

guidelines recommended minimum sentences in a range of four

to seven years in prison.

Instead, Judge John Davies made broad use of subjective

factors. He stated that he read only letters addressed to him

from the friends and families of Officer Powell and Sergeant

Koon. He argued that much of the violence visited on Rodney

King was justified by King's own actions. However, these

officers were convicted on charges of violating Rodney King's

civil rights. We believe these mitigating factors did not

justify so large a reduction given the defendants' special

responsibilities as police officers.

In addition, Judge Davies did not afford proper weight to

the racist comments made over police radio by those convicted

on the night of the beating in discounting race as a

motivation for the beating. He similarly failed to take into

account the remarkable lack of remorse shown by Officer

Powell and Sergeant Koon since their conviction.

People of good will all over this country and of all races

were heartened when Officer Powell and Sergeant Koon were

convicted by a jury of their peers, a verdict made possible

by the Justice Department's resolve to file civil rights

charges and by the phenomenal performance of federal

prosecutors. With these severely reduced sentences, however,

we are sending a mixed message. Are police officers going to

be held responsible for excessive use of force or not?

We think what has been lost, in all this, is that police

officers have an enhanced responsibility to uphold the law.

Notwithstanding Judge Davies' authority to modify the

sentencing guidelines, most experts agreed that the minimum

four to seven years sentence should have been followed in

this case.

We realize that the trial judge is afforded sufficient

latitude in sentencing, but we urge the Department of Justice

to appeal these sentences. We need to reexamine these

sentences so that justice can finally be done in this

difficult, painful case. Only then can we begin to put this

behind us.

Sincerely,

Maxine Waters; Sanford Bishop; Eddie Bernice Johnson;

Floyd H. Flake; Albert R. Wynn; Carrie P. Meek; Eva M.

Clayton; Major R. Owens; Walter Tucker; William Clay;

Charles B. Rangel; William J. Jefferson.

James E. Clyburn; Earl Hilliard; Bennie M. Thompson; Cleo

Fields; Cynthia McKinney; John Lewis; Corrine Brown;

Donald M. Payne; Alcee Hastings; Kweisi Mfume; Louis

Stokes; Melvin L. Watt; Ronald V. Dellums.

Mr. Speaker, could you advise how much time remains on both sides?

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out that the Congressional Black Caucus did not complain about the Supreme Court reinstating the law as it was.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters), a member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy).

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

Mr. Speaker, I am frequently asked what we can do to repeal some of the mandatory minimum sentences which frequently impose bizarre, Draconian, and unreasonable sentences. Sometimes these requests come from relatives or friends of people, women whose boyfriends deal drugs, and the young lady does not deal drugs, does not use drugs, but she is around the boyfriend enough so that there is no question, she probably broke the law, took a message, drove a car to a meeting, so prosecutors can show she was involved, but not involved to the point where she ought to serve 20-some years, more than bank robbers serve.

When they ask what they can do about these kinds of Draconian sentences, I tell them the first thing they have to do to repeal the existing mandatory minimums is to stop passing new ones. Today we are going to pass a new set of mandatory minimum sentence laws. If anybody asks in the future where these mandatory minimums come from, Members can point to bills like the one today.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, a lot has been said about the Ashcroft decision. The Ashcroft decision was clear. You cannot prohibit child pornography, illegal child pornography unless real children were involved. The provisions in this bill allow prosecution whether or not real children are involved. The Court goes to great lengths to say whatever problems there are in prosecution, it is a problem for the defense. And if nobody knows whether they are computer-generated or involving real children, in that case they cannot successfully prosecute. They require real children to be involved in the production; and without real children, it cannot be illegal. This statute plainly on its face violates that Supreme Court decision and is unconstitutional.

Mr. Speaker, I hope we can send this back to committee, improve some of the provisions, and pass the AMBER Alert bill like we should. But in its present condition, I hope we will reject the conference report with a ``no'' vote.

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

Mr. Speaker, just about an hour before the Committee on Rules meeting, the Democratic side got one copy of the budget, so it is impossible to coherently discuss the budget. That is why this process is unfair.

Let us discuss the best way we can where we are and where we are going. This chart shows the deficit over the years showing Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan. We went into a surplus under Clinton, and in 1 year under the Bush administration we are back into serious deficits. This does not include the war, so if Members actually wrote the amended numbers, it would be off the chart.

Let us see how we got in that mess. That is because we passed all these tax cuts. Who got them? The bottom 20 percent, 20 percent, the top 20 percent got the lion's share of the tax cuts. They call it a growth package. Give me a break. Private sector jobs created since World War II, we go over, administration by administration, the worst job creation since World War II, the worst economic growth in an administration, the worst economic growth since World War II. Do not tell me this is a growth package.

This has implications, because when we run up all that debt, we have to pay interest on the national debt. We are paying about $4,500 a year for a family of four's proportionate share, $4,500 interest on the national debt. That is going to go, under this budget, up to $8,500 each and every year, interest on the national debt. So every time they cut another tax they have to pay interest, and this number is going up.

They are also cutting spending. Education, up about 12 percent every year, the last 5 years. They are cutting education. They say it is waste, fraud and abuse. We are budgeting. We have to have a line item. We are cutting, in this budget, school lunches, school lunches, student loans. They are cutting the line item that says school lunches, student loans, veterans' benefits. They are cutting those line items in the budget.

The fact of the matter is that this is an irresponsible budget. This is caused by the tax cuts, and this is a bad process. It is a bad budget.

This rule, which requires us to take this budget up tonight in the middle of the night, after virtually no notice, we have gotten the budget here in the middle of the night, it is an impossible process.

I would hope that Members would defeat this resolution and take the bill up tomorrow, where we can discuss it and point out even more problems with the budget.

Mr. Chairman, the bill has a number of technical problems which we have already heard discussed, including one for which I will have an amendment later in the debate. But the point I want to make here is, on page 3 of the bill, under findings, the findings have as the number one finding, citizens have a right protected by the second amendment to the United States Constitution to keep and bear arms.

It is interesting that the word is ``citizens,'' plural, not an individual has a right. Just so there is no confusion, I think it is important to get the record straight on what the second amendment says, particularly in light of the fact that the supporters of the bill on numerous occasions in committee hearings have been unable to cite a single final judgment which supports the idea that an individual has the right to bear arms under the second amendment.

This goes back to the United States v. Miller case in 1939, where the court held that for the proposition, in the beginning of the second amendment, mentioning well-regulated militia. It says that the possession of a weapon must be reasonably related to a well-regulated militia. The circuit courts have ruled on this.

The First Circuit held that the second amendment applies only to firearms having a ``reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia.'' That is a 1939 case.

In 1996, in the Third Circuit, defendant's possession of machine guns did not have a connection with militia-related activity required for second amendment protections to apply.

The Fourth Circuit, a 1995 case, stated that courts have consistently held that the second amendment only confers a collective right of keeping and bearing arms which bear a reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia.

The Sixth Circuit, in 2000, held that the lower courts have uniformly held that the second amendment preserves a collective rather than an individual right.

The Seventh Circuit, the second amendment establishes no right to possess a firearm apart from the role possession of the gun might play in maintaining a State militia. That is a 1999 case.

The Eighth Circuit stated that the purpose of the second amendment is to restrain the Federal Government from regulating the possession of arms where such regulation would interfere with the preservation or efficiency of the militia. That is a 1992 case.

The Ninth Circuit in 2002 stated that it is this collective rights model which provides the best interpretation of the second amendment.

The Tenth Circuit, a 1977 case, to apply the amendment so as to guarantee an appellant's right to keep an unregistered firearm which has not been shown to have any connection with the militia, merely because he is technically a member of the Kansas militia, would be unjustifiable in terms of either logic or policy.

The Eleventh Circuit, a 1997 case concerning motivating the creation of the second amendment, convinces us that the amendment was intended to protect only the use or protection of weapons reasonably related to a militia actively maintained and trained by the States.

I want the Record to reflect, in case someone has read the second amendment, that our record is replete with what the second amendment means.

[From the Legal Action Project]

A Sampling of Court Decisions that Support the Militia Interpretation

of the Second Amendment

u.s. supreme court

U.S. v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939).

Lewis v. United States, 445 U.S. 55 (1980).

u.s. courts of appeals

U.S. v. Wright, 117 F.3d 1265 (11th Cir.), cert. denied,

522 U.S. 1007 (1997).

U.S. v. Baer, 235 F.2d 561 (10th Cir. 2000)

U.S. v. Oakes, 564 F.2d 384 (10th Cir. 1977), cert. denied,

435 U.S. 926 (1978).

U.S. v. Swinton, 521 F.2d 1255 (10th Cir. 1975), cert.

denied, 424 U.S. 918 (1976).

U.S. v. Hancock, 231 F.3d 557 (9th Cir. 2000), cert.

denied, 121 S. Ct. 1641 (2001).

U.S. v. Finitz, 234 F.3d 1278 (9th Cir. 2000), cert.

denied, 121 S. Ct. 833 (2001).

Hickman v. Block, 81 F.3d 98 (9th Cir.), Cert. denied, 519

Mr. Chairman, I offer amendment No. 2.

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

Mr. Chairman, the underlying right for redress would apply if the defendant transfers a firearm in violation of the law and is convicted of that crime. In other words, if the defendant has been convicted of an illegal transfer of a firearm, he loses the benefits of the bill.

This amendment eliminates the requirement under the bill for a conviction before a defendant can be sued, and substitutes the requirement that the defendant actually committed the crime. Requiring a conviction before a defendant can be sued for civil consequences of his unlawful acts would constitute an extraordinary change in traditional civil liability standards. Moreover, such a requirement would create bizarre results based on what a prosecutor decides to do in a particular case and when he decides to do it.

The prosecutor may choose not to prosecute a particular case for various reasons. This would preclude a claim, regardless of how egregious the injuries are or how clear the liability; or even if a case is prosecuted, the prosecutor may decide to plea bargain a case, allowing a defendant who has illegally transferred many guns to plead guilty to one transfer and drop the other cases. It would be absurd to suggest that only the victims in the case pleaded to can sue while the others cannot.

Of course, there is always a possibility the case can be thrown out because of an unlawful search or seizure, because of a coerced confession, or simply because the prosecutor is unable to prove his case beyond a reasonable doubt. The case might be lost because a jury was pretty sure the defendant was guilty, but not beyond a reasonable doubt.

Even where there is a conviction, the timing of the conviction alone might be dispositive of the claim because there is nothing in the bill or the law which tolls the statute of limitations in a civil claim pending prosecution and appeals.

Mr. Chairman, this is a dramatic departure from traditional civil proceedings. In an automobile accident, for example, one can be successful if one can prove that the defendant went through the red light. We do not lose our case because the police officer did not give the defendant a ticket, or gave him a ticket but did not get a conviction. Say one brings the witnesses to court and proves the defendant, in fact, went through the red light. Under the theory under this bill, that person would lose his case if the police officer failed to successfully prosecute the defendant.

If this amendment is adopted, even without the conviction, the unlawful transfer would still have to be proven in order to pursue the case. Under traditional civil law, we would still have to prove the defendant violated the law and that the violation was the proximate cause of the injury.

If someone's criminal activity causes injury, he should not escape civil liability merely because he was not technically convicted of that crime. So I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, I would just point out that without this amendment, this bill protects criminals. Without the amendment, we could have a criminal actually admitting to the crime, but unless there was a conviction, we could not use that admission in a civil case.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt).

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

Mr. Chairman, I would ask the gentleman if he could state any other civil statute that requires a criminal conviction as a predicate. And I would point out on page 9 of the bill ``in an action in which a manufacturer or seller of a qualified product knowingly and willfully violated,'' but it does not say anything about a conviction. So the manufacturer or seller is not afforded any of those rights we just heard of. And I just want to know if there is any other civil law that requires a criminal conviction as a predicate to your right to get civil remedies.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, since the gentleman is defending the bill, I would ask him on page 8 of the bill, lines 17 through 22, whether or not the word ``transferee'' on line 22 and ``transferor'' on lines 17 and 18, whether that is a typographical error.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt).

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for the question; and, frankly, Mr. Chairman, I do not know. You would have someone who has filed his lawsuit, gets a judgment. The underlying conviction is overturned. I do not know. Maybe the gentleman from Colorado can help answer the question. In my opening remarks I made a point that pending prosecution and all the appeals, if you start off with an acquittal, with a case thrown out and then reinstated on appeal, maybe after the statute of limitations. There is no other situation where you have to get a conviction before the civil lawsuit can go forward; and I would ask the gentleman from Colorado.

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

Mr. Chairman, in the bill we have the action of a manufacturer who willingly and knowingly violates a State or Federal statute and can be sued. You do not have to have a conviction.

You have to have a conviction in this situation. The gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt) has revealed a bazaar situation. Some people can bring a case and not bring a case depending upon whether their case was part of a plea bargain or not.

This is a major departure from any civil procedure, and if the gentleman can advise us if there is any other civil lawsuit that requires a conviction as a predicate rather than knowingly violated the statute, we would like to hear it.

Mr. Chairman, I hope we would adopt the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I apologize to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Feeney).

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me. A great political philosopher once said, if you do not change directions, you might end up where you are headed.

Let us look at where we were headed; as we look at the budget deficits over the course of the years, we see the Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush deficits. When President Clinton came in, we passed a budget in 1993 without any Republican support in the House or Senate. The Republicans took over the House and Senate after the 1994 election, but remember, when they passed massive tax cuts similar to the ones that they passed in 2001, President Clinton vetoed those bills.

They threatened to close down the government if he did not sign them. He vetoed them again. They closed down the government. He vetoed them again, and it was essentially the Clinton plan that ran us up into surplus.

Within 1 year of the Bush administration, we are back down into deficits, and everything that we are spending on the war, since there is no way to pay for it, adds on to the bottom line, so this chart really might go off the chart.

What is the plan? In 2000, we had a surplus. By 2001, we have spent all of the Medicare surplus. September 11 is 3 weeks before the end of the fiscal year. The fiscal year ends September 30, so this was done before September 11, 2002, we are spending all of Medicare, all of Social Security, and $160 billion in more debt. If we keep going at the rate we are going, it is going to be all of Medicare, all of Social Security, $300 billion in additional debt as far as the eye can see.

Now this has consequences. We have heard of the debt tax. A family of four's proportion of interest on the national debt, when you run up all that debt, $4,400. It was going to be down to zero if we had kept going in the direction we were going; but instead, since we were piling on new debt, by 2013, a family of four, over $8,400.

We were told we had to run up all this debt and ruin the budget to create jobs. This is the number of jobs in millions for each administration: Carter, 9 million; Reagan, second administration, 9 million; Clinton, 10 million. We are losing more jobs than we are creating after that budget was created.

With no money, you have an effect on education. About a year and a half ago, the administration ran all over the country with a bipartisan group of leaders in the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions because we had passed No Child Left Behind. We have a two-step process in Washington about spending money. The authorization, No Child Left Behind, and then the appropriation. Here is the authorization. In 2003 we spent $23.8 billion; and this year's budget, we are going to spend less, about $10 billion less than we promised in No Child Left Behind. At the same time, we are eliminating education programs like comprehensive school reform, dropout prevention, elementary school counseling, eliminating those programs, eliminating arts programs for disabled students. We are funding at less than inflation after-school programs, safe and drug-free school programs, bilingual education. Those are the kinds of cuts that are necessary because we do not have the money.

We are also cutting education generally. Over the last few years, we have been increasing education 12.3 percent. This budget that we are looking at now cuts education 2.7 percent, and what gets cut? Head Start, 28,000 if Head Start takes its proportional share of the hit; 28,000 students will not get the ability to get a head start. That program has been proven to give those not born to privilege a fair chance in life, and now because we are giving tax breaks, they will not have that opportunity.

If the money comes out of school lunches proportional to the way the budget is cut, 500,000 students will not get school lunches. That is what happens when we cut the budget. We have to cut something. School lunches is what gets cut.

We are also cutting access to college. We know that college tuition, particularly State college, is going up. States are having fiscal problems, every State. I know my State is increasing student tuition. Of the last count, over 400,000 students every year qualify for college, take the right courses, take the college entrance exams, have good enough grades to get in, but cannot afford to go because they cannot afford it. And here we are in this budget cutting student loans, cutting Pell grants so that the maximum amount is less than it is this year. To add insult to injury, we are also cutting programs that encourage low-income and minority students to attend college, and we know that college is one's ticket to success in this country.

Also in special education, several decades ago we promised to spend 40 percent of the cost of educating students under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. At the rate we are going in this budget, we will never get to 40 percent.

This budget cuts important programs. We have heard about health care. We have heard about veterans. We have heard how deep in debt this budget goes, and we just have to wonder how bad it has to get before it is time to change directions again and go in a better direction.

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank him for his leadership in responsible budgeting.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment which we have introduced jointly.

The airlines are facing financial difficulties. Bankruptcies, layoffs, increased costs of fuel, and the war with Iraq have led the Republicans to propose a $3.2 billion bailout of the passenger airline industry in its House supplemental war appropriations bill. I believe it is time to have a more focused approach.

The real problem is that every day airlines fly with thousands of empty seats. A recent New York Times article referred to the airlines problem and estimated that, on average, 25 percent of the seats on airlines are left unsold, even though the number of flights have been reduced. The reduction in flights means cuts in the number of pilots, airline flight attendants, baggage handlers, and additional travel industry jobs. So instead of just writing a check for $3.2 billion to the airlines, we should be considering a way to encourage the American public to fly and fill those empty seats in a way that will preserve and create jobs. This will do it.

As a result of this amendment, air travel will naturally increase because the cost of consumer air travel will be cut in half. The plan will benefit not just the airlines but the traveling public. It will stimulate business for hotels, restaurants, rental car companies, travel agencies and other travel-related industries.

This is better than a subsidy. A subsidy will not create new passengers, will not preserve jobs. Over the past week, the airlines have laid off 10,000 workers; and a subsidy will not stem the tide of additional layoffs. Jobs in the airline industry will be no more secure after the subsidy than before.

On the other hand, the proposed program will result in increased airline business and increased demand for workers. This will fill the empty seats, making them more affordable, increase revenues for the airlines, preserve jobs and generate additional revenues for others involved in travel commerce.

We hope, Mr. Chairman, that this amendment will be adopted. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.

Yes, Mr. Chairman. I think the plan that we have is a much better use of the taxpayers' money than in the underlying bill, and we would hope that the Chair would rule that it is in order to appropriately spend the money.