Floor Statements

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

I want to thank my colleagues, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns), my friend, and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton), for their hard work on this bill, as well as my friend and colleague, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), with whom we have worked so well.

Every day these specially trained staff of pharmacists and nurses at poison control centers across the country field calls from frantic parents concerned that their child ingested a poisonous substance. They field calls from an elderly couple with questions about whether one medication might cause an adverse reaction if taken with another; and as the events of September 11 and the cases of anthrax have shown us, poison control centers field calls from concerned residents uncertain about the danger they have been exposed to.

Handling an average of one poison exposure call every 15 seconds across the country, these men and women answer questions about poisonings, about drug abuse, about product contents, about adverse reactions.

Legislation we are considering today will enhance the work of poison control centers through improved maintenance of a national toll-free number that is linked to regional poison control centers. This bill will help promote the nationwide media campaign to promote

poison control center utilization. If a person has a problem, they need to know whom to call and they need to know the number, and they need to know that they are reliable. Every parent, every baby-sitter, every coworker, every household, and every office should know how to contact the poison control center closest to them.

This bill from the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton) will help develop standardized prevention and poison control centers and will improve national surveillance of toxic exposures. It will improve the collection of data to help detect new hazards, including those found in our homes.

Mr. Speaker, every year roughly 120 children under 14 needlessly die from unintentional poisoning, 120 children under the age of 14. The bill we are considering today can save the lives of many of them. It is an important step towards reversing that trend and saving more children from poison exposure.

I urge my colleagues to support S. 686.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns), who has worked so hard on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I have no other speakers. I think the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) has one. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

I want to thank my colleague, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), for his tireless work on the issue of developmental disabilities, as well as the ranking member of the committee, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), and the chairman of the committee, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), and their staff, who deserve plaudits for their work in bringing this to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, 150,000 children are born each year with a birth defect. That is 150,000 families too many who receive the news no new parent should ever have to hear. Both genetic and environmental factors can cause birth defects, but for over 60 percent of them, the causes still remain unknown.

In 1998, Congress passed the Birth Defects Prevention Act, which created a Federal birth defects prevention and surveillance strategy. A couple of years later, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) and I introduced and worked together to pass the Children's Health Bill Act of 2000, which established the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Passage of these two bills demonstrated a congressional commitment to address two significant threats to children's health, birth defects and developmental disabilities. The bill we are considering today, the Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities Prevention Act, will strengthen that commitment towards children and has the overwhelming support of the children's advocacy community.

The National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities at CDC does extensive research and provides indispensable resources on birth defects, such as autism, spina bifida, and fetal alcohol syndrome, as well as research and support focusing on childhood and adult disabilities. Passage of this bill will go a long way towards continuing these critical efforts.

The bill also continues the important work States have done expanding community-based birth defects tracking systems, programs to prevent birth defects and activities to improve access to health services for children with birth defects.

History has shown when we choose to confront a public health problem that threatens the health and lives of children, we can indeed and often have stopped it in its tracks. Before the development of the polio vaccine in the 1950s, an estimated 50,000 people in the U.S. were affected by polio each year. With the widespread vaccination of children beginning in the 1950s, polio has been virtually eliminated in the United States, and there have been no new cases since 1991.

Mr. Speaker, I wear on my lapel a pin, which is a canary in a bird cage. The mineworkers took a canary down in the mines 100 years ago, and if the canary died, the mineworker knew he had to get out of the mines. In those days, 100 years ago, the workers had no real protection in the mines from government or from labor unions. In those days, a child born in the United States 100 years ago had a life expectancy of 46, 47, 48 years old. One hundred years later, because of our public health infrastructure, because of legislation like the one that the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) worked on, because of Medicare and Social Security and the safe drinking water and clean air laws and seat belt laws and prohibitions on child labor and civil rights laws and laws protecting the women and the disabled, we have come so far so that our life expectancy is literally three decades longer.

That is not because of transplants or because of chemotherapy, it is mostly because of public health initiatives like we are addressing today. The only threat to that, Mr. Speaker, is that some people, sometimes in this body, have fallen short on providing for that public health infrastructure. We have too often, in efforts to privatize Medicare or Social Security or to weaken environmental laws and worker- safety laws, we have sometimes backslid on some of these advancements we have made in the last hundred years.

Unfortunately, this week is an example, with the bill to privatize Medicare, of sliding back. It will do nothing to lengthen people's lives. In fact, it will do the opposite. However, today, Mr. Speaker, this legislation brought to the floor by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), and I, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), and others will, in fact, strengthen that public health system, will, in fact, strengthen the Centers for Disease Control to help us and them tackle other children's health problems with the same resolve that we tackled polio.

Passage of the Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities Prevention Act is an important step towards that goal, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) again, and especially the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown) for her work raising awareness about epilepsy. I would add that the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown) is interested in this legislation in response to what constituents have told her, that when people come forward and express what is important to them, often a Member of Congress responds to their constituents and really goes to bat for them, and the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown) did that with this legislation.

Epilepsy is a devastating and prevalent illness in our country. Ineffective treatment, delayed or lack of access to high-quality specialized care and the severity of the underlying neurological disorder are all possible contributors to the development of hard-to- control seizures.

Education and public awareness initiatives encouraging timely diagnosis and appropriate treatment can reduce the risk of severe brain damage. These strategies also can address damaging misconceptions which so many of us have about this disease. The resolution we are considering today recognizes the importance of our continuing fight against epilepsy,and the significant role the National Epilepsy Awareness Month plays in this effort. I hope my colleagues will join me in honoring the nearly 2.5 million Americans with epilepsy, will pass this resolution, and encourage all of us to take extra steps to combat this awful disease.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown).

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to echo the words of the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Bilirakis) and the cooperation that he always shows in putting together good legislation out of the Subcommittee on Health.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hooley) for yielding time and thank her for her leadership on this Medicare issue and her leadership on health care issues generally.

Mr. Speaker, I heard my friend from Florida not once, not twice, not three times, maybe not even four times, maybe five, six times say, ``You should just read the bill.'' That is the problem. As bad as the Medicare bill is, the process is even worse. We would like to read the bill. We cannot find it. The reason we cannot find the bill is the bill was, first of all, written by the prescription drug companies, by the insurance companies, in private, similar to how Vice President Cheney wrote the energy bill, Vice President Cheney who still receives $3,000 a week from an oil company as part of his pay, but these bills have been written in secret.

The prescription drug bill has been written by the insurance industry, by the drug industry. At the conference committee when the House and Senate were trying to work together to write a bill, no House Democrats were allowed in the room. No House Democrats were allowed to look at the bill, to discuss the bill, to debate the bill or to offer amendments. When I hear my friend from Florida sort of gratuitously say we should read the bill, we would like that opportunity.

The problem with this prescription drug issue, it is not really a prescription drug bill. We could have passed a prescription drug bill, take $400 billion and distributed it to seniors who need drug coverage. We could have done that cooperatively, bipartisanly in a day or two, but what this bill really is, it is a Medicare privatization bill. When you think about this, and I have been a ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Health for 4, 5, 6 years, I have been on that committee for more years than that and watched sort of how the Republicans look at this Medicare issue. They all say, my mom's on Medicare, my grandfather's on Medicare, I like the program. Ultimately, when you look at what Republicans do in Medicare and you look at the history of the Republican Party with Medicare, the problem is they simply do not like Medicare. You can say, well, that's not true.

Let us do a little bit of history. When Congress passed the legislation to create Medicare, President Johnson signed the bill in July of 1965 creating this program that now insures 39 million Americans. At that moment, half of American seniors had no health insurance. The other half did, but it was clearly a big problem. Lyndon Johnson signed this bill. The fact is only 13 Republicans in the whole House of Representatives supported the bill to create Medicare. Gerald Ford, a Member of the House, opposed it. Bob Michel, the Republican leader, opposed it. John Rhodes, another Republican leader, opposed it. Bob Dole opposed it. Senator Strom Thurmond opposed it. Donald Rumsfeld voted against the creation of Medicare. They simply did not like the idea of a government program. They wanted to continue to let these seniors be out in the market, be in the private market. If they could get insurance good; if they could not, that was just too bad. They should have thought of that and made more money or whatever the reason. Nothing much happened to change Medicare except it worked, from 1965 until 1995. Then the first time Republicans had a chance, the first time Republicans were in the majority in 1995, right out of the box Newt Gingrich tried to privatize Medicare. He tried to cut $250 billion from Medicare to pay for a tax break for the most privileged people in society, just like they do now. He immediately tried to privatize Medicare. Fortunately, President Clinton stopped that. Fortunately, other Members of this Congress stood up and fought it and stopped it.

Speaker Gingrich, in 1995, bragging in a meeting of the American Conservative Union, said, We don't get rid of Medicare right away. We don't think it's politically smart. We think the right way is to go through a transition, but we know it's going to wither on the vine. That is what Speaker Gingrich wanted to do. He wanted to privatize it.

Bob Dole, then a Senator, then a Presidential candidate, Bob Dole bragged that he was in the arena trying to fight Medicare, trying to fight its creation 30 years earlier.

It is pretty clear that Republicans in 1965 voted against the creation of Medicare, including one future President, one future Presidential candidate and other leading Republicans. Then in 1995, when they had a chance, they immediately tried to privatize Medicare and cut its funding. In fact, AARP president Bill Novelli, who has gotten sort of famous this week in his sellout to the drug companies and the insurance interests, Bill Novelli wrote the preface in Newt Gingrich's health care book, his health care privatization book. He called Newt a big-idea person. The Republican majority has continued to rally behind Newt Gingrich's call for Medicare privatization. John Linder told the House Rules Committee last year that Medicare was a Soviet-style program. Dick Armey, majority leader of the House of Representatives last year, said, in a free society we wouldn't want to have Medicare. Former Congressman Rick Santorum says the traditional Medicare program has to be phased out. And Bill Thomas, working with the drug industry and the insurance industry in writing this Medicare privatization bill, told a reporter, to those who say that this bill would end Medicare as we know it, our answer is, we certainly hope so.

The conference bill does that. It would end Medicare as we know it, because Republicans would rather throw money at a private failure rather than continue support for a public success.

Mr. Speaker, Medicare has worked for seniors in this country. We need to add a prescription drug benefit inside Medicare, not turn this program over to the insurance interests who are getting a $20 billion taxpayer gift once this bill is signed into law if it passes, and we do not want to turn this program over to the drug industry who will profit 140 billion additional dollars under this bill.

Mr. Speaker, my Republican friends, it is an honest debate. They simply do not like Medicare. They do not believe there should be a government program called Medicare. They think the insurance industry and the drug industry ought to do this. That is their view. Mr. Speaker, I hope that enough Members rally around because it is clear that seniors in this country want to protect Medicare. They do not want it privatized. They want a public health system that works for everybody and treats everybody the same.

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

Mr. Speaker, America does need an energy policy, but not this one. This policy started with bad process as Vice President Cheney himself, a former oil man, actually still on the payroll at $3,000 a week of an oil company, Halliburton, when Vice President Cheney convened a secret group of energy lobbyists to draft the administration's energy plan. It ended with bad process as the conference committee met last night for only the second time, and then only to take a series of party line votes and rubber stamp this bill. When we use bad process, we usually get bad product. That is why our colleague in the other body, John McCain, a Republican, called this conference report a ``no lobbyist left behind bill.''

This was a great week for lobbyists. Like the Medicare bill we will debate later this week, which throws uncounted taxpayer dollars at prescription drug companies and insurance companies, this energy bill is an early present, an early Christmas present for the oil, gas, and utility lobbyists. Mr. Speaker, $100 billion in all, according to some estimates.

These special interest giveaways line the pockets of this Chamber's most influential lobbyists. They do so at the expense of clean air, at the expense of safe drinking water, at the expense of public health and public safety. One small, but telling, example is a last-minute addition by the other body that benefits a single New Mexico company. That company wants to build a uranium enrichment plant, and this bill exempts that plant from the customary review of the National Environmental Policy Act. Special interests favors, Mr. Speaker, and environmental rollbacks are not the way to make energy policy.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill. America needs an energy policy, but not this one.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Berkley) for her leadership on health care issues and for her advocacy on behalf of seniors, especially in Nevada, and around the country.

Mr. Speaker, I normally when speaking on the House floor do not quote from a television show, but I would like to start this evening with several of my colleagues. The gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Capps), the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Kennedy) and maybe some others, maybe the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) are going to speak on this too.

I am quoting from Al Hunt on ``Capital Gang.'' If you have seen that show, those people watching, you know he does something called the ``Outrage of the Week.'' He says: ``Now for the outrages of the week. The American Association of Retired Persons, the largest lobby for the elderly, is on the verge of selling out many seniors on the Medicare bill.'' This is a commentator saying this, not me. ``The legislation as it now stands would deny 4 million retirees coverage they currently get, would give sweeping new powers to HMOs over the traditional one for Medicare,'' basically a $12 billion pay-off to the insurance companies, ``and would gut a measure approved by both Houses to facilitate importation of cheaper prescription drugs from Canada,'' from countries that charge two and three and four times what the drug companies do in this country.

``The AARP Washington lobbyists apparently care more about their own influence than what they can do for struggling seniors.''

Mr. Speaker, we should not be surprised by this. Let me share some comments, some articles written about AARP which most of us in Washington know is one of the largest insurance companies in the country.

In Newsday 3 years ago, ``Critics say AARP, which formally unveiled its new headquarters building in downtown Washington last month, has softened its earlier militancy because it is preoccupied with its profit-making enterprise, including $100 million in earnings from the sale of insurance.''

The Denver Post wrote not too long ago, ``AARP receives more than $100 million in revenue from health insurers.''

Newsday wrote, ``Critics suggest that AARP's substantial profits from the sales of insurance policies, drug company advertising,''--no surprise there either considering they sold out to the drug industry on this one,--``drug company advertising in its magazines, and investment schemes conflict with its interests on behalf of seniors. AARP President William Novelli acknowledged complaints from members that AARP has been too timid in the political battles to defend Medicare and Social Security. He conceded that AARP has pulled its punches since right-wing groups and Members of Congress criticized it.''

Capital News Service wrote, ``AARP's pharmacy service,''--its connection to the drug industry, think about that,--``is part of its insurance sales operation which generated $101 million in revenue last year, 17 percent of the organization's total budget.'' No wonder they are there for this bill that enhances the profits of the drug industry, $150 billion it enhances their profits and gives a $12 billion blank check to the HMOs in this country.

Milwaukee Journal says, ``AARP receives millions of dollars from UnitedHealthcare, a national health insurance firm based in Minnesota.''

Now, Mr. Speaker, in the last minute or two before yielding to my friends, I want to mention that Mr. Novelli, who is the head of AARP, who did the negotiations, these tough-minded negotiations with the drug companies and the insurance companies, Mr. Novelli wrote the preface to Newt Gingrich's book on how to reform Medicare.

Newt Gingrich is the guy that first thing after Medicare passed in 1965, only 12 Republicans voted for it. Bob Dole voted no. Donald Rumsfeld voted no. Strom Thurmond voted no. All kinds of Republicans voted no. In those days, Republicans did not like Medicare. They say they do now, but then Newt Gingrich, when the Republicans finally took control of the House in 1995, the first thing Newt Gingrich did was cut $250 billion from Medicare to do what? Guess. To pay for a tax cut for the richest people in the country. Same old story.

Mr. Novelli has decided he is buying in. The head of AARP writes the preface to Newt Gingrich's book on how to privatize Medicare, the same Newt Gingrich that said: If I have my way, Medicare's going to wither on the vine. The same Newt Gingrich that said that.

Mr. Novelli writes, ``Newt's ideas,'' and they are on a first-name basis obviously as much time as they spent together trying to dismantle Medicare, ``Newt's ideas are influencing how we at AARP are thinking about our national role in health promotion and disease prevention and in our advocating for system change.'' If only his 40 million members knew that he was in league with Newt Gingrich to try to privatize Medicare; that he, Mr. Novelli, was in league with the drug industry which will gain $150 billion, billion with a B, that is twice what we are spending in Iraq, $150 billion to the drug industry and a $12 billion insurance payout to the insurance companies. That is like 1,000 times more than Halliburton is still paying Dick Cheney, the Vice President of the United States.

These things are pretty incredible, Mr. Speaker, when we think about the money that AARP is going to make from this bill. They are going to get in line behind the drug companies and the insurance companies with their hand out.

I yield to the gentlewoman from California.

Mr. Speaker, this summer AARP devised a litmus test for Medicare legislation. Specifically, AARP said Congress must be careful not to pass any legislation that jeopardizes employer-sponsored retiree benefits, or that leaves such large gaps in the drug coverage that seniors still will not be able to afford needed medicines, or that includes a premium support privatization provision which will invariably give HMOs control over Medicare, or undercuts popular support for the Medicare program by requiring higher-income beneficiaries to pay more for the same coverage. In other words, we should not pass any legislation that introduces means testing into Medicare.

The Medicare conference committee agreement that was outlined this weekend still jeopardizes employer-sponsored retiree coverage for 12 million seniors. In other words, as many as a third of the seniors who now have prescription drug coverage will lose it under this bill because employers will say why should we do it, we will put you in that government program.

It still leaves such huge gaps in coverage the average senior will run out of drug benefits by August each year. Understand that the average senior will run out of drug benefits two-thirds of the way through the year, but, get this, will still be required to pay the premiums through December. That is a great deal.

It still includes a premium support provision that stacks the deck so resolutely against Medicare fee-for-service, the Medicare that seniors in this country respect and love and have benefited so greatly from. It stacks the deck so resolutely against the Medicare fee-for-service program that seniors will have no choice but to join a private insurance HMO. And it still means tests seniors.

What else does this bill do? It creates a $12 billion slush fund for HMOs to induce them to provide coverage. If anyone still believes privatizing Medicare will reduce health care costs, this $12 billion bribe going to the insurance industry from U.S. taxpayers, this $12 billion bribe should cure them of that misperception.

Mr. Speaker, there is no surprise here. After all, the insurance industry gives tens of billions of dollars to my friends on the other side of the aisle, to President Bush, to Vice President Cheney, to Republican legislative leadership. This bill also increases drug profits by nearly 40 percent, an estimated $139 billion over 8 years. Again, no surprise there, Mr. Speaker. The drug industry gives actually tens and tens of billions of dollars to President Bush. The word on the street in Washington is they may give $100 million to President Bush's reelection. So, of course, they are going to look out for the drug industry.

Coincidentally, this bill specifically prohibits the Federal Government from negotiating lower prices on behalf of seniors and taxpayers to secure lower drug prices. It abandons the one strategy that would deliver meaningful drug savings to seniors, businesses, and all prescription drug purchasers. It abandons legislation that my friend, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht), who is in this Chamber, worked on; the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott); the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone); the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Ross); the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green); the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey), a lot of us on both sides of the aisle worked on. It abandons legislation to allow importation of prescription drugs, safe, affordable prescription drugs from Canada and other countries that charge one-third, one-fourth, one-fifth as much as they do in the United States.

Other countries negotiate for lower drug prices, but the U.S. is a passive drug taker. As a result, U.S. consumers get robbed; the drug industry gets rich. This bill ignores public support for prescription drug reimportation from other countries for lower price, the same drug but for lower price, ignores the consequences for consumers, for employers, and for the Federal Treasury if we fail to bring drug prices down.

Seniors cannot afford the high cost, employers cannot afford the high cost, taxpayers cannot afford the high cost of prescription drugs anymore in this country.

If anyone still believes the drug industry and the insurance industry are not the ghost writers of this bill and are not its principal beneficiaries, perhaps the $12 billion HMO slush fund, the $139 billion in additional drug industry profits, the prohibition on negotiated drug prices, and the stifling of prescription drug importation just might convince you.

One more thing. While the drug and insurance industries fair extremely well under this legislation, the bill's

authors decided to cut corners by barring 3.9 million seniors living at or near poverty from receiving low-income prescription drug assistance.

Under the deal described this weekend, a senior earning $8,000 a year may still be required to pay as much as $2,500 to $3,500 for coverage. That is not protection, Mr. Speaker. It is a cruel joke.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from California for his good work as a freshman in really stepping up and learning health care issues and fighting for the right causes in health care and protecting Medicare.

I would not expect the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Brady) to know what his counterparts in the Committee on Energy and Commerce did. He is a distinguished member of the Committee on Ways and Means. But when he stands here and says that we just want to give to seniors what Members of Congress already get, he should know that the Committee on Energy and Commerce had an amendment, the Democrats in the Committee on Energy and Commerce, saying that every senior should get a plan at least as good as Members of Congress get, and it was voted down in a party-line vote. It was not the first time we had tried that. We had tried it other years. We will continue to try it. But the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Brady) should remember that soon after the Medicare bill passed in the middle of the night, as all controversial bills pass in this body, by one vote, as almost all of them pass, and after Republicans surrounded a couple of Members on the House floor in the middle of the night, and convinced a couple of Republicans to switch their votes so they could get their bill through by one vote, he should remember a couple days after that, I believe the next week, that a Republican Congressman from, I believe, Virginia had legislation that said that we will not bring Members of Congress and Federal employees down to the level of the Republican Medicare plan. It was to protect those Federal employees, also protecting Members of Congress, but to protect them so they did not get a plan with this huge doughnut hole, this huge gap in coverage, with lots of out-of-pocket costs. My Republican friends did not want that plan for Federal employees and, I might add, for themselves.

This is the same Republican Congress where almost 200 Members of Congress voted for a pay raise for themselves and then a couple of months later voted against a $1,500 pay increase for our servicemen and women of Iraq, just to bring another issue which sort of hits home with a whole lot of us.

The fact is that Medicare works, Medicare is rock solid, it is equitable, it is dependable, it is flexible, it is

cost-efficient, it serves America's seniors so very well.

President Bush, when he unveiled his prescription drug plan, he said, If you want prescription drug coverage, Mr. and Mrs. Senior in this country, you have got to leave Medicare and go into a private HMO. Then he realized that did not sound too good. Even the privatizers on the other side of the aisle who want to turn Medicare over to the insurance industry, even they realized that was not going to work in an election year; so they backed off that plan.

But the fact is that H.R. 1 abandons Medicare as we know it, trades it in for a multi-health plan system we already know does not work, privatizes the system, turns it over to HMOs. That is why the Cardoza motion to instruct is so very important. That is why Members should support it if they like Medicare the way it is. But under their plan without the Cardoza motion to instruct, Medicare ends in 7 years. It is a bad idea. Support the Cardoza motion to instruct.

Mr. Speaker, with Veteran's Day nearing, I am ashamed, frankly, of how little this House of Representatives has done for the men and women who have served our country. There has been lots of talk, good talk, especially in the early days of November, but not much real action. In honor of our veterans, the men and women who are risking their lives today, tonight, and tomorrow in Iraq and Afghanistan, the many who have lost and continue to lose their good health and even their lives, our message should reflect our admiration for their commitment. It does not.

In July, House Republican leadership, through a procedural maneuver, struck down an attempt to restore $1.8 billion, just to restore $1.8 billion in veterans health care funding when they forced the House to vote on a bill with inadequate funding for veterans' health. Democrats and veterans' groups opposed the bill and demanded that the Republican leadership restore funding to the Veterans Administration. Now, it appears the VA-HUD appropriations bill will come out of conference $500 million short of the VA funding level that we demanded and the Republicans promised in their budget resolution.

What kind of Veteran's Day message is that sending?

In light of the inadequacy of the majority's VA spending bill, Democrats fought for consideration of other solutions that would make up for those shortfalls that Republicans offered. Over 200 Democrats signed a discharge petition offered by the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Marshall) that would force the House to consider legislation to eliminate the discriminatory disabled veterans tax. Responding, finally, to this pressure, Republican leaders offered a proposal that would only reach 50 percent of those veterans unfairly affected by this tax. Because this proposal would be phased in over 10 years, reduction of the tax would be very small in the early years of the proposal and veterans would not even receive their full benefits. This is the best Republicans could offer: Veterans would not receive their full benefits until 2014, 11 years away.

This so-called solution pits one group of veterans against another group of veterans, hardly something we should do any time, but especially something we should not do in wartime. That is some message.

Democrats have offered a legislative package that does the right thing. Our proposal increases veterans' health care over the next 10 years by $10 billion. It would end the disabled veterans' tax and pay veterans $500 a month if their disability claim has been left pending for longer than 6 months. It would give $1,000 bonuses for those soldiers returning home from Iraq and from Afghanistan. It would make military pay increases permanent for those in imminent danger and away from their families.

The Republicans have offered so much less; in fact, they have taken away. As soon as President Bush took office, he raised the copay at veterans' clinics across the country by 350 percent, from $2 to $7 per veteran per prescription drug per month. He has since proposed to raise that to $15, from $2 to $7 to $15; in effect, slashing the drug benefit that veterans have deservedly gotten in this country.

The President and Republicans have also cut education benefits.

Why are they cutting education benefits to veterans? Why are they cutting prescription drug benefits to veterans? The answer is simple. It is to make room for the Republican tax cut. The tax cut, everyone knows that by now, the tax cut, that if you are a millionaire you get $93,000 tax savings. Half of the people in my district in Ohio, northeast Ohio, in Akron and Lorain, Northridge, half of them get zero. Half the people in my State get zero while the ``leave no millionaire behind'' tax cut from the President goes forward, making it not just unfair in terms of the taxes that the wealthy get benefits from in a tax cut, and the middle class and working families do not, but also that is why he has cut veterans benefits, that is why the President has cut education benefits.

This was all topped off, Mr. Speaker, by the actions early this fall where almost 200 Members of Congress on the Republican side voted for a $3,500, in fact, pay increase for themselves and voted against a $1,500 pay increase for our troops overseas. That is the height of hypocrisy. We do tax cuts for millionaires, we do pay increases for ourselves, then we turn around, my friends on the other side of the aisle, and do not vote for a pay increase for our young men and women in uniform.

Our young men and women were sent to Iraq on the promise that when they

returned to this country, this country would care for them. Unless the Republican majority considers proposals that fully meet the needs of veterans, as my colleagues and I have tried to do, they are breaking that covenant.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra). And I just listened to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sandlin) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra), and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) is going to speak later.

I was reminded, as I see what this House has continued to do, to deny the child tax credit to the working families, to the families who have children, but families who are working families, I thought a lot about a meeting I had about a month ago in Akron in my district, where I met with 25 families who had loved ones, sons, daughters, husbands, wives, nieces, nephews, whatever in Iraq. We talked a lot about shared sacrifice.

And I heard a lot from the President about sacrifice and shared sacrifices in this country. When you look at it with this war in Iraq tied to what the gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra) is trying to do tonight, to help those children in working families who are not making a lot of money, but in working families get some piece of the pie, you realize that this shared sacrifice that the President is asking about is a very limited shared sacrifice. The sacrifice in this country, it is not in the ``leave no millionaires behind'' program. They are getting $93,000 back in their taxes.

The people making sacrifices in this country are the service men and women in Iraq; the families of the service men and women in Iraq; the veterans who are getting their veterans benefits, education and health care benefits cut because of the leave no millionaires behind program that George Bush has implemented; the students who are not getting the education funding; the seniors who are not getting the prescription drug benefit they should have; and now, ultimately, children in working-class families whose families are making 10 or 15 or $20,000. Those are the people who, unfortunately, are sacrificing in this shared sacrifice program of the President.

So we are subscribing to the leave no millionaire behind program where the average millionaire gets about $93,000 back in their taxes. Half of my constituents, half of Ohioans get zero back in their taxes. These children of working families who are not making a lot of money get zero. So when I hear the President talk about sacrifice, the men and women in Iraq, the families of the men and women in Iraq who are dealing with the anguish and their anxiety of having their loved ones in Iraq and are dealing with budget and financial problems as a result, and especially those children that President Bush just has somehow lost his focus on, makes this motion to instruct from the gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra) so very, very important.

I ask my colleagues to support the Becerra motion to instruct.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the work that my friend from California (Mrs. Capps) does on all kinds of Medicare issues, from what she has done today with the nursing shortage to intercity hospitals and everything in between.

I also support and appreciate the good work that the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) has done on a whole host of Medicare issues, and I know from working with the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) of his personal support for Medicare, his belief in Medicare. Unfortunately, though, the beliefs of my friend on the other side of the aisle does not always play out in support for Medicare by some other members of the Republican conference.

I remember hearing the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), the chairman of Ways and Means, the principal player on this conference committee that the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps) talked about, more than 50 percent of American people, Senate and House, are simply not allowed in the House. More than 50 percent of the Senate, 48 percent of the people represented by House Members, but the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) has said he wants to end Medicare as we know it.

All we have got to do really is look back on the history of this program, and while the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) does indeed care about

Medicare, wants to continue to make it work, wants to preserve it, so many of his fellow Members, including people in the White House, simply do not.

The President, some months ago, said that he wants to do a prescription drug benefit, but he said if you want a prescription drug benefit, you have got to get out of Medicare, and you have got to let the insurance industry do it.

That has really been the thrust from President Bush to the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) to Speaker Gingrich a few years ago, to back in 1965, Republicans really wanted this system turned over to the insurance companies. Privatize Medicare and give it to the insurance industry. Go back to 1965, out of roughly 200 Republican Members of the House and Senate, only 23 voted for the creation of Medicare. Gerald Ford in 1965, a future President, voted against it. Congressman Dole, future Senator Dole, Republican Presidential candidate, voted against it. Senator Strom Thurmond voted against the creation of Medicare. Congressman Donald Rumsfeld in 1965, later Secretary of Defense and the architect of this plan, I put in quotation marks, of the rebuilding of Iraq, voted against this creation of Medicare.

Then in 1995, the first time Republicans had an opportunity to do something about Medicare, the Republicans under Speaker Gingrich tried to cut it by $270 billion in order to give a tax cut to the most privileged Americans, the same old story. Speaker Gingrich said in October 1995 that he hoped Medicare would wither on the vine.

Senator Dole in October 1995 said, that I was in there fighting against the creation of Medicare because we did not believe in it. The next year he was a Republican candidate for President.

Dick Armey, sometime later, said about Medicare, in a free capitalist country, we would not have a socialist program like Medicare. And a Republican Congressman from Georgia recently said, I heard in the Committee on Rules, said that Medicare is a Soviet-style program.

They are free to think what they want about Medicare, and the more power to them. If they do not like Medicare, that is their business, but do not come on the floor like so many Republicans have, and I accept the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) because he believes in this program, but so many Republicans come to the floor and say I believe in Medicare. I have a mother and father, and I care about them, and I care about Medicare. Sure, they care about their mother and father, but they simply do not much like Medicare. They want to privatize it and end it as we know it. They want to turn it over to the insurance companies.

Mr. Speaker, that is why the motion to instruct by the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps) is so important to send a message to the conference committee and to send a message to the American people that Medicare works and we do not want it turned over to the private insurance industry.

Mr. Speaker, since July I have come to the floor of this House night after night sharing letters from constituents and raising concerns about our policy in Iraq, raising concerns about the administration's failure to supply and to protect the troops, raising concerns about the $1 billion a week, now an increase to $87 billion a year for this Iraq reconstruction effort, raising concerns about the fact that there is no plan from the administration on how to deal with the problems for our troops and how to deal with an exit strategy in Iraq, letters expressing concern about the corruption in our government in Iraq where we are spending $1 billion a week and 30 percent of that $1 billion is going to private contractors, most of them friends of the President, Bechtel, Halliburton, other large corporations, most of them contributors to the President to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and one of them, Halliburton, particular concerns have been raised about from my constituents. Halliburton, the company that the vice President, when he was a private citizen, was CEO of, that company still pays Vice President Cheney $13,000 a month.

Tonight, rather than reading letters from constituents, I thought I would read something else that I think is equally interesting. It was from a book that George Bush, Sr., the first President Bush, wrote with Brent Scowcroft in 1998. The name of the book was ``A World Transformed.'' On Page 489, the first President Bush tells us his views about Iraq and what he thought. This is President Bush the first speaking:

``Trying to eliminate Saddam'' Hussein, ``extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in `mission creep,' and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs.'' This is President Bush, Sr. writing in 1998: ``Apprehending him,'' Saddam Hussein, ``was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition,'' President Bush wrote in 1998, ``would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances there

was no viable `exit strategy' we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish,'' President Bush the first wrote in 1998.

``Had we gone the invasion route, the United States would conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different, and perhaps barren, outcome.'' Those are the words that President Bush, Sr. wrote only 5 years ago, 4 years before his son led an attack on Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, those letters from constituents that I have discussed night after night here were particularly compelling, especially some letters I got from the families of men and women who are serving in Iraq. And a couple of weeks ago I met in Akron, the largest city in my district, with 25 families who have loved ones in Iraq; and they talked about our failure, the Bush administration's failure, to support the troops, to supply the troops, to protect the troops: not enough safe drinking water, either bottled water or purification facilities, not enough antibiotics. Soldiers and sailors had to pay for their trips home, pay for their airfare. Some soldiers were actually charged by the hospital, had to pay the hospital for their food when they were recovering. And some soldiers, about one fourth of them, we are told, do not have the body armor which will protect their lives.

So on the one hand, these families said to me, our letters from constituents said to me, we have $300 million a week going to private contractors to do work that is not really very well accounted for. On the other hand, we have our soldiers simply not being protected, not enough safe drinking water, not enough body armor, not enough antibiotics. And I would hope that President Bush would have listened to his father, which he clearly did not, from his father's words, but would begin to listen to some of my constituents and other constituents who beg him to focus on protecting and supplying the troops with a little less focus on all these unbid contracts and the corruption that this has brought and the waste of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars that we are seeing literally every week in Iraq.

Madam Speaker, I have always believed in free speech in this institution, and I have always thought that we should have free speech throughout the country. I have for the last 4 months come to the House floor and read letters from constituents who often do not have a voice in this body, especially when the conservative leaders of this body so often shut down debate. They shut down debate on the $87 billion for Iraq. They shut down debate on discussing whether the President told the truth about Iraq. They shut down debate on the Halliburton scandals and ineptness of the Bush administration in Iraq.

Those same people apparently want to shut down the debate in our country by browbeating CBS and threatening CBS to say we cannot run a documentary on a former President. I do not fully understand that; but Madam Speaker, I would like to share these letters about the concerns my constituents have, similar to what John Quincy Adams had done when the conservative leadership 160 years ago shut down debate in this House on slavery.

Madam Speaker, Amanda Harland from Brecksville, Ohio, writes: Congress has allowed too many cuts in America's education, housing, arts funding, jobs training, and other programs that are vital for working families in America. She says: Because of the tax cuts that President Bush and this Congress have given to the wealthiest Americans, every millionaire gets a $93,000 tax cut. Half of my constituents got exactly zero tax cut.

She writes: An $87 billion bill is nothing more than an excuse for the opportunity of infinite military occupation and corporate connections. Amanda from Brecksville is obviously referring to the Halliburton scandal, the fact that Halliburton has gotten well over a billion dollars in unbid contracts, Halliburton is a major contributor to the President of the United States, Vice President Cheney is still receiving $13,000 a month from the Halliburton corporation while taxpayers are funneling money to that corporation to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a month.

Wesley from Strongsville writes: This administration's go-it-alone policy will not accomplish a long-term secure Iraq, and will only result in a bankrupt American economy and government. If there are sacrifices to be paid, they should be paid now and not by my children when they must pay off the growing deficits from too much spending and not enough revenue.

Madam Speaker, I get letters talking about shared sacrifice. The only people that are sacrificing in this war are the soldiers and the sailors, the young men and women in Iraq, and their families, and people who have lost jobs under the Bush economy, while the administration is not sacrificing at all because they have politically gained from giving these huge tax cuts to their friends who have turned around and given major campaign contributions to the Bush administration.

Wesley writes: I urge you to work to change the administration's unilateral policy on Iraq and to seek a more equitable manner of funding the transition to include more contributions from other countries, from future Iraq oil revenues, and from tax cut rollbacks for the most privileged people of our society.

Jeannie of Akron writes that $87 billion could be spent here for families, for senior citizens, and for college loans that people cannot repay. She says, by the way, we read the people in Washington got a raise. How nice. My husband has not had one in 3 years.

What Jeannie is also talking about is that almost 200 Republican Members of Congress voted for a raise for themselves, yet voted against a raise for our troops. A $3,000 raise for themselves, and against a $1,500 raise for our men and women in harm's way.

Richard of Valley City writes: They have created a real mess in Iraq and Afghanistan, now they want to take money from the taxpayers to help the people in Iraq and Afghanistan, who will never pay us back. There are so many things we need money for in our country. What about Medicare, Social Security, the space program, and cities and schools who are running a deficit.

Madam Speaker, there is a theme in these letters that people are sickened by the ineptness of the Bush administration in Iraq, they are sickened by the corruption of Halliburton and Vice President Cheney and all that is happening in Iraq. They are saddened by the fact that while the administration is so focused on helping Halliburton and Bechtel get richer, they have lost their focus on supplying and providing for the troops. The fact that one-fourth of our troops still do not have enough antibiotics, they do not have safe drinking water, all of the things that the President and Vice President have forgotten to supply and protect our troops, while at the same time they are giving hundreds of millions of unbid dollars in contracts to these largest corporations who are major contributors to the President.

Mr. Speaker, had I been present, I would have voted on rollcall Nos. 591 ``aye''; 592 ``no''; 593 ``aye''.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) for his work and his managing of this bill and his incredible support for human rights around the world, for his entire service in Congress.

I also want to thank the sponsors of this resolution and the cochairs and founders of the Taiwan Caucus, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot), my friend, the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher), and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Wexler), and I join all of them in urging my colleagues to join me in welcoming President Chen Shui-bian as he visits the United States this weekend.

The United States and Taiwan are true democracies that share common ideals and share a clear vision for the future. Taiwan is a country where freedom and democracy have become the foundation for peace, for prosperity, for progress.

Taiwan shares common goals with the United States in supporting human rights and a commitment to the democratic ideals of freedom of speech, freedom of the press and free and fair elections that are the strength of any democracy, but with Taiwan, it has not always been that way.

My first trip to Taiwan was many years ago when Taiwan was still under marshall law. It was not anything close to a democracy. It was a country with one-party rule. Some used the word ``fascist.'' Others used other words to describe Taiwan, but one of the real miracles of the world in the last 2\1/2\ decades is what has happened to that country, a country that went from one-party totalitarian rule to a country that is democratic, that is prosperous, that shares the ideals of our country.

That miracle, that road to progress, that road to democracy was in large part because of the courage and the fervor for human rights exerted by people like Chen Shui-bian who sacrificed a great deal of his life, his family's life and much of his time on this earth to sacrifice that to bring Taiwan forward.

The move towards democracy, the miracle of Taiwan is partly because of Chen Shui-bian, partly because of his political party of the DPP and largely because of the commitment of Taiwanese in Taiwan and Taiwanese overseas in this country who have been a major part of that.

The effort for Taiwan to get into the World Health Organization, as the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Wexler) mentioned, as the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) mentioned has not yet reached fruition. That is so very very important.

On a personal level, I have met President Chen Shui-bian when he was mayor and when he was a candidate for the presidency of his country. He has done a terrific job in dealing with issues like SARS. He has done a terrific job in beginning to rebuild the economy in his country. He and his political party, the DPP, have done a miraculous job in helping to create the miracle that we know as Taiwan. It is a country that we should look to as a model for much of the rest of the world, for a developing country, that did not enjoy the fruits of democracy and has moved towards that and puts them in the community of nations. We owe it to that nation, that country to embrace them in the community of nations.

I think President Chen Shui-bian's visit to the United States will help do that this weekend.