March 31st, 2001
Washington, DC- Representative Ron Paul yesterday voted to eliminate the marriage tax penalty, which was the second Bush tax cut proposal supported by the Texas Congressman. Paul also supported a cut in marginal tax rates in a vote held earlier in March.
“I always vote to reduce taxes,” Paul stated. “Texans in my district know that I support every tax cut bill in Congress, as my voting record shows. I supported President Bush by voting to lower tax rates for all taxpayers, and I also voted to end the unfair marriage penalty. I will vote to end the destructive estate tax, which is the third plank in the President’s tax cut plan. Rest assured that I will support his plan in its entirety. I applaud the President for following through on his campaign promise to reduce taxes on American families.”
“Federal taxes are far too high, and the federal government is far too large,” Paul continued. “My commitment to voters is simple: I follow the Constitution and I fight to make government smaller. This commitment compels me to vote for all tax cuts and against all spending increases. Although my own legislation would reduce taxes more drastically, I always will support the President’s tax-cutting efforts as a positive step in the right direction.”
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March 30th, 2001
Washington, DC- Congressman Ron Paul today joined more than 270 of his colleagues in voting overwhelmingly to pass marriage tax penalty relief legislation. The “Marriage Penalty and Family Tax Relief Act of 2001″ is designed to end tax discrimination against married couples, while also doubling the per-child tax credit from $500 to $1000.
“Our tax code unjustly penalizes marriage,” Paul stated. “Married couples should enjoy the same rates and deductions available to single taxpayers. No one should have to consider the tax consequences when deciding to marry.”
Under current law, a married couple often pays more in federal taxes than they would if they were unmarried and filed two individual returns. This marriage penalty occurs because working spouses often find themselves in a higher tax bracket because of their combined incomes. Similarly, the standard deduction for married couples is not twice as large as the deduction for single filers. The Act addresses these penalties by increasing the income levels in the lowest rate bracket for joint returns to twice that of individual returns, while also increasing the standard deduction for joint returns to twice that of single returns.
Paul also praised the expansion of the child tax credit: “The increased credit will lower federal income taxes for millions of American parents. Taxes are far too high for everyone, married and single alike, but passage of this legislation represents a step in the right direction.”
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March 28th, 2001
Washington, DC. Representative Ron Paul has been named a “Free Trader” by the Cato Institute, a Washington research group which tracks trade votes in Congress. Paul was among only 26 members of Congress who received the group’s highest rating. “We examined 29 key trade votes in the 106th Congress, classifying legislators into categories according to their voting records,” stated Cato’s Daniel Griswold. “Congressman Paul was one of the few legislators who qualified as a free trader, meaning he consistently opposed both trade barriers and trade subsidies.”
Paul is known as an outspoken advocate for open markets: “I always support true free trade, which means limiting government interference in the marketplace- not creating multinational bodies like the WTO to ‘manage’ trade,” Paul stated. “American families should be able to buy goods from abroad without paying for costly tariffs imposed by their own government. Similarly, American businesses should be able to sell their products abroad, without the government closing certain markets through ineffective trade embargoes. I want farmers in my district to be able to sell their products to any nation, especially when commodity prices have been depressed at home.”
Paul plans to continue his fight against trade subsidies and barriers. “Most Americans are unaware of the trade subsidies their tax dollars provide for huge companies. An example is the federal Export-Import Bank, which is nothing more than corporate welfare for certain politically favored U.S. companies. We need to differentiate between true free trade and government schemes which benefit vested business interests.”
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March 20th, 2001
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Congressman Paul’s Statement on Dietary Supplement Regulation and Research<br />
Joint Statement from Congressman Ron Paul and Peter DeFazio (D-OR) submitted to the House Committee on Government Reform: “Six Years After the Enactment of DSHEA: The Status of National and International Dietary Supplement Regulation and Research”
Mr. Chairman, we appreciate the opportunity to submit comments regarding the need to protect consumers from intrusive regulations which interfere with the availability of dietary supplements. Today’s hearing is just the latest example of the leadership you have shown on this important issue.
Over the past decade the American people have made it clear that they do not want the federal government to interfere with their access to dietary supplements. In 1994, Congress responded to the American people’s desire for greater access to the truth about the benefits of dietary supplements by passing the Dietary Supplements and Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA), which liberalized the rules regarding the regulation of dietary supplements. Congressional offices received a record number of comments in favor of DSHEA.
Despite DSHEA, officials of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continued to attempt to enforce regulations aimed at keeping the American public in the dark about the benefits of dietary supplements. However, in the case of Pearson v. Shalala, 154 F.3d 650 (DC Cir. 1999), reh’g denied en banc, 172 F.3d 72 (DC Cir. 1999) , the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit Court reaffirmed consumers’ first amendment right to learn about how using dietary supplements can improve their health without unnecessary interference from the FDA. The FDA has been forced to revise its regulations in order to comply with Pearson. However, members of Congress have had to intervene with the FDA on several occasions to ensure that they followed the court’s order. Clearly Congress must continue to monitor the FDA’s action in this area.
The freedom of consumers to use, or even obtain truthful information about, dietary supplements could also be threatened by the United States participation in the Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex). Codex is a part of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Health Organization Food Standard Program operating under the authority of the Sanitary Phytosanitary Agreement and the Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement.
Codex is the vehicle through which the World Trade Organization (WTO) is working to “harmonize” (e.g. conform) food and safety regulations of WTO member countries. Codex is currently creating a guideline on the proper regulations for dietary supplements with the participation of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). We are concerned that the end result of this process will force the United States to adopt the same strict regulations of dietary supplements common in European countries such as Germany, where consumers’ cannot even examine a bottle of dietary supplements without a pharmacists permission. By participating in this process, the FDA is ignoring the will of Congress as expressed in DSHEA and in the FDA Modernization Act of 1997, which expressly forbid the FDA from participating in the harmonization process, as well as the will of the American people.
While Codex has no direct authority to force Americans to adopt stringent regulations of dietary supplements, we are concerned that the United States may be forced to adopt Codex standards as a result of the United States’ status as a member of the WTO. According to an August 199 report of the Congressional Research Service, “As a member of the WTO, the United States does commit to act in accordance with the rules of the multilateral body. It [the US] is legally obligated to ensure national laws do not conflict with WTO rules.” Thus, Congress may have a legal obligation to again change American laws and regulations to conform with WTO rules!
If Congress were to refuse to “harmonize” US laws according to strict Codex/WTO guidelines, a WTO “dispute resolution panel” could find that the United States is engaging in unfair trade because of our failure to “harmonize” our regulations with the rest of the world. In any such trade dispute, the scales are tipped in favor of countries using the Codex standards because of WTO rules presuming that a nation who has adopted Codex has not erected an unfair trade barrier. Therefore, in a dispute with a country that has adopted the Codex standards it is highly probable that America would lose and be subject to heavy sanctions unless Congress harmonized our laws with the other WTO countries. Harmonization may be beneficial for the large corporations and international bureaucrats that control the WTO but it would be a disaster for American consumers of dietary supplements!
In conclusion, we once again thank Chairman Burton for holding this hearing and for all his efforts to protect the freedom of American dietary supplement customers and for the opportunity to express our concerns regarding the threat to American consumers posed by the WTO and the Codex Alimentarius process. We also express our hope that Congress will act to protect the freedom of American consumers from overregulation of dietary supplements whether imposed by the FDA or through the back door by an international organization such as the WTO.
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March 16th, 2001
Washington, DC. Congressman Ron Paul yesterday introduced emergency legislation designed to prevent the federal government from implementing dangerous new medical regulations. The regulations, which go into effect April 14th unless blocked by Congress, will do irreparable harm to every American’s medical privacy. Paul’s “Medical Privacy Protection Resolution” (HJR 38) provides Congress with another chance to review and reject the invasive new rules before they become law.
Paul, a physician for more than 30 years who still practices medicine, knows the critical importance of doctor-patient confidentiality. “Once again we are threatened with government regulations that invade our privacy,” he stated. “The last administration wanted to create national medical ID numbers to track your private medical history throughout your life. Now federal health bureaucrats want to access your medical records without your consent, and they want to make it easier for big insurance carriers, pharmaceutical companies, and HMOs to do the same. If they succeed in forcing doctors to turn over private medical information, the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship will be destroyed.”
Specifically, the pending regulations authorize the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to implement wide new medical rules. The new rules require doctors and other health providers to disclose private records to the federal government for very broadly defined purposes and without patient consent. Federal and state law enforcement officials are granted access to patient records without a search warrant, despite Fourth and Fifth amendment prohibitions against unreasonable searches and compelled testimony. Patients will have only limited knowledge of who sees their records, and individuals will not be able to sue health care providers or the government for breaches of privacy.
“These regulations will harm millions of Americans,” Paul continued. “Patients will be afraid to disclose sensitive information to their doctors because it will end up in a federal database. Patients will be forced to conceal a wide range of sensitive medical problems, such as AIDS, impotence, sexually transmitted diseases, drug and alcohol addictions, and psychiatric problems. Doctors need the full truth to provide effective treatment. The HHS rules turn doctors into government agents, who are required to turn over information which ultimately could be used against their patients by federal agencies, law enforcement, and health insurers.”
Lobbyists and government officials undoubtedly will be working overtime to defeat Paul’s legislation, but opposition to the HHS regulations is growing among the American people. Some in Congress, including House Majority leader Richard Armey, also have expressed opposition to the HHS rules. All Americans reading this press statement are strongly encouraged to contact their Representatives in Congress and urge them to vote for HJR 38, the “Medical Privacy Protection Resolution.”
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March 15th, 2001
<br />
The Medical Privacy Protection Resolution<br />
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the Medical Privacy Protection Resolution, which uses the Congressional Review Act to repeal the so-called Medical Privacy regulation. Many things in Washington are misnamed, however, this regulation may be the most blatant case of false advertising I have come across in all my years in Congress. Rather than protect an individual right to medical privacy, these regulations empower government officials to determine how much medical privacy an individual “needs.” This “one-size-fits-all” approach ignores the fact that different people may prefer different levels of privacy. Certain individuals may be willing to exchange a great deal of their personal medical information in order to obtain certain benefits, such as lower-priced care or having information targeted to their medical needs sent to them in a timely manner. Others may forgo those benefits in order to limit the number of people who have access to their medical history. Federal bureaucrats cannot possibly know, much less meet, the optimal level of privacy for each individual. In contrast, the free market allows individuals to obtain the level of privacy protection they desire.
The so-called “medical privacy” regulations not only reduce an individual’s ability to determine who has access to their personal medical information, they actually threaten medical privacy and constitutionally-protected liberties. For example, these regulations allow law enforcement and other government officials access to a citizen’s private medical record without having to obtain a search warrant.
Allowing government officials to access a private person’s medical records without a warrant is a violation of the Fourth amendment to the United States Constitution, which protects American citizens from warrantless searches by government officials. The requirement that law enforcement officials obtain a warrant from a judge before searching private documents is one of the fundamental protections against abuse of the government’s power to seize an individual’s private documents. While the Fourth amendment has been interpreted to allow warrantless searches in emergency situations, it is hard to conceive of a situation where law enforcement officials would be unable to obtain a warrant before electronic medical records would be destroyed.
Mr. Speaker, these regulations also require health care providers to give medical records to the federal government for inclusion in a federal health care data system. Such a system would contain all citizens’ personal health care information. History shows that when the government collects this type of personal information, the inevitable result is the abuse of citizens’ privacy and liberty by unscrupulous government officials. The only fail-safe privacy protection is for the government not to collect and store this type of personal information.
In addition to law enforcement, these so-called “privacy protection” regulations create a privileged class of people with a federally-guaranteed right to see an individual’s medical records without the individual’s consent. For example, medical researchers may access a person’s private
Forcing individuals to divulge medical information without their consent also runs afoul of the fifth amendment’s prohibition on taking private property for public use without just compensation. After all, people do have a legitimate property interest in their private information. Therefore, restrictions on an individual’s ability to control the dissemination of their private information represents a massive regulatory taking. The takings clause is designed to prevent this type of sacrifice of individual property rights for the “greater good.”
In a free society such as the one envisioned by those who drafted the Constitution, the federal government should never force a citizen to divulge personal information to advance “important social goals.” Rather, it should be up to the individuals, not the government, to determine what social goals are important enough to warrant allowing others access to their personal property, including their personal information. To the extent these regulations sacrifice individual rights in the name of a bureaucratically-determined “common good,” they are incompatible with a free society and a constitutional government.
The collection and storage of personal medical information “authorized” by these regulations may also revive an effort to establish a “unique health identifier” for all Americans. The same legislation which authorized these privacy rules also authorized the creation of a “unique health care identifier” for every American. However, Congress, in response to a massive public outcry, has included a moratorium on funds for developing such an identifier in HHS budgets for the last three fiscal years.
By now it should be clear to every member of Congress that the American people do not want their health information recorded on a database, and they do not wish to be assigned a unique health identifier. According to a survey by the respected Gallup Company, 91 percent of Americans oppose assigning Americans a “unique health care identifier” while 92 percent of the people oppose allowing government agencies the unrestrained power to view private medical records and 88 percent of Americans oppose placing private health care information in a national database. Mr. Speaker, Congress must heed the wishes of the American people and repeal these HHS regulations before they go into effect and become a backdoor means of numbering each American and recording their information in a massive health care database.
The American public is right to oppose these regulations, for they not only endanger privacy but could even endanger health! As an OB-GYN with more than 30 years experience in private practice, I am very concerned by the threat to medical practice posed by these regulations. The confidential physician-patient relationship is the basis of good health care. Oftentimes, effective treatment depends on the patient’s ability to place absolute trust in his or her doctor. The legal system has acknowledged the importance of maintaining physician-patient confidentiality by granting physicians a privilege not to divulge confidential patient information.
I ask my colleagues to consider what will happen to that trust between patients and physicians when patients know that any and all information given their doctor may be placed in a government database or seen by medical researchers or handed over to government agents without so much as a simple warrant?
Mr. Speaker, I am sure my colleagues agree that questions regarding who should or should not have access to one’s medical privacy are best settled by way of contract between a patient and a provider. However, the government-insurance company complex that governs today’s health care industry has deprived individual patients of control over their health care records, as well as over numerous other aspects of their health care. Rather than put the individual back in charge of his or her medical records, the Department of Health and Human Services’ privacy regulations give the federal government the authority to decide who will have access to individual medical records. These regulations thus reduce individuals’ ability to protect their own medical privacy.
These regulations violate the fundamental principles of a free society by placing the perceived “societal” need to advance medical research over the individual’s right to privacy. They also violate the fourth and fifth amendments by allowing law enforcement officials and government favored special interests to seize medical records without an individual’s consent or a warrant and could facilitate the creation of a federal database containing the health care data of every American citizen. These developments could undermine the doctor-patient relationship and thus worsen the health care of millions of Americans. I, therefore, call on my colleagues to join me in repealing this latest threat to privacy and quality health care by cosponsoring the Medical Privacy Protection Resolution.
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March 13th, 2001
<br />
Opposing National Teacher Certification or National Teacher Testing<br />
The golden new Era of the 1990s has been welcomed and praised by many observers. But I’m afraid a different type of new era is arriving-a dangerous one- heralding the end of 30 years of fiat money. If so, it’s a serious matter that deserves close attention by Congress.
There’s nothing to fear from globalism, free trade and a single worldwide currency. But a globalism where free trade is competitively subsidized by each nation, a continuous trade war is dictated by the WTO, and the single currency is pure fiat, fear is justified. That type of globalism is destined to collapse into economic despair, inflationism and protectionism, and managed by resurgent militant nationalism.
Efforts to achieve peaceful globalist goals are quickly abandoned when the standard of living drops, unemployment rises, stock markets crash and artificially high wages are challenged by market forces. When tight budgets threaten spending cuts, cries for expanding the welfare state drown out any expression of concern for rising deficits.
The effort in recent decades to unify government surveillance over all world trade and international financial transactions through the UN, IMF, World Bank, WTO, ICC, the OECD, and the Bank of International Settlements can never substitute for a peaceful world based on true free trade, freedom of movement, a single but sound market currency, and voluntary contracts with private property rights.
Great emphasis in the last six years has been placed on so-called productivity increases that gave us the new-era economy. Its defenders proclaimed that a new paradigm had arrived. Though productivity increases have surely helped our economy, many astute observers have challenged the extent to which improvements in productivity have actually given us a distinctly unique new era. A case can be made that the great surge in new technology of the 1920′s far surpassed the current age of fast computers, and we all know what happened in after 1929.
A truly new era may well be upon us-but one quite different than what is generally accepted today.
The biggest error in interpreting today’s events is totally ignoring how monetary policy in a fiat system affects the entire economy.
Politicians and economists are very familiar with business cycles with most assuming that slumps erupt as: 1.) A natural consequence of capitalism, 2.) An act of God, 3.) Or as a result of Fed driven high interest rates. That is to say, the Fed did not engage in enough monetary debasement, becomes the most common complaint by Wall Street pundits and politicians.
But today’s economy is unlike anything the world has ever known. The world economy is more integrated than ever before. Indeed, the effort by international agencies to expand world trade has had results- some good. Labor costs have been held in check, industrial producers have moved to less regulated, low cost, and low tax countries while world mobility has aided these trends with all being helped with advances in computer technology.
But the artificial nature of today’s world trade and finance being systematically managed by the IMF, the World Bank and WTO, and driven by a worldwide fiat monetary system, has produced imbalances that have already prompted many sudden adjustments. There have been eight major crisis in the past six years requiring a worldwide effort, led by the Fed, to keep the system afloat, all being done with more monetary inflation and bailouts.
The lynch pin to the outstanding growth of the 1990s has been the US dollar. Although it too is totally fiat, its special status has permitted a bigger bonus to the United States while it has been used to prop up other world economies. The gift bequeathed to us by owning the world reserve currency, allows us to create dollars at will- and Alan Greenspan has not hesitated to accommodate everyone despite his reputation as an inflation fighter. This has dramatically raised our standard of living, and significantly contributed to the new era psychology that has been welcomed by so many naive enough to believe that perpetual prosperity had arrived and the bills would never have to be paid.
One day it will become known that technological advances and improvements in productivity also have a downside. This technology hid the ill effects of the monetary mischief the Fed had enthusiastically engaged in over the past decade. Technological improvements, while keeping the CPI and the PPI prices in check, led many, including Greenspan, to victoriously declare that no inflation existed and that a new era had indeed arrived. Finally, it’s declared that the day has arrived that printing money is equivalent to producing wealth and without a downside. Counterfeiting works!
But the excess credit created by the Fed found its way into the stock market- especially the NASDAQ, and was ignored. This set the stage for the stock market collapse, now ongoing. Likewise ignored has been the excess capacity, mal-investment, and debt that permeates the world economy.
Could we indeed be facing a truly New Era, but one unanticipated by all the authorities and one much more dangerous?
The collapse of the Soviet system and the emergence of United States military and economic preeminence, throughout the world, have permitted the dollar-driven financial bubble to last longer than anticipated. But instead of a glorious New Era, as promised, we ended up with a huge financial bubble and an artificially integrated world economy dominated by an unstable dollar. But instead of a single commodity currency driving a healthy world economy, we have an economy that has numerous imbalances generated by the US dollar, unsustainable trade agreements and total instability in the currency markets.
Sure we have enjoyed cheap imports and they have raised our standard of living and our foreign debt. We have on the short run benefited from our trade and current account deficits since the world has been only too eager to gobble up our inflated dollars and loan them back to us. But soon the countries of the world will decide that enough is enough and they will recognize the bad deal it is for them to continue to accept our dollars. The mal-investment, already becoming apparent, will prompt even more radical adjustments in all markets.
There are many countries only too anxious to get back at the United States for our military and economic aggressiveness, and some unknown economic or military event will one day knock us off our pedestal and a dangerous New Era will be upon us, instead of the golden one dreamed about.
For thirty years the world has operated on a pure fiat monetary system and all the ill effects of such a system are now becoming apparent. Current adjustments will be different than all other previous currency adjustments, which were local or regional. This one is worldwide and may well be the biggest economic event in modern history.
It’s reasonable to assume a worldwide slump will ensue as a result of the worldwide monetary mischief our authorities have engaged in the past 30 years. Never before has the world gone so long without money having some tangible value attached to it. Trust in politicians and Central Bankers may have been a benefit in the inflationary part of the cycle but this trust will quickly dissipate in the corrected phase. Monetary heroes can quickly become villains as the price is paid for previous excesses and extravagance.
However, hope springs eternal, so no effort will soon be made to restore sound money. A giant worldwide slump will merely prompt massive monetary inflation and deficit financing. The Congress and the American people should anticipate this will happen even though it should not.
Conditions today could easily lead to rampant price inflation as the dollar depreciates. Trade chaos, already apparent, considering the number of complaints pending before the WTO, will surely worsen, leading to a greater cry for protectionism and militant nationalism which will then jeopardize international trade even more.
The ultimate solution will only come with the rejection of fiat money worldwide, and a restoration of commodity money. Commodity money if voluntarily and universally accepted could give us a single world currency requiring no money managers, no manipulators orchestrating a man-made business cycle with rampant price inflation. Real free trade without barriers or tariffs and a single sound currency is the best way to achieve international peace and prosperity.
When that day comes we will have a true New Era, unlike the fictitious New Era of Greenspan’s dreams and certainly opposite of the dangerous New Era that stares us in the face as the world fiat monetary system falters.
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March 8th, 2001
Washington, D.C. On Thursday, the House of Representatives voted 230 -198 for President Bush’s tax relief plan (HR 3). Representative Ron Paul voted for the tax cuts, but expressed disappointment that they don’t go far enough in reducing the tax burden on working families in America.
“The Bush proposal, though far too modest in my view, is very straightforward,” said Paul. “The plan simplifies and lowers all marginal rates. Every taxpayer, regardless of income, will pay taxes at a lower rate than before under the plan. This tax cut that is a so-called ‘cost’ to the government is of direct benefit to taxpayers. However, the cut could have been much greater if the politicians and bureaucrats in Washington would curtail their appetites for more government programs and spending measures. “
The tax cuts will be completely phased in over a 10 year period. Only the new 12% tax bracket will be retroactive to the first of this year. Earlier in the week, Paul cosponsored the Flake-Pence amendment which would have made all of the tax brackets retroactive to the beginning of this year. Unfortunately, the amendment never made it to the House floor for a vote.
Paul said, “The Flake-Pence amendment would have provided more immediate relief to all taxpayers. The bill that passed through the House today will provide the lowest tax bracket with a meager tax cut this year ($360 for joint filers; $180 for individuals), while all other tax brackets will see no relief in 2001.”
“I am encouraged that we are making efforts to reduce the overwhelming tax burden on American families, but this tax cut simply does not go far enough,” Paul concluded. “We do not need to only cut tax rates. We must also work to eliminate all capital gains and estate taxes. The ultimate solution, of course, is to end the onerous federal income tax so that families can afford to give their children a good education, seniors can afford to pay for their prescription drug costs, and all citizens can have the opportunity to realize the American dream.”
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March 8th, 2001
<br />
Opposing National Teacher Certification or National Teacher Testing<br />
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce legislation to forbid the use of federal funds to develop or implement a national system of teacher certification or a national teacher test. My bill also forbids the Department of Education from denying funds to any state or local education agency because that state or local educational agency has refused to adopt a federally-approved method of teacher certification or testing. This legislation in no way interferes with a state’s ability to use federal funds to support their chosen method of teacher certification or testing.
Federal control of teacher certification will inevitably lead to a national curriculum. National teacher certification will allow the federal government to determine what would-be teachers need to know in order to practice their chosen profession. Teacher education will revolve around preparing teachers to pass the national test or to receive a national certificate. New teachers will then base their lesson plans on what they needed to know in order to receive their Education Department-approved teaching ceirtificate. Therefore, I call on those of my colleagues who oppose a national curriculum to join me in opposing national teacher testing and certification.
Many educators are voicing opposition to national teacher certification and testing. The Coalition of Independent Education Associations (CIEA), which represents the majority of the over 300,000 teachers who are members of independent educators associations, has passed a resolution opposing the nationalization of teacher certification and testing. As more and more teachers realize the impact of this proposal, I expect opposition from the education community to grow. Teachers want to be treated as professionals, not as minions of the federal government.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I once again urge my colleagues to join me in opposing national teacher certification or national teacher testing. Training and certification of classroom teachers is the job of state governments, local school districts, educators, and parents; this vital function should not be usurped by federal bureaucrats and/or politicians. Please stand up for America’s teachers and students by signing on as a cosponsor of my legislation to ensure taxpayer dollars do not support national teacher certification or national teacher testing.
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March 8th, 2001
<br />
Questions for Secretary of State Colin Powll before the House Committee on International Relations<br />
1. On the topic of the International Criminal Court, I have two questions. I am pleased that the administration, as well as the Chairman of this Committee, have spoken against the ICC treaty as an infringement upon U.S. sovereignty. As a policy matter, can you explain why the administration has not spoken similarly against the WTO, the International War Crimes Tribunal, or the idea of fighting wars based on UN or NATO resolutions and why these instrumentalities are any less threatening to our sovereignty? Also on the ICC topic, if the administration is not going to pursue ratification of the treaty, will you support my resolution, H Con Res 23, calling on the President to declare to all nations that the United States does not assent to the treaty and that the signature of former President Clinton should not be construed to mean otherwise?
2 . Since World War II, each of our Presidents have engaged in wars — both big and small, from Korea to the continued bombing of Iraq — without an explicit declaration of war from Congress. Yet, the Constitution clearly vests the decision to go to war (as opposed to its execution by the commander-in chief, once declared), with the Congress. If, however, the “war decision” is allowed to come from Presidential directives or UN resolutions, of what value to the American people is the Constitutional constraint upon a President who would otherwise wage war without Congressional approval? Do you believe the War Powers Resolution is unconstitutional? If so, why? If not, why not?
3. Is it not clear that a U.S. treaty, although it is called the law of the land, was never intended to be used to amend our Constitution?
4. Why do we trade and subsidize a country like China, pursue talks with Iran and North Korea, and act as a conduit for peace in the Middle East while all we seem to know what to do with Iraq is bomb, kill, and impose sanctions? Surely we are not expected to believe Saddam Hussein is the only totalitarian in power today?
5. Is not the continued bombing of Iraq an act of war? Where does the administration get its authority to pursue this war? Is this policy not in violation of our Constitution that says only Congress can declare war? There is not even a UN resolution calling for the US-British imposed no-fly zone over Iraq. Our allies have almost all deserted us on our policy toward Iraq. Is it not time to talk to the Iraqis? We talked to the Soviets at the height of the Cold War, surely we can do the same with Iraq today. We trade with and subsidize China and we talk to the Iranians, surely we can trade with Iraq . . . ?
6. If investors of a foreign nation had a stake in oil production in the Gulf of Mexico and their country was dependent on oil imports for subsistence, is that country justified in militarily dominating the Gulf and use of U.S. soil for basing operations? My guess is Americans would be furious even if done with our government official’s approval. Yet we expect the Arab world — a world quite different from ours — to accept our presence and domination. Is it not possible for our policy in the region to show more “humility” rather than pursue a policy that incites Islamic fundamentalists against us leading to what they see as acts of self defense and we see as acts of terrorism?
7. How would you, the U.S. government, and the American people respond if a foreign power subsidized subversive groups whose goal it was to overthrow our government as we are doing with the Iraqi National Congress?
8. In your earlier remarks before this committee you said that you regard the military as a vital component of U.S. foreign policy. I am wondering if you, as a former military officer, would comment on the antiquated idea of a military draft and selective service registration. I believe you have spoken against the draft in the past. Do you still hold that a draft is unwarranted? Would you support ending draft registration?
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