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Congressional Record United States Th of America PROCEEDINGS and DEBATES of the 105 CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION

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Congressional Record United States Th of America PROCEEDINGS and DEBATES of the 105 CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION E PL UR UM IB N U U S Congressional Record United States th of America PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 105 CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION Vol. 144 WASHINGTON, TUESDAY, MARCH 31, 1998 No. 39 House of Representatives The House met at 9:30 a.m. and was we are being asked to cough up another This observation was echoed in the called to order by the Speaker pro tem- $18 billion without a full debate on the Wall Street Journal article recently. pore (Mr. SNOWBARGER). House floor about the merits of such a ``Asian nations are facing financial dif- f proposal. ficulties not because outside forces In a recent Wall Street Journal arti- have imposed bad economic policies on DESIGNATION OF SPEAKER PRO cle, three outstanding experts on inter- them, but because they have imposed TEMPORE national finance gave their views on these policies on themselves.'' The SPEAKER pro tempore laid be- the International Monetary Fund. According to Shultz, Simon and fore the House the following commu- George Shultz, President Reagan's Sec- Wriston, ``the Mexican people suffered nication from the Speaker: retary of State; William Simon, Presi- a massive decline in their standard of dents Nixon and Ford's Secretary of living as a result of their crisis. As is WASHINGTON, DC, Treasury; and Walter Wriston, former March 31, 1998. typical when the IMF intervenes, the I hereby designate the Honorable VINCE Chairman of Citicorp and Citibank. governments and the lenders are res- SNOWBARGER to act as speaker pro tempore They asked the question, who needs cued, but not the people.'' on this day. the IMF? They point out that Presi- They conclude the following. ``The NEWT GINGRICH, dent Clinton and the IMF have shifted IMF is ineffective, unnecessary and ob- Speaker of the House of Representatives. into overdrive in their efforts to save solete. We do not need another IMF. f the economies of Indonesia, the Phil- Once the Asian crisis is over, we should ippines, South Korea and Thailand, or MORNING HOUR DEBATES abolish the one we have.'' to be more accurate, to save the pock- Now the President is asking us to in- The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursu- etbooks of international investors who crease our quota to the IMF without a ant to the order of the House of Janu- can face a tide of defaults if these mar- constructive debate on the merits of ary 21, 1997, the Chair will now recog- kets are not now shored up. this proposal. In fact, there is clear evi- I welcome the support of these distin- nize Members from lists submitted by dence that the IMF has sufficient cap- guished experts on this subject. The the majority and minority leaders for ital to withstand any immediate finan- morning hour debates. The Chair will way I see it, the IMF places American taxpayers in the position of guarantee- cial distress anywhere in the world. alternate recognition between the par- The IMF right now has close to $50 bil- ties, with each party limited to 30 min- ing a return on investment to those who engage in these risky schemes. lion in reserves and access to another utes, and each Member, except the ma- $25 billion through their general ar- jority leader, the minority leader, or The likelihood of an IMF bailout re- moves the incentive for nations to not rangements to borrow. the minority whip, limited to 5 min- engage in bad economic policies or pur- In addition, the IMF will receive utes. sue unsound financial practices. nearly $28 billion in loan repayments The Chair recognizes the gentleman As these distinguished gentlemen from other borrowing nations by the from Florida (Mr. STEARNS) for 5 min- note in this article, the IMF can lull end of the year 2000. utes. nations into complacency by acting as If we add the more than $100 billion f the self-appointed lender of last resort, being borrowed and repaid by Thailand, a function never contemplated by our Indonesia, and South Korea, the IMF FURTHER DEBATE IS NEEDED ON will basically have $200 billion in its THE IMF Founding Fathers. The world has changed a great deal since the IMF was coffers, the same amount it had before Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, I rise founded in 1944 to assist in global trade the Asian crisis began. today to discuss attempted misappro- by supporting currency convertibility Mr. Speaker, today I ask my col- priation of American taxpayers' money and providing needed financing to de- leagues, what is the rush of throwing for the International Monetary Fund. fend exchange rates. more American taxpayer money at the I applaud the efforts by our Speaker The financial crisis in Asia results IMF, when there is substantial capital to create a second supplemental appro- from decades of direct government reg- already in place? It is for one reason priations bill to handle this. This will ulation, the absence of foreign com- only. The proponents of the IMF do not give the House the ability to have a petition, and closed financial systems. want to just replenish the IMF fund; straight up or down vote on increasing By relying on heavy-handed bureauc- they want to expand the breadth and our financial commitment to the IMF. racies managing every aspect of their scope of the IMF itself so that the IMF The U.S. now presently provides economies, these nations are destroy- will play an even more dominating role about 18 percent of the IMF funds, and ing themselves financially. in global finances. b This symbol represents the time of day during the House proceedings, e.g., b 1407 is 2:07 p.m. Matter set in this typeface indicates words inserted or appended, rather than spoken, by a Member of the House on the floor. H1779 H1780 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD Ð HOUSE March 31, 1998 It is our responsibility in Congress to released a new report stating that the The fact that the ICM sample drawn prevent this latest abuse of taxpayers' risk of a failed Census had increased by the Bureau mistakenly included money and to defeat the proposal to in- since their last report in July. Census commercial addresses which would crease the U.S. share of IMF money by 2000 was already in their high-risk cat- have thrown it completely off; again, $18 billion. egory, and now things have gotten no congressional fault. f worse. We are just 2 years away from The vague and incomplete guidance Census day, and the risks are increas- provided by the Bureau to local govern- SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ing. ments that, according to GAO, hin- BILL Why are we headed towards a failed dered efforts to establish complete The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under Census? For one very simple reason: count committees; no congressional the Speaker's announced policy of Jan- The Clinton Administration has unilat- fault. uary 21, 1997, the gentlewoman from erally designed the largest statistical The Commerce Inspector General's California (Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD) is rec- experiment in U.S. history. And despite finding that the Bureau is not giving ognized during morning hour debates their sincerity, the Census Bureau just itself enough time to follow up on for 2 minutes. does not have the technical capability households that do not respond in the Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Mr. Speaker, to pull it off. first 2 weeks; no congressional fault. later today the Republican leadership The plan that they and their statis- The fact that the Bureau's plan will bring to the floor the supplemental tical experts developed is breathtaking forces nonresponsive follow-up to be appropriations bill. I regret that I must in its complexity. I have a Ph.D. in completed in just 6 weeks, instead of a oppose this bill because the offsets in- marketing and statistics, and I must more realistic time frame given that it cluded in this legislation are simply say, from an academic standpoint, it is took 13 weeks last time we did a decen- not acceptable. an interesting theory. nial Census; this is not Congress' fault. It is unconscionable that badly need- But the Census is not a theory; it is The fact that the Bureau's plan for ed funding to support our troops in a massive field operation, and the more the ICM assumes it can contact five Bosnia and Iraq, and disaster relief for complex you make it, the more the times as many people as it did in 1990, States like California, which have sus- chance of failure. and do it in half the time, 13 weeks ver- tained upwards of $500 million in dam- Now, some in the media who have sus 28 weeks; that is not Congress' ages this winter, are unnecessarily sided with the administration do not fault. being pitted against important pro- want to face reality. They have in- The fact that if the response rate in grams which benefit the American peo- vested so much in this polling theory this short 13-week time frame for the ple. that they want to find some other rea- ICM falls below 98 percent, the Census son why this Nation is headed towards will become less accurate. Despite the fact that more than 80 a failed Census. So now they, with the The Commerce Inspector General re- percent of the funds in this bill are for help of my friends in the Democratic porting that experimented field man- the Department of Defense, the Repub- Party, have come up with a new rea- agers feel the ICM sampling plan is un- lican majority has not offset these son: It is Congress' fault.
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