Date: 2000-06-15
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Chairman. I move to strike the requisite number of words. and I rise against the amendment. Mr. Chairman. in most of my public life. I have been involved in the health care of Indians both in the Congress and before I came here. And it is rather sad to stand here tonight and tell my colleagues the status of health care of Indians in this country. When we compare them to all the races in the United States. the Indian people suffer a death rate that is 627 times higher from alcoholism. 533 times higher from tuberculosis. 249 percent higher from diabetes. 71 percent higher from pneumonia and influenza. It is the saddest state of health care that we have in the United States. There is no other population that compares to this. But do my colleagues know what they should not do to people who suffer from these health care problems. to people who have a death rate that is 627 percent higher from alcoholism. 533 percent higher from tuberculosis. 249 percent higher from diabetes. and 71 percent higher from pneumonia and influenza? They should not take those people and use them as a political pawn. They should not do it. They simply should not do it. They did not have the courage of their newfound convictions to put full funding for them in the budget or to even put this $22 million in the budget. But here tonight. in their crusade against the arts and the humanities. they are prepared to enlist the Native Americans of this country. the grand tribes of the grand nations. and to use them for cannon fodder in their crusade against the arts. I ask my colleagues to think about a community they might come from where they have a 627 percent higher death rate from alcoholism than everywhere else in the Nation and think about if what they would do to those people is to use them. In a terribly cynical. cynical approach to deny the arts their money. the gentlewoman from New York her amendment. and the due process in this House. I do not think we should do this. It is tempting. it is exciting to put one over on the Democrats. We get one up. We get back to where we were. But in the end. we have used these people. I sit on the Committee on Resources. I sat there my entire time in Congress. And when we built the great water projects of the western United States. they always had an Indian component in it. water was going to go to the Indians. Central Arizona project. Up there in the Dakotas. water is going to go to the Indians. Do my colleagues know what? Thirty. 40. 50 years later. the Indians are still waiting for the water. folks. but the white folks all got their water. They are still waiting for the water in Arizona. They are in court. Of course. they have to go to court to get their water. they cannot get it in Congress. Quinten Burdick. the last thing he did was come to me and said. can we strike a deal to finally give the water to the Indians? We flooded their lands 30 years ago. Time and again we have marched out the Indians of this country from the Indian nations and used them for political purposes. Tonight we march out the most unfortunate. those who suffer from these kinds of health care problems. And my colleagues have not found it in their heart in the last 6 years to deal with them. Budgets below the President. The President has not done a great job. either. But let us not suggest that this is the answer. Put the politics aside. Recognize that they lost an amendment earlier today. Recognize that there may be. the bill has got a long way to go. there may be in fact money for the arts. I do not know whether there will be or not. But let us not do this to the Indian nations of this country.