Accelerating the Increase in the Refundability of the Child Tax Credit - Motion to Proceed

ACCELERATING THE INCREASE IN THE REFUNDABILITY OF THE CHILD TAX CREDIT—MOTION TO PROCEED

AMENDMENT NO. 1141

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, the reason I was happy to have the clerk read the first three findings in this amendment is that I think these words really speak to what the United States is all about, which is free speech, the ability for people to be told the truth, and the ability of medical professionals not to be gagged from telling the truth.

Most unfortunately, what is happening right now, as a result of this administration's policy known as the Mexico City policy, foreign nongovernmental organizations—in other words, nonprofit organizations—that received USAID family planning funding are restricted in how they can help their patients.

Who are these patients? I will go into this later in detail. But they are the poorest of the poorest women in the world. What has happened, I would say because of politics in this country, is we have a very unfortunate worldwide policy now that says to the private, nonprofit organizations that are helping the poorest of the poor people—mostly women—they cannot use their own money to advocate for changes in the abortion laws of their own country.

So if they believe the abortion laws in their own country are, for example, killing women because they are saying there can be no abortion ever, even to save the life of a woman, they cannot use their own funds to advocate for change. Or if they believe the woman who comes before them has decided, of her own free will and her own conscience and with her own religious guidance and with her own family guidance, that she would like to have a legal abortion, these foreign, nonprofit organizations may not use their own money to help that woman. Not only that—this is, to me, the worst of it all—they may not use their own money to provide full and accurate medical information about what options a woman has.

It is hard for me to understand that in a country as free as ours, in a country as great as ours, we would have a policy which we dare not do in our own country because it would be clearly unconstitutional. A domestic gag rule is clearly unconstitutional. Why would we put such a policy forward and tell these little nonprofit organizations, that are struggling to meet the needs of the poorest of the poor, they would jeopardize their USAID funding if they absolutely do nothing more than even tell a patient what her legal options are, what her safe options are?

This is known as the Mexico City policy because it came out of a conference in Mexico City a very long time ago. This policy ended with President Clinton in 1992, when he said he would absolutely uphold the law that we had before this global gag rule which said you cannot use Federal money in any way to promote abortion—that was the law, and he didn't disturb that—but certainly a group could use its own money.

What happened is for 8 years we did not have this regressive policy that turns the clock back on women's rights, and yet when President Bush came in, it was one of the first things he did, to reinstate this Mexico City policy.

I am very proud that cosponsoring my amendment, which would overturn this policy, are Senator Chafee and Senator Snowe. I am very proud to have them as Republican lead cosponsors. I am also very proud to have Senator Mikulski and Senator Murray as cosponsors. I am very happy to say the ranking member of the committee has told me I may add his name and he will be speaking in behalf of this amendment.

Clearly, we have an opportunity to do the right thing today. We have done it before. We have overturned this before. We have taken a stand before. I hope we will do it again.

Again, I wish to say what we are talking about here because there is always confusion. This has nothing to do with Federal funds. Federal funds may not be used in any way related to abortion. This only has to do with the private funds of these little nonprofits that are trying to help women.

What has been the impact of this gag rule? You may say, Senator Boxer, that is very interesting, but what is really happening on the ground?

Here is what is happening on the ground. With the gag rule in place, these organizations face two choices: They can either refuse U.S. assistance or they can limit their own services. You know how hard that must be for these struggling organizations in these very poor nations.

Madam President, you have seen the world in your capacity as head of the Red Cross. You know some of these places are struggling. You know very much of it is the women who struggle the most, who are the most poor, who have the most health needs. We are seeing organizations saying: OK, I can't take the money. I can't take USAID funding because I cannot limit my ability to help my patients.

I am going to show you a case later that is very emotional and very disturbing as one example of a group that turned back this funding, and I will tell you why.

Imagine the Hobson's choice they face. Here they are, struggling, yet if they take this money, they can literally not tell their patients the truth. They are literally barred from telling their patients what is the most safe procedure for you, what are your options. They may not tell the patient that.

What is happening on the ground—and we will prove it with cases before you—we say women and families are suffering increased misery and even death. They are suffering this because there are clinics that are shutting down because they cannot take the money, and there are clinics that are being gagged, they cannot tell the truth.

Why is family planning assistance important? This is not just about abortion. These are clinics that help women plan their families. We know family planning increases child survival rates. It improves maternal health. It prevents the spread of HIV/AIDS. We have the President of the United States—and it is wonderful that he has decided to visit Africa. I have to say, while he talks about how much he wants to help HIV/AIDS, and I believe he does, he needs to understand, and perhaps he doesn't get the fact, if these clinics close down, we are going to see the spread of HIV/AIDS, we are going to see the spread of other infectious diseases.

International family planning funding helps save lives. On the one hand, to say I am here in Africa to help and on the other hand to have imposed a gag rule on doctors and nurses and clinicians so they cannot tell poor women the truth about their options or they cannot work to change the regressive laws of their country—for example, to say if a child is raped, if a child is the victim of incest, that child ought to be able to get a safe, legal abortion—these clinics cannot even do this under this global gag rule.

As a result of USAID funding, more than 50 million couples in the developing world use family planning. In the last 30 years, the percentage of couples using family planning has risen fivefold. This is something to celebrate. We know fewer than 10 percent of couples used contraception in the 1960s. We are talking about foreign countries that we helped. Now 50 percent of the couples use contraception. So the word is getting through. But the need for family planning assistance continues because of the growth of population.

Why on Earth are we setting in place a vehicle, this global gag rule, which will deprive people of their health care, will deprive women of knowing what their options are? We don't know exactly how many organizations have refused funding because of this gag rule, and we cannot measure exactly how many abortions would have been prevented by family planning. But we know clearly whenever you cut back in family planning services, you see an increase in abortions. We know 78,000 women throughout the world die each year. I want us to think about what that means. Seventy-eight thousand women throughout the world die each year as a result of unsafe abortions. At least one-fourth of those unsafe abortions in the world are girls age 15 to 19.

When we have a policy that results in clinics shutting down, we have a policy that results in illegal abortions because if they take the money, they can't tell a young girl the truth of what her options are. She may run to a back alley in desperation, and she may well die.

Seventy-eight thousand women throughout the world die each year from unsafe abortions. That is not a pro-life policy. I am sorry. That is an anti-life policy to put women at risk.

Seventy-eight thousand women die each year. That is a horrific statistic. That is happening because women cannot avail themselves of the family planning services they need.

What does our amendment do? What does the Boxer-Chafee-Snowe-Mikulski-Murray-Biden amendment do? First, it says foreign nongovernmental organizations cannot be denied funding based on the medical services they provide with their own funds, including counseling and referral services. Withholding medical information, as I have said before, to patients who need it is an intolerable situation. It would be intolerable in this country. We know, because it was tried in this country 20 years ago. There was absolutely an uproar. Doctors would say, excuse me, are you putting a gag over my mouth? Are you saying I cannot tell my patients what their legal options are? The answer came back: This cannot be sustained in a country that believes in freedom of speech. So what we couldn't do here we are doing there.

We say there shall be no gag rule. That is the first part of our amendment.

The second part says in addition to being able to tell the patients the truth about their options, an organization should be able to lobby in any way it wants as long as it doesn't use USAID funds.

We have a win-win situation in this amendment. Doctors and nurses and folks who work in these nongovernmental organizations and these small nonprofits are going to be able to tell the truth to their patients. Here are your options. Treat their patients like adults. I think it is essential to treat a woman like an adult. This is your predicament. These are the things you can do. You can have a child. You need to think about that. You could keep the child. You can give the child up for adoption. That is an option. You can end this pregnancy, if you end it early without complication. But it is your choice. I think women should be treated as adults.

Then if these organizations see that women are dying from illegal abortions because this country, let us say, outlawed legal abortions, they can lobby for this with their own funds. What we are doing is restoring democracy to the USAID program.

Frankly, I can't believe this regressive policy is even here in the 21st century. It is killing women. This is not something that
is preventing abortions. Its impact is that women will seek illegal abortions. It is what happened in this country. Hundreds of women in this country died every year because they could not get access to safe, legal abortions until Roe v. Wade. Then we said to women, this is a legal option. It is your call. It is up to you at the early stages of the pregnancy. It is really a very straightforward and fair law.

What we are saying to women abroad now is if you go to a doctor, you should be able to hear your options. If your organization wants to be able to lobby on your behalf for better laws to protect your life, they ought to be able to do that—not with Federal funds, not with USAID funds, but with your own funds.

The global rule is undemocratic. It is a miserable impediment to poor women. It would be unconstitutional if imposed on our own citizens. It is bad foreign policy. I believe our bipartisan amendment ends it and does it in a very good way—in a way everybody can be proud of.

I want to tell you a story and give an example that occurred in Nepal.

I am so proud to serve on the Foreign Relations Committee at this time. I am the only woman, which is a lonely thing. Madam President, you ought to think about coming on with me. It is a great honor and privilege.

I want to say that our chairman, Chairman LUGAR, could not be a more fair chairman, could not be a more hard-working chairman, and could not have more respect on both sides of the aisle. It is an honor to be on that committee in the Senate. It is an honor to be serving with the ranking member, JOE BIDEN. I think our colleagues are very bipartisan. It is a tough time now in our country for bipartisanship. We really work together on that committee.

At the time we were in the majority, we had a series of hearings on this global gag rule to see what was happening on the ground.

In 2001, I chaired a subcommittee hearing where we had a small nonprofit, nongovernmental organization from Nepal. They were faced with this global gag rule. They had to make that Hobson's choice: Do they take the money and then give up their right to lobby in behalf of their patients or do they turn back the money? This little organization turned back the money.
The reason they did it was not some abstract theory but a specific case. They cited how their organization was able to advocate on behalf of the 13-year-old girl whose name was Min Min.

This is a story I want to share with my colleagues. How can we turn our backs on this child and other children like her?
How we can turn our backs on the organizations that are out there is beyond my comprehension to understand.

Min Min was raped by a relative. I want to show you her face. She was 13. Her family forced her to have an illegal abortion after the rape. As a result of illegal abortion, she was arrested and she was taken to a central jail in Nepal. In 2001, Nepal put the victim in jail—not the relative who raped her. Look at this child. The girl's relatives were not punished. But Min Min was sentenced to 20 years in jail, and she was abandoned by her family.

In your life, could you even imagine such a thing? A 13-year-old girl jailed for her life after she was raped. That was her crime.

This particular NGO in Nepal had refused to take USAID money because they wanted to advocate to change the laws in Nepal.

You would think we would be on their side. You would think we would be horrified that 13-year-old girls can go to jail for 20 years because they are the victims of rape by a relative. You would think we would say to this nongovernmental organization: We want to help you. But, no, under this global gag rule put into place by this administration this little girl was left that way, without the help of USAID, without the funding of USAID.

This NGO, which turned back the money, went to bat for her and to change the law. After 2 years in prison, this child—2 years in prison, from age 13 to age 15, when a child should be home with her family, getting the guidance and love of her family—after sitting in jail after 2 years, finally, the laws were changed. Because the NGO, the nongovernmental organization, refused to take the money—because they knew they must work to change laws—they were free to go and do it, and they got the law changed and she was released after 2 years in jail—2 years in jail for being a victim of a sexual assault by a relative.

Now, had this NGO taken the money of USAID, they would not have been able to advocate on behalf of this child. We had the leader of this organization come before the Foreign Relations Committee, and this is what he said: "How can we turn our back on women who die or are injured daily due to unsafe abortion?" How can we stop organizations from changing the laws?

The happy ending to this terrible tale is that the NGO worked with the government and last year the law was changed. There will no longer be lifetime jail sentences when these young girls are raped. That is the good news.

Let me give you the really terrible news. This NGO has been forced to close clinics in Nepal because of the loss of their USAID money. Now, can anyone stand up here—and I would ask someone. We have a Senator in the Chamber who I know opposes this and may get up and defend what we are doing. But it is pretty clear, my friends. You can put any fancy language and ideology on it. I am not ideological. I just do not want to kill women. I just do not want to have little girls age 13 sitting in prison because they are raped. I just do not want to tie the hands of organizations to rescue girls such as this, to change the laws of their country that wind up killing women, harming women, and making them sit in jail when they are raped.

If you can explain why that is a good law, that is your choice, and I respect that and all, but I cannot understand how we would, in this 21st century, tie the hands of small nonprofit groups that want to help girls and women such as this.

In Zambia, the Family Life Movement of Zambia, a faith-based, antiabortion organization, has been unable to expand programs because the global gag rule has disqualified Planned Parenthood Association of Zambia, a partner organization.
The FLMZ promotes abstinence among young people in Zambia and it does not provide contraceptives but they are in partnership with Planned Parenthood. They are a faith-based antiabortion organization.

I told you, I am not ideological on this point. They are in a partnership with Planned Parenthood. This group that believes in abstinence, they cannot get the funding from USAID. Now, you explain to me how that works.

What this organization does is, if they would come across a young person or young people who are sexually active, they would be referred to this Planned Parenthood group or they could receive information about contraception. But the global gag rule has forced Planned Parenthood of Zambia to close three of its nine rural outreach programs and costs them more than $100,000 worth of contraceptives.

So here you see it. You see on the ground what is happening to organizations that are trying to help the most desperate women and girls.

The Family Planning Association of Kenya, which does not provide abortion, has had to cut its outreach staff in half, close three clinics that served 56,000 clients in traditionally underserved communities, and they have had to raise their fees at their remaining clinics because they would not take the money because they did not want to be gagged.

One of the clinics that closed housed a unique well-baby center that provided comprehensive infant and postpartum care, making it easier for women to receive critical followup care. The baby center is now closed.

What is going on? I think there is a misunderstanding in this administration because they are shutting down well-baby clinics. They are shutting down well-baby clinics. They are shutting down organizations that distribute contraception. They are shutting down organizations that are fighting for laws that will save women's lives.

This is a terrible, terrible regulation. It is terrible for the women. It is terrible for the doctors there. It is terrible for the
nurses there. It is terrible for the babies there.

I think it is a terrible message from our country that we are so ideological over here that we will not let nongovernmental organizations that are trying to help women and families do their work because of some dispute over abortion in this country. I have some words about that: Get over that dispute. That dispute will be with us for a long time. We are going to have to resolve it in our way. But why make women in foreign countries pay the price, children in foreign countries pay the price, little girls such as Min Min pay the price because we have an argument over here over whether a woman should have the right to choose?

We are doing things to these organizations we cannot do in this country because it is a violation of the Constitution; it is a violation of freedom of speech. We are going around the world trying to bring democracy to countries.

We have soldiers dying for freedom of speech in Iraq right now—every single day. I have another 14 Californians who are dead since the war "ended." Why are they there? They are fighting for freedom and democracy and freedom of speech for the Iraqi people.

But we have a policy that takes away freedom of speech from folks who want to help people get health care. It is a very bizarre twist in our country's history, and one that, believe me, is not lost on other nations.

Recently, the Health Minister of Kenya has suggested that abortion should be made legal as a way to confront the devastation that unsafe abortion has on the women in that country.

Well, congratulations to the Health Minister of Kenya for understanding something that our Supreme Court figured out a long time ago: that abortion should be legal and women should not be made into criminals, nor should doctors who help them as long as that abortion is performed in the early stages of the pregnancy. That is all that Roe says in this country.

The Health Minister in Kenya is looking at the devastation of illegal abortion. He is looking at the devastation of back-alley
abortion, just as our people looked at that in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s and came to the conclusion that we ought to legalize this and keep the Government out of it and let the people decide such an intensely personal, private, difficult, moral, religious issue.

He has come to the conclusion that people know better, not the government, that there should not be a rule that you must be forced in any way on this issue—either to not have an abortion or to have an abortion—and that maybe his people should be trusted. The organizations that have the gag rule in Kenya cannot speak out, when they know what they see and they want to help reduce maternal mortality and morbidity.

I am giving you these examples of various countries because I want my colleagues to understand this is not about ideology. This is about practicality. This is about children like this. This is about women. This is about families. This is about babies. This is about people getting help.

The Family Guidance Association of Ethiopia, the largest reproductive provider in that country, operates 18 clinics, 24 youth service centers, 671 community-based reproductive health care sites, and hundreds of other sites for health care. Still fewer than 20 percent of Ethiopians live within a 2-hour walk of any health provider.

We are talking about countries where people can't jump in a car and drive an hour to get health care. They literally have to walk to their health care. So if even a few of the clinics have to close down because of lack of funding, women are consigned to trouble. They are going to have to go two blocks around the corner, down the street, behind a house and have an illegal abortion and maybe face death or infertility.

A half a million dollars has been turned away by this organization, the Family Guidance Association of Ethiopia, because they will not abide by being gagged. They will not say to their doctors: You can't tell women the truth. They will not say to the nurses: You can't tell women the truth. They will not say to their people: You can't lobby your own government for changes in laws that will help women.

So what has happened? They have had to cut off the supply of contraception. It is a very sad day. Since abortion is illegal in Ethiopia, imagine what is going to happen if people can't have contraception?

You want the world to be perfect. I well remember this discussion when my children were younger. You want your children to listen to you. You want to make sure that every child is a wanted child. You want to make sure that there is abstinence, yes. But it might not happen. And if it doesn't happen that way, the way you want it to happen, to what are we consigning our young people?

In the case of these foreign governments, we are looking at a child in jail, and this one was raped by a family member. What is the policy of our country to be that we are going to tell these young women we are not on their side?

I cannot fathom it. A girl put in jail, served for 2 years because she was raped by a relative, and the nonprofit foreign organization that helped her was punished by America because they wanted to help her, because they wanted to get the laws changed, because they wanted to get her out of jail? What is wrong with us? How can we proudly stand by this gag rule? We should not. We should repeal it today.

As I say, we have bipartisan sponsorship on this bill and we have a chance to overturn it. The President has threatened to veto the bill if we overturn this global gag rule. Can you imagine, the President has said he will veto the bill if we reverse this rule, if we want to help children like Min Min. I want to ask the President: Do you think it is right to put a little girl in prison because she was raped by her family? I am sure he would say: Of course not. It is awful.

Then I would ask him: Do you think it is a good thing for people in that country to come to this little girl's rescue and help her? I am sure he would say: Of course.

My next question would be: Then why are you shutting off the funds to the nonprofit organizations that want to help her cause? He would probably say: Let me get back to you.

Frankly, I don't see how he could answer that without taking a long time to twist it around. This isn't about ideology. This is about real people. This is about the poorest children, the poorest women, the poorest families. This is about imposing a gag rule, which we are not allowed to do in this country because we have a Constitution, on other people. Why? I guess because we can. It is wrong.

It is wrong that the largest family planning organization in Ethiopia—God knows they have enough trouble there; they have droughts and everything else—loses $500,000 because they won't be gagged. And as a result, people cannot get contraception. And as a result, women are going to have to have illegal abortions because abortion is illegal in that country.

We know 78,000 women every year die across the world from illegal abortion. We are the United States of America. We are a good country. We are a kind country. We are a generous country. We are a great country. Why would we do this to the poorest of the poor?

In the case of Ethiopia, 229,000 men and 300,000 women in urban areas are not getting served by this organization because there is some ideological problem that we have here in this country that we should not export elsewhere.

I am coming to the end of my examples. I have one more about Peru. There is a program in Peru that is designed to engage local women from poor communities across the country in identifying the most pressing reproductive health needs. This organization, Manuela Ramos, convenes the discussions and then works with the Ministry of Health to develop specific responses to those needs. In many communities, women identify unsafe abortion as their most pressing problem. The gag rule prohibits this organization from even engaging in discussions about ways to reduce illegal, unsafe abortion.

I am mortified that a decision by this administration is gagging not only the people who receive USAID funds but even the people who go there are not allowed to discuss together how to make life better for the women of Peru, the women of the world.

I am taking a lot of time on this today because I am pleading with my colleagues to stand up and be counted. If it is true that you are not going to vote for this because the President said he will veto the bill, I say: Let's go for it. Maybe he will change his mind. I am happy to sit down and tell him about Min Min, this 13-year-old girl. I am happy to give him the statistics. I will be glad to talk to him about the 78,000 women dying every single year from illegal abortions. I believe I could maybe change his mind.

Maybe he will change his mind—let's give it a chance—if he sees a strong bipartisan vote.

I want to show you a couple of other charts and then I will be finished, until I hear the other side and I will come back to debate.

This is an editorial that appeared in the Washington Post when this global gag rule was put into place. It is headlined
"Divisive on Abortion."

Making an organization censor its views as a condition of receiving government money would be unconstitutional on free-speech grounds in this country; it should have no place in U.S. foreign policy. Moreover, requiring doctors to withhold information from patients violates the common conception of medical ethics. There will be .    .    . more circulation of the AIDS virus, more poverty-entrenching high birthrates and more unwanted pregnancies—meaning more abortions.

I will take a minute to talk about this because this really sums up what I have been saying in a very neat little package.
Making an organization censor its views as a condition of receiving government money would be unconstitutional on free speech grounds in this country.

Well, you know that is true. We don't do that. We don't tell every group in this country that receives Federal funds they cannot talk about anything, because this is America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. Free speech is the basis of our country. It is what our soldiers are dying for in Iraq. So we don't tell people in this country that if you get Federal funds, if you get Social Security, you cannot talk about X, Y, or Z. If you get funds through Medicare, you cannot talk about A, B, or C. Try that on the elderly population in this country. You will be out of office so fast you won't know what hit you. Face it, that is what we are doing here.

They say that kind of condition on receiving money should have no place in U.S. foreign policy. I agree with that. Here we are, a bastion of freedom and democracy and free speech, going around the world telling people about that on the one hand and our soldiers are putting their lives on the line. Yet in this program, we are telling little charitable, nonprofit health care centers they cannot tell their patients the truth. Not only that, if they see a law that is killing their patients, they cannot work to change it. What a shame on our country. They say it should have no place in foreign policy. That is exactly right.
That should have no place in foreign policy.

Requiring doctors to withhold information from patients violates the common conception of medical ethics.

How true is that? When our doctors take the Hippocratic oath, they say they will do no harm, they will do everything to save the life of their patients and give them the best of health care. Imagine going to your doctor and you have a terrible illness and the doctor knows four options for you and he cannot talk about two of them because the Government said he could not. So you hear about two options but not the other two. When you found out that you didn't get the whole story, and something happened to you, your family would be in the courthouse door—and rightly so—saying: How could my doctor not have told my dad that this particular type of surgery would have cured his cancer?

The fact is, we are gagging doctors and health care practitioners in foreign countries from telling patients the truth. Then this editorial says:

There will be .    .    . more circulation of the AIDS virus, more poverty-entrenching high birthrates and more unwanted pregnancies—meaning more abortions.

We have a policy in our country called the global gag rule which I, Senator Chafee, Senator Snowe, Senator Mikulski, Senator Murray, and Senator Biden are trying to overturn. We hope to get a lot of you with us. We are trying to overturn a policy that is causing illegal, unsafe abortions to take place because, clearly, if you tell a nonprofit organization they cannot tell you the truth, you are going to be desperate.

Seventy-eight thousand women a year die. So you are also going to see more circulation of the AIDS virus. Why? Because a lot of these clinics that are closing down—and it is not just about abortion; it is about family planning, contraception, and learning how to protect yourself from the AIDS virus and other sexually transmitted diseases. And there are going to be "poverty-entrenching high birthrates."

Why would this be a policy of the United States of America? It is hurting people, not helping them. It is gagging people, not giving them free speech. It is hurting America's reputation in the world. It turns the clock back on progress.

Let me say very clearly as I close my opening statement that the Washington Post said:

Around the world, more than a half-million die from pregnancy-related causes annually. A real pro-life policy would focus on reducing that death toll by providing more contraception and safer abortions.

That is it in a nutshell. It is not like we are dealing in mysteries. We know certain truths. We know that if women have access to good health advice, they will avoid unwanted pregnancies. We know that if they have access to good health advice, they will have healthy babies and they will be healthy. We know all those things. And we know for that to happen, women have to be educated on their options. We know that.

What else do we know? We know that some countries do terrible things. I want to show you again the picture of Min Min, who is 13 years old. She is in prison because a family member raped her. The organization that tried to help her, in order to do that, had to hand back their USAID funding because President Bush said they could not help her. He put the global gag rule in place. He said nobody can help her. That is what it says. If I talked to him one on one, I know he would be shocked at this story, but the fact is that this policy of a global gag rule made it impossible for the organization to help her until they gave back their USAID funding. What a shame on our country—to be associated with such an outcome.

I want to be proud. This is a country I love. I want to be seen as helping, as spreading democracy and freedom of speech and ideas.

So for all those reasons, I hope we will have a good vote that will get rid of this global gag rule. I don't care if there are veto threats. We have to stand up for something here. This is the Senate of the United States of America. This is the year 2003.
Little girls such as this should not have to suffer because we have a policy that punishes folks who want to help her.
With that, I yield the floor and I hope we can continue this debate.