[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 181 (Wednesday, November 15, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H12490-H12504]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
FURTHER CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS FISCAL YEAR 1996
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 270, I call
up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 122) making further continuing
appropriations for fiscal year 1996, and for other purposes, and ask
for its immediate consideration in the House.
The Clerk read the title of the joint resolution.
The text of House Joint Resolution 122 is as follows:
H.J. Res. 122
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled, That the
following sums are hereby appropriated, out of any money in
the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, and out of
applicable corporate or other revenues, receipts, and funds,
for the several departments, agencies, corporations, and
other organizational units of Government for the fiscal year
1996, and for other purposes, namely:
TITLE I
CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS
Sec. 101. (a) Such amounts as may be necessary under the
authority and conditions provided in the applicable
appropriations Act for the fiscal year 1995 for continuing
projects or activities including the costs of direct loans
and loan guarantees (not otherwise specifically provided for
in this joint resolution) which were conducted in the fiscal
year 1995 and for which appropriations, funds, or other
authority would be available in the following appropriations
Acts:
The Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the
Judiciary, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 1996,
notwithstanding section 15 of the State Department Basic
Authorities Act of 1956, section 701 of the United States
Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, section 313
of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1994
and 1995 (Public Law 103-236), and section 53 of the Arms
Control and Disarmament Act;
The Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 1996,
notwithstanding section 504(a)(1) of the National Security
Act of 1947;
The District of Columbia Appropriations Act, 1996;
The Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related
Programs Appropriations Act, 1996, notwithstanding section 10
of Public Law 91-672 and section 15(a) of the State
Department Basic Authorities Act of 1956;
The Department of the Interior and Related Agencies
Appropriations Act, 1996;
The Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and
Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 1996;
The Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 1996, H.R. 2492;
The Department of Transportation Appropriations Act, 1996;
The Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government
Appropriations Act, 1996;
The Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban
Development, and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act,
1996:
Provided, That whenever the amount which would be made
available or the authority which would be granted in these
Acts is greater than that which would be available or granted
under current operations, the pertinent project or activity
shall be continued at a rate for operations not exceeding the
current rate.
(b) Whenever the amount which would be made available or
the authority which would be granted under an Act listed in
this section as passed by the House as of the date of
enactment of this joint resolution, is different from that
which would be available or granted under such Act as passed
by the Senate as of the date of enactment of this joint
resolution, the pertinent project or activity shall be
continued at a rate for operations not exceeding the current
rate or the rate permitted by the action of the House or the
Senate, whichever is lower, under the authority and
conditions provided in the applicable appropriations Act for
the fiscal year 1995: Provided, That where an item is not
included in either version or where an item is included in
only one version of the Act as passed by both Houses as of
the date of enactment of this joint resolution, the pertinent
project or activity shall not be continued except as provided
for in section 111 or 112 under the appropriation, fund, or
authority granted by the applicable appropriations Act for
the fiscal year 1995 and under the authority and conditions
provided in the applicable appropriations Act for the fiscal
year 1995.
(c) Whenever an Act listed in this section has been passed
by only the House or only the Senate as of the date of
enactment of this joint resolution, the pertinent project or
activity shall be continued under the appropriation, fund, or
authority granted by the one House at a rate for
operations not exceeding the current rate or the rate
permitted by the action of the one House, whichever is
lower, and under the authority and conditions provided in
the applicable appropriations Act for the fiscal year
1995: Provided, That where an item is funded in the
applicable appropriations Act for the fiscal year 1995 and
not included in the version passed by the one House as of
the date of enactment of this joint resolution, the
pertinent project or activity shall not be continued
except as provided for in section 111 and
[[Page H12491]]
112 under the appropriation, fund, or authority granted by the
applicable appropriations Act for fiscal year 1995 and
under the authority and conditions provided in the
applicable appropriations Act for the fiscal year 1995.
Sec. 102. No appropriation or funds made available or
authority granted pursuant to section 101 for the Department
of Defense shall be used for new production of items not
funded for production in fiscal year 1995 or prior years, for
the increase in production rates above those sustained with
fiscal year 1995 funds, or to initiate, resume, or continue
any project, activity, operation, or organization which are
defined as any project, subproject, activity, budget
activity, program element, and subprogram within a program
element and for investment items are further defined as a P-1
line item in a budget activity within an appropriation
account and an R-1 line item which includes a program element
and subprogram element within an appropriation account, for
which appropriations, funds, or other authority were not
available during the fiscal year 1995: Provided, That no
appropriation or funds made available or authority granted
pursuant to section 101 for the Department of Defense shall
be used to initiate multi-year procurements utilizing advance
procurement funding for economic order quantity procurement
unless specifically appropriated later.
Sec. 103. Appropriations made by section 101 shall be
available to the extent and in the manner which would be
provided by the pertinent appropriations Act.
Sec. 104. No appropriation or funds made available or
authority granted pursuant to section 101 shall be used to
initiate or resume any project or activity for which
appropriations, funds, or other authority were not available
during the fiscal year 1995.
Sec. 105. No provision which is included in an
appropriations Act enumerated in section 101 but which was
not included in the applicable appropriations Act for fiscal
year 1995 and which by its terms is applicable to more than
one appropriation, fund, or authority shall be applicable to
any appropriation, fund, or authority provided in this
joint resolution.
Sec. 106. Unless otherwise provided for in this joint
resolution or in the applicable appropriations Act,
appropriations and funds made available and authority granted
pursuant to this joint resolution shall be available until
(a) enactment into law of an appropriation for any project or
activity provided for in this joint resolution, or (b) the
enactment into law of the applicable appropriations Act by
both Houses without any provision for such project or
activity, or (c) December 5, 1995, whichever first occurs.
Sec. 107. Appropriations made and authority granted
pursuant to this joint resolution shall cover all obligations
or expenditures incurred for any program, project, or
activity during the period for which funds or authority for
such project or activity are available under this joint
resolution.
Sec. 108. Expenditures made pursuant to this joint
resolution shall be charged to the applicable appropriation,
fund, or authorization whenever a bill in which such
applicable appropriation, fund, or authorization is contained
is enacted into law.
Sec. 109. No provision in the appropriations Act for the
fiscal year 1996 referred to in section 101 of this joint
resolution that makes the availability of any appropriation
provided therein dependent upon the enactment of additional
authorizing or other legislation shall be effective before
the date set forth in section 106(c) of this joint
resolution.
Sec. 110. Appropriations and funds made available by or
authority granted pursuant to this joint resolution may be
used without regard to the time limitations for submission
and approval of apportionments set forth in section 1513 of
title 31, United States Code, but nothing herein shall be
construed to waive any other provision of law governing the
apportionment of funds.
Sec. 111. Notwithstanding any other provision of this joint
resolution, except section 106, whenever an Act listed in
section 101 as passed by both the House and Senate as of the
date of enactment of this joint resolution, does not include
funding for an ongoing project or activity for which there is
a budget request, or whenever an Act listed in section 101
has been passed by only the House or only the Senate as of
the date of enactment of this joint resolution, and an item
funded in fiscal year 1995 is not included in the version
passed by the one House, or whenever the rate for operations
for an ongoing project or activity provided by section 101
for which there is a budget request would result in the
project or activity being significantly reduced, the
pertinent project or activity may be continued under the
authority and conditions provided in the applicable
appropriations Act for the fiscal year 1995 by increasing
the rate for operations provided by section 101 to a rate
for operations not to exceed one that provides the minimal
level that would enable existing activities to continue.
No new contracts or grants shall be awarded in excess of
an amount that bears the same ratio to the rate for
operations provided by this section as the number of days
covered by this resolution bears to 366. For the purposes
of the Act, the minimal level means a rate for operations
that is reduced from the current rate by 40 percent.
Sec. 112. Notwithstanding any other provision of this joint
resolution, except section 106, whenever the rate for
operations for any continuing project or activity provided by
section 101 or section 111 for which there is a budget
request would result in a furlough of Government employees,
that rate for operations may be increased to the minimum
level that would enable the furlough to be avoided. No new
contracts or grants shall be awarded in excess of an amount
that bears the same ratio to the rate for operations provided
by this section as the number of days covered by this
resolution bears to 366.
Sec. 113. Notwithstanding any other provision of this joint
resolution, except sections 106, 111, and 112, for those
programs that had high initial rates of operation or complete
distribution of funding at the beginning of the fiscal year
in fiscal year 1995 because of distributions of funding to
States, foreign countries, grantees, or others, similar
distributions of funds for fiscal year 1996 shall not be made
and no grants shall be awarded for such programs funded by
this resolution that would impinge on final funding
prerogatives.
Sec. 114. This joint resolution shall be implemented so
that only the most limited funding action of that permitted
in the resolution shall be taken in order to provide for
continuation of projects and activities.
Sec. 115. The provisions of section 132 of the District of
Columbia Appropriations Act, 1988, Public Law 100-202, shall
not apply for this joint resolution. Included in the
apportionment for the Federal Payment to the District of
Columbia shall be an additional $15,000,000 above the amount
otherwise made available by this joint resolution, for
purposes of certain capital construction loan repayments
pursuant to Public Law 85-451, as amended.
Sec. 116. Notwithstanding any other provision of this joint
resolution, except section 106, the authority and conditions
for the application of appropriations for the Office of
Technology Assessment as contained in the Conference Report
on the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 1996, House
Report 104-212, shall be followed when applying the funding
made available by this joint resolution.
Sec. 117. Notwithstanding any other provision of this joint
resolution, except section 106, any distribution of funding
under the Rehabilitation Services and Disability Research
account in the Department of Education may be made up to an
amount that bears the same ratio to the rate for operation
for this account provide by this joint resolution as the
number of days covered by this resolution bears to 366.
Sec. 118. Notwithstanding any other provision of this joint
resolution, except section 106, the authorities provided
under subsection (a) of section 140 of the Foreign Relations
Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1994 and 1995 (Public Law
103-236) shall remain in effect during the period of this
joint resolution, notwithstanding paragraph (3) of said
subsection.
Sec. 119. Notwithstanding any other provision of this joint
resolution, except section 106, the amount made available to
the Securities and Exchange Commission, under the heading
Salaries and Expenses, shall include, in addition to direct
appropriations, the amount it collects under the fee rate and
offsetting collection authority contained in Public Law 103-
352, which fee rate and offsetting collection authority shall
remain in effect during the period of this joint resolution.
Sec. 120. Until enactment of legislation providing funding
for the entire fiscal year ending September 30, 1996, for the
Department of the Interior and Related Agencies, funds
available for necessary expenses of the Bureau of Mines
are for continuing limited health and safety and related
research, materials partnerships, and minerals information
activities; for mineral assessments in Alaska; and for
terminating all other activities of the Bureau of Mines.
Sec. 121. Notwithstanding any other provision of this joint
resolution, except section 106, funds for the Environmental
Protection Agency shall be made available in the
appropriation accounts which are provided in H.R. 2099 as
reported on September 13, 1995.
Sec. 122. Notwithstanding any other provision of this joint
resolution, except section 106, the rate for operations for
projects and activities that would be funded under the
heading ``International Organizations and Conferences,
Contributions to International Organizations'' in the
Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary,
and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 1996, shall be the
amount provided by the provisions of sections 101, 111, and
112 multiplied by the ratio of the number of days covered by
this resolution to 366 and multiplied further by 1.27.
Sec. 123. Notwithstanding any other provision of this joint
resolution, except section 106, the rate for operations of
the following projects or activities shall be only the
minimum necessary to accomplish orderly termination:
Administrative Conference of the United States;
Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (except
that activities to carry out the provisions of Public Law
104-4 may continue);
Interstate Commerce Commission;
Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation;
Land and Water Conservation Fund, State Assistance; and
Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, Rural
Abandonment Mine Program.
[[Page H12492]]
TITLE II
SEC. 201. WAIVER OF REQUIREMENT FOR PARCHMENT PRINTING.
(a) Waiver.--The provisions of sections 106 and 107 of
title 1, United States Code, are waived with respect to the
printing (on parchment or otherwise) of the enrollment of any
of the following measures of the first session of the One
Hundred Fourth Congress presented to the President after the
enactment of this joint resolution:
(1) A continuing resolution.
(2) A debt limit extension measure.
(3) A reconciliation bill.
(b) Certification by Committee on House Oversight.--The
enrollment of a measure to which subsection (a) applies shall
be in such form as the Committee on House Oversight of the
House of Representatives certifies to be a true enrollment.
SEC. 202. DEFINITIONS.
As used in this joint resolution:
(1) Continuing resolution.--The term ``continuing
resolution'' means a bill or joint resolution that includes
provisions making further continuing appropriations for
fiscal year 1996.
(2) Debt limit extension measure.--The term ``debt limit
extension measure'' means a bill or joint resolution that
includes provisions increasing or waiving (for a temporary
period or otherwise) the public debt limit under section
3101(b) of title 31, United States Code.
(3) Reconciliation bill.--The term ``reconciliation bill''
means a bill that is a reconciliation bill within the meaning
of section 310 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.
TITLE III
COMMITMENT TO A SEVEN-YEAR BALANCED BUDGET
Sec. 301. (a) The President and the Congress shall enact
legislation in the One Hundred Fourth Congress to achieve a
unified balanced budget not later than the fiscal year 2002
as scored by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.
(b) The unified balanced budget in subsection (a) shall be
based on the most current economic and technical assumptions
of the Congressional Budget Office.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hastings of Washington). Pursuant to
House Resolution 270, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston]
will be recognized for 30 minutes, and the gentleman from Wisconsin
[Mr. Obey] will be recognized for 30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston].
general leave
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their
remarks on House Joint Resolution 122, and that I may include tabular
and extraneous material.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Louisiana?
There was no objection.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes.
(Mr. LIVINGSTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend
his remarks.)
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to bring this joint
resolution to the floor to provide authority for most of the Government
to continue operations through December 5 or until the regular bills
are enacted, whichever is sooner. We have come to this point because
the President has vetoed House Joint Resolution 115 and in doing so
shutdown the Government. This CR will enable the Government to get back
to work.
The House and Senate Appropriations Committees are continuing to work
on the remaining regular funding bills in a manner that will allow us
to present them to the President for signature. However it is clear
that many of the budget decisions will extend beyond the next few days.
Therefore, we need to provide spending authority for those portions of
the Government which are not covered by signed bills.
Mr. Speaker, this continuing resolution is the same as the one the
President vetoed with the following exceptions:
It does not reference the energy and water development bill as it has
been signed into law.
Its provisions would remain in effect until December 5 rather than
December 1, giving us a little more time to do the public's business.
It does not include any provision dealing with Medicare part B
premiums or breast or prostate cancer treatments or, indeed, any
nonbudgetary riders.
It does, however, include a commitment to a 7-year balanced budget as
scored and with the technical assumptions used by CBO. This is a
commitment we freely make. This is a commitment we ask the President to
make with us.
This resolution continues Government funding through December 5, or
whenever a regular bill is enacted into law, whichever is sooner.
This resolution provides temporary funding for the programs covered
under 10 bills. Since three bills have been signed into law, military
construction, agriculture, and energy and water development, and
perhaps transportation, I have just been advised that Transportation
has been signed as well, those bills will have been omitted from this
resolution. But you will be pleased to know that we have two other
bills, Mr. Speaker, Treasury-Postal and Legislative branch, all ready
for the President's signature.
All the projects and activities in the nine bills that remain operate
under a restrictive formula that provides rates that do not exceed the
lower of the House-passed bill, the Senate-passed bill, or the fiscal
1995 current level. The resolution provides that for programs that are
proposed for termination in either the House or Senate version of the
regular bill, or are significantly reduced in these bills, they may
continue, but at a minimum level not to exceed 60 percent of the
current rate of operations. This is down from the 90-percent level
provided for in the very first continuing resolution. All programs
continued will be under the fiscal year 1995 terms and conditions.
These incentives will help Congress and the President keep our eyes on
the big prize: that is, 13 signable spending bills, to get back on the
track to a balanced budget.
This resolution continues the ``no furlough'' language that was
contained in the first resolution. Early year distributions for
programs that have historical high initial fund distributions are
prohibited. Also no new initiatives can be started under this bill.
There are additional items that are under this resolution. They deal
with hand enrollment for various future bills and commitment to a 7-
year balanced budget. This continuing resolution keeps the Government
functioning while locking all of us firmly into the commitment that we
have championed, and that is a 7-year balanced budget.
Mr. Speaker, I ask all members to join with me in voting for a
continuing resolution with five main principles:
First, it provides funding at levels that are below the section 602
allocation provided for in the budget resolution. This keeps us on the
glide path to get us to a balanced budget by 2002.
Second, it prevents costly Government furloughs and premature program
terminations.
Third, it does not prejudice funding decisions for the remainder of
the appropriations bills, except for a limited number of program
terminations that are agreed to by the President.
Fourth, it continues a climate that is an incentive for all involved
to conclude action on the regular appropriations bills.
Finally, it commits all of us--House, Senate, and President--to a
balanced budget in 7 years.
Mr. Speaker, this continuing resolution is a good-faith effort to get
the Government operating again. We're moving the remaining bills as
fast as we can, and we are making real progress, but we still need this
CR. It is tough love, but we need tough love to keep the necessary
pressure on both the Congress and the President to work out our
differences on the remaining regular bills and get them enacted into
law.
{time} 2145
I urge all of our Members to support this joint resolution.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Minnesota [Mr. Sabo], the distinguished ranking member of the Committee
on the Budget.
(Mr. SABO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker this is one of those issues where, frankly, I
am tempted in a variety of ways in how I should react because there are
things within this resolution I agree with.
My advice to the administration has been for a period of time that
their goal should be to have a 7-year balanced budget, that they should
also use
[[Page H12493]]
the more cautious and conservative economic assumptions of CBO, that a
variety of other differences need to be looked at. Neither CBO nor OMB
have divine wisdom, and one needs to examine those.
On the other hand, I also am going to vote ``no'' tonight in the
strong belief that this is the wrong thing to do at this point in time.
What we should be doing is simply passing a clean continuing resolution
to deal with the reality that we have not passed our appropriation
bills. Then the majority should pass their reconciliation bill, I
assume, on Friday. It will be vetoed, and then we should get on with
serious negotiations.
Part of this is posturing. The rhetoric gets very hot around here,
and if it were not for the fact that people were not working, I think
the whole institution would be better off if everybody went home for a
while and cooled off and calmed things down and then get back to work.
It is getting increasing polarized.
While I believe that we should move to a balanced budget in 7 years,
using cautious economic assumptions, I also read today, I think
accurately quoted, the leader, not of this body but of another
institution involved in these negotiations, that there were four
pillars to the Republican program. One was a 7-year balanced budget;
the second was Medicare reform, and I am sure he meant his version of
Medicare reform; welfare reform, and I am sure he meant his version of
welfare reform; and a tax cut, and he meant his version of a tax cut.
And those were nonnegotiable demands.
This is one of those four pillars, and to pretend tonight that
somehow we take up one of those pillars, that we are taking up one of
those pillars when those three other pillars still exist in the minds
of most of the majority, would be dreadfully wrong. Because, in my
judgment, that tax cut is not justified. In my judgment, you cannot
have a fair balanced budget with the size and scope of the tax cut
proposed by the majority. In my judgment, any tax cut should wait until
we balance the Federal budget, not now.
Welfare reform, as passed by the majority, and I hate using this
word, but, in my judgment, is mean. And the Medicare reform is of such
nature that it puts too great a burden on millions of low-income widows
in this country, and the scope of the change is such that it simply is
not sustainable.
So, Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote this evening.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Ohio [Mr. Kasich], the distinguished chairman of the Committee on the
Budget.
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Speaker, this is an opportunity for this House to
send a message. It is a message, frankly, that at the end of the day
the American people will send themselves. Now we can send a message
from this side, and we are going to vote, I would believe unanimously,
on our side to send a message about one single thing, one simple thing,
balance the budget, do it in 7 years.
Two years ago on Monday, my friend, Tim Penny, and I joined together
in a bipartisan effort to send a message. It was a similar message. You
know what the message was? We need to cut some spending. And I will
tell you something, even though we lost the vote on the House floor
that day, that message did not just get sent downtown but it got sent
around the country.
I am asking my Democrat friends and colleagues who believe in the
concept of 7 years to step up to the plate tonight, to join with your
Republican colleagues and let us send a message, and it is not a
message that is strident.
The simple fact of the matter is, under any plan to balance the
budget over the next 7 years, this Federal Government will spend $3
trillion more than what we spent in the last 7 years. The question is:
Are we capable of saving that extra trillion dollars for the next
generation?
We are not fighting over the first $3 trillion. We are fighting over
the last $1 trillion. Frankly, folks, to do this in 7 years, to let the
Federal spending go up even though it goes up at a slower rate, it will
help us to balance the budget. The drop in interest rates, short term,
will make housing, cars, and education affordable, and in the long run
it will guarantee the young people of this country will have decent
jobs and decent homes and decent automobiles. That is what we are
talking about.
If we fail, well, I know my Democratic colleagues and friends who
voted on Penny-Kasich will not let us fail.
I told Leon Panetta yesterday in the meeting:
Leon, just commit to 7 years. We can negotiate the
priorities. We can argue what ought to be emphasized. We can
get down. We can sit down, and we can have meaningful
negotiations. But we cannot have them without a reasonable
bottom line, and that reasonable bottom line is committing
today, right now, this minute, to a 7-year plan to rein the
Federal spending and save the next generation.
Let us send a strong message, not just downtown, but let us send a
strong bipartisan message from one end of this Nation to the other that
this Congress is serious, and we will work together to balance this
budget and guarantee the children of the next generation a bright and
prosperous America, a bright and prosperous future.
Support the resolution.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Florida [Mr. Gibbons].
(Mr. GIBBONS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my Republican colleagues
for having come part of the way to getting this problem resolved part
of the way. You have got a further way to go. But you are moving in the
right direction, and I appreciate that, and I am sure the American
public appreciates that.
I am glad you have given up on the direct assault on the Medicare
beneficiaries.
Now, I am going to vote against this resolution tonight because I do
not put as much faith in the so-called nonpartisan Committee on the
Budget staff as perhaps some of my friends over there on the other side
of the aisle do. I had a lot more faith in it when they were on our
payroll. I do not have quite as much faith in them when on their
payroll. I think all of you can understand that.
Two, I believe that we ought to balance the budget, but my priorities
are different than yours. My priorities are not to give a tax cut until
the budget is actually balanced, and then if we have anything left
over, we can talk about cutting taxes. And I will leave out all of my
rhetoric about how terrible I think the priorities are in that tax cut
bill.
But I do not want to see us have that tax cut bill on the table,
because if you do keep that on the table, you are going to have to cut
Medicare far too far, and you are going to have to cut Medicaid and the
welfare programs far too far if you keep that tax cut bill on the
table.
So the tax cut bill has got to go, and we have got to have some give
in the Medicare changes, and we have got to have real give in the
Medicaid changes and in the welfare changes.
The Medicare changes and the Medicaid changes and the welfare changes
are really hard and cruel. And I do not think that you all are hard and
cruel, but I do not think you really understand what the problem is.
You are cutting more money out of poor kids than you really are cutting
out of Medicare. You are making huge cuts in the welfare budget.
Seventy percent of all the people in America who are on welfare are
children, infants and children, and you are taking food out of their
mouths, you are taking medical care away from them, you are taking
housing and shelter and everything else away from these children. That
is not fair.
I am sure when you focus on that, you will come to that same
conclusion. So take the tax cut off the table. Take the Medicare cuts
off the table. Take the welfare cuts off the table that you have given
them, and take the Medicaid cuts off the table.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Arizona [Mr. Kolbe], a distinguished member of our Committee on
Appropriations.
(Mr. KOLBE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, this is it. This is the moment of truth.
We had a continuing resolution just a few days ago on this floor. The
President vetoed that. He said he could not
[[Page H12494]]
sign it because the language keeping Medicare premiums at 31 percent of
Part B was unacceptable. He said he could not countenance keeping
Medicare premiums at their current level.
I think he is wrong. We have to do it to protect, to preserve
Medicare. We will come back. We will revisit that issue on the Balanced
Budget Act before this week is out.
What we have here tonight is a clean continuing resolution to reopen
the Government. There is no extraneous provision, no add-ons here.
Oh, yes, yes, it does say we will balance the budget in 7 years, and,
yes, it says the President will agree to work with us to accomplish
that. But surely that is no problem. The President has already said we
can do that. He said it not once, not twice, but repeatedly. President
Clinton has said we can balance the budget in 7 years.
In fact, he said he would submit a budget that would do it in 5
years, and that is all this resolution says. It does not say we will
have tax cuts or Medicare reform or welfare reform, nor does it say
what their shape would be. I think we should have them. I think we
should have all of those things. But this continuing resolution does
not commit the President to any of those.
{time} 2200
This stopgap spending bill would put Federal workers back on the job.
It says we will work together to balance the budget in 7 years. If the
President vetoes this, we will know it was not Medicare that caused the
first veto. The truth will be out there for all to see, stark, bare
naked.
This President will be saying he cannot agree to a balanced budget,
not now, not in 7 years, not ever. I say to the President, there are no
more excuses. There is nothing left to hide behind. Your spokesman
tonight misquoted you when he said you repeatedly rejected a 7-year
balanced budget. But you can set the record straight. You can
demonstrate your solidarity with the American people who want a
balanced budget. You can put Federal workers back on the job. You can
sign this spending bill.
I urge my colleagues to support this continuing resolution.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes and 30 seconds to the
gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer].
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to
me.
Mr. Speaker, the American public quite obviously wants us to be
serious. I have 56,000 people who work for our Federal Government. They
rely on each one of us to do our job seriously so that they can support
their families and do their job on a day-to-day, week-to-week, month-
to-month, year-to-year basis. I believe the overwhelming majority of
those people give outstanding service to the American public.
I suggest to my colleagues, however, that they and America are
distressed because rather than do our job totally seriously, we do what
politicians like to do, send messages. Not necessarily do work, but
send messages.
I listened to my friend, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich], for
whom I have great respect. He got up and said, let us send a message
that we are for a balanced budget. I had voted for that amendment. I
voted for the resolutions. I voted for the coalition budget. I believe
not only in sending the message but in doing it.
My colleagues, we have here a bill. It is 16 pages in length. I
suggest to my colleagues that the first 15 pages are, in fact, a
relatively clean CR that would put those people who live in my district
and in fact live in every district in America back to work tomorrow.
The President would sign this 15 pages. That is the substantive part.
Unfortunately, for me and for others, there is a 16th page. It really
does not mean anything. It has words on it. It had words about 7 years.
It has words about CBO scoring. It has words about the most recent
economic statistics. But you and I both know that this really does not
mean anything, and we ought not to fool the American public.
We cannot, by this statute say, Mr. President, after you sign this
bill tomorrow you cannot sign a bill which does something different.
And we cannot say, by this bill, as all of my colleagues know, that
tomorrow this Congress, after passing these 8 lines, cannot do
something differently. Of course we can.
All of my colleagues know on this floor that we are about to get
real. It is called substantive. Because we are going to bring to this
floor a reconciliation bill. That is real. It will incorporate real
policy alternatives and each of us will have to vote on those
alternatives.
It is, therefore, a shame that with just 48 or 72 hours to go before
we bring that bill to this floor that we have to continue to send
messages, not to be real.
This is real. It says tomorrow we put the Government back to work,
that contractors who are doing work for our Government and their
employees will get paid.
But this is political message, political game playing. Is it not a
shame?
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Virginia [Mr. Moran].
Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this resolution because
it is time, Mr. Speaker, to put politics behind us. It is time to get
back to the people's business. It is time to put 800,000 Federal
employees back to work. It is time to be there for those 60,000 elderly
and disabled persons and 15,000 veterans who have already been denied
benefits that they are legally entitled to because there were no
Federal employees to accept their claims. It is time to open up our
national treasures to the 1\1/2\ million American families who have
been turned away from their national parks and monuments because they
have been shut down.
My colleagues, it is time to balance our Federal budget. I personally
do not think it is time to cut taxes because no business should pay out
dividends when it is operating at a deficit. But the sooner we get to
balance, the sooner we can reduce the American people's tax burden.
Without his tax cuts, the President can reach his balanced budget
objective in 7 years rather than 8 or 9 years. If, indeed, the
President's higher economic forecasts are correct, then that additional
revenue over and above the CBO forecast should be used to pay for the
President's tax cut proposals. But first things first.
Our very first responsibility is to vote for this continuing
resolution and to put America's Government back into the business of
serving America's people.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from
Indiana [Mr. Roemer].
(Mr. ROEMER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. ROEMER. Mr. Speaker, I am proud that I voted for the coalition
budget. The coalition budget says that we will balance the budget, like
the American people want us to do, in 7 years. Now, what this CR says
tonight, it says, we want to balance the budget in 7 years and use CBO
figures. I will support the continuing resolution because that is what
it says.
Now, the continuing resolution says on these parameters that we will
vote to try to balance the budget in 7 years. It does not say that we
are going to cut $270 billion out of Medicare. We will fight that. It
does not say, we are going to cut $10 billion out of student loans. We
will fight that.
It does not say anything about where things will be cut and amended
and pieced together. What it does say is that the American people want
us to talk, Democrats and Republicans. If we can have Bosnians and
Serbs and Croats talking in Dayton, OH, we should talk. If we can have
Catholics and Protestants talk in Northern Ireland, we should talk. And
if we can have Mr. Rabin to talk to Mr. Arafat about a longstanding
feud going back centuries, we can talk and maybe fight about where our
priorities are on a balanced budget.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Texas [Mr. DeLay], distinguished whip.
Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to
me. I do not know that I could improve on that last speech.
Mr. Speaker, I do urge my colleagues to vote for this continuing
resolution which is a giant step toward certifying a balanced budget.
I just wanted to say to my good friend from Maryland, who spoke
earlier, that said 15 pages of this bill are important and mean
something and the 16th page means nothing. My answer to
[[Page H12495]]
the gentleman from Maryland, if it means nothing, he has voted for a 7-
year balanced budget. He ought to be able to vote for this continuing
resolution.
Two-thirds of this House came here to balance the budget. I know some
of my colleagues would rather not send this CR to the President. Some
of my friends would rather keep the heat on the President and let him
keep the government closed. And let me say to my colleagues, that
choice does hold a little appeal to me. It would be nice to have the
President come to the negotiating table rather than just make speeches
that are misleading at best.
But I think we have an opportunity to clarify where President Clinton
stands on a balanced budget. And that is worth its weight in gold.
After all, President Clinton has more stands than the Houston
Astrodome when it comes to the balanced budget. The question today is
simple: Will the President support a real, certified 7-year balanced
budget or will he continue to evade and confuse this issue that is so
important to the American people?
Yesterday President Clinton said, let us say yes to a balanced budget
and no to the cuts. The President really means yes to a balanced budget
but only if it happens by magic.
Well, the President needs to know that a balanced budget only happens
through hard work, hard choices and very real cuts in spending. So I
say to my colleagues that the country wins if we pass this CR, no
matter what the President does. Because if he votes this CR, the
American people finally know that President Clinton oppose a real
balanced budget. But if he signs the bill, we have the real numbers
from which we can negotiate a real agreement. I just urge my colleagues
on both sides of the aisle to put President Clinton on the spot. Vote
for this CR and let us clarify where the President really stands on a
balanced budget.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas
[Mr. Edwards].
Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Speaker, if this resolution were just about
balancing the budget over the next 7 years, I would vote for it. But it
is not, and I will not.
Several speakers from both sides have talked about the fact this is a
clean resolution. Without editorial comment, let me simply state the
facts. This resolution does more than that. On an annualized basis, it
cuts veterans health care benefits by a half a billion dollars. Let me
repeat that. On an annualized basis, it cuts veterans health care
benefits by $500 million. This is not the first continuing resolution.
I would imagine, Mr. Speaker, there are veterans in hospitals around
this country who have served their nation who would probably take
greater umbrage at the facts in this resolution than some of the
Members who helped write it who object to the fact that I have stated
the facts about this resolution.
Let me also say that this is not a clean resolution on other matters,
on many issues that most Democrats had no input on. Let me list some of
the cuts, programs that will be cut by 40 percent. And let each Member
decide whether he or she wants to support a 40-percent cut in these
programs.
{time} 2215
Summer youth employment, AmeriCorps, veterans homeless programs,
State offices of rural health, rural health research, substance abuse
training, national vaccine program, new rural health grants, Low-Income
Home Energy Assistance Program at a time when we have freezing weather
across many parts of this Nation, rural housing, Goals 2000, State and
local grants, Goals 2000 national programs, school-to-work national
programs, early childhood education also along with the others cut by
40 percent, Federal Perkins loan capital contributions, State student
incentive grants.
This is not a clean resolution. I urge my colleagues to vote no on
it.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished
gentleman from Virgina [Mr. Davis].
Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my Republican colleagues for
stripping extraneous language from the continuing resolution as the
President asked, and I applaud my colleagues on the other side who are
willing to join the bipartisan dialog on how to balance the Federal
budget. This continuing resolution does not mandate tax cuts, it does
not mandate Medicare cuts, or education cuts. But it does get our
Federal employees back to work without furloughs over the next 2\1/2\
weeks, and it does mandate that together Republicans and Democrats, the
Congress and the President, will join together and work together to
balance the Federal budget and do it within the CBO guidelines,
something that the President stated right here that he feels was the
best way, the best way really between what will work and what does not
work. It does not cut the veterans benefits; basically, without
furloughs, funds these agencies over these next 2\1/2\ weeks, and it
leaves off Medicare, it leaves off cuts in education and the
environment, which was ostensibly the reason the President gave for
vetoing the last resolution.
This gives the President what he wants, and it commits us to doing
what we came here to do, and that is balance the Federal budget.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from
Tennessee [Mr. Tanner].
Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Wisconsin
[Mr. Obey] for yielding this time to me. I want to thank the Democratic
leadership for allowing us the time. I want to thank the Republican
leadership for bringing forward a better CR than we saw heretofore, and
I want to say that I speak for some Democrats who believe that we can
balance the budget in 7 years and are prepared to support the CR
tonight.
But I want to say that we do not feel like we have a monopoly on
wisdom and virtue and we do not think that either side here has a
monopoly on wisdom and virtue. We think we ought to work together.
This CR is a step in the right direction. It balances, or calls for a
balanced budget, in 7 years.
We think, if our colleagues will allow some of the minority to work
with them and that if the minority will work with the majority, we
think we can make an American solution, not a Republican or Democrat
solution, to the problems that face us all as Americans. If this
country goes under, it is not going to be just the Republicans or the
Democrats going broke. It is going to be all of us, and we ought to set
aside some of this partisan rhetoric that I hear from both sides, quite
frankly, and try to get together here while we are here in the short
time that we serve in public life and do something for the people that
sent us here.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
Ohio [Mr. Hoke].
Mr. HOKE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr.
Livingston] for yielding this time to me.
There is nothing in this continuing resolution about how we will
balance the budget. It merely says that we will do it. The words are:
The President and the Congress shall enact legislation in
the 104th Congress to achieve a unified balanced budget not
later than the year 2002 as scored by the nonpartisan
Congressional Budget Office.
The President's response when he was asked the following question by
Dan Rather, ``Are you saying flat out that you will veto a clean bill
that contains only in it the insistence to balance the budget?''; the
President's response was, ``Yes, I cannot tell you how strongly I feel
that this would not be good for America. I do not believe in it.''
The difference between the President and the Congress has finally
been exquisitely clarified and perfectly defined. This is the people's
House. The people will speak tonight through the Congress. Let us pass
this resolution. Let us balance the budget in 7 years.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from
Florida [Mrs. Meek].
(Mrs. MEEK of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and
extend her remarks.)
Mrs. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am not speaking to the
Republicans because they are together. They have gotten their program
together, and they are coordinated. I am speaking to my colleagues in
the Democratic Party:
I love each of you very, very much. I want to say to you
this is a time for you to stand
[[Page H12496]]
up, and be counted, and it's not time for you to go vacillating and
running all over the globe. It is time that you say we stand
for something, we support our President.
Now do not let anybody be fooled. There is no way in God's Earth that
they can balance this budget by doing $245 billion worth of tax cuts.
There is no way it can be done. If they do it, my colleagues know they
got to take it out of someone's hide. They are going to take it from
the poor, from the elderly, and from the disabled.
Now look at it. I do not care how smart my colleagues are
mathematically or what kind of statistician they are. There is just to
no way that can be done.
Now let us get back down to bare facts. All of my colleagues have
come up here. I have watched them. They want more from Medicare, they
want more for the older people, they want more for Medicaid, and they
are not saying too much about Medicare. I say, ``Think about it. You're
talking about the environment. If you're any kind of environmentalist,
then vote against this continuing resolution. There is no way you can
do it. Face it.''
Mr. Speaker, now is the time to fish or cut bait. My colleagues have
got to cut bait now; the fishing is over.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to
the gentleman from New York [Mr. Boehlert].
(Mr. BOEHLERT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the continuing
resolution and the commitment to a 7-year balanced budget.
Mr. Speaker, for years the Supreme Court has wrestled with the
definition of the word obscene. They have not succeeded, but we here
have. It is obscene to have a national debt approaching $5 trillion, a
national debt which requires us to spend nearly $900 million every day
just in interest payments--that doesn't feed anybody, or clothe
anybody, or educate anybody, or provide jobs or medical care for
anybody--it just services the national debt. That is obscene.
This is an historic moment. We now have the opportunity to
demonstrate, in tangible form by our vote, that we not only heard the
American people and their message of November 8, 1994, we are heeding
it.
The American people said, in unmistakable terms, that they want
smaller, less costly, less intrusive and yet more efficient government.
That's a tall order, but we can do it.
In this 104th Congress, with a new majority determined to respond to
the will of the American people, we have demonstrated that we are
keeping the faith. In this House we have passed a balanced budget
amendment, we have passed a line item veto, we have passed welfare
reform and we have been both responsive and responsible in moving to
avert a crisis of monumental proportions by passing legislation to save
Medicare. I proudly voted for these significant measures, but our job
is not done.
We must move to fulfill our commitment to the American people and our
children and generations to come by approving this resolution which
moves us ahead on our journey to a balanced budget, a balanced budget
to be achieved on a date certain not decades away, but in seven years.
When we have done what we must, we will be able to say a day's work
well done.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
New Hampshire [Mr. Bass].
Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, I have to agree with the words of the
gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Meek]. This is indeed the time to stand
up and be counted. Indeed this is not a debate about airplane trips, or
education, or EPA, or veterans, or Medicare, or whether the national
parks will be open or closed. This is a debate about whether or not we
should pass a continuing resolution that is going to open this
Government up, end the shutdown, and at the same time affirm the vote
that 300 Republicans and Democrats cast earlier this year to have a
balanced budget in 7 years and save this country.
For my two little children, Jonathan and Lucy, and all the other
children in this country in whose hands the future of this country will
lie long after we are all gone, please join me in supporting this
resolution tonight.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from North Dakota [Mr. Pomeroy].
Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, as we debate this continuing resolution
tonight, I think it is important to look at the components of the
budget negotiations that we are actually in the middle of. The majority
would ask us tonight to support a balanced budget by the year 2002
using Congressional Budget Office budget assumptions. Sixty-eight of
us, myself included, have voted for a plan that accomplishes exactly
that. But there is a third and essential leg to this three-legged stool
that is conspicuously missing in the continuing resolution advanced by
the majority tonight, and that is the $245 billion tax cut. There is
not one word about backing off of the $245 billion tax cut in this
continuing resolution.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I must oppose it tonight because we know that
advancing towards the goal of a balanced budget in 2002, which I
support, CBO numbers, which I think are sound, cannot be accomplished
with the $245 billion tax cut without eviscerating cuts to Medicare,
Medicaid, farm programs, student loans, and the rest of the litany of
horrors represented in the budget reconciliation act, including the
raid on pension funds that notwithstanding a 94-to-5 vote in the Senate
has come back into the Budget Reconciliation Act in the conference
committee.
Mr. Speaker, we are at this point in the budget negotiations because
the Republican majority has insisted upon increasing the part B premium
for Medicare as part of passing a continuing resolution. Tonight they
back off of that, but they insist on two points: balanced budget by
2002, CBO numbers, and not 1 inch of budging off of their 245 billion
tax cut disproportionately benefiting the wealthiest people in this
country. We now that means cuts in Medicare, cuts in Medicaid, cuts in
farm programs that cannot be sustained, and we must vote no.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
Oregon [Mr. Bunn], a member of the Committee on Appropriations.
{time} 2230
Mr. BUNN of Oregon. Mr. Speaker, the American people are shouting
about the shutdown of the Federal Government. Some are shouting that we
are scared, we are not sure how we are going to pay the rent, we are
not sure how we are going to buy groceries, and they have a right to be
scared.
But a lot of people are shouting some other things. Here is a
message. I have a stack of faxes. ``We are 60 years old, close down the
government as long as it takes, continue with Medicare reform.''
Another message: ``The Republicans are on the right track. Stay the
course. We have come a long way. We've got a long way to go.''
Another one. ``Hold the line.''
Another one. ``Balance the budget.''
Another one. ``Just do it.''
The message is very clear. Overwhelmingly, my constituents are
saying, ``Stay the course. We want a balance budget.'' We have to
resolve this issue.
Tonight we are offering a solution. We are saying we will get back to
work and we will move to balance the budget. I hope that the President
is listening to the American people. We are, and we are determined to
solve the solution. We are bringing it to his door today.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas
[Mr. Doggett].
Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, this measure has been called a sham, a
shame, but in short, it is nothing but a Medicare cut under another
name. Our Republican colleagues were so committed to cutting Medicare
that the one thing they sent over to the President, along with their
proposal, was an increase in Medicare premiums. They got caught. The
American people have been saying no, and they have been saying no all
week to that kind of Medicare cut. So what are they coming back with
tonight? They come back with a new straitjacket to accomplish through
the back door what they could not get done through the front door.
There is one thing this great revolution that they have provided us
has not changed. That is elementary school arithmetic. Adding still is
the same old way as it was prior to the last election. If you give
hundreds of billions of dollars of tax cuts to those at the top of the
economic ladder, you give the Pentagon $8 billion more than it asked
for,
[[Page H12497]]
the only other place you can look is to take it out of the hide of the
senior citizens of this country, out of the schoolchildren, and out of
the environment. That is what they are going to do through this
resolution. If you believe in protecting Medicare, you are going to
vote against this.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, with a flabbergasted expression of
surprise, I am not happy to yield such time as he may consume to the
gentleman from California [Mr. Gallegly].
(Mr. GALLEGLY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to
me.
I stand tonight in strong support of this resolution.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 1 minute to the
distinguished gentleman from New York [Mr. Forbes], a member of the
Committee on Appropriations.
(Mr. FORBES asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. FORBES. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to
me.
Mr. Speaker, now is the time. The Nation is asking us to put
partisanship aside and unite as a Nation on behalf of this very
responsible blueprint that builds for a better tomorrow. On behalf of
my child, Abbie, and my son, Ted, and all the children of America, it
is time to embrace as a Nation this blueprint. I ask the protectors of
the old order here in Washington to put it aside.
Let us move forward, with the President and the Congress united, let
us go forward in this blueprint that takes care of the future for our
children, creates jobs for the future, hope and opportunity for all
Americans. It is time to unite and pass the continuing resolution.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy].
(Mr. KENNEDY of Massachusetts asked and was given permission to
revise and extend his remarks).
Mr. KENNEDY of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I come to you this evening
before this body as a strong supporter of a balanced budget, a strong
supporter of a balanced budget in 7 years. I challenge the Republicans
to give us a balanced budget within 7 years. Stop this ancillary
nonsense of cutting every program out there. You go out and you cut
programs that provide for youth employment, you cut the programs for
veteran's homeless benefits, you cut programs that look out for the
Native Americans, for AIDS education, for rural housing, for substance
abuse, for low-income energy assistance, the Christa McAuliffe
scholarship fund, all of the Eisenhower leadership grants, and the star
schools programs.
You sit there and cut those programs with grins on your faces, and
yet you are willing to provide an enormous tax cut to the wealthy, you
are willing to cut the Medicare Program, you sit there, two-faced,
pretending to the American people that you are for a balanced budget
when the only thing you are for is gutting the poor, hurting the low-
income people, hurting the senior citizens, and lining the pockets of
the wealthy.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I will refrain from asking unanimous
consent for the gentleman to proceed for another hour, and I yield such
time as he may consume to the gentleman from Alabama [Mr. Callahan].
(Mr. CALLAHAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks and include extraneous material.)
Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record an editorial that
appeared today in the Mobile Press Register.
Nation's Future at Stake in Budget Showdown
It finally happened. President Clinton and the Congress
were eyeball to eyeball, neither blinked, and the government
shutdown was under way. On its first full day, more than a
few Americans shared radio commentator Paul Harvey's
attitude: ``The government has shut down. Enjoy it while you
can.'' In reality, though, this Beltway tug of war is no
laughing matter.
If it isn't resolved quickly, the man on the street may
conclude that neither the Clinton White House nor the GOP-led
Congress cares nearly as much about the future of the country
as they do about the upcoming elections. In the case of Bill
Clinton, who tracks opinion polls like a dog following a
juicy steak, the man on the street would be correct.
Over in the House, though, one-third of the Republicans
were elected for the first time in the 1994 GOP landslide.
They believe passionately that they were sent to Washington
to carry out the will of the voters. Their constituents want
them to downsize government, fix welfare, restore Medicare to
solid footing, balance the budget and eradicate deficit
spending--and they intend to do it.
They're the ones who are refusing to get drawn into
politics as usual, who aren't willing to be bullied by poll
numbers or even the threat of losing their Republican
majority in 1996.
This budgetary clash of the titans erupted Monday over two
normally routine measures. One was a bill that would have
raised the national debt limit so the government could borrow
money to pay its bills. The other was a measure to fund the
government temporarily while Congress kept working on the
regular appropriations bill.
The president vetoed the emergency measures because
Republicans insisted he sign onto their goal of balancing the
budget in seven years. That should have surprised no one; Mr.
Clinton is always weak when he should be strong, and
inflexible when he should be willing to negotiate.
How can he fail to recognize that this is no mere political
struggle? What the president and Congress do now about
balancing the budget will define the scope and the nature of
our government well into the 21st century. This is a rare
chance to step off the deficit treadmill. Results would
include lower interest rates, increased investment and a
dynamic economy for years to come.
Without action on Washington's part, before the year 2000
we will be spending more each year on the national debt than
we spend on national defense. Yet Mr. Clinton stands
stubborn, declaring that he'll protect Americans from the
GOP's ``unwise cuts'' in Medicare, Medicaid, education and
environmental protection.
Whenever genuine balanced-budget advocates talk about
reining in government spending, this president accuses
Republicans of ``slashing'' social programs. Such shameless
rhetoric is obviously intended to rouse public ire and
obscure the real issues.
Republican leaders are doing the nation a service by
holding out for a presidential commitment to a balanced
budget. Mr. Clinton is doing the nation a disservice by his
blatant attempts to fuel public hysteria.
White House spokesman Mike McCurry said Tuesday that his
boss is ``willing to give up his presidency'' rather than
accept the GOP's priorities. That's nice to know; but if Bill
Clinton blows this opportunity for government to turn itself
around, his ``willingness'' to relinquish the presidency in
1996 will be academic.
A year from now, voters will take care of that for him.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
Arkansas [Mr. Dickey], a distinguished member of the Committee on
Appropriations.
Mr. DICKEY. Mr. Speaker, I represent Hope, Arkansas, and Hot Springs,
Arkansas. I represent where the President has grown up, where he has
forged out his political career, where he has gotten votes from
citizens in my district from years and years and years.
I want Members to know I am in favor of this balanced budget, because
those people at home are crying out for that to happen. They want the
President to know that it is not a question of who we are taking money
away from as far as the poor and the people who are dependent on
government, it is who they are taking away from before they get to that
point.
The President knows that. He is from our district. He knows that.
They are saying, almost unanimously, with every letter, every call I
get, ``Balance the budget. Do not get fooled.'' I am saying the same
thing. I would like for us to respect the people who earn the money and
balance the budget for their sake, rather than the people who are
receiving the money from the government.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 6\1/2\ minutes.
Mr. Speaker, nobody in this House can say that I have routinely and
blindly defended the President of the United States. If you doubt that,
all you have to do is take a look at the newspapers this morning. But
having said that, I want to stand here and defend him from some of the
things that I have heard this evening.
Mr. Speaker, this debate, unfortunately, is not being driven by
policy. It is, in my judgment, being driven by sheer, raw power
politics. There is no question that the Speaker has been planning for a
long time for this moment. All you have to do is to go back to his
quotations in April and May, where he made quite clear that he was just
waiting for the time that he could load up a debt ceiling or a CR and
send
[[Page H12498]]
it to the President, and he made quite clear on numerous occasions that
he did not care what the price was.
He made that clear as recently, I believe, as yesterday. I don't care
what price political parties pay, or what people pay on this House
floor, but I do care about the price that our system pays when the
public concludes that what we are doing is driven by raw politics and
raw personal ambition. And yet that is what the public has concluded on
the basis of this sorry episode.
We are in this position because this Congress has not finished its
work. We are in this position because over 90 percent of the
appropriations still have not become law, and that has given the
Speaker an opportunity to try to leverage his position by sending down
to the President a series of poison pills.
First, he sent down to the President the CR which the President
vetoed because that contained the poison pill that required Medicare
premiums to be virtually doubled over the next few years. The President
vetoed that. The majority party took a big public relations bath for
that effort.
Now you are in the process of trying to send a second poison pill
down to the White House. That poison pill is to demand that the
President, sight unseen, with no understanding of what underlying
assumptions there are. Except for CBO's technical and economic
assumptions, it demands that, sight unseen, he buy into the idea of a 7
years balanced budget.
Let me tell you why I am suspicious of that timetable. Because I have
been here long enough to see three previous promises broken in terms of
multiyear budgets. This chart shows the contrast between the promises
that Ronald Reagan told us, that he would balance the budget in 4
years, versus, in the red bars, the performance. He promised that in 4
years we would hit a zero deficit. They missed by $185 billion.
Then we were told, ``Well, let's try Gramm-Rudman.'' Again, they
promised in 5 years we would get to a balanced budget. They only missed
by $220 billion.
Then they tried Gramm-Rudman II, and again, they promised that they
would take us down to zero deficit. They only missed by $290 billion.
So I think we have a lot of reasons to be suspicious of these political
promises about multiyear balanced budgets.
Nonetheless, nonetheless, I am willing to support that idea, provided
we know what your other assumptions are. That is why the recommit
motion, which I will offer tonight, would have us accept this
proposition, provided that you buy some of our assumptions.
Our assumptions would be:
First, no tax cut shall be provided until the budget is in balance;
Second, no reduction should be made in education which closed the
door of opportunity to young people;
Third, no alterations in the Medicare program should restrict the
access or quality of care available to senior citizens, or
disproportionately increase the cost of that care to those citizens;
Fourth, no money may be appropriated, and no targeted tax benefits
will be provided, including all fiscal 1996 appropriation measures and
the reconciliation bill you are about to produce, if they are not
subjected to a line-item veto which the President can exercise to hold
us to that 7-year timetable.
{time} 2245
You want us to buy your technical assumptions on CBO. I will be happy
to buy them, but we want to know that in the process you are not going
to gut social security, you are not going to gut Medicare, you are not
going to gut education, you are not going to provide a tax cut, a huge
percentage of which goes to the highest income people in this country.
We want to know in short order that your economic prescription for
reaching that balance is not going to fall disproportionately on the
shoulders of working people so that once again the richest one-half
million families in this country can clean up on the gravy train as
they have done by your policies for the last 12 years. You buy our
assumptions, we will buy yours.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
Georgia [Mr. Kingston], a distinguished member of the Committee on
Appropriations.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
You know, 435 Members of this body claim in principle to accept the
balanced budget, and every break we go back to the Kiwanis Clubs and
Lions Clubs, and we tell the Rotary Club we want a balanced budget.
``Of course, I support it.''
I call this Rotary Club speech versus reality. Tonight you have a
chance to make that vote. There is nothing to squirm about in this. It
is just a clean bill. Very simple. Do you want a balanced budget in 7
years or not? Do you want to get the furloughed employees back to work
or not? Do you want to leave the gates of old faithful open or not? Do
you want the social security services and passport services to be
reopened or not? That is what we are debating.
We are not debating Medicare. We are not debating welfare reform. We
are not debating taxes. We know you all love taxes as much as you seem
to disdain the middle class.
But this is only a bedrock, fundamental question. Statement in
principal: Do you want a balanced budget in 7 years or not?
You know, the previous speaker said that our Speaker, the Speaker of
the House, had been waiting for this for months. Well, I will tell you
what, 234 Members on this side of the aisle have been waiting for this,
and so have the American people. Let us balance the budget and let us
do it tonight.
Let us vote for this bill.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished
gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Myers].
Mr. MYERS of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding
this time to me.
Mr. Speaker, I am not one who usually takes the floor on things like
this. I usually like to reserve to bills that I have direct
jurisdiction.
But I am alarmed tonight at what I am hearing, the restoration of the
partisanship on both sides, in fact, that does not really fit tonight.
We have been criticized by the media, by the American people, because
we have been partisan. The last week in Terre Haute I was criticized
because I said there was ample responsibility and blame for both sides
of the aisle here in not achieving this continuing resolution.
Now, I am going to be critical of you on the Democratic side. I am
about as least partisan as anyone here and still claim to be a loyal
Republican. But you asked for a clean CR. I am surprised that this is
as clean as it is, with one exception, the provision that we have
almost all of us voted for that we will support to balance the budget
by the year 2002. That is all this says, that we are reestablishing.
Tonight, support this. If the President does not sign it, then I will
say the blame is all one way. And I am sorry to say that.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished
gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Fox].
Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, we have been discussing
tonight, talking about the poison. The poison, Mr. Speaker, is the $5
trillion debt. The antidote is a balance budget.
The President said on no less than six occasions, in fact, a balanced
budget is something he wants. Well, all of America is waiting for it.
This legislation is bipartisan. A balanced budget, according to Alan
Greenspan, will reduce mortgage payments, reduce car payments, reduce
college payments, reduce health care costs.
This is the best legislation for seniors, for children, working
families. This bill is good for America.
I ask all Members to vote for it. It is good for America.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished
gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Barr].
Mr. BARR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this
time.
Mr. Speaker, men and women and children of America, listen up, look
into the eyes of this Chamber, listen to the words in this Chamber, for
tonight for the very first time in the entire 11 months of this 104th
historic Congress, the issue is crystal-clear. The issue is crystal-
clear, as it will go down to Pennsylvania Avenue. This issue is
crystal-clear, as it will go over tomorrow to the U.S. Senate. Does
this body join the American people in support of
[[Page H12499]]
a balanced budget or do they not? Is the President going to stand by
what he said over and over again, or is he not?
He will have that chance. America has that chance. This is America's
night. This is America's day. Stand up and say we will balance the
budget and make sure that the folks on both sides are accountable for
that, and, most importantly, men and women of America, make sure the
gentleman at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue hears that message. Call, write,
fax: ``We want a balanced budget amendment, we want a balanced
budget.'' This is the vehicle to do it.
Let us commit ourselves as America has committed us to do and vote
for this continuing resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Dreier). The Chair wishes to inform the
Members that all remarks should be address to the Speaker, not to other
Members or to those outside the Chamber.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
Arizona [Mr. Salmon].
Mr. SALMON. Mr. Speaker, let me see if I get this right: If we vote
for the alternative proposal being offered tonight, then we are
basically admitting that we are willing to cut, or we are willing to
meet the balanced budget? We just do not want to change our spending
any? That is a joke. I think we all know that. I think the American
people know that, that there really is only one way to balance the
budget, and that is to reduce the rate of growth and to stop spending
as past Congresses have done.
Why are we doing this? We talked about poison pills. We have talked
about a system, protecting a system.
Well, let me tell you, you cannot go home and hug a system. I can go
home and hug my four children. This is for them. This is for the future
of our children.
The balanced budget means the very lives and future of every one of
those children just as it is for my children. Put up or shut up. Come
on, you have got the opportunity to do so. Quit squawking, get the job
done.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from
Maryland [Mrs. Morella].
(Mrs. MORELLA asked and was given permission to revise and extend her
remarks.)
Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Speaker, I do rise in favor of this clean
continuing resolution to balance the budget and, as a matter of fact,
to let Government start operating again.
I also rise on behalf of 800,000 Federal workers who have been
furloughed. These men and women are frightened, anxious, and confused.
Through no fault of their own, they find that they no longer can work.
Even though they have been assured that there will be an appropriation
for them in the future, they want to work. They want to continue
research on the AIDS virus. They do not want to stop looking for better
educational strategies for our children. They do not want to stop
developing alternative energy sources. And they want a balanced budget.
To me, this is so very simple. There is no requirement in balancing
this budget, the commitment the President has made and will make with
this continuing resolution, that says he has to have tax cuts in it.
There is no commitment that he has to follow any of the suggestions
that have been made by the majority side. He simply has to show he can
balance it in 7 years using the CBO figures.
We must do that tonight.
Mr. Speaker, there is a need to balance the budget. But, what is
getting lost in the budget debates and the shutdown posturing is the
fact that Federal workers are human beings--they are taxpayers; and
they are consumers. They have kids off in college. They buy food at the
local grocery and worship at the neighborhood churches and synagogues.
These public servants also want a balanced budget and believe in a
future for their children--the common vision that we all share, even
though there are different roads to get there.
I've been assured by the leadership that action will be put forth
that would pay Federal workers for any time off resulting from this
shutdown, and I am sure the President will agree with this. And I'm
grateful for this commitment, but Federal workers do not want something
for nothing. They want to work. They don't want to stop research on the
AIDS virus; they don't want to stop looking for better educational
strategies for our children; and they don't want to stop developing
alternative energy sources. And they want a balanced budget.
Shutdowns are inconsistent with the principles that bring people to
Federal service. They are contrary to good government management and an
affront to the taxpayers who must foot the shutdown bill.
Mr. Speaker, we all look bad on this--from the President to the most
junior Member of Congress. I hope we learn a valuable lesson from this
experience, because I never want to come to this floor again to speak
about a Federal shutdown.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
Virginia [Mr. Goodlatte].
Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding this
time to me.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this continuing resolution,
and I reach out my hand in thanks to the many Members of the other side
who are going to join us in supporting this continuing resolution and
making it a bipartisan bill going back to the President
Frankly, I am stunned that before we had even taken action this
evening, the President took it upon himself to say that he would veto
legislation that is going to have strong bipartisan support that would
reopen the government and, most importantly, establish the principle
that 300 of us on both sides of the aisle voted for, and that is to
balance the budget in this country for the first time in 33 years.
I urge my colleagues to support this continuing resolution on both
sides of the aisle. Let us send this to the President and let him know
that we want to see a balanced budget for the first time in this
country in over 25 years.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to
the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon].
(Mr. SOLOMON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill that is good
for all Americans.
Mr. Speaker, a lot of our constituents have been wondering what this
whole government shutdown crisis is all about. Contrary to the
characterizations by some in the media and elsewhere, this is not a
petty, partisan, pushing match between a Republican Congress, and a
Democrat President over who is tougher or stronger.
This is a very serious debate over the future size, shape, role, and
direction of this Federal Government.
It is about our commitment to achieve a balanced budget in 7 years.
It is about downsizing and streamlining the Federal bureaucracy.
It is about returning more responsibility and, tax dollars to the
States, localities, and most importantly, to the people.
It is really all about the first three words of the Constitution,
``We the People.'' The people want a balanced budget.
The people want a trimmed down Federal bureaucracy.
The people want us to cut waste fraud and abuse from Government.
The people want us to re-think, re-set, and, yes, reduce our Federal
priorities, because they recognize that when the Federal Government
tries to do everything for the people, it usually fails to do much of
anything successfully, other than collecting the people's hard-earned
tax dollars.
That is what this dispute between the President and the Congress is
all about. We have invited the President to join with us in our task of
bringing the Federal budget into balance by fiscal year 2002.
The President has thus far balked at our invitation on grounds that
he doesn't want to give up his priorities and programs. He would still
like to have the American people believe that we can not only continue
with all we are now doing (and spending) but that we can even do and
spend more, not less, and still balance the budget at some time after
he has long left office.
Mr. Speaker, that is a recipe for disaster. The Federal Government is
not what will save our Nation and its economy. It is our ability
through the private sector to create new and better jobs and
opportunities for today's workers and their children.
The Federal Government is not our salvation. But it is what is
standing in the way of this country's salvation, as long as the
Government continues to spend us deeper and deeper into debt, and
consume the capital that is so desperately needed to re-build this
country and its economy.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, the differences between this Congress and
the president are not petty, partisan squabbling, by any means.
[[Page H12500]]
They are a very fundamental debate about the future direction and
scope of this Government, and what it will or will not allow the people
(by their individual and collective enterprise and efforts) to do to
save this great Nation of ours.
And balancing our Government's books, in a reasonable amount of time,
in a carefully measured way, is critical to the success of ``We the
People'' to save ourselves by our private sector initiatives and
efforts.
Let's vote for this bill that will permit the Government to function
at a reduced rate of spending, while we hammer-out the final details of
that 7-year balanced budget bill, that will put us on that steady
glide-path of digging this Nation out of its debts, and putting it back
on a glide-path of fiscal responsibility.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
Florida [Mr. Shaw].
Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding this time
to me.
Mr. Speaker, I would like very quickly to say that this should not be
a partisan vote tonight. This is a question of whether or not we are
going to balance the budget of this country within 7 years. It is about
the economic future of this country. It is not about a tax cut. There
is no tax cut in this bill.
It is not about Medicare. Medicare is not in this bill.
It is not about a Republican or a Democrat agenda. It is simply about
common sense: Do we want to leave the country that we received from our
parents, do we want to leave that quality of life and economic future
to our kids?
Tonight, before each one of us casts our vote, close your eyes for
just a second, think about your kids, your grandkids. Think about the
generations to come after us. Do we want them to have what we had? Or
do we want to leave them a bankrupt Nation?
Think about it tonight. This is the only question that we should
really consider: Do we want to live within our means and leave a better
country for our children than we have today?
{time} 2300
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute and 30 seconds to the
gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Norwood].
Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding 1 minute
to me, and wish it were 1 hour.
I rise tonight to ask all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle
to please vote for this bill, this CR. I think it is not that
complicated. We are trying to put our Federal workers back to work. We
are simply saying that we need to balance our budget, and Members all
know that.
My colleagues have all said they wanted to do that in a 7-year
period. I am asking my colleagues to help us balance this budget for my
children and my grandchildren, for the 80 percent of the American
people who believe we need to balance it, for the 66 percent of the
people in my district who voted for me who sent me here to balance it,
but maybe most of all for one Federal employee who left a note in my
office the other night. I would like to read it to my colleagues and
share it with them and ask them to consider voting for us.
The note read,
Congressman Norwood, please don't give an inch to Clinton.
I work in the AC shop and I met you the other night. I have a
wife and 5 children and stand to lose $531 this week from
furlough days. I support Newt and yourself and all others for
the current balanced budget. The only Christmas we may have
is this bill, but I can't think of a better Christmas.
Please support this bill.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the
distinguished gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Gephardt], minority leader.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Dreier). The gentleman from Missouri
[Mr. Gephardt] is recognized for 3 minutes.
(Mr. GEPHARDT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to vote against this bill.
We are here tonight because we have not gotten our work done. We are on
a continuing resolution because the appropriation bills have not been
done on time.
I respect greatly the work that has gone into this budget. I respect
the legitimate intentions of the Members in the majority that have
worked on this. But we have expended a tremendous amount of energy in
the last days simply trying to extend the government, extend the debt
so that we could have the time to do either the presentation of bills
to the President so that we could bring this to a successful conclusion
or to get the veto from the President, which is certain to come, so
that we could get to the negotiations, if that is what is to happen
next, so that we again can bring this to a successful conclusion.
We are expending energy needlessly on a continuing resolution tonight
that includes admonitions about the budget in a bill that is not the
budget. We know that there are many Members in the body, Democrats and
Republicans, that want to reach a balanced budget in 7 years. This bill
does not do it. The bill tomorrow or Friday is the bill that does that.
And we cannot quite seem to get to the main act.
Now, let me say to my friends, if this is to be successful at the end
of the day, at some point there has to be a willingness in the majority
to say that there have to be 100 minority Members who are part of
voting for this budget so the President will ultimately sign it. For
the good of the country, I would hope that we could get to that point.
But many on the majority side have said over and over again, well, the
only way this works, the only way we will be for it is if there are 218
Republican votes for the bill. And in fact, some have said we will
never be for a budget that gets as much as 100 Democratic votes. If
that is the ultimate outcome, I think then we are bound to argue these
issues into the campaign.
I am not unwilling to do that. In fact, I have come to believe that
these issues are of such importance over such a long period of time
that the American people should be dealt into these decisions, if the
decisions are simply yours alone. So at some point there has got to be
a coming together.
Let me finally say this: I understand the Speaker said today,
reported in a news article, and sometimes those news articles are wrong
and I understand that, but he said that the 7-year number was
intuition. I respect his intuition. I respect anybody's intuition. But
I am here to tell my colleagues that this issue of 7 years is a clash
of values. A budget is not just about 7 years. A budget is about a lot
of different decisions.
I am here to tell my colleagues tonight, like a lot of people among
the American people, I am not for balancing the budget in 5 or 6 or 7
or even 8 years, if it means decimating and ruining the Medicare
program that the people of this country have come to depend upon. I am
not for balancing the budget in 6 or 7 or 8 years if it means that the
young people in my district and in your district cannot get a student
loan when they need a student loan to get their education. I can tell
my colleagues for sure that I am not for a balanced budget if it means
that we are going to cut Medicare and Medicaid and cut seniors, if we
are using the majority of that money to pay for a tax break for the
wealthiest people in this country.
So I say to my friends on the Democratic side tonight, vote against
this bill. Let us not put bookends on this decision that says that it
has got to be my way or the highway. Let us decide in a rational way,
either through the presentation of bills or through an honest
negotiation between the parties for a good, sensible, logical, humane
balanced budget for this country, even if it takes 8 years or 9 years.
Let us not lock our hands tonight and say there is only one way to do
this. There has got to be a number of ways to do it. Let us work
together to get it done sensibly.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, the lines are clearly drawn. The other side wanted a
clean bill. This is a clean bill with one exception. It says all we
want to do is achieve a unified balanced budget not later than the
fiscal year 2002 based on the most current economic and technical
assumptions of the Congressional Budget Office. That is the difference
in this bill from the bill that they have been saying they wanted from
the beginning, and all this one does is commit us to a balanced budget.
On behalf of all the Americans who want the Federal budget balanced
and on behalf of all Americans who want their government working and
fully functioning, I would urge all our Members, Republican and
Democrat alike,
[[Page H12501]]
to pass a clean continuing resolution that will commit us to a balanced
budget by the year 2002.
Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, finally the choice has been made clear:
whether the Congress and then the President are committed to a balanced
budget or not. The question is not 7 years, or whether there will be a
tax cut or not, or whether Medicare and Medicaid will be reformed. The
question is solely whether the Congress is committed to balancing the
budget in 7 years or not, and then whether the President has such a
commitment.
The issue is really whether business in Washington will continue as
usual or whether there will be a new commitment to change. To change
from policies that have left our children in major cities uneducated,
or welfare system supporting persons in the third and fourth
generations, our population plagued with drugs, our prisons overflowing
with people who do not obey our laws.
Change has come to the private sector in America, and while the
transition in the post-cold-war world has been difficult, our country
today is in position to successfully compete throughout the world. We
have known that it was necessary to change how we organized and
conducted or business enterprises, to reduce inventories, to lay off
unproductive and unneeded employees, to do those things to meet
competitive pressures in the world economy. We have turned the corner
and today are as competitive as we have ever been, with an economy
characterized by both low inflation and low unemployment.
But change in the private sector is not enough. Everyone understands
that government must change as well. That 40 years of accumulating
programs to serve narrow constituencies at high administative costs can
no longer be afforded. That huge deficits year after year, draining the
future from our children and grandchildren, cannot be tolerated. That
all the rights we are guaranteed as a free people in this most free
land on earth come with responsibilities--the responsibility to give
something to our country, to contribute to solving its problems.
It's time, Mr. Speaker, that we start from the premise that we are
all Americans, that we must change business as usual, stop demanding
that our interests as seniors, or business people, or union members, or
farmers, or of any group come first, and that we find the way to work
together to solve our country's problems. We must begin by a commitment
to balance the budget and put ourselves on a solid economic foundation
that will guarantee our children and grandchildren the opportunity for
a better economic life.
This resolution does that. It puts the Government back to work for
the American people and commits the Congress and the President to
balancing the budget. There is no escape for the President, nor for any
Member of Congress, Mr. Speaker. You're either for balancing the budget
or against it. There's no question of how, or what spending cuts will
or will not be made or whether tax cuts are or are not part of it. It's
only a commitment to do the job. Yes or no. How will you be counted?
{time} 2310
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Dreier). All time has expired.
Pursuant to House Resolution 270, the previous question is ordered.
The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the joint
resolution.
The joint resolution was ordered to be engrossed and read a third
time, and was read the third time.
motion to recommit offered by mr. obey
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman opposed to the joint
resolution?
Mr. OBEY. In its present form I am, Mr. Speaker.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion to
recommit.
The Clerk, read as follows:
Mr. Obey moves to recommit House Joint Resolution 122 to
the Committee on Appropriations with instructions that it
report back the joint resolution to the House forthwith with
the following amendments:
On page 9, line 12, strike ``40 percent'' and insert ``10
percent''; and,
Amend Title III by striking the last period and inserting
the following: ``and shall be based on the following
substantive assumptions
(1) tax cuts shall be provided only after the budget is in
balance;
(2) no reductions in education shall be made which close
the doors of opportunity to young people;
(3) no alterations in the Medicare program shall restrict
the access or quality of care available to senior citizens or
disproportionately increase the cost of that care to those
citizens; and
(4) no money will be appropriated and no targeted tax
benefit will be provided (including all fiscal year 1996
appropriation measures and any reconciliation bill enacted
after the date of enactment of this joint resolution) that is
not subject to a line item veto in order to maintain the time
table for a balanced budget.''
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] is
recognized for 5 minutes in support of his motion to recommit.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, what this motion to recommit says is that we
will be happy to buy into the idea of a 7-year balanced budget despite
all of the blindfolds that that implies provided that the majority
party will be willing to buy into the following requirements: First of
all, that a tax cut will be provided only after the budget is in
balance. We do not want any $14,000 tax cuts going to people making
$300,000 a year before the budget is balanced. I do not want them
anytime.
We also do not want any reductions in education which will close the
doors of opportunity for young people. I thought the reason we came
here was to open doors of opportunity, not close them.
Mr. Speaker, we also do not want to see tax cuts that are provided by
cuts in Medicare and cuts in Medicaid, and we do not want cuts in those
programs to affect the quality of care or disproportionately increase
the cost of that care to the citizens who rely on those programs.
Lastly, we want the line-item veto to apply to each and every
appropriation bill that passes for this fiscal year, we want it to
apply to every item in the reconciliation bill that passes, and we also
want it to apply to all of the tax goodies that from time to time work
their way into bills in this place, especially for rich friends. We
want the President to be able, if he indeed is expected to adhere to a
timetable of 7 years, we want the President to have all of those tools
available, and we want them available now.
Now everybody talks about personal experiences. I held a lot of
hearings in my district over the past months, and the person I will
never forget is a young woman who was 22 or 23 from Rhinelander, WI,
who appeared at a hearing of mine. She had two young children. She
divorced her husband because he beat the hell out of her on a regular
basis, and she needed Medicaid desperately, she needed to maintain her
student loan, she was homeless for 4 months last year, and yet she kept
going to school each and every day because she wanted to make something
of herself.
I do not want to balance the budget on the backs of people like that
when at the same time in the reconciliation package coming down at us
on that freight train we are going to be asked to make life a whole lot
easier for the wealthiest people in this society.
Mr. Speaker, I have absolutely nothing against rich people. I want
everybody to be rich. But in the 1980's, in the 1980's, we saw the
richest one-half million families in this country increase their share
of national wealth from 24 percent to 32 percent. Think about it. At
the same time we saw the average working person in this country either
hang on or lose ground.
We want to change that. We do not want to see the budget balanced in
a way which increases the disparity--in income and well-being--between
the very wealthiest people in this society and the folks, the everyday
folks, who struggle every day just to make ends meet.
If we are going to listen to the accountants who tell us how we
numerically pull the numbers together, we also want to listen to the
folks who will talk to us about the morality associated with these
choices so that we also pay attention to the need to hold this society
together. And we will not hold this society together if we continue to
follow a prescription which asks as its first question, ``What can we
do for the boys on the top?'' We will not hold this society together if
we wind up with a prescription that gives table scraps to everybody
else in this society, and that is what has been happening for the last
12 to 15 years.
I urge my colleagues to vote for this motion to recommit, and I urge
my colleagues to vote against this resolution if the motion to recommit
is not adopted.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
[[Page H12502]]
Louisiana [Mr. Livingston] for 5 minutes.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to
recommit, in favor of the continuing resolution, and I yield the 5
minutes to the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Gingrich], the distinguished
Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Mr. GINGRICH. Mr. Speaker, I think this is a very historic debate,
and I thank the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston] for yielding
this time to me.
The Mobile Press-Register had it right today when they ran an
editorial entitled ``Nation's Future at Stake in Budget Slowdown,'' and
that is what this is really all about.
I listened carefully twice this evening to the gentleman from
Wisconsin, the distinguished leader of the Democrats on the Committee
on Appropriations. I really liked his one chart about how past efforts
had failed. He did not note that he was part of the majority in
Congress during those failures and that we are different. We have been
here 11 months, and we are different, and we recognize that, and we
accept it.
As my colleagues know, this does not need to be a fight.
{time} 2320
Virtually every liberal who opposed the balanced budget earlier this
year said, ``We don't need a constitutional amendment. We need the
courage to make the decisions now.'' You go back and read the Record.
Virtually every liberal said, ``Vote no on the constitutional amendment
for a balanced budget. We can do it here.'' And they are right. And we
are.
Just last week, 68 Democrats voted for a 7-year balanced budget. Let
us be very clear, the language tonight says nothing about taxes. It
says nothing about defense. It says nothing about education or
environment. All it says, all it says the President of the United
States, in return for us giving him billions of dollars to spend,
should commit to a 7-year balanced budget, scored honestly, by the
Congressional Budget Office.
Everything is on the table. You want to negotiate over the taxes?
Fine. Let us negotiate. We believe that a $500 tax credit per child for
a working mother with three children is a good thing. That is $1,500 in
her pocket when she goes to work. But that is not in this resolution.
That is to be negotiated. All this resolution says is ``Use the
Congressional Budget Office.''
Now, I was here in the minority, I sat right there where the
gentleman from California is sitting, in the Whip's chair, and I
watched the President of the United States, Mr. Clinton, right there is
his first speech to the Congress. And he said to us: ``We should score
all of these things with the Congressional Budget Office.'' He said it.
Why? Because historically it was more honest, it was more accurate, and
it was not under the political control of the President.
So all we have done is take the President's advice. Now, there is one
constant misrepresentation I just have to take a moment to comment on.
It is in the statement of administration policy sent out. And it
saddens me. It was in the quotes from the gentleman from Texas [Mr.
Doggett], from the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey], from my good
friend, the minority leader, the gentleman from Missouri [Mr.
Gephardt]. Here is what the administration says: ``Drastic cuts in
Medicare.''
Let me say to my friends, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey]
talked about ``gutting Medicare.'' The gentleman from Texas [Mr.
Doggett] talked about ``simply arithmetic.'' Let me give you the
actual facts, and I am not asking all my Democratic friends to agree to
this. That would be on the table to be negotiated. But I at least have
to make the record clear.
This year we spend $4,800 per senior citizen. At the end of 7 years
in our plan to balance the budget and save the Medicare trust fund from
going broke, we spend $6,700 per senior citizen. That is just an
arithmetical fact. That is just true. You may not like it, maybe you
want to spend more, but that is an increase per senior citizen of
$1,900, per year per senior citizen, more than the inflation rate, more
than the medical inflation rate. In fact the total growth in this
program, which is 45 percent, is twice the inflation rate.
When people say the word ``cut,'' it is just not accurate. I really
wish they would have somebody on their staff do the arithmetic; from
$4,800 to $6,700 is an increase.
But let me come back to what is really happening. The President wants
money. We need to get the furloughed employees back to work. That is
the right thing to do. We want the Federal Government to work at full
speed. That is the right thing to do. But the President, since April,
when I first said we would not accept a veto strategy, we would not
allow ourselves to be stopped by the power of the veto, the President
simply refused to negotiate, and as recently as tonight he has said he
does not want to get to a balanced budget in 7 years. He wants a lot
more money, a lot bigger deficit, a lot higher taxes.
We have a document right down the hall called the Magna Carta. It is
a reproduction from England of the original, created in 1215, when the
barons said to King John, ``You can't have money unless the people who
are taxed have some say.'' In America that got translated pretty
simply: No taxation without representation.
Then we created the Congress based on the House of Commons, the House
over here. The Senate was supposed to be the House of Lords, and I will
not comment, out of a sense of comity. But the power to originate all
taxes and the power to originate all spending is in the legislative
branch.
Why? So that the 435 people elected every 2 years from back home, and
the 100 Senators elected to represent the States, would have the power
to say to a President: ``If you want money from the American people,
there are legitimate, honorable conditions.''
And tonight we only say we want one condition, and it is not a hard
condition. Almost 90 percent of the American people want this
condition. Our phones are ringing off the hook with people who are
saying, ``Don't back down. Don't give in.'' What is that condition?
Balance the budget. And how long do we take? I say to my friend, the
gentleman from Missouri, you are right. Seven is an intuitive number.
It is based on having spent 35 years studying this business and trying
to figure out what is the shortest time without causing immense pain
that we could get to a balanced budget.
I would say that the gentleman from Ohio, Chairman Kasich, has done a
brilliant job in working that out, and I would say that 68 of your own
colleagues voted last week to 7 years because it is doable in 7 years.
Why should we take a year longer than necessary?
So all I say to all my friends on both sides of the aisle, we do not
ask you to agree on tax cuts, we do not ask you to agree to a number in
defense, we do not ask you to agree to a number in education, we do not
ask you to agree to anything but two principles, that the budget shall
be balanced in 7 years and that the scoring will be honest numbers
based on the Congressional Budget Office.
We say to the President, ``We offer you a contract with the
representatives of the American people. We will give you the money to
bring back the furloughed employees. You sign on the line that you
agree to work to a balanced budget.'' It is that simple. It is that
direct. It is that American.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. Speaker, I want to make it clear that I support
balancing the Federal budget within 7 years. It can be done if we roll
up our sleeves and work in a bipartisan fashion.
However, I am not able to support this evening's continuing
resolution as it fails to provide even the most basic protections for
Social Security or Medicare. Further, it would immediately cut
education, veterans' homeless programs, and--at the outset of winter--
the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.
This is not a vote taken in a vacuum. The House has adopted a
balanced budget that calls for $270 billion in Medicare cuts. I cannot
and I will not support the weakening of Medicare for our seniors.
I am prepared tonight to work across the aisle to balance the budget.
My priorities for cutting the Federal budget include slashing military
spending, agricultural subsidies, the space program, and Federal agency
overhead, as well as eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in the
Medicare and Medicaid Programs.
[[Page H12503]]
I will work with anyone to bring the Federal budget under control,
but I cannot support tonight's partisan effort.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Dreier). Without objection, the previous
question is ordered on the motion to recommit.
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to recommit
offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey].
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the noes appeared to have it.
recorded vote
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote. A recorded vote was
ordered.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 187,
noes 241, not voting 5, as follows:
[Roll No. 801]
AYES--187
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Baesler
Baldacci
Barcia
Barrett (WI)
Becerra
Beilenson
Bentsen
Berman
Bevill
Bishop
Bonior
Borski
Boucher
Brewster
Browder
Brown (CA)
Brown (FL)
Brown (OH)
Bryant (TX)
Cardin
Chapman
Clay
Clayton
Clement
Clyburn
Coleman
Collins (IL)
Collins (MI)
Condit
Conyers
Costello
Coyne
Cramer
Danner
de la Garza
DeFazio
DeLauro
Dellums
Deutsch
Dicks
Dingell
Dixon
Doggett
Dooley
Doyle
Durbin
Edwards
Engel
Eshoo
Evans
Farr
Fattah
Fazio
Filner
Flake
Foglietta
Ford
Frank (MA)
Frost
Gejdenson
Gephardt
Geren
Gibbons
Gonzalez
Gordon
Green
Gutierrez
Hall (TX)
Hamilton
Harman
Hastings (FL)
Hayes
Hefner
Hilliard
Hinchey
Holden
Hoyer
Jackson-Lee
Jacobs
Jefferson
Johnson (SD)
Johnson, E. B.
Johnston
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy (MA)
Kennedy (RI)
Kennelly
Kildee
Kleczka
LaFalce
Lantos
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lincoln
Lipinski
Lofgren
Lowey
Luther
Maloney
Manton
Markey
Martinez
Mascara
Matsui
McCarthy
McDermott
McHale
McKinney
McNulty
Meehan
Meek
Menendez
Mfume
Miller (CA)
Minge
Mink
Moakley
Mollohan
Montgomery
Moran
Nadler
Neal
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Orton
Owens
Pallone
Pastor
Payne (NJ)
Payne (VA)
Pelosi
Peterson (FL)
Peterson (MN)
Pickett
Pomeroy
Poshard
Rangel
Reed
Richardson
Rivers
Roemer
Rose
Roybal-Allard
Rush
Sabo
Sanders
Sawyer
Schroeder
Schumer
Scott
Serrano
Sisisky
Skaggs
Skelton
Slaughter
Spratt
Stark
Stenholm
Stokes
Studds
Stupak
Tanner
Taylor (MS)
Tejeda
Thompson
Thornton
Thurman
Torres
Torricelli
Towns
Velazquez
Vento
Visclosky
Volkmer
Ward
Waters
Watt (NC)
Wilson
Wise
Woolsey
Wyden
Wynn
NOES--241
Allard
Andrews
Archer
Armey
Bachus
Baker (CA)
Baker (LA)
Ballenger
Barr
Barrett (NE)
Bartlett
Barton
Bass
Bateman
Bereuter
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bliley
Blute
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bono
Brownback
Bryant (TN)
Bunn
Bunning
Burr
Burton
Buyer
Callahan
Calvert
Camp
Canady
Castle
Chabot
Chambliss
Chenoweth
Christensen
Chrysler
Clinger
Coble
Coburn
Collins (GA)
Combest
Cooley
Cox
Crane
Crapo
Cremeans
Cubin
Cunningham
Davis
Deal
DeLay
Diaz-Balart
Dickey
Doolittle
Dornan
Dreier
Duncan
Dunn
Ehlers
Ehrlich
Emerson
English
Ensign
Everett
Ewing
Fawell
Fields (TX)
Flanagan
Foley
Forbes
Fowler
Fox
Franks (CT)
Franks (NJ)
Frelinghuysen
Frisa
Funderburk
Furse
Gallegly
Ganske
Gekas
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gilman
Gingrich
Goodlatte
Goodling
Goss
Graham
Greenwood
Gunderson
Gutknecht
Hall (OH)
Hancock
Hansen
Hastert
Hastings (WA)
Hayworth
Hefley
Heineman
Herger
Hilleary
Hobson
Hoekstra
Hoke
Horn
Hostettler
Hunter
Hutchinson
Hyde
Inglis
Istook
Johnson (CT)
Johnson, Sam
Jones
Kasich
Kelly
Kim
King
Kingston
Klink
Klug
Knollenberg
Kolbe
LaHood
Largent
Latham
LaTourette
Laughlin
Lazio
Leach
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Lightfoot
Linder
Livingston
LoBiondo
Longley
Lucas
Manzullo
Martini
McCollum
McCrery
McDade
McHugh
McInnis
McIntosh
McKeon
Metcalf
Meyers
Mica
Miller (FL)
Molinari
Moorhead
Morella
Murtha
Myers
Myrick
Nethercutt
Neumann
Ney
Norwood
Nussle
Oxley
Packard
Parker
Paxon
Petri
Pombo
Porter
Portman
Pryce
Quillen
Quinn
Radanovich
Rahall
Ramstad
Regula
Riggs
Roberts
Rogers
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Roth
Roukema
Royce
Salmon
Sanford
Saxton
Scarborough
Schaefer
Schiff
Seastrand
Sensenbrenner
Shadegg
Shaw
Shays
Shuster
Skeen
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Solomon
Souder
Spence
Stearns
Stockman
Stump
Talent
Tate
Tauzin
Taylor (NC)
Thomas
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Torkildsen
Traficant
Upton
Vucanovich
Walker
Walsh
Wamp
Watts (OK)
Waxman
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
White
Whitfield
Wicker
Williams
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
Zeliff
Zimmer
NOT VOTING--5
Fields (LA)
Houghton
Tucker
Waldholtz
Yates
{time} 2344
Mr. RAHALL and Mr. QUINN changed their vote from ``aye'' to ``no.''
So the motion to recommit was not agreed to.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Dreier). The question is on the joint
resolution.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the noes appeared to have it.
Recorded Vote
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
A recorded vote was ordered.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 277,
noes 151, not voting 5, as follows:
[Roll No. 802]
AYES--277
Allard
Andrews
Archer
Armey
Bachus
Baesler
Baker (CA)
Baker (LA)
Ballenger
Barr
Barrett (NE)
Bartlett
Bass
Bateman
Bereuter
Bevill
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop
Bliley
Blute
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bono
Brewster
Browder
Brownback
Bryant (TN)
Bunn
Bunning
Burr
Burton
Buyer
Callahan
Calvert
Camp
Canady
Castle
Chabot
Chambliss
Chenoweth
Christensen
Chrysler
Clement
Clinger
Coble
Coburn
Collins (GA)
Combest
Condit
Cooley
Costello
Cox
Cramer
Crane
Crapo
Cremeans
Cubin
Cunningham
Danner
Davis
Deal
DeFazio
DeLay
Diaz-Balart
Dickey
Dooley
Doolittle
Dornan
Dreier
Duncan
Dunn
Ehlers
Ehrlich
Emerson
English
Ensign
Everett
Ewing
Fawell
Fields (TX)
Flanagan
Foley
Forbes
Fowler
Fox
Franks (CT)
Franks (NJ)
Frelinghuysen
Frisa
Funderburk
Gallegly
Ganske
Gekas
Geren
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gilman
Gingrich
Goodlatte
Goodling
Gordon
Goss
Graham
Greenwood
Gunderson
Gutknecht
Hall (TX)
Hamilton
Hancock
Hansen
Harman
Hastert
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hayworth
Hefley
Heineman
Herger
Hilleary
Hobson
Hoekstra
Hoke
Horn
Hostettler
Hoyer
Hunter
Hutchinson
Hyde
Inglis
Istook
Jacobs
Johnson (CT)
Johnson, Sam
Jones
Kasich
Kelly
Kim
King
Kingston
Kleczka
Klug
Knollenberg
Kolbe
LaHood
Largent
Latham
LaTourette
Laughlin
Lazio
Leach
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Lightfoot
Lincoln
Linder
Lipinski
Livingston
LoBiondo
Longley
Lucas
Luther
Manzullo
Martini
McCarthy
McCollum
McCrery
McDade
McHale
McHugh
McInnis
McIntosh
McKeon
McNulty
Meehan
Metcalf
Meyers
Mica
Miller (FL)
Minge
Molinari
Montgomery
Moorhead
Moran
Morella
Myers
Myrick
Nethercutt
Neumann
Ney
Norwood
Nussle
Orton
Oxley
Packard
Parker
Paxon
Payne (VA)
Peterson (MN)
Petri
Pickett
Pombo
Porter
Portman
Poshard
Pryce
Quillen
Quinn
Radanovich
Ramstad
Regula
Riggs
Roberts
Roemer
Rogers
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Roth
Roukema
Royce
Salmon
Sanford
Saxton
Scarborough
Schaefer
Schiff
Scott
Seastrand
Sensenbrenner
Shaw
Shays
Shuster
Sisisky
Skeen
Skelton
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Solomon
Spence
Spratt
Stearns
Stenholm
Stockman
Stump
Talent
Tanner
[[Page H12504]]
Tate
Tauzin
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Thomas
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Torkildsen
Traficant
Upton
Visclosky
Vucanovich
Walker
Walsh
Wamp
Watts (OK)
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
White
Whitfield
Wicker
Wolf
Wynn
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
Zeliff
Zimmer
NOES--151
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Baldacci
Barcia
Barrett (WI)
Barton
Becerra
Beilenson
Bentsen
Berman
Bonior
Borski
Boucher
Brown (CA)
Brown (FL)
Brown (OH)
Bryant (TX)
Cardin
Chapman
Clay
Clayton
Clyburn
Coleman
Collins (IL)
Collins (MI)
Conyers
Coyne
de la Garza
DeLauro
Dellums
Deutsch
Dicks
Dingell
Dixon
Doggett
Doyle
Durbin
Edwards
Engel
Eshoo
Evans
Farr
Fattah
Fazio
Filner
Flake
Foglietta
Ford
Frank (MA)
Frost
Furse
Gejdenson
Gephardt
Gibbons
Gonzalez
Green
Gutierrez
Hall (OH)
Hastings (FL)
Hefner
Hilliard
Hinchey
Holden
Jackson-Lee
Jefferson
Johnson (SD)
Johnson, E.B.
Johnston
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy (MA)
Kennedy (RI)
Kennelly
Kildee
Klink
LaFalce
Lantos
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lofgren
Lowey
Maloney
Manton
Markey
Martinez
Mascara
Matsui
McDermott
McKinney
Meek
Menendez
Mfume
Miller (CA)
Mink
Moakley
Mollohan
Murtha
Nadler
Neal
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Owens
Pallone
Pastor
Payne (NJ)
Pelosi
Peterson (FL)
Pomeroy
Rahall
Rangel
Reed
Richardson
Rivers
Rose
Roybal-Allard
Rush
Sabo
Sanders
Sawyer
Schroeder
Schumer
Serrano
Shadegg
Skaggs
Slaughter
Souder
Stark
Stokes
Studds
Stupak
Tejeda
Thompson
Thornton
Thurman
Torres
Torricelli
Towns
Velazquez
Vento
Volkmer
Ward
Waters
Watt (NC)
Waxman
Williams
Wilson
Wise
Woolsey
Wyden
NOT VOTING--5
Fields (LA)
Houghton
Tucker
Waldholtz
Yates
{time} 0004
So the joint resolution was passed.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________