[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 182 (Thursday, November 16, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H13043-H13051]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    WAIVING POINTS OF ORDER AGAINST CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 2126, 
             DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1996

  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I 
call up House Resolution 271 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 271

       Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be 
     in order to consider the conference report to accompany the 
     bill (H.R. 2126) making appropriations for the Department of 
     Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1996, and 
     for other purposes. All points of order against the 
     conference report and against its consideration are waived. 
     The conference report shall be considered as read.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Inglis of South Carolina). The gentleman 
from Colorado [Mr. McInnis] is recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the 
customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Frost], pending 
which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During the 
consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose 
of debate only.
  House Resolution 271 is a straightforward resolution. The proposed 
rule merely waives all points of order against the conference report 
and against its consideration. This resolution was reported out of the 
Committee on Rules by voice vote.
  Mr. Speaker, members of this House often stand on the floor and 
debate whether various programs should be conducted by Federal, State, 
or even local government. However, Mr. Speaker, if there is one thing 
that the State governments cannot do, or one thing the local 
governments cannot do, that is to provide for the national defense, the 
national security, and the intelligence requirements of the United 
States of America. The Congress and the President, as Commander in 
Chief, alone have this obligation. I urge my colleagues to support this 
rule.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this rule. As every 
Member is fully aware, this is the second conference agreement on the 
Department of Defense appropriation. And, while not every Member will 
agree with every provision in this conference report, the conferees 
have attempted to address at least one of the major objections to the 
original report, that being the question of abortion.
  Mr. Speaker, we are all well aware that the original conference 
report was defeated because of opposition from those Members who felt 
funding levels were too high, as well as those Members who opposed the 
provisions relating to the abortion. The conferees have 

[[Page H 13044]]
modified the abortion language to only allow the procedure to be 
performed in military hospitals in the cases of rape, incest, and to 
save the life of the mother. This action has thus removed an objection 
voiced by at least some of the opponents of the original conference 
report. While I would have preferred that the conference report 
maintain its original language on this matter, I do support the 
conference report and I would urge all Members to do likewise.
  The provisions of this report track closely those originally passed 
by the House and deserve our support. I do not have to tell any Member 
how important it is to pass this appropriations bill. And, I need not 
remind Members of our responsibility to act on each and every one of 
the remaining appropriations bills in order that the Federal Government 
might be funded for the fiscal year. In spite of the passage of a 
short-term continuing resolution by the House last night, which may 
very well be vetoed, we must continue to press forward to fulfill our 
constitutional responsibilities.
  Mr. Speaker, Democrats want to solve this impasse. And I cannot deny 
that my Republican colleagues share that goal. We--Democrats and 
Republicans--can go a long way toward resolving this situation by 
passing this conference report this morning.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1115

  Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. 
Obey], the ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe what we are about to do in 
this House. Last night, amid much pontificating, this House told the 
American people that we were going to be committed to balancing the 
budget within 7 years. Today, as the very first legislative act after 
that promise, we are being asked to vote for an appropriation bill 
which adds $7 billion to the President's budget.
  That money does not go to the troops. That money does not go to 
readiness. Because if we in fact take a look at what is happening in 
this bill on O&M, the major readiness account, it is actually lower 
than the President's for that account by half a billion dollars, once 
we deduct Coast Guard funding, which is really a transportation 
function, once we deduct the adjustment that was made on inflation in 
this bill but not made on the estimates in the President's budget, and 
that adjustment should have been made in both legislative vehicles, and 
once we deduct the contingency fund, $650 million.
  This added money is put largely in 3 areas: One is in procurement; 
well, it is put in two areas largely, procurement and pork.
  On procurement, this committee is insisting that we go ahead with the 
congressional demand to buy 40 B-2 bombers even though the Pentagon 
itself only wants 20. The cost of one of those bombers is about $1.2 
billion. That would pay the undergraduate tuition for every single 
student at the University of Wisconsin for the next 11 years.
  We are being asked to buy the F-22, years early, at a total cost 
eventually of $70 billion. And people say, oh, we need this, we need a 
strong defense. Well, of course we need a strong defense, but this 
chart demonstrates what has happened to our military budget versus 
Russia's since the Berlin Wall fell.
  The red chart shows that the Russian military budget has dropped by 
about 70 percent. The United States military budget, by that same 
token, has dropped by about 10 percent. That is hardly reacting to 
reality.
  People say, well, we have to worry about somebody besides Russia. 
Okay. Let us take every single threat that has been suggested to the 
United States, from Russia, from China, from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, 
North Korea, that well-known military powerhouse, Cuba. Add all of the 
money together, and you know what? We still outspend them militarily by 
2\1/2\ times. That does not count our NATO allies, and you know, the 
last time I looked, they were on our side.

  So we are being asked to provide this huge bill, yet we are being 
asked to cut back on housing, cut back on education. We are being asked 
to squeeze the life's blood out of Social Security and Medicaid, knock 
hundreds of thousands of Americans out of health insurance because of 
Medicaid.
  This is indeed where the rubber hits the road. Last night was a nice 
generic promise, but today you have an opportunity to demonstrate 
whether you were serious or whether you are going to blow a hole in 
that promise one day after you made it.
  This country cannot afford to spend $7 billion more than President 
Clinton wants us to spend on the military budget, if it intends to get 
to a balanced budget in 7 years. If anybody believes you can do that, 
you are smoking something that ain't legal.
  So I would urge you to recognize reality, recognize that if you are 
going to make the tough choices that were talked about last night, you 
might as well start now. You might as well start on this bill. We ought 
to vote this bill down and keep it down until we get a bill back that 
reflects the financial crisis which the House declared we were in last 
night.
  I urge Members to vote against this bill. I have talked to the 
President's chief of staff, 15 minutes ago, and he has told me he is 
going to veto this bill. There is no sense sending this bill to him. It 
is a mission in futility. We cannot afford it. We should not be engaged 
in wasted motion. This bill is a dead duck, and it ought to be.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I would suggest to the gentleman that just preceded me that to reduce 
the defense budget in the proportions that he is talking about means we 
are going to have to have fairly dramatic cuts in personnel. Obviously 
the largest expenditure in the defense budget is personnel. It is a 
little ironic to hear the gentleman on one night speaking about how the 
deficit is making Federal employees be furloughed and the next day 
suggesting huge cuts in personnel in the military budget.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts [Mr. Frank].
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman 
from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey].
  Mr. OBEY. I would like to correct a statement just made by the 
previous speaker. The fact is the President's budget does not contain 
any reductions in personnel. We are not asking for any reductions in 
personnel. We are asking for reductions in the F-22, the B-2, we are 
asking for reductions in procurement items. We are not asking for one 
dime in reduction in personnel.
  You have said it--not you but people on your side have said it time 
and time again. It does not matter how many times you say it. You are 
wrong each time.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman 
from Colorado.
  Mr. McINNIS. I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for yielding.
  If the gentleman is going to get any kind of cuts proportionate to 
the comparisons on those charts that he is making with Russia, tell me 
how you are going to get those kinds of cuts by just cutting out the B-
2 bomber. You cannot do it.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. OBEY. What proportion is the gentleman talking about? I am not 
suggesting we cut our budget the same as Russia.
  Mr. McINNIS. Why is the gentleman using the chart?
  Mr. OBEY. I am using the chart to show that we can afford, given the 
fact that we spent 2\1/2\ times as much as our enemies, we can afford 
to hold the budget to the amount the President has asked for. That is 
$7 billion out of a more than $250 billion budget. That is hardly a big 
slasher.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, this is 
a very important debate, because we have been told that we can balance 
the budget within 7 years and we should vote for that concept of a 
balanced budget within 7 years and then we can debate how to do it.
  But if you pass this appropriations bill today with the excessive and 
unnecessary procurement that is in it, that the gentleman from 
Wisconsin has talked about, if you commit to the weapon systems he 
talked about in 

[[Page H 13045]]
those numbers, then you are guaranteeing that if you balance the budget 
within 7 years, you will drastically reduce spending for a whole lot of 
areas.
  We are in a zero sum game. We all agree that the budget is going to 
be balanced. There is some question about when. But this is partly why 
some of us have a problem with being told, ``Well, just agree to a 
balanced budget in 7 years and then we can work it out.''
  If this appropriation passes, we are committed to a level of 
expenditure for weapon systems procurements in the tens of billions 
that will inevitably have to come out of other programs.
  What we have is the worst case of cultural lag I have ever seen. For 
more than 50 years, the United States sensibly led the free world to 
defend against enemies who were powerful enough to deprive us of our 
freedom. Fortunately, today in the world, as the gentleman from 
Wisconsin has documented, we do not have any threat to our physical 
existence. Yes, it would be convenient to do this, it would be 
beneficial to do that, but there is a qualitative difference.
  What we have here is the old cold war argument where our survival was 
at stake. Now we have had a transfer. We are not talking about 
survival. Indeed, people on the other side are opposed to many of the 
uses for the military. We have the paradox where people on the other 
side want to spend more and more on the military and use it less and 
less. I think there is reason to use it less and less.
  My final point is this: This is the real foreign aid bill. More money 
is spent by U.S. taxpayers through this bill to subsidize the economies 
of other nations than in the foreign aid bill many times over, except 
that we do not have poor nations here. This is a subsidy to wealthy 
nations.
  The military budgets of Japan and Germany and England and France and 
Denmark and Norway and the other wealthy nations are a fraction of what 
they should be. Yesterday's, Tuesday's New York Times has an article 
about a book which says one reason the rapidly increasingly prosperous 
Asian nations have done so well is that America has, for free, provided 
them with defense. So we subsidize their defense while they build up 
big trade surpluses. We continue, in this bill, the pattern of greatly 
excessive spending, not for America's military security but in part as 
a form of foreign aid to the wealthy nations of Europe and Asia.
  As a consequence, if you pass this bill, you get into a situation 
where every dollar spent for the B-2 bomber, for unneeded weapons, 
weapons the Pentagon does not want, it is only logical it has to come 
out of medical care, out of education. It is why the Republicans are 
voting to raise the rents of older people in public housing, which is 
part of their legislative package.
  If we adopt this conference report, we then make it very clear that a 
balanced budget will consist in substantial part of excessive spending 
on the military, subsidies to the budgets of Western Europe, subsidies 
to the budgets of our Asian trading partners. So we defend them, and in 
return we will make up for those subsidies by cutting medical care, 
cutting education, cutting housing. It is a very bad deal.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, one of the benefits of this job is the excitement that 
we get when we have the opportunity to engage in general debate. But I 
am a little curious. The gentleman from Massachusetts of course has the 
opportunity to vote ``no'' on the conference report, and the gentleman 
from Massachusetts is going to have an opportunity certainly to engage 
in bringing his points forward in general debate.
  I would yield to the gentleman for an answer to the question: Do you 
have an objection to the rule passed on voice vote up in the Committee 
on Rules?
  This is the rules debate. Do you have an objection, and the same with 
the gentleman from Wisconsin, to the specific rule?
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. McINNIS. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I would say two things.
  First, I am debating now because we only have an hour on the overall 
bill, so I am glad to sue the debate time.
  But do I have an objection to the rule? In this sense, no rule, no 
bill. So I object to the rule because of the company it keeps, and if 
the rule is going to hang around with a bill like that, it is going to 
damage its reputation.
  I would ask the gentleman from Colorado, who has the time, if he 
would yield to my friend from Wisconsin.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I reclaim my time and yield to the 
gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for asking that 
question. The fact is that when this bill was before us originally, we 
had a time limit imposed that prevented us from raising many of the 
issues that we wanted to raise at that time. So the only time we have 
had an opportunity to raise these issues has been on the rule today. 
When we deal with the conference report shortly, we will only have 
about 20 minutes during which we can explain our concerns about the 
bill. So that is why we are taking the time on the rule to explain our 
concerns about the bill.
  Mr. McINNIS. Reclaiming my time, the gentleman still has not answered 
the question: When the final tally comes, do you object to the rule?
  I yield for a response to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I frankly accept the fact that the rule is 
going to pass. I am simply legitimately using the rule on the bill to 
discuss what is at stake. In my view what we ought to do is defeat the 
rule so that this bill can go back to committee and get fixed.

                              {time}  1130

  Mr. FROST Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
Minnesota [Mr. Vento].
  Mr. VENTO. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill. This rule 
obviously would not be necessary with an appropriation bill if we were 
following the proper procedure, but that seems to be sort of forgotten 
in the actions of this House in this session.
  I rise in opposition to this because I think it is fundamentally a 
question of misplaced priorities in terms of this Congress and our 
budgets. The fact is that we do not need just smart weapons in this 
Nation in order to defend our national security. We need smart people. 
We need smart soldiers and sailors not just smart weapons.
  Look what is happening in this budget. Look at what is happening. We 
are disinvesting in our total budget in people, in education programs. 
We are taking the House budget that was passed, removed $10 billion in 
the next 7 years from scholarships and assistance in terms of education 
at a time when, you know, the world of work is changing; the world of 
national security is changing.
  What does this bill do? This bill tips the balance in terms of 
weapons systems. The weapons systems that have tentacles that stretch 
into every State in this Nation, all of us have employers and some jobs 
that are related to putting the weapon systems together. But who is 
going to run those systems?
  Economists will tell you, if you want to make your national economy 
work, you need to have capital, you need to have research and you have 
to have investment in people. You have to have human resource.
  What is happening in our military today is they basically have to 
take on this task of training themselves. What this bill does is cuts 
the operation and maintenance budget. You buy all sorts of new weapons 
systems. In order to keep them bill does is cuts the operation and 
maintenance budget you buy all sorts of new weapons systems. In order 
to keep them in the air, keep them functioning, you have to cannibalize 
those particular aircraft, those weapons systems, to keep them going 
because of shortfalls in operations and maintenance.
  What do you do in terms of the maintenance for the systems. Then 
there is the question of operation. Who is going to operate them? We 
have to take up the training task, when we do not have recruits and 
individuals that have the ability to do the job we will have problems, 
in the security of this Nation.
  So the fact is you shortchange by overload the appropriation with 
more weapons systems and too little operations and maintenance. You are 
shortchanging the operations and maintenance. We all know we can end up 
buying an aircraft carrier, we can end up buying more B-2 bombers. Who 
is going to take care of them? They are not going to be readiness 
ready. They are 

[[Page H 13046]]
not going to have a readiness factor in terms of being ready to serve 
the function in the field. It has been pointed out that in years past, 
the past 50 years, one could arguably State that we needed the high 
defense spending many nuclear weapons and other types of weapons 
systems. That argument, in light of what has happened in recent years, 
you cannot escape what is the demise of the cold war is not relevant 
has occurred today.
  These weapons systems are becoming obsolete as we go forward. We are 
setting a policy path to build more of them in a world environment 
where many of these sophisticated weapons systems, and I am pleased 
they will not be used, I hope they will not be used, we cannot use 
them, but it is a time in history where we need to call on others 
around the globe to start picking up their own responsibility in terms 
of their own national defense.
  The weapons systems and sophisticated systems that have been under 
our control in the past are not applicable to many of the situations we 
have, whether in the former Yugoslavia, whether in North Africa, 
whether in many other place of conflict around the globe.
  It is time, I think, to say ``no,'' to say we do not want this 
continued American buildup and spendup. We need to bring this in line. 
We have to bring this in line, in other words, to get into the 
retrenchment and realignment--the downsizing of the U.S. military 
budgets.
  Yesterday, in Minnesota, 3M Co., which headquarters is in my 
district, announced the fact they were going to eliminate 5,000 jobs 
from their company, many of them jobs in Minnesota, good jobs. The fact 
is that the U.S. military should be facing the same plight we have 
given them the time, we have given them the dollars.
  If these dollars were being spent on a builddown, if they were being 
spent only on the base realignment and closing and actually moving 
forward in terms of building it down so we could have a soft landing 
for many of the people in the military, that would be one thing.
  But that is not what this measure is doing. What you are doing is you 
are shortchanging, you are shortchanging the operation and maintenance 
in these type of adjustment dollars that should be present. They have 
been stripped out of this bill. They are no longer there to help the 
communities that are impacted. The Nunn-Lugar program to take a part 
the former Soviet nuclear facilities isn't funded.
  That is why I am rising today. You have abandoned that particular 
process in Russia and in terms of our American communities so that we 
can get to this with less pain and less risk.
  We would like to work with you and help you, but this bill does not 
do it, and it deserves to be defeated today on this floor.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Young], the chairman of the subcommittee.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished 
gentleman for yielding me this time.
  I did not intend to be involved in the debate on the rule, because 
that is not what this debate is even about. This is a good rule, a 
bipartisan rule. We ought to just go ahead and expedite the rule and 
get to the conference report.
  But I really cannot leave unchallenged the issue that we reduced 
readiness. That is just totally erroneous. We reduced some of the 
operations and maintenance accounts. That is correct. In fact, we 
reduced these particular accounts by about $1.7 billion.
  Let me tell you where we reduced. Then I want to tell you where we 
added back for readiness. We reduced the technology reinvestment 
program. It may be a good program, but it should not necessarily be 
funded by the Department of Defense. That is one of the reductions that 
this previous speaker talked about.
  We reduced consultants and research centers by $90 million. You know, 
they refer to them as Beltway Bandits sometimes. We cut that.
  The Nunn-Lugar funding to convert Soviet, former Soviet, military 
industries, well, our understanding is that a lot of that conversion 
went to a new type of Russian military industry. So we took the money 
out of that.
  The U.N. peacekeeping assessment, $65 million; we should pay our 
peacekeeping assessments, but it should not come out of this bill. It 
ought to come out of the State Department bill or it ought to come out 
of the foreign aid bill, but not the Defense bill.
  Another large reduction, $129 million for travel, support aircraft 
operations. We made these reductions because of Members on that side of 
the aisle who asked us to do it, and we agreed to those amendments. So, 
yes, we did make those kinds of reductions.
  What did we add back for real readiness and quality-of-life issues 
for our personnel? We added over $2 billion. The gentleman from 
Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] does not like me to repeat this, but I will. We 
did provide money for the pay raise for the members of the military.
  We added funds for housing allowances for members of the military.
  We added $322 million to upgrade barracks facilities that are a 
tragedy. People who might have to go to war and risk their lives should 
not have to live like that.
  We added $170 million for training shortfalls, training moneys that 
had been borrowed in advance for other contingency operations that had 
not been approved by Congress, incidentally.
  We created a new initiative that even the President thinks is a good 
idea now, paying for the known contingency operations as we go, to deny 
access to the air of Saddam Hussein's air forces and to provide comfort 
for those non-Saddam supporters in Iraq.
  We added $647 million for that because that contingency is ongoing, 
and we ought to pay for it as we go. We ought to be up front and be 
honest.
  So the truth is, yes, we did reduce the operations and maintenance 
accounts on one hand but we increased them by adding real readiness and 
quality-of-life on the other hand, and I think that, as we discuss 
these issues, we really ought to be accurate, and I will do my very 
best and I know my colleague, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. 
Murtha], will, to make sure the debate remains as accurate as possible.
  Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Illinois [Mr. Durbin].
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. Speaker, let me commend the chairman of the 
subcommittee and the ranking minority member for many, many good things 
in this piece of legislation.
  But let me also say there are things in here which I find very 
troubling. We are in the midst of a budget deficit debate here which 
involves almost impossible choices of things that we have to cut. There 
are proposals from the Republican side of the aisle for deep cuts in 
the Medicare Program, deep cuts in programs providing health care for 
poor children, for elderly people in nursing homes, cuts in education 
programs, cuts in environmental programs. And here we have a bill where 
we are being asked to spend $7 billion more than the administration 
requested.
  Let me focus on one particular item of expenditure, the B-2 bomber. 
The B-2 bomber was designed to fight the Soviet Union. The Soviet 
Union, as we knew it, no longer exists, and yet the contractor that 
builds the planes has enough political muscle in the House of 
Representatives to force us to add in this bill 20 new B-2 bombers at a 
cost of $31 billion.
  Let me tell you about the B-2 bomber. First, it does not work. This 
bomber, despite the money we have invested in it, its radar cannot tell 
the difference between a cloud and a mountain. Now, that is a very 
difficult problem facing a pilot when you cannot tell the difference.
  Second, it costs too much, at least $1.5 billion to $2 billion per 
plane.
  Third, we do not need it, since the Soviet Union is gone.
  And, fourth, the Pentagon says they do not want it. But we are still 
pressing forward with this defense pork barrel for one contractor, $31 
billion.
  We have to make choices in politics. Let me tell you what I would do 
with the $31 billion. Personally, I would more than double the 
investment we make each year in the National Institutes of Health 
medical research. I honestly believe that families across America would 
feel much more secure at home knowing that we are spending money 
looking for a cure for cancer, looking for a cure for AIDS, fighting 
diseases which ravage families across 

[[Page H 13047]]
America and around the world. That is a much more important investment 
than more B-2 bombers.
  Second, I would make certain we do not make the education cut called 
for by the Gingrich Republicans. They want to cut college student loans 
by $10 billion while we are building these B-2 bombers. Kids from 
working families find it tough enough to afford college today. The 
Republicans are increasing the cost of that college education. Take the 
$10 billion they would cut, put it into college education.

  And, finally, I would give full deductibility to self-employed 
people, I am talking about small businesses here and farmers, for their 
health insurance. More and more Americans are starting their own 
businesses, and that is good for our economy. The biggest single 
problem they face is the cost of health care. We allow big corporations 
to duck the full cost. Small companies should be allowed to.
  You do those three things with the B-2 bomber money, and I think this 
country is better off.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  First of all, I think that the previous speaker points out that the 
President's budget that this conference report comes out above that, I 
think he should kind of paint the entire picture.
  No. 1, this conference report is $746 million less than the House 
report. No. 2, nearly $400 million less than the bill that we passed a 
year ago.
  Paint the entire picture.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/4\ minutes to the gentleman from California 
[Mr. Dornan].
  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Illinois and I have 
always gotten along. He is a good, robust debater. I like to think I 
am, too.
  But we must be very careful on health issues not to give false hope 
to people across this country on the AIDS crisis that has now killed 
more young men in the prime of life than died in combat in World War 
II. There will never be a cure for the AIDS virus.
  I called Dr. Tony Fauci, the head man up at National Institutes of 
Health. We have to get saying this correctly. We can only hope for a 
vaccine to keep the humano-immunodeficiency virus locked inside the T-
cells for the rest of your life, but once that virus is inside that 
microscopic T-cell, it is never coming out.
  Dr. Fauci himself has slipped over the years. I called him, and he 
apologizes. The word c-u-r-e can never be applied to the AIDS plague. 
We hope for a vaccine to extend peoples' lives.
  Mr. McINNIS. If the gentleman will yield, may I ask the gentleman's 
position on the bill?
  Mr. DORNAN. I am going to support this bill because of what the 
gentleman from Illinois missed is the importance of a balanced defense 
budget in harmony with domestic budgets. However, I will fight like 
hell for reportability on rape in the military. If a woman or a 
dependent is raped, how can any Senator tell me that when the Uniform 
Code of Military Justice is violated, you do not have to report who 
raped you for your trip home? Outrageous. Never again. This time, yes.

                              {time}  1145

  Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder].
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, with all this gray hair and 23 years on the Committee on 
National Security, let us talk about this budget. At a time when 
dollars are so precious, this thing is $7 billion more than the Joint 
Chiefs, the President, than anyone asked for; $7 billion more. It is 
more than the rest of the world is spending on defense. And what are we 
buying with it? We are buying all sorts of hardware, because those are 
the special interests with the most gravitas in this town, and that is 
wrong, at the time we are cutting student loans and cutting health 
research and cutting all sorts of things.
  Now, one of the things that stands out of that whole list of add-ons 
that we are buying is the B-2 bomber. The B-2 bomber is the son of the 
B-1 bomber. I was here when Carter said no to the B-1 bomber, and then 
President Reagan moved in and turned that around and we built this 
whole fleet of B-1 bombers. Anyone seen them? Anyone seen them 
anywhere? No, no, no. Every time they take off, it seems they fall out 
of the sky. Actually, this last weekend we did see them. According to 
the paper, one B-1 bomber was used as a float on Fifth Avenue during 
the veterans parade. This has to be the most expensive parade float in 
the history of America.
  Now we are going to add 20 more B-2's than anybody wanted into this 
budget, and make the American people pay for it. Will the American 
people feel more secure with their children in college, or having more 
B-2 bombers? Will the American people fell more secure with health care 
research funded, or more B-2 bombers? We could go on and on and on with 
those issues.
  Are we really going to stand here and say we have to make tough 
decisions in every other area of the budget, and then add more to this 
budget, when we never did that even during the cold war? I never 
remember adding more to the defense budget than was asked for.
  Please, one cannot be a fiscal conservative and vote for this bill.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I think that is somewhat of an exaggeration by the 
preceding speaker, that every time the aircraft take off, they fall out 
of the sky. I think that deserves a correction.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maine [Mr. 
Longley].
  Mr. LONGLEY. Mr. Speaker, if one looks at the last 24 hours on this 
floor, it is incredible. We are now advised the President has no 
intention of balancing the budget. But there is another aspect of that 
as well. He does not have a budget, he does not have a plan.
  I compliment the committee for coming together with a solid approach 
to dealing with our defense needs; a plan that, despite the fact that 
defense has been cut 35 to 40 percent in the last 10 years, is 
stabilizing defense spending and in fact leveling it and decreasing it 
over the next 7 years.
  But we are doing so in the context of a balanced budget. We are 
recognizing that, yes, there are limits. We cannot spend unlimited 
amounts of money on everything. We are going to set priorities and 
spend money where we need to spend it, on the most important issues 
that we have determined as a Congress.
  I think an issue that also needs to be addressed here is that we are 
going to balance the budget, as remarkable as that may seem to the 
other side of the aisle.
  Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy].
  Mr. KENNEDY of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I believe very strongly in 
a strong national defense. I think this country ought to have a defense 
that allows us to protect all of the interests of the United States of 
America. I just think that when we look at the reality of what the 
world is today, we need to recognize that our defense budget this year, 
this year, before we add an extra $7 billion that the military really 
did not ask for into the defense budget, will outspend all of our NATO 
allies, all of the former Soviet States, all of the Eastern European 
countries, all of the former Soviet Union itself, all of China, all of 
both Koreas, all of Japan, and the entire Third World. If you put all 
of their defense budgets together, the United States will spend more.
  I would think that maybe we could slide by on $270 or $280 billion a 
year. But, no, no, that is not good enough, because somehow the 
Republicans have come up with a notion that if they stand for a 
stronger national defense, no matter what the number the Democrats put 
up, as long as you put up a few billion dollars more, you can go out to 
the American public and say you are for a stronger national defense 
than the Democrats are for.
  You pretend to try to balance the budget, when you know that if you 
look at the defense needs of this country, the military itself will 
tell you that the F-22 is not the airplane it needs. The B-2 bomber, we 
are going to spend money for an extra 20 B-2 bombers this year. Who are 
the B-2s going to go against? We are going to spend an extra $3.5 
billion for star wars.
  I am all for theater based national defense systems. We wanted to 
protect our troops when they go into battle, that is fine with me. I 
think we ought to do it. We ought to put the research money into making 
certain we have a 

[[Page H 13048]]
good theater based defense system. But a space based star wars system? 
Nobody in their right mind, not even some of the most radical right-
wing Republicans will tell you that star wars will work. It will cost 
trillions of dollars to defend ourselves against a threat that nobody 
believes is going to take place.
  Why in God's name would anybody send a missile at the United States? 
They have to send a whole platoon of them in order to be effective. Why 
would they possibly do that? If they can put a bale of marijuana into a 
ship and bring it into New York harbor, why would they bother to put 
all these bombs on a missile? The truth of the matter is, that if we 
want to have a strong national defense, we ought to go out and build 
one. But we ought to build one in recognition of what the real threat 
to the United States is today.
  What we are doing is we are spending billions and billions of dollars 
in national defense that we do not need to spend, and at the same time 
we are gutting and cutting and hurting the working class people of this 
country and the poor.
  We are saying we do not have enough money for the Healthy Start 
Program, which deals with the fact we now have children in the United 
States of America that are dying at rates higher than in most Third 
World nations. We are willing to jack up the price of the Medicare 
premium, we are willing to go after the hot meals for senior citizens, 
we are willing to go after vulnerable people in this country and say we 
do not have enough money in the budget to help them. But we do have 
plenty of money in the budget to assist in building some of the most 
sophisticated weapons systems that this country does not need.
  We ought to build a strong national defense, but we ought not to 
waste money on national defense that could in fact be making this 
country much stronger in the long run by investing in our most 
important resource, the American people.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I guess I need to make a couple points, particularly 
with some of the background that I have got with North Korea. I should 
advise the preceding speaker that if North Korea, for example, were to 
launch a nuclear weapon into Tokyo, or, as science progresses and they 
gain the ability, which they will gain within a very short period of 
time, to launch a nuclear weapon into the center of San Francisco, it 
will not take a ``whole platoon'' of missiles to be effective. The 
preceding speaker ought to be advised just one of those type of 
missiles anywhere could be very effective.
  I would also like to advise the preceding speaker that when he talks 
about the working class, first of all, most people I know are in the 
working class. When I talk to them, they want a strong defense. I agree 
with the preceding speaker that we need some balance, but I think that 
some of the remarks are somewhat exaggerated by the speaker, especially 
in regards to the missile.
  I am very curious, hearing the strong comments about this budget, to 
see just exactly where the preceding speaker thinks the money is going 
to come from for the deployment by the Democratic President for troops 
in Bosnia, putting ground troops into Bosnia? I would be interested to 
see how his vote comes down on the deployment by our President to put 
those troops in Bosnia.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 10 seconds to the gentleman from Massachusetts 
[Mr. Kennedy].
  Mr. KENNEDY of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out 
if our true concern is a single missile going from Korea into Japan, 
maybe if the gentleman wants to build up a strong Japanese national 
defense, why do not you ask the Japanese to pay for it, instead of what 
your budget does, which is to allow us to subsidize it?
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the key here is we are being absolutely ignorant, and in 
fact we are being malfeasant in office, if we refuse to acknowledge the 
fact that we have to prepare for defense against missiles. We lucked 
out, frankly, in Iraq and the Persian Gulf situation. We were able to 
stop some of those missiles. We need to improve that technology. It is 
going to happen again.
  I might also add, the gentleman and I periodically see each other 
working out. I would add that the person working out who is in the best 
shape and who is the strongest person in the facility is the person who 
spends the most time on it.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. 
Young].
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding 
me time.
  Mr. Speaker, the previous speaker mentioned the great investments 
that we have. We have a lot of great investments. The greatest 
investment that we make in our national defense are the young 
Americans, men and women, who wear the uniform, who train to defend 
this country or our national interests. And one reason that our defense 
costs are so high is we have an all-volunteer service. We do not have a 
draft or a conscripted army or military like the other nations that the 
gentleman is referring to.
  In fact, of this $240 billion bill, half of it, nearly half, $120 
billion-plus, goes to pay salaries, allowances, and medical care for 
those young Americans who are prepared at a moment's notice to be 
deployed wherever the President of the United States might choose to 
deploy them, and the salaries of the DOD civilian workforce.
  So, yes, our costs are higher, because we do not have a draft. We 
have an all-volunteer military, and we ought not to make those people 
live like paupers. There are too many of them today who are married and 
have families that have to rely on food stamps to get by, and that is 
not right.
  Mr. KENNEDY of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I agree with you 
wholeheartedly. I offered an amendment to try to deal with the fact 
that we have got too many of our military not being paid enough money. 
If these funds were dealing with that issue, I would be more than happy 
to vote for it. I am talking about the $7 billion additional funds that 
the military itself did not ask for that are put into this budget 
because of a lot of pork going back into Members' districts.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, when we get to 
the debate on the bill, we will be happy to address that very 
specifically. We ought to go ahead and get this rule passed so we can 
get to the real debate on what is right for the national defense.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would just add that the previous speaker on my side of 
the aisle is absolutely correct. This debate right now is not the 
general debate on the military expenditures, and that is probably where 
the rest of this would be more appropriate. This debate is about the 
rule.
  I would remind all of my colleagues in the House Chamber this rule 
was passed by voice vote in the Committee on Rules when we had a 
recorded vote on it. It is a conference report, but when the bill came 
up, it was passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority. I think it is 
appropriate to move this on, get to a vote, and go into general debate.
  Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania [Mr. Murtha].
  Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I just want to reiterate what the gentleman 
said about this rule. It should be a bipartisan rule. I hope it will 
pass quickly so that we can move on with the debate on the bill itself.
  Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Mississippi [Mr. Montgomery].
  Mr. MONTGOMERY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule, and I 
also will support the bill. I serve on the Committee on National 
Security. I think this is a good bill. It gives us a strong defense. I 
hope Members will support the rule and the bill.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon], the chairman of the Committee on 
Rules.

                              {time}  1200

  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, first of all, the reason I am at the 
Democratic 

[[Page H 13049]]
podium is because I used to be over here, back when John F. Kennedy was 
a great President, and he stood up for America, and he supported a 
strong defense.
  Mr. Speaker, I have been sitting here very patiently listening to 
this debate and getting ready for the other things we are going to be 
bringing up in the Commitee on Rules, such as the balanced budget bill 
and other things. However, I just heard my good friend, the gentleman 
from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey], and the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. 
Durbin], and others talking about how the Republican plan cuts all of 
these programs.
  When I was debating the balanced budget earlier on as Chairman of the 
Committee on Rules, I insisted that all of the alternatives that were 
brought to the floor must bring about a balanced budget, and we told 
the Democrats that they would have to present one. We told ourselves, 
we told the President, and when we wrote a rule and brought these 
alternatives to the floor, all of them were balanced. What a change in 
concept over what had been happening over these last 40 years.
  The Republican budget does balance the budget in 7 years, but as I 
look through it, I cannot find all of these cuts that everybody is 
talking about. When you talk about school lunch programs, when you talk 
about WIC, a very important program, when you talk about Head Start, 
all of them, I do not find cuts. I find increases in all of these 
programs. What I do find is that we have really cut the bureacucracy, 
we have really shrunk the power of the Federal Government and returned 
it to the States, and to the counties and the towns and the cities and 
villages and to the local school districts and to the private sector 
where it belongs.
  In other words, getting rid of this huge Federal bureaucracy, that is 
where you will find the cuts in here, I say to my colleagues, the real 
cuts, not in programs for the needy.
  Mr. Speaker, I heard somebody up here complaining because there was a 
B-2 bomber on display in a parade in New York City. Well, Mr. Speaker, 
I support that, because we need to promote pride and patriotism and 
volunteerism and the love of God. We need to really push those 
intangibles in this country. That is what Ronald Reagan did. That is 
what made him a great President.
  Mr. Speaker, speaking of Ronald Reagan, I heard my good friend, the 
gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy], who does not talk like John 
Kennedy did, complaining because there is $7 billion in this budget 
that the military did not ask for. Let me tell the gentleman why the 
military did not ask for it, because they were intimidated into not 
asking for it by the President of the United States, the President of 
the United States who, by his own admission, never had much use for our 
military. Of course, that, over the years, has always turned my 
stomach.
  Mr. Speaker, you go back to why this country was formed over 200 
years ago, and it was formed as a republic of States. It is not a 
democracy, as such, not a federalist government, it is a republic of 
States that were joined together, and read the preamble to the 
Constitution, for the purpose of providing a common defense for these 
States. For my State and your State. That is really why we are here. 
Yet this Government has grown so much over the years where we have 
37,000 employees in the Department of Commerce, in a Department of 
Commerce which is no longer an advocate for business and industry, but 
is there to regulate business and industry.
  We have a Department of Energy with 17,000 employees, and has it 
produced a quart of oil or a gallon of gas? Not in my State, it has 
not. We have a Department of Education with 6,000 to 7,000 employees. 
Has that improved education? No, it has not.
  The problem with the Republican budget is it does not go far enough. 
Here is mine that is a 5-year balanced budget, and let me tell you, it 
cuts those things, the Department of Commerce, the Department of 
Education, the Department of Energy, but it protected the defense 
budget of this country.
  Mr. Speaker, let me say to my colleagues what the budget bill does 
before you. Let me go back to 1979. Our military preparedness had 
reached such an all-time low that our military personnel, overseas, and 
even in this country, were on food stamps, and we were losing all of 
our qualified commissioned officers and noncommissioned officers. They 
could not afford to stay in our military.
  Mr. Speaker, we changed all of that in 1981 with the election of 
Ronald Reagan, and we brought about a concept of peace through strength 
which rebuilt our military. No longer would we see what happened in 
1979 when Jimmy Carter, in order to try to rescue some hostages out of 
Iran, had to cannibalize 14 helicopter gunships just to get 5 that 
would work and 3 of those failed, and so did the rescue attempt.
  You turn that around and look what happened after we brought down the 
Iron Curtain and to what happened in the gulf war. Our military 
personnel went over there with the very best that we could give them. 
The night vision gear that our troops had that theirs did not allow us 
to see them. They could not see us, and the casualties were practically 
zero, because we gave them the very best.
  Well, I say to my colleagues, do not think for a minute that the 
dangers are not out there. Somebody asked, why do we need a B-2 bomber? 
Well, if North Korea launches a missile into Japan, who is going to be 
there? We are the world leaders, we have to protect them.
  If Iran or Iraq launches a missile into Israel, do you want Israel to 
pay for it? Just think about this, I say to my colleagues. If you want 
to preserve this republic of States, we have to provide for a strong 
military. This budget does. This budget before you gives 9 and 10 and 
11 percent increases in readiness, in manpower so that we can keep the 
young men and women, these great young men and women, so talented, in 
our military today. It provides for research and development.
  I would say to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Young] that I just 
admire the gentleman for what he has done there, for the procurements 
so that we can guarantee, should our troops have to go into Bosnia, 
25,000 of them which will go there over my dead body, but should they 
have to go there, damn it, they better go there with the very best. 
That is what this bill does, and that is why I want everybody in this 
Chamber to come over here, and I want you to vote for this rule and 
vote for the bill, because you are going to be doing it for the young 
men and women that you will be voting some day to put in harm's way, 
and you've got to give them the best to do it.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from 
California [Ms. Woolsey].
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, speaking of women in the military, last 
week the new majority actually let the House of Representatives go a 
whole week without an overt attack on women's reproductive rights, but 
now they are back at it again. Today, the antichoice forces are hoping 
to score another victory by denying military women, women who happen to 
be stationed overseas, access to a safe and legal abortion in a 
military hospital, even when they will use their own money.
  Military women defend our country with their lives. Now their lives 
will be in jeopardy when they are forced into Third  World clinics and 
unsafe back alleys. Is that what you would want for your daughters? Is 
that what you would want for your granddaughters? Another day in 
Washington, another attack on Roe versus Wade. Stand up for military 
women, for their constitutional right to choose. Vote no on this rule.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I am amazed by this testimony. I yield 30 seconds to the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Young], and ask the gentlewoman from 
California [Ms. Woolsey] to stay on the floor.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, yesterday we passed a Treasury-
Postal conference report on the appropriations bill, and the language 
that the gentlewoman objects to today was the identical language that 
was in that bill yesterday, which she voted for. I just think that 
consistency does have some value.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, 

[[Page H 13050]]
  simply to say that I agree with the gentleman from Florida, that if one 
is going to vote one way and talk another way the next day, that is not 
very consistent.
  Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from 
California [Ms. Woolsey].
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, rather than not vote for a bill 
that was good in general, I was able to vote against my conscience for 
women. I did not like doing it; I did it. I do not want to do it again, 
and I hope the rest of the Congress will not either.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee].
  (Ms. JACKSON-LEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
her remarks.)
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for 
yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise to say that I am going to vote for the rule, 
because I believe that there has been a very favorable compromise on 
that. However, I am going to take this time to say that this bill is 
not the right bill for America, because this bill does not do what we 
think it does.
  Mr. Speaker, I believe in readiness, military readiness, I believe in 
supporting the military personnel, but I do not believe in excess and 
waste. If this House voted last night for a 7-year balanced budget, it 
is important to tell the American people that this bill is $8 billion 
more than the Defense Department needs and $8 billion more than they 
requested.
  If there is anything that I hear when I go home, the question 
becomes, why are we spending money for the defense of Germany and Japan 
and many other places? Not because we are not their allies and friends 
and would not rise with them in a time of real need--not peace time--
but the reason why their budgets can be so low is because we are 
bolstering their defense, and it is certainly pursuant to our 
historical relationship during World War II.
  Mr. Speaker, we are finished with World War II, and have since 
finished with the Korean war. So I ask my colleagues on this bill, it 
is important to be prepared, it is important to have the support of 
military personnel that are well trained. We saw that in Bosnia with 
the U.S. Captain who was shot down and his acknowledgement of the good 
training that the military gave him, and I will support that. But not 
$8 billion extra in trinkets that are not needed.
  So I think it is important that we defeat the bill, because we are 
not doing what we said we would like to do, and that is to balance the 
budget. We are taking it out of education, we are forcing 1 million of 
our children and making sure they cannot eat because of the proposed 
mean welfare reform package. We are taking money from Medicare and 
Medicaid, and we are not dealing with a reasonable defense program.
  Mr. Speaker, listen to the thorough work of the Defense Department. I 
think they make a lot of sense. They know how to get us ready for war, 
if necessary. They told us they did not need this extra $8 billion. Let 
us get some common sense. Let us defeat this bill when it comes to the 
floor.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to compliment the gentlewoman from Texas, 
because she has distinguished correctly the difference between this 
debate and the next debate. She did state that she was going to support 
the rule, and that is what this debate is about.
  As we are nearing the vote, I would urge Members to remember that 
this is on the rule. We are going to have the general debate in a few 
minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. 
Mica].
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker and my colleagues, I think it is important that 
we pass this rule, and we pass it by a large margin. Let me say why.
  Mr. Speaker, we just heard the previous speaker say that we should 
take the advice of the military on the spending issues. Under the 
Constitution, the most important role of this Congress is to provide 
for our national defense, to provide for our security. We do not need a 
Congress if we let these decisions be made by our Department of 
Defense.
  Let me tell my colleagues why we are making these decisions. Just 
look at the experience we had with Iraq. If they were launching Scud-
type missiles with intercontinental ballistic capability at the United 
States, there would be a whole different theme here today. If we took 
into consideration the situation with Iran that has bought dozens of 
submarines. If we took into consideration the dismantling of the former 
Soviet Union and the largesse arms sales of not just weapons, but 
weapons systems.
  If we look at the policies of this administration who are now talking 
about selling intercontinental missile parts from the former Soviet 
Union, republics, on the world market, then we see that this Congress 
has a responsibility to make those decisions, and if we just remember 
the experience of the Gulf war when our friends would not even let us 
fly over their areas or their territories, we see the importance of a 
B-2 bomber, a B-2 bomber which is going to replace dozens of men and 
women who would be put at risk who are flying planes that are older 
than the pilots. We make those decisions. That is the purpose of this 
Congress, not to listen to people in the Department of Defense or 
people who want to spend money on other programs that do not provide 
for national security.
  So this is our most important responsibility under the Constitution. 
That is why this rule is important, and that is why we must pass it by 
a large margin and send a message to the White House.
  Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remainder of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, there are differences of opinion on this side of the 
aisle. Some of our Members are for this conference report, others are 
not. I urge a yes vote on the rule, and I personally urge a yes vote on 
the conference report, and I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Again, the rule was passed by voice vote. We have just heard the 
comments from the gentleman, and of course, the ranking member on the 
Committee on Rules. I would urge my colleagues to vote for the rule. We 
can move right in, get past that, and get into a very healthy general 
debate.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time and I move the 
previous question on the resolution.
  The previous question was ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a 
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not 
present.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
  The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 372, 
nays 55, not voting 5, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 804]

                               YEAS--372

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allard
     Andrews
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baesler
     Baker (CA)
     Baker (LA)
     Baldacci
     Ballenger
     Barcia
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bateman
     Beilenson
     Bentsen
     Bereuter
     Berman
     Bevill
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bishop
     Bliley
     Blute
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bonior
     Bono
     Borski
     Boucher
     Brewster
     Browder
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Brownback
     Bryant (TN)
     Bryant (TX)
     Bunn
     Bunning
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Canady
     Cardin
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chapman
     Chenoweth
     Christensen
     Chrysler
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clinger
     Clyburn
     Coble
     Coburn
     Coleman
     Collins (GA)
     Collins (MI)
     Combest
     Condit
     Cooley
     Costello
     Cox
     Coyne
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crapo
     Cremeans
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Danner
     Davis
     de la Garza
     Deal
     DeLauro
     DeLay
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Dooley
     Doolittle
     Dornan
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Edwards
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     Engel
     English
     Ensign
     Eshoo
     Everett
     Ewing
     Farr
     Fawell
     Fields (TX)
     Flake
     Flanagan
     Foglietta
     Foley
     Forbes
     Ford
     Fowler
     Fox
     Franks (CT)
     Franks (NJ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Frisa
     Frost
     Funderburk

[[Page H 13051]]

     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gejdenson
     Gekas
     Gephardt
     Geren
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Gonzalez
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Gordon
     Goss
     Graham
     Green
     Greenwood
     Gunderson
     Gutknecht
     Hall (OH)
     Hall (TX)
     Hamilton
     Hancock
     Hansen
     Harman
     Hastert
     Hastings (FL)
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Hefner
     Heineman
     Herger
     Hilleary
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Hoke
     Holden
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hoyer
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Inglis
     Istook
     Jackson-Lee
     Jacobs
     Jefferson
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson (SD)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kasich
     Kelly
     Kennedy (MA)
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kennelly
     Kildee
     Kim
     King
     Kingston
     Kleczka
     Klink
     Klug
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaFalce
     LaHood
     Lantos
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Laughlin
     Lazio
     Leach
     Levin
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (GA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Lightfoot
     Lincoln
     Linder
     Lipinski
     Livingston
     LoBiondo
     Longley
     Lucas
     Maloney
     Manton
     Manzullo
     Martini
     Mascara
     Matsui
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McDade
     McHale
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntosh
     McKeon
     McNulty
     Metcalf
     Meyers
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Mink
     Moakley
     Molinari
     Mollohan
     Montgomery
     Moorhead
     Morella
     Murtha
     Myers
     Myrick
     Neal
     Nethercutt
     Neumann
     Ney
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Ortiz
     Orton
     Oxley
     Packard
     Pallone
     Parker
     Paxon
     Payne (VA)
     Pelosi
     Peterson (FL)
     Peterson (MN)
     Petri
     Pickett
     Pomeroy
     Porter
     Portman
     Poshard
     Pryce
     Quillen
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Rahall
     Ramstad
     Reed
     Regula
     Richardson
     Riggs
     Rivers
     Roberts
     Roemer
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Rose
     Roth
     Roukema
     Royce
     Sabo
     Salmon
     Sanford
     Sawyer
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaefer
     Schiff
     Schumer
     Scott
     Seastrand
     Sensenbrenner
     Serrano
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Shuster
     Sisisky
     Skaggs
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith (WA)
     Solomon
     Souder
     Spence
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     Stenholm
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     Stokes
     Stump
     Stupak
     Talent
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     Tate
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
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     Tejeda
     Thomas
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     Walsh
     Wamp
     Ward
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     White
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson
     Wise
     Wolf
     Wynn
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Zeliff
     Zimmer

                                NAYS--55

     Barrett (WI)
     Becerra
     Collins (IL)
     Conyers
     DeFazio
     Dellums
     Deutsch
     Durbin
     Evans
     Fattah
     Fazio
     Filner
     Frank (MA)
     Furse
     Gutierrez
     Johnston
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Luther
     Markey
     Martinez
     McCarthy
     McDermott
     McKinney
     Meehan
     Meek
     Menendez
     Mfume
     Miller (CA)
     Minge
     Nadler
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Owens
     Pastor
     Payne (NJ)
     Rangel
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sanders
     Schroeder
     Stark
     Studds
     Thurman
     Towns
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Williams
     Woolsey
     Wyden
     Yates

                             NOT VOTING--5

     Fields (LA)
     Moran
     Pombo
     Tucker
     Volkmer

                              {time}  1236

  Mr. HILLIARD AND Mr. PALLONE changed their vote from ``nay'' to 
``yea.''
  So the resolution was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________