[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 141 (Friday, October 9, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H10315-H10323]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
FURTHER CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS, FISCAL YEAR 1999
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the
Committee on Appropriations be discharged from the further
consideration of the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 133) making further
continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 1999, and for other
purposes, when called up; and that it be in order at any time to
consider the joint resolution in the House; that the joint resolution
be considered as read for amendment; that the joint resolution be
debatable for not to exceed one hour, to be equally divided and
controlled between myself and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey);
that all points of order against the joint resolution and against its
consideration be waived; and, that the previous question be considered
as ordered on the joint resolution to final passage without intervening
motion, except one motion to recommit with or without instructions.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Louisiana?
There was no objection.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the unanimous consent
request just agreed to, I called up the joint resolution (H.J. Res.
133) making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 1999,
and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the
House.
The text of House Joint Resolution 133 is as follows:
H.J. Res. 133
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled, That section
106(c) of Public Law 105-240 is amended by striking ``October
9, 1998'' and inserting in lieu thereof ``October 12, 1998''.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of today,
the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Livingston) and the gentleman from
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) each will control 30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Livingston).
(Mr. LIVINGSTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend
his remarks.)
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 H. J. Res. 133, 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 such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, today the initial continuing resolution for fiscal year
1999 expires, so we need another continuing resolution. Not all of the
appropriations bills have yet been enacted, and for that reason we do
need a little extra time to complete our business.
Adoption of H.J. Res. 133, which runs from tonight through October
12, will give us the time we need to complete our remaining work.
I am disappointed I have had to bring this joint resolution to the
floor. I really thought that it was possible that we could get our
bills done by tonight, but evidently we have run into some roadblocks
and we need a little bit more time.
The negotiations are proceeding. There are tough issues yet to be
settled. I appreciate all parties for having participated to the degree
that they have. But I hope they understand that we need to knuckle down
and do a little bit more if we are going to finish the job through the
end of this particular continuing resolution which expires on Monday.
I was a little taken aback by the press conference by the President a
little while ago suggesting that the Congress is not intent on doing
our business. As you know, Mr. Speaker, both Houses have been
diligently working on the budget ever since the President came to
Congress and requested approximately $9 billion over the budget
agreement that he agreed to last year, which ultimately led to
balancing the budget this year. He requested $9 billion more than he
had agreed to last
[[Page H10316]]
year and we have been doing the best that we could to meet the caps,
the budget caps that were put in place by that budget agreement.
It would appear now that the President wishes us to exceed those
budget caps with the promise that he has certain unidentified offsets
for any monies that might be expended in excess of those caps. And yet
to this moment, Mr. Speaker, to this very moment, despite our requests
since July, I have not seen those offsets.
Mr. Speaker, we have repeatedly requested from the administration day
after day, week after week, month after month to give us a sneak peek
at the offsets that they might provide for us, so that we might know if
we spend more than the budget caps agreed to by the President. We will
offset that amount and the budget agreement that the President engaged
in last year will not be broken, will not be breached.
To this minute as I stand here, I still have not seen those budget
offsets. And so it concerns me when I turn on the television a little
while ago and see the President of the United States standing in the
Rose Garden surrounded by Members of Congress from the other side of
the aisle saying that we have not met his prerogatives and he is going
to hold the Congress here until we meet his demands.
We would love to meet his demands, but all we ask is to let us see
these offsets which pay for the amount that he wishes to expend in
excess of the amount that he agreed to in his budget agreement with us
that led to the balanced budget that we all reached last year.
I am hopeful, I am deeply hopeful that we are going to be able to see
those budget offsets some day soon. Maybe even today. But just a few
minutes ago, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget said
that he wanted to wait until the end of the process before he showed us
his offsets.
Well, I think the time for Kenny Rogers to step up to the table and
say, ``You've got to know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em'' is
long since past. The time is to put the cards on the table, and we have
not yet been able to get the administration to do that. So, we have not
really been able to get an agreement yet.
Mr. Speaker, I am sorry about that. I apologize to all the Members of
this body that we have not concluded our business. I am hopeful and
optimistic that we will be able to do so by Monday. But I want to say
to all of my Members, all of my colleagues throughout Congress, we are
going to stay here. We are going to stay here until we conclude the
people's business. We will stay as long as it takes to finish our
business, pass our appropriations bills, live within the budget caps,
the agreement that the President and the Congress made last year.
When we conclude our business, we will go home and get elected. Until
then, I am afraid that we may be here with another continuing
resolution, and that grieves me greatly. I would like very much not to
have to say that. But to think that just a few minutes ago the
representatives of the President of the United States would not show us
the offsets that they intend to use to pay for any spending over and
above the budget caps that the President agreed to a year ago is
absolutely astounding at this late hour.
So, I have no choice but to come here and request this continuing
resolution.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
{time} 1700
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 7 minutes.
Mr. Speaker, everyone knows that the gentleman from Louisiana and I
are good friends. We are an awful lot alike; we are both very placid
individuals. Neither one of us ever gets excited; neither one of us
ever gets mad; and we are always the quietest, most calm people in the
place.
Let me simply say that I have enjoyed listening to my friend's
speech, and he is doing his duty in bringing this extension of the
continuing resolution to the floor. But I kind of feel like Yogi Berra.
This is deja vu all over again. And I think we really do need to
understand why we are here and what the practical steps are that must
be taken if we are to get out of here in a reasonable length of time.
This House has had sort of a schizophrenic history the last 2 years
on appropriations bills. Last year, I thought we had a very good year,
and I thought that both parties could genuinely be pleased about what
was produced in the appropriations process. After the fight over the
government shutdown several years ago, where my friends on the other
side got badly burned because they thought they could shut the
government down to force the President to cave into their priorities,
and they were proven wrong, in reaction to that, last year, I thought
they behaved quite responsibly. And, as a result, we had a bipartisan
approach to virtually every appropriations bill except one. And at the
end of the process I thought we all felt pretty good about ourselves
and about each other.
But when this year's appropriations cycle began, it was apparent that
the majority leadership was in a new mode, and they were telling the
leadership of the Committee on Appropriations on the other side of the
aisle that they wanted them to adopt a more confrontational mode so
that they could more clearly define the differences between the two
parties. The press has written about that. I have been told that,
frankly, by a number of Members on the other side of the aisle.
So, as a consequence, what has been the track record? The track
record is that this Congress never did produce a budget. We are now
through the entire fiscal year, and we still do not have a budget. We
also have very few bills that have gone through the entire process. I
think only two of them have been signed, one has been vetoed, and the
rest are still stuck in the Congress somewhere.
One of the reasons for that, in my view, is because the leadership on
that side of the aisle in this House decided that they wanted to try to
pass a series of appropriations bills with only Republican votes. And
so, for instance, on Labor, Health, Education, they produced a bill
which is some $2 billion below the President's on education; they
eliminated the Low Income Heating Assistance Program; they eliminated
Summer Jobs; they shredded the President's education initiatives; and
they produced a bill which was so extreme that their Republican
brethren in the Senate would not accept that bill, and that bill has
never even been finished by either body. Finally, yesterday, that bill
came to the floor, and then we simply had a brief debate on family
planning and then that bill was pulled from the floor.
Now, we do not run this place; the other side does, because they are
the majority. I recognize that. But when the other side follows a
policy of confrontation rather than cooperation, they have to expect
that we are going to have problems. And so now we are stuck. No budget.
Almost no appropriations bills passed. Fiscal year gone. We have
already had one continuing resolution and now we have yet another one.
I would predict for my colleagues that this is going to have to be
extended again.
Members in this House need to understand there is not a chance of a
snowball in Hades that we can possibly reach all of the agreements that
have to be reached and have a bill to the floor on Monday. I have
talked to a number of our friends in the press, and they seem to have
been told that there were only 9 or 10 items that separated us. We
still have over 300 items that have to be resolved, in numbers and in
language. And that is a practical fact. That means that we are going to
need every second of this extension and then some, in my view.
I would just ask that we recognize that while the majority party
controls both Houses of the Congress, and it is their right to produce
a bill that can only be passed with Republican votes, they must
understand that if they want those bills to become law, they do need a
Presidential signature, and that means there is going to have to be
compromise. We are going to have to find common ground. And, until we
do, we are going to be stuck here. I hope we can find that common
ground sooner than later, but it is going to be very difficult.
With respect to the chairman's comments on offsets, offsets are
simply what is produced in order to pay the bill. The check comes after
we know what the bill is. Well, until we know what the differences are
between parties, and until we know the size of
[[Page H10317]]
those differences, it is pretty hard to say how we are going to pay for
them when we do not even know what the differences are. So what we have
to do, with all due respect to my friends on the other side, we have to
sit down and lay out what our differences are so that we know rather
than are guessing about how the other feels, and then we can proceed to
try to bridge those differences.
I hope we can be here early next week with a resolution to these
bills, but we are a long way from settlement. And as the President said
in the White House, we are not going to leave, we are not going to
leave until this Congress is responsive to the President's education
initiatives and we have those funded to considerable measure. And that
means that we had better start recognizing that right now.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. ROGERS. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.
As the gentleman has said, the process is to work between the bodies
on the Hill and between the parties in this body and the other body to
work out our differences, and, of course, work with the White House to
try to achieve some degree of compromise to where the bills can be
signed. And that is exactly the process that we are in and have been in
for several weeks now.
As far as knowing what the White House offsets are going to be so
that we can know where the money is going to come from to pay for these
extra frills that the President seems to want, we simply want to know
what the cost is going to be and where the money is going to come from.
When we go shopping at the store and the store shows us the goods that
we would like to buy, they have to know that we have got the money to
pay for it before we can strike a deal.
And so we simply want to see the White House's money. If they have a
way to pay for the frills that they are asking for, then that is a
different story. But until this time they have simply refused to tell
us whether or not they have the money to pay for the frills that they
want to add to these bills.
Now, we are in the process of working differences out between the
bodies and the White House. That process is ongoing. The budget office
from the White House has been here now for several days meeting with
the leadership in the Congress, the Speaker, the majority leader, and
the leaders of the minority party in both bodies. We are in the process
of negotiating and working. We simply have not had time to meet the
demands of the White House at this point in time.
And I would urge that the White House be reasonable in their
requests. We are trying to be reasonable. We are trying to find ways to
do what the White House would like to do on all these bills. They are
being a bit unreasonable at this point in time, and we simply are going
to stay here until we get this job done.
Now, the White House can take their campaign trips wherever they
want. This body, this House, is staying in session until we get the job
done.
{time} 1710
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield 7 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior), the Democratic Whip.
Mr. BONIOR. Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding and
giving me some time to talk about the lack of a budget.
Madam Speaker, here we are. We are 9 days past the end of the fiscal
year. We are passing another short-term budget because the Republican
leadership has failed to do its work. We have no budget.
If we were running a business and we were entering a new year, we
would have a budget to follow so we would know where we were going,
what we were going to spend, what income we were going to take in, how
we were going to make our ledger work.
A family would have a budget so they knew how to take care of their
housing needs and their children's education and all of the things that
are important.
We are not talking about some small entity here. This is the Federal
Government. We have no budget. For the first time in 25 years, there is
no budget. And only 6 of the 13 spending bills have been passed. Excuse
me. Six have not been passed.
So what have we been doing here for, lo, these many months since the
President came and talked about issues of concern to the country in the
State of the Union address?
Have we dealt with the minimum wage so that people who work 40 hours
a week can earn at least a poverty level wage? They do not now. They
did not do that. The Senate a couple of weeks ago voted against that.
The Republican colleagues killed that in the Senate.
How about campaign finance reform to clean up our system? Did not do
that in the Senate. They killed that one, too, after squandering months
on it in the House not wanting to take it up.
How about teen smoking for the health of our children? What did we do
there? Zippo, nada, nothing.
How about HMO reform, a patients' bill of rights so that when someone
wants to see a doctor they can see a doctor. So that if someone needs a
test they can get a test. So if someone has an emergency they can go to
the closest hospital? They killed it in the Senate today in the other
body.
So this Congress has basically done nothing on the issues that the
American people care about. We have no budget.
And my colleague on the other side of the aisle, who I respect, the
gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers), talks about frills, how are we
going to pay for the frills?
I just was handed a definition of ``frills'' because I was on my way
to the dictionary which sits in this Chamber next to the Speaker's
podium, and they define frills as a trimming, as a strip of cloth or
lace gathered at the end, a ruffle, something superfluous.
Let me tell my colleagues what kind of frills we are talking about
and then decide whether or not it is superfluous. We are talking about
education, and we are talking about reducing our class size in America
so that our children can get a good education, so that there can be
discipline in the classrooms and our teachers can teach, and we have a
bill that we have advocated for months and months and months, and they
have said no and no and no to it. That is the frills we are talking
about today.
Or how about this frill? How about taking care of the schools in this
Nation that are falling apart, where the plaster is falling down and
the plumbing does not work or our children are getting educated in
trailers outside the main building, where the heat does not work
sometimes? Is that a frill?
That is why we want to stay here, so that we can take care of those
issues that we came here to take care of.
They have closed the door to a good wage for people already. They
closed the door on patients' health reform, a patients' bill of rights,
reforming HMOs today. They closed the door on doing something about
teen smoking and health care in this country, and now they talk about
education reform as frills.
We have no budget. This, in my opinion, has been the worst, most
unproductive Congress that I have been involved with in my 22 years
here. Oh, it has done a lot of investigating, but when it comes to the
people's business, the business that the people talk about around their
kitchen tables, nothing, and then we get it called frills.
Madam Speaker, I hope in the next week, and I suspect we will be here
for a week, I cannot imagine that we will get 300 items taken care of,
because that is what is in disagreement, as the ranking member, the
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) mentioned, 300 pieces of
disagreement on these appropriation bills, in numbers and in language.
I hope in the week or so that it takes to get this done we will
elevate the education issue to where it belongs in this country so that
our children will get the respect, the dignity and the resources that
they need to be able to compete in our world.
Mr. ROGERS. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.
Madam Speaker, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior), whatever he
calls the additional spending the President has requested, he has yet
to tell us how he is going to pay for it. I mean, the budget agreement
that the gentleman agreed to, the President agreed to, under which we
are operating, sets caps for spending.
[[Page H10318]]
We are spending up to the caps. Now the President says disregard the
caps; give us more money for X, Y and Z.
Well, we cannot consider that until we know how we are going to pay
for it. Where are we going to cut spending in order to increase
spending for something else so that we stay under the overall caps,
under which this Congress operates and the White House agreed to and is
operating?
Now, as to whether or not there is a budget resolution, it makes not
a hill of beans' difference. We are operating under the budget
agreement that the parties and the White House agreed to a couple of
years ago. We are spending in the appropriations bills every penny of
those caps. Whether or not we have a budget resolution is irrelevant,
because we agreed back in June, without the budget resolution, that we
would spend up to the caps. We cannot spend more than the caps unless
we change the law. So what difference is it if there is not a budget
resolution, which only is an internal paper of the Congress anyway?
So we are spending all of the caps that we are allowed to spend under
the budget resolution, the budget agreement, that the White House
signed off on and now wants to violate.
I want to ask the White House, how come they want to violate the
balanced budget agreement that led to the Nation's first balanced
budget in 37 years and which they are so big about crowing about on
television? Why do they now want to violate that balanced budget
agreement?
As long as there is a refusal to come up with the offsets to spend
more in one category than we agreed to, it simply is a hollow demand.
{time} 1720
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. I would like to
ask the gentleman a question on my time. He is asking what the
administration will do to pay for its initiatives. The Speaker is
asking that we spend at least $8 billion in additional funding for the
Pentagon, in addition to the bill that we just passed through here 2
weeks ago.
Where are you going to get the money to pay for that?
Mr. ROGERS. If the gentleman will yield, I assume that the Speaker
has suggested the offsets with which to pay for it. That is the way
this place has to operate under the balanced budget agreement.
Mr. OBEY. The gentleman assumes wrongly.
Mr. ROGERS. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
California (Mr. Cunningham), a member of the committee.
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Madam Speaker, this debate is almost hilarious. My
colleagues on the other side say there is no budget. But each
appropriations bill we have in the balanced budget has a cap. Every
appropriations bill has a budget in it, all 13 of them. There is your
budget. And in every case, every single case except one that the
liberals always want to cut is defense, and our national security is
the lowest it has been in 30 years. That is your cash cow. In every
single one. You say, well, education. Your party over 40 years has
screwed up the education program to where we are 15th in the
industrialized nations in math and science. We are last in literacy.
And for the first time we have taken the 760 federal education programs
so you can rein down your excessive money and limit it and get the
money to the classroom. Instead of 50 cents on the dollar, we are going
to get 90 cents on the dollar down to the classroom.
You call us extreme. Well, yesterday's fiasco, so that you can
generate your base, we are trying to lead the country based on the
Constitution and here you are with a gimmick to try to generate your
base. And now you are over at the White House saying, Mr. President, we
need to spend more, we need big government, we need to tax more, and do
you think we are going to stick around and let you do that? We are
going to stick around, but we are not going to let you get away your
liberal spending, liberal tax and liberal bigger government. Absolutely
not.
I feel sorry for my colleagues on the other side. They look at the
polls and they know that many of them are not coming back next term.
The only thing they can do is sit here and demagogue and push the White
House to spend more money. We are not going to let you do it. Because
the American people know exactly what you are trying to do.
When you say education, what about the children, well, what about
Davis-Bacon? We could have waived Davis-Bacon for construction on
schools in D.C., Mr. Bonior, and your union bosses preferred union
bosses instead of children, instead of building and putting roofs on
our D.C. schools.
Let us call it like it is. You talk about increasing education. The
money that is in there for education out of the President's budget is
not there. It is above it. And the only way he can increase it is to
take it out of the surplus. And you take it out of the surplus, I do
not guess you want to take the surplus and put it into Social Security
anymore. I guess you have changed your mind. Because of all these great
spending programs you have, you want to keep spending and spending and
spending. You cannot have it both ways. You have got to adhere to a
balanced budget that the President signed which you on the left do not
want to do. I feel sorry for you. Because not many of you are coming
back.
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. The gentleman says
that the Democratic Party has screwed up education. I guess that means
that he feels we should not have passed the Nation's student loan
programs which we would not have had without a Democratic Congress. I
guess that means he feels we should not have Pell grants that helped
the kids from working families go to college and technical school. I
guess that means he feels that we ought to repeal handicapped
educational legislation. I guess that means he feels we ought to repeal
Head Start that is the main program that we provide so that kids who
are having trouble learning to read and deal with mathematics get a
decent start in the early grades on that. The gentleman may think that
that is screwing up America. I think it is creating opportunity for
every working family in America.
On this side of the aisle, we make absolutely no apology in being for
that kind of spending. In contrast, in the last 3 years, this Congress
has added $20 billion to the President's defense budget but $17 billion
of the $20 billion has gone for pork rather than readiness. I will
compare and debate those priorities anytime.
Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from
California (Mr. Miller).
Mr. MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for
yielding time. It is interesting that the Republicans who spent months
and months trying to get a budget, then when they cannot get a budget,
they say it does not amount to a hill of bean, that it makes no
difference to the American people. Then why did you spend all those
months in the Budget Committee trying to hammer out a budget? You say
it does not matter that the appropriations bills are not done yet. But
why did you spend all this time trying to do it?
The fact of the matter is you have an ideological fight going on
within the Republican Party within the right wing and the far right
wing and you cannot resolve it and you have not been able to do the
American public's business. You have not been able to do it.
Most of the businesses in America are increasing their productivity.
Workers all across America are increasing their productivity. People
are making investments in productivity. The Republican Congress is
working less every year. Every year. You lost a month this year. Last
year we worked 132 days. This year we worked 106. You have lost a
month. Two years ago you worked more days. You have lost 2 months in 2
years. At this rate we will be the most unproductive workers in
America. You cannot get a budget, you cannot get appropriations bills,
you could not get a tobacco agreement, you have not been able to reform
HMOs, you cannot deal with crumbling classrooms in this country, you
cannot deal with getting more teachers in the classrooms because of a
teacher shortage, and yet you are getting the same pay. But you have
lost 2 months in 2 years' time. If you worked for any corporation in
America, either you would shut down your corporation, you would
[[Page H10319]]
reinvent your corporation, or you would go out of business. Name
another entity in this country that lost 2 months in the last 2 years
in worker productivity. American workers are working harder than they
have ever worked before for their wages and the first thing that the
gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) suggests is that we take
away their wages in Davis-Bacon, that we take hardworking Americans and
his answer to the budgetary problem is to take away their wages. That
is outrageous. Those people are working 8 and 10 hours a day. They are
working 6 and 7 days a week. The Congress is coming in on Wednesday and
leaving on Thursday, the Congress cannot show up after its August break
until the middle of September, and it is ready to go home in October
and it is not coming back until March. That is a hell of a job we have
got here, ladies and gentlemen. The only problem is you have not done
your work. Anywhere else in America, you would be fired. You would be
fired, because you failed to show up and go to work every day like
every other American.
So what has happened? So we have said no, this Congress, to 100,000
teachers for our children. We have said no to our children who are in
crumbling classrooms, where $12 billion worth of work needs to be done
to make those classrooms safe. We have said no to America's children
for afterschool programs that the police departments tell us all the
time they need to help us fight crime after school between 3 and 6 in
the afternoon. You have said no to the people who want to submit the
patient-doctor relationship, you have insisted that we are going to
continue to let the insurance companies get in between patients and
doctors who need that kind of care. You have said no to the tobacco
settlement so we can get back to the Medicare system the money that was
stolen from them because they had to deal with the tobacco ailments of
the American public from smoking after being deceived by the tobacco
companies.
This is the most unproductive Congress in the history of this
Congress. If we keep losing the days of work like this, pretty soon we
will just show up in January, collect a year's pay and go home, because
according to you, it makes no difference whether we have a budget and
appropriations. It makes a difference to the American people because
the reason you do not have a budget is you do not want to admit what
you have not done.
Mr. ROGERS. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. Apparently the
gentleman does not believe that a balanced budget is important. This
Congress achieved a balanced budget for the first time in 37 years.
Apparently the gentleman does not believe that cutting taxes to the
American people is important. This Congress cut people's taxes.
Apparently the gentleman does not believe that having the best economy
in decades is not important. We believe it is. This Congress created
the atmosphere in which we have got the best economy in decades. The
gentleman apparently does not believe that having record employment is
important. We believe it is. Under this Congress's policies we have had
record employment for the last several years ever since this party has
been in charge.
{time} 1730
We believe this Congress has been productive on the important matters
for all of the American people.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Gejdenson).
Mr. GEJDENSON. Madam Speaker, listening to my friend, the gentleman
from California (Mr. Miller), it reminds me of Harry Truman's
statement. Some complained that Harry Truman was giving them hell; he
says, ``No, I just tell them the truth, and it sounds like hell.''
Harry Truman also coined the do-nothing Congress.
Now the bad news here is that the extreme right has taken control of
the agenda here. We find ourselves through this session not dealing
with the budgetary matters, health care, education. We spent half a day
on the floor trying to take away health care from people in California.
We go after ethnic groups and try to divide this country based on their
national origin or their heritage. When it comes to education, we
ignore it. Pension reform; we will not deal with it here.
Chris Dodd and I sat in a meeting in Norwich, Connecticut, where a
gentleman died of a heart attack because he was so frightened about the
situation of his family because the HMO was in the process of dropping
them. Can his family, can other families turn to this Congress? No.
This Congress is too busy, too busy to take care of people's health
needs.
In my district and across this country there are a quarter of a
million seniors who are losing their health care and million others
that are frightened. We are here sitting around taking up pieces of
legislation that have no life-and-death significance, but not HMO
reform. Our colleagues might get somebody with a big corporate
contribution angry, so there is no HMO reform, there is no help for
seniors who are losing their health care.
What I saw what government did as a kid: Members came to Congress so
they could be an advocate for those without power, not the insurance
companies, not the major corporations. Members were there to make sure
the average person had a voice for their troubles.
And then, of course, campaign finance reform. Our colleagues control
the House and the Senate. They have always been the reason that
campaign finance reform has not passed, filibustered in the Senate,
vetoed by President Bush. Now, they could have written any bill that
they choose to. They killed campaign finance reform along with health
care and pensions and education.
Madam Speaker, our colleagues ought to be ashamed of themselves.
Mr. ROGERS. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Arizona (Mr. Hayworth).
Mr. HAYWORTH. Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Kentucky for
yielding this time to me.
Madam Speaker, I would say the debate is somewhat enlightening,
except there seems to be far more heat of that aforementioned four-
letter definition that my friend from Connecticut mentioned a second
ago than any light. We could sit here and retrace history. We could ask
why during 40 years of liberal control campaign finance reform to deal
with so many problems was never really taken up. We could talk about
the fact that true health care reform to protect the doctor-patient
relationship rather than the patient-trial lawyer relationship has been
championed in this body. We could talk about the fact that for the
first time in 16 long years, this common-sense conservative Congress
offered tax relief to working Americans.
Indeed, Madam Speaker, I am struck by the irony of the other side who
always would cast themselves as defenders of working Americans, and yet
time and time and time again reached into the pockets of those working
Americans to take their wages and send them here to Washington.
Madam Speaker, our common-sense policies have drawn a clear choice
and contrast because we are intent on transferring money, power and
influence out of the hands of the bureaucrats. We are intent on making
sure that working Americans hang onto more of their wages so they have
more to spend on their own families rather than sending those wages
here to Washington. That is the real change, and to the extent that we
continue this proven record of success with a balanced budget, with tax
relief for Americans, with a bold plan to ensure the sanctity of the
patient-doctor relationship, we are proud to take our time to debate
our differences and to achieve that balanced budget.
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
Michigan (Mr. Bonior), the distinguished minority whip.
Mr. BONIOR. Madam Speaker, I am sorry the gentleman would not yield.
I asked him several times. Perhaps he would answer this question for
me.
The gentleman talked about wages and standing up for working people.
Is the gentleman in support of increasing the minimum wage, the minimum
wage bill that we have? Or is the gentleman opposed to it?
Mr. HAYWORTH. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. BONIOR. I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.
[[Page H10320]]
Mr. HAYWORTH. The gentleman is in support of cutting taxes for
working Americans.
Mr. BONIOR. Madam Speaker, the gentleman will not answer that
question, so he obviously is not in support of raising the minimum wage
for people who work for less than poverty wages, and that ought to be
recorded and understood by the people who he represents.
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.
I would also remind the gentleman from Arizona, he says that when the
Democrats controlled Congress, we did not take up campaign finance
reform. The fact is we passed campaign finance reform three times in
this House. I was the sponsor of it on two occasions. He says that we
did not do much to help senior citizens. All we did under the Democrat
watch was to pass Social Security, to pass Medicare, two programs that
the gentleman's Speaker has spent a lifetime trying to destroy.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time and
reserve the right to close.
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).
Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I listened to what the gentleman from
Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) said, and the problem I have is not only with
the substance of what he talked about, but the fact that effectively
what he has proposed and what the Republican leadership has done is to
just waste time, and that is why we are here in this dilemma tonight
where they have to pass continuing resolutions, and they cannot get the
budget done, and they cannot get the appropriation bills passed because
basically they just wasted the Congress' and the American public's
time.
The gentleman from Arizona talked about HMO reform. They had no
intention of passing HMO reform. Democrats in committee, in the
Committee on Commerce and other committees, on the floor, constantly
asked that the Patient Bill Of Rights be brought up for a vote and be
considered, the Democratic proposal. It was never considered. They just
took 1 day, they passed an HMO bill that basically reformed nothing,
that was worse than the status quo, and they knew it was not going to
go anywhere. They sent it over to the Senate. The Senate never took it
up. The Democratic leadership in the Senate tried to take it up today
and was denied. There was no intention to pass HMO reform, just to
waste time.
The gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) talked about tax cuts.
There was no intention to pass a tax cut. This was just an exercise in
futility. They were taking the money from the Social Security Trust
Fund. They knew it was never going to pass. It passed the House, it
went over to the Senate, they knew the Senate would never take it up.
The President vowed he would never sign it. They did not even intend to
pass a tax cut really. They were just wasting time.
And we have seen this over and over again, wasting time on
appropriations bills, all these antienvironmental riders that will
wreck our natural resources that eventually most of them they had to
take out.
This whole debate over education, they did not care about public
education. They spent days, weeks talking about vouchers, taking money
from public schools to give it to private schools. But they did not
even intend to really pass that either. They were just wasting time.
That is why we are here today, because this Congress essentially does
nothing under the Republican leadership but waste time. They do not
want to do anything to help the American public. Just some benchmarks:
The least number of days that this Congress has worked in decades, the
least number of bills enacted in decades, and, finally, the failure to
pass a budget for the first time since the budget process was created.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 3\1/2\ minutes.
Madam Speaker, I am absolutely astounded at the comments that just
preceded me. The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) obviously is
engaged in a tough political race back home, and he has brought
rhetoric to the floor of the House. Unfortunately it is only that, has
no bearing, no relationship to the truth whatsoever.
The fact is if he would have checked the record, if he had been
around here in that campaign, perhaps he would know that we passed the
Higher Education Act, the Reading Excellence Act, the school nutrition
bill, the vocational technical education bill, a quality Head Start
bill, a charter schools bill and legislation to provide new technology
to the people with disabilities.
{time} 1740
The fact is that he would know that in the Labor-Health bill now
being discussed with the President's people today, the Congress has
approved roughly $32 billion.
The differences between the President's position and our position is
less than $600 million, maybe as low as $300 million. In many
instances, the Congress, the Republican Congress has appropriated more
than the President asked for, specifically on the issue with respect to
the special education where the President did not ask for the
sufficient amount of money that was already authorized by Congress in
previous years.
Just about an hour and a half ago, the President's people came to us
with what we thought was a good faith negotiation to resolve all our
differences and get Congress out of session by the end of the
continuing resolution tonight, which we are now trying to extend till
Monday.
As late as today, October 9, they came to us with no paper, no
spreadsheets, no documentation for what they were asking for, and they
have been saying to us since July that they were going to provide
offsets, that they were going to provide for legislative cuts to offset
the additional spending that the President has requested throughout the
last several months, and that they have still to this moment, to this
moment not given us the first sheet of paper or the first indication of
what those offsets in some black box happen to be.
The fact is if we are dealing in a good faith effort with the
opposing party, both sides, at a late date like this, the last days of
the legislative session, should put their cards on the table and stop
jockeying politically.
But as it was noted by the speaker that just proceeded, all they are
interested in is politics and in posturing. They are not interested in
actually sitting down and getting the people's business done. I regret
that. I regret that.
I am prepared to stay here as long as it takes to get this business
done, to get these bills appropriated, to make sure that the money is
available for the people that really need it, but make sure that we
live within the budget caps that the President himself agreed to last
year when he came up with an historic balanced budget agreement with
the Congress that led to the first surplus in the American treasury in
30 years, 30 years, Madam Speaker.
I think it's very, very important that we separate the wheat from the
chaff, that we separate the political posturing like the speaker that
preceded me. Understand, we are going to finish the people's business.
But in order for us to reach a good faith agreement with the
administration, with the President of the United States so that we can
resolve all of our differences, we have to know what their position is.
We have to see their paper. We have to see their request. We have to
see the extra money that they want to spend it on, and we have to know
where that money is coming from. Until we get it, we are just talking
in the dark.
I think it is time to stop talking in the dark. Get real. Put the
politics behind us and get the people's business done.
Mr. MURTHA. Madam Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I want the
gentleman to know I have been watching the debate; and the gentleman
from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) is coming across as reasonable. I do not know
what is going on.
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
Madam Speaker, we have heard a lot of touting over there about the
fact the administration is not offsetting some of the items it is
asking for us provide.
[[Page H10321]]
I see in the National Journal's Congress Daily the fact that the
Senate majority leader is asking us to spend $385 million in so-called
emergency funding to bail out ConAgra and Tyson's and other big chicken
exporters who, on the private market, ship chickens to Russia and now
cannot find a buyer.
So when we start talking about declaring something as an emergency, I
did not realize it was an emergency that we would bail out big business
when they make a bad detail.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the very patient
and hard-working, intelligent, dynamic gentleman from Tennessee (Mr.
Wamp).
Mr. WAMP. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman yielding to me.
Madam Speaker, I had no intention of coming to the floor and engaging
in this debate, but I really believe it is important from time to time
for people to come maybe to the center of this institution and put
things in somewhat of a perspective as we prepare to go home at the end
of the 105th Congress.
I have been here 4 years and have grown to deeply and passionately,
not only love this institution, but love people on both sides of the
aisle.
When I hear people like the gentleman from California come here and
make statements about people not doing their job and not working hard,
I want the people to know, everybody in this institution that I know
have works their tails off.
When my 11-year-old son and my 9 year-old-daughter watch these
proceedings and know how much time I spend away from them and how busy
I am and everybody in this institution, this institution means more
than either one of our political parties. It must be held up. If not,
the cynicism in this country is going to grow.
I strongly encourage Members on both sides to say what they mean and
mean what they say and quit using words that demean this institution.
It is not in our best interest. It is not to our children's best
interest.
What is in their best interest is to know that we all work hard and
do our very best for the people that we represent. We should debate the
issues, but to use shallow rhetoric about this body not having done its
job last year or this year, I have been here 4 years. I have seen
people work around the clock from both sides of the aisle. Four hundred
thirty-five people work, from my perspective, as hard as they possibly
could.
I worked with my friends on the other side of the aisle on campaign
finance reform. I tried not to come down here and run my mouth if I did
not have something to say that was a value to this process.
Please, for the sake of this government, for civil government, for
decency, for cooperation, for the next Congress and the next Congress
and Congresses 100 years from now, quit using shallow rhetoric.
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds.
Madam Speaker, I wish we had heard that same speech yesterday.
Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman
from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).
Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, let me paraphrase Admiral Stockdale, a
former vice presidential candidate: ``Who are we, and why are we
here?''
It is clear that the Republican leadership of this House has no idea
who they are and certainly do not know why they are here. They do not
know why the people of this country sent them to represent their
interests. This Republican-led Congress has failed the American people.
We have passed the end of the fiscal year, and what have they
accomplished? The Republican leadership has not passed the budget. They
have not completed appropriations. We only have a few days left before
this Congress adjourns, and they refuse to address the issue that the
American people care about.
Let us talk about the missed opportunities. Social Security reform.
Instead of doing that, they would raid the Social Security Trust Fund
and not preserve and protect Social Security for the future.
Tobacco legislation. Three thousand kids in this country start to
smoke every single day, and 1,000 will die. But, no, we could not do
something about tobacco legislation.
Real managed care reform. About getting doctors and patients to make
the decisions, the medical decisions in their lives instead of
insurance companies. No. We had bipartisan support in this body. We
could have passed it in a heartbeat. If the Speaker of this House
wanted to get it passed, we could have done it at a moment's notice.
Let us talk about minimum wage and raising the living standards of
working families in this country. No, we could not do that.
Campaign finance reform. Certainly let us not reform this House. Let
us not do that.
They have failed to take any action to strengthen our public schools,
reduce class size, make sure we have 100,000 new teachers in the
classroom, modernize our schools so that our kids get wired up to the
Internet and they can succeed in their future.
{time} 1750
No, none of these we could do.
Let me just say, the American people deserve to know why we are here.
We are here to represent their interests. We have a few short hours in
this session of the Congress. Let us do something about our school
system; let us pass legislation that is meaningful to the people of
this country.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time, and
I reserve the right to close.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Emerson). The gentleman from Wisconsin
has 4 minutes remaining; the gentleman from Louisiana has 8\1/2\
minutes remaining.
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez).
(Mr. MENENDEZ asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam Speaker, this Republican Congress has been a
failure. We have spent a lot of time, yes, on investigations and
millions of dollars on investigations, but not making a meaningful
difference in people's lives.
Madam Speaker, we have a balanced budget and a Federal surplus
because of the Democratic deficit reduction program, yet my colleagues
are 9 days overdue on a budget for America. No mayor, no Governor, no
American family could do the same. My colleagues have failed families
in this country in giving them protection from HMO abuses. My
Republican colleagues have failed seniors by making sure that Social
Security comes first in the context of the budget surplus.
Madam Speaker, we Democrats do not want to let you go home and fail
our children. We want to put 100,000 teachers back in the classrooms of
this country to help educate our children and modernize our schools. If
we have billions of dollars for tax cuts, we can have some money for
the Nation's children that are going to make us competitive in the next
century.
Democrats will not let you leave and go home and campaign; we will
stay here and work and make sure, we are going to ensure, that you do
not commit the final failure, which would be failing our children.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
I was prepared to close, but evidently we are going to have continue
to have rhetoric that sometimes compels me to answer.
I left the floor a little while ago to take care of some very
important business, and when I returned I was advised that one of the
speakers on the other side took this political rhetoric to such an
extent that he talked about a campaign rally, or a town meeting at
which he was present, and an elderly gentleman talked about HMOs and
got so excited that he fell down and died, and for some reason that was
supposed to be our fault.
I heard the last speaker say that we have deprived America of all of
the good that the President wishes to bestow upon them, and I just get
concerned about the rhetoric. I just asked my friend from Arizona
there, does he have any thoughts about how heated this rhetoric gets?
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.
Mr. HAYWORTH. Madam Speaker, I think we could do with a lot more
[[Page H10322]]
light, and a lot less heat. I think it is unfortunate when members of
the minority, and we can understand that different people have
different philosophies and that we should exchange those, but to have
reason and, to a certain degree, passion replaced by a sad rhetorical
device to imply that anyone's policies on this floor led to the death
of an individual I think is highly regrettable.
I would hope that those on both sides of the aisle would rethink that
type of rhetoric, because again, it has no place in this Chamber.
Indeed, given the standards that many have applied to the conservative
side of the aisle, I would hope that they would offer the same scrutiny
to such unfortunate statements that come from the other side.
The bottom line is this: We can work together in the framework of
what we did last year, balancing the budget for the first time in a
generation; offering tax cuts to working folks for the first time in 16
years; and I would hope that all of the poll-driven rhetoric and all of
the passion-driven examples that are highly regrettable would be left
outside the Chamber.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, the gentleman is
absolutely correct. Because of our efforts, we now have a balanced
budget, $70 billion in surplus. Because of our efforts, we have the
lowest interest rates in a generation. Because of our efforts, our
children have a future which, hopefully, if we can get our way, will be
free of undue taxation and free of undue interference from Washington,
D.C. That is our goal. That is our hope. That is our platform. We are
prepared to run on that at any time.
But to be accused of inciting conditions that caused the death of an
American citizen frankly goes beyond the pale. I am really surprised
that that was used in the rhetoric here on the floor.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time, and I hope to close
this debate soon.
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, how much time remains?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) has
3 minutes remaining.
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the remainder of the time.
Madam Speaker, first of all, I would like to thank the suddenly
moderate gentleman from Arizona for his pieties, and I would simply
like to say that I love this institution, and I respect many, many
Members in it. And I revere what this institution is supposed to mean
to each and every citizen of the country. But in the last analysis, I
think they are going to be impressed much less by our pieties and by
our rhetoric than they are by our actions.
It seems to me if we really want to inspire the American people, we
will take action in the next week, as we make our final decisions on
the budget, a budget which, after all, does define what our values are,
and as we make those choices, I hope that the choices that we make will
indeed help to make a difference for struggling working families who
need every bit of help they can to make education affordable, to
provide decent classrooms for kids, to provide decent teacher-student
ratios so that kids have a chance to learn in the poor school districts
as well as the wealthy school districts in this country.
I hope that in the area of health we will recognize that every
American has a right to full access to health care, just by virtue of
the fact that they were born one of God's creatures; and I hope that we
will recognize our obligation to strengthen people's retirement
security, and I hope we will recognize our obligation to drop the
innumerable attacks on the environment that we see in appropriation
bills that threaten the future environmental health and safety of this
country.
So I would urge Members to vote for this simple extension of time so
that this very tardy Congress can get its work done.
I make no criticism of the gentleman from Louisiana in this. I think
we have said many times, if all of these issues were left to us to work
out between the two of us, I do not think there is an issue that we
could not solve. But unfortunately, there are many pressures above our
pay grade which have often interposed themselves and made it very, very
difficult for our committee to reach the same kind of accommodation
that we were able to reach last year, and that is why we stand here
tonight with still so much work to be done, and with still so many
public needs to be met.
I would hope that in the time that we have remaining and the time
that is provided by this resolution will help us indeed to put people
first.
{time} 1800
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Madam Speaker, I want to thank my friend, the gentleman from
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) for his comments. I do agree with them. I think if
he and I were left to work out all of the problems that divide us, we
could be through and be out of here tonight. However, unfortunately,
there are others involved in the process. It has been a long calendar,
both in the calendar year 1998 and in 1997, that comprised the
legislative agenda for the 105th Congress.
I happen to think we have accomplished a great deal. I know my friend
might quarrel with that, but we have managed to roll back taxes, we
have cut regulation, we have passed a balanced budget agreement, in
conjunction with the President.
We have expected the President to adhere to the requirements of that
balanced budget agreement, and I think one of the reasons we stand here
tonight is because the balanced budget agreement has not been adhered
to by the President. As I noted earlier, the President signed that
budget agreement.
We have set caps for the discretionary spending, that which goes
through the appropriations process for departments, agencies, and
programs. Last year we knew that we were on a glide path that would be
difficult to meet, and the President in fact did not meet it, but he
expected the Congress would pass tobacco taxes and all sorts of
additional taxes and user fees to meet his additional agenda that he
proposed in February when he addressed us in the State of the Union
speech.
We do not have that extra money. We would expect the President to
come to us early in the process and say, if we do not have that extra
money, here is how I expect to get some of my other initiatives
fulfilled. Certainly that is a negotiating process. We would never
expect the President to get all of his initiatives fulfilled, any more
than we would expect to get all of ours imposed upon him in an equal
negotiation, but we have not had an equal negotiation.
We have had our cards on the table for days, weeks, months. The
President knows, his people know where we are on appropriations bills,
and just only 2 hours ago came to us and said they are still not going
to give us their offsets, and they are going to parcel out the extra
items for spending that he has targeted. That puts us in a tough
position.
I would say that it is time to put the politics behind us. I would
rely on our accomplishments. My friend, the gentleman from Illinois
(Mr. Manzullo) has given me a long list of fiscal accomplishments which
I think is so good I would like to include them in the Record at this
point.
The material referred to is as follows:
Top Ten Fiscal Accomplishments
(1) Most families with children will save $400 in taxes per
child in 1998 and $500 thereafter. That amounts to over $100
million dollars in each congressional district that the
taxpayers get to keep.
(2) Most families with children in the first two years of
college will be able to use money for college expenses that
otherwise would have gone for taxes and can now set up
educational savings accounts whose profits are tax free.
(3) Most Americans who buy and sell stocks, or who sell a
piece of real estate, will save considerably on their taxes.
(4) Most Americans who bell their principal residence won't
have to pay one dime of capital gains taxes.
(5) Many children of farmers and small business owners who
want to inherit their parents' property and businesses will
pay less or no death taxes.
(6) Small business owners will be able to deduct a greater
share of health and accident insurance premiums, and be able
to write off a greater amount of money for new equipment.
(7) Young people will be able to save easier for a down
payment on their first home by our creating a new IRA.
(8) Stay at home spouses will no longer be discriminated
against because we changed the IRA laws to allow them to
participate.
[[Page H10323]]
(9) People can save $2,000 a year in retirement IRAs paid
for by after tax dollars so that every cent earned is tax
free at retirement.
(10) In 1993 President Clinton gave us the biggest tax
increase in history, but now most Americans have received a
tax cut and a Balanced Budget Act that will stop deficit
spending and pay off the national debt.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I hope Members understand that it is
important that we complete our business, that it is important that we
finish the appropriations process, that we work out a mutually
agreeable negotiation with the President and his representatives, that
he sign the appropriations bills, either within their individual
context or within an omnibus bill, gathering those bills left
unattended, and that once signed, we can complete the work of this
Congress and go back and campaign for reelection.
I do not have an opponent this year. I am happy to tell the Members
that if we cannot get the President to give us his numbers and show us
his cards and enter into a negotiation, I am prepared to stay here.
I know that is going to inconvenience a lot of Members, Republican
and Democrat. I do not think that the vast majority of Members want to
stay here past tonight, let alone Monday or next Friday or next month,
but if necessary, it will not bother me. I will just be here. I will
just plug along.
I hope that one day, whether it is today or tomorrow or Sunday or
Monday or next week, one day, that the representatives of the Office of
Management and Budget will say, okay, here is what we want and here are
our offsets, and here is how we are going to pay for it. We will take
this, they will take that, we will wrap it all up, get the President to
sign it, and we will go home.
If not, I will just stay here. We will not close the government. We
are not going to have any shutdowns. We are just going to keep on
plugging and do our business. If the President wants to posture in the
Rose Garden, I will go run upstairs into the press gallery and I will
answer his posturing. If he wants to get down to business, we will roll
up our sleeves and we will get down to business. Hopefully, that is
what we will opt for. We will in fact complete the people's business.
We will do it soon. That demands that we first vote for this continuing
resolution.
We are not going to be able to complete our business tonight,
unfortunately, but we might, we might successfully complete our
business by Sunday or Monday, at the latest. That is why we are asking
for this continuing resolution to be passed and signed into law, to
give us the time that we need to do our job, working with the White
House and our colleagues on both sides of the aisle. That is why I ask
for a yes vote on this three-day continuing resolution.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Emerson). The joint resolution is
considered as read for amendment, and pursuant to the order of the
House of today, the previous question is ordered on the joint
resolution.
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.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the passage of the joint
resolution.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. LaHOOD. Madam 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 421,
nays 0, not voting 13, as follows:
[Roll No. 511]
YEAS--421
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Aderholt
Allen
Andrews
Archer
Armey
Bachus
Baesler
Baker
Baldacci
Ballenger
Barcia
Barr
Barrett (NE)
Barrett (WI)
Bartlett
Barton
Bass
Bateman
Becerra
Bentsen
Bereuter
Berry
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop
Blagojevich
Bliley
Blumenauer
Blunt
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bonior
Bono
Borski
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd
Brady (PA)
Brady (TX)
Brown (CA)
Brown (FL)
Brown (OH)
Bryant
Bunning
Burr
Burton
Buyer
Callahan
Calvert
Camp
Campbell
Canady
Cannon
Capps
Cardin
Carson
Castle
Chabot
Chambliss
Chenoweth
Christensen
Clay
Clayton
Clement
Clyburn
Coble
Coburn
Collins
Combest
Condit
Conyers
Cook
Cooksey
Costello
Cox
Coyne
Cramer
Crane
Crapo
Cubin
Cummings
Cunningham
Danner
Davis (FL)
Davis (IL)
Davis (VA)
Deal
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
DeLay
Deutsch
Diaz-Balart
Dickey
Dicks
Dingell
Dixon
Doggett
Dooley
Doolittle
Doyle
Dreier
Duncan
Dunn
Edwards
Ehlers
Ehrlich
Emerson
Engel
English
Ensign
Eshoo
Etheridge
Evans
Everett
Ewing
Farr
Fattah
Fawell
Fazio
Filner
Foley
Forbes
Ford
Fossella
Fowler
Fox
Franks (NJ)
Frelinghuysen
Frost
Furse
Gallegly
Ganske
Gejdenson
Gekas
Gephardt
Gibbons
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gilman
Gonzalez
Goode
Goodlatte
Goodling
Gordon
Goss
Graham
Granger
Green
Greenwood
Gutierrez
Gutknecht
Hall (OH)
Hall (TX)
Hamilton
Hansen
Harman
Hastert
Hastings (FL)
Hastings (WA)
Hayworth
Hefley
Hefner
Herger
Hill
Hilleary
Hilliard
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hobson
Hoekstra
Holden
Hooley
Horn
Hostettler
Houghton
Hoyer
Hulshof
Hunter
Hutchinson
Hyde
Istook
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Jenkins
Johnson (CT)
Johnson (WI)
Johnson, E. B.
Johnson, Sam
Jones
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kasich
Kelly
Kennedy (MA)
Kennedy (RI)
Kildee
Kilpatrick
Kim
Kind (WI)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kleczka
Klink
Klug
Knollenberg
Kolbe
Kucinich
LaFalce
LaHood
Lampson
Lantos
Largent
Latham
LaTourette
Lazio
Leach
Lee
Levin
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (GA)
Lewis (KY)
Linder
Lipinski
Livingston
LoBiondo
Lofgren
Lowey
Lucas
Luther
Maloney (CT)
Maloney (NY)
Manzullo
Markey
Martinez
Mascara
Matsui
McCarthy (MO)
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum
McCrery
McDade
McDermott
McGovern
McHale
McHugh
McInnis
McIntosh
McIntyre
McKeon
McKinney
McNulty
Meehan
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Menendez
Metcalf
Mica
Millender-McDonald
Miller (CA)
Miller (FL)
Minge
Mink
Moakley
Moran (KS)
Moran (VA)
Morella
Murtha
Myrick
Nadler
Neal
Neumann
Ney
Northup
Norwood
Nussle
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Owens
Oxley
Packard
Pallone
Pappas
Parker
Pascrell
Pastor
Paul
Paxon
Payne
Pease
Pelosi
Peterson (MN)
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pickering
Pickett
Pitts
Pombo
Pomeroy
Porter
Portman
Price (NC)
Quinn
Radanovich
Rahall
Ramstad
Rangel
Redmond
Regula
Reyes
Riggs
Riley
Rivers
Rodriguez
Roemer
Rogan
Rogers
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Rothman
Roukema
Roybal-Allard
Royce
Rush
Ryun
Sabo
Salmon
Sanchez
Sanders
Sandlin
Sanford
Sawyer
Saxton
Scarborough
Schaefer, Dan
Schaffer, Bob
Schumer
Scott
Sensenbrenner
Serrano
Sessions
Shadegg
Shaw
Shays
Sherman
Shimkus
Shuster
Sisisky
Skaggs
Skeen
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (NJ)
Smith (OR)
Smith (TX)
Smith, Adam
Smith, Linda
Snowbarger
Snyder
Solomon
Souder
Spence
Spratt
Stabenow
Stark
Stearns
Stenholm
Stokes
Strickland
Stump
Stupak
Sununu
Talent
Tanner
Tauscher
Tauzin
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Thomas
Thompson
Thornberry
Thune
Thurman
Tiahrt
Torres
Towns
Traficant
Turner
Upton
Velazquez
Vento
Visclosky
Walsh
Wamp
Waters
Watkins
Watt (NC)
Watts (OK)
Waxman
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
Wexler
Weygand
White
Whitfield
Wicker
Wilson
Wise
Wolf
Woolsey
Wynn
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NOT VOTING--13
Berman
Frank (MA)
Inglis
John
Kennelly
Manton
Mollohan
Nethercutt
Poshard
Pryce (OH)
Smith (MI)
Tierney
Yates
{time} 1824
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.
____________________