[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 144 (Monday, October 12, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H10648]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           THE BUDGET PROCESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Minge) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MINGE. Mr. Speaker, I think it is somewhat disingenuous to blame 
the White House for the failure of the leadership in Congress to move 
the appropriations and the budget process on a timely basis.
  I also note with some interest that even the information that was 
presented in the well a minute ago is inaccurate. I happened to see 
Vice President Gore in Minneapolis today. He was not in Florida.
  I think the rest of the analysis is similarly flawed.
  We are struggling to close the 105th Congress and the problem is that 
the congressional leadership has failed to move the budget and 
appropriations legislation on a timely basis. Normally, according to 
the legislation that we adopted to impose upon ourselves so that there 
is some structure, rigor and discipline in the budget process, we would 
have completed a concurrent budget resolution by April 15. Here it is, 
October 12, almost six months later, and we do not have a concurrent 
budget resolution. We do not have a concurrent budget resolution.
  This is symptomatic of the problem that we face in the 105th 
Congress. The House of Representatives passed a budget resolution. The 
Senate passed a budget resolution. But the leadership in the House and 
the Senate, both in the same political party, have not been able to 
meet in the middle of the building and iron out the differences between 
the two chambers.
  As a consequence, we are stalemated in the budget process for the 
first time in 24 years, the first time in 24 years. And the differences 
between the Republican leadership in the House and the Republican 
leadership in the Senate and the budget resolution process parallel the 
differences that we see in the appropriations bills, in the tax 
reduction effort and many other efforts.
  How can the President be blamed because the leadership in the House 
and the Senate are unable to get together? How can the President be 
blamed when October 1 arrives and most of the appropriations bills have 
not even been passed in Congress? It is simply an allegation that I 
submit that is unfounded.
  What we need to do in this body is look at the rules that we have 
that govern our procedures on the budget and abide by them. It is as 
simple as that. We expect local governments, State governments, the 
United Nations to have a budget. People rail in this body about the 
lack of fiscal discipline at the United Nations. They talk about the 
need for reform at the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and 
then we have numerous limitations on what State and local government 
can do with Federal funds because we do not trust them to be 
responsible in developing a budget. But here we sit in Congress and we 
are hypocrites because we have not adopted a concurrent budget 
resolution.
  The appropriations bills, which I mentioned before, are really 
supposed to reflect what is in this concurrent budget resolution and 
move through Congress so that they are completed in the summer. That 
means they are presented to the President in the summer. If there is 
disagreement, there can be a veto or there can be negotiations in the 
summer.
  Nothing was completed in the summer. It was deferred. It was delayed. 
Here we are October 12, the fiscal year started October 1, the 1998-
1999 Federal fiscal year, October 1 from 1998 to September 30 of 1999. 
These appropriations bills were not available for planning at the 
Federal agencies. They were not available for negotiations with the 
White House or if there was going to be a veto, a veto at the White 
House and then negotiations.
  So I submit, Mr. Speaker, that until we have the discipline within 
our body to do what is right in terms of a process on a timely basis, 
that we cannot expect the American people to respect our budget 
process, and certainly we cannot blame the White House for its lack of 
leadership on the budget issues and the appropriations bills. That 
leadership rests in this building, and we have not had that leadership.

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