[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 146 (Wednesday, October 14, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H10861-H10868]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     MAKING FURTHER CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 1999

  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the 
Committee on Appropriations be discharged from further consideration of 
the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 135) making further continuing 
appropriations for the fiscal year 1999, and for other purposes; and 
that it be in order at any time to consider the joint resolution in the 
House; and that the joint resolution be considered as having been read 
for amendment; that the joint resolution be debatable for not to exceed 
1 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. Madam Speaker, pursuant to the previous order of the 
House, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 135) making further 
continued appropriations for the fiscal year 1999, and for other 
purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
  The Clerk read the joint resolution, as follows:

                             H.J. Res. 135

       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 further amended by striking 
     ``October 14, 1998'' and inserting in lieu thereof ``October 
     16, 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).


                             General Leave

  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend 
their remarks on House Joint Resolution 135, 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. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  (Mr. LIVINGSTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
his remarks.)
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Madam Speaker, the current continuing resolution for 
fiscal year 1999 expires tonight. We have been here before saying this 
same thing, but the White House negotiators and congressional 
negotiators have been working day and night on some very important 
decisions. We are doing the people's work.
  Not only are these issues important, but they are very complicated. 
We are dealing with wrapping up the eight regular bills plus emergency 
supplemental appropriations, and various authorizing pieces of 
legislation which we believe must pass before we adjourn Congress for 
the 105th Congress.

                              {time}  1230

  All parties are working in good faith, but we have just not yet 
completed our negotiations. We will need another day or two to complete 
our work and get it to the floor. An extension of a further continuing 
resolution is, therefore, needed. Adoption of H.J. Res. 135, which runs 
through Friday, October 16, will give us time to complete our remaining 
work, I hope.
  Again, I wish I did not have to bring this joint resolution to the 
floor, but more time is needed. Unfortunately, we have not completed 
our work, and we need that time to do it. I do not think we need to 
debate this issue extensively or take a lot of time today. We all know 
that we need to take this action to keep the government open. It is our 
intention to keep the government open, and it is our intention to stay 
as long as it takes to get our business done so that the government 
remains open and that the final bill be passed.
  Adoption of this continuing resolution will give us the time needed 
to complete our work and keep the government running, and so I urge its 
adoption.
  Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 12 minutes.
  Madam Speaker, well, I guess I would say that this debate, as did the 
debate

[[Page H10862]]

2 days ago, also reminds me of Yogi Berra's statement, ``This is deja 
vu all over again,'' and again and again and again.
  We are in a situation in which we are now 14 days past the beginning 
of the fiscal year. This is certainly not the first time this has ever 
happened in the Congress. We have often seen the Congress not complete 
its budget work on time. But I think we are in a unique position in 
terms of why and a unique position in terms of what it is that still 
divides us.
  Madam Speaker, in my discussions this morning with the White House 
and with leadership, as I understand the situation, we are essentially 
down to a number of issues. The gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. 
Livingston) and I have been able, along with our Senate counterparts, 
to wade through many, many dollar issues. But at this point, we are 
still divided because the President and the Democratic membership of 
this House still wants to see movement on the President's proposal for 
school construction so that we can help some of the poorest districts 
in the country who simply do not have the bonding resources to 
modernize their school buildings with Federal help. There are literally 
some schools, as the President said the other day, that are in such 
falling-down shape that if they were a prison, they would be condemned 
by a Federal judge. We cannot allow that disgrace to continue in our 
view.
  We also have the division between us on the issue whether or not we 
are going to provide Federal assistance to lower class size in the 
first three grades, when early intervention is crucial in getting kids 
off to the right start in life. And we are at this point still divided 
on that issue and whether or not funding that would be provided would, 
indeed, be targeted to reducing class size or would, in fact, be 
dissipated on other items.
  In addition to that, we still have some environmental issues which 
divide us. In my view, especially important are the administration's 
efforts to begin to deal with the problem of global warming, which 
could be the most catastrophic problem that any of us have faced in our 
lifetimes. It could be as catastrophic as war itself if the natural 
environment which protects us all begins to change significantly. And 
the scientific evidence certainly seems to suggest that it is.
  We need more resources in that area. Not to enforce the Kyoto Treaty, 
about which I have strong objections, but simply to support research 
and education efforts which are going to be necessary in order for us 
to deal with that problem of global warming. We also have some other 
environment issues there.
  Then we have the issue of what I call Viagra versus the pill. The 
budget so far has provided millions and millions of dollars to provide 
for coverage of Viagra at the Pentagon, and yet women who work for the 
Federal Government are being told that their insurance policies may not 
be required to cover basic contraceptive services for women. To me, 
that is a ludicrous position. And the President and those of us on this 
side of the aisle are working very hard to see to it that that changes 
before we go home.
  Next, we have a huge problem on the census where we have really a 
three-cornered debate going on about how that issue is going to be 
resolved. And I respect the views of people of both sides. On this one 
I am in a peculiar position. I do not happen to agree fully with the 
position of my party or the Republican party. But this institution must 
find a way to deal with that problem.
  Then we have the problem of the United Nations. We owe the United 
Nations some $900 million or so in back funding. If we are going to 
entertain going to war in places like Kosovo and other places, we need 
to arm ourselves so that we have all of the possible tools available in 
order to shape the United Nations response to that and other problems, 
and we do not have those tools so long as that money is being withheld 
because of the Mexico City impasse. The Mexico City impasse, in plain 
language, involves questions of policy with respect to family planning 
issues abroad.
  Then lastly, we have the very legitimate issue of what we are going 
to do to respond to the fact that the market has collapsed for many 
farmers in this country, and also with respect to the kind of farmers 
that I represent, the fact that dairy farmers have an income which in 
real terms is about 50 percent of what it was in 1980, over a year's 
time.
  So those are the real issues that still divide us and we are going to 
have to come to a resolution on them, but we are not there yet and that 
is why we need this additional time.
  Now, I would like to also explain why it is that I believe why we are 
here. And as I said 2 days ago, this is not the responsibility of the 
gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Livingston). He is a first-rate chairman 
of the Committee on Appropriations, and the committee itself has not 
created this problem. But the committee has not been allowed to do its 
work because of external realities. Let me cite the main reality. There 
are two, as far as I see.
  First of all, if we take a look at the schedule which the leadership 
of this House put together, in January, we were in session 2 days. In 
February, the month that we got the budget from the President, Congress 
was in session 8 days. In March, when we normally have a very heavy 
hearing schedule, Congress was in session 15 days and there was very 
little floor action at the same time.
  In April, Congress was in session for 8 days. And then in April, we 
had a 19-day Easter district work period, one of the longest in 
history.
  On the day that the budget resolution was due, supposed to be 
finished in this House, this Congress was in recess. Then in May, this 
Congress was in session a total of 13 days, and then we recessed. We 
recessed for an 11-day Memorial Day district work period.
  In June, Congress was in session 15 days. We did, on June 16 pass the 
committee allocation to each of the subcommittees so the committee 
could begin its work. But that was 2 months late, because of the delay 
on the part of the Committee on the Budget and the House leadership in 
not bringing that budget debate to a full completion. And when the 
committee did make its allocation, it did so at the direction of the 
leadership, absent a budget for the government.
  We then went on recess for 18 days over the July 4th district work 
period. That was one of the longest July 4th recesses in history. 
Congress was in session a total of 14 days in July and 5 days in 
August. We had a 31-day August district work period. In September, 
Congress was in session 15 days.
  So the timetable created by the leadership's schedule made it 
impossible for the Committee on Appropriations to get its work done on 
time. And that is why, as of this date, the Congress has still not 
completed action on 9 of the 13 appropriation bills which we are 
supposed to finish.
  That has been complicated by the fact that the majority party 
leadership has apparently come to the conclusion that not only do we 
have to reach agreements which can get majority support in the House, 
but that in many cases those agreements also have to satisfy the most 
conservative and the most confrontational elements in their own caucus.
  The example of that that I would use is the issue of contraception, 
where this House on a bipartisan basis passed the Lowey amendment. I 
think we had some 50 Republican votes for that, along with most 
Democrats. We then had an even larger margin in favor of that in the 
Senate, so that women would have the full availability of contraceptive 
services.
  But because a good many Members in the caucus of the Republican 
Majority have very strong feelings against the pill and the IUD, we are 
now told that we have to overturn the judgment of both houses in order 
to reach a compromise on this budget.
  Madam Speaker, I think that the way that contraceptive issue has 
blown up the budget is an example of what has happened across the 
budget on many of these other items. And then we also have the problem 
compounded by the fact that on the Labor-HHS bill, the majority party 
brought a bill to the floor which was so extreme, it cut $2 billion out 
of the President's education budget. It was so extreme that the Senate 
Republicans would not even accept it. And our friends, our Republican 
friends in the House could not even pass it on this floor because of 
opposition in their own caucus by moderate Members.

[[Page H10863]]

  So, if my colleagues want to know why we are here, I do not want to 
hear any more of this baloney about the fact that the President has 
been out of town, because as I pointed out the last time, the last time 
I looked, William Clinton is not a Member of the House. He is not a 
Member of the Senate. He does not get to vote, and he only gets to sign 
or veto bills after we send them to him, and so far we have not sent 
him 9 out of 13 bills.
  So, if the Congress wants to know why we are at this impasse, all we 
have to do as an institution is look in the mirror. So that is why we 
are here. I did not want to take that much time, but I think it is 
important for us to understand why we are at this impasse as we try to 
get out of it.
  Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1245

  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 12 minutes.
  I had not really intended to get into a prolonged debate, but I see 
the cast of thousands over there on the other side ready to pounce on 
me so I thought I might make some preemptive remarks and responsive 
remarks to the gentleman that just preceded me.
  My friend from Wisconsin has criticized the schedule. Let me take a 
second to note that in all but 5 of the last 15 years, we are actually 
ahead of schedule. We actually have done better in some 10 years out of 
the last 15 years in terms of getting our work done and closing out the 
legislative year.
  Just taking, for example, the year 1990 and comparing it with this 
year on the matter on which the gentleman criticized the number of 
working days. The fact is in 1990, there were only 134 legislative days 
for the entire legislative session which is actually less than what we 
have done this year. And in that same year, I am counting, one, two, 
three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve 
appropriations bills, all passed on November 5 of 1990. That is three 
or four weeks after we will be through here in this session of the 
105th Congress.
  The point is, one can criticize the number of days we have been in 
session or not. The fact is, we are doing much better than we have done 
in other years, doing better than we have done in all but 5 of the last 
15 years.
  What about the record of achievement for this legislative term? I 
think that a balanced budget, the first balanced budget in 30 years is 
worth crowing about. I think the first tax cut in 16 years is worth 
crowing about. We have gotten both of those. My friends in the 
minority, when they were in the majority, projected that we would have 
$200 to $300 billion in deficits every year as far as the eye could 
see. Under our leadership, that has ceased to become the case. In fact 
we have reversed it. We have restored some fiscal integrity to this 
massive Federal Government of ours so that we do not mortgage the 
future of our children and our grandchildren.
  In the process, we have passed a Higher Education Act, a Reading 
Excellence Act, a Dollars to the Classroom Block Grant Act. We passed 
scholarships for youngsters so that they are not forced and compelled 
to go to drug-ridden schools or crime-ridden schools or inferior 
schools for the District of Columbia, but unfortunately that was vetoed 
by the President.
  We did pass prepaid college tuition plans and job training reform and 
emergency student loans and quality Head Start funding. We provided 
bills to provide for school nutrition and charter schools and drug 
education initiatives. We also passed an opportunity for people to save 
for their children's education called the A-plus savings accounts, but 
again President Clinton did not think that was worth allowing people to 
save for the future of their children and save for their children's 
education so he vetoed that one.
  But we also passed and enacted into law $500 million more for special 
education, loan forgiveness for new teachers, teachers testing 
provisions, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the high tech 
job skills vocational education. We have implemented bilingual 
education reform. Prohibition on new Federal school tests, equitable 
child care resolution and juvenile justice programs all have been done 
this year just in the field of education.
  You hear the President standing up for education these last few days. 
I am glad to see that he has awaken to a critical need for this 
country. But one thing we should note when we start talking about the 
application of Federal dollars, remember, Federal dollars are nothing 
more than taxpayers' dollars.
  We should understand that we are spending taxpayers' dollars every 
time we talk about creating a new program, with Federal strings 
attached. In effect, we are employing Federal bureaucrats to tell 
people back home how they should better their lives.
  The President says he wants more money for school construction, but 
he wants Federal bureaucrats to dictate how that money should be spent. 
The President says he wants more money for teachers, but he wants 
Federal bureaucrats to dictate which teachers get funded. That is not 
our approach. It is a source of controversy. It is not a matter of 
money. We have provided, throughout the discussions that are going on 
between our leadership and the representatives of the White House. We 
have fundamentally agreed on the amount of money. We are just trying to 
get the money back to the localities without interference from the 
Federal bureaucracies.
  Remember, States and localities already pay for 95 percent of all 
dollars on education. The other 5 percent is spent by the Federal 
Government with taxpayers' dollars. It has only been in the last 30 to 
35 years that the Federal Government has been involved in education at 
all.
  The gentleman says that we have differences on global warming. The 
fact is that there is some very real credible science to say that 
actually the climate in the last 40 years has cooled rather than 
warmed. Did we have a hot summer this last summer? Yes. We had some 
severely cold winters a couple years ago though. The idea advanced 
primarily by the Vice President and a lot of people who believe as he 
does that we should run out and spend billions upon billions upon 
billions of taxpayers' dollars crying that the sky is falling and call 
Chicken Little just in anticipation of the possibility that the world 
is warming up by an iota of a degree is insanity. Let us get the facts. 
Let us find out what the facts are. Scientific information says that 
probably in the last 2- or 300 years maybe the world has warmed a 
little bit in some stages, but that it has cooled in others. In the 
last 40 years it may actually have cooled.
  Why should we spend billions upon billions of dollars from the 
taxpayers' pockets in anticipation of a theory that may be totally 
flawed and totally inaccurate? Why should we tell our American citizens 
who are working so hard for their children to keep their families and 
their communities together that we should take their money and at the 
same time promote programs which put them out of work to the advantage 
of the emerging countries, which is exactly what the Kyoto Treaty is 
all about? It says to America, you have consumed too much energy so 
close your businesses down, send all the jobs overseas. I do not think 
that that is what we should be doing, Madam Speaker. So we have some 
legitimate debate on issues of that sort.

  The gentleman also raises funding for the census. My goodness, the 
Constitution of the United States says that every citizen should be 
counted. That means counted. But, no, they want to use their thumb and 
estimate whole communities. They want to sample. They want to sample 
how many people are out there in this neighborhood and that 
neighborhood and develop the representation of the United States 
Congress on these estimates.
  My goodness, there must be some sort of hidden social agenda, Madam 
Speaker. What are they trying to do when they do not want to count 
everybody? When we say that we will spend every dollar that is 
necessary to count everybody, they say, no, we want to be scientific in 
this age of science. We want to estimate how many people are in America 
rather than count them.
  Madam Speaker, we have heard them. They estimated the number of 
immigrants into the United States just before the last election and let 
about 100,000 illegal aliens in, and a bunch of them were criminals and 
murderers. So they want us to take them at their

[[Page H10864]]

word that they are going to estimate them correctly.
  I am concerned about this estimation. The Constitution calls for no 
sampling, for counting every individual. I think that we ought to take 
the Constitution at face value. We ought to enumerate. But they 
disagree with us. Two courts of appeal have ruled with us in our favor 
saying that you have to count every citizen and still they want to 
ignore the wishes of the courts that have ruled in our favor and still 
estimate the number of people in America.
  Well, the gentleman from Wisconsin has indicated that there are other 
issues about how much to bail out the farmer because of the recent 
disasters. If the money is well spent, if it is going to people that 
truly need it because of real disasters, we agree, the money should be 
spent. But let us just not throw money at a problem simply because it 
is the right political season. I am afraid that issue is becoming very 
much involved in whether or not we properly spend taxpayers funds, and 
we are the stewards of the taxpayer. We should understand that the 
money should be well spent.
  The gentleman has questioned why we are here at this late date. I 
would simply agree with him when he says that we should have gotten our 
business done earlier. We should have. But we are not inconsistent with 
the vast majority of Congress in the last 15 years when they were 
mostly in control, and we were in the minority. This happens. Sometimes 
we push our business off until we have to handle it in one lump sum at 
the very end.
  That is not an efficient way to do business. We have spent too much 
time on the budget. We have spent too much time on things when we 
should have been spending more time on the appropriations bills. But we 
are where we are. We are not going to close the government. We are 
going to stay here as long as we absolutely have to to get our business 
done. It is my hope, my genuine and sincere hope that we will conclude 
our business in the next few hours and that we will be able to submit a 
very large bill comprising the untended business to the Members of 
Congress, to our colleagues so that they can vote finally and 
completely and go home to election time.
  Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.
  It is simply false to say that the difference between the President 
and the Republican majority on the issue of class size is that the 
administration wants to run this program through Federal bureaucracy 
and the Republicans want to make sure that it is run through State and 
local bureaucracy. That is not what is at stake.
  What we want to do is assure that if we are going to spend over $1 
billion that that money is used for the purpose for which it is 
appropriated, which is to reduce class size. It has nothing to do with 
which bureaucracy it runs through.
  We do not want that money to be used for noninstructional purposes. 
If you run that money through title VI, as the Republicans want, that 
means there will be at least 1 percent available for Federal 
administration. It means there will be up to 15 percent available for 
State administration. And there is no limit whatsoever on 
administrative cost at the local level. That is why we are insisting on 
this principle. It is not a question of which bureaucracy it goes 
through. It is a question of whether this is going to be used for a 
national priority to reduce class size or whether it is going to be 
frittered away on a dozen other things. We want to follow the same 
process that we followed on Cops on the Beat, where the Republicans 
also opposed having 100,000 cops on the beat.

                              {time}  1300

  The fact is that, today, that is one of the most popular programs at 
the local level; and certainly in my hometown it has been a very 
effective program.
  We do not want to do in education what was done in the 1970s when 
money was simply thrown out in a block grant, and it was used to make 
Motorola rich and used to make a lot of other contractors rich in 
selling a lot of equipment to local communities without having any 
appreciable improvement on law enforcement, under the Law Enforcement 
Assistance Act.
  What we are trying to do is very simply to make certain that money 
appropriated for reducing class size is used for that purpose, and that 
is the issue that divides us.
  Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Madam Speaker, how much time do both sides have 
remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Emerson). The gentleman from Louisiana 
(Mr. Livingston) and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) each have 
16 minutes remaining.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the 
very distinguished gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan), chairman of 
the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related 
Programs.
  Mr. CALLAHAN. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this very 
responsible resolution, which is simply a resolution to keep the 
government moving and not shut down, in order that we can resolve the 
several remaining issues.
  But in listening to the gentleman from Wisconsin's explanation of why 
we are where we are, I just thought I might come and explain to my 
colleagues and to the Speaker what really happened with respect to that 
area of jurisdiction that I have; and that is passing a bill that has 
to do with the foreign operations, monies for foreign countries.
  To put it simply, last spring, the President requested that this 
Congress give him $13.5 billion, plus $18 billion for the International 
Monetary Fund. As responsible appropriators, we did exactly what we 
were supposed to do. We passed a bill, but we did not give the 
President everything he wanted. We cut his request by $1 billion, 
because we thought we ought to use the money in other areas of 
government.
  Even back in the spring, Mrs. Albright told me that if I did not give 
her the entire $13.5 billion, she was going to recommend a veto.
  It was not left to Sonny Callahan to make that determination, but, 
rather, it was left to this body. We brought a bill through 
subcommittee. We brought a bill through full committee. We brought a 
bill to the floor of the House, and the House rejected the President's 
request.
  Now in the waning moments of this session, the President is coming 
back and saying, ``Look, I have you now in a position that I want you 
in, and I am going to insist that, regardless of what a majority of the 
Members of the House, Republicans and Democrats alike, regardless of 
what you think, you are going to give me my extra billion dollars.''
  So that is where we are. It is not a question, as the gentleman from 
Wisconsin fully understands, of whether we acted responsibly, because 
we did. We passed the bill through the House. We passed the bill 
through the Senate. It was not what the President wanted.
  Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from 
New Jersey (Mr. Menendez).
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam Speaker, today, we are considering our fourth 
continuing resolution to keep the government open, because the 
Republican majority failed to get a budget done in time, as is 
exhibited by this chart, failed to give us a strong HMO Patient 
Protection Act for our families, failed to ensure that the budget 
surplus would be used to protect Social Security before all else, and 
failed to protect our kids from tobacco.
  We Democrats simply do not want my colleagues to go back home and 
fail our children. That is why we are still here fighting to reduce 
class size and modernize our aging schools.
  With our 100,000 teachers initiatives, Democrats are trying to ensure 
that local taxpayers supporting public school systems across the 
country get a break by guaranteeing that the new Federal dollars are 
used to help local school districts reach a specific goal that everyone 
supports, reducing class size in early grades.
  Under the Republican proposal, the dollars could be used for all 
sorts of other purposes that have nothing to do with helping our 
children. In essence, we Democrats want to accomplish what we did with 
100,000 Cops on the Beat, local control with Federal support to hire 
100,000 new teachers.
  This is a battle about whether we want more money for educators or

[[Page H10865]]

more investigators, whether we want to spend more time investigating 
the past or more time investing in our future. Our schools, our 
teachers, and our children, that is what we Democrats are fighting 
about.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 4 minutes to my 
good friend, the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers), the 
distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State 
and Judiciary of the Committee on Appropriations.
  Mr. ROGERS. Madam Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding to me.
  Madam Speaker, we passed the Commerce, Justice appropriations for the 
State Department, the Commerce Department, the Judiciary, and Related 
Agencies through this body, through the Senate, for the full year.
  We fenced in the last half of the year's funding for the decennial 
census until the Federal courts could decide whether or not it is legal 
to do sampling.
  I will tell my colleagues what is going on in that room right back 
there where they are negotiating this budget deal. The President is 
insisting that we not fund all of these agencies in the bill for the 
last half of the year. In March, all of these agencies would shutdown 
if the President prevails.
  What does that mean? It means that the Bureau of Prisons will shut 
down. Do we turn the prisoners loose? It means the National Weather 
Service will go out of business. Do we want to know what our weather 
will be tomorrow? Do not watch television. National Weather Service is 
shut down.
  It means the Justice Department would be shut down. The FBI would be 
closed. The laboratories that test bullets from all over the country 
for local police departments shut down, closed by the President's 
decree. It means the State Department and all of the embassies 
worldwide keeping the peace in the world would be shut down by the 
President's decree on March 15 if he prevails back there in that room. 
That is what is going on.
  Why are they insisting upon this? So they can have their way on the 
frivolous idea of sampling the census for the decennial census.
  Yesterday, I received a letter from the Federal Judicial Conference, 
over which the Chief Justice presides. In the letter, it says that this 
has a dangerous incursion into perhaps intimidation of the Judicial 
Branch of government, of the very Court that will eventually decide 
sampling and its constitutionality.
  The Supreme Court itself would be shut down in March if the President 
has his way. All of the Federal courts would be shut down. The U.S. 
Marshals would be shut down. The drug war would be shut down if the 
President had his way back there in that room this very minute.
  I say that is outrageous. It is unconscionable. It is 
unconstitutional, in my judgment, and it is an attempt to intimidate 
the United States Supreme Court on the very makeup of this body. I say 
that is outrageous. It is unacceptable and should be whisked away like 
the dirt on the floor.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ROGERS. I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Madam Speaker, the gentleman had an alternative to 
this terrible policy. Would the gentleman please explain that 
alternative?
  Mr. ROGERS. What we should do is fund the entire year of this bill 
for all of these agencies, keep them going, not hold them hostage to 
this fight over the census; fund the decennial census only for the half 
year, until the courts have time to decide the constitutionality of 
sampling, until the test projects that are going on around the country 
right now on sampling can take place and we will see the results by 
March; until the advisory committee this Congress set up to supervise 
the census has time to report to us in February.
  By March, the courts will have decided, the advisory committee will 
have reported and the pilot projects will be completed and we will know 
whether or not sampling is a good idea, constitutional and so forth.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ROGERS. I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. I take it that that plan was in the House bill when 
it left here?
  Mr. ROGERS. That was the plan, the gentleman is correct, that this 
House passed, and now we hit this brick wall of the White House saying, 
no, siree, we are going to shut the government down until we get our 
way on the census.
  Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  Madam Speaker, what I have just heard is absolute total nonsense. The 
administration does not want to shut down the government. The 
administration is asking for one thing, full funding of the census. You 
are holding those programs hostage. They are not. Let us keep the facts 
straight.
  Secondly, what is outrageous is not the administration conduct but 
the expression of opinion of the Republican representative on this 
issue last night, who told Democratic representatives that regardless 
of whether we won or lost the Supreme Court case they did not have any 
intention of following the court case if we won. That is what is 
outrageous.
  Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished Democratic 
whip, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior).
  Mr. BONIOR. Madam Speaker, if I could amplify upon the remarks of the 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) on this census issue, I think my 
colleague, the gentleman from Texas, said it very well in our caucus 
this morning. He said, for 100 years in this country, we did not treat 
them as human beings and now we do not even want to recognize that they 
exist.
  That is what is going on here. They do not want to recognize 
literally millions of people who are out there and who have a right to 
be counted so that they and their communities can reap the benefits 
therein from the governments that represent them.
  As we approach the end of this session, I think it is important to 
once again review, as my colleague, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Obey) just did, about really what is going on here. The scorecard for 
the Republican Congress is pretty meager. Bills to improve public 
education, zero; managed care reform, killed in the Senate, zero; 
campaign finance reform, after they tried to talk it to death week 
after week, month after month in this body, killed again, zero; bills 
to reduce teenage smoking, zero; bills to protect the environment, 
zero; minimum wage increase so people can have some sense of dignity, 
so they can earn a wage that will get them above the poverty level, and 
that is where they are now with the minimum wage, below the poverty 
level, zero.
  On the things that count for people who are talking amongst 
themselves around the kitchen table, we have not done the work of the 
people in this country.
  If we look at the budget, I would think we would at least get our 
budget done. For first time in 24 years since the Budget Act was 
established in 1974, we do not have a Federal budget; two bills signed 
into law, one bill vetoed, a couple of bills on the President's desk. 
So we have got 4 out of the 13 essential bills, that are necessary to 
do the budget, completed; 9 of the 13 are hung up and cannot get done.
  Why is that? The reason is, we spent the whole 2 years investigating. 
We investigated anybody we could find around here and we did not do the 
work on health and we did not do our education stuff and we did not do 
a decent minimum wage for people and we did not do campaign finance 
reform and we did not do teen smoking but, boy, did we investigate.
  Now we are at the end of the session and there is nothing to show for 
it. My colleagues are going to go home and they are going to tout their 
accomplishments. That makes about as much sense as an American league 
pitcher bragging about his batting average. There is nothing there to 
brag about.
  Let us look at education for just a second. Nearly a year ago, the 
President stood right there, during his State of the Union address, and 
he called on us to hire 100,000 new teachers, to reduce class size so 
we can improve discipline and help our children get the most out of 
their education. They would not do a thing on that until we got to the 
end of the session where we actually had some leverage with the 
President and now we are in this battle.

[[Page H10866]]

  What do they want to do with the $1.1 billion so we can hire the 
teachers? They want to move it under Title VI, and as the gentleman 
from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) correctly states, it will go to bureaucracy. 
One percent of that money under Title VI can go to the Federal 
bureaucracy; 15 percent can go to the State bureaucracy, and the rest, 
if they want, can be spent at the local level.
  We want to take the money and hire teachers so they get into the 
school, kids get more discipline, kids get more attention and we get a 
better product on education.
  The other issue on education that is out there, of course, is the 
modernization effort so that American children can go to school in a 
safe, well-equipped environment, so they can prepare themselves for the 
next century. We are talking about leveraging roughly $3.6 billion for 
5,000 school districts to help them subsidize their bonds so that they 
can raise the money locally to get their things done on education.
  In conclusion, I urge my colleagues to vote for this resolution 
because we need it to pass, but to understand that we really have not 
done the work of the people in this Congress.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Madam Speaker, I have but one speaker, and I reserve 
the right to close.
  Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

                              {time}  1315

  Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me 
this time. Here we go again. We are here for the fourth time to pass a 
continuing resolution. Why are we here? Because this Republican-
controlled House has still not completed the work that the American 
people sent us here to do. The fact of the matter is that they are in 
the majority. They are in charge.
  Let us take this opportunity to look at the many accomplishments 
Republicans take such pleasure in touting. Have we put more teachers in 
the classroom to make sure children get the attention that they need to 
learn? No. Have we modernized schools and hooked classrooms up to the 
Internet so that children will have access to the technology they need 
for a successful future? No. Have we invested in teacher training to 
make sure that students have talented, enthusiastic and creative 
teachers to learn from? No. Have we reformed the managed care system? 
No. Have we reformed the campaign finance system? No. Have we reformed 
the Social Security system? No. Let us work together. Let us work 
together to try to improve our schools.
  I am distressed to hear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
raise the bureaucratic bogeyman. Teachers are not bureaucrats. Teachers 
are our best hope for the future. The Democratic plan would add 100,000 
teachers to our classrooms. It is modeled after the successful COPS 
program. Democrats passed a bill to add 100,000 new police officers to 
our streets. That program has helped to make our streets safer. One 
hundred thousand new teachers in our classrooms will help to make our 
schools better. The COPS program works. Do not listen to me, it is what 
chiefs of police are saying around this country, because it is about 
Federal dollars and the local, local control. Just ask your local 
police. The police chief of Miami has said that he has seen a 30 
percent drop in crime since the bill was passed. He said that the drop 
was made possible because of the crime bill. Police chiefs all over the 
country thank us for adding 100,000 new cops to our streets. Our 
parents and our youngsters will thank us for 100,000 new teachers.
  Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from California (Mr. Miller).
  (Mr. MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise 
and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, it is unfortunate that once 
again we yet have to again extend the time for the budget to be 
completed for this country. It is unfortunate because we come down to 
an item that is so terribly important to America's families and to 
America's children, and, that is, the issue of school construction, 
whether or not we are going to try to end the process by which children 
are being educated in storage rooms, in split-up gymnasiums, on the 
stage of the school auditorium, in the janitor's change rooms as they 
try to reduce class sizes and as they try to avoid those parts of 
schools in many cases that are unsafe for children to go. We think that 
the Federal Government ought to help these school districts. They can 
do it by providing no-interest loans or low-interest loans to help 
those school districts that are struggling to provide for safe and 
healthy schools for our children. The other one is class size 
reduction. Here we have an opportunity to take a program modeled after 
Cops on the Beat, a program that has been incredibly successful. If you 
go around your congressional district and you talk to the police 
officers, if you talk to the chiefs of police, they will tell you this 
has made a remarkable difference in their police department's ability 
to talk to the business community, to talk to young kids on the street, 
to interact with the schools and has made the police department much 
more accessible, much more effective on the streets of our communities, 
and we have watched as the crime rate has continued to come down in 
most American communities. So now we want to take and have the Federal 
Government provide help to school districts that want to add additional 
teachers to reduce class size, recognizing that teachers are far more 
effective with 18 students than they are with 30 students. Again, do 
not trust us; trust the parents, trust the teachers, trust the students 
who if you go to your schools and you talk where this has been done, 
parents are excited about the chance that teachers are spending more 
time with their students, helping them with reading, helping them with 
mathematics. The teachers feel better that they are able to spend 
better time with these students in helping those students who may be 
having a little bit of extra problem. But we are right back to where we 
were before Cops on the Beat. Just before we voted for Cops on the 
Beat, the Republicans came up with a plan to spread that money all over 
the community, to spread it all over the community. They said they were 
going to call it Cops on the Beat but it could be spent anywhere. But 
the chiefs of police, the law enforcement agencies came here and said, 
``Don't do that. Put it into police officers that can be out in the 
community.''
  Now the education establishment is saying the same thing: ``Don't 
spread this all over. Don't spread this across the bureaucratic cost of 
State Departments of Education. Put it in the classroom where it can 
make a difference, where it can make a difference to the ability of our 
children to read, to compute, to critically think. These teachers can 
make a difference in our children's lives.''
  But we are back here. The State Department of Education in California 
funds almost 70 percent of its bureaucracy off of Federal dollars. Why 
are those Federal dollars not going into the classroom? This 
legislation that the President is proposing for classroom reduction, 
school construction is about sending the money to where it belongs, not 
spreading it across the community like the Republicans want us to do.
  Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi).
  Ms. PELOSI. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time and for his extraordinary leadership in explaining the differences 
between the Democrats and the Republicans in the priorities that we set 
for our great country.
  Madam Speaker, this is a Congress of missed opportunities, missed 
opportunities to modernize education for our children, missed 
opportunities to reform HMOs for the health care for all Americans, 
missed opportunities to save Social Security as a top priority, and a 
missed opportunity to protect the environment after we look at some of 
the proposals that have been put before us.
  We send this very mixed message from this Congress to the children of 
America. We tell them that education is important, it is for their 
self-enrichment, for their economic security and for the 
competitiveness of our country. Yet we send them to schools that are 
below par, that are leaking, that are asbestos-laden, are lead-filled, 
that are not wired for the future. How can we

[[Page H10867]]

tell children that education is important and yet not value it by 
having small classes, adequate facilities and have them be in places 
where children can learn and teachers can teach and parents can 
participate?
  We tell children that their health is important, they should not 
smoke because it is harmful to their health. Yet we do not provide them 
with access to quality education. Children are smart. They get the 
mixed message. Reforming HMOs would have been one clear message to the 
people of America that health is important to us. Then as far as work, 
the work ethic, how important that is, we tell that to young people and 
yet we do not value work adequately. That is one of the missed 
opportunities of this Congress, to have us have a living wage in this 
country. Also, we threaten the pension security of America's children. 
Their health, their education, the economic security of their families 
are very, very important to our children and to the future of our 
country. How sad for us that this Congress has missed the opportunity 
to send a clear message and take the action necessary to make their 
future brighter.
  Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Gejdenson).
  Mr. GEJDENSON. Madam Speaker, one of the key differences between the 
United States is that we have made education universally available. As 
we compete in this modern economy, it is clear that we cannot compete 
at the bottom of the economic ladder. Countries will always hopefully 
have lower hourly wages for their employees than we do in this country. 
In China right now it is 2 cents on the dollar. In Mexico it is about 
15 cents on the dollar. The only way we are able to stay competitive 
internationally is by investing in education to make sure the next 
generation is ready for an even more economic battlefront that is 
internationally based. If we underfund education as a country, we will 
end up being a second-rate power economically and we will be a second-
rate power militarily as well. The future of this country is dependent 
on the investment in education, so that we have the brightest workers, 
the most patents as we have today, the Nobel prize winners in arts and 
sciences. That is what moves this country forward.
  There is a debate. The Republicans generally do not feel there is a 
Federal role for education. I think whether you live in Bozrah, 
Connecticut or Baltimore or Selma, Alabama you ought to expect the very 
best education that we can provide because every American benefits from 
this investment in education.
  Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Madam Speaker, we are here as the gentleman from Wisconsin indicated 
living up to the words of Yogi Berra when he said he felt like deja vu 
all over again. This is the third or fourth time that we have had this 
confrontation involving an extension of funding authorization for 
another couple of days to complete our business. Unfortunately the 
negotiators on all sides, between the House and the Senate, Republicans 
and Democrats, and the Congress versus the administration have not put 
a final ribbon on their package of these eight bills plus a 
supplemental package, and so as a result we are forced to take a little 
bit more time.
  But let us be very sure why we are here engaged in this debate. This 
is not a momentous, historical debate on issues of great moment other 
than to espouse our respective political philosophies with 3 weeks left 
in the election cycle. The fact is this is nothing more than a C-SPAN 
moment. It should be interpreted as nothing more than that. We are 
having an opportunity to make great speeches on our respective 
positions. Should they be dismissed as being too casual or too light 
and nonconsequential? No, of course not. The fact is that the 
Republican majority of Congress believes that we should be frugal with 
the tax dollar, that we should be proud that we have finally brought 
about conditions that reap us a surplus this year, the first balanced 
budget or first surplus in 30 years; and we should be proud of that 
accomplishment. We should likewise be proud that we have in the last 
year provided the first tax cut in 16 years. We believe that we are 
stewards for the American taxpayer and that we should not waste their 
money. We should not spend it unwisely. We should not create unneeded 
bureaucracies to tell people what is good for them.
  The other side says, no. They have got good programs, well-
intentioned, that are going to do great things for the American people. 
All the American people have to do is keep sending money, and they will 
keep coming up with programs. That is understandable. We had that for 
some 40 years, from the New Deal, through the Great Society, through 
the War on Poverty, through Vietnam and up through the point where 
finally the American people had had enough and put Republicans in 
charge of the Congress. The other side of the aisle does not like that. 
They do not like being disenfranchised and not being able to jam 
through all their new programs.
  They have a President in the White House who even though about a year 
and a half ago said the era of big government is now over is attempting 
to spend billions upon billions of dollars more than he agreed to in 
the balanced budget agreement of last year.

                              {time}  1330

  But, we are not really here today debating how much money to spend on 
education. We pretty well agreed to that. The amount of money is in 
agreement. They say it is never enough. We say $32 billion; that is 
what we will spend on education from the Federal Government; we say 
that is a pretty good number. It is still only 5 percent of what 
America spends on education because States and localities spend 95 
percent of the cost of education. But the Federal taxpayer puts in $32 
billion, and it will never be enough according to my friends on the 
other side of the aisle.
  But, we are not really debating whether or not what we are spending 
in this last fiscal year is sufficient. What we are really debating is 
how it should be spent. They believe creating new narrow programs, 
narrowly-focused programs run by bureaucrats in Washington, not 
teachers. The Department of Education is not comprised of teachers, it 
is comprised of bureaucrats. They think that by giving those 
bureaucrats more money to dole out, the money for their little favorite 
programs, that they are going to do great things for America, and 
certainly some good will be done; we have to admit that. We think that 
by giving the greatest amount of flexibility to the teachers, and to 
the school faculties and the school boards around America, the school 
districts, that they can decide for themselves where they want to best 
apply those Federal dollars. We think that the flexibility inherent in 
block grants is a much better idea.
  So that is what is going on here. We are not debating amounts of 
dollars, we are debating philosophies, we are debating ideas on how 
best to get the job done. Either we give the money to the States and 
localities, like we want to, or we give it to the bureaucracies like 
the President wants to. That is essentially the debate.
  On foreign aid, they want to throw more money, another billion 
dollars here and there. We happen to believe that a few extra dollars 
in foreign aid is not going to make any difference. We think that 
basically what the President needs to put forth for the American people 
and the world is a coherent, cogent, understandable foreign policy, 
which unfortunately has been sorely lacking.
  The fact is a few more extra dollars will not give us a better 
Russian policy. A few more extra dollars will not stop the slaughter in 
Kosovo. A few more extra dollars will not restart, regenerate the 
moribund peace talks in the Mideast or manage the problems presented by 
Saddam Hussein, who is pointing weapons of mass destruction at the 
civilized world. A few more dollars will not invigorate our policy with 
respect to North Korea or stop India or Pakistan from proliferating 
weapons of mass destruction. No, a few more dollars or even a few 
billion dollars will not give us a coherent foreign policy if this 
President and this administration do not work together towards trying 
to bring some common sense to their foreign policy, more than they have 
done in recent months.

[[Page H10868]]

  Madam Speaker, we could send everyone home today if only we in the 
majority, we Republicans, would bow down and accept every plan, every 
program every hair brain scheme to spend tax dollars that the Democrats 
have thrown at us. That is easy. We could finish our business if we 
would just simply mindlessly say, ``Okay, you have got lots of new 
ideas on how to spend taxpayers' dollars, we'll accept those, all in 
their entirety, and then we'll go home.'' But we are not going home 
without some debate.
  The President proposes, the Congress disposes. Right now the 
Democrats are in the minority in the House and in the minority in the 
Senate. But, as long as we are in the majority, we have to use our best 
judgment to deal with the President as we see fit, as we firmly believe 
our constituents and the American people that sent us here really want 
us to do. They did not send us here to cave in to the President. They 
did send us here to ignore the problems that he has encouraged in the 
last several months. They did not send us here simply to worry that we 
will be accused of being mean and heartless and thereby fold our cards 
and go home. They sent us here to use our good judgment and to be those 
stewards of the Federal Treasury to make sure that the person who is 
working so hard to feed his family, go to work, be good citizens 
throughout the community all around America, does not send his or her 
money to Washington just simply to see it wasted on another well-
intentioned program or another run-wild bureaucracy. That is not 
exactly why the people put us in the position of the majority.
  We are against his profligate ways, we are against the wasteful ways 
of the former majority and now the minority who have said, ``We've got 
another great new program for you, another great new bureaucracy, 
another great way to spend your money; just give us all your cash and 
we'll tell you what to do with it.'' We think that is not the way to 
approach government. We are standing up for what we believe.
  It is taking longer than we wanted it to take, but sooner or later we 
will end this soap opera. Sooner or later we will tell the American 
people we are tired of debating philosophy and programs, and we will 
put a ribbon on this package. It may not be the prettiest or the 
neatest package, but it will in fact still, after all the dust is 
settled, result in the first surplus in 30 years, and we will go home 
with a proud record of accomplishment.
  I urge all Members to vote for this continuing resolution.
  Mrs. CLAYTON. Mr. Speaker, this is the fourth Continuing Resolution 
that has come before us--four times we have delayed the important 
business of keeping the government running.
  Perhaps when we conclude this business, we can get on with the 
business of the American people.
  This Congress has done nothing to help working families, but, while 
it is too late for some issues, it is not too late for others.
  It is too late to pass health reform.
  It is too late to reduce teen smoking and reform our campaign finance 
system.
  And, it is too late to enact laws to protect the environment and to 
truly safeguard the surplus for social security.
  But, it is not too late to make responsible budget decisions.
  It is not too late to enact laws to hire new teachers, reduce class 
sizes and modernize schools.
  It is not too late to help our small farmers by giving them 
reasonable access to credit.
  And, it is not too late, Mr. Speaker, for voters to note what 
Congress has done and what it has not done.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Emerson). All time for debate has 
expired.
  The joint resolution is considered read for amendment.
  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 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. Pursuant to clause 5 of rule I and the 
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on H.J. Res. 135 will 
be postponed.

                          ____________________