[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 147 (Thursday, October 15, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H11000]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         REASONS TO VOTE ``YES'' ON OMNIBUS APPROPRIATIONS BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I had heard the gentleman from Mississippi 
(Mr. Taylor) saying that a ``yes'' vote on this apparently, I guess the 
implication was it would be not an educated vote. I can tell my 
colleagues that in order to vote ``no'' on this bill tomorrow, they 
ought to be make sure that is an educated vote as well.
  Both of those votes demand that we pay attention to this budget bill, 
that we look through it closely and, if necessary, burn some midnight 
oil. I do not mind it. In fact, I get a little excited dealing with 
this budget. We can find any budget this Congress has ever voted on and 
we will find that there are a lot of good reasons to vote for it and 
there are some reasons to vote against it. I would suggest that 
tomorrow this bill will have more reasons to vote for it than to vote 
against it.
  Every one of us probably every month, some of us every week, sit down 
with our own family and we budget. There is a lot of times, at least in 
my own family, where I do not get necessarily the spending money that I 
would like. Lori, my wife, does not get what she would like. Our three 
children, two of whom are in college, do not get what they like. But 
through talks and negotiations, even in the family negotiations, we 
come up with a budget. That is what we are doing here.
  Let me highlight a couple of areas that I think are very important 
that this budget does do:
  Number one, no tax increase. None. Zippo. No tax increase. Now, 
people who want to vote ``no'' say there is no tax cut. Folks, we do 
not have the tax cut in there. We did our best. We got it out of the 
House, but the fact is at least we stopped a tax increase with this 
bill.
  The next item that is important is important for each and every one 
of us. We have got to invest in our infrastructure in this country. Our 
infrastructure in this country, the most important infrastructure I can 
think of, are our young people. And the most important thing in 
investing in our young people is their education.
  This bill does a lot for more teachers, but do my colleagues know 
what the Republicans insisted on and now, as a result of joint 
negotiations, that we have come up with? We are going to hire more 
teachers, but they are not going to be hired at the Federal level. They 
are not going to be hired at the State level. This money goes directly 
into the classroom.
  Mr. Speaker, I have a sister that is a schoolteacher. At times in the 
past, she has had to go out with her own money and buy school supply 
material, even though the budgets in Colorado have gone up for school 
supplies. Why? Because it does not get down to the classroom. These 
negotiations over the last 24 hours are now driving this into the 
classroom, and the gentleman from Mississippi should realize that. A 
``no'' vote put its back to the Federal bureaucracy.
  There are some other issues. Defense is very important to me. We do 
not have a defensive missile system to defend this country. If Russia 
or Iraq or North Korea or China or some other country launched a 
missile against the United States of America, contained within the 
boundaries of the State of Colorado we could detect it within 3 or 4 
seconds, we could tell what kinds of missile and where the missile is 
going to hit, when it is going to hit, and what kind of load it is 
probably carrying. And then all we can say is good-bye, because this 
country does not have a missile defense system.
  We need a shored up defense. We need to have a missile defense 
system. This bill puts a billion more dollars into the security of this 
country and this country's future on missile defense.
  It does some other things. It increases student loans. I have a 
couple of kids in college. Most out there are either facing it, have 
faced it or are now facing it. These student loans are critical. A lot 
of our kids could not go to college if they did not have a loan to do 
it. This increases the student loans. Again to the gentleman from 
Mississippi, another reason to vote ``yes.'' A ``no'' vote cuts those 
student loans back.
  Talk about the government ID system. They wanted to put in an ID 
system so that Uncle Sam in Washington, D.C., could keep track of us. 
This bill wipes it out. They wanted to put in a computer system, a 
database, to follow all college graduates. The government does not need 
to know that. It is not the Federal Government's business. This bill 
stops it. Another good reason to vote ``yes'' on this bill.
  For the self-employed out there, and it has been a consistent and a 
very legitimate complaint that unlike other people in our society, they 
cannot deduct their insurance premiums for their medical insurance. 
This bill is putting us back on track to allow that deductibility for 
them.
  Mr. Speaker, by digging in a document this thick we can very easily 
find a reason to vote ``no'' on this bill. But we have a fiduciary 
duty, a responsibility to look in that bill and see if there are not 
more good reasons to vote for it than against it. I suggest after we do 
that, we will support this bill.

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