[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 113 (Wednesday, August 4, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H7233-H7236]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     MOTION TO INSTRUCT CONFEREES ON H.R. 1905, LEGISLATIVE BRANCH 
                        APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2000

  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to section 7(c) of House rule XXII, 
I offer a motion to instruct House conferees on the bill (H.R. 1905), 
making appropriations for the Legislative Branch for the fiscal year 
ending September 30, 2000, and for other purposes.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Toomey moves that the managers on the part of the House 
     at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses 
     on the Senate amendments to the bill H.R. 1905 be instructed 
     to insist upon--
       (1) the House provisions for the funding of the House of 
     Representatives under title I of the bill;

[[Page H7234]]

       (2) the Senate amendment for the funding of the Senate 
     under title I of the bill, including funding provided under 
     the heading ``JOINT ITEMS--ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL--Capitol 
     Buildings and Grounds--senate office buildings'';
       (3) the House provisions for the funding of Joint Items 
     under title I of the bill, other than the funding provided 
     under the heading ``JOINT ITEMS--ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL--
     Capitol Buildings and Grounds--senate office buildings''; and
       (4) the House version of title II of the bill.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey) and the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Pastor) 
each will be recognized for 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).
  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, all year long as we have been wading through the budget 
and the appropriations process, we here in this House have been 
debating the proper level of the Federal Government spending. Despite a 
clear institutional bias I would argue on the part of the Federal 
Government in general to spend ever more dollars, by and large the 
Republican majority in this House and many of our colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle have exhibited a great deal of restraint in the 
growth of government in general, and, frankly, we have been very 
responsible with our budgeting thus far. I would like to reflect for a 
moment just on what we have done.
  First of all, we have set aside the Social Security surplus for the 
next 10 years in our budget. We have provided priority funding for key 
government functions, such as defense and education. I think we have 
recognized by and large the importance of maintaining the projected 
surpluses so that we can pay down some debt and reduce taxes.
  My point is, Mr. Speaker, that, by and large, this body has been 
doing a great job demonstrating some fiscal discipline. We think our 
leadership deserves a lot of credit and think the appropriators deserve 
a lot of credit, as do my colleagues on both sides of the aisle.
  Just as a reminder, we are at the point of passing ten appropriations 
bills, and it is a remarkable accomplishment what we have done with 
these thus far. We have essentially freezed spending on Agriculture, 
Treasury and the Interior Departments, we have got a small reduction in 
military construction, a 4 percent reduction for the Energy Department, 
an over 4 percent reduction for the Transportation Department, an over 
5 percent reduction in foreign aid, and about a 25 percent reduction 
for the District of Columbia.
  Now, there are two exceptions to this trend that we have established. 
The first is defense. I think it is clear that it is high time that we 
started to rebuild our military forces and provide our men and women in 
uniform the resources they need to carry out their job, and we begin 
that with the defense appropriation bill.
  Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, the other exception to this trend of 
holding the line on spending now appears to be the bill that funds 
Congress itself. Just last Friday the House Committee on Appropriations 
significantly increased the 302(b) allocation for the legislative 
branch appropriations bill. This new 302(b) allocation will increase 
the overall non-emergency spending in this bill by 5.4 percent over 
last year's number.
  Now, in order to spend that much money, to reach that level, the 
conferees would have to substantially increase the funding levels 
within this bill well beyond the levels that were approved by this body 
on June 10, just two months ago.
  Mr. Speaker, I just do not think that is right, and I am therefore 
offering a motion to instruct conferees that is really very simple. My 
instructions would say, stick with the numbers we gave you. Hold the 
line on spending. Let the legislative branch of this government lead in 
the fight for fiscal discipline by example. Finally, let us reflect the 
will of the House.
  I would like to go to my chart to explain exactly what my motion 
would do.

                              {time}  2245

  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. TOOMEY. I yield to the gentleman from Hawaii.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I have a point of inquiry.
  With this motion to instruct, can the gentleman tell me whether or 
not the cost of living allowance for our staffs will be in any way 
adversely affected?
  Mr. TOOMEY. There is no cost of living adjustment for the staff that 
I am aware of in the current bill.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. So if this bill is passed, regardless of the 
gentleman's instruction, the gentleman does not intend to include a 
cost of living allowance for our staffs?
  Mr. TOOMEY. It is up to the individual Members to decide how they 
spend their Members' account.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. TOOMEY. I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, the average Member in the House of 
Representatives turns back almost $45,000 a year, of which, if we gave 
our staff an 8 percent increase, we would have more than enough money, 
based on that average turnback.
  So the fact is, there is plenty of money turned back in now to have 
every Member and all their employees a cost of living increase.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Speaker, this chart depicts the spending of the 
legislative branch appropriations bill in fiscal year 1999, and it 
reveals the instructions that I would intend in my motion for fiscal 
year 2000.
  As Members can see, the Senate vote for 1999, the Senate 
appropriation was $524 million. The House was $776. The joint other 
category, which as we know covers such things as buildings and grounds 
and the Library of Congress, comes to $1 billion and 50 million. The 
grand total is $2,350.
  On June 10 this body adopted a bill that allocates basically the 
exact same level for the House, $777 million. It voted for a slight 
increase in the joint other category of $1,085,000,000. The Senate in 
its bill voted for a $554 million, which is about a 5.7 increase, and 
11.24 for the joint other category.
  What my motion simply does is it asks our conferees to reflect the 
will of the House. That means that the House number would be reflected, 
or the House number for both the House itself and for the funding of 
the joint and other categories would be the House numbers, and the 
Senate would stick with its own number.
  That would leave the total funding for the bill at $2,416 million. 
That would be a 2.8 percent increase over fiscal year 1999, and would 
be approximately $62 million lower than the new 302(b) appropriation 
allocation, if it were fully funded.
  Mr. Speaker, I think that it is very important, as I said earlier, 
that our conferees reflect the will of this body, which has already 
voted on this matter, which has voted for these numbers.
  I am not suggesting that we change the number that the Senate has 
voted for itself. I think it is important that we do this to simply 
lead in the process of demonstrating our fiscal discipline.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. PASTOR. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for bringing the motion to 
instruct, but I have to inform the House and the Speaker that 
approximately 2 hours ago the conference on this particular bill 
concluded, and but for a technicality that it may not have been filed, 
the discussion and the instructions are moot, I would tell the Members.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would ask my colleague, has the conference report been 
filed?
  Mr. PASTOR. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. TOOMEY. I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.
  Mr. PASTOR. Mr. Speaker, I know that the staff was about to file it, 
and I do not know whether or not it has been filed, but everyone was 
trying to get this thing filed. There was a unanimous consent to file 
it by midnight. Maybe the chairman of the committee could add to that.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Reclaiming my time, it is my understanding that it has 
not yet been filed, so it is not a moot point

[[Page H7235]]

until it is actually filed. It is my hope that when it does get filed, 
it would reflect the levels that the House voted for.
  Mr. PASTOR. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I would simply make two observations.
  A short while ago I was asked by the majority leadership whether, as 
the ranking minority member on the Committee on Appropriations, I would 
agree to unanimous consent to bring up the legislative appropriation 
bill and the District of Columbia appropriation bill and one other 
appropriation bill so that we could finish our work tomorrow, instead 
of spilling over into Friday. I told them I would try to get that done, 
at least on two of the three.
  Now we are being told that we perhaps should not consider that on 
this side of the aisle because the gentleman is going to offer a motion 
to instruct on a package which the leadership has already asked me to 
cooperate with in getting to the floor as soon as possible. We cannot 
cooperate in both efforts at the same time, because they go in 
different directions.
  Second, I would simply say that the cut that was made in the House 
bill originally averaged about $65,000 for each and every Member's 
office account. I would simply point out that the result that the 
gentleman says he is trying to seek, where the House would stick with 
its numbers and the Senate would stick with its numbers, would continue 
a practice which has led to a situation in which the average staffer 
for a Senator, for the same work done by the staffers for people in 
this House, gets $16,400 more.
  That is just not justified, but the reason it happens is because the 
Senate continually assures that there is enough room in office accounts 
to fully provide for COLAs, and the House often does not. On a number 
of occasions, we have denied them to our staffs.
  I would point out that given the House action earlier this year on 
Members' pay, where this House voted by a very large margin to assure 
that Members would receive a COLA, it would be the height of outrageous 
behavior if, having received that COLA for ourselves, we then take 
actions which would make it very difficult for a good many Members in 
this institution to provide that same cost of living increase for the 
people who work for us.
  Mr. Speaker, there are some Members, no doubt, who have enough room 
in their office accounts, but there are many more who do not. The fact 
is that there are a lot of Members of this House who represent almost 
100,000 more people than some of the rotten borough districts that we 
have in the country.
  So I would suggest that the average amount left in each Member's 
office account is misleading. In fact, it is meaningless. What we have 
to do is to determine on a case-by-case basis the situation for every 
office.
  I would simply say I would find it, indeed, ironic and cynical if 
this House allows Members of Congress to receive a cost of living 
increase while it takes action on this bill that denies people who get 
paid a whole lot less than we do.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to 
make a brief response. Then I am going to yield to my colleague, the 
gentleman from Oklahoma.
  I would point out that there is nothing in these instructions which 
set levels of staff salaries and nothing in the instructions which 
would forbid Members from changing the level of staff salaries.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn).
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
  Mr. Speaker, there is no question I want our staff to be adequately 
paid. I do not think that is what this is about. It sounds good, but it 
is not.
  We have so liberalized the rules on Membership's accounts that we can 
move money from office overhead, we can take our mail money, which 
averages well over $100,000 per Member, the frank, and use that money 
for staff salaries. The fact is, there is nothing in this motion to 
instruct that limits Members' abilities to pay their staff competitive 
salaries with the Senate.
  The other thing that I would say is that we are seeing reflected in 
the House through the appropriation process how good of a job we do in 
our own offices. What we are saying is, we cannot control the costs in 
our own offices, we cannot run them efficiently. Therefore, we need to 
have more money.
  People on social security this year are going to get less than 2 
percent, and what the conference is about to do is to increase the MRAs 
for every Member 5 percent.
  If Members want to tell their seniors that they deserve 2\1/2\ times 
the increase that they have to buy the food and buy the drugs that are 
out there for their living, that is fine, vote against this motion to 
instruct. But if Members think we ought to lead by example, that we 
ought to do the hard work, maybe we will send less mail in terms of 
mass mailings, maybe we will just answer the letters that come to us 
and not use it as a political wedge, then we can accomplish what we 
need for our staffs and we can live within a budget, as we are asking 
the American people to do as we try to live within the caps and not 
spend social security money.
  Mr. PASTOR. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I would just like to say that the remark that 
there is nothing in this motion that affects pay is, in my view, at 
least indirectly ingenuous. The fact is that Members provide for the 
cost of living increase for their staff from the office accounts that 
are funded in this bill. We do not have to directly go after those 
COLAS. If we simply shrink the total amount available, we effectively 
shut off the Members' ability to provide that cost of living for their 
staffers.
  I think every worker in America ought to judge Members of Congress at 
least in part on whether or not they treat their staffs at least as 
well as they treat themselves. A Congress that provides itself a pay 
raise and makes it more difficult at the same time for their employees 
to get a COLA is hypocritical.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to my 
colleague, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan).
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I would like to just talk about 
some of the issues. We can budget in our offices our COLA increases for 
our employees. It is up to us as managers of our office accounts to 
budget appropriately and to budget COLA increases, cost of living 
increases, for our employees.
  But I would like to go back and talk about what the gentleman from 
Oklahoma said. The seniors in my district are not getting 5 percent 
increases in social security payments this year. The seniors in my 
district are getting less than 2 percent increases in social security, 
COLA increases.
  I think it is time for Congress to lead by example. I think it is 
important that when we have made such a historic move this year to wall 
off social security, and let me just rephrase this, this year for the 
first time in a generation, for over 30 years, Congress passed a budget 
that stopped raiding social security.
  This is the first Congress that has done this in so long, we should 
lead by example. Because we chose to stop the raid on the social 
security trust fund, that drives many other budget decisions around 
here. It makes spending less in other areas, because for once in a 
generation, we are not going to raid the social security trust fund.
  That is why all we are saying, take the House number, which is lower 
than the Senate number in a legislative branch appropriations bill, a 
2.4 percent increase, not a 5 percent increase. It is very important 
that we lead by example and we free up the fiscal space to pass our 
appropriation bills on budget and away from the raiding of social 
security, as we are doing.
  Mr. PASTOR. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Taylor), the distinguished chair of 
the Subcommittee on Legislative.
  Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman 
yielding time to me.
  Mr. Speaker, I commend all these young Members and all the people who 
have been working for a balanced budget, as well as reserve funds for 
social security and the efforts we have made.
  In fact, if the legislative branch, and I owe this to my 
predecessors, because

[[Page H7236]]

the last two chairmen have reduced the legislative branch 
substantially. We are not even back up to where we were in 1993 and 
1994, even with inflation. I hope we can stay below that.
  I also point out that we are substantially below the caps that were 
given to us. We are going to report a bill that is substantially below 
the caps. I am not sure any other committee will be doing that.
  Mr. Speaker, I would say to all of us in the body that if they have a 
$1.8 trillion corporation, they are not going to talk about not having 
adequate staff and qualified staff to carry out the funding and the 
appropriations of that $1.8 trillion appropriations.

                              {time}  2300

  If one does, then one is pennywise and pound foolish because one has 
to have adequate people and pay them adequately, especially in today's 
market, to carry out that task.
  We have in our report returned a portion of the MRAs to the Members, 
and I certainly support that. I agree with the gentleman, what he said 
about a lot of Members will return portions of the budget. I commend 
them for doing that. If they have the ability to do that, they 
certainly should.
  But we all know that every district is different in this country. If 
I were in, for instance, a district where I had one television station 
and I could report to the people what was happening in the Congress 
without mail or without any communication other than that television 
station, and there are Members of the Congress that do that, then I 
would be able to return more of my money.
  But I have 15 rural counties, and the only way I can report is to 
give them a report by mail. In my district, over 90 percent of the 
people regard that as favorable, and they respond so. They point out 
that they want more information, not less, about what is going on in 
Congress. As I say, if the people in my district support that, then I 
am certainly going to continue to put my efforts in that area to tell 
them what is going on in this body.
  I think that, as I say, we have done a good job. The word 
``conference'' means that we go across the body and we have to confer 
with the Senate. They asked for a lot more money. They did not get it 
all. They got some. Because, in a conference, one has to give and take. 
We would have liked to have spent less money, but we held the line very 
diligently. I think we will be proud of this report.
  I would also point out that I do not think any Member who has spoken 
tonight has consulted with either the committee chairman or the ranking 
member or the staff to see what actually we have done. They may be 
surprised that we have held the line much better than previously than 
what they think may have been happening.
  So I would commend this report to my colleagues. It will be coming 
before we leave in August. I think that my colleagues may be more proud 
of it in this body than they might think.
  Mr. PASTOR. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, once again, I want to remind my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, 
of what I said at the beginning, which is I think our appropriators 
have done an excellent job thus far this year, and I think we are going 
to finish up the process with an excellent track record.
  My colleague indicated that there are, in all likelihood going to be 
pleasant features to this bill when we see it. I hope, in fact, that 
the conferees did hold the line and that the funding levels will, in 
fact, reflect the will of the House as it was voted on back in June.
  Again, we have done a great job thus far ensuring that we are going 
to see the surpluses that we believe we will see, and that means we are 
going to be able to do the right thing with respect to Social Security, 
with respect to lowering the tax burden on the American people.
  I just hope that we finish the job and we show that we can lead by 
example that a 2.8 percent increase in our own budgets is sufficient 
for us. We do not need to go higher than that.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). Without objection, the previous 
question is ordered on the motion to instruct.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to instruct 
offered by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a 
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not 
present.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this motion will be postponed.

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