[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 149 (Thursday, October 28, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H11075-H11085]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          FURTHER CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS, FISCAL YEAR 2000

  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the order of the House 
of Wednesday, October 27, 1999, I call up the joint resolution (H. J. 
Res 73) making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 
2000, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the title of the joint resolution.
  The text of House Joint Resolution 73 is as follows:

                              H.J. Res. 73

       Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
     United States of America in Congress assembled, That Public 
     Law 106-62 is further amended by striking ``October 29, 
     1999'' in section 106(c) and inserting in lieu thereof 
     ``November 5, 1999'', and by striking ``$189,524,382'' in 
     section 119 and inserting in lieu thereof ``$288,903,248''. 
     Public Law 106-46 is amended by striking ``November 1, 1999'' 
     and inserting in lieu thereof ``November 5, 1999''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Shaw). Pursuant to the order of the 
House of Wednesday, October 27, 1999, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Young) and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) each will control 30 
minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young).


                             General Leave

  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their 
remarks on H. J. Res. 73, and that I may include tabular and extraneous 
material.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Florida?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the continuing resolution before us extends current 
spending levels for a week, until November 5. That is one week from 
tomorrow.
  The current rates, as contained in the original continuing 
resolution, are continued for the five bills which have not been signed 
into law. And, of course, for those eight that have been signed into 
law, the funding levels in those bills are the controlling elements.
  There are two technical provisions for two anomalies which need to be 
adjusted in the continuing resolution, the waiver of the quorum 
requirement for the Export-Import Bank, and adjusted funding rate for 
the census.
  Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that this is acceptable to the 
President, that he is willing to support this and to sign this 
continuing resolution, and I would hope that we could expedite this 
matter.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1115

  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, first of all, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), 
the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, is 
correct; the President will sign this third continuing resolution.
  He should not have to. I would have hoped that we would have been 
done by now. But we all, I think, understand why.
  My problem is that, right after this continuing resolution, we are 
going to

[[Page H11076]]

be dealing with about a 3-hour charade. I need to discuss that in the 
context of this continuing resolution.
  After this continuing resolution is disposed of, we will be bringing 
to the House floor a so-called conference report on the Labor, Health, 
Education appropriation bill.
  The problem is that that conference took place on a bill that never 
even saw the light of day on the floor of this House. And under the 
rules of the Congress, we are not supposed to have a conference until 
both Houses have been able to vote on the bill.
  Now, the bill that comes out is an important bill. The problem with 
that bill is not really, in the end, the funding level. We could 
resolve our remaining dollar differences in that bill in about 3 hours 
if we are given the opportunity to do so. But the problem is that the 
debate on this bill and the bill to follow today will, in my view, 
symbolize how political debate in this House has been trivialized and 
used to obscure rather than reveal the truth.
  Next year we enter a new century; we enter a new millennium. We were 
sent here to make certain that we make the big decisions that will 
preserve the security of our country and strengthen the prosperity of 
our country for the next decade and for the next generation. Instead, 
we will be treated to a 3-hour, cheap, phony, manipulated debate about 
Social Security.
  Now, how did this all happen? In January, the President stood right 
here behind me, and he asked the Congress to pass legislation that 
would extend the solvency of Social Security for today's generation and 
tomorrow's. He asked us to strengthen Medicare and provide coverage for 
prescription drugs under Medicare. He asked us to pass a budget that 
would help communities to rebuild falling-down schools, reduce class 
size by providing 100,000 new teachers, equip every school with modern 
technology. He asked us to protect the environment. He asked us to help 
him provide more police on our streets.
  This bill, the last appropriations bill for the year that will 
shortly follow, does none of those things. Instead of listening to what 
the President asked for, instead of trying to resolve those problems, 
our majority friends, our Republican friends on the other side of the 
aisle spent the last 8 months trying to pass a tax cut package which 
gave 70 percent of the benefits to the wealthiest 5 percent of people 
in this country making above $100,000 a year. That tax package ate up 
virtually every dollar in sight that could have been used to strengthen 
Social Security and to strengthen Medicare.
  In fact, our Republican friends at one point were willing to cut 
virtually every program in the Labor, Health, and Education bill by 
almost 30 percent in order to make that tax package happen.
  Now, after it did not sell, and after our friends on the Republican 
side have seen their numbers drop in the polls, we now have a very 
troubling situation. They have passed through this House a series of 
appropriation bills, four appropriation bills, which spend almost $30 
billion more than the President asked us to spend.
  The chairman of the committee himself said that the defense bill 
alone was $16 billion above what the President had asked for. But now 
after that has been done, we now have our Republican friends saying, 
Oh, guess what, folks? We cannot fund the President's education and 
health and crime fighting and environmental priorities without spending 
the Social Security surplus.
  There are three problems with that, to be blunt about it. The first 
is that it is a phony issue. Not one dollar in the President's request 
or in any bill that we support on this side of the aisle will reduce 
the balance in the Social Security Trust Fund by one dollar.
  Second, it is a joke for our Republican friends to cry crocodile 
tears about protecting Social Security. This is the party that tried to 
kill Social Security when it was born. They have tried to turn it over 
to the insurance companies for 30 years and privatize it. They have 
been willing to put an unaffordable tax cut ahead of fixing up Social 
Security and Medicare. And this is a party which is led by their 
leader, who said that Social Security should be phased out and that in 
a free society there should be no room for a program like Medicare.
  For us to believe that a party with that track record suddenly stands 
as the only hope for Social Security recipients is to make Jay Leno 
look bad.
  The third problem with the argument is that our Republican friends, 
despite their assertions to the contrary, have already spent billions 
of dollars out of the Social Security Trust Fund to pay for other 
things this year. At one point they had spent up to $27 billion out of 
that Social Security Trust Fund.
  To hide that fact, what did they do? First they simply adopted a 
budget technique which hid $18 billion so it could not be counted. That 
still left them with a $9 billion hole. And so, what have they done? In 
the bill that they are bringing to the floor today, they did not take 
out all the pork that was put in appropriation bills. They did not take 
out the famous billion dollar ship that was nailed into the defense 
bill by the majority leader in the other body.
  No, they did not do that. They did not take out any of the hundreds 
of projects that were put in those bills. Instead, they pretend that 
they are imposing a harmless 1 percent across-the-board cut in 
programs.
  Well, what does that harmless 1 percent do? Well, for one thing, it 
cripples the Social Security Administration because it forces them to 
cut back on the number of people that we use to ferret out fraudulent 
claims in Social Security and Medicare and people who also try to get 
legitimate checks cut to the people who legitimately deserve those 
programs.
  They are cutting millions of dollars out of veterans' health care 
under their proposal. And they are in the process also creating a 
colossal disruption of medical research. They are virtually shutting 
down all new grants to scientists in this country who go to the 
National Institutes of Health to get funding to do research on cancer, 
heart disease, Alzheimer's, Lou Gehrig's disease, you name it.
  What they do is they pretend that they are going to give them a 
couple of billion dollars more money, but then they say that they 
cannot spend it for an entire year. And they do it all for budgetary 
reasons.
  Well, I want to say, make no mistake about it, this is not just a 
budgetary gimmick. There will be people who will die because of that 
delayed medical research. Anybody who understands how the research 
programs in this country work understands that.
  And all of this is to pretend that they have not spent any of the 
Social Security surplus. That whole issue is a false issue to begin 
with. For a generation, this Congress has taken surpluses in the Social 
Security account, it has put Federal notes in that Social Security 
account, and it has used that money for other purposes.
  And now next year what do we face? Instead of having 100 percent of 
that money being used for other purposes, as it was for 30 years, what 
we have instead, under a worst-case scenario, is that 80 percent of 
that money instead is going to be used to pay down the national debt.
  Only the folks running this House could turn that kind of major 
progress into a political crisis. They ought to be ashamed of 
themselves for doing that.
  The fact is, if they really want to strengthen Social Security, they 
will quit playing games with it; and what they will do is recognize 
that the best thing they can do, along with paying down debt, the best 
thing that they can do is make the kind of investments we need in 
Generation X for their education and for their job training so we can 
raise the income that they will earn so they will have decent salaries 
and can pay more into Social Security in order to extend the strength 
and the life of that Social Security fund.
  That is what we would say if this issue was being dealt with honestly 
on the floor. But it is let's-pretend time, and so we cannot get to the 
truth, I guess.

  So, Mr. Speaker, what I guess I would say to my majority friends on 
the Republican side of the aisle is simply this: if they have the 
votes, pass this turkey, get it on to the President, let him veto it, 
let us clear the air, and then let us really sit down and do business. 
If we could get the political bull gravy out of this debate, we could 
solve all of the remaining dollar problems in about 3 days.
  We are not that far apart. The gap in dollars that separate us is not 
nearly as large as the credibility gap that

[[Page H11077]]

they have developed in the way that the majority has handled this 
issue.
  There are only four ways to get a budget. The first is, if they 
really want to protect Social Security, we can go back and we can cut 
out a lot of the excess spending that they have included in some of the 
previously passed appropriation bills. If they want to do that, I will 
work with them on that. If they do not want to do that, I am not going 
to argue.
  Second thing they could do then is simply say, Okay, we are going to 
take a look at some of the President's revenue sources, such as his 
proposal to try to discourage the use of tobacco by young people, which 
would bring some additional revenue into the Treasury. I do not much 
like that, but I would rather support that than to lie. And that is 
what is happening now.
  The third thing they can do if they want to pass a budget is simply 
get real and to simply adjust the spending caps which we are operating 
under to reflect what we are actually spending rather than what we 
pretend we are spending. I know the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) 
has urged the same solution. I agree with him on that.
  They can get my support on any of those three options. The one option 
I do not want to support is the one that the House continues to pursue 
at this moment, which is to stay in Let's-pretend land and to hide 
everything that we are doing through all of these fancy budgetary 
devices.
  This chart shows what they are doing to the National Institutes of 
Health. The blue graph shows what amount of money was provided by the 
National Institutes of Health to medical researchers in each month last 
year as those contracts were signed in an orderly fashion.
  Under this bill that they are bringing to the floor today, they are 
telling the National Institutes of Health that, even though they are 
going to give them more money, they are not going to let them spend it 
for an entire year and then; in the last 2 days, they are supposed to 
put out a huge percentage of their own budget.

                              {time}  1130

  That is irresponsible. It is a financial gimmick. It does not serve 
any purpose but to cover somebody's political tail, and it will hurt 
our efforts to find cures for every major disease that plagues mankind.
  So I would say simply, there are a lot of good people on both sides 
of the aisle, and sooner or later they have to be unleashed so that we 
can sit down, work out a rational compromise on these bills, and get 
this Congress out of town before it does any more damage to its 
reputation.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  First, I would like to get back to the subject of the continuing 
resolution. I listened with interest to the debate of my friend from 
Wisconsin. His debate went to the overall issue of budget items as well 
as the bill that we are going to consider next. But right now, what we 
have before us, is the continuing resolution.
  I want to tell my friend from Wisconsin when he says we are not that 
far apart, he is pretty accurate. We are not that far apart on our 
legislation. We are miles apart on the political rhetoric. And I am 
afraid that it is going to be more difficult to close that gap between 
the political rhetoric than it will be to solve the problems of the 
appropriations bills.
  The gentleman suggested that we should consider the President's new 
tax program that he sent to us. We did. Maybe the gentleman forgot. But 
the President's package of tax increases was presented to this House 
just about a week ago, and after great debate, not a Republican voted 
for that tax package and not an independent voted for that tax package, 
and not a Democrat voted for that tax package. So the effect, Mr. 
Speaker, was that the President's plan to increase taxes got zero votes 
in the House of Representatives.
  My friend from Wisconsin said that it is pretend time. Let me tell 
you how much pretending we are doing here. Yesterday, official figures 
released show that the Federal Government ran a surplus of $122.7 
billion in the last fiscal year, fiscal year 1999, which just ended 
September 30th. That is the first time the government has recorded 
back-to-back surpluses since the Eisenhower administration in 1956-
1957. The 1999 surplus was almost double the 1998 surplus, which was 
$69.2 billion. So we are getting there. We are getting to the point. We 
are not spending Social Security surpluses. And in fiscal year 2000, we 
will not spend Social Security surpluses. That is not pretend time, 
that is the fact. I am basing this on official reports that were 
released yesterday.
   I am not going to do this now but I might do this later and show how 
much various Congresses spent out of the Social Security trust fund in 
recent years. It is a tremendous amount, as high as $60 billion in the 
year that the gentleman from Wisconsin chaired the Committee on 
Appropriations. So a lot of money was spent out of the Social Security 
trust fund in the past. But in fiscal year 2000, that will not be the 
case. We are keeping our word. We are not dipping into the Social 
Security trust fund to finance the day-to-day operation of the 
government. We are saving that money for the people that it was 
promised to.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. 
Rogers), the distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee 
on Commerce, Justice, State, and Judiciary.
  Mr. ROGERS. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, we heard it for the first time or at least I did 
publicly from the gentleman from Wisconsin a few minutes ago when he 
spoke in the well. We have heard it privately from that side of the 
aisle for a long time now but we heard it publicly here, when the 
gentleman said, yes, we have spent out of the Social Security surplus 
for 30 years, when the gentleman's party controlled this Congress. And 
he said now you folks want to not spend the Social Security moneys for 
general government purposes, and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves, 
he said.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, I am not ashamed of myself at all. I am extremely 
proud that our party, for the first time in more than 30 years, is 
saying to that party no, you cannot spend any more from the Social 
Security trust fund. That is for our elderly, and you can live on the 
tax moneys that come into the general treasury, and that is what this 
party is attempting to do. And so we heard it for the first time here. 
Get the transcript and read it. Publish it in the newspapers. That 
party stands for blowing the Social Security trust fund for anything 
and everything, and they have, as the gentleman said, for 30 years at 
least. And our party now says no more. The Social Security moneys that 
hardworking Americans pay into this government system shall be used 
only for the purposes for which it was paid, and that is to provide for 
the care of the elderly when they reach that retirement age. And our 
party has laid down the line, no more raiding Social Security, leave it 
alone, it is for our elderly. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves for 
suggesting the continuation of that kind of a policy of using Social 
Security for every other purpose.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. Despite what we have 
just heard from the past two speakers, the Congressional Budget Office 
this morning has indicated that you are spending this year $17 billion 
out of Social Security. What I said on the floor is that you should be 
ashamed for denying the truth. That is what you ought to be ashamed of.
  The second thing I would point out to the gentleman is that whatever 
money was spent out of Social Security by Democratic Congresses was 
less than we were asked to spend by President Bush and President Reagan 
in all 12 years they were in office except for 1 year. In 11 out of the 
12 years, we were asked to spend more out of Social Security by 
President Bush and President Reagan than the Congress agreed to do.
  So let us keep the facts straight. If you are going to quote me, 
quote me right. I am not attacking your actions. I am attacking the 
hypocrisy that I so often see in this House.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the very 
distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston), a member of the 
Committee on Appropriations.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I thank the gentleman for yielding time.

[[Page H11078]]

  Mr. Speaker, first of all let me say why are we here. I would say 
probably for three real reasons. Number one, in response to the 
American people in 1997 to get our fiscal house in order, we passed a 
bipartisan budget agreement. I did not support it. I know the gentleman 
from Wisconsin and many others did not but over 300 Democrats and 
Republicans joined with the White House to pass this agreement to give 
us a road for budget restraint in the next couple of years. That is 
number one.
  Number two, we have said as recently as last week, no new taxes. On a 
vote of 419-0, Democrats and Republicans rejected President Clinton's 
proposals to increase taxes. And number three, despite the fact that 
the President said in his State of the Union address that we should 
only preserve 62 percent of the Social Security trust fund, we on the 
Republican side have insisted on 100 percent, and now many of the 
Democrats have said, let us protect 100 percent of the Social Security 
trust fund.
  So with these three principles colliding, what we are trying to do is 
balance the budget by reducing spending by about one cent on the 
dollar. It is not that hard to do. If you look back at the principles, 
here is what the White House said about the Republican plan: The key 
goal is to not spend Social Security surplus. That is right from the 
mouth of Chief of Staff John Podesta at the White House.
  This chart, Mr. Speaker, shows that under Democrat control and under 
Republican control up until this year, we have been spending Social 
Security surplus. But this year on this chart, we have not. We do not 
want to back off that commitment. I think it is very important.
  And the way to not do that is this simple, shown in this chart. We 
are going to spend out of a dollar 99 cents and we are going to save 
one cent. Where can you get some of this money? Look at it in practical 
examples. The President went to Africa last year. One thousand three 
hundred Federal employees went with him at a price tag of $42.8 
million. Under this proposal, 13 of them would have to stay at home. He 
went to China, $18.8 million, 800 Federal employees. Under this plan, 
eight of them would have to stay at home. Ben & Jerry's, the delicious 
and successful ice cream company, gets a Federal subsidy of $800,000 to 
sell ice cream overseas. Under this proposal, they would get less, and 
who knows, maybe they would have to do it the old-fashioned way and pay 
for it themselves.
  Under this proposal we may want to look at the FDA cheese inspection 
program because the FDA inspects cheese pizza but the USDA, the 
Department of Agriculture, inspects pepperoni pizza. I do not know, 
maybe they could get together. That might be an example of cutting out 
government waste.
  Here in Washington, D.C., one of the cronies of the city council was 
awarded a $6.6 million contract for job placement. One year later after 
being asked to place 1500 people, 30 people had been placed.
  Those are just a couple of examples. That is all we are saying. If we 
can do that, we can keep from raiding Social Security or increasing 
taxes.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.
  Mr. Speaker, let me again repeat the facts to counter the fiction 
that we have just heard. Despite the fact that our majority party 
friends have taken $12 billion of education money and slipped it one 
day over into the next fiscal year so they could hide it in this year, 
despite the fact that they have taken almost $4 billion at the National 
Institutes of Health and squeezed that spending just over the line into 
the next fiscal year, it will still be spent, still come out of Social 
Security, just next year's Social Security money, despite the fact that 
they have simply ordered the accountants to not count $13 billion in 
spending that they do at the Department of Defense, despite all of 
that, we have a letter from the Congressional Budget Office this 
morning that indicates that you are still spending $17 billion worth of 
Social Security this year. Now, get off the baloney, get back to the 
facts and let us resolve our differences in an honest way.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from 
Missouri (Mr. Clay), ranking member of the Committee on Education and 
the Workforce.
  Mr. CLAY. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, if the Republican leadership had done its job instead of 
playing politics with appropriations for vital government services, I 
would not be here this morning to speak on this unnecessary continuing 
resolution and to oppose H.R. 3064, which includes the Labor, HHS and 
Education Appropriations Act, because if passed it would make drastic 
cuts in programs that are vitally important to Americans, especially to 
those most in need of the Federal Government's assistance and 
protection.
  Fortunately, Mr. Speaker, this ill-conceived and sensitive bill faces 
swift death at the hands of a veto by the President. Many of the 
important initiatives proposed by the President to improve our schools 
and to prepare our children for the 21st century have either been 
eliminated or underfunded. The bill that we will be considering after 
this guts the Clinton-Clay plan to hire 100,000 new teachers and reduce 
class sizes in the early grades. Instead, it diverts $1.2 billion to a 
block grant that requires no real accountability and would permit 
spending public money to send children to private schools.
  Mr. Speaker, last week this body overwhelmingly defeated the 
Republican majority leader's ill-advised attempt to authorize vouchers 
for private and public schools. Now the same misguided leadership is 
attempting a backdoor enactment of the same raid on public funds. The 
cuts in H.R. 3064 are devastating. The Republicans' bill cuts $26 
million from the President's funding request to improve the reading 
skills of 100,000 students as proposed in the Reading Excellence Act. 
The Republicans' bill denies $60 million of the President's funding 
request for Gear Up, thus preventing 131,000 low-income students from 
receiving mentoring, counseling and tutoring services intended to help 
them prepare for college.

                              {time}  1145

  The bill provides $300 billion less than the President requested for 
after-school enrichment centers, thereby funding 3,400 fewer centers; 
and after selling our children and teachers short, the Republicans' 
bill also reflects the same legislative assault on workers. The bill 
would undermine worker protection programs by cutting $18 million from 
the President's request for the Occupational Safety and Health 
Administration. Funding for the Labor Relations Board is cut by $10 
million below the President's request, which will result in total 
gridlock in resolving labor-management disputes.
  Mr. Speaker, I recommend that we defeat the bill that comes after 
this continuing resolution.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman 
from Illinois (Mr. Porter), who is the very distinguished chairman of 
the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education.
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the gentleman from 
Missouri (Mr. Clay) and what he had to say about education funding; 
and, Mr. Speaker, he is way off the mark. This bill does better than 
the President in his budget, which was a political document in the 
extreme.
  It does better than the President on education funding by over $300 
million, and to say that Republicans are not committed to education is 
simply wrong. Our commitment is just as strong or stronger than that on 
the other side of the aisle; but we do not believe, and the reason the 
gentleman referred to accounts that he said were not plussed up as the 
President suggested, we do not believe that public education ought to 
be directed by Washington. The very genius of public education in our 
country is that it is not directed by Washington; it is directed by our 
school districts and our States, where the primary responsibility lies.
  We put a great deal of money into primary and secondary education, 
and we put a great deal of money, more than the President has suggested 
in both areas, into college student financial assistance so that young 
people have a chance to get a higher education. We put in $679 million 
more than the President in his budget request in special education for 
handicapped kids. We put $45 million over last year and $15 million 
over the

[[Page H11079]]

 President's request in the Trio program so that minority young people 
have a chance to get a higher education. We funded impact aid, a 
Federal responsibility, for more than the President.
  In line item after line item in this bill we do better than the 
President, and we give more flexibility to the local school districts 
and States.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).
  Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding this 
time to me.
  As my colleagues know, this Congress is quickly running out of 
Federal buildings to name around the country. It has about commemorated 
everything that could be commemorated, and since these uncontested 
measures represent the principal legislative product of this Republican 
do-nothing Congress, it is appropriate that this legislation would be 
before us today as really only another of these uncontested 
commemorative resolutions. It commemorates failure. It deserves a name: 
The Republican Congressional Failure Act of 1999.
  As late as September 19, the Speaker, the gentleman from Illinois 
(Mr. Hastert), told the country that ``by the first of October we will 
have all of the appropriation bills passed out of the House and the 
Senate,'' and here we are, nearing November 1, not October 1, and one 
of those very important bills has never even been presented to the 
House for consideration, much less the Senate or the President of the 
United States for his consideration.
  We will have later today that bill finally come before us, and it is 
clear that the reason for the delay of that bill; now that we have it, 
is that it has failure written all over it. This legislation funds all 
of our Federal commitment to public education in this country, funds 
all of our major health research for all the very dreaded diseases that 
touch families throughout this country; and yet here we are a month 
after the conclusion of the fiscal year for which it was supposed to 
have been approved, and it has never even been debated on the floor of 
the House.
  This is a measure that touches every family, one way or another, 
throughout the United States. Like the other parts of the Republican 
legislative agenda, this bill fails to add one single dollar to 
strengthen Social Security, and it also fails to meet the standard of 
the rhetoric we have heard about Social Security here this morning. I 
have a letter that the Congressional Budget Office sent this morning, 
October 28, to Speaker J. Dennis Hastert. The Congressional Budget 
Office says, and I quote:

       Outlays from congressional action on appropriation 
     legislation including the latest action on all 13 
     appropriation bills would also exceed the discretionary caps 
     (those are the ones put in place to assure a balanced budget) 
     by more than CBO's baseline estimate of the on-budget 
     surplus. After taking that surplus into account, the 
     Congressional Budget Office projects an on-budget deficit of 
     about $17 billion.

  That is $17 billion directly out of Social Security Trust Fund 
monies. To say that they are not using Social Security monies for non-
Social Security purposes is flat wrong, and the evidence is here from 
the Republican Congressional Budget Office to demonstrate it. This bill 
and the legislative program of which it is a part fails to get 
prescription drugs to seniors, fails to ferret out waste. It is late, 
and it is wrong for America. This bill should be rejected, and another 
stop gap continuing resolution undoubtedly will be presented to this 
House, because of the same failures that have characterized the first 
10 months of this year.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the very 
distinguished gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan), chairman of the 
Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related 
Programs.
  (Mr. CALLAHAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. CALLAHAN. I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me.
  Mr. Speaker, I love this House. Witness the ceremony yesterday 
afternoon where we honored former President Ford and Betty Ford and the 
comments that were made there about the respect this institution has 
had over past decades.
  But are we so naive or so stupid, Mr. Speaker, that we think the 
American people cannot see what we are doing here? Is there anybody in 
this body who thinks they are fooling the American people by saying we 
are going to destroy the Social Security Trust Fund? Of course we are 
not. The only thing we have to argue is history, and history says for 
40 years until 1993 that the majority party during those years was 
spending much of the Social Security Trust Fund.
  And now we are here today with a balanced budget talking about 
whether we might dip into the Social Security Trust Fund by $10 or $15 
billion, which we are not, but the American people are not that naive. 
The American people are truly appreciative of the fact that during the 
last 3 years we have balanced the budget. What a wonderful argument it 
is to develop today, saying we are not going to spend all of the Social 
Security Trust Fund. Maybe CBO or some other organization might score 
some of the things we pass here today as a possible invasion of the 
trust fund, which I do not think it is. But the American people are not 
easily fooled. The American people know exactly what we are talking 
about when we have debates such as this which is nothing but 
demagoguery.
  Mr. Speaker, I am just as guilty as any of my colleagues. I stood on 
this floor the other day and demagogued the President of the United 
States for taking 1,700 people to Africa and spending $47 million of 
the taxpayers' money on that trip. We do all of that, but let us not 
think for 1 minute that the American people are so naive as to think, 
Mr. Speaker, that anybody in any party would deliberately do anything 
to the detriment of the Social Security Trust Fund.
  We have to look at where we were when we, the majority, took control 
of this House 5 years ago and where we are today, and it is as simple 
as that. The chairman of my committee (Mr. Young) has the most 
compelling chart of all of the charts that have ever been presented on 
this issue to the House, and it shows what was happening before the 
Republican party took control of this House, and it is so glaring that 
the amount of money that we are now saving for the Social Security 
Trust Fund is a result of what we have done in this body.
  So we can have all this fun we want, and we can engage in all this 
rhetoric, and we can demagogue, and we can stand up and we can say 
these bad things about each other. The real fact is the American people 
are no fools. We have balanced the budget, we have saved Social 
Security, and it is because of the programs that we have implemented in 
the last 4 years.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), ranking Democrat on the 
Committee on the Budget.
  (Mr. SPRATT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, a continuing resolution is a confession of 
failure on the part of Congress. It is a confession by Congress that it 
has not done its job, so is the appropriation bill that follows this 
continuing resolution.
  We were elected to use our judgment, our experience, to use our 
discretion to get the best value out of the American taxpayers' money. 
What do we do with an across-the-board cut? It is nothing less than 
abdication of the judgment that we were elected to use. It whacks the 
budget across the board by 1 percent, cutting the good with the bad.
  Now that may sound minimal. One percent sounds trivial. But if it is 
minimal, why not go back through these 13 bills and do it using 
discretionary judgment, picking out things that have been larded into 
these bills, Member adds, and we can start with Senator Lott's 
helicopter landing ship, just one of many things that cost several 
hundred million dollars that we can do without. The Navy said so, did 
not want it, did not ask for it.
  One percent is not minimal if someone is one of the people who have 
been hurt by the cut. As my colleagues know, we have spent the better 
part of this year, this past year, trying to get veterans health care 
up to the level that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs itself says we 
need to fund it at in order to keep our promises made to the men and 
women who served our country particularly in time of war, and if

[[Page H11080]]

there are any promises we ought to keep; we ought to keep the promises 
we made to our veterans.
  What does this bill do? We have got the veterans' health care up by 
1.5, $1.7 million; it whacks it $200 million. That is health care 
veterans will not be able to get if this bill were to become law.
  We spent last year, the whole past year, trying to get funding for 
our men and women in uniform, our Armed Services, up to the level where 
they want to stay in the service and encourage others to join the 
service because recruitment and retention are off, both badly.
  What does this bill do? The appropriations bill that will come after 
this continuing resolution will whack our men in uniform to the tune of 
28,000 men and women on active duty who will have to be involuntarily 
separated, removed from service. What in the world will that do to 
morale when we are trying to encourage retention and recruitment?
  Kicked out of the service, mindless across-the-board cuts. General 
Shelton summed up the effects yesterday when he said a 1 percent 
across-the-board would be devastating to our national defense. But that 
is what we are proposing here today.
  All of this mindless carnage to the budget is being done in the name 
of holding Social Security surplus harmless, and it is a worthy goal; 
but I suggest to my colleagues in truth this is not the real goal. The 
real goal is to send these 13 appropriation bills to the President, 
have them veto several of them, and then we will be able to say he is 
responsible for our having to borrow this year from Social Security.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, that dog will not hunt.

                              {time}  1200

  Do not take my word for it. Listen to what CBO says this morning just 
off the press in its summary of 12 bills that this Republican majority 
and this House and the Senate have passed, the last to come, Labor-HHS. 
It summed them all up, and here is the summary right here on this chart 
in the simplest possible terms for people to understand.
  The appropriations spending cap for this year in July was $580 
billion. At that level, CBO said we would have a surplus this year of 
$14 billion, $14.4 to be exact. So that means if you spend $594 
billion, the cap on appropriations, plus the on-budget surplus, you can 
stay out of Social Security. But CBO says today, looking at all 13 
appropriation bills, that they spend altogether $611 billion. Simple 
arithmetic says, therefore, these bills to date are $17 billion already 
into the Social Security trust fund, $17 billion already into the 
Social Security surplus, because these bills to date spend $611 billion 
as opposed to a spending ceiling of $594 billion if you want to stay 
out of Social Security.
  There it is in simple form. In more complicated form I have a letter 
here dated October 28, 1999, from Dr. Crippen, who is the Director of 
CBO, which I would like to insert in the Record. It sets it straight. 
It spells it out. You are already $17.1 billion into Social Security. 
That is the bottom line, no way around it.
  Let us vote down the Labor-HHS bill so we can get down to reality and 
get down to budgeting, rather than blaming, which is what the people 
elected us to do.
  Mr. Speaker, I include the following for the Record: 

                                      Congressional Budget Office,


                                                U.S. Congress,

                                 Washington, DC, October 28, 1999.
     Hon. J. Dennis Hastert,
     Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Speaker: As you requested in your letter of 
     October 27, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has 
     estimated the on-budget deficit for fiscal year 2000, 
     incorporating appropriation action to date.
       CBO's estimates are based on appropriation bills that have 
     been signed by the President and, for those that have not yet 
     been enacted into law, on the most recent conference 
     agreements. The enclosed table provides CBO's estimate of how 
     those bills would affect the on-budget surplus for fiscal 
     year 2000. As you requested, the table displays the impact on 
     that estimate of the adjustments made to CBO's figures for 
     Congressional scorekeeping purposes--with the exception of 
     the adjustment made for contingent emergencies.
       In response to numerous questions about the on-budget 
     deficit and related matters, CBO has prepared a memorandum 
     entitled Discretionary Spending Caps, Deficits, and the 
     Social Security Surplus, which provides some context for 
     addressing the budgetary issues you have raised. A copy of 
     that memorandum is enclosed.
       If you wish further information, we will be pleased to 
     provide it.
           Sincerely,
                                                   Dan L. Crippen,
                                                         Director.
       Enclosures:

TABLE 1.--ESTIMATED BUDGETARY IMPACT OF CURRENT APPROPRIATION ACTION FOR
                FISCAL YEAR 2000, AS OF OCTOBER 27, 1999
                        [In billions of dollars]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                      Budget
                                                    authority   Outlays
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Discretionary Appropriations (By bill): \1\
  Agriculture.....................................       22.7       22.7
  Commerce, Justice, State, the judiciary.........       37.2       36.3
  Defense.........................................      269.4      267.8
  District of Columbia............................        0.4        0.4
  Energy and water................................       21.3       21.0
  Foreign operations..............................       12.7       13.3
  Interior........................................       14.4       14.7
  Labor, HHS, Education \2\.......................       84.6       83.4
  Legislative.....................................        2.5        2.5
  Military construction...........................        8.4        8.8
  Transportation..................................       13.6       44.7
  Treasury and general government.................       13.7       14.7
  Veterans, HUD, independent agencies.............       71.9       83.7
                                                   ---------------------
      Subtotal \1\................................      572.9      614.1
  Across-the-board reduction of 0.97 percent......       -5.7       -3.5
  Savings from additional collections of defaulted       -0.1       -0.1
   student loans..................................
                                                   ---------------------
      Total \1\...................................      567.1      610.5
CBO's July 1999 Baseline Estimate of Discretionary      539.3      579.8
 Appropriations...................................
                                                   ---------------------
Difference (Total appropriations minus baseline          27.8       30.7
 estimate)........................................
Additional Interest Costs Resulting from Higher          n.a.        0.8
 Appropriations...................................
                                                   ---------------------
      Total Change from Baseline..................       n.a.       31.5
CBO's July 1999 Baseline Estimate of On-Budget           n.a.       14.4
 Surplus..........................................
CBO's Estimate of the On-Budget Deficit (-)              n.a.      -17.1
 Reflecting Appropriation Action to Date \2\......
Congressional Scorekeeping Adjustments \2\........        3.4       18.1
Projected On-Budget Surplus Under Congressional          n.a.        1.0
 Scoring..........................................
------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ CBO estimates, excluding scorekeeping adjustments.
\2\ Reductions applied to CBO's estimates for Congressional scorekeeping
  purposes; not included in any of the figures above. Includes $0.4
  billion in debt service savings, but does not include $1.6 billion in
  adjustments for contingent emergencies.
 
SOURCE: Congresisonal Budget Office.
NOTE: HHS=Department of Health and Human Services; HUD=Department of
  Housing and Urban Development; n.a.=not applicable.

 Discretionary Spending Caps, Deficits, and the Social Security Trust 
                                 Funds

                            October 28, 1999

       The current budget debate centers around two distinct 
     objectives. The first is adherence to the statutory caps on 
     discretionary spending specified in the Balanced Budget Act 
     of 1997 (BBA). The BBA extends an accounting framework for 
     discretionary spending and requires across-the-board cuts 
     (sequestration) if the caps are exceeded. The executive 
     branch alone determines whether a sequestration is needed 
     and, if so, executes it.
       The second objective is avoiding an on-budget deficit--that 
     is, avoiding the need to borrow from the Social Security 
     trust funds to finance non-Social Security spending. Whether 
     that objective is met depends on the total amount of revenues 
     and spending in the rest of the budget. No enforcement 
     mechanism, such as sequestration, exists to ensure the 
     attainment of that goal.
       Those two objectives are related but are not identical, and 
     actions taken to achieve one of them would not necessarily 
     increase the likelihood of achieving the other. In addition, 
     confusion exists about the relationship between on-budget 
     deficits and the Social Security surplus. In response to 
     numerous questions, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has 
     prepared this memorandum to provide some context for 
     addressing those issues.


                       limits of budget estimates

       It is important to keep in mind that at this stage in the 
     budget process, all of the numbers being presented are 
     estimates of outcomes over the next 12 months. Even without 
     future Congressional action, at this time next year, current 
     estimates of total revenues and outlays will probably have 
     proved to be too high or too low by significant amounts. 
     Fourteen months ago, for example, CBO predicted an on-budget 
     deficit of $37 billion for fiscal year 1999. (The spending 
     and income of the Social Security trust funds and the Postal 
     Service are defined by law as off-budget. All other spending 
     and income of the government are on-budget.) In fact, the on-
     budget accounts were virtually in balance that year, 
     recording a deficit of only $1 billion.
       At present, the primary focus of the budget debate is the 
     outlays that will occur in fiscal year 2000 as a result of 
     discretionary appropriations of budget authority. On that 
     score--estimating the outlays from discretionary budget 
     authority--CBO has an admirable track record. Between 1993 
     and 1998, its projections of appropriated spending each year 
     differed from actual outlays by an average of just $2 
     billion, or 0.4 percent (disregarding whether the difference 
     was above or below actual spending).
       However, for the remainder of the budget (revenues and 
     mandatory spending), CBO's projections--along with those of 
     the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and other

[[Page H11081]]

     forecasters--have not been as accurate. With total federal 
     revenues and outlays in the vicinity of $1.8 trillion each 
     year and a national economy of $9 trillion, even small 
     variations from the forecasts for economic variables, tax 
     revenues, or mandatory spending can lead to changes in the 
     surplus or deficit of tens of billions of dollars. For fiscal 
     year 2000, if revenues and outlays differ from CBO's 
     estimates by as little as 1 percent, the on-budget surplus 
     could be $36 billion higher or lower. Thus, the on-budget 
     surplus for 2000 could differ substantially from CBO's 
     baseline projection of $14 billion, even if the two 
     objectives mentioned above are met.


                      discretionary spending caps

       The caps on discretionary spending are moving targets 
     rather than permanently fixed values. The caps can be 
     adjusted upward to account for funding designated as 
     emergency requirements and for certain other, generally 
     small, items. OMB, which is responsible for determining 
     compliance with the caps, may also make adjustments to 
     reflect changes in budgetary concepts and definitions. As a 
     result of those various types of changes, the caps on 
     discretionary outlays for 2000 have increased from a total of 
     $564.3 billion (as initially set in the Balanced Budget Act) 
     to $575.8 billion (as specified in OMB's Sequestration Update 
     Report, issued on August 25, 1999).
       Adherence to the caps is enforced through sequestration, 
     which involves across-the-board cuts in funding for 
     discretionary programs. After this session of Congress ends, 
     OMB will determine whether a sequestration is required on the 
     basis of its estimates of the discretionary caps as adjusted 
     and of the spending that will result from appropriation 
     actions. CBO produces estimates of both the caps and 
     spending, but for the sequestration process, those estimates 
     are purely advisory.
       In CBO's view, the President's most recent budget request 
     and House and Senate appropriation action to date all exceed 
     the outlay caps for 2000 by similar amounts. CBO estimates 
     that discretionary outlays from the policies of the 
     President's Mid-Session Review would exceed CBO's July 1 
     estimate of the caps by $35 billion. The Administration, by 
     contrast, asserts that those policies would adhere to the 
     caps--in part because it estimates lower outlays from the 
     policies and in part because it has proposed a number of 
     offsets (such as tobacco taxes and Medicare savings) that CBO 
     believes cannot be used to offset discretionary spending 
     under the provisions of the Balanced Budget and Emergency 
     Deficit Control Act of 1985, as amended.
       CBO estimates that Congressional appropriation action, as 
     of October 27, also exceeds its July 1 estimate of the outlay 
     caps--by a total of about $31 billion. But even though 
     estimated outlays exceed the caps, a sequestration may not 
     occur. A significant part of the overage--about $26 billion--
     results from spending that has been designated as emergency 
     requirements. If the President concurs with the designation, 
     that spending will result in corresponding upward adjustments 
     to the caps.
       In addition, OMB's estimates of outlays are lower than 
     CBO's especially for defense spending--and OMB's estimates 
     are the ones that determine the need for a sequestration. 
     Indeed, the budget committees' scoring of the appropriation 
     bills includes scorekeeping adjustments intended to 
     approximate the Administration's outlays estimates. Depending 
     on the funding levels established in the appropriation bills 
     that have not yet been enacted, the combination of emergency 
     designations and lower outlays estimates may be enough for 
     OMB to determine that a sequestration is not required.


                    on-budget surpluses or deficits

       The second budget issue that has received much attention 
     lately is whether an on-budget surplus will result in fiscal 
     year 2000. Whether discretionary spending adheres to the 
     statutory caps, as determined by OMB, can affect whether the 
     government ultimately achieves an on-budget surplus, but the 
     first does not guarantee the second. It is possible to exceed 
     the caps and still have an on-budget surplus; conversely, it 
     is possible to adhere to the caps and still have an on-budget 
     deficit. (The sequestration procedures are aimed at holding 
     spending under the caps, not necessarily at avoiding on-
     budget deficits.)
       Two major factors can account for those different outcomes: 
     spending for which the caps are adjusted and estimating 
     errors. Although the caps may be increased for spending 
     designated as emergency requirements, such spending still 
     counts toward determining the on-budget surplus or deficit. 
     Thus, appropriating emergency funds is not a violation of the 
     caps, but it will result in additional outlays that will 
     lessen or eliminate an on-budget surplus.
       Estimating errors can have a similar result. If the 
     estimates of outlays used to determine compliance with the 
     caps are too low, spending may appear to fall within the 
     statutory limits when, in reality, it will exceed them. The 
     use of OMB estimates--or scorekeeping adjustments that 
     approximate them--creates such a possibility, particularly 
     because the Administration has routinely underestimate 
     defense spending in recent years.
       CBO's current estimates indicate that there is some room to 
     exceed the spending implied by the discretionary caps while 
     still maintaining an on-budget surplus. In its summer update 
     of the baseline, CBO projects an on-budget surplus of $14 
     billion for 2000, assuming that discretionary outlays would 
     be about $580 billion (CBO's estimate of the discretionary 
     caps at that time). If those projections are accurate, 
     discretionary spending could exceed CBO's estimate of the 
     caps by up to $14 billion without causing an on-budget 
     deficit.
       Both the President's budget proposals and Congressional 
     action would result in discretionary spending that, by CBO's 
     estimates, would exceed the caps by more than $14 billion and 
     thus result in an on-budget deficit for 2000. CBO estimates 
     that the President's budget, if enacted in full, would result 
     in an on-budget deficit of $7 billion. That number is 
     considerably lower than the amount by which this budget would 
     exceed the spending caps because of his proposals to offset 
     total outlays with revenue increases and Medicare reductions. 
     However, the President's budget does not include provisions 
     for some of the emergency appropriations that have been 
     enacted. For example, the emergency agriculture package will 
     add approximately $8 billion to outlays. Including that sum, 
     the on-budget deficit for 2000 under the President's 
     proposals would increase to $15 billion even it the offsets 
     were enacted.
       Outlays from Congressional action on appropriation 
     legislation, including the latest action on all 13 regular 
     appropriation bills, would also exceed the discretionary caps 
     by more than CBO's baseline estimate of the on-budget 
     surplus. After taking that surplus into account, CBO projects 
     an on-budget deficit of about $17 billion (see Table 1).


                      the social security surplus

       The current off-budget surplus is much larger than any on-
     budget surplus projected for the near future. The Social 
     Security trust funds account for virtually all of that off-
     budget surplus. (The net income or spending of the Postal 
     Service is quite small in comparison.)
       Income credited to the Social Security trust funds (from 
     tax revenues and interest on the funds' holdings of Treasury 
     securities) exceeded spending for Social Security benefits 
     and administrative costs by about $125 billion in fiscal year 
     1999. CBO expects that, under current law, the Social 
     Security surplus will grow to $147 billion in 2000. What 
     happens to that money?

 TABLE 1. ESTIMATED BUDGETARY IMPACT OF CURRENT APPROPRIATION ACTION FOR
                FISCAL YEAR 2000, AS OF OCTOBER 27, 1999
                        [In billions of dollars]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                      Budget
                                                    authority   Outlays
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Discretionary Appropriations (By bill): \1\
  Agriculture.....................................       22.7       22.7
  Commerce, Justice, State, the judiciary.........       37.2       36.3
  Defense.........................................      269.4      267.8
  District of Columbia............................        0.4        0.4
  Energy and water................................       21.3       21.0
  Foreign operations..............................       12.7       13.3
  Interior........................................       14.4       14.7
  Labor, HHS, Education \2\.......................       84.6       83.4
  Legislative.....................................        2.5        2.5
  Military construction...........................        8.4        8.8
  Transportation..................................       13.6       44.7
  Treasury and general government.................       13.7       14.7
  Veterans, HUD, independent agencies.............       71.9       83.7
                                                   ---------------------
      Subtotal \1\................................      572.9      614.1
  Across-the-board reduction of 0.97 percent......       -5.7       -3.5
  Savings from additional collections of defaulted       -0.1       -0.1
   student loans..................................
                                                   ---------------------
      Total \1\...................................      567.1      610.5
CBO's July 1999 Baseline Estimate of Discretionary      539.3      579.8
 Appropriations...................................
                                                   ---------------------
Difference (Total appropriations minus baseline          27.8       30.7
 estimate)........................................
Additional Interest Costs Resulting from Higher          n.a.        0.8
 Appropriations...................................
                                                   ---------------------
      Total Change from Baseline..................       n.a.       31.5
CBO's July 1999 Baseline Estimate of the On-Budget        n.a       14.4
 Surplus..........................................
CBO's Estimate of the On-Budget Deficit (-)              n.a.      -17.1
 Reflecting Appropriation Action to Date \1\......
Memorandum:
  Emergency Designations \2\......................       27.2       25.8
  Congressional Scorekeeping Adjustment \3\.......        3.4       19.3
------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ CBO estimates, excluding scorekeeping adjustments.
\2\ Included in the appropriation figures above.
\3\ Reductions applied to CBO's estimates for Congressional scorekeeping
  purposes; not included in any of the figures above.
 
Source: Congressional Budget Office.
Note: HHS = Department of Health and Human Services; HUD = Department of
  Housing and Urban Development; n.a. = not applicable.

       That surplus is invested in Treasury securities and earns 
     interest for the trust funds. The cash that the Treasury 
     receives in return for those securities can be used in two 
     ways. If the revenues and expenses of the rest of the 
     government (other than Social Security) are in balance, the 
     cash generated by the Social Security surplus is used to 
     reduce federal borrowing from the public--that is, to pay 
     down the debt. Alternatively, if the budget of the rest of 
     the government is in deficit, some of the cash generated by 
     the Social Security surplus is used to pay other expenses of 
     the government and to avoid the need to borrow from the 
     public to support that spending. In either case, the balances 
     credited to the Social Security trust funds and the 
     government's legal obligation to pay Social Security benefits 
     are unaffected.
       Surpluses, both on-budget and off-budget, nevertheless have 
     significant benefits because they allow the government to 
     reduce debt held by the public. Such debt reduction cuts the 
     government's interest costs, adding further to the surplus or 
     providing more resources to be used for other purposes. In 
     the long run, substantial reductions in federal debt held by 
     the public can add significantly to national saving, thus 
     enhancing economic growth and better equipping the nation to 
     bear the economic and budgetary burdens imposed by the aging 
     of the baby-boom generation.

  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.

[[Page H11082]]

  Mr. Speaker, I know there is a little confusion here today about 
which bill we are considering. We are considering actually a continuing 
resolution, and we are not continuing the several bills that the 
gentleman who just spoke had referred to, but he made a couple of 
comments that I think we cannot allow to go unchallenged.
  First, he talked about veterans health care. What our colleagues on 
both sides of the aisle ought to realize is that in the bill that we 
presented for veterans health care, we increased the President's budget 
request for veterans health care by $1.7 billion. We increased veterans 
health care over the President's budget, contrary to what the gentleman 
in the well had just said.
  Then he talked about cuts in salaries. No salaries will be cut by the 
language in the next bill that we consider, nor this bill, and this 
bill does not cut anybody's salary. The CR does not cut anything. The 
next bill does not cut anybody's salaries, except Members of Congress. 
So I am not sure where all these confusing statistics are coming from.
  Then there is one more item that supposedly comes from the 
Congressional Budget Office. What the Members on the other side, who 
are referring to Mr. Crippen's papers, failed to go to is the next two 
lines. The next two lines say ``Congressional scorekeeping adjustments, 
$18.1 billion,'' which brings us to an on-budget surplus of $1 billion, 
according to Mr. Crippen, who they are quoting in their debate.
  Here is the paper from the Congressional Budget Office. It says using 
the scorekeeping adjustments, we have saved $18.1 billion.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I realize there is some confusion here as to which 
bill we are considering. We are considering a continuing resolution, 
and I think everybody supports it, including the President of the 
United States. We are debating a number of other bills.
  We will, after we pass the CR, get to the actual bill, the conference 
report on the District of Columbia and the Labor-Health and Human 
Services appropriations bill, but that is not what is the issue before 
us at this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment the chart makers on both sides. 
While we have used a lot of charts today, and I am going to use one in 
my final presentation that I think is a great chart, we have really 
improved our ability to present charts, and I compliment both sides for 
that.
  Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from California, the 
chairman of the Subcommittee on Defense of the Committee on 
Appropriations.
  Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciate the 
chairman yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I did not intend to speak during this discussion on the 
bill that is before us, but the comments made by the last speaker are 
of concern to me as well, for in those comments he presumed in the next 
bill there may be some across-the-board cut that could affect the bill 
we have recently had the President sign, the bill funding national 
defense.
  Indeed, it is conceivable that if the House does adopt and there is 
signed into law an across-the-board provision that affects all 
accounts, that defense could be affected, and that does concern me a 
lot. But I must tell you, Mr. Speaker, it concerns me most because of 
the condition we find our national services in today.
  There is little doubt that the bill the President signed is a breath 
of fresh air in terms of returning to recognizing the priority needed 
for national defense. But indeed the reason we need to be concerned is 
because of the actions of past Congresses.
  Since I have been in the Congress, we have reduced our annual 
expenditures for national expense in amounts of almost $150 billion. If 
indeed we have had a problem funding our personnel, keeping our forces 
and numbers and strength that is required, it is because of that past 
history of a lack of support of the former majority of our national 
defense systems.
  I am very concerned about the discussion that is going forward. But, 
in the meantime, I think the public should understand what this 
discussion is actually all about as it relates to national defense.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished 
gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt).
  (Mr. SPRATT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, my friend, whom I greatly respect, the 
chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, has just said that I left 
out a line. There is a line on Dr. Crippen's chart. It comes at the 
bottom of the page after CBO has scored this budget and says it is $17 
billion into Social Security. That line says ``if you use Congressional 
scorekeeping.''
  Well, CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, is our budget office. We 
have hired them to do it. Their record for scorekeeping is pretty 
impeccable. Over the last 10 years they have only been 0.4 percent 
wrong, plus or minus $2 billion dollars, for the past 15 years in 
scoring discretionary spending.
  What they are saying is, ``Do not use their scorekeeping; use our 
arbitrary scorekeeping. We will borrow this from OMB, and this from 
CBO, whatever best serves our purposes.''
  The best, consistent and proper way to score the budget before us is 
to use CBO. Their track record is good. We have always used them in the 
past. If you use CBO, you are $17 billion into Social Security.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would concede to the gentleman that we are using and 
cooperating with the President's Office of Management and Budget in 
this issue of scoring, so I wanted them to know that.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my distinguished colleague, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson), a member of the Committee 
on Appropriations.
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to go back a little bit to an issue raised 
a little while ago that questioned the Republicans' commitment to the 
National Institutes of Health that was not answered, and I think it 
should be.
  In 1998, I think, the Republican Conference put an initiative of 
plussing up the National Institutes of Health that is appropriate for 
the research that needs to be done in this country, and to question our 
credibility on supporting NIH I think was uncalled for.
  Now, why are we here today debating a continuing resolution? Why? I 
think we heard the discussion. Because we are trying to get it right. 
We are trying to pass a budget for the first time without using the 
Social Security surplus, and that is not easy. It may take a little 
longer, but the American people are going to be very well served if we 
break this practice.
  Now, I think we heard today from the gentleman from Wisconsin the 
difference. If we look at the record and read it, if I heard the 
gentleman correctly, he said, ``You know, we could do this rather 
easily,'' and I am trying to be accurate in what I heard, ``we could do 
this rather easily because historically we were spending 100 percent, 
borrowing it, putting the notes in the drawer and spending it. If we 
would agree to spend 80 percent to pay down debt and use 20 percent to 
fund government programs, we could get this done real quick.''
  Mr. Speaker, that is true. That was a very accurate statement. This 
would be over with. We would be home, Congress would be done, the 
President would have signed the bills.
  We are trying to get it right. It has been difficult to suddenly take 
$100-some billion out of this process and say we are going to do it 
without that. That is the argument that is going on, and if we read the 
Record of this morning's discussion on the continuing resolution, there 
is a very valid argument of why we are having a difficult time, because 
we have not agreed to take 20 percent, borrow it, spend it. We are 
trying to have 100 percent of the Social Security trust fund set aside 
and not spent for general government purposes, and that has made it 
difficult.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  Mr. Speaker, let me again correct the gentleman. When I described the 
80 percent, I said if you assume worst case scenario, which is the 
Republican actions on the budget so far, that you

[[Page H11083]]

would have that 80 percent--20 percent split. So if you want to know 
why that is so bad, do not ascribe it to me. You are the folks who have 
already passed bills that have produced that reality, once you start 
telling the public what the actual facts are, rather than hiding almost 
$18 billion in spending.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Olver).
  Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, here we are, 29 days past the day that started the 
fiscal year 2000. Only 8 of 13 bills have been passed, so here we are 
debating another continuing resolution to get us one week deeper into 
the process, and a week from now we will end up here debating still 
another continuing resolution.
  For weeks now the Republicans have accused Democrats of spending the 
Social Security surplus on this year's budget. Now, give us a break. 
The Republicans are in the majority here. Democrats cannot pass a 
budget at all. We cannot spend a single penny of the budget. The 
Republican majority has passed appropriations bills, one right after 
the other, with accounting gimmicks that call for routine items 
becoming emergencies and putting future expenditures past the end of 
the fiscal year so it appears in next year's accounts.
  The Office of Management and Budget says you have been spending 
Social Security money, your own Congressional Budget Office says that 
you have been spending Social Security money, $17 billion by the latest 
count, but the Republican leaders, one after another, proclaim they are 
not spending a single dollar of the Social Security surplus.
  Well, every propaganda campaign depends on convincing people you are 
doing exactly the opposite of what you are actually doing, and this is 
a propaganda campaign. The big lie, repeated again, and again, and 
again.
  It really does not matter, because a year from now, by election time, 
one year from now, every American will know exactly how much money has 
been spent from the Social Security surplus, and it will be impossible 
to hide it or lie about it any longer. But, more importantly, is the 
fact that in all of this year the Republican majority has deliberately 
refused to extend the life of the Social Security system by so much as 
a single day. They have deliberately refused to extend the solvency of 
the Medicare program by so much as a single day. There is not a whimper 
of dispute on either of those facts.
  They have refused to put the interest saved by paying down America's 
debt into the Social Security trust fund, which alone would extend 
Social Security by 15 years, so that people over the age of 30 would be 
able to know that they have Social Security good for them into at least 
the year 2050. And they have refused to extend the solvency of the 
Medicare program beyond the 15 years the present law assures.
  At the same time, they have refused to expand the Medicare program to 
provide for a prescription drug benefit for our senior citizens. In 
fact, they passed earlier this year a disastrous tax bill which would 
have made it impossible to extend the life of either Social Security or 
Medicare. Both would have died a slow death by strangulation. 
Fortunately, the President vetoed that bill.

                              {time}  1215

  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the 
distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw), who plays a major role 
on the issue of Social Security as a senior member of the Committee on 
Ways and Means.
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding this time to 
me.
  I think everyone on the Committee on Appropriations knows that social 
security comes under the jurisdiction of the Committee on Ways and 
Means, and I have been sitting here listening to Member after Member 
coming down and talking about how the appropriation process is not 
extending the life of social security for even one day.
  Mr. Speaker, this committee has no jurisdiction with regard to social 
security. If we do not solve the problem of social security, it will 
become a problem in about 2014, because we will be looking for 
appropriations to put money into the social security trust fund to pay 
off the Treasury bills that are in the trust fund to keep the benefits 
flowing.
  That is my greatest concern, and I think this should be America's 
greatest nightmare at this particular time. But that has absolutely 
nothing to do with the appropriations process. We have to leave this to 
another day. We have to work together to solve this problem.
  If we start putting cash into the social security trust fund now, 
through the appropriation process under the law governing the social 
security trust fund, that money just comes right out the other end and 
is converted into Treasury bills. It does not in any way affect the 
solvency of the social security trust fund and as far as what date is 
it going to have to go out and tap into the taxpayers to get some money 
to take care of its obligations and the benefits.
  I even saw a member of the Committee on Ways and Means on the 
minority side get up and start talking about how this does not extend 
the life of social security. Mr. Speaker, the Committee on 
Appropriations does not have jurisdiction over social security.
  Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SHAW. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. OLVER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I fully agree that it is not under the jurisdiction of the Committee 
on Appropriations to do, but this is passing the buck from one 
committee to another. This is a year when, in very good economic times, 
we could have extended the life of social security by a very simple 
measure, and with reference to passing the buck, all I said was that 
the Republican majority has steadfastly and deliberately refused to 
extend the lifetime of social security by so much as a day.
  Mr. SHAW. Reclaiming my time, I would like to ask the gentleman two 
questions. One, exactly what does the gentleman expect the Committee on 
Appropriations to do to extend the life of social security in a bill 
this year?
  Mr. OLVER. I do not expect the Committee on Appropriations to do 
anything. I was merely pointing out that it is a responsibility of the 
majority to solve America's problems.
  Mr. SHAW. The gentleman is absolutely correct.
  Mr. OLVER. The problem in this instance is that we need to extend 
social security.
  They really cannot pass the buck from one committee to another when 
it is a matter of all the committees.
  Mr. SHAW. If the gentleman would let me explain to him, and if he was 
listening, he would know that I said the buck stops at the Committee on 
Ways and Means, not the Committee on Appropriations. It is a Committee 
on Ways and Means responsibility to do this. We need to do it with a 
plan that is going to save social security for all times.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd).
  (Mr. BOYD asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. BOYD. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Wisconsin 
yielding time to me.
  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to enter into the fray behind my friend, 
the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw). I want to say that the rhetoric 
on social security has reached a new level for the time I have been 
here, a short 3 years.
  The gentleman from Florida is right, nothing that we will do here 
today or in the next month will change, and I think the American people 
know and I know every Member of this body knows, nothing will change 
the fact that every social security recipient will get their paycheck 
on time, with full benefits, at least until the year 2034.
  I want to remind Members, though, that what the Committee on Ways and 
Means has done over the last 8 months under the leadership of the 
Republican majority is focus on an $800 billion tax cut, rather than a 
structural reform for social security. I think many of us feel like we 
ought to set some money aside so when we address the structural reform, 
we will have that money to be able to pay for it.
  I want to talk to the Members about the cuts, if I might, the across-
the-

[[Page H11084]]

board cuts. I want to tell a very personal story. I got word earlier 
this week that last Thursday a young lieutenant commander in the Navy 
who happens to be a cousin of mine, Lieutenant Commander Raymond 
Worthington, flying off the U.S.S. Eisenhower, lost power on both 
engines as he began to take off, and the nose turned down into the 
water and he and his back seat ejected, and obviously were rescued and 
safe, but the plane was destroyed.
  I tell that story because his mother, for the 3 years I have been in 
Congress, has been hounding me about the age of F-14s and the 
availability of spare parts, and the shortage of mechanics and people 
who keep these F-14s running and in good shape.
  I want to tell the Members, this across-the-board cut will cut $1 
billion out of the operations and maintenance account of the Department 
of Defense. It will make it harder for Lieutenant Commander Raymond 
Worthington and his cohorts to get the maintenance and spare parts they 
need.
  I want to tell the Members also what else these across-the-board cuts 
do. They take approximately $200 million out of veterans' health care, 
something that we all agree has been underfunded for many, many, many 
years. That is very wrong, and I would hope that this Congress, this 
House, would reject those across-the-board cuts.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, just two points in closing. With respect to veterans' 
health care, everyone has said that the original budget request was 
inadequate. We all agree on that.
  On this side of the aisle, during consideration of the Veterans 
Department budget we asked that $2.4 billion be made available for 
veterans health. The committee chose to provide $1.7 billion, instead. 
Now, the action that is coming today on the part of the majority party 
will cut an additional $200 million out of that $1.7 billion. We do not 
think they ought to do that.
  Secondly, we have heard a lot of people give some lurid examples of 
waste, fraud and abuse. They said, we can easily get at that if we pass 
this 1 percent cut. The problem is that the way the 1 percent cut is 
designed, we cannot get at any of that waste, fraud, and abuse. We also 
cannot get at any congressional Members' pork projects, any of the 
earmarks.
  One example, in the VA-HUD report on page 95, we will find a list of 
444 earmarked items. The problem is that none of those items can be 
eliminated under this proposal before us today. All we can do is take 1 
percent out of them.
  I will place all of those items in the Record so people can see what 
I mean. I am not suggesting that some of these projects are not 
perfectly legitimate. I am saying that it is a fraud when Members come 
to the floor and bring up these lurid examples, mostly from 5 and 7 
years ago, and say, ``oh, we should cut this out,'' when in fact the 
way they have drafted this provision prevents the administrators from 
being able to cut out that which they object to.
  Mr. Speaker, I would simply say, in the time remaining, I recognize 
the gentleman from Florida has done everything that he can in order to 
keep this issue on the merits. I recognize he has done everything he 
can to try to see that we handled these issues in a responsible way. I 
think there have been considerable problems above his pay grade that 
have prevented us from doing that. I know if he were left to his own 
instincts, we would have a far different product here today. Again, I 
appreciate the opportunity I have had to work with the gentleman.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, I compliment both sides of the debate for their 
chartsmanship, because we have produced some nice-looking charts. This 
one that I am going to refer to today has a lot of writing on it. 
Members may not be able to see it too well, but I will refer to it.
  I wanted to say to my friend, the gentleman from South Carolina, who 
said that we cannot get our job done, I want the Members of the 
Congress to know that we are getting our job done. When we pass the 
next bill today, we will have sent all 13 appropriation bills to the 
President, along with the two supplementals that the President had 
asked for. We are doing it without a massive omnibus appropriations 
bill like we saw last year, and that most all of us pledged not to let 
happen again.
  I want to thank my friend, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey). 
While we have had some fairly strong political differences, and we have 
had different approaches to our positions, the fact is that we have 
worked together very well, and we have cooperated with each other in 
order to get the job done.
  Let me tell the Members how the job has been done. If we look at this 
chart, there are 30 items on this chart that the Committee on 
Appropriations will have done at the end of this day, 30 items. I 
challenge any other committee in the House or the Senate to have 
produced 30 measures to bring before their body for votes.
  Let us just take a look at it: the Kosovo emergency supplemental; the 
Hurricane Mitch supplemental; the conference report on the two 
supplementals; the Agricultural Appropriations bill; the conference 
report on the Agriculture bill; the Commerce-Justice-State 
Appropriations bill; the conference report on Commerce-Justice-State; 
the Defense Appropriations bill; the conference report on the Defense 
Appropriations bill; the District of Columbia Appropriations bill No. 
1; the conference report on the D.C. bill No. 1; the District of 
Columbia bill No. 2; the Energy and Water bill; the conference report 
on Energy and Water; the Foreign Operations appropriations bill; the 
conference report on the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill; the 
Interior Appropriations bill; the conference report on the Interior 
Appropriations bill; the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill; the 
conference report on the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill; the 
Military Construction Appropriations bill; the conference report on the 
Military Construction Appropriations bill; the Transportation 
Appropriations bill; the conference report on the Transportation 
Appropriations bill; the Treasury-Postal Service Appropriations bill; 
the conference report on that bill; the VA-HUD-Independent Agencies 
Appropriations bill; the conference report on the VA bill; the steel, 
oil, and gas loan program issue that came to us from the Senate; and 
today, then, item No. 30, the conference report on D.C. No. 2 and 
Labor-HHS.
  So the Committee on Appropriations, while we have had political 
differences, has worked well together to produce these items. They all 
will have been on the President's desk by the end of this week. The 
President will probably veto the last five bills. He has signed the 
first eight, which I think is a major accomplishment. There are five 
bills that we expect will be vetoed.
  We need to have this last bill on the President's desk so that then 
we can deal with the President's vetos specifically. Once he vetoes the 
bill, he sends that message back to us and he tells us why he rejects 
that bill. That gives us somewhere to start in the final negotiations 
to find how we can rewrite those bills to get them signed by the 
President.
  So contrary to those who say we cannot get our job done, the 
Committee on Appropriations is and has been getting its job done. I 
think the appropriators on both sides of the aisle, while maybe not 
totally supportive of everything in all of these bills, ought to be 
rather proud of the record they have established here. Again, I thank 
the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) for helping us move these 
bills.
  I want to say a word about our leadership. Our leadership has come in 
for some criticism because they have involved themselves in 
appropriations issues on occasion.

                              {time}  1230

  Well, that is the role of the leadership. They have a right to do 
that.
  I have to tell our Members that, when I, as speaking from the 
Committee on Appropriations, presented a problem or had a discussion, I 
found great support for the strategies that we were suggesting, for the 
policies that we were suggesting. Our leadership supported us every way 
they could. Did they have input? Of course they did. That is why we 
elect leaders, to have something to say about the outcome of the 
legislative process.
  So all in all, despite being miles apart on political rhetoric, we 
are fairly close together on getting our job

[[Page H11085]]

done. I am proud of the Members of the Committee on Appropriations on 
both sides. While I may disagree with some of them, especially on that 
side, I am very proud of the fact that we have been able to produce 30 
separate appropriations issues and passed all of them but one, and we 
are going to pass that one today.
  I would also like to add that, up until today and all the votes that 
we have had on appropriations bills, we have received 8,702 aye votes 
to 3,514 no votes. That is almost three to one ayes. So the House, in 
my opinion, has shown great support for the work product of the 
Committee on Appropriations. I am very, very proud of that record. I 
hope that all of the members on the Committee on Appropriations on both 
sides share that pride, because we are getting our job done.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bereuter). All time for debate has 
expired.
  The joint resolution is considered as having been read for amendment.
  Pursuant to the order of the House of Wednesday, October 27, 1999, 
the previous question is ordered.
  The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the joint 
resolution.
  The joint resolution was ordered to be engrossed and read a third 
time, and was read the third time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the passage of the joint 
resolution.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. OBEY. 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. Evidently a quorum is not present.
  The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 424, 
nays 2, not voting 7, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 546]

                               YEAS--424

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Aderholt
     Allen
     Andrews
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baird
     Baker
     Baldacci
     Baldwin
     Ballenger
     Barcia
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Barrett (WI)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bateman
     Becerra
     Bentsen
     Bereuter
     Berkley
     Berman
     Berry
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bishop
     Blagojevich
     Bliley
     Blumenauer
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bonior
     Bono
     Borski
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Brady (TX)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Bryant
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Canady
     Cannon
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardin
     Carson
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth-Hage
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Coble
     Collins
     Combest
     Condit
     Conyers
     Cook
     Cooksey
     Costello
     Cox
     Coyne
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crowley
     Cubin
     Cummings
     Cunningham
     Danner
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     Davis (VA)
     Deal
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     DeLay
     DeMint
     Deutsch
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Dooley
     Doolittle
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Edwards
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     Engel
     English
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Everett
     Ewing
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Fletcher
     Foley
     Forbes
     Ford
     Fossella
     Fowler
     Frank (MA)
     Franks (NJ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Frost
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gejdenson
     Gekas
     Gephardt
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Gonzalez
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Gordon
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Green (TX)
     Green (WI)
     Greenwood
     Gutierrez
     Gutknecht
     Hall (OH)
     Hall (TX)
     Hansen
     Hastings (FL)
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hill (IN)
     Hill (MT)
     Hilleary
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hobson
     Hoeffel
     Hoekstra
     Holden
     Holt
     Hooley
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hoyer
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Inslee
     Isakson
     Istook
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Jenkins
     John
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Jones (OH)
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kasich
     Kelly
     Kennedy
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind (WI)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kleczka
     Klink
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kucinich
     Kuykendall
     LaFalce
     LaHood
     Lampson
     Lantos
     Largent
     Larson
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (GA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Lucas (KY)
     Lucas (OK)
     Luther
     Maloney (CT)
     Maloney (NY)
     Manzullo
     Markey
     Martinez
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntosh
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Menendez
     Metcalf
     Mica
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (FL)
     Miller, Gary
     Miller, George
     Minge
     Mink
     Moakley
     Mollohan
     Moore
     Moran (KS)
     Moran (VA)
     Morella
     Murtha
     Myrick
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Nethercutt
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Ose
     Owens
     Oxley
     Packard
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pease
     Pelosi
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Phelps
     Pickering
     Pickett
     Pitts
     Pombo
     Pomeroy
     Porter
     Portman
     Price (NC)
     Pryce (OH)
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Rahall
     Ramstad
     Rangel
     Regula
     Reyes
     Reynolds
     Riley
     Rivers
     Rodriguez
     Roemer
     Rogan
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Rothman
     Roukema
     Roybal-Allard
     Royce
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Sabo
     Salmon
     Sanchez
     Sanders
     Sandlin
     Sanford
     Sawyer
     Saxton
     Schaffer
     Schakowsky
     Scott
     Sensenbrenner
     Serrano
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Sherman
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shows
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Sisisky
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Souder
     Spence
     Spratt
     Stabenow
     Stark
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Strickland
     Stump
     Stupak
     Sununu
     Sweeney
     Talent
     Tancredo
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Thurman
     Tiahrt
     Tierney
     Toomey
     Towns
     Traficant
     Turner
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Upton
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Visclosky
     Vitter
     Walden
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins
     Watt (NC)
     Watts (OK)
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Wexler
     Weygand
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson
     Wise
     Wolf
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Wynn
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                                NAYS--2

     DeFazio
     Paul
       

                             NOT VOTING--7

     Brady (PA)
     Coburn
     Hinojosa
     Mascara
     Rush
     Scarborough
     Waters

                              {time}  1251

  So the joint resolution was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________