[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 154 (Thursday, November 4, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H11501-H11507]
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 previous order of 
the House, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 75) 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 75 is as follows:

                              H.J. Res. 75

       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 ``November 5, 
     1999'' in section 106(c) and inserting in lieu thereof 
     ``November 10, 1999''. Public Law 106-46 is amended by 
     striking ``November 5, 1999'' and inserting in lieu thereof 
     ``November 10, 1999''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hansen). Pursuant to the order of the 
House of today, 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. 75, and that I may include tabular and extraneous 
material.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hansen). 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 current continuing resolution, under which the 
agencies that are funded in the five remaining uncompleted 
appropriations bills expires tomorrow night. Negotiations on these 
remaining bills are ongoing. However, I must say that while we are 
making some progress in our negotiations with the administration, they 
are going slow but sure. So it appears we will not be able to complete 
our agreements on these remaining bills for the next several days.
  As the CR that we are operating under presently expires at midnight 
tomorrow night, the joint resolution before the House would extend the 
provisions of the current CR until November 10. I would have preferred 
that we would have been able to have completed our work by tomorrow 
night, but the issues involved require additional time to work out. In 
light of this situation, I urge all Members to support this extension.

[[Page H11502]]

  I would say again that we have been spending early mornings, long 
days, and late nights in negotiation with the representatives from the 
President's office, and we are making progress. The meetings are and 
have been constructive, and we do hope that we can finish our business 
sooner rather than later. I would also point out that this House has 
done a very good job of getting its appropriations matters considered. 
This will be the 32nd appropriations measure to be voted on in the 
House in preparing for fiscal year 2000.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 7 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, why are we here? I have been trying to answer that 
question every time we bring a new continuing resolution to the floor. 
Yesterday it dawned on me. Yesterday my watch quit running for about 
the fourth time, and so I finally gave up on it and went and bought a 
new one, and that brought into clear focus what we are doing here.
  Every 7 days we are bringing a continuing resolution to the floor. We 
wind up the clock for another 7 days, but it is a clock that does not 
run. And so we keep coming back here every 7 days, winding up the good 
old clock, but the hands never move, time does not pass, and we repeat 
the same arguments over and over again the following week. Sooner or 
later I would think people would get a little tired of that, but I 
guess not tired enough yet to do something about it.
  We are here now, we have passed three continuing resolutions, we are 
about to pass a fourth, and we had a meeting last night which took us 
on a short route to nowhere. And, unfortunately, if that meeting is any 
indication, we are going to be here for a lot more 7-day periods, and 
Members are not going to be able to go home and enjoy a Thanksgiving. 
The 23 Senators who are set to take trips abroad are not going to be 
able to climb on their airplanes and we are going to be back here 
grinding the same fine powder into dust.
  I think the reason we are here is simply this: This is a Congress 
that has, for the past year, at the insistence of the majority party, 
spent almost its entire effort in trying to pretend that we were going 
to have big enough surpluses that we could afford to pass a giant tax 
bill that gave 70 percent of the benefits to the wealthiest people in 
this country. And that got in the way of this Congress' doing anything 
about Social Security, it got in the way of our doing anything about 
Medicare, it got in the way of being able to reach reasonable 
compromises on education.
  We stand here in a House that has not been able to complete action on 
a meaningful Patients' Bill of Rights nor has it been willing to pass a 
minimum wage bill. And it reminds me of that old gospel song ``Drifting 
Too Far From the Shore.'' We have been here so long, going through 
these same motions, that we forget some of the very basic things that 
we are supposed to be doing when we are here.
  Now, what we ought to be doing, if we do not meet any other 
responsibility, is we ought to be meeting our main responsibility, 
which is to finish the action necessary to complete a budget. This 
Congress has done virtually nothing except focus on that question and 
the tax question for almost a year, and yet we are still here, stuck on 
second base, with no prospect of being driven home.
  I ask why? And as I think about it, I think the reason is that the 
majority party in this House apparently believes that the main action 
that is necessary in order to complete action on a budget is to reach a 
consensus within their own party in the House on the question as to 
what kind of budget that ought to be. Now, it is important for any 
party to know who it is and what it is; it is important for any party 
to have a sense of self and to be able to communicate that to the 
country. But after that is done, it is also necessary for us to 
recognize that the House is one of only three branches of government 
that deals with the budget, the other two being the Senate and the 
President.
  It is not enough for one-half of this House to reach an internal 
consensus about what has to be done if that consensus leads to no way 
of reaching agreement with the other two major players in the system 
that our Founding Fathers designed and placed into the Constitution.

                              {time}  1230

  And so, we are not stuck here because the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Young) has not done his job. We are not stuck here because the 
Committee on Appropriations has not tried to do its job. They have 
tried mightily. We are stuck here because somehow the impression has 
developed that the only thing we have to do to get a budget is to 
develop a unanimous point of view in the majority party caucus.
  Now, the Democrats ran this House long enough for me to realize that 
it is almost impossible for a party to ever achieve a unanimous view on 
any subject. And so, on most truly important questions, it is, 
therefore, important to achieve a bipartisan consensus so that even if 
we do not have a hundred percent of votes for something in the majority 
party, but if we put together what we are trying to do with a majority 
of the other side, we could have a pretty healthy product that will 
withstand criticism from all sides.
  That is what we ought to be doing. But instead, we are still 
thrashing around dealing with ego problems and dealing with ideological 
problems while we are continuing to come back and winding up that old, 
dead clock every 7 days. In the end, the only thing that is going to 
move is our wrists.
  So it seems to me that we ought to cut through that. What we need is 
for serious-minded people to sit down, recognize that compromises need 
to be made. A reasonable compromise was put on the table last night, 
but there was no one home to deal with it. So I guess we will continue 
to drift along. I regret that.
  I know if the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) had his way, we 
would not be stuck in this inertia. But we are. I simply hope that 
sometime between now and Thanksgiving the powers that be in this 
institution recognize that this is a deadend route and we need to come 
to conclusion on these issues and go home.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I have only one remaining speaker 
to close the debate, and so I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver).
  Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, I, too, would say that, as my ranking member the 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) has said, that I think that he is 
right that we would not be here if the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Young) and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) were given some 
freedom to work out what is going on here. But that is not where we 
are.
  It is now five weeks past the beginning of the fiscal year, and the 
Congress simply has not done its work. One week ago we adopted our 
third continuing resolution, and here we are with one more continuing 
resolution being proposed. This one adds only 3 more working days, not 
even a full week, only 3 more working days to the time to do the work.
  Well, what has been accomplished in the week under the third 
continuing resolution? We are still short of completing the budget. As 
a matter of fact, not one of the five budgets that is still in 
conference that had not been signed by the end of the first continuing 
resolution 2 weeks ago, not one of those five budgets has been 
negotiated, which is, it seems to me, about the only way for 
differences of opinion and in policy and dollars between the executive 
branch and the legislative branch under our process to be resolved.
  Now, if the Republican leadership were tending to other business of 
the American people that they overwhelmingly want done, that would be 
one thing. But take campaign finance reform. No, that has been killed 
for 1999, almost certainly for the year 2000, as well. Take the 
patients' bill of rights. No, the Speaker of the House just named a 
conference committee that excludes the major proponents from his own 
Republican Party, the proponents of the bipartisan bill that passed the 
House just a couple of weeks ago; and that conference committee is 
carefully chosen so that it will defy the will of this House.

[[Page H11503]]

  Take a prescription drug benefit program within Medicare to help the 
hundreds of thousands of senior citizens who cannot afford to pay for 
prescription drugs on which their very lives depend. No, this 
Republican leadership has simply refused to bring that bill out for 
debate because the drug companies that oppose it make a very great deal 
of money selling drugs to senior citizens whose lives depend upon it.
  Take providing in the budget for reducing class size so our 
kindergarten and elementary schoolchildren, which is where all the 
professional educators of all political ideologies attest that we could 
make a great positive difference in education, requires both more 
teachers and more classrooms to accomplish reducing the class size in 
our schools. No, they refuse to fund that in the budget for education.
  Take extending Social Security so that Americans over 30 can be sure 
that Social Security will be there when they need it as it is for those 
who are over 50. No, they have done absolutely nothing that would 
extend the lifetime of Social Security by so much as a single day.
  This is a strange record for a legislative body. Usually legislative 
bodies at least try to respond to the collective will of their 
constituents, to the people's collective will. We are going to vote 
this 3 working days additional continuing resolution, but we are going 
to be back here next Wednesday voting additional continuing 
resolutions.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. George Miller).
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman 
for yielding me the time.
  Mr. Speaker, I have supported the previous three continuing 
resolutions that we have previously approved to try and give time for 
the Committee on Appropriations to end their negotiations.
  Unfortunately, I do not belief that the negotiations are now done at 
the Committee on Appropriations level. I believe they are being 
orchestrated by the Republican leadership in this House, and I think 
the Republican leadership has proven itself to be dysfunctional with 
respect to those negotiations and with respect to doing the people's 
business. So now we are called upon to approve our fifth continuing 
resolution, a continuing resolution that does not assure that the work 
will get done.
  There is no evidence from approving the past three continuing 
resolutions that the work of this Nation has been done by this body. 
For that reason, I find myself very inclined to oppose this continuing 
resolution.
  Maybe we should stay in over the weekend. Maybe the people ought to 
work all night. Maybe the leadership ought to give the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Young) and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and 
others with expertise and experience in this field the ability to get 
the work of this Nation done.
  The side-bar tragedy to all of this is that, while 435 of us remain 
in town, while a couple of dozen committees remain in town, while the 
floor is in session periodically from time to time waiting for the 
Committee on Appropriations, the Republican leadership will not let the 
rest of the people's business go forward. So we are not able to have 
the consideration of a prescription drug benefit for our elderly 
population.
  Many of us now know what our grandparents and our parents struggle 
with in terms of pain for the prescription medicines they need. We know 
that we need to provide them some additional financial help. The 
President has made that proposal. But we cannot get consideration of 
that on the floor.
  Many of us know that we need to extend the fiscal solvency of Social 
Security, but nothing is before this Congress that would extend that 
solvency by a single day. And so, we do not attend to that business, 
the needs of the elderly, the needs of future generations to know that 
Social Security will both be secure and financially solvent when they 
need it.
  We passed HMO legislation, and then we see just a brutal force act of 
appointing conferees that are not inclined to support that legislation, 
that are not inclined to support progressive managed care protections 
for families that are denied care in many cases by HMO bureaucrats, by 
managed care employees, that have no medical expertise, that interfere 
with the doctor-patient relationship.
  So that HMO legislation will not come forward in a form that it will 
help American families meet the medical needs of their children and of 
their family members.
  Why did they do that? Apparently, they could not stand to have two 
honest brokers on this committee so they could not appoint the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) or the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. 
Ganske) who are proven to be honest brokers on behalf of real and 
sensible HMO reform.
  While we spent the first 9 months of this legislative year while the 
Republicans tried to sell to the American public a trillion-dollar tax 
bill, the vast majority of benefits that went for very large 
corporations and very, very wealthy individuals in this country, a tax 
bill and a tax cut that was repudiated by the American public 
overwhelmingly, especially when they compared it to their other 
priorities of protecting Social Security, making Social Security 
secure, improving the educational system of their children, reforming 
the HMO system, providing for a prescription benefit, America said they 
would like us to address those issues before they start addressing tax 
cuts for the wealthy, they would like to see us pay down the deficit if 
we are not going to do that before they want tax cuts for the very 
wealthy in this country.
  Having lost that battle, the Republicans are now here telling us that 
we after a trillion dollars that they apparently said that they had 
room for, given the deficit, given the long-term debt, given the Social 
Security problem, a trillion dollars, they now come back and say we do 
not have a dime for prescription drug benefits, we do not have a dime 
to improve our education system, we do not have a dime to try and help 
people out in the Social Security system, we do not have a dime to try 
to help people with minimum wage.
  In fact, minimum wage, designed to help people who are the working 
poor, people who get up and go to work every day of the year and at the 
end of the year they end up poor, rather than do that, they want to 
load up the minimum wage with 90 to 100 billion dollars in tax cuts, 75 
or 80 percent of which goes to the top one percent of people in this 
country.
  So while we are trying to help what are low-income workers with 
increasing the minimum wage, they say the price of that is we have got 
to lather up the top one percent of this country with $100 billion in 
tax benefits.
  The fact of the matter is that this continuing resolution will do 
nothing to get the people's business done in this House of 
Representatives because the Republicans refuse to address this 
legislation. They refuse to do what America needs to have done, what 
American families wants, the education of the children, the protection 
of their elderly members, the protection of wages.


                             Point of Order

  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, point of order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hansen). The gentleman will state his 
point of order.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I have been pretty patient about 
all of these appropriations bills.
  The gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) is speaking out of 
order. He is not speaking to the issue before us. I think the gentleman 
should be compelled to constrain his remarks to the issue before us, 
and that is the continuing resolution.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. The issue before us, Mr. Speaker, is 
whether or not we are going to be given another 7 days to fail. They 
have failed. They have been given 5 weeks, and they have failed.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from California (Mr. George 
Miller) will suspend.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. That is the issue before us, Mr. 
Speaker, is the failure of the Republicans with the five continuing 
resolutions; and that is what I am speaking to.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from California will suspend. 
The gentleman will confine his remarks to the pending legislation.

[[Page H11504]]

  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman will be 
more than happy to talk about the pending legislation and the failure 
the last three times that we have had this kind of legislation before 
us of the Republicans either to move and reach a budget agreement so 
this Nation will know where we stand with respect to Social Security, 
the debt and our obligations, both domestic and foreign, the failure of 
the Republicans to do that under this legislation the previous three 
times.
  I think it opens a legitimate question: Why are we now doing this for 
another 7 days? Why are we not staying here working over the weekend or 
whatever is necessary?

                              {time}  1245

  These conference committees have been meeting time and again. But 
every time they sit down to meet, somebody walks into the room and 
hands somebody a piece of paper and the negotiations are off. If you 
are going to ask the American people to be patient for another 7 days, 
they have been patient for 5 weeks, while we have not had a budget. 
They ought to know that in fact there is going to be some chance, some 
chance of success that we will have a budget that meets the needs of 
this country and that while we are here, the other 430 Members of 
Congress that are not engaged in these negotiations, maybe we could get 
on with the rest of the people's business, the people's concerns about 
their education system, their Social Security system, the HMO system, 
the minimum wage that workers need in this country to try to provide 
for their families. That is why people ought to think long and hard 
before they just give carte blanche again to another 7 days when we 
have failed in the past 5 weeks to do the business of this country, the 
business of America's families, the business of America's elderly, the 
business of America's children.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself one minute just to 
say that it is that kind of political poison that has caused the 
problem that we have in the House in trying to move appropriations 
legislation. This type of poison is passed on to the administration, 
and then they last week refused to even come to meetings to negotiate. 
We have finally gotten them to meetings and we are negotiating. But 
this kind of political diatribe does not really add to getting the job 
done, which is what we are trying to do.
  I would point out to that gentleman that this House has passed every 
appropriations bill, every conference report, and we are dealing with 
the vetoes that the President sent to us. The President is finally, 
finally, sending a representative down here to negotiate with us. The 
gentleman is really offbase. He is making his usual political speech, 
but all we are trying to do is get this continuing resolution passed 
which I thought we had agreed to do.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman 
from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers), the chairman of the Appropriations 
Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, and Judiciary.
  Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time. He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.
  The gentleman who just spoke on the other side complains that we are 
not able to produce final results at this early date. When the 
gentleman's party was in charge of this body, I recollect being here on 
Christmas Eve one year, after having passed maybe eight or 10 
continuing resolutions and they were unable to deliver, and they had a 
huge majority in this body at that time.
  Now, the administration is refusing at this point to negotiate on any 
of these bills except the Foreign Operations bill. I am chairman of the 
State, Commerce, Justice bill that the President vetoed. The bill would 
be law if he had signed it. We did our part, sent it down there and the 
President vetoed the bill and now refuses to negotiate on any of these 
bills except foreign aid. All they want apparently is to give money to 
foreign countries, do not worry about the FBI or law enforcement or the 
drug war or the courts. ``Let them fend for what they may, all we 
want,'' apparently the White House is saying, ``is foreign aid.'' Give 
it away.
  I say if you are really serious on that side about getting out of 
here, getting our business done, cooperate, have your White House 
cooperate, let them come up here and talk with us and let us work out 
the details. We are ready. We could have my bill finished in 4 or 5 
hours maximum. We have offered and pled even with the Office of 
Management and Budget in the White House, ``Let's talk.'' They say, 
``Not until we get our foreign aid.''
  So, Mr. Speaker, there is the crux. The White House only wants at 
this point in time to give the taxpayers' money of this country away to 
foreign countries and be damned to what happens here at home.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, I am amused. We were just urged by the gentleman from 
Florida to avoid inflammatory remarks and then we hear the kind of 
ridiculous statement that was just made, suggesting that the President 
lusts after only one thing, and that is to send money abroad. The last 
time I looked, the President had a long list of requests of this 
Congress. He is asking us to provide 100,000 new teachers which the 
majority party has refused to do. He is asking us to provide 50,000 new 
policemen which the majority party has refused doing. He is asking that 
we actually make available to the National Institutes of Health for 
medical research all of the money that we pretend we are making 
available rather than delaying virtually all new grants for an entire 
year, putting at risk scientific research teams all over the country. 
The majority party has refused to do that. And now we are told, Oh, 
gee, we should not talk about that because that is not the subject at 
hand.'' The subject at hand is getting the permission of the Congress 
for the government to continue for another 7 days without shutting 
down. That is the subject at hand. What the gentleman from California 
was talking about is simply his assessment of why we are in this fix. I 
think the gentleman was on point.
  With respect to the two myths that were just peddled about the 
administration's refusal to negotiate, that is a joke and everyone in 
this Chamber, including the press watching, knows it is a joke. We have 
seen headlines for the past 6 months coming out of your leadership's 
office saying, ``No, we are not going to negotiate directly from the 
President because he stole our socks in negotiations last year.'' ``We 
have got a little sisters of the poor complex. Every time we think 
about negotiating with the President, we are afraid he is going to 
outnegotiate us.'' And so the leadership has already declared publicly 
its lack of confidence in its own negotiating ability and they say, 
``No, we're not going to get into the box and negotiate with the 
President, we're only going to do this at a lower level.''
  Last night a conversation took place between the President and your 
leadership, and, as you know, the President offered again to send his 
chief of staff, Mr. Podesta, down here to negotiate directly with your 
leadership. And again he was told by your leadership, ``No, we don't 
want to get in the same room with you, so instead, why don't you have 
the appropriators meet.'' Well, the appropriators did meet, for a while 
at least some of us, and after an hour, there were only two Republicans 
left in the room. Everybody else had gone home. We were there, the 
White House was there, and the White House made two compromise offers 
in a row, both of which were rejected by the other side.
  So it is silly to suggest that the White House has not been offering 
to negotiate. They have been in the room every time there has been a 
meeting. I just suggest, I think we should stop the hyperbole and I 
think we ought to get on with the business of government, but I think 
it is fair to observe that the President has a reason for wanting to 
see this bill negotiated along with the others, because the majority 
party has a long record of dragging its feet in meeting its 
international responsibilities. For a year and a half, in the middle of 
the Asian debt crisis which threatened to swamp our own economy and 
swamp our own currency, the majority party refused to provide the IMF 
funding that was necessary. It has dragged its feet on paying our dues 
at the United Nations for 2 years and, as I said, on the domestic side, 
the majority party has steadfastly refused to agree to the President's 
request for

[[Page H11505]]

100,000 new teachers or for 50,000 new cops on the beat, among other 
things.
  Mr. Speaker, I regret that we have gotten into this kind of a tit-
for-tat argument, but I guess it is inevitable given the fact that this 
Congress is unable to do anything but. I hope things change. I think 
the best way to change is to get off the floor and get back into the 
negotiating room on the foreign operations bill that I thought was so 
close to an agreement last night. Everyone understands that that is the 
logjam which is holding this place up.
  And so if you want to go home, I would suggest you act like it and 
get down to doing some serious negotiating.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the 
distinguished gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Traficant).
  (Mr. TRAFICANT asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
his remarks.)
  Mr. TRAFICANT. Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for our ranking 
member the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey). I think he is a great 
leader and a great Congressman. And, too, I have great respect for our 
new chairman. But I think it is time for some perspective here and it 
is time to put the politics aside, folks. There is too many politics 
being played now with the budget of the American people. I can remember 
one year as a Democrat in a Democrat majority being here until December 
23 with continuing resolution after continuing resolution after 
continuing resolution. This is not unusual. In fact, there have been 
great strides. Every appropriation bill has been passed. Now, maybe we 
do not agree with all of them, but it is time to say something that has 
to be said: These bills have been subject to too much political 
chicanery. Even the fine Defense appropriation bill was almost held 
hostage with a veto threat for more foreign aid. As a Democrat, I 
support the stance that this majority party has taken on spending 
overseas and looking at the domestic side.
  Now, I think we are very close and I think it is time for the leaders 
that we have, more than competent, to sit down, close the doors, turn 
up the heat, have some chili and some baked beans and not leave until 
you get it done. I know they can do it.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman 
from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht).
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, after that speech by our colleague from 
Ohio, I am somewhat hesitant to talk politically. But I do want to 
mention and remind people of what happened last week when we had the 
Labor-HHS bill.
  All of these arguments about who is taking money from Social 
Security, we have a letter from the Congressional Budget Office, they 
have letters, it is all based on what assumptions you give the 
Congressional Budget Office, you get different answers. Most people, 
their eyes start to glaze over because it is so arcane. The other issue 
that sometimes people do not understand when we talk about it back home 
is a motion to recommit, because that is kind of arcane, too. But it 
really is designed to protect our democratic experiment here. We have 
our plan, the majority offers its plan, and then the minority's rights 
are protected because they always have a right to recommit, to make a 
motion to recommit with instructions.
  Last week on the Labor-HHS bill when they had their chance to put 
their plan on the table, they could have said, ``We like your plan but 
we want to put more money into education.'' They did not do that. When 
they had their chance to say, ``We like your plan but we would have 
rearranged the priorities and we would have put more money into 
veterans benefits,'' they did not do that, either.
  Looking at the record, and it is a matter of public record, when they 
had their chance to reflect what their priorities were on the Labor-HHS 
bill, their motion to recommit with instructions included basically our 
bill except they included the full congressional pay raise.
  That is how political this business has become. I think my colleague 
from Ohio is exactly right. We are only a few billion dollars apart 
with the White House. Despite all of the political posturing that is 
going on right now, we have all agreed on some simple, basic facts. We 
are not going to close down the government, we are not going to raid 
Social Security, we are not going to raise taxes, everything else is 
negotiable. I think with a few hours' of good faith bargaining on the 
part of the White House and congressional leaders, we could have a 
bargain, we could have a deal, we could put this budget together for 
the good of the American people, for the good of everybody here, we 
could all be done by next Monday at probably midnight. I hope we can 
all get together and get that done.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, after this continuing resolution is passed and sent to 
the Senate, we will have two choices: We can continue this once-a-week 
rewind operation, or we can decide this afternoon that we are going to 
sit down and come to closure on the agreement that I thought we were 
within an hour of achieving last night on the Foreign Operations bill. 
If that can be achieved, then we can move to try to deal with the 
issues that still divide us on the issue of education, on the issue of 
crime, and on the issue of paying our U.N. dues.

                              {time}  1300

  I would like to think we could conclude that in a reasonable time and 
get out of here. I do not think, frankly, that either party is scoring 
any points on these issues. I have said many times that the worst thing 
that can happen to people in this town is when you come to believe your 
own baloney, and the fact is that I think we have a lot of that going 
on. And I do not think, frankly, that the country is paying much 
attention to what we say. They are more interested in what we do, and 
what they see so far is that we have been doing nothing.
  So I would suggest we stop doing nothing, come to an agreement on 
these four remaining bills and get out of town. But it is going to take 
a determination on the part of the majority party to negotiate with the 
President, rather than laying down ultimatums about what is on or off 
the table. This happened last night. When that mindset changes, we may 
begin to see some progress around here.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, this has been somewhat of a spirited conversation over a 
measure that we thought was going to move fairly quickly. I would join 
the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) in wishing we had completed 
this business 20 minutes ago, because it is important that we get this 
measure passed through the House.
  But it is difficult to sit here and listen to some of the political 
accusations that we have heard on almost every appropriations bill that 
has come before the House this year. It is difficult to sit here and 
listen to that and not feel inclined to respond. But I am not going to 
yield to that temptation. I am not going to respond to all of the 
political attacks that were made here.
  But I do want to say that the attacks that some Members of the other 
side like to make at our majority leadership, the Speaker of the House, 
the majority leader, the majority whip, are unfounded. They are unfair, 
because these gentlemen have worked hard to try to accomplish the work 
of this House.
  We have passed every appropriations bill in the House and in the 
Senate, we have passed every conference report in the House and in the 
Senate, and we are now dealing in that final phase where the President 
of the United States has decided to veto certain bills. So we are at a 
point where we are negotiating with the President to try to resolve our 
differences so that we can get new bills to him in a form that he will 
sign, because unless he signs them or unless we have the votes to 
override his vetoes, we have to reach an agreement and accommodation. 
That means both sides have to give a little.
  Our leadership met with the President just a few days ago, and they 
talked with him on the phone even more recently, and he agreed to this: 
That we would negotiate; that any additional funding that he requested 
that we would agree to that he would offer offsets to pay for it.
  Now, the negotiations began, and they began in earnest, and I would

[[Page H11506]]

compliment Jack Lew, the Director of the Office of Management and 
Budget. He is a tough negotiator. When he tells you something, that is 
the way it is. Unfortunately, some of the things he told us we did not 
like because they were different than what the President told us.
  The President told us as we went along with spending or agreeing to 
spending the money that he requested that he would then offer offsets. 
Last night, several times at one of our lengthy meetings, I asked Mr. 
Lew what are the offsets? Mr. Lew refused to talk about the offsets, 
and to this minute in my presence has refused to talk about offsets; in 
other words, how do we pay for this additional spending in foreign aid.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out that the gentleman 
left the room for over an hour, and while the gentleman was out of the 
room, Mr. Lew did specifically refer to three different ways that 
offsets could be handled.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the 
gentleman for reminding me that it was important to have an additional 
meeting with representatives from the Senate and from the House in 
order to try to finalize or come to agreement on what we were trying to 
do, and, despite the gentleman's insinuation, it is very difficult to 
be in two places at the same time. That is why I emphasized in my 
presence Mr. Lew was unwilling to provide the offsets.
  But now we are working through that. If we can keep the atmosphere 
fairly civil, I think we can do that. I did not see a lot of stability 
coming our direction from that side of the aisle today, and I really am 
offended by that lack, and I am offended by the political speeches.
  The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) said earlier that there are 
too many speeches. He is right, especially when they are all the same 
and they say the same thing. I have memorized the speech of my friend 
the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) because he has made it every 
time we had an appropriations bill. So I can make his speech for him. 
Although I disagree with it, I can make his speech for him.
  Now, we have other things to negotiate, but the President is not 
willing to negotiate anything on the other remaining bills until we 
have an agreement on foreign aid. In other words, his primary interest 
is how much money are we going to give him to spend around the world.
  Well, we are willing to work with him on that. We are willing to do 
things he wants to do, because we understand that he is the President, 
but we have to understand that one reason we are being delayed on the 
other bills is because the administration refuses to negotiate with 
this House and the leaders of this House on anything else until the 
foreign aid bill is settled and decided.
  Now, we are willing to go along with that, and that is why we wanted 
to get this measure off the floor early so we could get back to those 
negotiations and try to have that package wrapped up by today.
  Mr. Speaker, there is something else that I would like to mention. 
The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) said that we start to believe 
our own baloney. We have seen some baloney on the floor today. Most of 
it I did not believe, Mr. Speaker.
  Anyway, let us pass this continuing resolution, and let us not be 
offended by the fact that it is a continuing resolution, especially 
coming from the Democrats who ran this House for 40 years. Let me 
repeat something the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) said: We 
repeat our speeches too often. But in view of some of the accusations 
made today, let me just go back a few years.
  In fiscal year 1990 the Democrats controlled this House and they had 
a continuing resolution for 51 days. Fiscal year 1991, they had a CR 
for 36 days. Fiscal year 1992, they had a CR for 57 days. They did 
better in 1993, they only had 5 days. But in fiscal year 1994 they had 
41 days. So for the Democrats to come on the floor now and accuse the 
Republicans of using CRs to finish the business is a little hollow.
  Now, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) would like me to say the 
year he was chairman, for fiscal year 1995, we did not have any CRs, 
and he is right, and I applaud him for that. Let me tell you what else 
he had: He had 81 more Democrats than there were Republicans in the 
House. He could do most anything he wanted.
  We have a small majority. We only have 10 more Republicans this year 
than the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) had. He had 81. But in 
that year that the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) had 81 more 
Democrats than Republicans, he spent $60 billion out of the Social 
Security trust fund. We are not doing that. We are balancing the 
budget. We are not raising taxes. We are not taking any money out of 
the Social Security trust fund. There is a big difference. We have 
accomplished some things that people did not believe could be 
accomplished, and we have done it with a very, very small majority and 
a Democrat in the White House.
  Mr. Speaker, let us pass this continuing resolution and get down to 
the real business of finishing the negotiations on the remaining bills.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hansen). All time for debate has 
expired.
  The joint resolution is considered read for amendment.
  Pursuant to the order of the House of today, 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 417, 
nays 6, not voting 10, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 565]

                               YEAS--417

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Aderholt
     Allen
     Andrews
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baird
     Baker
     Baldacci
     Baldwin
     Ballenger
     Barcia
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Barrett (WI)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bateman
     Becerra
     Berkley
     Berman
     Berry
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bishop
     Blagojevich
     Bliley
     Blumenauer
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bonior
     Bono
     Borski
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Brady (PA)
     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
     Coburn
     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
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Dooley
     Doolittle
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Edwards
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     Engel
     English
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Everett
     Ewing
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Fletcher
     Foley
     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 (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hill (IN)
     Hill (MT)
     Hilleary
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     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)
     Kaptur
     Kasich
     Kelly
     Kennedy
     Kildee

[[Page H11507]]


     Kilpatrick
     Kind (WI)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kleczka
     Klink
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kucinich
     Kuykendall
     LaFalce
     LaHood
     Lampson
     Lantos
     Largent
     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
     Mascara
     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
     Minge
     Mink
     Moakley
     Mollohan
     Moore
     Moran (KS)
     Moran (VA)
     Morella
     Murtha
     Myrick
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Nethercutt
     Ney
     Northup
     Nussle
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Ose
     Owens
     Oxley
     Packard
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     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
     Rush
     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
     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
     Waters
     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--6

     DeFazio
     Dickey
     Forbes
     Hastings (FL)
     Miller, George
     Paul

                             NOT VOTING--10

     Bentsen
     Bereuter
     Ehlers
     Kanjorski
     Larson
     Norwood
     Oberstar
     Payne
     Scarborough
     Tauzin

                              {time}  1329

  Mr. DICKEY changed his vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Mr. VISCLOSKY changed his vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
  So the joint resolution was passed.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
  Stated for:
  Mr. BENTSEN. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 565, I was unavoidably 
detained.
  Had I been present, I would have noted ``yea.''

                          ____________________