[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 116 (Tuesday, September 26, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H8108-H8114]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H. RES. 591, CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS 
                          FOR FISCAL YEAR 2001

  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I 
call up House Resolution 591 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 591

       Resolved, That upon the adoption of this resolution it 
     shall be in order without intervention of any point of order 
     to consider in the House the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 109) 
     making continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2001, 
     and for other purposes. The joint resolution shall be 
     considered as read for amendment. The previous question shall 
     be considered as ordered on the joint resolution to final 
     passage without intervening motion except: (1) one hour of 
     debate equally divided and controlled by the chairman and 
     ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations; 
     and (2) one motion to recommit.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder) is 
recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the 
customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley); 
pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During 
consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose 
of debate only.
  Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 591 is a closed rule providing for the 
consideration of H.J. Res. 109, a resolution making continuing 
appropriations for fiscal year 2001.
  H.Res. 591 provides for 1 hour of debate equally divided and 
controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee 
on Appropriations. The rule waives all points of order against 
consideration of the joint resolution. Finally, the rule provides for 
one motion to recommit, as is the right of minority.
  Mr. Speaker, as my colleagues know, the current fiscal year expires 
at the end of the day on Saturday, and a continuing resolution is 
necessary to keep the government operating while Congress completes 
consideration of the remaining appropriations bills. This continuing 
resolution would fund ongoing activities until October 6 using fiscal 
year 2000 funding rates. In addition, the joint resolution includes 
provisions for certain anomalies which impact a small number of 
accounts.
  Mr. Speaker, under both Democrat and Republican majorities, Congress 
has regularly utilized continuing resolutions as a method of keeping 
the government running while appropriations and negotiations continue. 
Only three times in the last 21 years has Congress passed all of the 
appropriations bills by the fiscal deadline. Contrary to what some 
might contend, the House has been diligent in doing the people's 
business. In fact, the House has already passed all 13 appropriations 
bills.
  As we continue our bipartisan effort to complete the appropriations 
process as soon as possible, we remain focused on the priorities most 
important to working Americans, paying off the national debt, providing 
prescription drugs to seniors, and educating our children.
  We have made real progress on all of these fronts, passing the Debt 
Relief Lock-box Reconciliation Act that dedicates 90 percent of next 
year's surplus to paying off the national debt, the Medicare 
Prescription 2000 Act, the Education Flexibility Act, and the Academic 
Achievement for All Act.
  Mr. Speaker, the fiscal discipline of the Republican Congress has 
resulted in the payoff of $350 billion worth of debt and the locking 
away of 100 percent of the Social Security and Medicare surplus. 
Despite the efforts of the President and some of the Minority, we are 
committed to building on this success by passing fair and fiscally 
responsible appropriations bills. I am confident that H.J. Res. 109 
will give us the time we need to get the job done.
  This rule was unanimously approved by the Committee on Rules 
yesterday. I urge my colleague to support it so we may proceed with the 
general debate and consideration of this bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. 
Linder), my dear friend, for yielding me the customary half hour; and I 
yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the Congressional appropriations process has a long, 
long way to go. In the beginning of this session, my Republican 
colleagues promised to finish all of the appropriations bills on time. 
They said they did not want to shut the government down again. They 
said that they understood that October 1 was the deadline for these 
appropriation bills.
  But even though it is nearly October, only two of the 13 
appropriation bills have been signed into law, and the rest are in 
various stages of disarray. Four conference reports have yet to pass 
either the House or the Senate. They are: Transportation, Labor, Health 
and Human Services, Interior, and Energy and Water. Six appropriation 
bills have not even gone to conference: Agriculture, VA-HUD, Commerce, 
Justice, State, Foreign Operations, Treasury-Postal, or D.C. The 
Legislative Branch conference report failed in the Senate last week by 
a vote of 69 to 28.
  Mr. Speaker, despite the enormous amount of unfinished appropriations 
work, the last 3 weeks we have done virtually nothing here on the House 
floor except rename a couple of post offices.
  Mr. Speaker, time is running out. So despite the good intentions in 
the beginning of the session, today the House is considering the first 
of what promises to be many continuing resolutions.
  Today's continuing resolution will keep the Federal Government open 
until October 6, despite the unfinished work. Mr. Speaker, there is a 
lot of work to be done, and I think we have got to address it.
  I will support this continuing resolution because we need it to get 
these bills finished, but I would remind my colleagues that we have 
miles and miles to go before we sleep. Eleven appropriation bills are 
just not going to pass by themselves overnight.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Brady).
  Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Speaker, everyone knows that it takes two to 
fight. Well, it takes two to govern as well. Sadly, many of my 
Democratic friends have decided it is not in their best interest, not 
in their party's interest to help us govern for America, even though 
Speaker Hastert daily extends his hand, is willing to meet more than 
halfway to solve America's problems.
  I have a simple request to my Democratic colleagues: Put America 
ahead of your ambitions. Set aside just for a few days your all-
consuming drive to be in power. For the sake of our seniors, work with 
us to pass a prescription drug plan for the sickest and the poorest of 
our elderly now, not next year or 10 years in the future.
  For the sake of our children, work with us to have an education 
system that is second to none, where our quick learners are not 
forgotten, where our slow learners are not left behind. For the sake of 
our grandchildren, work with us to pay down the debt so they do not 
have a crushing burden that they do not deserve on them. I do not think 
that is too much to ask.

[[Page H8109]]

  Our Constitution says that, when one has a divided government, it is 
our responsibility to work together for the interest of America. I am 
hopeful our Democratic friends will stop viewing this as a Democratic 
White House and Republican Congress but more as a U.S. President and a 
U.S. Congress to work together.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from 
Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), the Democratic Leader.
  (Mr. GEPHARDT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this bill to 
keep the government running when the new fiscal year begins on Sunday. 
But I regret that we are forced to pass such a bill. We never should 
have reached this point.
  Instead of doing the important work of the American people, we have 
spent the last year bringing forward a series of massive tax cuts 
focused primarily on the wealthiest Americans. This Congress has spent 
most of the year debating tax cuts for the wealthiest that left no 
money for debt reduction, basic appropriations, or anything else.

                              {time}  1430

  We saw this coming a long time ago. This chain of events was set in 
motion by the Republican-passed tax cuts. It was set in motion by a 
single-minded devotion, tax breaks for the wealthiest, that has 
overwhelmed and taken the place of the whole budget process. The result 
is that we have been unable to accomplish the bare minimum and pass the 
annual appropriations bills required by law, and still, even at this 
late hour, 11 of the 13 bills remain to be enacted.
  We have been prevented from passing a budget that addresses the needs 
of working families and keeps us on the path of fiscal discipline. And 
then, 3 weeks before the end of the session, after the Republican tax 
package did not fly, Republicans abandoned their strategy and shifted 
to portray themselves as the champions of debt reduction. But the new 
so-called 90-10 budget was no better than the old budget, because it 
was only for 1 year. It did not hold the promise of true debt reduction 
because it allowed Republicans to return next year or the year after 
and again pass huge tax cuts that would blow a hole in our surpluses.
  I wrote a letter to the Speaker asking him to come up with a new 
budget, a new framework, so that we could complete our work and move on 
with the business of the American people. I have not received a reply.
  Today, we have before us a stopgap bill that, of course, everyone 
should support. Nobody wants to repeat the government shutdown. But the 
issue before us is not just the leadership's inability to enact the 
critical appropriations bills. The issue is the larger failure of this 
Congress to act on an agenda that finally, at long last, puts families 
first; an agenda that I believe a majority of the American people want 
us to pursue:
  Tax cuts focused on middle class and working families; a Patients' 
Bill of Rights to enforceably protect patients from the accountants and 
HMOs; a real Medicare prescription benefit that guarantees seniors 
access to affordable medicines; funds dedicated to building new 
classrooms and hiring additional teachers, so we can finally reduce 
class size and give children the education they need and deserve; real 
debt reduction that pays off the debt entirely by 2012 and still leaves 
enough money for tax cuts for working families.
  My constituents and Americans throughout the country want us to 
pursue and realize this agenda. But this agenda has been blocked by 
special interests. It has been blocked by Republican leaders determined 
to not do this agenda.
  A meaningful Patients' Bill of Rights has been blocked to protect 
HMOs and insurance companies. Middle-class tax cuts were blocked in the 
name of huge tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. Real serious long-
term debt reduction was blocked again in the name of huge tax cuts for 
the wealthiest Americans. The minimum wage has been blocked as a favor 
to big business. And education incentives to modernize our schools and 
hire new teachers has been blocked in the name of partisan ideology 
which tears down schools and takes money from them rather than lifting 
them up. Hate crimes legislation is still not law, and we have not 
acted on Latino and immigrant fairness issues.
  We support strong reimportation of drug legislation with standards, 
because it will bring prescription prices down for millions of 
Americans. I am glad that the leadership has said they want to pass 
such legislation, but we should not let reimportation detract from the 
more important issue: a Medicare prescription benefit that will be 
there for seniors when they need it. That has been blocked by the 
pharmaceutical industry.
  So I call on our leaders to disassociate themselves from special 
interests and work with us on a bipartisan basis to accomplish 
something meaningful for a vast majority of Americans in the days that 
are left of this session. Let us work together on the issues the 
American people truly care about and achieve something real for them in 
the few days that are left.
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), the chairman of the Committee 
on Rules.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time, and I say to my friend from Missouri that I am pleased to be here 
to respond to his call. His call is for us to work in a bipartisan way 
to deal with these very important issues; and, Mr. Speaker, I could not 
agree with him more.
  First, let me say that I am extremely proud of the bipartisanship 
that we have established under Republican leadership over the past 6 
years. If we simply look at the kinds of things that we have succeeded 
in working on just in this Congress, I think it is very important to 
underscore them.
  First and foremost, we must look at how we have effectively begun to 
retire the national debt. We are very proud of the fact that we have 
been able to retire $350 billion of our Nation's debt, and we are 
committed to retiring the entire national debt by the year 2013. And, 
yes, I will say to my friend, the minority leader, we have been working 
on that, as he just requested, in a bipartisan way.
  We also have done something that is virtually unprecedented. We have 
been able to go through 3 years of surpluses with our budget, which is 
again, I think, a monumental accomplishment; something which we 
Republicans have been proud that we have been able to do in a 
bipartisan way. Yes, working with the White House to do that.
  I also think it is important to note that on those very important 
issues of Social Security and Medicare the compacts which we have made 
with the American people. We must do everything that we can to make 
sure that we address and maintain their solvency. And we are proud that 
for 2 years in a row we have not, as had been done for 3 decades, 
reached in and spent that surplus on a wide range of other programs.
  It is also important to note what has been one of our top priorities; 
and we, again in a bipartisan way, have worked to accomplish our goal. 
And what has that issue been? It is education. It is obviously a top 
priority today in the presidential campaign. The 106th Congress has 
tremendous accomplishments to which we can proudly point that are 
bipartisan, specifically passage of the Education Flexibility Act and 
the Teacher Empowerment Act. What are they designed to do? They are 
designed to do what Governor George Bush has been saying, and now Vice 
President Gore is saying he agrees with, and that is trying to enhance 
decision-making at the local level.
  It is also important to note that this Congress has successfully 
passed legislation to reduce the tax burden on working families, that 
horrendous inheritance tax, the death tax. As Speaker Hastert likes to 
call it, the widows and orphans tax. We have passed that here. But of 
course on the presidential veto, we narrowly failed an override. We did 
it in a bipartisan way, even though we were not quite able to override 
the President's veto.
  Similarly, on the marriage tax penalty, we were not quite able to get 
the votes we needed to override the President's veto. But we did pass 
the legislation, and we attempted the override with strong bipartisan 
support.

[[Page H8110]]

  So it seems to me that if we look at the kinds of priorities that we 
have established, we want to do them in a bipartisan way. I am pleased 
that the White House and many Democrats have joined us in our 
commitment, or we hope the White House will join us. They have 
indicated a willingness to do that, but we want to make sure that 
happens, to take 90 percent of the surplus and apply that towards debt 
reduction. Obviously, in a time of unprecedented surpluses, we want to 
reduce the tax burdens. But at the same time we want to make sure that 
we do continue down that road towards retiring the national debt.
  We also are committed to working in a bipartisan way for a 
prescription drug benefit coverage package for America's seniors. Our 
Republican majority has again passed a plan to provide prescription 
drug coverage that is voluntary, affordable, and available to all 
seniors, a very high priority. Again, we share the bipartisan quest to 
address this issue. We believe very sincerely that no senior should be 
forced to choose between food on the table and the medicine that they 
need to stay healthy.
  And we are committed to doing even more to address that very 
important issue which I mentioned a moment ago, improving our public 
education system. We have the best postsecondary education system on 
the face of the earth. We need to do everything that we can to improve 
the primary and secondary education systems.
  What we want to do is we want to actually create even more 
flexibility than we did with the Education Flexibility Act by making 
sure that decisions are made at the local level, in the classrooms, 
knowing full well that decision-making here and the imposition of 
mandates on State and local government does little more than undermine 
the ability for teachers to improve that quality of education that they 
very much want to do. We know that very little of the money actually 
comes from Washington; but, unfortunately, many mandates have been 
imposed from here. We want to try to do what we can to relieve as much 
of that as possible.
  So I am here to say, in response to the last speaker, that we are 
working for continued bipartisanship. I know it does not get a lot of 
attention when we have accomplished many of these things in a 
bipartisan way, but we have done it so far. And all we are saying now, 
with this measure that we are going to be considering, is let us go for 
one more week, Mr. Speaker, with a continuing resolution so that we can 
get the very important work of the 13 appropriation bills completed. 
Why? Because the American people want us to do our work. And guess 
what? We have succeeded in working so far. We do not want anyone to 
stand in the way of these very important priorities which I have just 
outlined, and which I believe Democrats and Republicans alike share.
  So let us pass this rule, pass the continuing resolution, and keep 
the negotiators' feet to the fire so that we can complete our work in a 
very timely fashion.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Menendez), the vice chair of the Democratic Caucus.
  (Mr. MENENDEZ asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, when Republicans shut down the government, that was not 
a bipartisan act. This continuing resolution the Republicans are 
requesting is an admission of failure, a failure of the partisan ways 
Republicans run this House and their failure to do the people's 
business.
  While the Republican leadership has spent its time scheduling 
extremist bills that they know have no chance of becoming law, there 
are real people with real problems that this House should be 
addressing. Their leadership does a good job of ensuring that the 
political needs of the Republican Party are being met while the needs 
of working Americans everywhere are ignored.
  True to form, the Republican leadership has ignored our Democratic 
call for a Patients' Bill of Rights. They have ignored our call to give 
seniors universal prescription drug benefits under Medicare. They have 
ignored the call to modernize our Nation's schools. They have ignored 
our call to reduce class sizes for our children. They have ignored our 
call to hire 100,000 new highly qualified teachers. They have ignored 
our call to raise the minimum wage for hard-working pressed families. 
They have ignored our call to pass a comprehensive campaign finance 
reform bill. Mr. Speaker, Republicans are in the majority here. They 
run this House, and they have failed.
  The American people should know where we stand. We Democrats in 
Congress stand ready to work together to pass these bills and build an 
even stronger, better Nation, and Republicans have blocked our efforts 
to bring these issues to the floor and address these critical issues at 
each and every turn. If they could lead, they would have accomplished 
these priorities. But they cannot lead; so, instead, they come here 
today with a continuing resolution asking for yet more time to finish 
work on a budget that in 5 days will be past due.
  They should be ashamed of their inaction and the price America's 
seniors and children and working families pay every day for their 
failure to act.
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
North Carolina (Mr. Ballenger).
  Mr. BALLENGER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me 
this time.
  I know prescription drugs are a major part of the effort to reach a 
settlement so that we can go home. I am a senior citizen and I qualify 
for Medicare. I am at the age where every night I have to use Zocor and 
Cardura and Claritin D and Timoptin, but I pay for them myself. We in 
Congress earn over $140,000 a year. And those of us in Congress who are 
elderly should not receive government assistance in the form of 
Medicare benefits.

                              {time}  1445

  We earn enough that we do not need assistance. Congress should target 
those who do. Unfortunately, the Democrats' proposed universal 
prescription drug plan would help those of us who do not need it. The 
Democrats would fund the Ballengers and the Houghtons and the Kennedies 
who are fortunate enough that they can easily cover their own drug 
costs.
  There are actually 66 Members of Congress who would benefit from the 
Democrat drug program. We should not be allowed to have that benefit. 
That is why on June 28, 3 months ago, the House passed H.R. 4680, a 
Medicare prescription drug passage which the Republican leadership 
championed.
  The House-passed Medicare prescription drug benefit would utilize a 
public-private partnership to let those seniors choose the right 
coverage from several competing drug plans. It would allow them to keep 
their existing coverage. This plan would protect seniors from high, 
out-of-pocket drug costs without resorting to price fixing or 
government price controls.
  Most importantly, the House-passed prescription drug benefit is 
affordable, valuable and completely voluntary and it should be part of 
the settlement. We need to pass this rule and the bill to continue 
negotiations.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).
  (Ms. NORTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend her 
remarks.)
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, by failing to do our baseline work, the 
minimum work we have to do, we are doing great harm to our country 
moving forward now with the CR. We see that in the content, or lack 
thereof, of this appropriation and certainly by the delay in getting 
this basic work done.
  This House deliberately underfunded each and every appropriation in 
order to fund a tax cut as they went to their convention. But the 
quintessential example of the harm done by Government by CR is what 
they are doing to the capital of the United States. They require the 
local budget of a city to come here so that those of them who have 
nothing to do with raising the funds while they deny me the right to 
vote on my own budget, pick over that budget's local funds, own funds, 
budget surplus, balanced budget here in this House where it does not 
belong and then they say to the City, to a living, breathing city, they 
cannot spend their money because they are not through

[[Page H8111]]

with Federal business that has nothing to do with them. They say to a 
living, breathing city, spend on a daily basis 1/365 of their money.
  Try doing that, I say to my colleagues, in their city and their 
State.
  How does a city with dozens of vital finances parse out the amount 
they require it to spend when we are talking about dozens of vital 
functions, some of them life-and-death functions? How do we pick up 
garbage that way. How do we run a school system that way?
  They have said to the District of Columbia, streamline your 
functions, get your act together.
  The District of Columbia has done that. The District says to 
Congress, streamline your functions, let the District run itself. It 
got its business done on time. Let the City go forward and do its 
business. Free us from your convoluted processes.
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Cunningham).
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, we have heard an example of the liberal 
left wing of the Democrats. When their leadership talks about we will 
not pass their bills, no, we will not. We will not pass bills that make 
bigger government, bigger government control, like they wanted in 1993. 
We will not pass a government-controlled health care plan or 
prescription drugs.
  But we will pass government health care, and we will pass 
prescription drugs that will help seniors and not make bigger 
government, higher taxes, and restrict our seniors and our children.
  The gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) said, Well, I wrote a 
letter to the Speaker of the House.
  How about walking 15 steps over here and talking to the Speaker? What 
is the matter with the gentleman? When he wants to talk about 
bipartisanship, walk down the aisle, sit down and talk to the Speaker. 
I wrote a letter. Big deal!
  He talks about a tax break for the middle class. First of all, there 
are no middle-class citizens in this country. There are middle income 
citizens. And I am sick and tired of the class warfare. They promised, 
they fought for a year prior to their 1993 tax increase, they want a 
tax break for the middle class, they want a targeted tax for the middle 
class. They could not help themselves. They increased the tax on the 
middle class, and they are trying to do the same thing now. And that is 
wrong. No, we will not allow them to do it and we will fight them 
tooth, hook, and nail every time.
  They increased the tax on Social Security when they had the White 
House, the House, and Senate. They took every dime out of the Social 
Security Trust Fund and put it up here so they could have more 
spending. They increased taxes $260 billion so they could put it up 
here for their spending. They increased the gas tax 8 cents and put it 
into a general fund so they could put it up here for spending.
  What did Republicans do? We put Social Security in a lockbox so they 
could not keep driving up the national debt and we protected the Social 
Security trust fund. We rescinded their tax increase on Social Security 
and we put the gas tax into a transportation fund so they could not 
spend it.
  No, we will not allow them to increase big size of government.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
Mississippi (Mr. Taylor).
  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, one of the challenges of 
being one of 435 is that we rarely get to speak when we feel like 
speaking or when we think it is appropriate. So I find myself 
responding to some previous speakers who talked about the big surplus, 
how the Republican Congress is paying down the debt.
  Mr. Speaker, I would encourage them to read the Treasury report. 
Because the Treasury report that came out on August 31 of this year 
shows that the national debt has increased this fiscal year by $22.896 
billion. This is public information. I would hope that my colleagues 
would take the time to look at it.
  Additionally, it shows that, for this fiscal year, the difference 
between what is being collected and what is being spent is $22.896 
billion.
  Now, my great friend the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) 
just talked about these trust funds, the only way we can cut taxes is 
to steal from the trust fund. So my question to those of my colleagues 
who just last week were saying they are for big tax breaks is, whose 
trust fund were they going to steal it from, the military retirees, 
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid? Whose trust fund are they going to 
steal it from?
  Now they are talking about this week debt reduction, they are going 
to set aside 90 percent of a nonexistent surplus in debt reduction. 
Tomorrow we have a hearing on readiness where Republican colleague 
after Republican colleague who took over a fleet in 1995 of almost 400 
naval ships and now after 6 years of their stewardship is down to about 
312 naval ships want to tell us that they do not have enough money for 
defense.
  Mr. Speaker, I say to my colleagues that they have to get focused. 
They cannot keep spending money.
  Mr. Speaker, the reason that this Nation is $5.7 trillion in debt, up 
from only $1 trillion 20 years ago, is that we are spending more than 
we are collecting in taxes, that this generation is sticking future 
generations of America with our bills.
  I would hope that we could start by being honest with the American 
people and admitting that there is no surplus this year, that the only 
surpluses are in the trust funds, and we have a responsibility to spend 
those trust funds on only the things that we are supposed to, Social 
Security taxes for Social Security, Medicare taxes for Medicare, 
military retirement fund for military retirees.
  I encourage my colleagues, as they work on this continuing 
resolution, let us be honest with the American people and let us get 
back to the priorities that made this Nation great and let us quit 
sticking our kids and our kids' children with today's bills.
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume 
just to point out a couple of things.
  Mr. Speaker, I agree with the overall point of the gentleman on the 
debt, and he makes that point eloquently. I will also point out that we 
are talking about publicly held debt, just as the minority leader was 
speaking about publicly held debt when he talked about retiring it by 
the year 2012.
  Let me further point out that we got good lessons on stealing from 
trust funds in 1967 when Lyndon Johnson decided to put all the trust 
funds in a unified budget so he could spend them to fight a war that he 
did not want to tax for. We are the first Congress to finally change 
that and protect those funds.
  Lastly let me point out that he said we are spending too much since 
we have $5.7 trillion in debt. I agree with that. He ought to speak to 
the minority leader, who wants to spend even more.
  Let us live within these budget constraints we have so we can spend 
less and get closer to the goal that he pursues.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. 
Hayworth).
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Georgia for 
yielding me the time.
  Mr. Speaker, it is indeed interesting to hear the tenor and tone of 
this debate. My friend on the other side used the term ``stealing.'' 
And rather than hurl verbal brick bats, I just think it is important to 
take a more complete look at the picture.
  I appreciate the fact that we can have different points of view. But 
facts are stubborn things. The minority leader came to this well a 
short time ago and said it was important to work in a bipartisan 
fashion, and yet he was quoted last year in the Washington Post very 
candidly that his goal in this Congress was to delay and deny and 
obstruct so that then a label of the ``do nothing Congress'' could be 
used politically.
  Mr. Speaker, and to my colleagues on the left, the challenge we 
confront now is to put people before politics. Even at this time on the 
political calendar where the temptation is great to point fingers, and 
given the situation in which we find ourselves with budgetary 
challenges, we are coming to this floor with a continuing resolution.
  It is interesting to hear the criticism from the left, especially in 
view of the number of continuing resolutions that were utilized during 
their time in the majority. It is also curious, Mr. Speaker, to hear 
the carping and the criticism when no less than the minority

[[Page H8112]]

 leader, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), has made it quite 
clear from the free press that the goal of the other side is to delay 
and deny and obstruct.
  Mr. Speaker, we have seen notable exceptions. To those who claim this 
is a do nothing Congress, I would remind them that just not an hour ago 
we passed legislation to help the parents of missing children.
  We can do more for America if we put people in front of politics. 
Vote for the rule and the continuing resolution.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Pelosi).
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished ranking member for 
yielding me the time. I rise to comment on the CR that is before us 
until October 6.
  We have many visitors to the Capitol, Mr. Speaker; and many of them, 
when they come to our office, they talk about a book we all read in 
grammar and high school, How to Make a Law.
  Well, we might as well tear those books up and throw them away, 
although I usually am averse to such a notion, because it simply does 
not apply anymore.
  Any observer of the activities of this Congress will know that the 
regular order where the public can view the making of our legislation 
in an orderly way, in a way in which they can participate in a 
predictable manner, is a thing of the past.
  Only two bills will have been signed by the President by the time we 
reach the end of this fiscal year and in time for the start of the new 
fiscal year.
  Why? Well, because of the politics of the Republican caucus.
  As an appropriator, in fact as a ranking member on the Committee on 
Appropriations, I think most of us who are in that capacity know that 
we can work in a very amicable way with our corresponding chairman on 
the Republican side. But as much compromise and reasonableness as we 
can bring to the process, as many cities that we can reach on the basis 
of hearings that we have had in the course of the year and information 
that we are very familiar with, with our research and our judgments 
that we bring to the table, all of that is for naught, because whatever 
our conclusion is, it is subjected again to this conservative scrutiny 
on the part of our Republican colleagues.

                              {time}  1500

  For example, in the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services 
and Education on which I serve, it is really hard to imagine why the 
Republicans cannot support our class size initiative for smaller 
classes. Every person in America, certainly every parent, understands 
the need for that and every teacher. School construction, school 
modernization initiatives of the President are what are standing, among 
other things, between us and the agreement on that bill.
  In the Foreign Operations bill in which I am the ranking member, we 
cannot reach agreement because of the international family planning 
issue. Poor women throughout the world are held hostage once again to 
the politics of the Republican Caucus. The list goes on and on where 
members of the committees can come to agreement but the caucus then 
weighs in. That is not in the public interest. Certainly a CR has its 
place when circumstances are such that we cannot reach agreement; but 
we are on a path that we have started from beginning to middle to end, 
on a path to doing the people's work. But when we are proceeding in 
such a haphazard manner that is unworthy of the public trust and we 
come to the end of the fiscal year with only two bills signed by the 
President, with one CR and predictably another CR being necessary, then 
I think it is time for us to say, what is going on here? Who is in 
charge here? Why is the public's business not being done according to 
the regular order, a way in which the public can participate and be 
proud of us as we are a model democracy for the world to watch?
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to say to the gentlewoman that 
unfortunately the regular order for the last quarter of a century has 
been continuing resolutions.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. 
Kingston).
  Mr. KINGSTON. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise as a member of the Committee on Appropriations in 
favor of passing this continuation of the Federal Government process.
  It is interesting as I sit here and listen to various speakers, they 
must have remarkably different districts than the one that I represent. 
The one I represent has Republicans in it, Democrats in it, 
independents in it, swing voters in it, and a lot of folks who do not 
vote on either side. Yet I hear all these people whose constituents 
must think, oh, is my representative not wonderful because clearly all 
the problems that he or she has is the fault of the other party. No 
matter what happens, gee whiz, it is those big, bad Republicans.
  And I would say I certainly hear it from Members of both sides, 
blaming all their problems on the other party. The fact is, as a member 
of the Committee on Appropriations, we are in a cycle now that we go 
through every year and each side tends to rattle its rhetorical saber. 
They are blaming all the problems on the other side. The reality is we 
just need a little bit more time.
  As a member of the Committee on Appropriations, we had most of our 
bills ready by the time we got out of Washington in August. They were 
passed on to the Senate. Unfortunately the Senate moves in a different 
atmosphere, a different calendar, a different sense of urgency, 
practically no sense of urgency, and sometimes we cannot get the bills 
done. But the process has been working and this House, this Committee 
on Appropriations, has moved its bills in an orderly and a timely 
fashion.
  Do you get everything you want? No. As a member of the Republican 
Party, I would like to spend a heck of a lot less. I would like to 
eliminate a lot of the waste and the duplications in government, and I 
am not alone in that. Now, there are members of the Democrat Party who 
want to spend more, and I understand that, too. But you do not get 
everything you want in the appropriations process. You just need to get 
together. But I think we owe it to our constituents, all 435 of us, not 
to stand up here at this hour in the game and blame all the problems on 
the other party, because if it is that big or bad or wicked up in 
Washington, maybe you ought to consider a different line of work come 
November. Because people back home want results. They do not want 
finger pointing.
  This step is a responsible step; it is a responsible step that both 
parties have used for a number of years to get the government to keep 
operating while we iron out our differences. If it was up to me and 
other members of the Republican Party, we could adjourn by this 
afternoon. But it is not up to us. I would say that is true with a lot 
of Democrats. They are ready to adjourn as well. But I know at the end 
of the day, I am not going to get everything I want in the budget, and 
I think most Democrats know they are not going to get what they want in 
the entire budget.
  We have got to work through this process, and hopefully we can get 
everything done; and we can get out of town and both sides win a 
little. But the object here is not for a Republican victory; it is not 
for a Democrat victory. It is for the American people to have a 
victory. That is what we are working for.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaTourette). The Chair would remind all 
Members that it is not in order to characterize either the action or 
inaction in the United States Senate.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).
  (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise 
and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. I thank the ranking member very much for 
yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I agree with the words of the gentlewoman from 
California that a CR, a continuing resolution, does have its place in 
time of crisis and other needs that require that an emergency effort be 
waged in order that the government remain open. But I also am 
sympathetic to the dilemma of the Committee on Appropriations, and 
particularly under the leadership of the

[[Page H8113]]

gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the dilemma of facing the 
possibility of trillion-dollar tax cuts and not dealing with the real 
issues that the American people would like us to deal with.
  In actuality, the reason why we only have two appropriation bills 
passed is because there is a lot of shenanigans going on with other 
legislative initiatives that the American people do want. The American 
people want and need a real prescription drug benefit, a guaranteed 
prescription drug benefit. The American people have already spoken 
about a Patients' Bill of Rights that allows us to establish a 
relationship between patient and physician. And I believe the American 
people understand that, yes, we do not want the long hand of government 
in all of our educational efforts; but we want smaller class sizes, and 
we would like to have better schools, and we would like to have a 
program that helps us build schools with local communities.
  But yet what we have is shenanigans. We have legislation, the 
Violence Against Women Act. Instead of letting it be freestanding, 
there are rumors abounding that somebody is trying to throw it into the 
appropriations process, delaying again the opportunity to move an 
appropriations bill forward. The Violence Against Women Act is a bill 
that has bipartisan support. Let us pass it. The Patients' Bill of 
Rights has bipartisan support. Let us pass it. The American people say, 
I want a guaranteed prescription drug benefit. Let us pass it. And let 
us deal with the appropriations bill to fund America's business. 
Because what we are doing now is playing around with large tax cuts 
that we are representing we are trying to give, trillions of dollars; 
and, therefore, we are not talking about reducing the deficit, the 
debt, and then we are not talking about paying our bills.
  I would hope that in a bipartisan spirit we do understand that a CR 
has its place, but right now we need to get down to work and work 
together but do what is right and do what the American people are 
asking us for. I too agree, let us stop pointing the finger and do the 
right thing.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, the Republicans told us that in this 
Congress the trains were going to run on time. Not only is the train 
late, it is not even heading in the right direction.
  Today, we consider a continuing resolution, an emblem of failure. In 
the past 3 weeks, the Republican leadership has not completed even one 
of the 11 remaining spending bills. While they remain consumed with 
limping out of town to defend their record, the pressing issues of 
education, HMO reform, prescription drug coverage for seniors, and 
responsible tax relief remain unaddressed. The American people deserve 
better.
  Outside of the spending bills we will have to pass, what has the 
Republican-led Congress accomplished? Woefully little. The leadership 
claimed that education was among their priorities. Yet the leadership 
refused to work with Democrats to modernize America's crumbling 
schools, reduce class size and increase accountability. A failing grade 
on education. And these issues are not just about numbers or bricks and 
mortar. This is about individual attention in the classroom, 
expectations and standards in our classroom, making sure that teachers 
and youngsters are held accountable, helping to raise our national 
standards and to allow for there to be the ability to teach youngsters 
about what is right and what is wrong and reading and writing and 
arithmetic and respect and hard work.
  That is what the education piece is all about, while million of 
Americans are losing control of their health care because of HMOs. In 
my State of Connecticut, 56,000 seniors had the rug pulled out from 
under them and are scrambling to find health insurance coverage before 
the end of this year. But the Republican leadership refuses to 
challenge the special interests by helping us to pass a Patients' Bill 
of Rights. There is still time, but the Patients' Bill of Rights 
remains on life support. Seniors are seeing their retirement savings 
drained by the crushing cost of prescription drugs; and yet the 
Republican leadership continues to oppose adding an affordable, 
reliable, universal and a voluntary prescription drug benefit to 
Medicare. When seniors needed help with prescription drugs, the 
Republican leadership offered a placebo.
  Let me just say about prescription drugs, this is about who we are 
and what our values and what our priorities are and that we have to 
provide people some relief on prescription drugs because they are being 
crushed with the cost of those drugs.
  On tax relief, the Republican leadership also chose partisanship and 
rejected offers to work with Democrats to give middle-class families 
much-needed tax relief. The 106th Congress had an historic opportunity 
to meet the Nation's needs and yet the Republican leadership has 
squandered this chance by placing partisan rhetoric ahead of bipartisan 
progress that will truly benefit working families, middle-class 
families in this country. The American people deserve much, much 
better.
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume 
only to inquire of the gentlewoman from Connecticut if she will tell me 
sometime in the near future how you can be both universal and voluntary 
in the same program.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 additional minute to the 
gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, you can easily have a voluntary program 
which, if people are satisfied with what kind of health insurance 
coverage and prescription benefit coverage that they have, if they are 
happy with that, they can continue that. If you allow it to be useful 
to all seniors, where everyone has the opportunity for this benefit, 
then by virtue of the fact that every senior, not only those who make 
under $12,600 but those who are in the middle class as well will be 
able to enjoy the benefit of getting those prescription drugs down. 
Once you even it out and everyone has the opportunity to have that kind 
of prescription drug benefit, you drive the cost of prescription drugs 
down. It is why the pharmaceutical companies are opposed to it. It is 
why the Republican House leadership is opposed to it, because it ties 
in directly with where the special interests are today.
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself just another moment to say 
that obviously the gentlewoman did not hear my question. My question 
was not to give her another opportunity to expand on her demagoguery 
but to say how can you be universal and voluntary in the same program.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would remind all persons in the 
gallery that they are here as guests of the House and that any 
manifestation of approval or disapproval of the proceedings is a 
violation of the House rules.

                              {time}  1515

  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the ranking member of the 
Committee on Appropriations.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaTourette). The gentleman from 
Wisconsin is recognized for 8 minutes.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to simply say to the gentleman from 
Georgia, it is very simple. The answer to his question is you do 
exactly what we have done under Medicare, where you have one of the two 
parts of Medicare, one for hospitals, the other for doctors; one of 
them is universal and not voluntary, and the other is universal and 
voluntary. It has only worked since 1965, so I recognize it is a bit 
radical for those on the other side of the aisle, but it has worked.
  Let me simply say, Mr. Speaker, that this continuing resolution is an 
interim funding bill which concedes that we are experiencing what the 
leadership on the other side of the aisle has said for 10 months they 
wanted to avoid above everything else, and that is the fifth 
legislative train wreck in 6 years.
  It is only three days before the end of the fiscal year. We have 
passed only two of the 13 appropriation bills and funded only one of 
the government's departments. That is not really new. That has happened 
before.

[[Page H8114]]

  The issue is not so much whether or not we have finished our work on 
time today. The issue is whether or not this snarl that we find 
ourselves in could have been avoided, and the fact is it could have.
  I think we need to ask why we are in this situation today, where we 
have to extend the budget once again. I think we have to recognize that 
some people in this body and even those who report on this body, are 
beginning to believe that legislative train derailments have become as 
much a part of autumn as football, and I think we have to ask why.
  Now, we hear some Members of the majority party saying, ``Oh, the 
President of the United States has involved himself. He has usurped our 
power. That is the problem.''
  That is not the problem at all. The President has a perfect right to 
assert his priorities, just as the majority and minority parties in 
this institution have a right to assert theirs. The President has 
simply moved into a vacuum created by the fact that this Congress has 
not done its job. I think we ought to ask why.
  We are in the situation we are in today because of the basic decision 
made 10 months ago by the Republican leadership of this House to try to 
impose on the Congress a budget resolution which they knew would not 
work, which we knew would not work, which the public knew would not 
work, and which the press knew would not work.
  They insisted on pretending that by cutting huge amounts over the 
next 5 years out of domestic appropriations, they could somehow pretend 
that there was enough room in the budget to finance giant tax cuts, 
which got progressively larger each year as the cuts in social programs 
got progressively deeper. I think they were warned all around the horn 
that that would simply not work.
  Now, I understand why they would not take those warnings from people 
like me, because I am a member of the loyal opposition; but they were 
warned by people like former Congressman Bob Livingston, who used to 
Chair this committee. He tried to warn the majority party that, sooner 
or later, if you are the governing party in any legislative 
institution, you have to choose between getting your work done and 
having absolute, total party unity; and sometimes you have to sacrifice 
the latter in order to accomplish the former.
  The problem is simply that the leadership on the other side has never 
recognized that if there are those in their conference who are too 
extreme to be part of a broader consensus in this House on 
controversial matters, then they need to let them go and work out a 
broad bipartisan consensus between the two parties. Instead, on bill 
after bill, they chose to proceed along the confrontational road. They 
chose to try to pass bills with only Republican votes that satisfied 
their ideology and their political goals, but, in the end, produced no 
real legislative results. So in the end, they wind up with 11 out of 
the 13 bills never having proceeded beyond second base, and none of 
them getting home except the defense appropriations bill.
  Now, I think the issue is simple: we are here today facing a day of 
reckoning because at this point we have a strategy a week coming out of 
the majority leadership. First of all, we are supposed to live by the 
budget resolution, which spells out how much is supposed to be cut out 
of each appropriation bill. The majority party discovers they cannot 
get the votes to pass any of those bills through both Houses, except 
the defense bills, and so what happens? They then revert to a different 
strategy.
  Just today I left a conference where they are putting $2 billion 
additional into the Energy and Water bill above the level as it left 
the House. I do not know, frankly, whether I should vote for that bill 
or not, because I have no idea what they intend to do with the other 
seven remaining appropriation bills that require funding.
  Under some circumstances, I would certainly be willing to support 
that $2 billion add-on, but not if it comes at the expense of our being 
able to meet our responsibilities in the area of education, in the area 
of health care, in the area of environmental cleanup, and we have none 
of the answers to those questions yet because we have no idea how they 
intend to produce passable bills for Interior, for Labor, Health, 
Education, Social Services, for HUD, and I submit they do not either.
  So it seems to me that sooner or later the majority party is going to 
have to agree to a bipartisan approach to achieve a broad consensus 
between the two parties, or else we will be stuck on second base until 
the cows come home.
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to note that all of the 
speakers on this issue on both sides have supported this CR and said 
they would support this rule, so I yield back the balance of my time, 
and I move the previous question on the resolution.
  The previous question was ordered.
  The resolution was agreed to.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________