[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.
____________________