[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 116 (Tuesday, September 26, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H8114-H8123]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS, FISCAL YEAR 2001

  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 591, 
I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 109) making continuing 
appropriations for the fiscal year 2001, and for other purposes, and 
ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the title of the joint resolution.
  The text of H.J. Res. 109 is as follows:

                             H.J. Res. 109

       Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
     United States of America in Congress assembled, That the 
     following sums are hereby appropriated, out of any money in 
     the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, and out of 
     applicable corporate or other revenues, receipts, and funds, 
     for the several departments, agencies, corporations, and 
     other organizational units of Government for the fiscal year 
     2001, and for other purposes, namely:
       Sec. 101. (a) Such amounts as may be necessary under the 
     authority and conditions provided in the applicable 
     appropriations Act for the fiscal year 2000 for continuing 
     projects or activities including the costs of direct loans 
     and loan guarantees (not otherwise specifically provided for 
     in this joint resolution) which were conducted in the fiscal 
     year 2000 and for which appropriations, funds, or other 
     authority would be available in the following appropriations 
     Acts:
       (1) the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug 
     Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 
     2001;
       (2) the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the 
     Judiciary, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001, 
     notwithstanding section 15 of the State Department Basic 
     Authorities Act of 1956 and, section 313 of the Foreign 
     Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1994 and 1995 
     (Public Law 103-236);
       (3) the District of Columbia Appropriations Act, 2001;
       (4) the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act, 
     2001;
       (5) the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related 
     Programs Appropriations Act, 2001, notwithstanding section 10 
     of Public Law 91-672 and section 15 of the State Department 
     Basic Authorities Act of 1956;
       (6) the Department of the Interior and Related Agencies 
     Appropriations Act, 2001;
       (7) the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, 
     and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001;
       (8) the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2001;
       (9) the Department of Transportation and Related Agencies 
     Appropriations Act, 2001;
       (10) the Treasury and General Government Appropriations 
     Act, 2001; and
       (11) the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and 
     Urban Development, and Independent Agencies Appropriations 
     Act, 2001:
     Provided, That whenever the amount which would be made 
     available or the authority which would be granted in these 
     Acts as passed by the House and Senate as of October 1, 2000, 
     is different than that which would be available or granted 
     under current operations, the pertinent project or activity 
     shall be continued at a rate for operations not exceeding the 
     current rate: Provided further, That whenever there is no 
     amount made available under any of these appropriations Acts 
     as passed by the House and Senate as of October 1, 2000, for 
     a continuing project or activity which was conducted in 
     fiscal year 2000 and for which there is fiscal year 2001

[[Page H8115]]

     funding included in the budget request, the pertinent 
     project or activity shall be continued at the rate for 
     current operations under the authority and conditions 
     provided in the applicable appropriations Act for the 
     fiscal year 2000.
       (b) Whenever the amount which would be made available or 
     the authority which would be granted under an Act listed in 
     this section as passed by the House as of October 1, 2000, is 
     different from that which would be available or granted under 
     such Act as passed by the Senate as of October 1, 2000, the 
     pertinent project or activity shall be continued at a rate 
     for operations not exceeding the current rate under the 
     appropriation, fund, or authority granted by the applicable 
     appropriations Act for the fiscal year 2001 and under the 
     authority and conditions provided in the applicable 
     appropriations Act for the fiscal year 2000.
       (c) Whenever an Act listed in this section has been passed 
     by only the House or only the Senate as of October 1, 2000, 
     the pertinent project or activity shall be continued under 
     the appropriation, fund, or authority granted by the one 
     House at a rate for operations not exceeding the current rate 
     and under the authority and conditions provided in the 
     applicable appropriations Act for the fiscal year 2000: 
     Provided, That whenever there is no amount made available 
     under any of these appropriations Acts as passed by the House 
     or the Senate as of October 1, 2000, for a continuing project 
     or activity which was conducted in fiscal year 2000 and for 
     which there is fiscal year 2001 funding included in the 
     budget requested, the pertinent project or activity shall be 
     continued at the rate for current operations under the 
     authority and conditions provided in the applicable 
     appropriations Act for the fiscal year 2000.
       Sec. 102. Appropriations made by section 101 shall be 
     available to the extent and in the manner which would be 
     provided by the pertinent appropriations Act.
       Sec. 103. No appropriation or funds made available or 
     authority granted pursuant to section 101 shall be used to 
     initiate or resume any project or activity for which 
     appropriations, funds, or other authority were not available 
     during the fiscal year 2000.
       Sec. 104. No provision which is included in an 
     appropriations Act enumerated in section 101 but which was 
     not included in the applicable appropriations Act for fiscal 
     year 2000 and which by its terms is applicable to more than 
     one appropriation, fund, or authority shall be applicable to 
     any appropriation, fund, or authority provided in this joint 
     resolution.
       Sec. 105. Appropriations made and authority granted 
     pursuant to this joint resolution shall cover all obligations 
     or expenditures incurred for any program, project, or 
     activity during the period for which funds or authority for 
     such project or activity are available under this joint 
     resolution.
       Sec. 106. Unless otherwise provided for in this joint 
     resolution or in the applicable appropriations Act, 
     appropriations and funds made available and authority granted 
     pursuant to this joint resolution shall be available until 
     (a) enactment into law of an appropriation for any project or 
     activity provided for in this joint resolution, or (b) the 
     enactment into law of the applicable appropriations Act by 
     both Houses without any provision for such project or 
     activity, or (c) October 6, 2000, whichever first occurs.
       Sec. 107. Expenditures made pursuant to this joint 
     resolution shall be charged to the applicable appropriation, 
     fund, or authorization whenever a bill in which such 
     applicable appropriation, fund, or authorization is contained 
     is enacted into law.
       Sec. 108. No provision in the appropriations Act for the 
     fiscal year 2001 referred to in section 101 of this Act that 
     makes the availability of any appropriation provided therein 
     dependent upon the enactment of additional authorizing or 
     other legislation shall be effective before the date set 
     forth in section 106(c) of this joint resolution.
       Sec. 109. Appropriations and funds made available by or 
     authority granted pursuant to this joint resolution may be 
     used without regard to the time limitations for submission 
     and approval of apportionments set forth in section 1513 of 
     title 31, United States Code, but nothing herein shall be 
     construed to waive any other provision of law governing the 
     apportionment of funds.
       Sec. 110. This joint resolution shall be implemented so 
     that only the most limited funding action of that permitted 
     in the joint resolution shall be taken in order to provide 
     for continuation of projects and activities.
       Sec. 111. Notwithstanding any other provision of this joint 
     resolution, except section 106, for those programs that had 
     high initial rates of operation or complete distribution of 
     fiscal year 2000 appropriations at the beginning of that 
     fiscal year because of distributions of funding to States, 
     foreign countries, grantees or others, similar distributions 
     of funds for fiscal year 2001 shall not be made and no grants 
     shall be awarded for such programs funded by this resolution 
     that would impinge on final funding prerogatives.
       Sec. 112. Amounts provided by section 101 of this joint 
     resolution, for projects and activities in the Departments of 
     Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary and Related 
     Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001, affected by the 
     termination of the Violent Crime Reduction Trust Fund, shall 
     be distributed into the accounts established in the 
     Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, 
     and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001, as passed by 
     the House.
       Sec. 113. Notwithstanding any other provision of this joint 
     resolution, except section 106, the rate for operations for 
     projects and activities that would be funded under the 
     heading ``International Organizations and Conferences, 
     Contributions to International Organizations'' in the 
     Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, 
     and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001, shall be the 
     amount provided by the provisions of section 101 multiplied 
     by the ratio of the number of days covered by this resolution 
     to 365.
       Sec. 114. Notwithstanding any other provision of this joint 
     resolution, except section 106, only the following activities 
     funded with Federal Funds for the District of Columbia, may 
     be continued under this joint resolution at a rate for 
     operations not exceeding the current rate, multiplied by the 
     ratio of the number of days covered by this joint resolution 
     to 365: Resident Tuition Support, Corrections Trustee 
     Operations, Court Services and Offender Supervision, District 
     of Columbia Courts, and Defender Services in District of 
     Columbia Courts.
       Sec. 115. Activities authorized by sections 1309(a)(2), as 
     amended by Public Law 104-208, and 1376(c) of the National 
     Flood Insurance Act of 1968, as amended (42 U.S.C. 4001 et 
     seq.), may continue through the date specified in section 
     106(c) of this joint resolution.
       Sec. 116. Notwithstanding subsections (a)(2) and (h)(1)(B) 
     of section 3011 of Public Law 106-31, activities authorized 
     for fiscal year 2000 by such section may continue during the 
     period covered by this joint resolution.
       Sec. 117. Notwithstanding any other provision of this joint 
     resolution, the rate for operations for projects and 
     activities for decennial census programs that would be funded 
     under the heading ``Bureau of the Census, Periodic Censuses 
     and Programs'' in the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and 
     State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies Appropriations 
     Act, 2001, shall be the budget request.
       Sec. 118. Notwithstanding any other provision of this joint 
     resolution except section 106, the United States Geological 
     Survey may sign a contract to maintain Landsat-7 flight 
     operations consistent with the President's Budget proposal to 
     transfer Landsat-7 flight operations responsibility from the 
     National Aeronautics and Space Administration to the United 
     States Geological Survey beginning in fiscal year 2001.
       Sec. 119. Notwithstanding any other provision of this joint 
     resolution, funds previously appropriated to the American 
     Section of the International Joint Commission in Public Law 
     106-246 may be obligated and expended in fiscal year 2001 
     without regard to section 15 of the State Department Basic 
     Authorities Act of 1956, as amended.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 591, the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and the gentleman from Wisconsin 
(Mr. Obey) each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young).
  (Mr. YOUNG of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and 
extend his remarks.)
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the legislation before the House, H.J. Res. 109, is a 
continuing resolution for fiscal year 2001. Legislation is needed 
because even though the House has passed all of the 13 appropriations 
bills, all 13 appropriations bills have not completed conference or 
been approved by the President and will not be so by October 1, the 
beginning of the fiscal year. So in order to keep the government 
operating and open the first day of the new fiscal year, we need to 
enact this continuing resolution.
  I do not think there is any controversy relative to the continuing 
resolution itself. The duration of the continuing resolution that is 
before the House is until October 6.
  Let me briefly describe the terms and conditions of this continuing 
resolution. It will continue all ongoing activities at current rates 
under the same terms and conditions as fiscal year 2000. Its remaining 
terms and conditions are the same as we have used in recent years. It 
does not allow new starts. It restricts obligations on high initial 
spendout programs so that final funding decisions will not be impacted. 
It includes eight funding or authorizing anomalies; four of them were 
in last year's continuing resolution or have been modified slightly 
from last year; four are new, and six from last year have been deleted.
  Mr. Speaker, this continuing resolution is noncontroversial. I am 
aware that the President has agreed to sign at least several short-term 
continuing resolutions, so I urge the House to move this legislation to 
the other body so that we can be sure that the government will operate 
smoothly and efficiently and so we can continue our regular work to 
finish our regular appropriations bills quickly.

[[Page H8116]]

  Before I reserve the balance of my time, Mr. Speaker, I compliment 
all of our colleagues in the House. While some of the debates took a 
long time, some of the amendments were difficult to deal with and some 
of them were hard political votes, despite all of this, the House has 
passed all 13 of the appropriations bills.
  I want to repeat that, Mr. Speaker: the House has passed all of its 
appropriations bills. So now we wait for conferences that cannot be 
scheduled because the other body has not passed all of the bills. We 
have outstanding differences with the President that we are trying 
diligently to work through. Hopefully, before too many more days have 
passed, we will have reached agreement and be able to say that all 13 
bills have been passed by the House and the Senate and have been 
approved by the President.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost).
  Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, after we pass this continuing resolution today, only 
seven legislative days will remain before the Republican leadership's 
target adjournment date for this Congress.
  When it comes to addressing the most pressing concerns of families 
across the country, the record of this Republican Congress is just as 
abysmal as it was when we convened nearly 2 years ago. Republicans 
spent all of last year trying to spend nearly $1 trillion of the 
people's surplus on a massive package of tax breaks for the wealthiest 
few; and they wasted this year on a series of tax breaks that, 
surprise, surprise, would have cost nearly $1 trillion and 
overwhelmingly benefited the wealthiest few.
  Meanwhile, Mr. Speaker, the people's agenda has been shelved. Too 
many of America's children have returned to school this fall in 
crumbling classrooms, but Republican leaders are still blocking school 
modernization. Teachers in overcrowded classrooms still face the nearly 
impossible task of maintaining discipline and giving their students the 
individual attention they deserve. But the Republican Congress still 
refuses to help hire 100,000 new teachers to reduce class size.
  Mr. Speaker, almost a year has gone by since the House passed the 
bipartisan Patients' Bill of Rights, but Republican leaders in the 
House, as well as the Senate, have kept it from becoming law. Nearly 18 
million Americans have been denied or delayed medical care since then.
  Mr. Speaker, millions of American seniors, including middle-class 
seniors, are still being forced to choose between buying groceries and 
buying needed prescriptions, and it is getting worse. A new Kaiser 
Family Foundation study found that skyrocketing prescription prices are 
driving premiums up and increasing the likelihood that people will lose 
their health coverage altogether. But just this weekend, Republican 
leaders in the House and Senate declared dead for the year our plan to 
provide Medicare prescription coverage for all seniors.
  Mr. Speaker, Democrats have not given up on helping middle-class 
families. This Congress can still address priorities, like smaller 
class size, the Patients' Bill of Rights and prescription drugs. We can 
still do it, Mr. Speaker, but only if Republican leaders will put aside 
their partisanship, tell their special interest friends that the people 
come first and work with us.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the very 
distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling), the chairman 
of the Committee on Education and the Workforce.
  (Mr. GOODLING asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.J. Res. 109. For 30 
years before we became a Republican majority, the idea was that we 
could change everything in education if we just had one more program 
from Washington, DC., if we had $1 billion more to spend on one more 
program, if we could cover 100,000 more students. Nobody said anything 
about quality. It was just if we could just have one more program, and 
it was well meaning and well intentioned. The problem is, we did not 
close the achievement gap for the disadvantaged. In fact, it has 
widened.
  So when I became the chairman, we said, let us talk about quality 
instead of quantity. Let us talk about results instead of process. That 
was the guiding light during the reauthorization of IDEA, the 
Individuals With Disabilities Education Act; the Higher Education Act; 
the Vocational Education Act; the Workforce Development Act; the 
reauthorization of Head Start; the child nutrition program; and the 
Reading Excellence Act, just to mention a few.

                              {time}  1530

  We changed the whole idea and we talked about quality and we talked 
about results. And we are beginning to see results, because we are now 
beginning to see quality programs.
  Well, in relationship to this continuing resolution, I am very proud 
of what we have been able to do as a Committee on Education and the 
Workforce. I am very proud of what we have been able to do in the House 
in relationship to education and workforce development.
  The Education Flexibility Act passed the House. And what we said is 
that we want to give local schools an opportunity to make decisions 
that affect their students as long as they can show us that every 
child's academic achievement has improved.
  I was thrown a bone of six States when I was not a member of the 
majority, and then it became 12. And a couple of those States just did 
an outstanding job and so it became easy on a bipartisan way in this 
session of Congress to say, okay, all 50 States will have the 
flexibility if they will sign the contract to show us that, as a matter 
of fact, they will improve the academic achievement of all students. It 
is working. We have lost so many years and so many students because we 
did not use that approach.
  We passed the Teacher Empowerment Act out of committee and on the 
floor of the House. See, it does not matter what the pupil-teacher 
ratio is if we cannot put a quality teacher in the classroom. It does 
not matter if there are 50 there or whether there are two there. The 
only difference is we have saved 40-some others from having a lack of a 
quality teacher in their classroom.
  So, again, the very first 30 percent of the 100,000 teachers had no 
qualifications whatsoever. No qualifications whatsoever. What we did is 
reduce class size and put them in with a totally inadequate teacher; 
destroyed their opportunity to ever get a piece of the American dream. 
What have we said? In the Teacher Empowerment Act it should be a 
guidepost for whatever is done next year to ensure that we have a 
quality teacher in every classroom.
  Mr. Speaker, when we were negotiating this last year with the White 
House, that very day an article in a New York newspaper, big headlines, 
a whole front page said, ``Parents do you realize that 50 percent of 
your teachers have no qualifications whatsoever to be teaching your 
children?'' What a tragedy.
  So, again, the pupil-teacher ratio is not important. What is 
important is having a quality teacher in each classroom. That is why we 
passed the Teacher Empowerment Act. That is why we passed the Student 
Results Act. That is why we passed the Academic Achievement for All 
Act, and 2 weeks ago we passed the Literacy Involves Family Together 
Act. It makes several quality improvements in Even Start family 
literacy programs. We know that if we do not deal with the entire 
family, we cannot break the cycle. So I am very proud of that 
reauthorization.
  And, yes, we made great strides in doing what we should have done a 
long time ago before I ever became a part of the majority, and that was 
deal with the 40 percent that we said many years ago, many years ago, 
that we would supply from the Federal level 40 percent of the average 
per pupil expenditure to assist States in educating children with 
disabilities. They would be getting $2,600 instead of $750 or $780. But 
I am pretty proud of the fact that we have seen dramatic increases in 
the last couple years, $2.6 billion as a matter of fact.
  But, Mr. Speaker, if we could have done this from day one, we take 
care of maintenance of school buildings. We take care of school 
construction. If all

[[Page H8117]]

of these years, Los Angeles would have been getting the $95.5 million 
more. If they would have gotten the 40 percent, they would have no 
problem with buildings. If New York would have gotten $170 million each 
year, New York City, they would have had no problems with maintenance 
and school construction. Chicago, $76 million more each year. Think of 
that over 25 years. And D.C., $12.5 million more.
  Mr. Speaker, I am very proud in the area of higher education, Pell 
Grants which enable youngsters who could otherwise not pursue higher 
education to do so. Pell Grants are an exception to my rule, because 
quantity does matter in this case. Since 1995, under our leadership we 
now have an increase, an annual rate of 7.1 percent. For fiscal year 
2001, our appropriators are going to break their own records and 
provide an increase of at least $350 more per student maximum, making 
it the largest increase in the history.
  The naysayers in this Congress are to be expected. November 7 is not 
far off. But we have a record and we have a record that we could be 
proud to stand on and I am proud to stand on that record.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 8 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), our ranking member, for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I intend to vote for this continuing resolution, as I 
presume most of us will. But let us recognize what we are doing for 
what it really is. It is the budgetary cap stone to 6 years of the 
Republican's Perfectionist Caucus.
  I do not remember how many remember Speaker Gingrich's speech to the 
Perfectionist Caucus in 1998, but it was a compelling and accurate 
speech as to why we are here right now.
  Now, my very close friend for whom I have great respect, and I 
emphasize that because I want the public to know that in a bipartisan 
way, I think the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), the chairman of 
our committee, does an excellent job. And, frankly, had his caucus 
listened to him and the other appropriators as to what we should be 
doing, we would not be here now.
  But the Perfectionist Caucus moniker was born 2 years ago when then 
Speaker Gingrich walked on to this floor and chastised his Republican 
colleagues, the Perfectionist Caucus, not all of these Republican 
colleagues, for urging the defeat of an omnibus spending measure. 
Perhaps they would do so again this year.
  After 4 years in the majority, it seems Mr. Gingrich had finally seen 
the light. But not before these things had happened:
  The GOP failed to pass a budget at all in 1998. The first time we had 
not passed a budget since the adoption of the Budget Act in 1974.
  And not before the GOP dared the President to veto a disaster relief 
bill in 1997 to which Republicans had attached controversial policy 
riders.
  And not before the GOP provoked two Federal Government shutdowns in 
1995 and 1996.
  Pleading for compromise 2 years ago, Mr. Gingrich who was pleading 
for compromise, Mr. Gingrich stated and I quote: ``Surely,'' this is 
Mr. Gingrich's quote, in case anybody missed it. ``Surely those of us 
who have grown up and matured in this process understand after the last 
4 years that we have to work together on the big issues. If we do not 
work together on big issues, nothing gets done.'' So said Mr. Gingrich, 
the Speaker of the House.
  Well, now we know that common sense advice went in one ear and out 
the other. With all due respect to the gentleman from Florida (Chairman 
Young) who gets on the floor and says we have passed all 13 
appropriations bills, the gentleman is absolutely right. And we knew at 
that time that at least 11 of those appropriation bills were not real 
and could not pass, and would bring us to an impasse. The gentleman 
knew that. I do not expect him to get up on the floor and say he knew 
that. But I know that in his heart, he knew we were right.
  Mr. Speaker, today we are living with those results. With only 5 days 
left before the start of the fiscal year in 2001, we have failed to 
complete our work on 11 of the 13 must-pass appropriation bills.
  Continuing resolutions, of course, are not unusual. Since 1977, we 
have completed our work on all 13 spending bills on only four times in 
that period of time.
  But in the 6 years under this majority, we have completed our work on 
two or fewer appropriation bills by October 1 four separate times. That 
is 4 out of 6 years, less than two. In 1995, none were completed in 
time. Not one. In 1997 and 1998, we completed one bill each. So my 
colleagues on the Republican side are 100 percent ahead of where they 
were in 1995 and 1996. I suppose that is some sort of progress.
  And this year we finished just two. The die for this end-of-the-year 
budget debacle was cast 6 months ago. It was inevitable. It was 
predictable and we all knew, at least on the Committee on 
Appropriations, on both sides of the aisle, that we were going to be 
here today doing exactly what we are doing. As the gentleman from South 
Carolina (Mr. Spratt), my good friend, the ranking member of the 
Committee on the Budget, correctly predicted in April when the GOP 
passed its budget resolution, and I quote, ``This resolution puts us on 
a track for another budgetary train wreck in September.''
  Mr. Speaker, he said that in April. He predicted then we would have a 
train wreck in September. He said that their budget ``calls for deep 
cuts in domestic programs to make room for very large tax cuts.'' Let 
me be precise. The GOP's budget resolution calls for $175 billion tax 
cuts over 5 years. That is 12 percent more than the Congress passed and 
the President vetoed the year before. Nobody was surprised at what the 
outcome of these proposals was going to be. They just did not care. 
Inevitably, we are here.
  Yet in urging passage of the budget resolution conference report on 
April 13, the chairman of the Committee on the Budget, the gentleman 
from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) stated, and I quote, ``I am disappointed that we 
do not have four times as much tax relief in this bill.''
  I do not know where he thought he was going to get the votes to pass 
appropriation bills under that circumstance. It is one thing to hail 
huge tax cuts. We all like to say that. It is something all together 
different to explain how one would actually pay for them, how we would 
get there.
  The huge tax cuts in this year's budget resolution would have 
necessitated cuts in non-defense discretionary of $121.5 billion over 5 
years, in education, in health care, in law enforcement, in all of the 
work that the Federal Government does. There were not the votes on that 
side of the aisle to accomplish those cuts. Period. And certainly not 
in the Senate on that side of the aisle.
  However, Mr. Speaker, I do not believe there is a soul in this body 
who thought for a minute that such Draconian cuts would ever happen. 
Notwithstanding that, we passed these bills knowing that we would be 
here in this situation 5 days before the end of the fiscal year. Thus, 
this ill-conceived budget resolution which made a shambles of our 
appropriations process this year put us in this predicament.
  As The Washington Post observed, and I quote, ``The appropriation 
process is again a charade in which the Republicans pretend to be 
making cuts in domestic spending that in the end they know they will 
lack the votes to sustain, and with good reason; some of the cuts would 
do real harm. The first round of appropriation bills,'' they went on to 
say, ``is mainly for show.''
  The distinguished gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young), my friend, 
knew that. He characterized that as: Well, we are in the second or 
third inning. Mr. Speaker, I do not know what inning we are in now, but 
it is obviously getting late in the ball game.
  The gentleman said then that: ``We will get real then. We will fix 
these bills.'' I think he was right and hopefully we are going to.
  Mr. Speaker, the blame for this budget mess lies squarely with 
Members of the Republican's Perfectionist Caucus, so coined by your 
predecessor, the Speaker of the House, Mr. Gingrich, who failed to heed 
the advice of their Speaker 2 years ago and instead adopted an 
unrealistic budget this year that disrupted the entire appropriations 
process.
  After 6 years in the majority, I really have to wonder just how long, 
in the words of the former Speaker, it takes to grow up and mature in 
this process.

[[Page H8118]]

  Notwithstanding that, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support 
this continuing resolution.

                              {time}  1545

  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  I wanted to thank my friend, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), 
for the history lesson on continuing resolutions and who did what and 
when did they do it.
  I would say to my friend who asked about what inning are we in, I 
would say we are in the 9th inning and probably the bottom of the 9th. 
And in 4 days, I suggest that we are going to go into overtime because 
of a tie, a 3-way tie.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. OBEY. I did not know that you had overtime in baseball games.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I think we are going to have 
overtime here.
  Mr. HOYER. If the gentleman will yield, the gentleman from Florida 
(Mr. Young) meant extra innings, we know what the gentleman meant.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. We are going to go into overtime, that overtime 
will soon start. The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) has just gone 
through the history of the 6 years of the Republican control of the 
House, so I thought I would come back with the last 6 years of the 
Democratic control of the House.
  Let us go back starting in fiscal year 1990, because that would be 6 
years back. Under the Democratic leadership in the House, they had 51 
days of continuing resolution. The one we present today asks for only 6 
days.
  In fiscal year 1991, they had 36 days; in fiscal year 1992, they had 
57 days of overtime under CRs; in fiscal year 1993, they did a little 
better, because they only had 5 days; in fiscal year 1994, they had 41 
days. In fiscal year 1995, and I give my colleague from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Obey) credit, that was the year that he chaired the committee, the 
bills were all completed on time.
  During the 6 years of the Republican control, during one year no CR 
was needed. But the truth is we have had CRs, except for 2 years, in 
the last 12 years. The 1 year that our friend, the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), chaired the committee, he had the bills done on 
time; but, the gentleman had 81 more Democrats in the House than there 
were Republicans, and that makes the job a little bit easier.
  Mr. Speaker, with our breakdown today, the way I read it, there are 
222 Republicans, 210 Democrats and two independents. Now, that makes 
our job a little bit tougher, and that is why it even took longer to 
get the bills through the House. I am glad my friend, the gentleman 
from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), repeated it again. We have passed all 13 
bills in the House. That is the first thing that has to be done, and 
then we confer with our colleagues in the Senate, then we relate it to 
the White House and finally try to get a package.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I wish the 
gentleman would not take down the chart, because I want to read from 
his very beautiful chart. He read 1990, 51; 1991, 36 days; 1992, 57 
days; 1993, 5 days; 1994, 41 days, then came 1995 which, of course, we 
passed in 1994, the last year the Democrats were in charge. And he gave 
correctly the credit to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) for 
having 0 days, but then he stopped.
  As I read the gentleman's chart, the next year, which was the first 
year that the Republicans were in charge, the gentleman, of course, was 
not chairman of the Committee on Appropriations at that point in time, 
we were at 208 days, which was more than all the other years combined 
that the gentleman read. I wondered why the gentleman stopped at that.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Reclaiming my time, I would remind the 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) that was the year that there were a 
few items that were held over until April of the following year, and 
the majority of basic fundamental appropriations for the government 
were completed prior to that; but those few items that we had agreed to 
hold over until the next spring caused the 208 days.
  But the gentleman covered the Republican history well enough, I 
thought, that I should cover the Democratic history, to point out that 
there is a problem in our process, to point out, if I had my big chart 
here, which the gentleman has seen, how many days the Committee on 
Appropriations loses in a fiscal year before we ever get a budget 
resolution.
  Mr. Speaker, that is a very telling chart, because the actual 
workdays available to appropriators after we receive the budget 
resolution are very limited.
  Mr. HOYER. Would the gentleman yield?
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to yield.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, to make a serious point, I have commended 
every time I have stood on this floor the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Young), the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, for his 
leadership. The gentleman, I think, on our side of the aisle is 
perceived to be one of the fairest, kindest, most responsible Members 
of this House. I share that view in great measure; and I think the 
serious point here is, as we will hopefully pass this CR, is that we 
really ought to get away from first innings, second innings, and third 
innings; and we ought to start, and that is my real point, Mr. Speaker, 
sitting down together, as we are now.
  The gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) and I sat down on the 
Treasury-Postal bill. I think we have agreement on where we ought to 
be. I think we need to start that process earlier and be real earlier 
and stop making political points as to who is saving money or who is 
not saving money when we know the inevitable result will be we will 
attempt to fund appropriation bills at levels that are consistent with 
what we think our responsibilities are.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the chairman, the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Young), because I think the chairman's leadership has been 
for that proposition, and I admired him for that. He has not always 
prevailed.
  And I think what Mr. Gingrich was really trying to say and I said it 
somewhat facetiously tried to do it lightly, but it was a serious point 
that we can on each side posture and say, well, we want it our way. But 
if we all go forward saying we want it our way, we end up as we are 
today and, that is, having at the last minute to try to come to 
agreement.
  I want to congratulate the chairman, the gentleman from Florida, 
because I think that is what he has tried to do, wants to do and is 
leading in a direction of doing right now; and I thank him for 
yielding.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's 
comments, and that is why I like him. I would be happy to yield him 
more time if he wants to compliment the Chair any more. But that is the 
process. There are 435 Members of this House and 100 Members of the 
other body, and that means there are 535 different opinions on almost 
any issue.
  It takes a while to resolve those differences because each House is 
equal to the other, and then when the President gets to the point that 
he can either accept or veto a bill, he becomes as powerful, understand 
this, he becomes as powerful as two thirds of us, because if he does 
not agree with something that we have done, it takes two thirds of us 
to override that veto. And so it is a process that is full of obstacles 
and pitfalls along the way. We do the best we can to work through them.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, how much time is remaining on each side?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaTourette). The gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) has 19\1/2\ minutes remaining and the gentleman 
from Florida (Mr. Young) has 14 minutes remaining.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 8 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), my 
good friend, indicated that the year that I was chairman we were able 
to pass all of our bills on time because we had 80 more Democrats. That 
sounds like a pretty good recommendation to me. I hope that he is 
willing to endorse it.

[[Page H8119]]

  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Give us 81 more Republicans than there are 
Democrats, and we will show you a real whirlwind of activity here.
  Mr. OBEY. God help us all if that were to happen. Let me simply say, 
Mr. Speaker, you know, the President has not vetoed any of these bills. 
The last time I looked, our Republican friends were in control of both 
Houses; and yet they have been able to pass only two appropriations 
bills through both Houses and both of those have been signed.
  They all relate to the funding of one department, the Defense 
Department, but four of the bills that have yet to be passed have not 
even yet passed the other body, in the real world known as the Senate; 
and that means that the main problem has been that the majority party 
has not been able to reach agreement with itself.
  As the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) indicated earlier, every 
time an appropriations bill came to the floor, we were told, ``Well, we 
know it has problems, we know that this cannot be passed until it is 
fixed, but pass it on. This is only the first inning, we will fix it 
later.'' And now, because of that, we have all of those runners piled 
up on second base, and none of them are going home. That is why the 
government is again off the track, or the train is off the track.
  I repeat what I said earlier, the reason we are in this position is 
because early on, the majority party leadership decided that above all 
else, they were going to keep their party together and they were going 
to pass each of these bills on their side of the aisle alone, if 
necessary. And they fashioned them in such a way that they were 
acceptable to the most rigid elements within their caucus, and that 
meant that those bills were not acceptable, either to us or to a lot of 
their fellow Republicans in the other body.
  Mr. Speaker, now we are facing the logical consequences of the 
majority party pretending for the last 10 months that they could cut 
education, they could cut health, they could cut environmental cleanup, 
they could cut job protection programs all deeply below the President's 
budget and still find the votes to pass these appropriation bills on 
time and leave a lot of room for very large tax cuts. Now, that has all 
been demonstrated to be untrue; and we all knew it was untrue from the 
beginning, including many of my friends on the majority side of the 
aisle who would privately admit that it was not true.
  Mr. Speaker, if you look at the numbers, the problem is that the 
budget resolution, which the majority passed at the beginning of the 
year, was $20 billion below the amount needed to simply stay even with 
inflation, and $28 billion or nearly 10 percent below the amounts 
requested by the President, and it called for even deeper reductions in 
each of the next 5 years to finance the ever-escalating outyear costs 
of their tax package. Most of it was aimed at providing the relief for 
folks at the very top of the economic ladder.
  Mr. Speaker, so now reality has caught up with us; and we are here 
just a few weeks before the election still stuck on second base, still 
trying to wave some of those runners home. And I have to come to the 
conclusion that, from time to time, I look around, and I do not see 
anybody in the batter's box. I cannot figure out what signals are 
coming from the bench from whoever is coaching today, because we 
started with one strategy and now, all of a sudden, 2 weeks before we 
are supposed to be adjourned, we are told, ``Oh, we have this new 
approach, this 90-10 approach.'' We are going to use 90 percent for 
deficit reduction and use the other 10 percent for tax cuts and for 
other appropriations and other financial expenditures.''
  But when you look at it that way, that puts $80 billion of new money 
on the table, a huge amount; and all of a sudden, we have subcommittees 
meeting in each separate room all working out their own deals. And we 
have no idea how they relate to each other, no idea what the spending 
level is going to be in the end, no idea what the rules are, no idea 
what the discipline is. So we wind up seeing a process which has no 
discipline.
  It has no order. It does not even have priorities; and, to me, that 
is an incompetent way to try to put together a Federal budget or any 
other piece of legislation. I do not blame the majority party members 
on the Committee on Appropriations, because most of them warned early 
in the game that this would be the case if we followed this course. And 
so I guess we will have to continue to try to do the best we can under 
these circumstances.
  Mr. Speaker, I, for the life of me, cannot figure out what the 
strategy is to either finish these bills or to get signable bills down 
to the White House. I think maybe we have a shot at Interior. I am 
hoping that we can close on Interior very, very soon; but beyond that, 
I am mystified about how we intend to proceed.

                              {time}  1600

  All I can say is that I hope that sooner or later we can get everyone 
in the same room so that we know what is happening with respect to all 
of the pieces. Because until we know that, all of these pieces are 
going to be spinning, all of these pieces are going to be going in 
circles rather than going in any discernible direction; and that serves 
no one's interest. All it does is bring further discredit to the 
institution and make people think that chaos is the norm around here. 
Having served in this place a long time, that was not my impression 
until recently.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the 
distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Scarborough).
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida 
(Chairman Young) for yielding me 4 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, I am always interested in the talk that goes around this 
time of year. We have just heard that we are now in the ninth inning, 
and our friends on the Democratic side of the aisle have actually 
called out their relief pitcher, Newt Gingrich. They are bringing up 
Newt Gingrich. I cannot believe I am hearing my ears.
  The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) is saying we need to follow 
the advice of Newt Gingrich and not be members of the Perfectionist 
Caucus. He goes on to say, as do so many others, that, if we were not 
just such perfectionists, and if we had listened to the gentleman from 
Florida (Chairman Young), perhaps we would have gotten our business 
done.
  Well, we have gone 13 for 13. We listened to the gentleman from 
Florida (Chairman Young). We listened to the appropriators on the 
Republican and the Democratic side. We have gotten all 13 bills passed. 
I think we have done a great job.
  While we are talking about history lessons, why do we not talk about 
the fact that the House and the Senate are two completely different 
animals. Why, I remember my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle 
passing a BTU tax in 1993 that they thought was a great idea. Well, 
their colleagues in the Senate did not agree. Well, that is the way 
this process works. We hope that our friends in the Senate will agree 
with us and come together and pass the bills.
  I think the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) has done a great 
job. I disagree with the statement that this process has brought 
disorder to the House and shown chaos. I think he has done a fantastic 
job from the very beginning.
  But we have a challenge even beyond the Senate. Even if we pass these 
bills in the Senate, the New York Times has reported that the President 
of the United States is considering a government shutdown strategy. We 
cannot control that either.
  Just like back in 1995, I do not know how many people remember, but 
the President of the United States vetoed nine appropriation bills. One 
of those bills which was a Legislative Branch bill, when he got it, he 
said, ``Well, I am going to veto it.'' He vetoed it. They asked him 
why. He said, ``I agreed with the bill, I just wanted to send a 
message.'' Then he sent a message on eight other bills, and then we had 
a government shutdown. He did it before, and he did it back then in 
1995 because he said our plan to balance a budget in 7 years would 
wreck the economy.

[[Page H8120]]

  Now we went through the appropriation process. The gentleman from 
Florida (Chairman Young), then the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. 
Livingston), the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Kasich), several others 
said it was the right thing to do. We had a very ordered process. 
Unfortunately, at the end, the President and our friends on the left 
decided to get involved and in a destructive way vetoed nine 
appropriation bills.
  Again, according to the New York Times, the President is considering 
doing that again. We cannot do anything about that. If the President 
wants to operate under a shutdown strategy in the year 2000, that is 
the President's prerogative. As the gentleman from Florida (Chairman 
Young) said, he has got the power of two-thirds of us. I certainly hope 
he does not do that. I think we have to continue doing the people's 
business.
  Talking about working for the middle class, I have got to tell my 
colleagues, when we came here in 1995, we were mired under debt, we 
were mired under deficit. The appropriations approach taken by the 
Committee on Appropriations back then and this House, it was to get rid 
of the deficit. It was to pay down the debt. We were told it would 
destroy the economy. It did not do it.
  Chairman Greenspan came and testified before the Committee on the 
Budget back in 1995. He said, ``If you follow this blueprint, you will 
see unprecedented economic growth.'' We followed the blueprint. Because 
of it, the President vetoed nine bills. We continued to fight then. 
What happened? History shows that by forcing the President to continue 
down the path of fiscal responsibility and to balance the budget in 7 
years that the economy exploded because of it. I think it is great 
news.
  As far as these charges that somehow we have been held hostage to 
extreme tax cuts, which I have got to give you guys credit, you sure 
stay on message and have for 6 years, the extreme tax cuts were 
approved by over 260 people. You call the marriage penalty relief tax 
extreme. I do not. Over 260 Members of the House, both Republicans and 
Democrats agree with me. Same thing with death tax relief. It is called 
extreme tax relief at the end of the session. But I have got to tell my 
colleagues, during the middle of this session, over 260 Republicans and 
Democrats agreed with it. The majority of Americans agreed with it. So 
the only reason those were not enacted into law was because you all 
were able to hide behind a President's veto, which, again, he can do.
  But let us look at who is really being extreme here. We are doing 
what polls show the American people want, but more importantly what we 
said we would do when we got elected in 1994. I am proud of the 
gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) for his work. I disagree with 
the fact that anything that has happened here has brought discredit to 
this House. I think he has done a great time.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, I would simply point out to the gentleman from Florida 
(Mr. Scarborough) that is a very interesting and a very amusing and not 
very relevant rewrite of history.
  But I would simply ask him, he raises this great specter of the 
President following a veto strategy. Which appropriations bills has the 
President vetoed this year? To my knowledge, he has not vetoed any 
appropriations bills this year. My colleagues have not been able to get 
four bills through their own party in the other body, and they have got 
the gall to claim that the President is the reason that the Congress 
has not done its work. Grow up.
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. OBEY. Surely I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Well, again, I am just saying the President is 
laying in wait, waiting to veto these bills. Second, as I mentioned on 
the Btu issue, sometimes one cannot control what Senators do.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaTourette). The time is controlled by 
the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the gentleman can go back 
to 1993, ancient history, if he desires. That still does nothing to 
change the fact that the President has vetoed no bills.
  The reason this continuing resolution is here is not because he has 
not done his work; it is because this body has not done its work in 
reconciling its differences with the Senate so that you can lay bills 
on the President's desk. It was not the President who blew up the 
Treasury-Postal bill, it was the United States Senate. It was not the 
President who designed a strategy which produced appropriation bills 
you could not get past your own party in the other body, it was your 
own leadership. Accept the consequences of your own actions. That is 
what adults are supposed to do.


                Announcement By The Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would remind all Members it is not 
in order to cast reflections on the United States Senate.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman 
from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I share the amusement of the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), my ranking member, at the recitation of history. 
First of all, CBO, your CBO that you appointed the chair of 2 years ago 
came down and said the reason we have cut the deficit is not because of 
anything that was done on the Republican leadership, it was because of 
the 1993 economic program that was adopted by Democrats only, not one 
Republican voted for it, and the 1990 program signed by President Bush, 
which was excoriated by that same Speaker Gingrich and a number of the 
rest of the Members of his party.
  The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Scarborough) also has a selective 
memory, I suggest to my colleagues, about what Mr. Greenspan said 
before the Committee on the Budget, the Joint Economic Committee, and 
every other committee before which he has testified about the tax cuts. 
Then you take out each individual item. You were smarter this year. You 
said people like this, people like that, so we will take it in small 
bites, and maybe they will not notice that the total is more than the 
one they did not like a year ago August when you thought you were going 
to go to the American public and say, ``Do you believe the President of 
the United States is going to veto this bill?'' And, guess what, the 
American public said, ``Yeah, not only do we believe he is going to, we 
think he ought to because we think it puts Social Security and Medicare 
at risk.''
  Now, this year you cut it up in little pieces and thought maybe you 
could nibble it through. But it would have had the same consequence. 
Mr. Greenspan whom you quote said, ``Uh-uh, you ought not to do that.''
  Let us go back a little more in history in the 1993 bill. The 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) said that, if we passed the 1993 bill, 
the economy would fall off the precipice. Mr. Gingrich said, if we 
enacted the 1993 bill, the economy would go in the tank. The gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Armey) said that it would create high deficits, high 
inflation, and economic disaster. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) 
said that it would create unbelievable unemployment and unbelievable 
deficits.
  Now what has happened, Mr. Speaker, is exactly 180 degrees opposite 
of what every Republican leader said in 1993 would happen as a 
consequence of the adoption of the President's economic program. In 
fact, we have the best economy in the lifetimes of anybody in this 
room, low inflation, more employment than we have ever had, and the 
fastest creation of jobs at any time. Healthy, robust economic growth. 
Most houses owned by American citizens ever in history. Every indicator 
is positive as a direct result.
  Now, going back to what CBO said. CBO said that, not only did you not 
bring down the deficit, but in 1995, 1996, 1997 and 1998, the net 
effect of those 4 years was to increase by $12 billion the deficit. So 
the net reduction was approximately 140 if you put those two bills 
together.
  So let us tell it like it is. I would repeat the gentleman from 
Wisconsin's (Mr. Obey) admonition when you say veto strategy. The 
President has not vetoed anything this year.
  Now, we are going to pass the CR. It is the responsible and right 
thing to do. I am for it. We have done it in the past because we have 
not reached agreement. But I tell the gentleman from

[[Page H8121]]

Florida (Mr. Scarborough), the reason we have not reached agreement is 
because the budget resolution was a resolution for political sake, not 
for substance sake.
  Nobody on the Committee on Appropriations, I tell my friend the 
gentleman from Florida, nobody on either side of the aisle in the 
Committee on Appropriations thought for one minute that the Committee 
on the Budget's resolution was going to be carried out in appropriation 
bills, not because of the President, but because you cannot get it 
through the Congress of the United States. We said that in April. The 
gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) said that in April. That is 
why I quoted the gentleman from South Carolina. In fact that is what 
has happened.
  Let us work together. Let us not have the Perfectionist Caucus 
prevail.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.
  Mr. Speaker, the subject of Presidential vetoes has been raised here 
several times by my two friends who have just spoken. During the 
Committee on Appropriations work, we were told time after time after 
time by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) ``If you do it this 
way, the bill is going to be vetoed.'' How many times on the floor when 
we were considering the appropriations bills did the gentleman from 
Wisconsin say, ``If you do this, the bill is going to be vetoed,'' or 
``If you do not do that, the bill is going to be vetoed.'' He is 
speaking for the administration. But we have had veto threats on almost 
every appropriations bill that we have considered here.
  When the gentleman tells us that a bill is going to be vetoed, then 
we will take the time to try to work with the White House and work 
together, as the gentleman suggested, and see if we can find a way to 
make that bill signable by the President rather than vetoed. But we 
take the gentleman from Wisconsin at his word. The gentleman tells us 
the bill is going to be vetoed. We are going to try to find a way to 
make that bill acceptable to the President if we can.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Scarborough).
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida 
(Chairman Young) for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I am relieved that order has been returned to the 
universe. They have now benched Newt Gingrich again and going back to 
1993 and say maybe we should not follow his strategy.
  I do not know if my colleagues were listening, though, to the same 
testimony that I heard Greenspan give before the Committee on the 
Budget in 1995, but what Alan Greenspan said very specifically, not 
talking about the tax cuts that we have enacted this year, he said, if 
we would enact our plan to balance the budget in 7 years, specifically, 
he said starting in 1995, if we enacted that, we would see interest 
rates drop by 2 percent. And he predicted in 1995, if the Republican 
plan was followed, that we would see unprecedented economic growth not 
seen in peacetime. Do my colleagues know what? He is exactly right.
  Mr. Speaker, we stuck to our guns. We followed the advice of the 
voters we heard in 1994. We followed what Alan Greenspan said. I am 
glad we are having this debate.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, might I inquire how much time is remaining.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) has 
6\1/2\ minutes remaining. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) has 7 
minutes remaining.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

                              {time}  1615

  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member of the Committee 
on Appropriations for yielding me this time.
  As the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural 
Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies of the 
Committee on Appropriations, I have to say that although we are, in a 
way, forced to vote for this continuing resolution for the sake of the 
American people, what has happened inside this institution really is 
not healthy.
  I can tell my colleagues that all day I have been in my office 
fielding calls from Members in this Chamber asking me where our bill 
is, where the different provisions are. Whether it is biomass 
provisions relating to switchgrass in Iowa or whether it is water-
related projects in the West, it really does not matter. I, as a 
Member, cannot tell them because our conference committee has not met.
  We have been getting calls from the other body. We had reached 
agreement on certain amendments which we now understand are pulled. For 
example, on prescription drugs. We had passed different measures here 
to allow reimportation of prescription drugs so our people could get 
the same price as if they go over the border into Canada. We had 
reached agreement that we would put $23 million in this year's bill to 
ensure the public safety on those drugs. Now we are told this provision 
has been lifted from the agriculture appropriation bill, wherever it is 
in the institution, and the leadership is going to be handling that.
  The same is true with the provisions dealing with Cuba, which, 
granted, are very controversial, but we wanted to be able to move 
product into Cuba; allow our businesses to sell there; allow our 
farmers to move product. Now we are told that is lifted out of our 
bill. We are receiving phone calls in our office; and we have to tell 
Members, sorry, we are not being called as conferees.
  I have the greatest respect for the chairman of the full committee. I 
know if it were only up to him, our subcommittees would be allowed to 
meet. But this is really not the way to run the Congress of the United 
States nor the government of the United States.
  As a related issue, Mr. Speaker, and as a Member from Ohio who has 
workers dying from exposure to beryllium, we were told today that the 
Subcommittee on Defense has not allowed, because of the leadership, any 
provision in any bill that would take care of people dying of exposure 
to beryllium, nuclear-related radiation or gaseous diffusion. I think 
that is absolutely wrong when we have it within our power to meet the 
needs of the American people.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman 
from Georgia (Mr. Isakson).
  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time, and I particularly thank him for the education he has given a new 
Member in a short period of time on this process.
  Mr. Speaker, I respect both the gentlemen and the debate they are 
having today. But to be honest, hearing politicians argue about how 
they have revised history makes little difference at all in the 9th 
inning of any baseball game. And with all due respect, my interest and 
my knowledge in this budget process is pretty much limited to 
education, which has taken a beating from the minority side today.
  So I want to forget about history, forget about who introduced what, 
forget about who created what program. I think it is fair for us to 
know what the tentative agreement on the Labor-HHS budget, for this 
year in this Congress today, is in the United States of America.
  It is not a cut, but it is a $562 million increase over President 
Clinton's budget. And that is a fact. It is not a cut, but it is a $1 
billion increase in special education over the President's 
recommendation. And amazingly, it is a $3.1 billion title VI 
improvement offering the opportunity for flexibility for school 
construction at the local level. We would never know in a million 
years, by listening to the other side, that everything priority-wise 
that they debated for local schools to have the opportunity to do 
within good fiscal sound policy exists.
  Sure, other recommendations were made in the past, but the past is 
history. I appreciate the gentleman's mentioning my predecessor, Mr. 
Gingrich. The only history I remember that is lasting is that we as a 
majority are, fortunately, because of him, debating from a position of 
balanced budgets today and not deficits. A lot of people deserve credit 
for it, but he certainly deserves a lot.
  Mr. Speaker, it is not right for the American people on September 26, 
2000, to believe that this Congress is doing anything other than the 
following: increasing education by $562 million; special education by 
$1 billion; and offering local schools the opportunity for

[[Page H8122]]

school construction and other programs at their choice. And stating 
anything else to the contrary is wrong.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman is correct, that what 
is present is the most important. But it is also important to 
understand, I tell my friend from Georgia, how we got to the present. 
Because the bill that I believe he initially voted for was $3.5 billion 
under the President's budget.
  Now, hear me. Originally, when we passed the bill through this House, 
it was $3.5 billion on education under the President's request. So 
that, yes, we are here; but the reason we are here is a little bit of 
what the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) said. The President said he 
was not going to sign that kind of bill.
  The gentleman is right. He has not vetoed it because my colleague has 
not sent it to him. He said, I am not going to sanction that kind of 
cut in education. So, yes, we do readily admit that we have a budget 
that is now presumably going to come out of the Labor-Health conference 
much better, but it is much better because the President of the United 
States said he was not going to sanction that House product.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the 
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Granger), a member of the Committee on 
Appropriations.
  Ms. GRANGER. Mr. Speaker, Members on both sides of the aisle have 
repeatedly stated that it is time to get past politics, yet as we 
consider a continuing resolution to keep the government functioning, 
debates become more political and perhaps less substantive.
  Today's vote is not about partisan rhetoric, it is about results. 
This Congress has tried to work in a bipartisan way, and on a number of 
issues that matter to every-day Americans it has been able to. It has 
certainly done this under the leadership of the gentleman from Florida 
(Mr. Young) in trying to get our bills passed on time.
  One shining example is the fact that we repealed the 60-year-old 
earnings limit imposed on working seniors. We worked together because 
it was the right thing to do. It made sense. It mattered to Americans. 
That should be our standard every time we come into this Chamber, what 
is the right thing to do, what makes sense, and what matters to 
Americans. I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that the answer to each of 
these questions is one in the same.
  We must pass the continuing resolution to keep the government 
functioning and get to work on issues that matter to our families, 
issues like paying down the debt and providing prescription drugs to 
our seniors. The practice of passing continuing resolutions is not 
unusual. It has taken place under Democrat and Republican control both. 
It is what we need to do today.
  The issues we are addressing in the final days of this Congress are 
important and complex. Completing our work will require cooperation. We 
need good-faith efforts at results, not roadblocks. We need every 
Member of the Congress, every Senator, and the White House to do the 
right thing, to do what makes sense and address the issues that matter 
to Americans.
  Let us stop playing politics, pass this resolution, and get back to 
the business of addressing our Nation's problems.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, how much time is remaining on both sides?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaTourette). The gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) has 3\1/2\ minutes, and the gentleman from Florida 
(Mr. Young) has 3 minutes remaining.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  The issue is not what has happened in the past; the issue is what 
ought to happen now. I am amused by our friends on the other side of 
the aisle who claim that all of a sudden the Republicans are the new-
found friend of education. Over the last 6 years, since they have taken 
control of this House, they have tried to cut, in 4 different years, 
they have tried to cut education funding below the previous year--not 
below the request, but below the previous year funding--by about $5.5 
billion.
  Now they are discovering that that is not so popular. And so, 
belatedly, they are beginning to grudgingly give ground; and instead of 
calling for the abolition of the Department of Education and 
eliminating Federal influence in education, they are now grudgingly 
recognizing that there needs to be a Federal role. Yet it is very 
grudgingly given ground indeed.
  If my colleagues want to see our support for the Labor, Health, and 
Education bill, for instance, all they need to do is to get rid of the 
anti-worker riders; get rid of the anti-environmental riders in the 
Interior bill; get rid of the anti-education riders in the Labor-
Health-Education bill, get rid of the anti-health riders that they 
have. And what they need to do is to recognize that if we are going to 
fund education programs fairly, we ought to fund Republican priorities 
as well as Democratic priorities.
  So we welcome the fact that our friends on the other side of the 
aisle have decided they want to increase funding for special education. 
We are asking them to also do what they said they would do in May and 
raise that amount by another $700 million to meet the amount they 
promised the American people in May.
  The Republican presidential candidate, Mr. Bush, claims that he is 
now belatedly for an increase in the Pell Grants, after he pooh-poohed 
that very idea in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, just a month ago. What we are 
asking is this: If he is for that, then why do you not vote for that 
additional increase in Pell Grants that we put on the table in the 
conference?
  We are asking that our colleagues recognize that there is a crying 
need in this country to repair dilapidated school buildings and to keep 
the President's dedicate funding. We are asking our colleagues to 
recognize the need to reduce class size. We are asking that the 
Republicans recognize that 93 percent of education funds in this 
country are spent the way local school districts want them to be spent. 
We are asking our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to use the 
other 7 percent that the Federal Government provides in order to target 
issues of national importance and national need in the interest of 
quality of education and social justice. That is what we need.
  We need to fund both Republican and Democratic priorities in the area 
of education if we are to have the kind of bipartisan support for that 
bill that it ought to have under any Congress, no matter who is 
controlling the Congress.
  So I would simply say, Mr. Speaker, I would urge a vote for this 
resolution, because we have no choice if we want to keep the government 
open, and we do. But I would ask the majority, instead of continuing to 
insist that they please the most rigid elements of their caucus on all 
of their appropriation conferences, I would ask that they recognize we 
need a bipartisan approach to all of these bills, or we will need 
another continuing resolution and yet another one; and we will indeed 
be stuck here until the cows come home.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, my friend, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), has 
mentioned education; and this has been an ongoing debate and argument 
in the Congress. We believe that we have been more generous to the 
educational appropriation than the President requested. But the major 
difference has not been so much the numbers and the dollars. The major 
difference is how is the educational money going to be spent: Is some 
guru here in Washington going to sit down here and determine what is 
best for the school districts and the schools in every one of our 
counties and cities throughout America; or are the people elected at 
the local level going to make the decision on how they should use the 
money available to them?
  For example, in some case we need more buildings. In other cases we 
need more schoolteachers. In other cases we need computers. In other 
cases we need special education. There are so many, many different 
needs in education. And I think that it is far wiser to allow the 
people elected in the local school systems to make the decisions on 
what their needs really are to best educate the children in those 
schools. We are not arguing about the money; we are arguing about who 
makes the decision on how that money is used.
  And now, Mr. Speaker, after having nearly 2 hours of good political 
debate,

[[Page H8123]]

many of the topics not having anything to do with this resolution 
before us, I want to thank my friend, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Obey), for his support of this resolution and the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer). We would all prefer not to have to do this. I 
agree with the gentleman from Wisconsin, that it would be better if all 
13 bills were signed by the President. But we find ourselves today 
needing this continuing resolution until the 6th day of October in 
order to make certain of the smooth continuity of our Federal 
Government.

                              {time}  1630

  So just let me ask the Members to support this continuing resolution. 
And then we will get back to the bargaining tables, negotiate, and find 
the solutions that are acceptable to the House, to the Senate, and to 
the President and then get on about the business of the Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaTourette). All time for debate is 
expired.
  The joint resolution is considered as having been read for amendment.
  Pursuant to House Resolution 591, the previous question is ordered.
  The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the joint 
resolution.
  The joint resolution was ordered to be engrossed and read a third 
time and was read the third time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on passage of the joint 
resolution.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a 
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not 
present.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
  The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 415, 
nays 2, not voting 16, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 493]

                               YEAS--415

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

                                NAYS--2

     DeFazio
     Stark
       

                             NOT VOTING--16

     Campbell
     Clay
     Franks (NJ)
     Gillmor
     Gutierrez
     Horn
     Jones (OH)
     Klink
     Lazio
     McCollum
     McIntosh
     Paul
     Rogan
     Smith (MI)
     Vento
     Watkins

                              {time}  1652

  Mr. KANJORSKI and Mr. CAPUANO changed their vote from ``nay'' to 
``yea.''
  So the joint resolution was passed.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________