[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 137 (Friday, October 27, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H11362-H11368]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
FURTHER CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS, FISCAL YEAR 2001
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the provisions of
House Resolution 646, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 117)
making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2001, and
for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the
House.
The Clerk read the title of the joint resolution.
The text of House Joint Resolution 117 is as follows:
H.J. Res. 117
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled, That Public
Law 106-275, is further amended by striking the date
specified in section 106(c) and inserting ``October 28,
2000''.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 646, 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. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, I would just point out that this is another one of those
1-day continuing resolutions.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, ``Groundhog Day.'' That is what it feels like to me.
Last night, almost the last bit of business we did, we passed a 1-day
resolution continuing the government. This morning, because there is
obviously not much to do on the floor, we have an early motion to again
continue the government for another day. This is ``Groundhog Day.''
How many times have we gone through this now? Is this the seventh
time? I frankly have forgotten.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. If the gentleman will yield, I believe this is
the third 1-day CR, the seventh overall.
Mr. OBEY. The fifth one. All right. I want to make it clear that I
think that the gentleman from Florida has done everything he possibly
could to exercise his responsibilities in a responsible manner. And I
think that his counterpart in the other body, the gentleman from
Alaska, has also done everything he could to live up to his
responsibilities. The problem is that they have been under orders from
their leadership since day one of this session to peddle a national
fiction. And that fiction has been that this Congress was going to
spend about $40 billion less than it actually intended to spend. And
now having spent 10 months passing bills out of this Chamber that the
other side knew were fictions, last week we finally came to fess-up
time and last week this House voted to raise the allowable spending
levels by about $40 billion. We have been trying to negotiate our
remaining differences. We thought 2 days ago that we were very close to
closing our differences on the Commerce-Justice bill.
{time} 0915
But then, for some reason, the leadership decided to throw away a day
yesterday. So, despite the fact they were told the President would veto
the bill that the House intended to send to him, they decided to ram it
at him again one last time.
The issues that divide us on that bill are five:
First of all, a bill which is supposed to protect our precious
coastal land areas from environmental degradation, instead has been
turned into a bill which would allow you, literally, to build oil
refineries on the sea coast, on the beaches, in the sensitive coastal
areas in any State in the Union except Alaska. I am sorry, it would
allow it in
[[Page H11363]]
Alaska too. What it would not allow in Alaska is to have any Federal
money spent to deal with the sensitive issue of coastal zone
protection. So that is one anti-public interest problem with that bill.
The second is that it also contained language which pretended to do
something to assure Americans' privacy on the Internet, but in fact
opened up holes big enough to drive 65 foot trucks through. There were
20 of our friends on that side of the aisle who voted with us yesterday
against that bill, and some of them indicated that that was the reason,
and I salute them for it.
Then the third issue dividing us on that bill is the question of
whether or not we are going to treat immigrants who have been in this
country for years equally if they come from countries like El Salvador,
as opposed to whether they come from Nicaragua.
One Member stood on the floor yesterday and defended the different
way we treat those souls by saying in effect, well, it is different if
they fled Central America coming from Nicaragua because they were a
communist dictatorship, it is different than if they fled Central
America to run away from a right-wing dictatorship that we had in El
Salvador at the time.
I remember that right-wing dictatorship. I remember when there were
officials going on television and fingering our own ambassador for
assassination. The stories have now come out about how General Vides
Casanova and others lied through their teeth to every Congressional
delegation that went down there, and lied through their teeth to the
press, to their own society, and had full knowledge of the
assassinations of Salvadorean citizens that were occurring at the hand
of that government and that military.
There are some advantages to having been around here for a fair
amount of time, because you remember those things, and you take certain
lessons from them, and the lesson that I take from that is that if we
are to show mercy to people who are in flight from despotic
governments, that mercy ought to be even-handed, because you are just
as dead if you are killed or assassinated by a right-wing militia as
you are if you are assassinated by a left-wing militia. We have seen
too much of both in that region. We have got one left that we want to
get rid of, and we all know who it is. I do not mean in terms of
getting rid of the human being; I mean getting rid of him in occupying
the power that he now holds.
Then we have another problem with that bill. That problem is that our
Federal Treasury has expended billions of dollars over the past
generation paying the costs that have been incurred by American
taxpayers because of what tobacco products have done to American
veterans and to Americans who are now senior citizens. That has cost
Medicare and Medicaid billions of dollars, and yet there is language in
the State-Justice bill which says that not one dime of funding in that
bill can be used to pursue in court redress against an industry that
lied to the public and lied to the Congress about the effect of their
product.
I am one of those people who used cigarettes. I used to smoke three
packs a day, at the same time that I worked with asbestos. I did not
know, but the company did, that asbestos caused cancer, and I did not
know that there was a synergistic effect between asbestos and tobacco,
which meant that you have probably a four or five times greater chance
of getting mesothelioma or lung cancer, one of the two, one of which
our former colleague, Mr. Vento, just died from, there was that much
greater chance of dying if you used cigarettes and were exposed to
asbestos.
Johns Manville knew since 1939 what the problem was on asbestos, and
the tobacco companies have known for a long time what the tobacco
problem is, and yet the only dollar difference that we had in that bill
yesterday between the majority and the minority was whether or not we
ought to be able to appropriate a tiny amount of money to pay for the
lawsuit that could have the possibility of bringing billions of dollars
into the Federal Treasury to help us defray those costs. So the one
thing that could have helped increase our surplus, out of all of the
things we were doing yesterday, that was knocked out of the bill.
Then you get to our differences on Labor-HHS and Education. There we
have an argument about what the spending levels ought to be for
education. This Congress has spent billions of dollars above what the
President has asked in a variety of areas. Some of that I think is
defensible, and some is not. But we are now being told, sorry, we are
not going to put one dime above what we have already put in the
education bill to meet your additional requirements for education. That
is what we are being told. So we continue to have an argument about
what level of funding we ought to have for special education, for
teacher training, for smaller class size initiatives, for school
modernization, for Pell and a number of other issues.
Then we have the issue that the President is trying to get attended
to by this Congress on the issue of school construction as opposed to
modernization. There we have a $125 billion backlog. The President is
trying to attack 20 percent of that backlog, and so far he is meeting
resistance.
Then we have the issue of whether or not workers are going to be
protected from the dangers associated with repetitive motion injury in
the workplace, the single most expensive problem in American industry
today, the lost time and the costs associated with repetitive motion
industries.
This is despite the fact that this committee, the Committee on
Appropriations, passed out to the House last year and the House adopted
legislation which promised that we would not again delay the efforts of
OSHA to promulgate the regulation to protect those American workers.
Despite that promise in writing, this House welched on that promise. It
is trying to bar going ahead with that provision.
Then we have several other issues that still divide us. On that
score, the House sent the President a tax bill yesterday which was
doomed from the start. It was a blind alley piece of legislation,
because the President said he is going to veto it, because far too many
of the benefits, again, go to the cream, the folks at the top layers,
and all too few of those dollars go to low income people, and the
minimum wage hike is being held ransom to many of those rewards.
There are a lot of items in that tax bill I do not have any objection
to, but there are some that are outrageous. And that bill is a Trojan
horse. It is a Trojan horse.
So, we are stuck here, passing these one day resolutions, because
this House still refuses to come to a compromise mode and work out
differences with the White House. So we have no choice but to pass this
resolution. But I thought it was important before we relinquished the
floor on this issue to summarize what the main issues are, and the main
issue on the appropriations side as I see it is still education,
education, education.
Here I think we have something interesting going on in the country.
We have a stealth campaign being run by the other side. This is a
Congress under the leadership of our friends on the other side, this is
a Congress which over the last 5 years has tried to cut presidential
budgets for education by $13.5 billion. Lest you say, oh, we are just
talking about increases, they also tried to cut the education budget
below previous years' spending levels by over $5.5 billion. On four
different occasions they tried to make those cuts in existing spending
levels for education.
Now, because the polls show that education is an important issue, all
of a sudden they have got a presidential candidate out there who is
sort of a Trojan horse, who puts a benign face on the party, in hopes
that people will look at that genial smile, rather than looking at the
record of his fellow party members in this institution over the past 5
years.
I think the fight we are having on education now dramatizes, once
again, what you folks on the other side of the aisle would really do if
you had full power to govern. I think the last 6 years, in terms of you
are trying to abolish the Department of Education, in terms of you are
trying to cut back on education funding, in terms of you are trying to
squeeze every opportunity you could out of the session to pass anti-
environmental riders on appropriation bills, it is clear to me that
that is what your road map is, long-term.
[[Page H11364]]
So we are not fighting here about a day or two or three; we are
continuing to try to fight for the priorities that we think are
important to meet the needs of the American people. We are going to
have more than 1 million additional kids in schools over the next
decade. We are not doing enough about it. That is what we are trying to
correct. And as soon as the majority recognizes that the President is
serious on this issue, we may finally have a resolution of those
issues.
Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman
from California (Mr. George Miller).
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman
for yielding me time, and I thank him for the points that he raised,
both about the legislation yesterday and the Commerce-State-Justice
bill, which I join him in urging the President to veto.
As one who represents a coastal state whose district is on the edge
of San Francisco bay, it is a tragedy that that legislation did not
provide the funding necessary so that we can implement our Coastal Zone
Management Plan to deal with non-point source pollution, the runoff
that comes from our cities, our farmlands, from the logging areas
upstream, that are devastating water quality in our rivers, in our
bays, and along our coast.
Last year, California had beach closures over 3,000 times, some as
long 6 to 12 weeks, and a few that were in fact permanent. The impact
of that on our economy and tourism is the same kind of impact where
they have had that kind of situation along the East Coast, where
beaches have had to be closed because of water quality.
The single biggest polluter at this point is non-pointed source
pollution, the runoff, whether it is the Chesapeake Bay or Santa Monica
Bay or the Gulf of Mexico, where that runoff is collected in the
Mississippi River, sent down to the Gulf of Mexico and has created a
dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico that is thousands of square miles,
where simply life cannot live in those sections of the Gulf of Mexico.
{time} 0930
I would hope that the President would veto that.
The gentleman also mentioned immigrants. I find it rather interesting
on the front page of the Business section of the Washington Post, it
says ``Sweet Harvest for Virginia's Vintners'', for the wine industry
in Virginia, a Sweet Harvest.
When we open up the paper on the inside and we see who is harvesting
those grapes, it is Gerardo Chavez. Gerardo Chavez is harvesting those
grapes. Yet the other side decided that they were not going to provide
for the fair treatment of immigrants; they were going to distinguish
between those people who came here from Cuba and Nicaragua and El
Salvador.
The gentleman quite correctly points out, we now see that they were
fleeing governments in El Salvador that not only were involved with
fingering, and we were involved with fingering El Salvadorans citizens
who then disappeared, were tortured and killed, but now, of course, we
see the direct relationship between their involvement and the killing
of the religious women from America.
Those families have had to live with that tragedy now for over a
decade as we have tried to get to the bottom of that case. And it turns
out now, of course, high Salvadoran officials and the security police
and armed forces knew about that and covered it up all of those years.
That is the government that these people were fleeing.
Many of those people who fled those governments now are working very
hard in the American economy and, yet, we are going to deny them the
rights to try to provide for legal and permanent residency and give
them the right to prove their situation, rather than send them off back
to the country and let them try to prove that from overseas. That
treatment of immigrants is inexcusable.
We could not run the economy of this country for a day if the
immigrants decided to sit down. We could not run the economy of
California for 5 minutes if the immigrants did not show up for work,
whether it is our tourism economy, whether it is our agricultural
economy, whether it is our manufacturing economy, that is the simple
fact of the matter. We ought to start dealing with these people in a
fair and equitable fashion.
The gentleman also mentioned the continued attack. Many times people
ask, what are we arguing over? What is it? We are just bickering. We
are just arguing back and forth. This is about whether or not people
who go to the workplace will be protected from damages to their nerves
and to their muscles and to the skeletal system from the repetitive
motion in the workplace.
We are all familiar with this. Members of Congress are familiar with
this. Flight attendants now wear braces on their wrists and on their
arms and on their hands because of repetitive motion. The checkers in
the supermarket wear braces on their hands and their elbows because of
repetitive motion.
If we go to Home Depot, we will see people wearing back braces to try
to prevent repetitive motion. We will see people wearing braces on
their hands, machine operators, lathe operators, people who go to work
everyday and work very hard, and, yet, the Republicans are absolutely
committed to not letting those regulations go in place, that not only
will save those companies millions and millions of dollars in worker's
compensation claims, but it will extend these individuals work lives so
they can provide for their families so they will not have to take a job
that pays them less, or they will not have to leave the workforce and
live on disability.
Yet, in spite of what the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) pointed
out, in spite of the written promises, they are reneging on that, and
they are fighting the President on that matter.
We are staying here for very real reasons that impact American's
families, whether it is the kind of schools that their children go to
and the failure to provide some help for those districts that want to
construct schools but may not have the resources to do it, to provide
them some interest breaks on those bonds so they can construct those
schools.
Because the evidence is very clear, you can take a child from almost
any economic or socioeconomic setting, from any background, and you put
them with the first-class qualified teacher, with a first-class
curriculum and in a first class school, and they learn like just about
anyone else. We ought to, in fact, make sure that we can carry that
out.
These fights are real, but they are about the future of the American
family. It is about whether or not Medicare is going to be there for
them, or whether or not we are simply going to reimburse the HMOs and
the insurance companies that overpromised and failed to deliver to the
senior citizens or those that just simply closed up shop and left
hundreds of thousands of senior citizens in different regions of the
country without a health care plan.
Let us remember what the original plan was. The original plan by the
Republicans was if we joined an HMO, a Medicare HMO, we could not come
back to the regular system. We almost shut the government down over
that debate, but we prevailed and President Clinton prevailed to make
sure that senior citizens that went to an HMO if it did not serve their
needs could come back to the Medicare system.
If that law that they wanted then, that we fought and extended to
Congress over, was in place, those people would be with no health care,
no Medicare, because they would have chosen to go into a system that
turned out to be a fly-by-night operation.
I just have one question to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
Continuing resolutions, this one for 24 hours or for 48 hours, we had
one a few days ago for 4 days, the last continuing resolution was for 4
days and everybody went home. I thought continuing resolutions were
supposed to be the President gave us some additional time to get the
work done.
People are saying now that we are going to pass these continuing
resolutions and people are going to go home again. I just do not
understand how we go forward with these kinds of continuing resolutions
that basically enable everyone to go home. I would hope that we would
take that into consideration as Members vote on this CR.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.
Mr. Speaker, I want to say to the gentleman from California (Mr.
George Miller), who just left the well, that we are doing 1-day CRs
because
[[Page H11365]]
the President of the United States has told us that he would not sign
anything other than a 1-day CR; so that is their decision.
We understand the power of the Presidency, and so we are prepared to
accommodate that.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr.
Cunningham), a member of the Committee on Appropriations.
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I do not think our side was even going
to talk on this. The partisan bickering, the rancoring that goes on
here, I think that the American public can see what we are facing from
our colleagues on the other side. They want to stay, all right. They
want to stay not over policy, but for politics.
Do you know what I am most resentful about? That the other side and
the last few speakers that talked about said that Democrats are the
only ones that really care about education. The Democrats say they are
the only ones that really care about school construction or Medicare or
Medicaid or prescription drugs.
I worked most of my life here on this House floor. I fight, every
ounce of my survival, to make sure that those issues are taken care of,
not only for our children, but for our seniors as well.
The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the Speaker of the House,
is a teacher and a coach. In his heart and in his mind and in his soul,
he cares deeply about education.
I was a teacher and a coach both in high school and in college. It is
one of the main focuses that I have. And for the other side to say
that, we are so mean and rotten because of our policies. Well, let me
tell you what the politics of this are. We will stay and fight for
education. We will stay and fight for prescription drugs and for our
seniors and health care.
I will not allow the other side to mislead, for example, on school
construction. We could have school construction today. Our schools are
crumbling. For 30 years, they had control of the education process.
What is the outcome? We have some very good teachers and very good
schools, which I am very fortunate in my district to have, in North San
Diego County.
I have been to teacher awards, but across this Nation, we are last in
math and science. That is a crime.
Mr. Speaker, we have to hire outside people with Ph.D.s to come in to
our country to take over high-level and high-tech jobs because we do
not have enough Ph.D.s; that is a crime.
But my colleagues on the other side would rather cater to the unions
than to come out with education dollars.
Let me give you an idea. Why do you think they want school
construction out of Federal dollars? Their campaigns are loaded with
union boss money. I was in 18 districts over the last 3 months, the
minimum amount that the unions had put against any one of those
candidates was a million dollars. They do not want to give up that
lifeblood.
School construction out of Federal dollars falls under Davis-Bacon,
the union or the prevailing wage, that costs about between 15 percent
to 35 percent more for those States that have it. Let us waive Davis-
Bacon just for school construction. Let us let the schools keep that
money and build more schools or teacher training or teacher pay or
class-size reduction.
But do you think my colleagues would do that? Absolutely not. We had
it on the D.C. bill. Do you care about children? Do you care about
schools, or do you care about your union bosses?
Well, I think it is very evident, because they will not. They know
that many Republicans have union districts. When we bring it to a vote,
we lose it because of the unions.
``The power,'' they talk about campaign finance reform; what a joke.
What a joke.
I ran out of time the other day on education. But just like Goals
2000, they wanted the power for education to reside here in Washington,
D.C. Goals 2000 is a good example.
There are 14 wills in the previous bill. A will for a lawyer means
you will do this. One of those wills, you have to establish boards to
see if you fall in the guidelines of Goals 2000. They say it is only
voluntary, but only if you want the money.
Well, you establish a board to see if you are within the guidelines,
then they send it to the regular Board of Education. The board sends it
to the principal. The principal sends it to the superintendent. Then
you have to send all of that paperwork, hours of labor, to Sacramento,
CA.
Now, think about all the schools in California. Sending all of that
paperwork to Sacramento. Think of the bureaucracy you have to have in
Sacramento just to go through the paperwork. Then where do they send
it? They send it back here to the Department of Education.
Now, think about all the schools in the United States sending all of
that paperwork back here to the Department of Education. Think of the
bureaucracy that they have to have back here. Then there is paperwork
flow back and forth.
And so what happens? We get less money for education because of the
bureaucrats in Washington, DC, because of the rules and the
regulations. Federal education only covers about 7 percent of the
funding, but it controls much of the funding from the State and local
districts, and that is what my colleagues want.
They want government control of education, government control of
private property. You want government control of health care. You want
government to control everything. Not mean-spirited, that is what you
believe. We believe in people, and we are willing to stay here and
fight for people of this country and have the rights of choice
decisions for theirselves.
Yes, we will stay back and fight, Mr. Speaker. We will fight for the
people, not the union bosses.
Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). Members are reminded that
remarks in debate should be addressed to the Chair and not to others in
the second person or by name.
Members are further reminded that they are to refrain from the use of
profanity in debate.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1\1/4\ minutes.
Mr. Speaker, there is nothing partisan about citing the record. The
public needs to know if there are any real differences between us, and
I think I cited those differences without rancor and with accuracy and
without questioning motives.
Mr. Speaker, let me simply say that I do find three things strange.
Our friends on the majority side brag about the fact that they raised
education 50 percent during the time they have controlled the Congress,
that is only because we defeated them in their efforts to cut education
by huge amounts. We eventually forced them to add $15 billion back to
education spending.
On prescription drugs, they say they are for prescription drugs. But
the record demonstrates they have been trying for a year to block a
comprehensive benefit under Medicare and would target their package
only to those at the near poverty level.
As far as the patients' bill of rights is concerned, their
Presidential candidate claimed that he had been in support of the
patients' bill of rights when, in fact, as Governor of Texas, he vetoed
it, and then the second time around, when his tail feathers were being
singed by public opinion, he let it become law without his signature.
Mr. Speaker, I think the record is clear on the divisions that are
keeping us here.
Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from
Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), the distinguished Minority Leader.
(Mr. GEPHARDT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
{time} 0945
Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this continuing
resolution, our seventh in 5 weeks. But I deeply regret that we have
reached this point. We should never have found ourselves in the mess
that we are in, and we must stay here and work each day until we
complete the business required by the law and for the American people.
Let us do the rare thing and come together in a bipartisan fashion to
accomplish some meaningful things for the American people. Let us stop
closed-door partisan meetings. No more sending up bills at 7 a.m. with
only a few hours for review.
[[Page H11366]]
No more tax breaks for special interests and lopsided bills that we
know the President will not sign.
There is a list of missed opportunities in this Congress. Republicans
killed the bipartisan hate crimes law supported by large majorities of
both houses. They support the pharmaceutical companies by refusing to
let us even vote on a bill that puts prescription drug benefits in the
reliable world of Medicare. Partisan tax packages are put together
without consultation or negotiation with the President or Democrats in
Congress.
Just yesterday, Republicans brought up a tax package that gave a lot
to the HMOs and not enough to patients, people, hospitals, nursing
homes, and home health care agencies.
Minimum wage increases are put in bills that give maximum benefit to
special interest. And this week, Republicans tried to give more tax
help to wealthy bondholders through school construction bonds that do
not give public schools the incentives or the help they need to
modernize their schools.
So we have amassed a record of partisanship with virtually no
accomplishments. We still have time in the few remaining days of this
session to work until the last hour of the last day. We can pass the
Latino and Immigrant Fairness Act. We can pass the bipartisan hate
crimes bill. We can pass a school construction credit that will really
help local districts relieve the burden on local property taxpayers who
may be willing to vote for bonds under those circumstances so that we
can get smaller classroom sizes.
We can pass an enforceable, effective Patients' Bill of Rights. We
can pass a prescription medicine program under Medicare that will allow
everyone in a voluntary and universal way to be able to access that
very important benefit.
We could pass campaign reform that gets rid of the flood of soft,
non-Federal money in the campaigns. We could get meaningful gun safety
legislation that would take the danger out of our classrooms and our
other public institutions.
We still have an opportunity in these last days to get all of those
things done, or at least some of them done. And so I plead with my
friends on the other side of the aisle, and my side of the aisle, let
us work together in the remaining hours of this session. Let us produce
legislation that will be signed by the President and that will help all
the people of this country.
Time is not yet up. We can do this. But to do it, it takes a spirit
of bipartisanship and communication and working together to get these
things done.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my
time.
Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment the minority leader again today, as
I did the last time that he made this same speech calling for
bipartisanship and all working together. I am all for that. I think we
ought to do that. But it is interesting. Almost immediately after he
made the speech last week, all we heard from his side of the aisle was
more partisan attacks, not even related to the issues that we were
dealing with.
Of all of the things that we have heard talked about today, I do not
think more than one or two of them had to do with appropriations. We
are here today to deal with an appropriations matter, not all of these
other issues, these authorizing issues, these legislating issues. I
find it difficult to keep track of what bill is before the House when
we hear all of the rhetoric that in my opinion is purely campaign
rhetoric.
I think that those campaign speeches that we just heard this morning,
I think that is about the 69th time that I have heard those same
speeches in the last 60 days, and I think we should give them all a
number. We could save the time of the House so that we could get about
our business if we just took each one of their arguments and gave it a
number. When they stand up, say ``Argument Number 2, Argument Number
10,'' we could save a lot of time, because we have memorized their
speeches. Those speeches that should have been reserved for the
campaign trail, because that is where they belong, not in this House
where the people's business has to come first.
We are also criticized for working at night. We work a lot of nights.
We work all day long. And we work at night too. And not only the
Republican side; the Democrats do too. Despite some of the accusations
about secret meetings, in all of the negotiations the Republican
Majority and the Democratic minority have been involved together and
most of them have included representatives of the President from the
White House.
We have tried to be as totally fair as we possibly could be. We did
not learn that was the right thing to do from the time that we were the
minority, because we were never given those kind of opportunities. We
were never allowed to participate in the decision-making, and so we
vowed that the minority party would have the opportunity that we did
not have as a minority when we gained the majority. And I think we have
been pretty true to that. I do not think that there is any room for any
criticism that we have excluded the minority from any of these
conversations.
Now, it is suggested that we ought to do everything that the
President wants. Well, we are trying to accommodate the President,
because he is the President and he has as much power at this stage of
the appropriations process as two-thirds of this House and two-thirds
of the Senate. Because if he decides to veto a bill, it takes two-
thirds of the House and two-thirds of the Senate to override that veto.
So he becomes very powerful in this process and that is why we have
worked very diligently with the President's representatives to try to
accommodate him to the best of our ability.
Mr. Speaker, I will give an example on education. We have proposed in
our legislation to provide considerably over a billion dollars more
money for education than the President requested in his budget. The big
holdup has been, we believe, that the local school officials, the
elected school boards, in our counties and our districts should have
the opportunity to decide if they need new school buildings? Do they
need more teachers? Do they need more special education? Do they need
books? Do they need supplies? They should make those decisions, not
somebody sitting here in Washington.
The minority side would like people to believe that Republicans
really do not support education. That is just as phony as it can be. We
are strong supporters of education. Let me give an example. Most of my
colleagues in the House are very much aware that for all of the years
that I have been here, I have spent most of my time dealing with
national defense issues, national security and intelligence. And that
is a fact. I have spent a lot of time on that because that is important
to our Nation. If we do not have a secure Nation, we do not have much
else.
But after making all the speeches about national defense, let me
suggest this. If we are going to sustain our position in the world due
to high technology and state-of-the-art weapons and systems, and if we
are going to sustain the ability of our young men and women to function
with these systems and to operate them, we have got to have the best
educational system possible. And I know that our strong national
defense, our strong intelligence capabilities, our strong state-of-the-
art technology, and the creation of new technology, do not happen if we
do not have a strong and effective educational system.
Republicans believe that. That is why we are so committed to having a
very strong educational system.
One of the issues that the minority leader mentioned just a few
minutes ago was about the tax bill. That is not what is before us this
morning. But he mentioned some of the groups that might have been
affected by that tax bill. But one of our colleagues on our side, the
gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) just the other day read off a
list of the people and the groups who supported the tax bill, and the
groups that he mentioned were all supporters of the tax bill. They did
not oppose it. They supported it.
It is interesting when the government has a huge surplus of money,
there are those who believe that surplus belongs to the government.
Wrong. Wrong. That surplus belongs to the taxpayers of this great
Nation. And just because it is there does not mean that the government
should spend it. So the tax bill I think is supported dramatically by
the American people.
Now, if we have a large surplus, how did it come about? We came into
this
[[Page H11367]]
Congress as a majority party a few years back determined to balance the
budget. We met all kind of resistance. We were told that we cannot do
it, and we did not get much support from the other side to balance the
budget. But we balanced it, and today they will stand and take credit
for it.
We turned the tables on those who were downsizing our national
defense, and we began to rebuild. We began to replace spare parts that
were needed. We began to create a much better quality of life for
people in our military. We gave them the largest pay raise last year,
another pay raise this year that the Congress initiated, but the
administration is taking credit for it. We balanced the budget. We have
a surplus.
Mr. Speaker, since I became chairman of the Committee on
Appropriations, we have not spent one dime out of the Social Security
Trust Fund, and yet there are those candidates running around the
country today saying, ``Oh, be careful of those Republicans. They are
going to destroy your Social Security.'' Not true, Mr. Speaker. That is
a phony argument and a phony accusation. We are the ones who stopped
the raid on the Social Security fund.
We have a record to be proud of in our appropriations bills. We are
proud of that record too because this House of Representatives under
our leadership passed all of our appropriations bills a long time ago.
The holdup and the delay has not come from the House. The additional
spending, the additional projects have not come from the House.
But, Mr. Speaker, one of the biggest problems is all of the
extraneous material, the 69 campaign speeches we have heard in the last
2 months. Those campaign speeches have talked about policy issues that
some people would like to decide on in an appropriation bill. Well,
there is a regular order in this House of Representatives on how we
deal with those issues. We have numerous authorizing committees that
have the jurisdiction and the responsibility to deal with those big
issues. It has long been a practice that appropriation bills are
appropriation bills and we do not legislate on appropriation bills,
unless there is an exceptionally valid reason to do so.
But now they want us to take all of the philosophical issues that are
out there and lump them on to an appropriation bill without hearings,
without the opportunity for the House to deal with those issues
directly. They want to lump them on to an appropriation bill. And why
is that? Because appropriation bills have to pass. If appropriation
bills do not pass, then the government does not function.
Mr. Speaker, we have approached our responsibilities in what I think
is a very responsible way. I would prefer not to be here today with
this one-day continuing resolution. We tried to meet yesterday with
representatives from the President's office. They were not available to
us yesterday so that we could work on the last bill. There is only one
bill left out there. We hope to meet all day today with the
administration and with the minority party on that one bill. And if we
have to, we will go into the night. And if it takes going into the
night, we are going to do it. And then we will be accused, of course,
of doing something in the dark of night. But if we are going to work 16
or 18 hours a day, a lot of that time is dark time.
We are going to work to get the people's job done. We are not here to
make political campaign speeches in this House. We are here to do our
job in a responsible fashion. We are here to put the people's business
above politics. When we leave here, we will go home and that is where
we will do our politics.
Mr. Speaker, I ask for a ``yes'' vote on the CR, and I yield back the
balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). All time for debate has expired.
The joint resolution is considered as having been read for amendment.
Pursuant to House Resolution 646, 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 the third
time, and was read the third time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the passage of the joint
resolution.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not
present.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 366,
nays 13, not voting 53, as follows:
[Roll No. 563]
YEAS--366
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Aderholt
Allen
Andrews
Archer
Armey
Baca
Bachus
Baker
Baldacci
Baldwin
Ballenger
Barcia
Barrett (NE)
Barrett (WI)
Bartlett
Bass
Becerra
Bentsen
Bereuter
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Biggert
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
Cardin
Carson
Castle
Chabot
Chambliss
Clayton
Clement
Clyburn
Coble
Coburn
Collins
Combest
Condit
Conyers
Cook
Cooksey
Coyne
Crane
Cubin
Cummings
Cunningham
Davis (FL)
Davis (IL)
Davis (VA)
Deal
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
DeLay
DeMint
Deutsch
Diaz-Balart
Dicks
Doggett
Dooley
Doolittle
Doyle
Dreier
Duncan
Edwards
Ehlers
Ehrlich
Emerson
Engel
English
Eshoo
Etheridge
Evans
Everett
Ewing
Farr
Filner
Fletcher
Foley
Forbes
Fossella
Frelinghuysen
Frost
Gallegly
Gejdenson
Gekas
Gephardt
Gibbons
Gillmor
Gilman
Gonzalez
Goode
Goodlatte
Goodling
Gordon
Goss
Graham
Granger
Green (TX)
Green (WI)
Greenwood
Gutierrez
Gutknecht
Hall (OH)
Hall (TX)
Hansen
Hastings (FL)
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hayworth
Herger
Hill (IN)
Hill (MT)
Hilleary
Hinojosa
Hobson
Hoeffel
Hoekstra
Holden
Holt
Hooley
Horn
Hostettler
Houghton
Hoyer
Hulshof
Hunter
Hyde
Inslee
Istook
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jenkins
John
Johnson (CT)
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (NC)
Jones (OH)
Kanjorski
Kelly
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilpatrick
Kind (WI)
King (NY)
Kleczka
Knollenberg
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
Mascara
Matsui
McCarthy (MO)
McCarthy (NY)
McDermott
McGovern
McHugh
McKeon
McKinney
McNulty
Meehan
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Menendez
Mica
Millender-McDonald
Miller (FL)
Miller, Gary
Minge
Mink
Moakley
Moore
Moran (KS)
Moran (VA)
Morella
Murtha
Myrick
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal
Nethercutt
Ney
Northup
Norwood
Nussle
Oberstar
Obey
Ortiz
Ose
Owens
Oxley
Packard
Pallone
Pascrell
Paul
Payne
Pease
Pelosi
Peterson (MN)
Petri
Phelps
Pickering
Pickett
Pitts
Pombo
Pomeroy
Porter
Portman
Price (NC)
Pryce (OH)
Quinn
Radanovich
Rahall
Ramstad
Rangel
Reyes
Reynolds
Riley
Rivers
Rodriguez
Roemer
Rogan
Rogers
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Rothman
Roukema
Roybal-Allard
Royce
Rush
Ryan (WI)
Ryun (KS)
Sabo
Salmon
Sanchez
Sandlin
Sanford
Sawyer
Saxton
Scarborough
Schaffer
Schakowsky
Scott
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shaw
Sherman
Sherwood
Shimkus
Shows
Shuster
Simpson
Sisisky
Skeen
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Souder
Spence
Stabenow
Stearns
Stenholm
Strickland
Stump
Sununu
Sweeney
Tancredo
Tanner
Tauscher
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Terry
Thomas
Thompson (CA)
Thornberry
Thune
Thurman
Tiahrt
Tierney
Toomey
Towns
Traficant
Turner
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Upton
Velazquez
Vitter
Walden
Walsh
Wamp
Waters
Watt (NC)
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
Wexler
Weygand
Whitfield
Wicker
Wilson
Wolf
Woolsey
Wu
Wynn
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NAYS--13
Baird
Capuano
Costello
DeFazio
Dingell
Ford
[[Page H11368]]
Frank (MA)
Hilliard
Kaptur
Miller, George
Pastor
Stupak
Visclosky
NOT VOTING--53
Barr
Barton
Bilbray
Campbell
Chenoweth-Hage
Clay
Cox
Cramer
Crowley
Danner
Dickey
Dixon
Dunn
Fattah
Fowler
Franks (NJ)
Ganske
Gilchrest
Hefley
Hinchey
Hutchinson
Isakson
Jefferson
Johnson, Sam
Kasich
Kingston
Klink
Kolbe
Lazio
Martinez
McCollum
McCrery
McInnis
McIntosh
McIntyre
Metcalf
Mollohan
Olver
Peterson (PA)
Regula
Sanders
Serrano
Shays
Spratt
Stark
Talent
Tauzin
Thompson (MS)
Watkins
Watts (OK)
Waxman
Weiner
Wise
{time} 1018
Mr. GUTIERREZ changed his vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
So the joint resolution was passed.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
Stated for:
Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 563, I was inadvertently
detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''
____________________