[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 139 (Sunday, October 29, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H11510-H11511]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  A CONTINUATION OF HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I want to come back to this question. I 
will be happy to yield time to any of my colleagues who are here on the 
floor, but I really do think this is the question: how much is enough? 
I say that because I was a member of the State legislature in 
Minnesota; and I must say, since I came to Washington 6 years ago, and 
we have always had a situation where the President was of the 
Democratic Party and the Congress, since I came, has been in control by 
the Republicans, and that has caused more friction perhaps than it 
really should. But I was in the State legislature when we had a 
Republican Governor and a democratically controlled legislature, and we 
were somehow able to get things done. I mean I do not understand why it 
is that we have to have this grid lock. I do think this is part of the 
question, and I also agree that there are other questions that need to 
be resolved. But it seems to me, and I agree with my colleague from 
Texas, reasonable people ought to be able to work this out.
  We said originally in our budget resolution, we thought we could 
legitimately meet the needs of the Federal Government and all the 
people who depend upon it for about $1.86 trillion. My colleague has 
pointed out that we have already exceeded those spending caps. That 
bothers me. But we are all now saying, at least most of us are saying, 
that what we at least ought to do as we see more and more surpluses 
piling up, this year, at least, that 90 percent of that surplus ought 
to go to pay down debt. I think just about everybody agrees with that.
  When we look at basic things, there is not that much to argue about. 
It comes down to some simple things, as we saw on the chart. The 
numbers we have in terms of education are almost identical to what the 
President asked for. This is not a debate about how much we are going 
to spend on children. It is a debate about who gets to do the spending. 
We simply believe more of those decisions ought to be made by people 
who know the children's names. I do not think that is an unreasonable 
thing.
  Then we are having this debate about whether or not we ought to grant 
blanket immunity to illegal aliens. I do not think many people in this 
room right now think that is a very good idea. In fact, I think if we 
polled the people back in southeastern Minnesota, they would say that 
is a crazy idea. But now the President is threatening to veto the 
Commerce, State, Justice appropriation over that issue.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, just to 
reiterate what has been agreed to, and I think it is important for 
those of us who hail from Arizona, Texas, other border States, what we 
have agreed to is a family unification process, because we do not want 
to see families separated, but by the same token, when it comes to this 
notion of blanket amnesty, we have a problem when we are dealing with 
ignoring what is already illegal. And that is where the sticking point 
comes, and while we have had a reasonable approach, bipartisan, to deal 
with family unification, I would just make that key distinction as we 
are dealing with the amnesty question.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I want to go 
back again to the gentleman's ``How much is enough?,'' and remind 
everyone again, that question has been decided.
  The House spoke by majority will that $645 billion is enough; 
therefore, it is not a relevant argument. The immigration question is a 
relevant argument. Davis-Bacon applications to school is a relevant 
argument. There are other relevant arguments, but there is no argument 
now, at least on the majority side, and I will say not with me either, 
because once the House has spoken and it is October 29, we cannot go 
back and redo the budget. Mr. Speaker, $645 billion is the number, and 
that is more than the President requested.
  My only point, had we had this kind of conversation early on and more 
had joined, as the gentleman from Oklahoma joined with us earlier, we 
would not be arguing about $645 billion would be enough, we would be 
arguing that $633, and perhaps we would still be arguing about the 
other questions, but reasonable people can work those out, and surely 
our leaders, negotiating as we speak, are finding a compromise on those 
issues that will be acceptable.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, my colleague from 
Texas says that we are agreed, but I do not know if the President is 
agreed, because he has never told us exactly how much he wants to spend 
in some of these areas that are still being negotiated.
  Let me just come back to my point about the State legislature.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield again on that

[[Page H11511]]

point, briefly, it makes no difference what the President says on 
additional spending, because on the budget Rules of the House, if we 
spend more than $645 billion, we will have to sequester next year in 
order to bring the spending back. That is the discipline that we used 
to have in this body, but we have thrown it out the window for the last 
3 years.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I want to come back to close on my story 
about the State legislature and about how virtually every governor 
works with their State legislature. At the end of the session, the 
legislative leaders and the Governor sit down and they decide how much 
the pie is going to be, how much the State is going to spend. And once 
that decision is made and there is an agreement made, it takes a matter 
of about 48 hours for the various committees to work out how much goes 
to transportation, how much to education. That is what we need to do 
here at the Federal level; and hopefully, we can have better 
bipartisanship next year.

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