[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 151 (Friday, December 8, 2000)]
[House]
[Page H12053]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  TIME TO COMPLETE THE BUDGET PROCESS

  (Mrs. LOWEY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I was sitting on the floor of the House as 
we were debating the continuing resolution. Frankly, I was puzzled. I 
would like to appeal to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. The 
budget process should have been completed by October 1. Several weeks 
ago, our distinguished chair of the Committee on Appropriations, the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young); our distinguished chair of the 
subcommittee, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter), sat with 
Democrats and worked in a bipartisan way to get a bill completed.
  There was a lot of time, my colleagues, on the floor of the House 
talking about whether it is $107 billion, $110 billion, $113 billion. 
You get to a point around here where it is a billion here, a billion 
there and soon we are talking about real money. But I want to make it 
clear to those who may be watching this process, that every day we 
wait, children are waiting for moneys for after-school programs, for 
moneys for smaller class sizes, for moneys for modernization of our 
schools, for Head Start, for those who are waiting for a Pell grant. We 
are talking about $500 more for a Pell grant. For those who are 
desperately waiting for answers for cancer research, we are talking 
about funding for the National Institutes of Health.
  My colleagues, I hope we would take the numbers of the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Young) and complete this process now.

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