[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 146 (Wednesday, November 13, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H8548-H8551]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HONORING THE ANAHEIM ANGELS FOR THEIR VICTORY IN THE 2002 WORLD SERIES
(Ms. SANCHEZ asked and was given permission to address the House for
1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
Ms. SANCHEZ. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the Anaheim
Angels for winning the 2002 Major League Baseball World Series. I, for
one, have been waiting for them to win this since 1966, the day I
attended the first game when we built the Anaheim Stadium.
Under American League Manager of the Year Mike Scioscia, the Angels
won a franchise record 99 games during the regular season on their way
to the world championship. The Angels demonstrated their courage in a
``never say die'' attitude during their championship run, which
included an incredible game number six of the World Series where they
came five runs from behind to win and be in that World Series for the
seventh game.
Although there were many outstanding individual contributions, it was
the team's collective efforts that made the difference in the post
season.
And I would like to recognize in particular the Rally Monkey for
keeping the crowds excited and helping the Angels to come back and win
time after time in the season.
With most of the players from this year's team returning next year, I
bet we will win again.NOTICE
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MARK DAYTON, Chairman.
[[Page H8549]]
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.J. RES. 124, FURTHER CONTINUING
APPROPRIATIONS, FISCAL YEAR 2003, AND FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 5708,
REDUCING PREEXISTING PAYGO BALANCES
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the
Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 602 and ask for its
immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res. 602
Resolved, That upon the adoption of this resolution it
shall be in order without intervention of any point of order
to consider in the House the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 124)
making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year
2003, and for other purposes. The joint resolution shall be
considered as read for amendment. The previous question shall
be considered as ordered on the joint resolution to final
passage without intervening motion except: (1) one hour of
debate on the joint resolution equally divided and controlled
by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee
on Appropriations; and (2) one motion to recommit.
Sec. 2. Upon the adoption of this resolution it shall be in
order without intervention of any point of order to consider
in the House the bill (H.R. 5708) to reduce preexisting PAYGO
balances, and for other purposes. The bill shall be
considered as read for amendment. The previous question shall
be considered as ordered on the bill to final passage without
intervening motion except: (1) one hour of debate on the bill
equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking
minority member of the Committee on the Budget; and (2) one
motion to recommit.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings)
is recognized for 1 hour.
(Mr. HASTINGS of Washington asked and was given permission to revise
and extend his remarks.)
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, for the purposes of debate
only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida
(Mr. Hastings), pending which I yield myself such time as I may
consume. Mr. Speaker, during consideration of this resolution, all time
yielded is for the purposes of debate only.
Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 602 is a closed rule making in order
the consideration of two measures. The rule provides that H.J. Res. 124
shall be debatable for 1 hour in the House with the time equally
divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of
the Committee on Appropriations.
The rule waives all points of order against consideration of H.J.
Res. 124 and provides for one motion to recommit.
The rule further provides that H.R. 5708 shall be debateable for 1
hour in the House with the time equally divided and controlled by the
chairman and ranking member of the Committee on the Budget. The rule
waives all points of order against consideration of H.R. 5708 and
provides for one motion to recommit.
Mr. Speaker, H.J. Res. 124 is a resolution providing continuing
appropriations to fund ongoing activities of the Federal Government
through January 11, 2003. It does not allow initiation of new
activities and, with certain exceptions, the resolution continues
activities under applicable fiscal year 2002 terms and conditions.
The resolution limits obligations on programs with high initial sped
out rates so that the funding levels included in final appropriation
actions will not be jeopardized. It continues authorizations for
otherwise expiring programs and funding anomalies included in previous
continuing resolutions and extends funding for the Temporary Assistance
for Needy Families, or TANF, and related welfare programs.
Finally, H.J. Res. 124 provides authority to transfer up to $500
million to establish the new Department of Homeland Security and for
unforeseen homeland security requirements. Such authority would expire
on September 30, 2004.
Mr. Speaker, section 2 of this rule provides for consideration of a
bill that removes balances on the Pay-As-You-Go, or PAYGO, scorecard
for the current fiscal year. This legislation is necessary in order to
avoid automatic across the board cuts in a number of mandatory programs
after Congress adjourns for this year.
In past years, Congress has routinely voted on a bipartisan basis to
pass similar legislation, and this rule simply will permit that to
occur again. Failing to enact H.R. 5798 would force reductions in a
number of programs including Medicare, Veterans Administration medical
care, Indian Health Services, Migrant Health Centers, Community Health
Centers, State Children's Health Insurance, Child Tax Credits, and the
Commodity Credit Corporation, among others.
Mr. Speaker, the measures made in order under these rules are
necessary to permit the vital functions of the Federal Government to
continue without interruption until a new Congress convenes again in
January. Accordingly, I encourage all of my colleagues to support both
the rule and the two underlying measures.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I
may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings) for
yielding me time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this rule and the
underlying resolution. Tax cuts to well-off people in our country,
environmental rollbacks by the dozen, awarding corporate
irresponsibility and neglecting the needs of America's senior citizens
and veterans are only a few of the highlights that the 107th Congress
has to speak of. As one colleague put it yesterday, ``It's been an
awfully long day to do nothing.''
Mr. Speaker, simply put, America has needs and today's continuing
resolution does not meet them. The spirit in which the resolution is
coming to the floor and the message that it sends is cut and run
politics of the highest kind. There is a reason that this is called a
Lame Duck Congress, because legislation like this is just lame.
As my colleagues know, today's CR funds the Federal budget until
January 11, or thereabouts, 2003, without increasing spending in areas
that we know we need increases.
{time} 1015
With a possible war with Iraq on the horizon, should not this body,
which is led by the President's party, spend time figuring out a way to
pay for a war that the President has been asking for and that many
Members voted for?
In a few hours, many expect that the House and Senate will each pass
a bill establishing a new Department of Homeland Security. Listen up
America, one caveat though: we are not going to fund the new Department
until, according to the CR, January 11, 2003, at the earliest.
Additionally, the CR does nothing to protect the thousands of Member
projects that cities and counties and constituents are depending on,
including projects in the appropriations bills that Congress has
already passed, the two of them.
Finally, the CR provides no PAYGO provisions, thus solidifying what
the minority has been saying for more than 1 year: good bye, surplus;
hello, deficit spending.
To date, Congress has neglected its constitutionally mandated
responsibility of funding the Federal Government and has passed, as I
earlier stated, a meager two of the 13 appropriation bills; and now we
want to go home.
Mr. Speaker, what about homeland security and our national defense?
What about prescription drugs? What about Social Security? What about
extending unemployment benefits? What about an energy bill? What about
the veterans measures that are not passed? How many of those measures
have gone by the board? What other health considerations are we not
considering?
Long-term unemployment is at an 8-year high in this Nation, and
nearly 2 million Americans have lost their jobs. Consumer confidence is
at its lowest levels since mid-2001, and prescription drug prices are
still sky high. Mr. Speaker, I do not have to look around for anybody
about that. I have been dealing with my mom's failing stages of her
health; and on two different occasions since we were in recess, I paid
$983 for prescriptions, and all she has is Social Security and
Medicare.
So, firsthand, I think we should do for the American citizens what is
needed in the area of prescription drug
[[Page H8550]]
prices. We leave seniors unable to afford their vital prescription
medicine.
Think about it, the House took most of January off this year, all of
August, most of October; and now we are poised to give ourselves a
month-and-a-half Christmas vacation. The American people are not paying
us to work 2- or 3-day work weeks, and they are certainly not paying us
to work 8 out of 12 months.
Could my colleagues imagine if we tried to run a business this way?
No wonder the American people have such dismal opinions of the Federal
Government. When the going gets tough, the tough get out of town.
Mr. Speaker, we were elected by the American people to Congress to do
a job. Evidence today and every other CR that the House has been forced
to pass in the last month are not the way that we should be going.
I am convinced that the Republican leadership is really in the final
analysis not interested in doing the job having to do with the things I
spoke of earlier, or at the least doing them right. The leadership of
this body for the most part is not going to change very much in the
108th Congress. Republicans are still going to be in the majority, and
I congratulate my friends in that regard. And Democrats are going to
still be in the minority. With or without recriminations, those that
were elected and reelected are to be congratulated as well.
So why is the majority trying to go home when the work of the 107th
Congress is not done? Perhaps the American people need to be asking the
same question. Now is not the time to go home and leave today's
problems for tomorrow's Congress.
The American people cannot run a budget like this in their house, and
we should not be trying to run one like it in America's House.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose this rule and to reject
the underlying resolution.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the
balance of my time.
Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the distinguished ranking member
of the Committee on Appropriations and my good friend.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, this is a pitiful exercise. Its arrogance is
matched only by its futility and its hypocrisy. I think we ought to
recount what is happening here and how we got here.
Early last year, the majority party, at the insistence of the
Committee on the Budget and the House Republican leadership, passed a
budget which even their own Republican leadership on the Committee on
Appropriations indicated fell at least $10 billion short of the amount
that we would need to meet our own obligations on the domestic front
for education, for transportation, for veterans' health care, for
National Institutes of Health, homeland security, and a number of other
items.
The Committee on Appropriations, after that budget resolution was
passed, tried to operate under it and tried to bring a number of
appropriation bills to the floor. They produced the Department of
Defense bill, the military construction bill; and the committee met its
obligations in those two areas.
But then, Mr. Speaker, it was prevented from bringing any other
appropriation bills to conclusion by an internal fight within the
Republican Caucus in this House. What happened is that the hard-line
conservatives in the Republican Caucus told their leadership they would
not vote for any domestic appropriation bill until the education
appropriation bill was passed at a freeze level recommended by the
President, which would have brought to a halt the previous increases
that we had in the area of education, the increases that we had over
the last 5 years that averaged over 13 percent.
The House Republican leadership forbade the Committee on
Appropriations to bring appropriation bills to the floor. And they
said, ``Oh, no, we will deal with them after the August recess.''
Well, the August recess came and went. We came back on Labor Day and
then we were told, ``No, we cannot pass any appropriations bills during
this period either. We are going to have to lay it over until a lame-
duck session after the election.''
Mr. Speaker, now we are here in a lame-duck session, and now we are
being told by this resolution that we are going to kick this down the
trail and we are not going to come back until next year, which means
that every single appropriation bill is going to have to be introduced
anew and have to start from scratch. All that work gets wiped out. Why?
Because the majority party has not decided how they want to handle
these issues and because they have a lot of Members who want to go on
congressional trips.
So now we are being told to forget our duty. But then there is an
added wrinkle that is being brought to the floor here today. The
appropriations Republican leadership has been begging the House
leadership since June to give the Committee on Appropriations at least
$8 billion to $10 billion more so we could meet our transportation and
our education and our homeland security obligations. They have been
denied that. The House Budget Committee has been saying, ``Oh, oh, oh,
the Committee on Appropriations, they want to be big spenders. We
cannot give them the $10 billion.''
But now what is happening under this rule? We are being asked to wipe
out the PAYGO realities. That is an ``inside baseball'' term, but what
it means essentially is that this Congress is going to add $30 billion
more to the deficit because of that useless farm bill that passed
earlier in the year and because of the tax cuts. So the very same
people on the Budget Committee who are attacking the gentleman from
Florida (Mr. Young) as a big spender because he wants $8 billion to $10
billion more to finish the appropriations bills, the very same people
are saying, ``Oh, by the way, we cannot have that money; but by the
way, we are going to blow $30 billion, and then we are going to wipe
out the scorekeeping and pretend it did not happen.''
Mr. Speaker, that is what we are being asked to vote for on this rule
today and on the two bills that will follow.
Mr. Speaker, this is a pitiful performance. What a laugh. What a
pity. What a joke. What a poor performance.
Mr. Speaker, I am going to vote against this rule, and I am going to
vote against the bill that follow because they epitomize the absolute
uselessness and fecklessness of this entire congressional session. They
demonstrate that the one thing this House has learned to do better than
anything else is to duck its responsibilities, and that is a shame.
Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 3
minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), my good friend.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, this is the ultimate Republican do-nothing
Congress. I woke up this morning, and I called the cloakroom; and I
could not believe that they are going to simply pass a CR to carry the
government over until January with the new Congress and not address all
the pressing problems that we need to look at here.
First of all, think about the fact that we have a budget crisis. We
have a budget deficit now, it was announced a few weeks ago, of $150
billion. The effect on the economy, the downward trend on the economy
that this will contribute to is unbelievable. Now, as the gentleman
from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) says, we may be adding another $30 billion to
that because of the fact that we are wiping out these PAYGO provisions.
So more deficits. We are in an economic downturn.
Mr. Speaker, what is the Republican Party going to do here? What is
the Republican leadership going to do about the economic slow down? Are
they going to deal with the fact that we have a higher unemployment
rate, that a lot of people's benefits for unemployment will end
sometime in December? Are they going to address that? Are they going to
address the fact that seniors are crying out for a prescription drug
benefit?
I read in the paper the other day that the President said he wants to
address the need for a prescription drug benefit. Then why are we going
home? Why are we not dealing with it? Why are we not figuring out how
to pay for it?
[[Page H8551]]
The energy crisis. We face a major energy crisis. I understand a
conference report on the energy bill has been filed. Is it going to be
taken up today or tomorrow before we leave town?
Mr. Speaker, so many of these issues are not being tended to. The
Republicans have only passed two appropriations bills, the Defense and
Military Construction; and I do not mean to suggest that they are not
important. Of course, they are very important because the President is
saying that we may have to go to war against Iraq. But what about the
budget consequences of that? Where is the money going to come from? Why
are we not dealing with the budget in general and having some kind of
budget conference where we sit down on a bipartisan basis between now
and the end of the year and figure out how to pay for defense? How we
are going to pay for these other important domestic issues?
Now, the Republican Party does not want to address it. They say, oh,
we won the election so we will just wait until January. We will have a
majority in both Houses, we will have the Presidency, and we will deal
with it then. Mr. Speaker, it is a complete abdication of their
responsibility, and it is not what they said during the course of the
election when they said they were going to address these things.
We have another 6 or 7 weeks here when we could address these
problems, both domestic and international; and it is terribly
irresponsible for the Republicans to say, no, we are not going to do
that; we are simply going to go home.
No one should be confused about what is going on here today. They are
simply passing a continuing resolution so the government does not shut
down, and coming back in January with the new Congress. That is
completely unacceptable and irresponsible. This Congress under the
Republican leadership, this House, has the worst legislative record in
the whole history of the United States Congress, and this act today of
trying to pass this rule just confirms it.
{time} 1030
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as
I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, we are in this extraordinary circumstance for a variety
of reasons that we have talked about on the floor many times when we
were debating prior continuing resolutions. Part of it, without trying
to point fingers because that does not do us any good when we are
trying to seek resolutions to point fingers, but nevertheless the fact
is the other body has not completed a lot of work that is the basis for
us trying to complete our work.
It has been mentioned over and over, but I think it is worth
mentioning one more time that the House by law, in fact both the House
and the Senate by law, is required to pass a budget in the spring. The
House did that and did pass their budget. The Senate did not pass their
budget at that time and they have not yet. Maybe there has been talk
going back and forth trying to settle on a figure, a spending figure;
but the way that it has always been done in the past is that one body
passes a budget, the other body passes a budget; and if there is a
difference, you work out the differences. That is part of the give and
take in the legislative process. That simply did not happen this year.
As a result, the appropriation process that follows really did not have
a blueprint. That caused us problems all the way throughout.
In addition to that, there are a number of other important pieces of
legislation that passed this body that, for a variety of reasons, for
whatever, is hung up in the other body as we speak right now. So as a
result, we are in this situation of then passing this CR to get us into
the first week of the next Congress. By that time, and in fact there
are probably ongoing discussions right now with the new majority in the
Senate and the majority here in the House to come up with probably an
omnibus appropriation bill that will pass and we will have that behind
us as we go into the 108th Congress.
I might make an observation, that what we are doing here is not
unprecedented. It is not probably the ideal way things should be done;
but in 1980 there was a CR that was passed over until the next
Congress, so it has been done in the past. The reason why we are in
that situation, as I mentioned, is simply that we are facing
unprecedented inaction in the Congress in the other body. For that
reason, we have to pass these CRs.
Let us get on with our work.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I am sorry, but earlier in my discussions I
understated the amount by which the deficit will be expanded with the
approval of the Congress with the subsequent motion that will follow
from this rule. It is not just $30 billion. I am told it is over $60
billion that will be added to the deficit from the base on mandatories.
____________________