[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 176 (Tuesday, December 9, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S16083-S16085]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
OMNIBUS SPENDING BILL
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, unless the majority leader has additional
comments, I wish to take a few moments to address my concerns about the
current draft of the appropriations bill.
I believe the appropriations process has fallen apart. This is a
Frankenstein monster of a bill born of a badly broken process. It is
time to send it back to the laboratory.
At the beginning of the year, we were told the White House and the
Senate Republican leadership would make sure the appropriations process
ran more smoothly than ever before. In fact, the process broke down to
an extent never seen before, opening the door to the worst kind of
legislative abuses and special interest giveaways.
This bill, this monstrosity, combines 7 appropriations bills,
including 11 of 15 Cabinet-level Departments, comprising $820 billion
in Government spending. To agree to a unanimous consent request this
morning I believe would represent a shocking abrogation of our
responsibilities to the people of this country. We have not finished
until 2\1/2\ months into the fiscal year. This was supposed to have
been done on October 1. It is now early December.
These delays are becoming regrettably common. But what makes this
omnibus unique is its utter disregard for the expressed will of each
House of Congress. The process was an abomination, closed largely to
Democrats, hidden from the light of day, written to satisfy nothing
more than special interest wish lists.
It didn't have to be this way. The Senate passed 12 of the 13
appropriations bills by wide bipartisan margins. The House passed 13
appropriations bills with wide margins. None of the bills posed
difficulties. The only reason the process was handled this way was to
ram through divisive provisions and pork spending that could never win
the support of the Congress on their own.
I thank Chairman Stevens and especially my ranking member, Senator
Byrd, for the work they did to avoid this calamity. They understand the
proper process and worked to employ it in this case. However, they were
overruled by the White House and Republican leadership. That's why we
find ourselves in this regrettable situation today.
This brand of legislating opens the door to the most ludicrous
examples of pork spending, which has contributed to citizens' loss of
faith in the process itself.
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Even the conservative Taxpayers for Common Sense said:
This bill includes thousands of frivolous, bizarre, and
special interest earmarks for every congressional district in
the nation.
For example, in this bill, somewhere in these pages, you will find $2
million to encourage young people to play golf; half a million dollars
for halibut data collection; money for a replica mule barn in LaSalle,
IL; and most ironic, a half a million dollars for the ``Exercise in
Hard Choices'' Program at the University of Akron which attempts to
replicate House and Senate meetings in which congressional members
review a budget and vote to include or exclude various options.
Alongside this kind of wasteful spending, this bill includes several
mean-spirited damaging offsetting cuts. These cuts will result in
24,000 fewer children who will be served by title I educational
programs; 5,500 fewer kids will be able to attend Head Start; 26,500
fewer veterans will receive medical care; and $170 million will be cut
from needed highway construction projects. I could go on all day.
What is most troubling about this bill is the fact that some of the
most egregious provisions that were sneaked into this bill at the last
minute had already been rejected by one or both Houses of Congress. The
fact that the White House directed conferees to include them shows a
contempt both for the procedures of Congress and the citizens they were
designed to protect.
This bill once more allows the White House to end overtime protection
for American workers. The Senate voted to stop the White House's plan
by a vote of 54 to 45. The House agreed by a vote of 221 to 203. The
reason is clear. Ending overtime is bad for working families, and it is
bad for the economy. At this precarious moment for our economy, the
White House's plan would deliver a pay cut to 8 million workers,
including emergency medical personnel, criminal investigators, nurses,
physician assistants, teachers, agriculture inspectors, and more.
Overtime accounts for nearly a quarter of these workers' take-home
pay. For many Americans, their overtime offers them the chance to save
for college or a down-payment for a house, or simply to meet their
medical bills. It has been vital protection for workers for the past 70
years, and now Congress's defense of working families, overwhelmingly
approved by both the Senate and in the House, mysteriously was stripped
from this bill.
Media ownership is another example. Real damage to our democracy
occurs when a few companies control the airwaves. We had broad
bipartisan support for maintaining the limits--wide majorities, again,
in both the House and the Senate.
After first agreeing to retain the language passed by the House and
Senate to limit the number of stations a network can own, conferees
bowed to White House pressure to permanently raise the limit to make it
easier on media conglomerates, again, directly overturning rollcall
votes taken in the House and Senate on media ownership. Mysteriously,
once more, the legislation confronted reality and the sentiment of the
Members of both bodies.
Consider country-of-origin labeling: The omnibus legislation I have
in front of me includes language actually delaying the implementation
of country-of-origin labeling for 2 years. The Senate passed country-
of-origin labeling on two occasions--in May of 2002 as part of the farm
bill, as well as just last month with a vote of 56 to 32.
Consumers deserve the right to make informed choices. The economic
benefit to farmers and ranchers in struggling rural communities could
not be more apparent. It was supported by 167 farm organizations
representing 50 million Americans but opposed by the four meatpackers
that control 80 percent of the U.S. beef market. They worked behind the
scenes to kill this rule and that, too, is in this legislation.
This bill also undermines our ability to stop gun crimes: This bill
requires the destruction of background check records within 24 hours.
Current law requires records to be maintained for 90 days. It is vital
to the war on terror, as well as to domestic violence cases, that
retention of these records be maintained. The retention of records has
been critical to audit NICS and correct mistaken approvals. We will no
longer have that ability as a result of the provisions included in this
bill.
The General Accounting Office reports that the 90-day retention
allowed the FBI to retrieve 235 guns that were bought by people with
criminal records.
We also had a big debate--a very aggressive debate--about DC
vouchers. We stripped out the provision that was reinserted to
circumvent Democratic objections. There was no accountability here. In
addition, we are undermining the Washington, DC, schools to advance a
theory that absolutely has no evidence to back it up. Vouchers threaten
to create two-tiered education system in which more children each year
are left behind. But as with the other controversial provisions,
vouchers, for the first time at the Federal level, are in this bill.
This bill also undermines our protection of federal workers. Language
was dropped that blocked the OMB plan to contract out 400,000 Federal
workers. The conferees had reached a bipartisan compromise, but that
was rejected by the White House. What remains provides so many
loopholes for OMB that the Federal workers have very little protection.
This bill is to good legislating what a dank basement corner is to
good housekeeping. Both could stand a good dose of sunlight, and that
is just what we intend to do.
We will not allow this bill to be sneaked through a procedural back
door when no one is looking. It may mean further delay, but 1 more
month of delay is nothing compared to the enduring damage this bill
will cause to the Senate, our Government, and our Nation.
Extension of the Federal Unemployment Benefits Program
Mr. President, with regard to the unanimous consent request I had
made, this holiday season is bringing the same bad news that millions
of jobless workers heard last year. Nearly 3 million Americans have
lost their jobs; 2.6 million in manufacturing alone. The number of
people looking for work for more than 6 months has now tripled since
the beginning of the Bush administration.
In fact, the economy would have to create over 347,000 jobs per month
just to keep the Bush administration from having the worst rate of job
creation of any administration since the Great Depression.
Today, there are three job seekers for every job opening. Yet the
Republican leadership in the Congress is again refusing to address this
urgent problem.
During this holiday season, the temporary Federal Unemployment
Benefits Program will expire. This means each week after December 21,
more than 80,000 Americans will run out of their State unemployment
benefits. These workers will not be eligible for any additional
assistance.
Last fall, before Congress adjourned, the Senate worked on a
bipartisan basis to ensure that unemployment workers would not be left
out in the cold. Unfortunately, the House Republican leadership decided
to turn its back on these families, and the administration has failed
to act as well. As a result, thousands of workers were stranded until
Congress reconvened, and we were able to pass an extension. Over the
last several weeks, Senate Democrats have repeatedly propounded
unanimous consent requests to pass an extension to the Federal
Unemployment Insurance Program. We faced Republican objections every
time. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay went so far as to say he sees no
reason to extend the Federal unemployment compensation program.
Clearly, inaction is an unacceptable position. It was last year, and
it remains so this year. Since it appears Congress may not return until
the end of January, it is now even more urgent that the administration
influence congressional Republicans to work with us to pass a 6-month
extension before Congress adjourns.
As we approach the holiday season, we have to ensure that families
are not left without the ability to make ends meet while searching for
employment.
Foreign Operations Conference Report
Mr. President, finally, let me briefly explain why I felt the need to
ask unanimous consent to pass the Foreign Operations conference report.
AIDS is the worse public health crisis the world has ever known. Mr.
President, 8,000 people--8,000--die each and every day;
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15,000 people contract HIV every day, the majority of them young
people.
The Foreign Operations conference report provides $800 million for an
increase--a much needed increase--in the Global AIDS Program. It is a
positive step in our effort to fight and defeat this pandemic. It
should have been done 2 months ago. We should not have to wait another
2 months. The crisis is simply too pressing.
Unfortunately, the Republican leadership and the House Appropriations
Committee would have us wait. There are a lot of controversial items in
this huge omnibus, but let's be clear: The Foreign Operations
conference report and the increased AIDS funding is certainly not one
of them. Foreign Operations was signed by every single conferee. It was
minutes from being filed. Unfortunately, some Republicans intervened
and demanded that it be rolled into the larger bill.
Why? Because they wanted increased leverage on the omnibus and the
controversial policy provisions, provisions that go against the will of
bipartisan majorities in both Houses of Congress.
So let's be clear. The reason they insisted on this was to hold
increased AIDS funding hostage to these special interest giveaways. In
a season of disappointments, that is especially disappointing. So I am
very deeply disappointed that by unanimous consent we could not take up
a bill that had passed unanimously in conference, signed by all the
conferees, recognizing that 8,000 people who die every day will not get
the kind of attention, the resources, the commitment, and the response
they so desperately need.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
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