[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 161 (Tuesday, October 23, 2007)]
[House]
[Page H11909]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    IN RECOGNITION OF JAMES T. BATES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I rise to acknowledge an 
extraordinary staff member who has moved on after 20 years with the 
House Budget Committee, Jim Bates.
  James T. Bates, the Committee's Republican chief of staff, recently 
accepted a position as associate program director at the Office of 
Management and Budget. Ordinarily, that would be a significant, though 
not surprising, step in a career dedicated to Washington fiscal policy. 
But there is nothing ordinary about this case.
  Jim Bates's two decades of service represents the longest tenure of 
any Budget Committee staffer. He served in various capacities during 
this time, including those of minority counsel, chief majority counsel 
and deputy chief of staff before rising to the top slot in late 2004. 
In each of those roles he demonstrated a singular dedication.
  He came to be known as a true believer in the value of congressional 
budgeting; a stickler for adhering to the budget disciplines written in 
law and in convention; and a thoroughly convinced proponent of the 
institution of the Budget Committee. He is as closely identified with 
the committee as is the Congressional Budget Act itself. It is nearly 
impossible to think of one without the other.
  Mr. Speaker, you can't go back over the last 20 years and look at the 
enforcement of the Budget Committee, the preservation of the Budget 
Act, without thinking of Jim Bates.
  Jim started with the committee in January of 1988, a time when the 
Republican minority offices were across Highway 395, on the second 
floor of the Ford Office Building, then simply called Annex Two. He 
worked initially as a budget analyst, covering Income and Social 
Security, but before long he found his real niche as committee counsel. 
Here, he mastered the intricate details and subtleties of the Budget 
Act; he vigorously protected the committee's jurisdiction, and, when 
possible, expanded it. He also developed a unique understanding of 
budget arcana, something I can clearly testify to, such as the Gramm-
Rudman baseline or the pay-as-you-go rule.
  Here are some highlights of his congressional career: he participated 
in the famous Andrews Air Force Base negotiations that produced the 
budget agreement of 1990. In 1993, he coordinated drafting the narrowly 
defeated Penny-Kasich amendment. In 1997, he anchored the legislative 
language for the Balanced Budget Act, which a year later produced the 
first budget surplus in nearly four decades. Shortly thereafter, he 
developed a bipartisan plan for the first comprehensive budget process 
reform since the Budget Act was created in 1974.
  In 2005, he oversaw the staff work that led to that year's Deficit 
Reduction Act, the first in a long time. In 2006, he was immensely 
helpful to me in writing the Legislative Line Item Veto Act, designed 
to allow the President to strike individual spending items without 
violating Congress's constitutional prerogatives.
  Jim is an avid fisherman, which shows a greatness of soul. He is a 
fan of the renowned author Ray Bradbury, which reflects a creative 
mind. He might misplace his car keys or his BlackBerry, but he has 
never lost his conviction about budgeting, or his integrity. Yet, of 
all Jim's qualities, perhaps the most important is the trust that he 
has earned from Members and colleagues alike. It is because of that 
trust that when I was chosen to be the Budget Committee's ranking 
Republican last December, my first and easiest decision was keeping Jim 
as the chief of staff. He was and still is simply irreplaceable.
  Mr. Speaker, let me close simply by saying that there aren't a lot of 
people in this town who really understand how the Budget Committee 
works, how this budget process works, let alone people who really know 
the best ideas and ways of making it work better. Jim Bates is one of 
the handful of people in this town who knows this. You can count the 
people on one hand who really know the Budget Act, know how to make it 
work and know how to make it work better. Jim Bates is one of those.
  This institution, this Congress, both from the Democrat side and the 
Republican side, owe a large debt of gratitude for the service of this 
fine servant, Jim Bates.

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