[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 167 (Wednesday, October 31, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H12337-H12347]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
MOTION TO GO TO CONFERENCE ON H.R. 3043, DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH
AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS
ACT, 2008
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, pursuant to clause 1 of rule XXII and by
direction of the Committee on Appropriations, I move to take from the
Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 3043) making appropriations for the
Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and
related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2008, and for
other purposes, with the Senate amendment thereto, disagree to the
Senate amendment, and agree to the conference asked by the Senate.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Tauscher). The gentleman from Wisconsin
is recognized for 1 hour.
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield 30 minutes to the gentleman from
California (Mr. Lewis) for the purpose of debate only. And I yield
myself 30 seconds.
Madam Speaker, the motion is self-explanatory. This will enable us to
go to conference with the other body on the Labor, Health and Human
Services and Education bill and begin the process by which we can deal
with the conference reports on the seven bills so far completed action
by the Senate.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. LEWIS of California. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I
may consume.
Madam Speaker, I rise today to discuss what appears to be one of the
most highly unusual decisions made by the leadership of the House by
way of combining the Labor, Health and Human Services bill with
Military Construction, VA, and all those programs that relate to
veterans, and the DOD bills into one package to be sent to the
President.
It is my understanding that included in this package may be disaster
funding relief that could affect wildfires in the West. There may be
other popular items that the majority may attempt to air-drop into
conference. In theory, the bill itself is supposed to focus upon health
care for our citizens across the country, labor programs and education
programs, not defense, not veterans programming or other related
programs. This package would exclude any DOD bridged supplemental
funding for our troops.
Last year, a bipartisan group of Members demanded that the
administration send a full-year supplemental
[[Page H12338]]
request for activities related to the global war on terror. Now that
the administration has provided the full-year request, the House and
Senate leadership have refused to provide this critical funding for our
troops who are serving in harm's way.
Additionally, instead of moving the Labor-HHS bill, the DOD bill and
the MilCon-VA bills through the process by regular order and holding
separate conferences, this omnibus package would be carried as part of
the Labor-HHS bill.
Frankly, as I talk to my colleagues who know the appropriations
process around this place pretty well, they can't quite believe why
we're doing this. For each of these bills passed the House separately
and individually, they've got programs that are highly supported. There
is little doubt that regular order would work if the leadership would
allow it to work.
Let me be clear on this. The President has already indicated that he
will sign a freestanding MilCon bill, and he will sign a freestanding
Defense bill. Especially it's important to note that the MilCon bill
includes funding for veterans as well, with a commitment for his
signature. By not moving these bills individually, the majority is
using our veterans as well as our troops essentially as political
pawns.
Yesterday, I had a conversation with the President's Chief of Staff,
Josh Bolten. He clearly indicated that if this package makes its way to
the White House, it will be vetoed by the President in this form.
Apparently the President delivered a similar message to our Members and
the press at the White House yesterday morning.
Personally, I think it's outrageous that the majority is proceeding
in this way with funding for our troops and our veterans simply to try
to push through a 10-plus billion dollar increase in the Labor and
Health and Human Services programs. To me, this is nothing more than
essentially, at least some would describe it as political blackmail, as
well as a poke in the eye to our troops, our veterans, our Members, as
well as our President.
To the Democrat majority who conceived this misbegotten, ill-
conceived legislative strategy, let me say this: You are not only
making a mockery of the legislative process, you are intentionally
undermining a strong bipartisan desire to fund our troops, provide
medical care for those troops, as well as provide funding for our
veterans. This approach is kind of like the SCHIP package on steroids.
And I believe that it, too, will fail.
I do not intend to sign the conference report or vote for it when it
reaches the floor. I will also be supporting the President's veto,
should he decide to veto this package. Clearly, this is in excess, and
it's a fundamental violation of what I think should be the tradition of
the appropriations process.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 8 minutes.
Madam Speaker, the gentleman is a good friend of mine. And I don't
mind his pulling my leg, but from way over there, it's a little bit of
a stretch.
Let me simply recite a few facts. If we take a look at the past
history to see how these bills have been handled in the past, the
gentleman talks about having a separate military construction bill. The
fact is, over the last 5 years, when our Republican friends controlled
this House, on three occasions they tied the military construction bill
to other bills. And on one occasion, they never managed to pass a
military construction bill at all. Only once in the past 5 years did
they pass a freestanding military construction bill. So, I will stack
our record against theirs any time.
There is another substantial difference between us on that score. In
the 2007 budget and in the bill before the Congress now, we've added $7
billion in additional funding for veterans health care, money which the
administration itself opposed. So, I make no apology for what we have
done on that score.
Let me also point out the gentleman is objecting to the possibility
that we will combine the labor, health, education bill, the defense
bill and the military construction bill into one piece. If we do that,
that would mean that 90 percent of the dollars in the bill would be
security related. The President has asked us to send him a defense bill
and to send him a military construction bill. That is exactly what we
would be doing. In addition to that, we would be sending the largest
domestic bill, so that together we would be sending, in essence, 71
percent of the appropriation part of the budget down to the White
House. I make no apology for that.
I would also point out that, while the gentleman has a newfound
objection to omnibus appropriation bills, during the 12 years in which
the Republicans controlled this body, 56 times they sent omnibus
appropriation bills to the President for his signature.
{time} 1545
During the Bush administration, they sent omnibus appropriation bills
to the President 27 times. The President had no objection whatsoever
when they came from a Republican Congress. I find it interesting that
he now professes objection because we are doing what his Republican
Party did in spades for so long.
In fact, last year, the other side, when they controlled this House,
they avoided sending an omnibus appropriation bill to the President
because on the domestic side of the ledger, they didn't bother to send
him any at all. So we had to spend the first 6 weeks when we were in
control of this body cleaning up last year's Republican business.
I would also point out, lest we take lectures from the administration
and OMB, Mr. Nussle, who is the President's new budget director, he was
chairman of the Budget Committee for 6 years. Since 1976 when the
Budget Act was passed, Congress failed to pass a budget resolution four
times. Three of those four times occurred when Mr. Nussle was chairman
of the committee. So I don't think I am going to take any lectures
about the newfound interest of the new budget director in having timely
consideration of any matter related to the budget.
I would also point out that during Mr. Nussle's tenure of 6 years,
the Republican Congress passed three omnibus appropriations and one
omnibus CR. So it seems to me that this is a debate about, if not
nothing, at least very little. I would simply say that what we ought to
be looking at is not what kind of a ribbon we have on the package, but
we ought to be taking a look at the contents of the package. And I make
no apology whatsoever about the contents of this package.
Now, if we take a look at the President's statement, his veto
pronouncement yesterday, he says that the Congress has wasted time
voting on efforts to change direction in Iraq. I would suggest that the
President has wasted 5 years of the country's influence by the way he
has handled Iraq in the first place. The President objects to the fact
that in all of the domestic appropriation bills, we are some $20
billion above his budget suggestion, about 2 percent. That 2 percent
difference is the difference between having a President and having a
King. And I would point out, he wants to spend 10 times that much money
in Iraq in just 1 year.
The President says that Congress has gone it alone on SCHIP. I would
suggest the President has gone it alone in Iraq. He has gone it alone
without our allies. He is going it alone now without the support of the
American people. So I would be careful, if I were the President,
referring to someone ``going alone'' on anything.
I would also point out that the President says the Labor-H bill is
bloated. Well, as a practical matter, if we were to pass the
President's budget, we would be cutting vocational education by 50
percent. We would be accepting the idea that we ought to cut the
National Institutes of Health grants by 1,100 grants over the past 2
years. We would be accepting the fact that we ought to allow No Child
Left Behind to become a hollow shell in terms of financing. The
President is, in fact, objecting to our increase for special education,
an item which the Republican Party in this House took the lead on in
putting in the bill in the first place.
So it seems to me the President, his priorities are not supported by
the country. So he is falling back on a process argument. I don't think
anybody is going to be especially impressed.
With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. LEWIS of California. Madam Speaker, I just might mention that
[[Page H12339]]
during the time that the chairman and I have worked together in the
Appropriations Committee, we have talked many a time about process
where we both happen to think it is very important. But the fact is
that all three of these bills, the Defense bill, the MILCON and
veterans bill, indeed, Labor-HHS, all passed this House separately. We
could carry these bills in regular order. It is frankly a sham to
suggest that it is a requirement to bring these packages together.
Mr. OBEY. Would the gentleman yield if I yield him a minute of my
time? I ask unanimous consent to give the gentleman a minute of my
time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Wisconsin?
There was no objection.
Mr. LEWIS of California. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
Mr. OBEY. I would simply ask the gentleman, with the exception of
last year when you were chairman, or last term when you were chairman,
where were your speeches when your party brought those 56 omnibus
appropriation bills to the floor? Where were your objections then?
Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Obey, I know that you speak on the floor
a lot more than I do, and I appreciate the talent with which you do it.
But in the meantime, we are talking about regular order, trying to
change the appropriations process so it makes sense, not destroy our
committee. I would suggest we are on a pathway to destroy this
committee.
Mr. OBEY. Are you saying that it didn't make sense when your party
did what we are doing today 56 times? Is that what you are saying?
Mr. LEWIS of California. What I am suggesting, Mr. Obey, is that
there are, in this place even, there are people who sometimes use data
and statistics for their purposes versus other purposes. This is our
committee and I would hope we would run it in regular order.
Mr. OBEY. I find the gentleman's conversion interesting.
Mr. LEWIS of California. Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the
gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt).
Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I certainly don't
intend to lecture my good friend from Wisconsin on this process. He
works hard. Between him and Mr. Lewis, they probably have forgotten
more and have also understood more about this process maybe than any
other two Members that have ever served. But the fact is when
Congressman Lewis was the chairman, we actually took veterans out of
the appropriations bill they had been in for years because we thought
they had been used in a way that was not appropriate.
We took veterans out of VA-HUD and made it part of Veterans and
Military Quality of Life for the specific reason that we didn't want to
see that process that had gone on for too long continue. In 2005, the
first year we did that, Chairman Lewis and his committee brought that
bill and every other bill to the floor one bill at a time. In fact,
this is the first time since 1987, 20 years ago, that we have been in
this part of October without a single appropriations bill having passed
the House floor.
Clearly, if we were voting to go to conference on Labor, Health and
Human Services, the motion before us, I would have some enthusiasm for
getting at least one conference started. I would also be arguing that
the conference we should be going on would be the ones for the bills
that have been over here the longest, and one of those two bills
following Homeland was, I think we call it now Military Construction
and Veterans. But it is still a military quality of life bill. It still
affects military families. It still affects retirees. It still affects
veterans. And it is a bill that not only the President has said he
would sign but this House passed 138 days ago. The Senate passed it
almost 2 months ago and named their conferees 2 months ago.
This is a bill that does have increases for veterans. Every bill in
the 10 years I have been here has had significant increases for
veterans, none more so than this, to the point that the increases for
veterans and military families and military construction in this bill,
about $18.5 million a day, so if today we just multiplied that by 31,
that is how much money hasn't been spent in the last month on military
families, on military retirees, on military veterans, on people serving
that would have been affected by military construction. It's high time
we went to conference on that bill.
But what we don't want to start here is a process where we take our
veterans and our military families and our retirees and we use them as
a vehicle to have another political debate. As I understand, all I know
is what I hear on the floor and read in the paper on this, that the
plan is to take three bills, two of which almost every Member of this
Congress voted for, add to them a bill that was as divisive in floor
debate as any bill we debated, and have this three-car pile-on or this
three-car pileup, this three-bill pileup that I think sets an
unfortunate precedent for how we use veterans and military families.
I wish we were going to conference on a number of bills today, and I
wish we were committed to do these bills in the way that both the
chairman and the ranking member have argued effectively over years now
that we should be doing these bills.
Mr. OBEY. I yield myself 1 minute.
The gentleman says that he finds this a precedent. I repeat, we are
doing with Military Construction what the Republicans did in 4 of the
last 5 years, considering Military Construction in association with
other bills. I do welcome, however, the newfound expression of support
for veterans by the now minority party. Over the last 2 years, we had
to drag them kicking and screaming into voting for higher funding for
budgets for veterans' health care than their own President wanted. In
fact, when their committee chairman agreed with us 2 years ago that we
needed to add a billion dollars to veterans' health care, they
responded by removing that committee chairman from the committee
because he wasn't following the party line.
I don't think veterans will have much trouble determining who has
been on their side the last 5 years and who hasn't.
With that, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr.
Israel).
Mr. ISRAEL. I thank the distinguished chairman of the Appropriations
Committee.
Madam Speaker, this bill does, in fact, combine various other
appropriations measures. But those measures in their totality clearly
reflect the top priorities of the American people. In fact, every one
of those bills separately passed with significant Republican support by
significant bipartisan majorities in this House.
The reason that this bill in its totality makes sense and should,
with all due respect, attract the support of my friends from the other
side of the aisle is because it does, in fact, fund the global war on
terror. It funds our defense. It funds military construction. But it
also funds America's other priorities. It funds our troops but it also
takes care of our veterans, the largest increase in veterans health
care in the 77-year history of the VA. It funds our defense with a
robust military. But it also funds the war on cancer with increased
investments in the NCI and the NIH.
{time} 1600
It funds our military so that we can achieve global stability, but it
also gives working families and middle-class taxpayers a little bit of
a break, actually, more than a little bit of a break, a significant
break on their college expenses so that our kids can compete in a
globally competitive environment.
I would conclude, Madam Speaker, by suggesting that the differences
between where the administration is and where we are should not be
minimized. They are significant. As the chairman said, this
administration is arguing over a $22 billion increased investment with
one hand, and, on the other hand, telling the American people they have
to come up with another $200 billion for Iraq. We are spending $12
billion a month in Iraq. The difference between where the
administration is and where we are on these other priorities is 2
months in Iraq.
We want $880 million in increased investment for LIHEAP so that
senior citizens don't have to shiver in the cold because their heating
costs are too high. That is 2\1/2\ days in Iraq, that $880 million. If
we want to invest $1 billion in medical research for people with
[[Page H12340]]
cancer, with Alzheimer's, with Parkinson's, that's 3 days in Iraq.
Our $1 billion investment covers an entire year. The administration's
strategy covers 3 days in Iraq. We want $1.4 billion for the entire
year for improved health care access. With this administration, the
equivalent cost is 4 days in Iraq. We want $1.8 billion in increased
investments to keep American streets safe with additional law
enforcement and additional police. The administration says we can't
afford to keep America's streets safe but is willing to spend an
equivalent amount over 5 days in Iraq.
Madam Speaker, this bill reflects the priorities of the American
people. Separately, the components passed with overwhelming Republican
support. This should be a bipartisan effort. It should be a bipartisan
effort because, number one, it supports our troops, provides for robust
defense, and takes care of our priorities here at home as well.
Mr. LEWIS of California. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the
Republican leader of the House, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner).
Mr. BOEHNER. Madam Speaker, let me thank my colleague from California
for yielding.
Let me say that my colleague from California, the former chairman of
the committee, and the current chairman of the committee, Mr. Obey from
Wisconsin, are two Members who spent their entire careers working
through this appropriation process. They deserve the thanks and respect
of all the Members.
The motion here to go to conference is not about the Labor, Health
and Human Services bill. That is not the issue. The issue isn't whether
we have omnibus bills. We have had omnibus bills long before I got here
and they will be going on long after I have been here. The issue here
is the fact that the plan is to move this bill to the Senate to get a
conference report, to package the Labor, Health and Human Services bill
with the Defense appropriation bill and the Military Quality of Life
bill.
Why is this happening? Because our friends in the majority want to
continue to play political games here in Washington, DC. We went
through political games last week with the SCHIP vote, a bill that
there was some attempt to work with us, but not really. No changes were
made. We are going through the same process of having this bill vetoed
again. Why? Because the majority refused to reach out and work with us
in a bipartisan manner to resolve the few differences, the few
differences we had in the SCHIP bill. But here we go again. Here we go
again.
Madam Speaker, the majority knows and the President has made clear
that he will veto this bill. To pass a bloated Labor, Health and Human
Services bill on the backs of our troops and our veterans is not the
right thing to do. It's a political trick. You're daring the President
to veto this bill. Well, guess what? You know and I know that the
President is going to veto this bill. Yet, here we go, playing
political games once again.
As I said last week, I said last month, and probably the month before
that, the American people are tired of all the political games. They
want us to find some way to resolve our differences and to deal with
the issues that they care about. There are a lot of important issues in
the Labor, Health and Human Services bill that are very important to
our country. There's a lot of important issues in the Defense
appropriation bill. They help fund our troops and give them the tools
that they need. Certainly, when it comes to the Military Construction
Quality of Life bill, taking care of our veterans is very important.
But you know and I know that this is not more than a political trick.
Let me tell you what; it makes me sick, makes me sick to watch this
process continue, playing political games, and nothing gets done.
Congress is at the lowest approval rating in history, and what is going
on? We are continuing to play political games. That is why the American
people are sick of this process, and it ought to stop.
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes.
Madam Speaker, there was an old comedian who used to say: When
somebody says it's not about the money, it's about the money. When the
gentleman says it isn't about the Labor, Health and Education bill,
it's about the Labor, Health and Education bill.
The gentleman objects to the fact that we are doing what has been
done in this institution for many years. We are taking the bills that
are finished in both Houses at this time and we are trying to get them
to the President in the fastest possible way. And the way to do that is
to send them down together.
Now, the President wants to cherry-pick. He wants to pick and choose.
He said you have got to send me 11 separate bills. He didn't send us 11
separate bills. The President sends us one omnibus budget. He put all
the departments together in one document and sent them down to us. We
are sending him back whatever proposals we can put together in the
fastest possible time.
Madam Speaker, he says that the Labor-Health bill is bloated. Well,
let me compare it to the President's budget. The President says that he
is the ``great decider'' and that he is going to decide how much money
is going to be in this bill and we have got to live within that limit
or else he's going to veto anything else we send him. If we live under
the President's budget, we would cut vocational education by 50
percent. Anybody think that is a good idea? If we live under the
President's budget, we would eliminate all student aid but Work-Study
and Pell Grants. Anybody here really believe that is a good idea?
In all my years in Congress, I never heard anybody say: Obey, why
don't you guys get together and cut cancer research. Yet, that is what
this previous Republican Congress and the President have done the last
2 years; they have cut 1,100 grants out of the National Institutes of
Health, medical research grants. If you want to live under the
President's budget on law enforcement, we would cut what the committee
has in its bill by one-third. The President wants us to cut handicapped
kids' education by $300 million. Mr. Walsh, the ranking Republican
member of the Labor-Health Subcommittee, led the objection to that, and
in fact persuaded the committee to put a higher number in the bill than
I had put in in the chairman's mark; yet the President says we ought to
follow his budget for Labor-Health. If we do, we will cut rural health
by 54 percent.
He also wants us down the line to cut the Clean Water Revolving Fund
by 37 percent. He wants us to cut disabled housing assistance by 47
percent. He has ordered his Secretary of Veterans Affairs to send us a
letter indicating that they don't want the $4 billion that we have
added to veterans health care.
So you don't think this is about priorities? You bet you, it's about
priorities. I submit to you, the teachers of this country, the school
kids of this country, the parents of this country, and the veterans
aren't going to be fooled. Veterans aren't going to be very thrilled if
you take care of their needs so long as they are in Iraq, but the
minute they get home you forget the help their kid's need to get an
education, you forget the help their wife's needs or husband's needs if
they run into medical problems.
Veterans are whole people, just like everybody else. This Congress
has an obligation to meet all of their needs, not just their needs so
long as they are wearing the uniform and then forget them once they
take it off. That is not the American way. It shouldn't be the
Congress's way. That is why we are proceeding as we are proceeding.
Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair reminds all Members to address
their remarks to the Chair.
Mr. LEWIS of California. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I
may consume.
Madam Speaker, I am going to be calling upon my colleague, who is the
ranking member of the MilCon-VA bill in just a second. But I wanted to
mention it is very interesting to see my colleague, the chairman, to
use statistics and data for his own purposes.
We have, over the last 12 years, had nine omnibus appropriations
bills, and where those bills were put together in packages, I objected
to that procedure all along the line. But, as a matter of fact, as a
matter of fact, negotiations had taken place on the part of both sides
of the aisle, and the President signed those bills. He didn't suggest
he would be vetoing those bills.
Data can be used for one's purpose, but we ought to be accurate and
recognize that facts are facts.
[[Page H12341]]
Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman
from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker), the ranking member of the MilCon-VA
bill.
Mr. WICKER. Madam Speaker, this really is an unprecedented move. We
were originally told that it would be scheduled for first thing this
morning. Then it was rescheduled for early this afternoon. And once
again, the matter was so controversial that it had to be pulled again
and we find ourselves discussing it now at this moment.
I frankly wish my friend from Wisconsin would pull the motion again,
because there is only one way to understand this process. This is, as
the Republican leader said, a political stunt. If it is allowed to
proceed, the result will be predictable. The President will veto the
product of this conference committee, because it will attempt to spend
billions and billions of new dollars on domestic programs we cannot
afford, just when a balanced budget is within sight again. The
President will veto the bill, the President's veto will be sustained,
and we will be back to the drawing board.
While all of this is unfolding, much-needed funds for our veterans
clinics and for our servicemembers and their families will be delayed,
not to mention essential funding for our Nation's defense in the global
war on terror, for our troops in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq who are
risking their lives for our country even as we speak. These key
national security expenditures will have to wait even longer than they
have already waited.
The other result of this process will be just as predictable. Some
people in this town, in this very House, will have gotten what they
wanted: more political theater, more attempts to link good policy with
excessive spending in an attempt to score political points.
Madam Speaker, does the Democratic leadership of this Congress want
to pass appropriation bills or do they just want to make new campaign
commercials?
Four and one-half months ago the House of Representatives passed the
Military Construction-VA bill with an overwhelming 409 votes. The
Senate passed its version of MilCon-VA with only one dissenting vote on
September 6, 8 weeks ago. The President has expressed his willingness
to sign the bill. Mr. Edwards and I, along with our subcommittee, have
stood ready to go to conference for almost 2 months. Why, other than
politics, have these funds for military quality of life and for our
Nation's veterans been delayed?
Mr. Edwards and I, as chairman and ranking member, have worked along
with our Senate counterparts and our staffs to craft a compromise
between the two versions of MilCon-VA. Only a few outstanding issues
remain. We are ready to go with this essential bill. The same is true
for the Defense appropriations bill.
That means we could have bills on the President's desk within a
matter of days. Funds for vital infrastructure for our troops, child
development centers and veterans programs could be in the pipeline
within a matter of days. Do we really want to hold our present and
former troops hostage for political games?
So I urge my friends on the other side the aisle to reconsider this
unprecedented maneuver. Send the bills by regular order according to
the established rules. Let's get the funds to our troops without
further delay.
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. LEWIS of California. Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 3
minutes to the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, the
gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter).
Mr. HUNTER. Madam Speaker, I want to thank my friend for yielding.
Madam Speaker, I think this is a sad day for our country, because we
put into place several years ago what we called a bridge fund. I call
it the ammo, the armor, the equipment fund. That was a fund that we
added to the Defense bill to carry our troops over during the winter
months before that spring supplemental, before that extra funding came
about in the springtime of the next year.
That is important for them, and that gave them a certain confidence
level that they were going to be funded without having to take money
out of the cash register for the next year, have to delay training
exercises, have to delay the equipping of forces back here in the
United States.
And you know something? We had a bill that was ready to go here. The
Defense appropriations bill is something that clearly would sail
through, the President would sign it, and there was no risk in this
bill that would fund our operations and our warfighting in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
The Democrat leadership now has injected risk, because you have
hooked it up with a bill that the President said he is going to veto.
That injects risk into this very, very difficult operation.
So what do we have with our soldiers, our sailors, our airmen, our
marines in Afghanistan and Iraq? We have got the uncertainties of war,
the dangers of war. We have got the uncertainties that attend their
families back here in the United States. And now the Democrat
leadership has injected another uncertainty, an uncertainty that they
will be funded fully in these difficult months.
{time} 1615
So you took away this bridge fund, what I call the ammo, the armor,
the equipment fund, and the answer you have given us is, well, if the
President caves, then the troops will get the money. Holding our
troops, our forces, hostage during a time of war is something that this
body has never done.
I would hope that the Democrat leadership would make an about-face on
this. I would hope you would adopt the great position of Democrat
Senator Henry ``Scoop'' Jackson, who said, ``In time of war, the best
politics is no politics.''
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.
I yield myself the time simply to respond to something said by the
gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker). Mr. Wicker implied that the
delay that took place in bringing this to the floor today was because
of supposedly some turmoil about how this bill was packaged.
In fact, as the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh) will tell you,
the reason for the delay is because I spent all day defending two
Republican amendments to this bill that the Senate wanted to reject.
And until I got agreement to quit horsing around with those amendments,
I refused to bring this bill to the floor.
And now I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from
Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).
Ms. DeLAURO. It really is disingenuous when I listen to my colleague
from California talk about ammo, armor and equipment from the folks who
brought our young men and women into a battle without appropriate ammo,
without armor, and without the appropriate equipment that they needed
to be able to fight this war from the outset. In fact, it has been the
Democratic majority over and over and over again who have increased
that funding for our troops in the field.
Let me also say to our distinguished minority leader, and you should
not be fooled by the commentary, this issue is about the Labor, Health,
Education and Human Services bill. And the folks who are playing games
are the minority and the Republicans on that side of the aisle.
This is bill where we know that we will increase funding for veterans
health care, offer pay raises for active duty soldiers, provide
additional support for military families. Let me just tell you what
this President wants to veto: the investment in lifesaving medical
research, the investment in increased education funding, and he would
like to veto our being able to strengthen job training in this Nation.
Two or three examples, my friends. The President's budget cuts
funding for medical research at the National Institutes of Health. He
would cut that by $480 million. That is 800 fewer research grants than
last year to study deadly diseases like cancer, Alzheimer's, leukemia,
Parkinson's, heart disease. We rejected that on our side of the aisle.
We invest $1 billion above the President's request or roughly the cost
of three days in Iraq. That's what the President wants to veto.
Let's take a look at the Centers for Disease Control. When the
chairwoman testified before the committee, she said we face as a nation
the issue of the daily health challenges: 4 million seniors living with
Alzheimer's, 583 women diagnosed with breast cancer every single day,
and 176,000 teens who will
[[Page H12342]]
struggle their entire lives with diabetes. And so if we fail to pass
the Labor-HHS appropriation conference report, we cut that CDC budget
by $475 million. The President wants to veto that $475 million for
those efforts.
Let's take a look at what he said last month, that is the President:
``Don't go backwards when it comes to educational excellence. We have
come too far to turn back.'' Yet he will recall millions in Perkins
loans funds and cut the special education program by $291 million.
Going backwards is exactly what he is proposing to do.
We invest $5.9 billion in education, the cost of just 18 days in
Iraq. What will we do with it? We will benefit 8.5 million students to
prepare our Nation for the 21st century economy.
Let's talk about the President last week. An additional $42 billion
from Congress for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that will in the
next decade cost $2.4 trillion, or $8,000 per man, woman and child.
Let's fight for people, not dollars, and the people of this Nation
understand that.
Mr. LEWIS of California. Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 2
minutes to the ranking member of the Veterans Committee, Steve Buyer.
Mr. BUYER. I have come to the floor because what is clear is there
are no disagreements with regard to the VA-Milcon appropriations bill.
There is no disagreement between the House, the Senate or the White
House, which means that weeks ago we should have appointed conferees
and we should have voted on this bill if in fact our priority, in a
bipartisan way, is clearly that of the troops.
So I come to the well really bothered here today. The word
``gamesmanship'' has been used. The word ``partisanship'' has been
used. When it comes to funding our troops, those words should never be
used. A few years ago, almost 2\1/2\ years ago, I met with Republican
leadership and I wanted to get politics out of the military health
delivery system and the VA. That is when I said get HUD out of VA and
let's combine this. So what we have done by doing VA and MilCon, we do
this so the authorizers and the appropriators can work together on the
seamless transition issues so we get politics out of the arena.
And now to take this bill to which there are no disagreements and to
attach it to a vehicle where there are disagreements, the gentleman
from California (Mr. Hunter) is absolutely correct, it places the bill
at risk.
The last speaker talked about HHS. I am here to talk about funding
veterans and our troops and the dependents and their families. We
shouldn't be playing these games with the White House if our priorities
are truly with America's most precious assets, and that is the men and
women who wear the uniform, and to care for those who keep the watch
fires burning and their children. So let's don't play these games.
I have to agree with John Boehner. There is a reason the American
people look at Congress with a 14 percent approval rating. It is
because of these types of games.
We are better than this. We are better than this. So let's come
together like we passed this bill 138 days ago and keep our
bipartisanship and send this bill to the President.
Mr. OBEY. May I inquire how much time is remaining on both sides.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Wisconsin has 9 minutes
remaining. The gentleman from California has 11\1/2\ minutes.
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from
Ohio (Mr. Ryan).
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I thank the gentleman and appreciate the
opportunity to make a few remarks here.
Madam Speaker, a lot has been said here. The minority leader came
down and said this makes him sick. Another speaker came down and said
we are somehow holding the troops hostage. Another Member comes down
and says this is a sad day. You know, I think all that rhetoric may be
nice, but what we are trying to do here is run the government. As has
been stated several times, when the Republicans were in charge, they
put bills together and got them passed. And now all of a sudden to take
a stand here like this has never happened is, I think, a tad bit
disingenuous.
But we have to ask ourselves now that everyone is bringing the troops
in here: What are the troops fighting for? They are not fighting for a
Defense bill. They are not fighting for a VA bill. They are fighting
for our country. And what is our country? Our country is a country that
makes investments in its own people. They are fighting for America
because it's a great place to live. It's a great place to get educated.
It's a great place to get health care. And for us to say somehow they
are just fighting for only a portion of our society, I think is a bit
disingenuous, too. I bet if we talked to some of the troops and we
asked them what it means to be an American, they would say it means to
be free and to be able to achieve the American Dream. And you achieve
the American Dream by being healthy, by being educated, by having
access to this great country. That is what we are trying to do here.
We have a great bill. This Labor-HHS bill is great. It is called the
people's bill. Just like the VA bill is the people's bill. This all
goes together. This is one cohesive investment that we need to make in
our country; and we are asking the Republicans, Madam Speaker, to join
us.
You can't hide behind the President. Article I, section 1 creates
this body. We are the ones who fund the government. If the President
wants to veto this, help us override the veto.
These are all good bills. And when those veterans get home, as Mr.
Obey stated, they need the same exact kind of attention and their
families need the same exact kind of attention that every other citizen
gets. They want high quality, low-cost education. They want high
quality, low cost health care, and they want an opportunity for their
kids to live the American Dream. Is that too much to ask? That's the
question: Is that too much to ask?
Mr. LEWIS of California. Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 3
minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite), a
member of the committee.
Ms. GINNY BROWN-WAITE of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise today to
speak on behalf of our Nation's veterans, more than 100,000 of whom
live in my congressional district.
Madam Speaker, 138 days ago, 4\1/2\ months ago, this House passed the
Veterans-MilCon appropriations bill; and 55 days ago, the Senate passed
their version. Since that time the party in control, the Democrats,
have sat on their hands refusing to appoint conferees and take action
to fund our Nation's heroes. Leader Boehner has actually appointed
conferees to the conference, and virtually every Republican Member has
implored the Speaker to move forward. Our troops are too important to
play political games.
Just this past week, I heard from a woman in my district whose son is
being treated in the spinal cord injury unit down in Tampa. Let me
share with you that she is not a Republican. She is a dyed-in-the-wool
Democrat. Her comment to me was that she was ashamed that the increased
appropriation that was in the very good bill that we passed here, she
was ashamed that those funds have not yet been freed up.
October 1 was the beginning of the Federal year. We have veterans in
need of services. We have veterans in need of increased staffing at the
various hospitals. Combining these bills clearly is an effort to have
people vote on something that will come back and be certainly not what
the American public wanted.
You know, when your side won in November, Madam Speaker, I think
Americans thought, oh, good, things will be done differently. They are
not only not being done differently, they are being done worse than
before. That is not what the American public wants.
The American public wants to have our military funded. They want to
have our veterans, whether it is from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, or
those currently coming back from OIF and OEF, deserving to have good-
quality care at the veterans hospitals. And to have that as a separate
bill, not be held hostage.
Mr. OBEY. Does the gentleman have any remaining speakers?
Mr. LEWIS of California. Not on this portion, no.
Mr. OBEY. Then could I ask the gentleman to give his summary remarks.
I have only one remaining speaker.
Mr. LEWIS of California. Madam Speaker, I would speak just for a
moment by way of saying that I think in many ways we have demonstrated
if we
[[Page H12343]]
are not careful with our rhetoric, we can undermine the opportunity we
have for bipartisan consideration of very important work in the House.
One of the most positive experiences I have had as a member of the
Appropriations Committee has been to sit in that subcommittee that
deals with Labor-HHS. I have been very, very impressed with the amount
of nonpartisan, bipartisan support for fundamental research, for
example. Earlier it was suggested that there is not that base of
support. It is when we get this partisan confrontation on the floor
that polarizes us that we tend to become confused about the real work
that is positively done within our subcommittees.
{time} 1630
Madam Speaker, I must say I would hope that we can do all that we
possibly can to try to bring both sides together relative to those
research items that I feel have such high priority.
Beyond that, I'm going to be later raising a question by way of a
motion to instruct conferees that would suggest that the Labor-HHS bill
ought to be dealt with by itself. Where the members of that
subcommittee worked so hard and have such expertise in this arena to
set their work out and complicate it with VA-HUD over issues that
relate to veterans is absolutely undermining the appropriations
process.
So, with that, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman has 6 minutes remaining.
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the remaining time.
Let me state once more that I find somewhat disingenuous concerns
expressed about the so-called delay that this process will provide for
veterans health care. I would like to know where that same concern was
when last year the now-minority party never even passed a Military
Construction bill. Last year, they completed their session, they walked
out of town, shut the doors and said good-bye, and they never passed
any bill whatsoever to provide veterans health care.
So we took over in January, and the very first action we took was to
clean up that mess and add over $3 billion to veterans health care.
That was our top priority. And then we followed it up in the regular
appropriation bill by adding again more than $3 billion. So I will take
a backseat to no one in terms of our expression of concern for
veterans.
But let me say, we're not just going to take care of veterans as long
as they wear the uniform. We're also going to try to take care of their
kids' needs for a decent college education. We're going to try to take
care of their families' needs in terms of medical research. We're going
to try to take care of their housing needs. We're going to try to take
care to see that there's decent law enforcement so they can live in
communities where kids can actually grow up into adulthood. As the
gentleman from Ohio said, we're going to treat veterans as a whole
person. That's the purpose of trying to pass all of these bills.
Let me simply say I think these bills have been bipartisan. The
Labor-Health-Education bill, one of the speakers indicated that it was
the most contentious bill on the floor. We got 53 Republican votes for
that bill. I hardly think that we would have done that if it had been a
partisan product. In fact, if you average all of the appropriation
bills that we passed in this House, we got 65 Republican votes on
average for every appropriation bill that passed. That means that we
passed these bills on average by exactly two-thirds, which is exactly
what it takes to override a Presidential veto.
Now we're simply trying to get these bills to the President as fast
as we can and in a way which does not enable him to have an easy time
of cherry-picking. That's what we're trying to do.
I sat down with the President's budget director, Mr. Nussle, and I
said, Look, why don't we right now, even while the Senate is working,
sit down and try to work out a bipartisan compromise for all these
bills? He said, Dave, I'm new at the job, but he said, so far I don't
find anybody in the White House that has the slightest bit of interest
in compromise. I said, Well, that's too bad. I hope that changes.
Please call me if it does. But meanwhile, if the President wants to
veto something, why don't we at least sit down and try to figure out
which bills he wants to veto so maybe we can agree on which ones to
send him first. I got no takers on that either.
So we're proceeding the way we're proceeding because we're playing
off what the President of the United States has said and done, and so
far all we've heard is my way or no way. I don't believe that the
Republican Members of this Congress came here to walk in lock step, and
certainly we didn't on this side of the aisle. We will find out as the
process unravels.
And so with that, I would simply urge that we support this motion.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection the previous question is
ordered.
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
The motion was agreed to.
Motion To Instruct Offered by Mr. Lewis of California
Mr. LEWIS of California. Madam Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct
conferees.
The Clerk read as follows:
Mr. Lewis of California moves that the managers on the part
of the House at the conference on the disagreeing votes of
the two Houses on the bill, H.R. 3043, be instructed to
disagree to any proposition in violation of clause 9 of Rule
XXII which:
(1) Includes any additional funding or language not
committed to the conference;
(2) Includes matter not committed to the conference
committee by either House; or
(3) Modifies specific matter committed to conference by
either or both Houses beyond the scope of the specific matter
as committed to the conference committee.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 7 of rule XXII, the
gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis) and the gentleman from Wisconsin
(Mr. Obey) each will control 30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California.
Mr. LEWIS of California. Madam Speaker, I can't help but mention that
the preceding discussion must be very enlightening to Americans across
the country who may be interested in what we have to say here. It's
always been my personal belief that the vast percentage of problems
that we face as a people have very little to really do with partisan
politics if we can get people together at the subcommittee level to
really talk with each other about finding solutions, but clearly,
clearly, Madam Speaker, it has to be apparent to almost everybody who
had listened today that one side of the aisle in this body seems to
believe that the only solution to every problem around is to throw more
money at it. That clearly is not the case. Many a solution is found by
way of people working together, not just throwing money at some wall.
Madam Speaker, in this motion to instruct conferees, I really repeat
the point that the subcommittee members who work within the Labor-HHS
community have great expertise in the programs within this arena. They
spend a lot of energy and time applying themselves to that work.
Today we're in a process where we're going to tie that piece of work
to a combination of two other bills. It's totally unnecessary. The
Defense bill passed the House by very sizeable bipartisan numbers.
Indeed, the MilCon-VA bill did the same. To suggest that we can't go
forward with Labor-HHS as a separate product, I think this is a very
unhealthy reflection on the work of that subcommittee.
This motion says the conference can only conference the Labor-HHS
bill. They cannot consider adding Defense, MilCon-VA, or other matters
outside the scope of the Labor-HHS conference. The Members who serve on
the Labor-HHS subcommittee should be making decisions in an open
conference regarding the disposition of programs and funding levels in
that bill, not other appropriations bills related to the troops,
veterans, or other items outside the scope of that conference.
Members serve on subcommittees and have the expertise I suggest
because they work within those subcommittees. The people on Labor-HHS,
very talented in their work, spend relatively
[[Page H12344]]
little of their time in the Defense arena, as well as the arena that
deals with MilCon and veterans.
To air-drop Defense appropriations conference reports and the MilCon-
VA bill into this process is absolutely unprecedented, in my view, and
is a disservice to our Appropriations Committee.
Politicizing these bills and circumventing the normal practice of
this and other committees does nothing more than undermine the American
people's faith in their government.
Let's move beyond purely partisan politics and send the President a
freestanding Labor-HHS bill, as well as individual Defense and MilCon-
VA appropriations.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. OBEY. Is the gentleman sure he doesn't want to yield back? Could
I inquire of the gentleman how many speakers he intends to have on
this?
Mr. LEWIS of California. I think maybe there are two or three.
Mr. OBEY. All right. We'll try to do the same.
Madam Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.
Let me simply say, Madam Speaker, that what the gentleman is saying
is that he wants to prevent us from doing something on this bill which
his party did 56 times in the time that they controlled this House over
the past 12 years, and I don't find that especially persuasive.
He also wants to prevent us from producing more than one bill at a
time, and yet the President signed omnibus appropriation bills 27 times
since he's been President, when they came from his own party. Now,
because one might come from the Democratic Party, he wants to make a
Federal case out of it. I don't think people are going to be very
impressed with that either.
I find it very interesting that out of all of the motions that the
minority could have offered, they haven't offered a single motion, and
nothing in this motion today would in any way reduce by one dime any of
the funds that we appropriated in the Labor-Health-Education bill. They
argue that the bill is bloated, and yet when we give them an
opportunity to offer motions to reduce spending for any specific item
they don't take advantage of it.
That is exactly the same experience we had when the subcommittee
considered the bill, and in fact, virtually every Republican motion and
every Republican speech was on behalf of an effort to increase funding
for a number of items, whether it be vocational education, which I
agree with, or whether it be Pell Grants or whether it be special
education.
So I find it interesting that after all of that rhetoric about so-
called bloated funding for this bill they choose to argue an arcane
process issue.
All they're really saying is, when you consider Labor-Health, don't
even think of moving forward with Military Construction, don't even
think of moving forward with Defense, don't even think of addressing
the problem of California wildfires, don't even think of adding
additional funding for MRAPs. Well, if they're comfortable with that,
fine. I don't think we ought to let procedural theology get in the way
of doing what's needed for American families and American veterans and
American fighting men and women.
So, with that, I would simply urge a ``no'' vote on the motion.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. LEWIS of California. Madam Speaker, I'm pleased to yield 3\1/2\
minutes to Judge Carter of Texas, a member of the committee.
Mr. CARTER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this
time, and I rise in support of the motion to instruct conferees.
I've been sitting here listening to what's been said here today and
trying to figure this all out. I think everybody, I think the American
people are trying to figure it all out. It's an interesting process to
analyze how the Congress is working on this appropriation process.
But when you really look down as to what we're doing here, we're
trying to solve three problems this week on this issue of
appropriations. We've got three areas that we're going to look at.
We've got a problem that we want to resolve. We want to fund the
Department of Defense and the job that they do defending our Nation,
and we've got an appropriations bill that deals with that, deals with
protecting our soldiers in the field, getting their mission done and
all the things that go attached to the Department of Defense.
We've got a second issue we want to deal with. We want to take care
of those veterans that have served us so well and so proudly over the
years, make sure that we fund the programs that are necessary for them
and to do the necessary military construction of the various bases
around the world that is necessary to make sure we're providing for our
active duty military what they need. We have those two bills that we've
got to deal with this week.
{time} 1645
We have a third bill, which is the Labor-HHS bill, that deals with
issues of labor, health and human services. All those are important
bills. Let's figure out how we can best get this done. The American
people gave us a little survey this last week. They told us the one
thing they are mad at us about is they say, why don't you just get
something done? Why don't you get through the bull and get down to
doing the job? That's their number one complaint.
Let's look at this. What's the best way to do this? We've got a
Defense bill that there is really no obstacles for that anybody can
find. Everybody is pretty much okay on that. We've got a MilCon-
Veterans bill. In fact, we made an agreement when we had that little
fight over earmarks that we would let those go without even discussing
the earmarks, because they were going to go fast track through and be
done very quickly. Nobody has got a complaint with that.
Then we have got one bill that a third branch of government has a
serious complaint with and has the ability to actually veto. Let's see.
Is it an efficient way to do our job this day, to take the two bills we
can get done very simply and attach it to a bill that has a major
roadblock on it? Is that doing our business efficiently? It seems to be
not a good idea to me, but maybe it is. But why would we want to do
that? We can pass two easily. The third, we're going to have a long
discussion about and a fight and maybe a veto. We could get it done if
we separated them apart, but we're putting them together. Why do we do
that? Maybe it's because they've got people on their side of the aisle
that won't vote for the Defense bill. There are 89 of them that said
they won't. So maybe this would coerce them to do it. Or maybe they
think they can roll over the President and the Republicans on the issue
of spending. Who knows. But let's get down and do it efficiently and
just deal with Labor-HHS today.
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New
York (Mr. Israel).
Mr. ISRAEL. I thank the chairman.
Mr. Speaker, I must say I am hearing some conflicting priorities on
the floor today. We have heard that the appropriations process is not
moving fast enough, despite the fact that under the leadership of
Chairman Obey in the House, we passed every single one of our
appropriations bills, I believe in record time. We are hearing that the
appropriations process isn't moving fast enough on the one hand, and
now we have a motion to instruct the conferees to actually slow it
down, to take pieces out of this bill, to stop it. You can't have it
both ways. We are trying to get things done. We are trying to move our
priorities forward.
Now, I understand that some of my friends don't want to deal with the
labor, health and human services aspects of this bill, and they are
concerned with the President's argument that we have plenty of money to
fund Iraq but can't afford veterans health care here at home and
educational priorities here at home and low-income heating for the
elderly here at home.
I understand those arguments, but let me suggest to my colleagues
that they read a study that was just released yesterday by Harvard
Medical School. That study shows there is, in fact, a critical
connection between the VA pieces of this bill and the health and human
services aspects of this bill. The two should be considered together.
That study found that, today, there are 2 million veterans who have no
health insurance. And they aren't eligible for
[[Page H12345]]
VA benefits. Not eligible for VA benefits and too poor to afford health
insurance. The number of uninsured veterans jumped to 1.8 million in
2004, and the population of uninsured veterans is increasing at twice
the rate of the general population.
Now, the Labor-H aspects of this bill provides $1.4 billion above the
President's request for programs to improve health care access. So
taken in its totality, this bill, without segregating the human
services components, taken in its totality, this bill protects our
troops in the field and also provides access to veterans at home who
may not qualify for veterans benefits. As has been stated before, our
veterans are a whole. They come back from the war, the last thing they
should worry about is not having health insurance. It's the labor,
health and human services aspects of this bill that could provide
additional access to health care, and that is why this bill ought to be
considered as it is.
I would make one other point. We have already considered these bills
separately. Each of these components were, in fact, debated,
deliberated and passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in the
Appropriations Committee and then debated again, deliberated again and
passed with significant Republican support on the floor of the House.
There is no reason to move backwards. There is no reason to delay.
There is no reason to stop this process. We want to get these bills to
the President. We should do so.
Mr. LEWIS of California. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the
ranking member on the Labor and Education Committee, Buck McKeon from
California.
Mr. McKEON. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the motion to instruct conferees.
I am disappointed to be standing here under these circumstances.
A full month into the new fiscal year, the Democrats have failed to
send a single spending bill to the President for his signature or veto.
The President laid out his positions early this year, asking the
Congress to adhere to fiscally responsible spending caps.
Democrats have been unwilling or unable to control their spending,
passing bills that topped these spending targets by billions of
dollars. Now, rather than moving separate bills to support our troops
and veterans, Democrats are holding these bills hostage to the swollen
Labor, Health and Human Services and Education spending bill.
As the former chairman of the Education Committee, I know firsthand
the arguments the other side will make on funding in that bill. So
let's focus on the facts. Republicans are strong supporters of programs
that support education, health care and workers. Our fiscally
responsible spending targets allow significant resources for these
programs. Republicans have a strong record when it comes to funding
education.
At the same time, we know that the achievement gap in our schools is
not caused by a lack of funding, but by a lack of accountability.
Throwing money at the problem is not the answer. Our committee is a
case study in how the priorities of Democrats diverged from those of
the American people.
Democrats have failed to act on the No Child Left Behind, the higher
education, and job training bills this year. Yet, they have passed
bills to strip workers of the right to a secret ballot election,
overturned six decades of civil rights law, and created new entitlement
spending at the expense of low- and middle-income college students. The
worst may be yet to come.
When Democrats finally take up higher education reform, we may see
prisoners getting Pell Grants and drug dealers getting Federal aid. The
Democrats have, quite simply, got their priorities in the wrong place.
It's time to get back to work and fund these three bills separately for
our troops, our veterans, and our students.
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I have only one remaining speaker, so I
would ask the gentleman to finish.
Mr. LEWIS of California. Madam Speaker, how much time is remaining?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Wisconsin has 24 minutes.
The gentleman from California has 21 minutes.
Mr. LEWIS of California. Madam Speaker, I would yield to my colleague
from Florida, former chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Bill
Young, for as much time as he may consume.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I thank the chairman for yielding me the time.
Madam Speaker, I rise to applaud Chairman Obey for the statements
that he has made since the beginning of this session of Congress that
we are going to pass all of the appropriations bills individually,
separately, and send them to the President, individually and
separately. I think that is a great idea. As a former chairman of this
Appropriations Committee, I wish I could have done the same thing.
I understand the frustration that Chairman Obey has in not being able
to move the bills the way that he wants to move them. I experienced the
same frustration. Mr. Obey is right. We did have omnibus bills during
the time that we were the majority party. The reason we had the omnibus
bills is because our partners in the Senate refused to pass their
bills.
Now, Chairman Obey has said so many times that we just didn't do our
job. In the House, we did our job. In the House we passed our
appropriations bills just like Chairman Obey did this year, but it
takes two Houses to approve a bill and to send it to the White House.
The frustration is that without appropriations bills, the government
shuts down. It's pure and simple. Article I of the Constitution of the
United States, section 9, says that the administration can't spend any
money that has not first been appropriated by Congress. So in order to
meet that constitutional responsibility, we have had, on occasion, the
need to create an omnibus appropriations bill because the Senate
refused to pass their bills. Now, I will concede that during our
chairmanship the Senate was a Republican Senate. It was controlled by
the Republicans.
Today, the United States Senate still refuses to pass all of their
appropriations bills, and today the Senate is controlled by the
Democrats. So it just seems like the Senate is the Senate, no matter
who controls them politically. But in the case that we are debating
today, there is absolutely no good government reason to combine these
three bills. Combining these bills will slow them down.
It has been suggested by some of the speakers we ought to move ahead.
The Defense appropriations subcommittee was scheduled to conference
tomorrow morning to send the bill to the Senate and to the White House.
I understand the Labor-HHS Subcommittee was also scheduled to
conference tomorrow. These bills could have been conferenced and, by
the way, the Military Construction Veterans' Affairs Committee was also
prepared to conference, and the President said that he would sign that
bill, he would sign the Defense bill. He expressed his concern about
the Labor-H bill.
I voted for all three of them. I voted for the Defense bill, I voted
for the Military Construction Veterans Affairs bill, and I also voted
for the Labor-HHS bill. I think we ought to handle these bills
individually to speed up the process, not to slow it down.
By combining these three bills, we all know that it will slow down
the process. How long would it slow it down? I don't know, but I do
know this, that there is already talk about conducting the
appropriations process on these bills on a continuing resolution if it
gets slowed down too much. That's not good.
We have done CRs, and we know that, and we know the reason for them.
But there is no good reason to put these bills on a CR. They are ready
to conference. They are ready to come back to the House and go to the
Senate and go to the White House. They are ready. There would be no
delay.
It's just not right because there is no good government reason to do
this. It's just not right to do it. I suggest that we should join in
supporting Chairman Obey when he says that these bills should be done
individually, separately and sent to the President in that fashion,
individually and separately.
I support this motion because, if this motion does not pass, and if
we appoint Labor-HHS conferees to conference the Defense bill, I mean,
they are all very, very talented members, and they all
[[Page H12346]]
have great knowledge, but, you know, none of them sat through the
hearings. None of them sat through the justifications. None of them sat
through the markups.
So to have the Labor-HHS members who are outstanding members on both
sides of the aisle, to have them conferencing a large bill as
complicated as the Defense bill, that's just not right. It's really
interesting that the bills that the leadership would add to the Labor-
HHS bill make up 80 percent of the dollars to be appropriated.
{time} 1700
The Labor-HHS bill, which becomes the vehicle, is only 20 percent of
the appropriations.
This is not right. I'm not going to suggest why the majority
leadership made this decision. But I'm going to say, emphatically and
without fear of contradiction, there is no good government reason for
combining these three bills, because they are ready to be conferenced
and sent to the President without any delay whatsoever.
And I thank the gentleman for yielding and for the good job that he
does in his role on the Appropriations Committee.
Mr. OBEY. Can I inquire how many speakers the gentleman has
remaining.
Mr. LEWIS of California. I have one additional speaker to close.
Mr. OBEY. Just one?
Mr. LEWIS of California. Yes, sir.
Mr. OBEY. Then I'm the last speaker on our side.
How much time remaining?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Wisconsin has 24 minutes.
Mr. OBEY. I yield myself 5 minutes.
Madam Speaker, I simply want to repeat what the gentleman from Ohio
said earlier. We often see politicians try to wrap themselves in the
flag, and we often try to see politicians pose for holy pictures every
time the issue of veterans comes up. And America's very good at
saluting veterans and playing the band when they go off to war. We
haven't been as good in dealing with their problems after they come
home.
And so what we intend to do in the Military Construction bill, in the
Defense bill, in the Labor-Health bill, and in a number of other
appropriation bills is we intend to deal with all of the problems faced
by veterans and their families and other families in this country.
When veterans come home, they aren't just worried about whether or
not they're going to get veterans health care. They also want to know
whether the kids are going to be able to go to decent schools, taught
by qualified teachers in decent classrooms. So we are going to be
trying to see to it that programs such as title I and handicapped
education are much more adequately funded than they would be under the
President's budget.
Impact Aid, that directly affects many military families. We're
trying to make sure that we do a better job funding that program than
the President did in his budget.
Medical research, believe it or not, veterans need the results of
medical research just as much as and probably more so than many other
Americans. We're going to see to it, in our bill, that we don't
experience a cutback of 1,100 grants in military research around the
country.
I would suggest that this motion simply says that the new minority
does not want us to do something which they did 56 times when they ran
this House, namely, combine appropriation bills for the purpose either
of efficiency or to strengthen our capacity to meet our obligations
around the horn.
I also think something else is going on. Under the budget rules of
the House, the President does not have the right to veto a budget
resolution; he only has the right to veto appropriation bills. But what
he is trying to do, by asserting that he, and he alone, will determine
what the overall number is for appropriations, he is trying to
indirectly position himself so he can veto a budget resolution. He's
never had that power. The Congress never gave him that power, and the
Constitution certainly doesn't.
So I would suggest that one of the probably unintended consequences
of the motion of the gentleman from California is that it would,
inadvertently, transfer additional power to the executive branch. I
don't think that's wise.
Having said all of that, I want to make one more point. I know the
gentleman from Florida would never want to misstate or misquote any
other Member, but I was somewhat stunned to hear him suggest that I
have said that we must pass these appropriation bills singly. In fact,
I have said many times on this floor just the opposite.
I've said that, unlike the previous chairman, who was extremely
concerned about passing each of these bills separately, that while I
would prefer to do it that way, I would be happy, if that didn't work,
to pass them in minibuses or omnibuses or any other kind of bus you can
find, so long as we deliver the goods, and so long as the goods are the
right goods for the American people. And that's the philosophy I have.
So I would simply suggest, we've had more debate than I'd expected
today on procedural niceties. I would suggest that we simply recognize
that we've got an obligation to get on with completing our
appropriations business. This is the most effective way we can do it.
All three of these bills passed the House on a bipartisan basis, and
I have no reason to expect that they won't do the same when they come
back from conference.
I do want to say that I agree with not all, but some of the comments
made about our esteemed colleagues in the other body, but that's a
discussion for another day.
And with that, if the gentleman has one remaining speaker, then I'm
prepared to yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. LEWIS of California. Madam Speaker, I yield the balance of my
time to the ranking member of the Labor-HHS Subcommittee, Jim Walsh of
New York.
Mr. WALSH of New York. I thank my friend from California for yielding
time, and I rise in strong support of this motion to instruct
conferees.
Before I do that though, I'd like to comment, just make a couple of
comments on some of the debate that's occurred, specifically, the
notion that the Republican Party, when we were in the majority, did not
pass our military quality of life and veterans bills. And I know the
chairman knows this, but we did. In the House, we did. We passed our
bills overwhelmingly. And we ran into a little problem with the other
body. And I know the chairman feels our pain there because he has been
and will continue to be running into problems with the other body, and
I will work with him on those. But we did conscientiously work to
resolve these issues here in the House. And I think historically, at
least in my brief time here, we have done that. But the Senate is the
Senate, and they do what they do. We do it our own way, and I think we
do it very effectively regardless of the party in power in the House.
I would also mention, because the chairman did a little bit of
crowing about the things that they are doing in this bill and they've
done in the other bills, we passed, year after year after year, record
increases in veterans health care spending. And they were needed
because we have so many veterans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan
with severe injuries, both physical and mental. But we stepped up to
the plate and we did it in a bipartisan way. And we passed record
increases. I think, on average, 10 percent increases per year; faster
growth than any other budget in the Federal Government. So we are
second to none in our support of veterans. And we will continue to
support those bills that the other party passes if they are truly
bipartisan. And I think this one, the Military Construction and VA bill
is.
Back to the motion to instruct the conferees. Quite simply, what this
motion says is that the conferees on Labor, Health and Human Services,
Education and Related Agencies appropriations bills should not add
material to the conference report that was not approved by either House
or the Senate. This should not be controversial, but based on what has
happened here today, it is.
The reality is that this majority should not be combining a bill that
has received a veto threat with two other bills that have not.
I've supported the Labor-H bill throughout this process. Chairman
Obey has been fair, and I've worked with him shoulder to shoulder to
bring this bill forward. He has fought for Republican and Democratic
initiatives
[[Page H12347]]
and measures equally, and I thank him, and he has my respect for that.
But I was not consulted when it came to putting these three bills
together.
I voted for the Military Construction-VA bill. I voted for the
defense bill. They are all good bills, in my humble opinion. The Senate
has passed all three bills, as has the House. There is no reason why
these three bills cannot be conferenced individually, sent to the
President individually and accepted or rejected individually. But most
assuredly, by combining them, they are all doomed to fail. If the
President vetoes any of the three freestanding conference reports, we
in the House, and our colleagues in the other body, will have an
opportunity to override that veto.
Frankly, I see the effort to attach the Defense and Military
Construction-Veterans bills to the Labor-HHS bill as nothing more than
posturing and, in fact, brinksmanship.
Madam Speaker, the resulting bill would represent everything that is
wrong with Washington. The confusion that will ensue in the country
will only serve as a shining example of why this Congress today enjoys
its lowest approval ratings in generations.
The people of New York's 25th Congressional District sent me to
Washington to represent their interests and to solve problems. This
effort to combine these bills creates a problem.
This Congress has produced less than a handful of bills in 10 months,
and no appropriations bills to date. We can pass and have signed two
bills easily, the Veterans bill and the Defense bill. But instead, by
combining these bills to Labor-H, we will bring them all down. It is a
plan to fail, just like the SCHIP bill was.
As I said, I support the Labor-HHS bill and I will likely continue to
support it as a freestanding bill.
I understand politics and I understand political strategy, but
putting funding for veterans health care and our military at risk to
score points is beyond the pale.
I know there are some Members of Congress and some individuals in the
White House who would like to see this government continue to operate
on a continuing resolution as we have this past year. I don't. We can
pass these bills stand-alone, but we can't pass them lashed together.
This process hurts the credibility of the Appropriations Committee, a
committee that has historically been nonpartisan and task oriented.
Mark my words, if we continue along this path, we will be operating
on a CR again in 2008. And for a third year in a row, no Member
requests will be honored in the Labor-HHS bill, and for a third year in
a row, the Appropriations Committee will fail to meet its
responsibilities.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is
ordered.
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to instruct.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the noes appeared to have it.
Mr. LEWIS of California. Madam Speaker, I object to the vote on the
ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a
quorum is not present.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 191,
nays 222, not voting 19, as follows:
[Roll No. 1026]
YEAS--191
Aderholt
Akin
Bachmann
Bachus
Baker
Barrett (SC)
Bartlett (MD)
Barton (TX)
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop (UT)
Blackburn
Blunt
Boehner
Bonner
Bono
Boozman
Boustany
Brady (TX)
Broun (GA)
Brown (SC)
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Buchanan
Burgess
Burton (IN)
Buyer
Calvert
Camp (MI)
Campbell (CA)
Cannon
Cantor
Capito
Carter
Castle
Chabot
Coble
Cole (OK)
Conaway
Crenshaw
Culberson
Davis (KY)
Davis, David
Davis, Tom
Deal (GA)
Dent
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Doolittle
Drake
Dreier
Duncan
Ehlers
Emerson
English (PA)
Everett
Fallin
Feeney
Ferguson
Flake
Forbes
Fortenberry
Fossella
Foxx
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Gallegly
Garrett (NJ)
Gerlach
Gilchrest
Gingrey
Gohmert
Goode
Goodlatte
Granger
Graves
Hall (TX)
Hastert
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Heller
Herger
Hobson
Hoekstra
Hulshof
Hunter
Inglis (SC)
Issa
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Jordan
Keller
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kirk
Kline (MN)
Knollenberg
Kuhl (NY)
LaHood
Lamborn
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Linder
LoBiondo
Lucas
Lungren, Daniel E.
Mack
Manzullo
Marchant
McCarthy (CA)
McCaul (TX)
McCotter
McHenry
McHugh
McKeon
McMorris Rodgers
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller, Gary
Moran (KS)
Murphy, Tim
Musgrave
Myrick
Neugebauer
Nunes
Pearce
Pence
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pickering
Pitts
Platts
Poe
Porter
Price (GA)
Pryce (OH)
Putnam
Radanovich
Ramstad
Regula
Rehberg
Reichert
Renzi
Reynolds
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Roskam
Royce
Sali
Saxton
Schmidt
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shays
Shimkus
Shuster
Simpson
Smith (NE)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Souder
Stearns
Sullivan
Tancredo
Taylor
Terry
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Tiberi
Turner
Upton
Walberg
Walden (OR)
Walsh (NY)
Wamp
Weldon (FL)
Westmoreland
Whitfield
Wicker
Wilson (NM)
Wilson (SC)
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NAYS--222
Abercrombie
Allen
Altmire
Andrews
Arcuri
Baca
Baird
Baldwin
Barrow
Bean
Becerra
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Blumenauer
Boren
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd (FL)
Boyda (KS)
Brady (PA)
Braley (IA)
Brown, Corrine
Capps
Capuano
Cardoza
Carnahan
Carney
Castor
Chandler
Clarke
Clay
Cleaver
Clyburn
Cohen
Conyers
Cooper
Costa
Costello
Courtney
Cramer
Crowley
Cuellar
Cummings
Davis (AL)
Davis (CA)
Davis (IL)
Davis, Lincoln
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Dicks
Dingell
Doggett
Donnelly
Doyle
Edwards
Ellison
Ellsworth
Emanuel
Engel
Eshoo
Etheridge
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Frank (MA)
Giffords
Gillibrand
Gonzalez
Gordon
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Hall (NY)
Hare
Harman
Hastings (FL)
Herseth Sandlin
Higgins
Hill
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hirono
Hodes
Holden
Holt
Honda
Hooley
Hoyer
Inslee
Israel
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Johnson (GA)
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (OH)
Kagen
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilpatrick
Kind
Klein (FL)
Kucinich
Lampson
Langevin
Lantos
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Lee
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
Loebsack
Lofgren, Zoe
Lowey
Lynch
Mahoney (FL)
Maloney (NY)
Markey
Marshall
Matheson
Matsui
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum (MN)
McDermott
McGovern
McIntyre
McNerney
McNulty
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Melancon
Michaud
Miller, George
Mitchell
Mollohan
Moore (KS)
Moore (WI)
Moran (VA)
Murphy (CT)
Murphy, Patrick
Murtha
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Payne
Perlmutter
Peterson (MN)
Pomeroy
Price (NC)
Rahall
Rangel
Reyes
Richardson
Rodriguez
Ross
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Ruppersberger
Rush
Ryan (OH)
Salazar
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sarbanes
Schakowsky
Schwartz
Scott (GA)
Scott (VA)
Serrano
Shea-Porter
Sherman
Shuler
Sires
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Solis
Space
Spratt
Stupak
Sutton
Tanner
Tauscher
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tierney
Towns
Tsongas
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Van Hollen
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walz (MN)
Waters
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weiner
Welch (VT)
Wexler
Woolsey
Wu
Wynn
Yarmuth
NOT VOTING--19
Ackerman
Alexander
Butterfield
Carson
Cubin
Hensarling
Jindal
Latham
LaTourette
McCrery
Miller (NC)
Paul
Ryan (WI)
Schiff
Sestak
Stark
Wasserman Schultz
Weller
Wilson (OH)
{time} 1736
Messrs. KUCINICH, HONDA, WATT, BISHOP of Georgia, SPRATT, KLEIN of
Florida, MARSHALL, OBERSTAR, STUPAK and DONNELLY, and Ms. BERKLEY and
Ms. MATSUI changed their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
Mr. HASTERT changed his vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
So the motion to instruct was rejected.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________