[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 18]
[House]
[Pages 25684-25692]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



      FOREIGN OPERATIONS, EXPORT FINANCING, AND RELATED PROGRAMS 
APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2000--VETO MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED 
                      STATES (H. DOC. NO. 106-145)

  The SPEAKER pro tempore laid before the House the following veto 
message from the President of the United States:

To the House of Representatives:
  I am returning herewith without my approval H.R. 2606, the ``Foreign 
Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 
2000.''
  The central lesson we have learned in this century is that we cannot 
protect American interests at home without active engagement abroad. 
Common sense tells us, and hard experience has confirmed, that we must 
lead in the world, working with other nations to defuse crises, repel 
dangers, promote more open economic and political systems, and 
strengthen the rule of law. These have been the guiding principles of 
American foreign policy for generations. They have served the American 
people well, and greatly helped to advance the cause of peace and 
freedom around the world.
  This bill rejects all of those principles. It puts at risk America's 
50-year tradition of leadership for a safer, more prosperous and 
democratic world. It is an abandonment of hope in our Nation's capacity 
to shape that kind of world. It implies that we are too small and 
insecure to meet our share of international responsibilities, too 
shortsighted to see that doing so is in our national interest. It is 
another sign of a new isolationism that would have America bury its 
head in the sand at the height of our power and prosperity.
  In the short term, H.R. 2606 fails to address critical national 
security needs. It suggests we can afford to underfund our efforts to 
keep deadly weapons from falling into dangerous hands and walk away 
without peril from our essential work toward peace in places of 
conflict. Just as seriously, it fails to address America's long-term 
interests. It reduces assistance to nations struggling to build 
democratic societies and open markets and backs away from our 
commitment to help people trapped in poverty to stand on their feet. 
This, too, threatens our security because future threats will come from 
regions and nations where instability and misery prevail and future 
opportunities will come from nations on the road to freedom and growth.
  By denying America a decent investment in diplomacy, this bill 
suggests we should meet threats to our security with our military might 
alone. That is a dangerous proposition. For if we underfund our 
diplomacy, we will end up overusing our military. Problems we might 
have been able to resolve peacefully will turn into crises we can only 
resolve at a cost of life and treasure. Shortchanging our arsenal of 
peace is as risky as shortchanging our arsenal of war.
  The overall funding provided by H.R. 2606 is inadequate. It is about 
half the amount available in real terms to President Reagan in 1985, 
and it is 14 percent below the level that I requested. I proposed to 
fund this higher level within the budget limits and without spending 
any of the Social Security surplus. The specific shortfalls in the 
current bill are numerous and unacceptable.
  For example, it is shocking that the Congress has failed to fulfill 
our obligations to Israel and its neighbors as they take risks and make 
difficult decisions to advance the Middle East peace process. My 
Administration, like all its predecessors, has fought hard to promote 
peace in the Middle East. This bill would provide neither the $800 
million requested this year as a supplemental appropriation nor the 
$500 million requested in FY 2000 funding to support the Wye River 
Agreement. Just when Prime Minister Barak has helped give the peace 
process a jump start, this sends the worst possible message to Israel, 
Jordan, and the Palestinians about America's commitment to the peace 
process. We should instead seize this opportunity to support them.
  Additional resources are required to respond to the costs of building 
peace in Kosovo and the rest of the Balkans, and I intend to work with 
the Congress to provide needed assistance. Other life-saving peace 
efforts, such as those in Sierra Leone and East Timor, are imperiled by 
the bill's inadequate funding of the voluntary peacekeeping account.
  My Administration has sought to protect Americans from the threat 
posed by the potential danger of weapons proliferation from Russia and 
the countries of the former Soviet Union. But the Congress has failed 
to finance the Expanded Threat Reduction Initiative (ETRI), which is 
designed to prevent weapons of mass destruction and weapons 
technologies from falling into the wrong hands and weapons scientists 
from offering their talents to countries, or even terrorists, seeking 
these weapons. The bill also curtails ETRI programs that help Russia 
and other New Independent States strengthen export controls to avoid 
illicit trafficking in sensitive materials through their borders and 
airports. The ETRI will also help facilitate withdrawal of Russian 
forces and equipment from countries such as Georgia and Moldova; it 
will create peaceful research opportunities for thousands of former 
Soviet weapons scientists. We also cannot afford to underfund programs 
that support democracy and small scale enterprises in Russia and other 
New Independent States because these are the very kinds of initiatives 
needed to complete their transformation away from communism and 
authoritarianism.
  A generation from now, no one is going to say we did too much to help 
the nations of the former Soviet Union safeguard their nuclear 
technology and expertise. If the funding cuts in this bill were to 
become law, future generations would certainly say we did too little 
and that we imperiled our future in the process.
  My Administration has also sought to promote economic progress and 
political change in developing countries, because America benefits when 
these countries become our partners in security and trade. At the 
Cologne Summit, we led a historic effort to enable the world's poorest 
and most heavily indebted countries to finance health, education, and 
opportunity programs. The Congress fails to fund the U.S. contribution. 
The bill also severely underfunds Multilateral Development Banks, 
providing the lowest level of financing since 1987, with cuts of 37 
percent from our request. This will virtually double U.S. arrears to 
these banks and seriously undermine our capacity to promote economic 
reform and growth in Latin America, Asia, and especially Africa. These 
markets are critical to American jobs and opportunities.
  Across the board, my Administration requested the funding necessary 
to assure American leadership on matters

[[Page 25685]]

vital to the interests and values of our citizens. In area after area, 
from fighting terrorism and international crime to promoting nuclear 
stability on the Korean peninsula, from helping refugees and disaster 
victims to meetings its own goal of a 10,000-member Peace Corps, the 
Congress has failed to fund adequately these requests.
  Several policy matters addressed in the bill are also problematic. 
One provision would hamper the Export-Import Bank's ability to be 
responsive to American exporters by requiring that the Congress be 
notified of dozens of additional kinds of transactions before the Bank 
can offer financing. Another provision would allow the Export-Import 
Bank to operate without a quorum until March 2000. I have nominated two 
individuals to the Bank's Board, and they should be confirmed.
  A third provision could be read to prevent the United States from 
engaging in diplomatic efforts to promote a cost-effective, global 
solution to climate change. A fourth provision places restrictions on 
assistance to Indonesia that could harm our ability to influence the 
objectives we share with the Congress: ensuring that Indonesia honors 
the referendum in East Timor and that security is restored there, while 
encouraging democracy and economic reform in Indonesia. Finally, this 
bill contains several sections that, if treated as mandatory, would 
encroach on the President's sole constitutional authority to conduct 
diplomatic negotiations.
  In sum, this appropriations bill undermines important American 
interests and ignores the lessons that have been at the core of our 
bipartisan foreign policy for the last half century. Like the Senate's 
recent vote to defeat the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, this bill 
reflects an inexcusable and potentially dangerous complacency about the 
opportunities and risks America faces in the world today. I therefore 
am returning this bill without my approval.
  I look forward to working with the Congress to craft an 
appropriations bill that I can support, one that maintains our 
commitment to protecting the Social Security surplus, properly 
addressing our shared goal of an America that is strong at home and 
strong abroad, respected not only for our leadership, but for the 
vision and commitment that real leadership entails. The American people 
deserve a foreign policy worthy of our great country, and I will fight 
to ensure that they continue to have one.
                                                  William J. Clinton.  
  The White House, October 18, 1999.

                              {time}  1730

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gibbons). The objections of the 
President will be spread at large upon the Journal and, without 
objection, the message and the bill will be printed as a House 
document.
  There was no objection.


                     Motion Offered By Mr. Callahan

  Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Speaker, I move that the message, together with the 
accompanying bill, be referred to the Committee on Appropriations.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan) is 
recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield the customary one-half hour to the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) for the purposes of debate 
only.


                             General Leave

  Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their 
remarks on the veto message of the President to the bill, H.R. 2606, 
and that I may include tabular and extraneous material.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Alabama?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  As my colleagues just heard, the President today vetoed the, I think, 
very responsible piece of legislation that the House and Senate and 
conferees worked on for some 6 or 7 months. The bill, I think, was a 
responsible bill that funded foreign aid at the $12.7 billion level, 
but did not do so at the expense of any Social Security monies. 
Basically, Mr. Speaker, it was a freeze at last year's funding levels, 
and I am amazed that the President now says he cannot live on what we 
gave him last year and that he wants a 30 or 40 percent increase.
  I understand in reading his veto message that he wants about $4 
billion more, but what the President does not say, even though he 
mentions Social Security in his veto message, is where are we going to 
get the money. So if we do not want to take it out of Social Security, 
which I am not going to agree to on any bill that I handle, we have 
other options.
  We can increase taxes, which I am not going to have anything to do 
with either, Mr. Speaker. I am not going to burden the American 
taxpayers with additional money to help satisfy this insatiable 
appetite to give away our money that the President has. And, we are not 
going to take it out of Defense, Mr. Speaker. I know that some have 
suggested that that might be a way we could do it, but already our 
Defense budget is suffering, and we cannot afford to reduce our 
military moneys, because if we are going to comply with every request 
that the Department of State and the President makes with requests for 
foreign assistance in every Nation in the world, such as we witnessed 
in Kosovo, such as we witnessed in many other areas of the world, such 
as we are now facing in Indonesia, I think it would be a serious 
mistake to curtail the ability of the national defense, our military, 
by taking the money away from them.
  So what the President does not tell us in his message is he is not 
suggesting what we do, other than to increase taxes, which we are not 
going to do. So maybe we are at an impasse.
  But let me tell my colleagues something about the bill that the 
President just vetoed. One of the most popular provisions that I have 
ever seen since I have been in Congress with respect to the foreign 
assistance is the child survival account. We increased the child 
survival account over $70 million this year over the President's 
request; and yet, he says no, that we ought to maybe take some of the 
money out of child survival.
  Mr. Speaker, let me tell my colleagues that the American people, 
while they do not have an appetite to give away their money that they 
are sending to us to foreign countries to be squandered away, such as 
reports that have come back about Russia have said have been done, but 
they do in fact support our efforts to provide food, to provide medical 
assistance, to provide educational opportunities for those children who 
live in nations which cannot afford to provide them with this.
  So, they encourage this. Dozens of letters, hundreds of letters, 
thousands of communications have come to my office supporting the child 
survival account, supporting this type of foreign assistance. The 
American people support this. So what the President is suggesting is 
that we cut back maybe on child survival, and we are not going to do 
that. So he has left me no alternatives.
  The President, in his original message, for example, suggested that 
we cut Israel by $30 million. We said no, we are not going to do that, 
that Israel has been an ally of the United States, that we want peace 
in the Middle East. There was some question about the Wye monies. The 
President went out to the Wye Plantation, when those efforts were 
beginning to fall to pieces, and it looked like that the Palestinians 
and the Israelis were going to walk out of there without some 
agreement, and it is my understanding that he volunteered to just give 
them $2 billion. Look, we will help you. We will give you $2 billion.
  So he goes out there, and then he comes back and he says, this is an 
obligation of the United States of America. I do not consider that an 
obligation. When the President goes to one of these meetings and raises 
his glass of wine and toasts these leaders and tells them, I will give 
you $2 billion out of the Social Security Trust Fund, we are not going 
to stand for that. But that is exactly what he said.
  In speaking with Mr. Netanyahu right after that meeting, Mr.

[[Page 25686]]

Netanyahu told me he did not ask for the money, that the money was 
volunteered. Well, maybe that is good foreign policy, but I do not 
think that it is.
  One thing I think is good foreign policy is for the Congress not to 
get too involved in dictating to the administration what they are going 
to do and where they spend the money. For 5 years, Mr. Speaker, I have 
worked, argued with Members of this body about earmarking monies, about 
policy in the bill, trying to give this administration the flexibility 
and the latitude that they need to have an effective foreign policy. So 
I have tried my darnedest to give the President all of the room that he 
needs to maneuver, to adjust, to reprogram, to do whatever with the 
$12.7 billion, for example, that we recommended be appropriated this 
year.
  Now, all of a sudden, the President says, I do not care whether or 
not you are helping me with policy; I do not care whether or not you 
have taken out all of those obnoxious earmarks; I do not care that you 
have not hamstringed the administration and Mrs. Albright into trying 
to go to a foreign country and do the will of 435 Members of Congress. 
We get no appreciation for that.
  The President said there has been a lack of communication. I read in 
the newspapers this morning where one of his complaints about the whole 
appropriations process is that there is no communication. But I called 
the President. I called him, Mr. Speaker, two weeks ago; and I said, 
Mr. President, this is the same amount of money we gave you last year, 
and just like every other area of government, you are going to have to 
live with what we gave you last year. We are not going to increase it. 
And I talked to the President and I told him about the policy omissions 
that were not in there which would hamstring his administration; and I 
promise my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, I think I had the President 
convinced that this was a good bill and that he might sign it.
  But, he said, let me talk to my principals, which I assume that he 
meant Sandy Berger, who is one of his aides, and Madeleine Albright, 
who is Secretary of State. And I said, well, I will tell you what, Mr. 
President. That is all right with me. But before you talk with them 
about this issue that I have just explained to you, let me come over 
there and tell them what I have just told you. And he says, that is a 
good idea, Sonny. Let me call you back.
  Well, the President never called back. Sandy Berger called me out of 
a restaurant about 9:30 at night the next night and said, the President 
asked me to call you and tell you that he reluctantly says he is going 
to have to veto your bill. You see, they did not want me in the same 
room with Sandy Berger and Madeleine Albright. They did not want me in 
the room with the President putting forth the same arguments that I am 
telling you about today. Instead, they wanted to tell the President 
well, this might have a political advantage. Do not worry about this; 
we will get more money. All we have to do is back old Callahan down.

                              {time}  1745

  Well maybe that is good strategy, but the President cannot say to 
anybody that I have refused to communicate with him and work with him 
when I did every single thing that Jack Lew, one of his other 
assistants, wrote me and told me to do with respect to policy.
  The only issue he has is that this is not enough money. Well, I am 
sorry, Mr. President. Tell me where to get it, but do not come up with 
this same old nonsense about you are going to raise taxes to do it; you 
are going to raise fees to do it; you are going to take it out of the 
national defense or you are going to take it out of Social Security, 
because I am not going to have any part of that. So we are at a 
stalemate.
  Now here we are having to start all over because we do not have the 
votes to override the President's veto. It has turned into a partisan 
issue. Whereas most every Democrat, when the bill initially passed the 
House, voted for it, now they say that the policy provisions are 
insufficient; they want $2 billion, $4 billion more money. Mr. Speaker, 
I do not know where we are going to get it.
  I have thought about some strategy of my own. I mentioned when the 
bill was passed and we sent it to the President for his signature that 
every time somebody walks in the White House with a turban on his head 
that the President gets a glass of wine, gives it to the king or 
whoever he is talking to, then they stand there in the Oval Office or 
wherever they stand in the White House and they clink those glasses 
together and lo and behold the President says, ``Let me give you a 
little bit of money.''
  So the president or king or whoever he is, walks out and he goes back 
to his country and he says, ``The President promised me some money,'' 
and then the President calls up here and says, ``Sonny, this is an 
obligation of the United States of America. I made this commitment to 
this king, to this president.'' And that is not right. That is not an 
obligation of the United States of America.
  In fact, I think I am going to call the President, and I am going to 
go down to the White House one day this week. But before I go, I am 
going to buy me one of those turbans. And I am going to walk in the 
Oval Office with that turban on my head. And I am going to suggest to 
the President that we each get a glass of wine, and I am going to tell 
him that I am representing the senior citizens of this country, that I 
am representing the taxpayers of this country, and that I am 
representing the people who are concerned about Social Security, and 
let us have a toast. Let us toast that we are not going to take this $4 
billion off the backs of the senior citizens or off of our national 
defense and we are not going to raise taxes.
  Then the President can come over here and say, ``Well, we have an 
obligation. I made a toast, and therefore you Congress people are 
obligated not to raid Social Security, not to increase taxes, not to 
take money out of Social Security.''
  So maybe I will try that strategy of going to the White House with a 
turban on my head and suggesting to the President that we, indeed, 
ought to keep this $12.7 billion where it is.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CALLAHAN. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, the distinguished chairman very 
diplomatically said he does not know where the President is planning to 
come up with this money, but it is true, it is reality, we do not have 
to kid ourselves, he is talking about transferring money out of the 
Social Security trust fund.
  It is going to be real hard for me to go home and tell my grandmother 
that, ``You know what, today you are going to have a little bit less 
money in your trust fund because the President wants to send it to 
foreigners.'' I can envision the conversation.
  ``Oh, you mean Americans who live in foreign countries who paid into 
Social Security?''
  ``No, ma'am.''
  ``What do you mean going overseas with my Social Security money?''
  ``Well, the President wants to send it to India and Pakistan and 
Russia and North Korea, and all of these kinds of places, grandmother. 
What do you think about that?'' And she is going to be horrified.
  The reality is, we need not kid ourselves, what the President of the 
United States said today to America's seniors, we want to get the money 
out of the Social Security trust fund and send it overseas to foreign 
governments and many governments who are not always friendly to the 
United States, and that is a direct affront to American taxpayers.
  Mr. CALLAHAN. It is an affront to me, too.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the majority whip.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I think we are starting to see what is going 
to be going on in the heat that will be turned up in this cool fall in 
Washington, D.C. The President is vetoing bills because they do not 
spend enough. There is simply no other explanation for his action. He 
wants more money. Some had

[[Page 25687]]

said he wanted $2 billion, he wanted $4 billion more.
  According to the White House, the President is vetoing this bill 
because he thinks there is not enough spending in it. According to the 
White House, $12.6 billion is not enough money; but if this is not 
enough, I only have one simple question: Where does the President think 
more money will come from?
  Day after day, the President walks up to the television cameras and 
says that tough choices need to be made, but then all he suggests is 
skyrocketing spending increases. That is not a tough choice. That is 
the easy way out.
  Times have changed here in Washington. Even the President claimed not 
so long ago that the era of big government was over. If this is true, 
the tough budget decisions that need to be made must be to restrain 
spending, not increase it. Money does not just fall from the trees. It 
is not the President's money.
  There are only two ways to maintain a balanced budget, three ways 
actually, and pay for the President's big government spending 
increases. He can either raise taxes, and I can say unequivocally this 
House is not going to raise taxes for more government spending. The 
President can raid Social Security surpluses. We are not going to do 
that. Even the President says he does not want to do that. There is 
only one other way he could get more spending increases, and that is to 
find cuts in other parts of the budget.
  Frankly, if the leadership goes down to the White House tomorrow I 
think the message is going to be, ``Mr. President, we are not spending 
one dime of the Social Security surplus. Mr. President, we are not 
going to raise taxes for more government spending. Mr. President, if 
you want more spending, then tell us how to pay for it. Where are you 
going to cut it from? Where are you going to move money around? How are 
you going to pay for it?''
  All he said in his veto message was there is just not enough 
spending. He wants more spending.
  Now, the President vetoed this bill and he said that he wants a 
whopping 30 percent increase in foreign aid. Make no mistake about it, 
every dime of this increase, without offsets and cuts in other spending 
come directly out of the Social Security surplus.
  I think this is so shortsighted. Raiding tomorrow's generations to 
cover the excesses of today robs America of its future. The Republican 
budget plan is committed to balancing the budget without raiding Social 
Security or raising taxes to do it, and we can say it over and over 
until we turn blue in the face. The President says we are already into 
the Social Security surplus. That is another Clintonism, Mr. Speaker. 
We are not into the Social Security surplus.
  They get a CBO letter that uses false assumptions that we are not 
doing, and they wave the letter around saying we are spending the 
Social Security surplus. We are not there. This House is not going to 
raise taxes.
  Mr. Speaker, the budget will not balance itself. We in Congress are 
working very hard and making the responsible decisions for the future 
of America. All they are doing at the White House is throwing mud and 
hopes it sticks.
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 8\1/2\ minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, I just borrowed the Constitution from the 
parliamentarian. I did not really need it because I am sure everyone in 
this room has memorized the preamble to it. ``We, the people of the 
United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish 
justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, 
promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to 
ourselves and our prosperity, do ordain and establish this Constitution 
for the United States of America.''
  All of those goals stated in the preamble to the Constitution about 
insuring the safety of our country and the security of it and its 
future for our children are undermined by this foreign operations bill, 
and I salute President Clinton for his veto.
  Although the Clerk has already read the veto message in its entirety, 
I want to call some specifics to the attention of my colleagues.
  Mr. Speaker, this foreign operations bill undermines the goals of our 
preamble to the constitution. President Clinton said it so well in his 
veto statement when he said, ``The central lesson we have learned in 
this century is that we cannot protect American interests at home 
without active engagement abroad. Common sense tells us, and hard 
experience has confirmed, that we must lead in the world, working with 
other nations to defuse crises, repel danger, promote more open 
economic and political systems, and strengthen the rule of law. These 
have been the guiding principles of American foreign policy for 
generations. They have served the American people well, and greatly 
helped to advance the cause of peace and freedom around the world.
  ``This bill rejects all of those principles.
  ``It implies that we are too small and too insecure to meet our share 
of international responsibilities, too shortsighted to see that doing 
so is in our national interest. It is another sign of a new 
isolationism that would have America bury its head in the sand at the 
height of our power and our prosperity.''
  The President goes on to say that, ``By denying America a decent 
investment in diplomacy, this bill suggests we should meet threats to 
our security with our military might alone. That is a dangerous 
proposition,'' and an expensive one, I might add.
  ``The overall funding provided in this bill is inadequate. It is 
about half the amount available in real terms to President Reagan,'' 
which this Congress supported; half the amount available in real terms 
to President Reagan.
  There are many concerns that I will just briefly address about it, 
that the President mentions. He mentions that, ``This bill would 
provide neither the $800 million requested this year as a supplemental 
appropriation,'' for the Wye River agreement, ``nor the $500 million 
requested in FY 2000 funding to support the Wye River agreement.
  ``Just when Prime Minister Barak has helped give the peace process a 
jump start, this sends the worst possible message to Israel, Jordan, 
and the Palestinians about America's commitment to the peace process.''
  In addition, the bill is short in funding for economic support to the 
multilateral development banks, providing the lowest level of financing 
since 1987, with cuts of 37 percent from the President's request. This 
would virtually double the arrears. We are trying to have debt 
forgiveness. We are trying to go into the next century, the next 
millennium, giving these countries a chance, working with them, 
cooperating with them.
  This is not about a handout. This is about a hand-up, and it is 
something that our country says that we profess. It will cost us less 
in the end if we can obtain markets for our products and promote peace 
and Democratic institutions in these countries. Ridding them of their 
debt will help do that. This bill also seriously undermines our 
capacity to promote economic reform and growth in Latin America, Asia, 
and especially Africa. If for no other reason, if we have no pragmatic 
sense or practical sense about what this means to us as a country, we 
do know that these markets, when developed, are critical to American 
jobs and opportunities. That is so much for what the President had 
said.
  I would like to now talk about what Mr. Hastert said.

                              {time}  1800

  The Speaker, in criticizing the President's veto, made these 
comments. He called this a responsible foreign aid package that funded 
our Nation's foreign aid programs at last year's level. Wrong. Wrong. 
Wrong. No matter how many times our colleagues on this floor in the 
majority say that this bill is funded at last year's level, it is not.
  Our spending last year, when we combine the bill with our 
supplemental, and the supplemental does not include Kosovo and the 
Hurricane Mitch supplemental, we are below last year's funding 
significantly. But then the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) goes 
on to say that we want to take Social Security money and give this

[[Page 25688]]

money to foreign nations, and he does it in a very offhand way. He says 
the Republicans will play no part in this scheme. The Congress will not 
use Social Security as a pot of gold to fund foreign aid.
  This is such an act of desperation. I feel so sorry for this pathetic 
initiative that is being taken by my colleagues. They have all the big 
guns rolled out: The Speaker's statement. The whip spoke before I even 
had a chance to put our statement on the Record, and that was fine. I 
see the distinguished Majority Leader here, and of course the 
distinguished gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan), chairman of the 
Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related 
Programs, coming all out full force to make this statement.
  This is an act of desperation by a majority party that does not have 
a case to take to the American people. The economy domestically is 
doing great. Unemployment is down. The stock market is up. Inflation is 
practically negligible, and they have to go find an issue and, how 
convenient, one with the neoisolationism of their caucus giving them 
impetus to do this.
  This is a very sad day because, frankly, the arguments that my 
colleagues make about this argue to eliminate all the funding in the 
bill completely. Why have any foreign aid if this is such a bad idea as 
we review it?
  Mr. Speaker, others will, and I do not have time right now to go into 
the illusion that my colleagues are trying to present about their not 
spending Social Security and other aspects of these spending bills. I 
know the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) will go into that and, if 
I have time, I will later.
  But I want to reiterate that this bill is $12.7 billion. Last year, 
the bill and the supplemental that went with it were $1.1 billion 
higher. Let us not play a shell game. Let us be honest with the 
American people about what we are spending, and let us not have a $1.1 
billion cut from last year, again not including the Kosovo supplemental 
or the supplemental on Hurricane Mitch. Let us not have a $1.1 billion 
cut, which we call a freeze.
  In conclusion, I want to call the attention of my colleagues to this 
chart. This is the total budget of the United States, $1.739 trillion. 
The foreign aid, as a percentage of the total budget of the United 
States, is less than 1 percent. In fact, it is .68 percent. With the 
President's request, it will be brought up to about 8 percent. It is 
less than 1 percent.
  Within that 1 percent is the Export-Import Bank, which finances our 
exports overseas, creating jobs in the U.S., OPIC, Trade Development 
Administration, all of those initiatives that promote U.S. trade which 
have nothing to do with bilateral and multilateral assistance to any 
other country except the United States. It is all in our national 
interest. It is less than 1 percent.
  Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield as much time as he shall consume 
to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey), the majority leader of the 
House.
  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Alabama for 
yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, let me begin my comments by thanking the gentleman from 
Alabama (Mr. Callahan) for his hard work on this legislative effort. 
First thing I would observe is the American people are a generous 
people. We are a kind people. We are a people that have always been 
willing to sacrifice of our own treasury, of our own resources, indeed 
of our own lives and our own peace to help the rest of the world obtain 
peace, safety, and security, and above all freedom. That has not 
changed.
  The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) points out that our 
foreign aid budget has decreased as a percentage of the overall 
American Federal Government's budget over the years, and that is true.
  Why has it decreased as a percentage of the overall budget? Not 
because we Americans have reduced our willingness or, in fact, our 
contribution to the rest of the world. Indeed, it still is exemplary by 
comparison with any other nation in the world. But because the burdens 
and the responsibilities that our Government carries within our own 
country for our own people has grown.
  It has grown in Medicare. It has grown in Social Security. It has 
grown in Medicaid. It has grown in education. It has grown in defense. 
It has grown in the environmental concerns we express for this country, 
and any number of different ways our Government's budget keeps growing. 
With all of that growth, we maintain a commitment to the rest of the 
world that is still exemplary by comparison with any other nation in 
the world.
  So in that regard, again, I would like to compliment the gentleman 
from Alabama (Mr. Callahan) for his dedication and his commitment.
  Now, yesterday, put all this within the context of where we are 
today, we had both good news and bad news from the White House. I have 
to tell my colleagues I was pleased, I was enthusiastic, I was excited 
when I watched TV yesterday and saw the President's chief of staff, 
John Podesta, say, ``The President of the United States today shares 
the commitment that the Republicans in Congress have been fighting for 
to complete this budget without touching a dime's worth of Social 
Security for any other purpose.''
  This is a historic change in the manner in which we use the 
taxpayers' money. For 30 years, the Federal Government has taken 
Americans' Social Security taxes and spent them on other purposes. Last 
year, for the first time ever, in all those 30 years, that did not 
happen. Last year, no dime of Social Security was used for some purpose 
other than Social Security.
  We are trying to write a budget for next year that stays the same. 
This will not happen. It is time to stop the raid. So as we do that, we 
have to look at every manner in which the Federal Government might 
spend one's money and say, how can we pare back? Where can we make 
reductions? How can we engage in trade-offs, accept and set priorities 
and keep us within this one fundamental limit that we will not complete 
the budget for fiscal year 2000 with any money that spends Social 
Security taxes on any purpose other than Social Security?
  That I take as a point of honor, a point of duty, a point of duty to 
two great generations, my parents and my children; my parents who are 
living off Social Security benefits today and my children who are 
paying the taxes so that that money is available for that purpose.
  Now, the President has said we share with the House and the Senate 
this commitment. That was good news. We have waited a long time, Mr. 
President, for you to make this commitment to preserve Social Security. 
We were all startled. We were all disappointed when, in your own 
budget, you propose that 40 percent of the Social Security revenues be 
spent for something else. But now you have said, ``I agree with the 
Congress.'' I was heartened when I heard that.
  I am delighted to go to the White House tomorrow at the President's 
invitation to discuss with the President of the United States how will 
we do this, complete this budget without spending a dime's worth of 
Social Security for any purpose other than Social Security. I am 
excited for this opportunity.
  That was the good news. Now comes the bad news.
  Within hours of this revelation from the White House, the President 
vetoes the foreign aid bill because he wants $4 billion more for 
foreign aid. We are left to ask, Mr. President, where will you get the 
money? We cannot take it from Social Security. You have expressed your 
commitment to not do so. Do you want to take it from education? You 
think that is a high priority, too. Should we take it from defense? We 
have got soldiers and sailors, men and women in our uniforms today, 
ill-equipped ill-prepared, ill-trained, and, frankly, ill-humored. 
Morale is a deterioration of readiness that this Nation can ill-afford.
  Where would you take the money, the 4 billion additional dollars, Mr. 
President? We will work with you on the commitment. We will not take it 
from Social Security, nor will we deny

[[Page 25689]]

any other domestic American priority that is equal or greater than 
foreign aid. That is our commitment. We look forward to working with 
you.
  Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Speaker, how much time is remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gibbons). The gentleman from Alabama 
(Mr. Callahan) has 7\1/2\ minutes remaining. The gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Pelosi) has 21\1/2\ minutes remaining.
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 11 minutes to the 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the distinguished ranking member 
of the full Committee on Appropriations, a gentleman who served 10 
years as the chair of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export 
Financing and Related Programs.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, what a phony debate that I have heard here 
today. We hear our friends on the majority side of the aisle saying 
that somehow because the President wants us to meet some of our 
additional obligations overseas and because our President wants to have 
a well-rounded defense of our national interest overseas, that somehow 
he is spending more than our friends on the majority side want, and, 
therefore, is guilty of all kinds of fiscal sins.
  I would point out it was not the President who added $16 billion to 
Pentagon spending for items that the Pentagon did not even ask for and 
then declared $6 billion of them emergencies so that they could pretend 
that that money was not being spent under the budget rules. It was not 
the White House that did that. It was our friends in the majority 
party.
  Overall, they spent almost $16 billion more than the President asked 
for in the supplemental in the regular Pentagon appropriation bill. It 
was not the President who added $1.3 billion for a whole new ship the 
Navy did not want. It was our friends on the majority side because it 
was going to be built in the district of the Majority Leader in the 
other body, in Pascagoula, Mississippi. The President did not ask to 
spend that money, that pork.
  The argument that we are hearing from the majority side comes from a 
party that has demonstrated time and time again its refusal to support 
our national interest in a well-rounded fashion around the world.
  We hear this same argument from people who do not want us to pay our 
bills at the United Nations, even though we risk losing our vote 
because of that. We hear it from the same people who are refusing to 
provide the funding to meet the promises that we had already made in 
the Middle East with respect to the Wye agreement.
  I saw one Republican leader stand in the White House and tell the 
President standing 6 feet away from him that the President had 
absolutely no right to engage in military action against Serbia because 
it was a sovereign country. Then after the President reached a 
successful conclusion of that conflict, I saw that same Republican 
leader go to the press and denounce the President because he had agreed 
to a solution that allowed Mr. Milosevic to stay in power. What 
hypocrisy. How do my colleagues expect we remove Mr. Milosevic, through 
emaculate conception? It takes military action.
  This is the same party that last week, in what I believe to be the 
most irresponsible action by this Congress in 25 years, it is the same 
party that ripped up the test ban treaty. Now, to understand why that 
treaty is important, we have to understand why it is linked to the 
nonproliferation treaty.
  The United States, under Republican and Democratic Presidents alike, 
has tried to convince the nonnuclear powers of this world not to 
achieve nuclear weapons status because it destabilizes the world. So we 
have tried to set a good example for them. We have said to them, Okay, 
if you do not develop your nuclear weapons, we will not test ours. Yet, 
last week, we saw the United States Senate majority party blow away any 
chance we have to exercise moral leadership on the issue of nuclear 
test ban treaties.

                              {time}  1815

  They say, oh, we do not know for sure that we will be 100 percent 
effective in detecting other people's tests. Well, we were going to be 
a whole lot more effective than we are right now, because that treaty 
would have allowed us to place sensors all around the world to detect 
all but the smallest nuclear explosions. But, no, they had to try to 
administer another political defeat to the President by defeating the 
nuclear test ban treaty.
  So this is a party which has walked away from its responsibilities 
time and time again in the international arena, and now they try to 
pretend that they are doing it all in the name of fiscal responsibility 
and because they want to save Social Security.
  Are they kidding? Give me a break. The Republican Party is now the 
great savior of Social Security? The same party that tried to kill that 
program in the crib before it was ever created? The same party that has 
tried to turn Social Security over to the insurance industry for 30 
years? They want to privatize it to death. The same party that wanted 
to take billions of dollars out of Medicare in order to pay for a big 
capital gains tax cut for their buddies? This is the party that we are 
now supposed to rely upon to save Social Security?
  All I can say, if that is a record that demonstrates their support of 
Social Security, God save Social Security.
  So what are they doing? What all of this is is a giant scam. Our 
friends in the majority party for the last year have tried to push a 
tax package through this House which would give 70 percent of the 
benefits to people who make over 100,000 bucks a year, and they took it 
home and they tried to sell it over the August break. And what did they 
find? They found that their constituents did not buy it. And what they 
found is that they had dropped 12 points to 16 points in the public 
opinion polls with seniors. So now what we have going on on this floor 
is operation crawl-back. And what it is, it is an effort to crawl back 
to another political position in order to try to win a few points back 
from senior citizens. It ain't gonna work, fellas. It ain't gonna work.
  What is really going on here, the party that claims it is for fiscal 
responsibility has produced a budget this year which has more than $40 
billion in gimmicks in order to pretend that they are staying within 
the budget ceilings and in order to pretend that they are not spending 
a dime in Social Security when, in fact, their own actions have already 
spent more than $23 billion of the Social Security surplus for other 
purposes this year.
  Now, I just have to say, when they have over $40 billion in budget 
gimmicks, when they have already spent over $23 billion in Social 
Security, when they have engaged in a gimmick called advanced 
appropriations, which means they will move the money from this year 
into next year to hide the fact that they are actually spending it and 
committing it this year, when those advanced appropriations go from $4 
billion to $27 billion, and then they come here and object because the 
President wants us to pay our U.N. bills, because the President wants 
us to meet our obligations to the Wye Accords to promote peace in the 
Middle East, pardon me if I do not take that with a straight face. 
Pardon me if I think there is just a little bit missing here.
  When we put all the baloney aside on Social Security, what are the 
facts? The facts are that every year from 1983 until 1997 this Congress 
spent every dime that we generated in Social Security surpluses for 
other purposes and put IOUs in the treasury in order to recognize that 
fact. In 1997, we spent 100 percent of the Social Security surplus, as 
the Congress had for years, on other items. But starting last year, 
starting 2 years ago, I should say, that has been turned around. Two 
years ago, for the first time, we spent less than one-third of the 
Social Security surplus on other purposes, and we paid down debt by $60 
billion. This last year that just came to a close, we paid down debt by 
over $100 billion.
  When all of the baloney is over, whether the Republican Party wins 
the argument or whether the Democratic Party wins the argument, in the 
end

[[Page 25690]]

this coming year we will pay down debt by another $100 billion. Only 
the people running this House could turn that kind of a major policy 
victory into a crisis.
  It seems to me if we want to be honest with the people of the United 
States, we will tell them that this action in paying down debt over the 
last 2\1/2\ years has done more to strengthen Social Security than 
anything that we did for Social Security since the Greenspan Commission 
saved it with congressional votes. That is the honest truth.
  But, no, instead, we are going to see this partisan slugfest on 
Social Security. Well, I have to tell my colleagues that it is not 
going to fool anybody. It certainly is not going to fool people in the 
House. They may fool themselves, that would be nothing new, but I would 
urge my colleagues, in the end, to remember we have an obligation to 
meet our domestic responsibilities and our international 
responsibilities in a balanced manner. It would be nice, for once, if 
we could see that coming out of the Republican leadership in this 
House.
  I do not see it today, but I am going to go home tonight and pray 
again, and maybe some day we will.
  Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Speaker, how much time now remains?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gibbons). The gentleman from Alabama 
(Mr. Callahan) has 7\1/2\ minutes remaining, and the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Pelosi) has 10\1/2\ minutes remaining.
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings), a member of the Committee on 
International Relations.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman, my 
good friend, for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, this poses, for me, a very puzzling situation. I have so 
much respect for the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan) and the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), and I know that they have 
worked actively on behalf of all of us in the House of Representatives 
and this Nation in trying to provide for a stable, prosperous, and 
democratic world through foreign operations. But I put to my good 
friend, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan), that when he cites 
the fact that the amount of money that is offered this year is the same 
as last year, events that have happened over the course of the year 
causes us to have to take a different view.
  While the gentleman and I may disagree and have ideological 
perspectives that are different, the fact of the matter is that the Wye 
Accords are important to all of us. And we did, whether the gentleman 
agrees that the President had that responsibility or not, we agreed to 
$800 million that we would provide; and we have not in this year's 
budget.
  Now, I do not know how that plays out. I cannot argue with 
appropriators and those of my colleagues that know the inner workings 
of the budget better than do I with reference to who is at fault about 
what having to do with Social Security. But I know cuts when I see 
them: $212 million cut from economic recovery and democratization in 
Africa, Latin America and Asia in this budget; $44 million cut from 
disaster assistance; $53 million cut from refugee assistance; $35 
million cut from the Peace Corps; $17 million cut from the NAD Bank 
Community Adjustment; $178 million cut from IDA lending to the poorest 
countries; $87 million from debt relief; $107 million cut from global 
environment facilities; $53 million from the Inter-American Bank; $80 
million, 10 percent, for promotion of U.S. exports, which helps 
American, American, businesspersons.
  What we need to know is that foreign aid is not a giveaway; foreign 
aid shows the way. And we cannot proceed along these lines in this 
great country and be looked to for the direction, as we are by 
countries all over the world, if we intend to provide a stable, 
prosperous and democratic world.
  Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Young), chairman of the full Committee on Appropriations, 
to explain the real story of who is utilizing Social Security monies.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, the question of Social Security is 
one that is important to all of us, especially those of us who have 
many people in their districts receiving Social Security checks.
  I would just like to show this graph that is based on figures 
developed by the Congressional Budget Office. This graph shows that the 
money that was taken from Social Security under the Democrats in the 
Congress rose dramatically. The Republicans took over at this line, and 
we can see what happened. The number went way down, and for fiscal year 
2000 it is going to be zero.
  It is our determination, and that is one reason this bill does not 
spend as much money on foreign aid as the President wants, we are 
determined not to take any money out of the Social Security Trust Fund, 
and we are determined that any spending requests that go over the 
budget surplus will be offset. It is a pretty simple plan.
  But by doing this, we are going to maintain the balanced budget that 
we fought for years to get and finally achieved. We are going to 
preserve that balanced budget, and we are going to stop paying billions 
and billions and billions of dollars as interest payment on the 
national debt when we could use that money in more places than that.
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman 
from New York (Mrs. Lowey), a member of the Subcommittee on Foreign 
Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs of the Committee on 
Appropriations.
  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this motion because we 
now have a chance to reconsider this year's foreign aid bill which was 
plagued by low funding levels from the start and never really 
recovered. Now we are faced again with a very important choice. We can 
insist upon a dangerously underfunded foreign aid bill, jeopardizing 
not only the United States' leadership around the world but also our 
national security; or we can work to rectify some of the most egregious 
funding cuts to our initiatives abroad, maintaining the United States 
of America's international stature, and acting in the best interests of 
our own national security.
  We really have no choice, in my judgment. This bill, as it stands 
now, will severely erode our ability to pursue our interests abroad. 
And our stinginess now will be an expensive mistake. Saving now but 
paying double and triple later is no way to protect the global 
interests of the American people. It is just plain irresponsible.
  While the majority engages in political brinkmanship, we are already 
feeling the effects of turning our back on what has historically been a 
cornerstone of United States foreign policy. Funding for implementation 
of the Wye River agreement is essential. And each day we drag our feet, 
we jeopardize Israel's security; we endanger the very security of 
Middle East peace; and we destroy our own credibility as a mediator in 
the Middle East peace process. Wye assistance has become a pawn in the 
majority's budget game, a dangerous game with very high stakes indeed.
  And Wye is not the only problem with this bill. The International 
Development Association, the Peace Corps, debt relief, international 
organizations and programs are all underfunded. The bill remains $2 
billion below the President's request and $1 billion below last year's 
level.
  This is not the first and it is not the only example of a reckless 
decision on the part of the majority that shows utter disregard for 
maintaining the United States' global stature. Last week, the Senate 
majority brazenly defeated the comprehensive test ban treaty. The 
United States is currently the U.N.'s biggest deadbeat, owing over $1 
billion in arrears.
  Thanks to the President's decision to veto the foreign aid bill we 
sent him, we can now, working together, begin to restore the United 
States' diminished global leadership. I urge my colleagues to do the 
right thing. Stop the games, stop the gimmickry now, and let us go

[[Page 25691]]

back to work and return with a bill that preserves our national 
security.

                              {time}  1830

  Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
South Dakota (Mr. Thune).
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me the 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, in this century we have had the New Deal, starting with 
F.D.R. We have had the fair deal. We have had the square deal. But this 
could be called the ``misdeal'' because it is a raw deal for America's 
seniors. Congress ought to say ``no deal'' to the President.
  Mr. Speaker, this weekend I had the opportunity to visit with a 
farmer in Kimball, South Dakota. He has been a farmer for 37 years, and 
he is hoping some day to be able to cash rent his farm ground out, 
which is not worth a whole lot right now, and that, coupled with his 
Social Security payment, retire.
  What the President has said is that we are going to take from this 
farmer's account the Social Security Trust Fund to pay for more foreign 
aid because $12.6 billion in foreign aid is not enough, $12.6 billion 
in foreign aid is not enough. The American people ought to be outraged.
  Mr. Speaker, on behalf of South Dakota seniors, I say ``no deal'' to 
the President's bad policy in this respect.
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the 
distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne), a ranking member 
of the Committee on International Relations.
  Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the kind words of the 
gentlewoman.
  Mr. Speaker, let me say that I rise in opposition to H.R. 2606, the 
conference report on foreign operations appropriations. This moves us 
in the wrong direction. Unfortunately, the conference report moves us 
into a dangerously low budget.
  We have the conference agreement, which provides $12.6 billion. It is 
nearly $2 billion below the President's request and $1 billion less 
than last year's bill.
  The low level of funding is untenable. It will be impossible for the 
U.S. to maintain its leadership role in the world's community with an 
inadequate foreign affairs budget. Nearly every major account in the 
conference report is underfunded. And one specific initiative, the 
Africa accounts, are nonexistent.
  The omission is particularly troubling, as it signals a lack of 
support for the recent strides made by countries in Africa. The 
development fund for Africa is being cut 40 percent from last year.
  $175 million is cut from essential loans for the poorest countries. 
$155 million is cut from global environmental protection programs. $87 
million is denied for debt relief initiatives for the poorest countries 
in the world. $50 million is cut from African development loans. $200 
million is cut from economic development and democratic building in 
Asia, Africa, and Latin America. $35 million is denied for the Peace 
Corps, where we just agreed to move our numbers up to 10,000 
volunteers. Many Members from both sides of the aisle said it was 
great. So what do we do? We approve 10,000 and cut 35 million.
  The gentleman talked about $12 billion, how outraged people from 
South Dakota were. I think I am in a time capsule where we are back 200 
years ago. I never heard such an egregious, outrageous statement.
  Here we are going to give $782 billion back to the wealthiest people 
in this country, and we are talking about cutting $2 billion back from 
the poorest people in the world and that people in this country are 
outraged.
  I think we live in a society that some people are really very, very 
narrow visioned; and I believe that we must regain our position in the 
world. I think that the President is absolutely right. I stand a 
hundred percent behind his veto.
  Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Arizona (Mr. Hayworth).
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the gentleman from 
Alabama (Mr. Callahan), for yielding me the time. And I thank my 
colleague, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne). Because instead 
of categorizing this with a unique historical perspective that is 
revisionist, to say the least, let us engage in some recent history.
  Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States came here about 10 
months ago, and in his message to a joint session of Congress, in his 
State of the Union address, he said it was up to us to save Social 
Security first. But with his veto today, the President is telling all 
Americans, Mr. Speaker, that they should surrender a portion of their 
Social Security Trust Fund to go not for their retirement but to a 
scheme of bigger spending not on Americans but on other folks around 
the world.
  Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HAYWORTH. I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma.
  Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I just got on the House floor. Is it correct 
that the President vetoed this bill because it takes Americans' hard-
earned money and he wants to give billions away to other countries 
more?
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, that is exactly the 
case. The President is taking the hard-earned money of Americans and 
wanting to spend more and more and more and jeopardize the Social 
Security Trust Fund.
  Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. Chabot).
  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, President Clinton has vetoed a foreign aid 
bill because it does not send enough American tax dollars overseas. 
Outrageous.
  In order to satisfy the President's insatiable appetite for foreign 
aid, Congress would have to raid the Social Security Trust Fund. That 
would be unconscionable.
  Mr. Speaker, let us protect Social Security for those who receive 
benefits now and those who pay the taxes and those who want to receive 
benefits in the future. Let us stop the foreign aid raid.
  Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from 
North Carolina (Mr. Hayes).
  Mr. HAYES. Mr. Speaker, thank goodness the gentleman from Alabama 
(Chairman Callahan) has said no to the President's taking money from 
our farmers in North Carolina who have lost their homes, small 
businesses.
  The President has said, no, our farmers do not matter. He does not 
mind, and they do not matter. That is what he said. But the committee 
of the gentleman has said, our farmers and our seniors matter. I thank 
the gentleman very much for saying yes to our people.
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 15 seconds to the 
distinguished gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the ranking member 
of the full committee.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, despite the last two comments, the facts are 
they have already spent $23 billion of the Social Security surplus in 
bills that they have already passed in the House this year. That is the 
fact even if they do not want to admit it.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gibbons). The Chair will announce that 
the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan) has 3\1/2\ minutes remaining 
and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) has 3\3/4\ minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Kingston).
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, well, this year trick or treat for UNICEF 
will have a new meaning because the President just said no to a $9 
million increase in UNICEF funding. So the children of America are 
going to have to work a little bit harder.
  It is important because the President also said no to a $60 million 
increase in child survival programs. He also, to keep the streets just 
as dangerous as he could, said no to a $24 million increase in the 
international drug programs.
  We keep hearing about our obligations overseas and our promises to 
the Middle East. I was in Israel. I spoke to Mr. Barak in a small group 
at a Congressional delegation in Israel and Jerusalem and also here in 
the Capitol. I

[[Page 25692]]

also went to Jordan and spoke to King Abdallah. There was no discussion 
of you-all made this promise the Wye River is in the bag, we are 
spending the money. I did not hear that from the two top leaders of 
these countries.
  But I do see that, in this bill, the President said no to our 
increasing aid to Israel $30 million where he had cut it.
  We keep talking about what this money is going to do. It is going to 
go to good causes overseas, but any increase will come straight out of 
Social Security. We should reject this veto.
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, since my speaker has not returned to the floor, I will 
use his time and my time in closing. It affords me the luxury of 
commending my distinguished chairman for the work that we did together 
to bring this bill to the floor originally. I encourage my colleagues 
to support the bill but only with the idea that when we came back from 
conference, it could only be supported if there was a higher allocation 
to this foreign operations bill.
  So it is not with a criticism of the process with which the 
distinguished chairman moved the bill through. We worked together on 
that. What it is a criticism of is the lack of funding in the bill for 
us to live up to our leadership role in the world.
  The distinguished majority leader said that the percentage of funding 
for foreign aid is going down because other spending is going up, he 
said in reference to my remarks. I did not say that. I said that, in 
real dollars, our foreign aid spending is being reduced since Reagan's 
years by, what, one-quarter to one-half in real dollars, not in 
percentages.
  This debate about Social Security that our colleagues have drummed up 
really does a disservice to the whole debate on the budget and the 
appropriations process. This debate that our colleagues have drummed 
up, this illusion that they have tried to convey on the floor today is 
an insult to the intelligence of the Social Security recipients, to the 
Social Security donors, and their families.
  Yes, President Clinton said he was going to save Social Security 
first, and we all subscribed to that. That is not the only thing we do. 
Now, if the gentleman thinks that is the only thing we do, maybe we 
should have a zero foreign operations budget. Maybe we should spend no 
money on any trade assistance for the Ex-Im Bank for us to promote U.S. 
products abroad or the Trade Development Administration for the same 
purpose or OPIC, which enables our products to find markets abroad. 
Maybe we should do none of that.
  Maybe we should abandon everything we do with the religious community 
to reach out to poor children throughout the world and to help them 
stave off disease and starvation.
  What is in this bill, as I said earlier, is 6.3 percent of a 
percentage, less than 1 percent, of the Federal budget. With President 
Clinton's funds, it would be .8 percent. So it would be still less than 
1 percent of the Federal budget, a small percentage and a small price 
to pay for what the President enumerated in his veto message about 
promoting democracies and free economies throughout the world, about 
promoting markets for our products, about honoring our commitments 
internationally, about living up to our leadership role in the world.
  This century that we are coming to an end as we do fiscal year 2000 
appropriations bills is a terrible century in many respects. Nazism, 
communism, authoritarianism were rampant throughout this century and 
they are coming to an end now.
  One of the brightest stars of this century was the founding of the 
State of Israel. How sad it is that this body, representing the 
American people who have fully supported that brave, courageous state 
all these 51 years of its existence, that we, coming to the end of this 
century, will not take yes for an answer in the peace process by 
funding the Wye River agreement.
  Leaders in that region gave their lives, their health, and all of 
their future for this peace agreement; and we in this body are 
rejecting all of that sacrifice.
  I urge my colleagues to support the President's veto when the time 
comes.
  Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Speaker, in closing, I yield myself the balance of 
the time.
  Mr. Speaker, let me compliment the gentlewoman from California (Ms. 
Pelosi) and echo what she said. We have worked in a nonpartisan fashion 
trying to give the President the flexibility, trying to give the 
President the sufficient amount of money to have effective foreign 
policy.
  The President, in my opinion, has just thrown this agreement out the 
door when he vetoed this bill. I am going to send him a bill now that 
will instruct him on what foreign policy problems can be if indeed he 
is so obnoxious in vetoing a bill such as this.
  So let me tell the President, this next bill he is going to get, 
number one, is not going to be any more and, number 2, is going to give 
him a reason to veto it. Because we are going to go back to the old 
days when the Democrats were indeed telling Ronald Reagan and George 
Bush what they were going to do during their foreign policy.

                              {time}  1845

  So if the President wants to declare war, this is war. It is war that 
he is going to suffer, not me. The people of Alabama could care less if 
I pass a foreign aid bill or not. So I am not going to suffer. But 
millions of children are going to suffer because they do not have the 
child survival money that we put into the bill.
  Let me just give Members one example of what the President said, and 
I wish everybody in America could get a copy of this message from the 
President of the United States and understand what he is saying. One 
thing he says in here is I need $900 million to forgive debt for poorer 
nations. That comes from his trip to Africa where he took 1,700 people 
with him and spent $47 million of the American taxpayers' money and 
goes over there and once again clinks his glass and then comes back and 
says, This is an entitlement. We want to forgive this debt that these 
foreign leaders have incurred during these corrupt regimes in Africa.
  Mr. Speaker, if people could see this message, if they could 
understand exactly what the President is saying, they would be up here 
marching on this Capitol saying, ``Sonny, don't give in to that guy. He 
has this insatiable appetite to spend our money to give it to these 
foreign countries just because they walk in his front door.''
  I might forewarn the President that Halloween is just around the 
corner and a lot of these people knocking on the White House gate for 
trick-or-treat might have on turbans, and I might tell them when they 
go knock on the door, ``Wear a turban and carry a bag and let me tell 
you, that President will fill it up. He'll give you an IOU from the 
Congress.''
  But we are not going to give in to the President on this issue. We 
might be here till Christmas, we might be here till Easter, but we are 
not going to give in.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gibbons). The question is on the motion 
offered by the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan).
  The motion was agreed to.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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