[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 25449-25450]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                          PREPARING THE BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I did not intend to get into this tonight, 
but I know my friends on the other side of the aisle are not 
intentionally attempting to mislead the people tonight, because I know 
them too well. I have worked with them on too many issues, and I think 
it is awfully important. Anything I say that any of them wish to 
challenge me on, I will be glad to yield some time, because I do not 
want to do that which I accuse you of doing.
  When we start talking about how much is enough, I believe when we 
passed the foreign operations appropriation bill, those of you who 
voted for that voted to increase the caps for spending for this coming 
year to $645 billion. Now, that is more than the President has 
requested to spend.
  Therefore, when you start talking about the budget, the President 
originally this year called for $637 billion in spending. My friends on 
the other side said you wanted to hold it to $625 billion. The Blue 
Dogs suggested a good compromise in between at $633 billion.
  Our $633 billion got 170 votes. In fact, we had 37 of you voting with 
us on that. Forty-one more of you and we would not be here tonight 
arguing

[[Page 25450]]

about the numbers, because we would have held spending at $633 billion, 
not at $645 billion.
  Now, for about 16 years I was in the majority, and many times I voted 
with you, and I got criticized quite a bit for being the big-spending 
Congress. Well, I was voting with you. This year I did not vote with 
you, because $645 billion was $12 billion more than I thought we ought 
to spend this year. You are the ones that increased it.
  Now, you can put up your chart. I have got a chart over here that 
will show absolutely, unequivocally, no matter what you are saying on 
this, that you will spend more than the President has asked. We can 
point the blame all we want to.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. STENHOLM. I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I have a question, not so much for the 
gentleman, because I have a great deal of respect for the fact he is 
indeed a fiscal conservative. Many of us are very upset that we are 
spending as much as we are. But if what the gentleman is saying is 
true, then perhaps what we ought to do is just go back and take the 
President's original request and pass them and send them down to the 
White House. Is the gentleman telling us that he believes the President 
would sign those bills in those amounts?
  That is a simple question, because, if that were true, that is what 
we ought to do, and we could all go home. But I know the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Stenholm) knows this as well as I do, every day the bar gets 
moved. We are not even talking about what the President asked for. Most 
of the stuff that has been put in the bill right now is at the 
President's or White House's request.
  We are upset we are going over the spending caps. We are now at over 
$1.9 trillion. We think that is enough. But every day the bar moves. 
When I have told some of our leaders, maybe we ought to go back to what 
the President asked for and give him exactly what he asked for, you 
know what they all say? He would veto it.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, my point was this: if 
we had agreed on a budget with $633 billion in spending, you would have 
had a very large number of Democrats standing up with you on that. It 
is too late for that tonight. It is too late for that.
  What I am saying is, your leadership seems to not be able to learn 
one constitutional fact: if you are going to beat the President, any 
President, now or any time in the future, you have got to have 290 
votes. In order to get veto override numbers, you have got to work with 
somebody on this side of the aisle, which you have absolutely refused 
to even consider walking across the aisle to ask any one of us. And the 
Blue Dogs have given you not once, not twice, not three times, four 
opportunities to say, we want to work on holding spending down.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield further, I 
would say to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), I voted with you 
every time you put your budget up; and I want to tell you, your claim 
we would not be here I believe is in error, because this institution 
has a flaw in its design, and the design is it is easy to spend money 
and it is not easy not to spend it. If there is anything that needs 
changing in this Congress, it is the appropriations process, whereby 
staff members, not committee members, know what is in the bill, and 
backroom deals are done and the spending rises. That is the first 
thing.
  The second thing is the House is gamed against the Senate, the Senate 
is gamed against the House, and then the President games them both, and 
the American people are getting a raw deal.

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