[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 18]
[House]
[Pages 25947-25954]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                     PUTTING PEOPLE ABOVE POLITICS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pitts). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, we are joined here tonight by the 
gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) and the gentleman from Minnesota 
(Mr. Gutknecht). What we want to talk about is what we have tried to do 
in our individual careers, and we believe that this Congress has, and 
that is putting people above politics.
  See, when we were elected in Arizona, in Minnesota, and, in my case, 
Georgia, we did not go out there and say I am going to be a Republican, 
and I am going to only be a Republican and I am going to only represent 
Republicans. We went out there to say the American people want a 
change. We are going to try to put people above politics. We are going 
to try to stick to that.
  Do my colleagues know what, I have found that a lot of times in these 
negotiations, the Democrats have a lot of good things to offer. What we 
try to do is put the best of the Democratic ideas and the best of the 
Republican ideas forward for the best for the American people.

                              {time}  2000

  That is one reason why we are still here in Washington after the 
Senate has already adjourned. It is one reason we are still here to 
fight for the things that we believe in. It would be a lot more 
convenient for us during this election time to be back home pounding 
the streets in our own districts, but there are some things that we 
need to fight for.
  My wife, Libby, often reminds me that she does not mind driving the 
car pool alone and being alone at parties and taking care of the kids 
and sitting down at the dinner table and seeing my empty chair night 
after night if I am here to make a difference.
  But if I am not making a difference and it is politics as usual, then 
it is time to go home. But so far we are here to put people before 
politics.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth).
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Georgia for 
yielding.
  As he mentioned his beloved spouse, Ms. Libby, my thoughts turn to 
home and Ms. Mary and a conversation that my bride, Mary, and I had 
just last night.
  This is a great honor to serve in the Congress of the United States. 
Evoking the memories of one who served at the other end of Pennsylvania 
Avenue before coming here, John Quincy Adams, he was heard to say, 
``There is no greater honor than serving in the people's house.''
  And so, Mr. Speaker, I think back to my conversation last night with 
Mary when she said, honey, we would love to have you at home. The kids 
have spelling tests. There is a lot going on. But you and the other 
Members of Congress need to stay there and complete the work you were 
sent to do. And as is often the case, Mary provides good advice, the 
kind of common sense that comes from Main Street, America, that may be 
disrupted in the Beltway and with the pundits and with the dominant 
media culture always ready to play a game of gotcha, especially now, 
Mr. Speaker, when we look at the calendar and see what approaches.
  Fast approaching is the first Tuesday following the first Monday, 
election day, where our constituents, where citizens across America 
will make a choice. Conventional wisdom, our friends in the fourth 
estate, indeed our friends on the other side of the aisle, albeit sotto 
voce, from the other side of the aisle, say, we need to be at home. But 
the fact is we are here and here we will remain to put people before 
politics, to complete our work, to understand there are legitimate 
differences between people of the two major parties and those 
independents who join us here.
  Mr. Speaker, I also think, in a sense, being entrusted with this role 
is not unlike applying for a job. And I have yet to take a job 
application and find a place to fill out partisan identification. I 
never see a spot on the resume or on a job application which asks 
whether you are a Republican or a Democrat or an Independent.
  So putting partisanship aside, I think it is important for every 
Member who can possibly be here to return to this Chamber. And that is 
why I noted with great dismay tonight, as we cast the vote to make sure 
our Government was funded for another day, our friend the gentleman 
from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), who happens to be the leader of the 
Democratic party in this Chamber, chose to be out campaigning in 
Missouri.
  Mr. Speaker, how sad it is also that the President of the United 
States, who a week ago informed the Senate majority leader that due to 
a fund-raiser in New York, he would be unavailable for consultation 
until after 1 o'clock in the morning, followed the next day by a round 
of golf and going in person to the final game of the World Series, he 
would be unavailable for consultation, now that same President of the 
United States finds himself not in the resplendent White House but 
instead 3,000 miles to the west in California out campaigning.
  Mr. Speaker, my colleagues, let us make this very clear. The 
President of the United States is not our campaigner in chief, he is 
the commander in chief. He is the Chief Executive. And we should expect 
nothing less of our President than his presence here in Washington to 
achieve a hard-won consensus and compromise.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, it is ironic, and I am not trying to give 
anyone a geography lesson, but it is interesting that here we are in 
Washington,

[[Page 25948]]

the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) is in Washington, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Horn) is in Washington, 300-some-odd 
Members of Congress are in Washington, and I will point out 73 
Democrats are not, but the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) is in 
Missouri campaigning, the leader. Mr. Clinton is here in California in 
the district of the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn) politicking. 
Again, the rest of us, 300-some-odd people, have flown to Washington 
for negotiations to try to finish up; and yet they have decided to 
leave Washington. And you cannot get your work done. It takes two to 
dance, and you have to have two at a bargaining table as well. And you 
cannot bargain, you cannot negotiate when other people have walked out 
of negotiations.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht).
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I just want to first of all say I am 
really proud of what this Congress has done, and I am proud of what we 
are doing right now. And I do not know if most people understand what 
the reason is that we are still here in Washington on just a few nights 
before the general election, but I honestly believe that there were 
people down at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue that thought, well, 
if we just hold them hostage in Washington, eventually we will get the 
Members to say, we got to go home and campaign, we got a campaign going 
on, we got to get out of here, we got to get out of here; and the 
longer they held us hostage, the more that they could extract in terms 
of more spending, in terms of policy changes.
  I am proud of the fact that we said no, no, we are not going to do 
that. We are more than willing to meet the President more than halfway. 
We are more than willing to relax the spending caps, which some of us 
do not think was a very good idea. But we do not think it is a very 
good idea to give blanket amnesty to over four million illegal aliens. 
We think that is a very bad idea. And I think most of our constituents 
believe that is a very bad idea.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I want to kind of underscore what we are 
talking about, four million people who sneaked into the United States 
illegally against laws, the President wants to give blanket citizenship 
to. When we say ``amnesty,'' we mean citizenship.
  That is the size roughly of Montana, Delaware, Alaska, North Dakota, 
Wyoming, and Vermont. That is what we are talking about. And on just 
one stroke of the pen, the President wants to make them citizens.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman mentioned those States, 
Montana, Delaware, Alaska, North Dakota, Wyoming and Vermont. But he 
did not say combined, all of those States combined.
  Now, I do not think there is anybody in INS who thinks this is a very 
good idea. I do not think there are many Americans who think that is a 
very good idea.
  The other issue is ergonomics. Certainly we have got to make some 
allowances for people who have repetitive motion injuries. No question 
about that. But the policy that was being attempted to be foisted down 
our throats could have had devastating impacts on small businesses. And 
so, we are not eager to do that.
  We are willing to negotiate. We are willing to meet the President 
more than halfway. The question is, is he? And so far we have not seen 
a whole lot of flexibility from the White House. Clearly what they are 
trying to do is hold us hostage. I am proud of the fact that our 
leadership said, no, we are not going to do that. We are not going to 
play that game anymore. We are not going to bust the spending caps the 
way we have in the past.
  So I am glad that we are still here. I would rather be home. My wife 
would love to have me home. She was so lonely, she hates to fly, but 
last week she was willing to get on a plane and fly out here she said 
because she was starting to miss me, believe it or not. But I think the 
people's business is important, and I think we should not allow the 
poison of partisan politics right before an election to get us to 
accept a bad deal for the American people.
  So I am proud that we are here. I am proud of what we have 
accomplished in the last 6 years. And hopefully we will have a chance 
to continue that kind of progress, whether it is balancing the budget, 
continuing to make certain that our welfare system encourages work and 
personal responsibility, a whole long list of things that we have 
missed over the last 6 years. We cannot turn our backs on that now.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, as we are joined by our friends on the 
left, and we welcome them in the spirit of consensus and compromise, I 
just thought about a comment our own President made in a press 
conference a few days ago when he said that this bipartisan Congress 
has accomplished so much. And I think about stopping the tax on 
earnings limits, what in essence was an unfair tax on senior citizens.
  For the record, the gentleman could you put that statement in our 
Congressional Record.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman referenced this quote. And 
maybe while we are looking at it, ``We have accomplished so much in 
this session of Congress in a bipartisan fashion. It has been one of 
the most productive sessions.'' President Bill Clinton, October 30, 
2000.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for reading that into 
the Record. I think it points out that the mantra that was heard 
heretofore, indeed the mantra that some of our friends on the left came 
back with tonight of a ``do nothing Congress,'' even our own President, 
who happens to be a member of the other party, said that this has been 
one of the most productive sessions.
  I think that is something upon which we ought to agree. Certainly we 
moved in a bipartisan fashion with a prescription drug benefit for our 
seniors. We moved, as I mentioned earlier, to end the unfair, in 
essence, tax on Social Security in terms of an earnings limit for those 
seniors who continue to choose to work past the age of retirement. We 
have moved in many different areas in terms of educational flexibility, 
a bill that was backed by every one of the 50 Governors in our United 
States regardless of whether they are Democrat, Republicans, or 
Independents.
  So we have had consensus, compromise and progress. And it is 
unfortunate that at this time, at this juncture, when agreement can be 
so close, and perhaps it is inevitable it is a function of the 
calendar, that there are those who are tempted either to play a game of 
gotcha or one-upmanship to say we want to work but instead turn home to 
campaign.
  The President, who we hoped was here to finally work this out, chose 
to go overfly my State and go to California again to campaign. We 
respect the fact that people want to get the issues to the folks, but 
it seems to me they are putting the cart before the horse. Our most 
important job is to be true to the oath of office that we have taken to 
be here doing our work regardless of the date on the calendar.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) 
has joined us. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I would like to participate with my three 
colleagues tonight. We were talking a moment ago about being here and 
working, and I heard comments made about we are glad to be here and 
working.
  I would agree with you if we were here working. But can anyone of the 
three of you tell me any meeting that has occurred between the 
negotiators, the leadership since 1:20 Sunday night as far as work to 
do the things we need to do?
  When you put the poster up a moment ago about four million illegal 
aliens, this Member would join you in opposing that. That is not what 
we are talking about, and you know it. But it can be negotiated back 
and this is what we could do. We could work out an agreement on that 
that I think all four of us would agree to. It could be done.
  But my question is this: Can you name one meeting that has occurred 
since 1:20 Sunday night, or Monday morning actually, that has occurred

[[Page 25949]]

that has actually been a working meeting that would provide for some 
hope of resolving some of these difficulties?
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman from Georgia will 
continue to yield, first of all, let me note a common bond of 
agreement, since we both represent border States, the concern about how 
we deal with the real question of uniting families but at the same time 
not rewarding those who intentionally break the law. I think we have a 
consensus there. So let me build from there. Because, Mr. Speaker, I 
think it is important to show the American people that there can be 
some common agreement.
  Mr. Speaker, I do this not to be flippant, but perhaps my friend from 
Texas is more aware of the President's schedule. Can he tell me, was 
the President of the United States available for meetings past 1:20 
a.m. Monday?
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would continue to yield, 
the President was available all day Friday, all day Saturday, all day 
Sunday, all day Monday, until 1 o'clock on Tuesday, and was available 
for a period of time on Wednesday.
  At no time was there ever any request by the leadership of the House 
to negotiate on the questions of which you are talking about according 
to my information.

                              {time}  2015

  Mr. GUTKNECHT. I respect the work the gentleman from Texas has done 
on the budget. Generally speaking, we agree on a lot more things than 
we disagree on. But on this whole issue of the budget, the four of us, 
I would suspect, in a matter of a few hours could probably work out the 
final details of this budget, language on what we are going to do to 
reunite families and still preserve the basic notion of our immigration 
policy. Even on ergonomics, I think we could probably work out language 
that would be satisfactory to the four of us. But that is not the real 
question. The real question is, would the President sign it? I think 
that is where we have the real problem. Because the President has 
basically played this game of chicken, believing that we would 
ultimately cave on very important policy questions. He was wrong. He 
miscalculated this year. Some of us said, no, there is a line beyond 
which we simply will not retreat.
  I think we have spent too much money this year. I think you agree 
with me on that. I think we should have kept those spending caps. I 
think we can legitimately meet the needs of the Federal Government and 
all the people who depend upon it for $1.86 trillion. That is what our 
spending agreement was with the Senate. We have gone over those 
spending caps already. We can point fingers and say it was the 
Republicans in the Senate or it was the Republicans in the House or it 
was the administration or it was this guy or that guy. But we could 
reach that agreement between the four of us, and I suspect within a few 
hours we could have that agreement worked out. But I will also suspect 
the President would not sign that bill.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Let me say, also, I am going to find out if our leaders 
balked at any meetings. I know in a negotiation dance there are a lot 
of nuances and people do sometimes do a little head fake this way and 
that way. It takes place in all negotiations. I do not know all of it, 
what has not gone on; but I know this, that we were here all last week, 
including Friday, including Saturday, including Sunday. We were not in 
session Monday, although I will say my mind is a little bit foggy right 
now if we were here Monday. I know we were here Tuesday. We were here 
Thursday.
  Mr. OBEY. Would the gentleman like me to give him an instance?
  Mr. KINGSTON. I will be glad to yield in a minute. Let me finish. The 
point is, we are here. The President is in California. If he wants to 
get an agreement, you got to be there. And he is not here. It 
distresses me. We had a Member here who ironically represents the town 
where Mrs. Clinton has bought a house, and they had something in the 
Treasury-Post Office bill that was vetoed by this President, then he 
left town. I do not know if that is part of the New York strategy or 
what. To me he needs to be here.
  Mr. OBEY. The gentleman asked a question. Would the gentleman like an 
answer on that?
  Mr. KINGSTON. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. OBEY. I would be happy to tell you that on three successive days, 
the majority negotiators on the appropriation bills in question made it 
quite clear that representatives from the White House were not welcome 
in those meetings until other items were first negotiated. And on the 
night that the agreement was put together, the representatives of the 
White House, and it was Mr. Lew from the budget office, Mr. Lew was 
specifically told that he was not welcome in those meetings until after 
10 o'clock at night. The President is not a part of those negotiations. 
He has delegated Mr. Lew to represent him in all instances, and Mr. Lew 
was available at all times requested by your party. You know that as 
well as I do.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Reclaiming my time, maybe the President ought to 
delegate the rest of the job on over to somebody else if he does not 
want to do it. I do not know one person in the United States of America 
who voted for Jack Lew.
  Mr. OBEY. Who did your leadership delegate it to?
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the President was in the Middle East or in North 
Korea avoiding war or in someplace like that.
  Mr. OBEY. Who did your leadership delegate negotiating authority to?
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will remember, keeping a little 
courtesy here, I have the floor. I will try to answer your question.
  Mr. OBEY. Do you remember?
  Mr. KINGSTON. Here is the point. The President of the United States 
does not come to these meetings. I came from the private sector.
  Mr. OBEY. The President of the United States was specifically 
excluded from the meetings.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I may be naive because I come from the private sector 
and I do not understand all of Washington and I do not know all the 
nuances of Washington, but it would appear to me that in the 11th hour 
of the closing sessions of the United States Congress that the 
President would lower himself to show up to the meetings and not send 
some unelected Jack Lew guy. Mr. Lew might be brilliant. In fact, maybe 
he should be President and maybe that would have been a better choice 
of a nominee. But the reality is the President was not there.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. I just want to come back to this point. Does anybody 
in this House believe that if we had an up-and-down vote on blanket 
amnesty for over 4 million illegal aliens, does anybody here believe it 
would pass? So why are we talking about it in the conference? Where did 
this come from? I do not think it was our negotiators who said, What we 
ought to really do is give blanket immunity, blanket amnesty to 4 
million illegal aliens. I understand that is one of the sticking 
points. Maybe I am misinformed. Maybe I do not know what is going on in 
those conference committees. But our negotiators come back and say, We 
don't want to do this but the White House is saying we've got to do 
that.
  Mr. OBEY. If the gentleman will yield, the gentleman is misinformed. 
That item was not even in the Labor-H appropriations bill.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Where is it then? Who is talking about it?
  Mr. OBEY. That is in the State-Justice-Commerce bill, and each side 
has recognized that bill is going nowhere. The only issue that had a 
chance of passing was the Labor-HHS appropriations bill.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Reclaiming my time, there again if the President is so 
proud about giving citizenship to 4 million illegal aliens, why does he 
not come here and defend his position instead of having somebody do it 
for him?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Or bring it to the floor for a vote. That is all I am 
asking for.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. I appreciate the efforts of my friends on the left and 
certainly the ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations to 
offer his perspective tonight. Certainly he has

[[Page 25950]]

been involved in a variety of talks dealing with spending and certainly 
offers his own testimony to his point of view and political philosophy 
time and again on this floor. We welcome that because it is legitimate 
to have differences.
  The point I would make, and this goes back to our early days in the 
House. I remember one night when the President and First Lady very 
graciously welcomed new Members of Congress to the White House for a 
meeting. As you might expect, Mr. Speaker, and maybe my colleagues 
remember in their early days of Congress when they had a chance to go 
to the White House, it is a fairly important occasion. I remember that 
night, the First Lady started the meeting and the President joined us 
later because he had to break away from personal negotiations to try 
and end the baseball strike.
  Mr. Speaker, we know baseball is our national pastime; indeed, my 
friend from Wisconsin and I have discussed baseball time and again, but 
that is a leisure pursuit. We can talk about the business of sports and 
how important that may be; but, Mr. Speaker, I think what we are saying 
tonight is if it was important enough for the President of the United 
States to insert himself into a negotiation about the baseball strike, 
if it is important enough for the President of the United States to 
attempt to take a leadership role in negotiations in the Middle East, 
if it is important enough for the President of the United States to 
make a phone call between two domestic partners dealing with the status 
of their relationship, certainly, Mr. Speaker, it is important enough 
for the President of the United States to return to Washington and come 
join us personally to try to achieve an agreement.
  Mr. STENHOLM. If the gentleman will yield, precisely. A moment ago 
the gentleman from Arizona made a statement that he and I agree on. I 
think upon a proper reflection of the question of how many of those 
citizens, or noncitizens, illegals, that might need to be reunited with 
their family, we probably could agree, and it will be considerably less 
than 4 million. But both of us represent border States, both of us 
understand that there are certain things that need to be done in that, 
but not 4 million; and it was never a part of the Labor-HHS 
discussions. My point here is that reasonable people can work this out. 
This is what I am suggesting tonight.
  Again I want to say to my friend from Arizona, the President was 
available, at the White House, at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue 
on Friday, on Saturday, on Sunday, on Monday, on Tuesday until 1 
o'clock, again on Wednesday. At no time did the leadership of my House 
of Representatives ever make a request to meet with the President.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. To your knowledge.
  Mr. STENHOLM. That is what I say. When I come to the floor, and I 
appreciate the courtesies given to me, if I ever say anything that is 
untrue, I would like for somebody to come to the floor and correct me. 
Therefore, that is what I believe according to what I understand and if 
anybody can correct me, if you can correct me or if any one of the 
leadership can come in and say, What he is saying, the gentleman from 
Texas is all wet, come in and tell me. Otherwise, let us not keep 
pointing the finger of blame.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. I would concur. There is no reason to point the finger 
of blame. I was simply saying to my friend from Texas, we may not be 
privy to all the discussions. We may not be privy to all the schedules. 
Indeed as we have seen with some of the other verbal gymnastics that 
have gone on in preceding days, while we have not had firsthand 
knowledge, there has been a very curious process that has continued 
here of, sadly, not the gentleman from Texas, but perhaps others saying 
one thing while they would do another. It is not an attack on my 
friend's integrity. We agree on a great deal here.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Let me just say, I feel a little like Will Rogers. He 
once said, ``All I know is what I read in the newspapers.'' All I know 
is I thought we had an agreement on the Treasury-Postal bill. I thought 
I read, now maybe he was misquoted, that the President was going to 
sign the bill. In this business we all know that our word is pretty 
important. I am not privy to the negotiations. I do not know what has 
been going on in those meetings exactly. But, as I say, all I know is 
what I read in the newspapers. And when I read that the President said, 
``I'm going to sign that bill'' and then in the dead of night he vetoes 
it and you have Senators saying that is a declaration of war against 
the Congress, that is not the way to resolve these differences.
  Here is my real point. Because I was in the State legislature for 12 
years. I have been frustrated since I came here at the way we end these 
budget sessions, the way we end a session. Because in the legislature, 
we had Republican governors with Democratic legislatures and we had 
Democratic governors where the Republicans controlled half the 
legislature. But in both cases what we did at the end of the session is 
the governor brought in the legislative leaders, they sat down like 
real human beings, they sat down reasonably and said, Okay, guys, let's 
figure out how big is the pie going to be. That was the first question. 
You decided how much you were going to spend. We had to balance our 
budget, so that made it somewhat easier.
  Once you knew how much you were going to spend, whether that was 
$14.3 billion or whatever the number was, it was relatively easy then 
to sit down and work out, well, how much goes to transportation, how 
much goes to education, how much goes to criminal services, how much 
goes to the various other departments, welfare and so forth.
  We have never done that. The President has never brought, as far as I 
know, the legislative leaders in and said, Let's decide how much we are 
going to spend. Here is the problem. Because what happens is as soon as 
we think we have an agreement on how much we are going to spend on 
Treasury-Postal, first of all he vetoes it but then secondly he says, 
Wait a second. We've got to have more money over here; we've got to 
have more money over there. You cannot negotiate a moving target. In my 
opinion that is a terrible, terrible way to do the business of the 
people of the United States of America.
  We ought to agree, first and foremost, we are only going to spend, 
and at this point I do not care what the number is, but we ought to all 
agree that all we are going to spend this year is $1.91 trillion or 
whatever that number is. Once we have that number and with just a 
little bit of leadership from somebody down at the other end of 
Pennsylvania Avenue, that agreement could be made in a half an hour. 
Then we could all begin to work out how much we really need for 
Treasury-Postal, how much we really need for Energy and Water, how much 
ought to go for Health and Human Services, how much goes to education. 
All those other things are relatively easy once you decide how big the 
pie is. Maybe I am just crazy, because that is the way 50 States do it, 
and yet it cannot be done here at the Federal level.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Here again, we keep talking about, the sign is up 
again, ``How much is enough?'' The majority party set a new set of caps 
at $645 billion when you attached it to the Foreign Operations bill. I 
did not vote for it because that is too much. But you did.

                              {time}  2030

  You keep pointing the finger of blame. I am not here tonight to point 
the finger of blame. What I am trying to say is the $645 billion is 
set; and if in the final negotiations on all the appropriations, 
whatever the President makes us do, if we spend more than $645 billion, 
you know, all of us know, we will have to sequester and we will have to 
cut across the board in order to bring it back to $645 billion, unless 
the new Congress is like the past three Congresses, we do not live up 
to the budget rules.
  We all understand that.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Let me claim some time here and say these are some of 
the things in the President's budget: 2,300 new jobs at the Department 
of Agriculture; 2,800 at the IRS, like we all

[[Page 25951]]

want that; almost 3,400 at the Department of Veterans Affairs, that 
might be a good idea there, after years of this administration cutting 
it; 1,300 at the Department of Interior; 1,000 at the Department of 
Commerce; 2,700 at the Department of Transportation.
  Some examples of the President new spending proposals, $15 million to 
increase food stamp spending for migrant children; $85 million for the 
Clean Air Partnership Act; $30 million for information immigration 
initiative; $4.25 million for the international environmental 
monitoring program; $15 million for money laundering strategy; $100 
million for nongame wildlife grants to States; $30 million for the 
Delta Regional Authority; $100 million for the long-term Russian 
initiative. I do not know if that was alluding to a document of Mr. 
Chernomyrdin; but $10 million for the fishery vessel buyout; $5.5 
million for the Global Disaster Information Network; $4.5 million for 
the Indian Country Tourism Development; $10 million for gun 
destruction. These were all in the President's budget proposal, which 
was dead on arrival. I do not think any of the Democrats even voted for 
it.
  What concerns me in these back rooms when you have somebody 
negotiating from the White House is how many of these are sneaked back 
into the budget? That is where I get concerned.
  The gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. OBEY. I would like to simply state that, first of all, your 
leadership made clear at the beginning of the year that they had no 
intention of getting in a room with Bill Clinton because they said that 
when Newt Gingrich got in a room to negotiate with Bill Clinton that 
the President stole his socks, I think was the term of your majority 
whip.
  With respect to some of the items you just mentioned, is the 
gentleman aware that the item in conference to add the funding for food 
stamps for the children of immigrants was offered by a Republican 
subcommittee chairman? The gentleman has questioned the expenditure for 
money laundering. Is the gentleman for illegal money laundering?
  Mr. KINGSTON. Actually, I am a Republican. I do not know that much 
about money laundering, particularly foreign money.
  Mr. OBEY. Well, Richard Nixon knew an awful lot about it, did he not?
  Mr. KINGSTON. There must have been some students of Nixon who are 
alive and well today in Washington.
  Mr. OBEY. Is the gentleman suggesting the President should not try to 
deal with the laundering of drug money?
  Mr. KINGSTON. Here is not what I am suggesting. Here is what I am 
saying. The President's budget was full of all kinds of new spending 
initiatives and new fee proposals. Some of those may be very good. But 
I know this, that his budget was voted down on a bipartisan basis by 
this House of Representatives.
  Mr. OBEY. No, it was not.
  Mr. KINGSTON. What my concern is, is some of this back on the table. 
The gentleman, with his knowledge knows, how in conferences things do 
pop back on the table; some very good, some with lots of merit, but 
there are also things that do not have that much merit and need to be 
vetted a little, and that is my point.
  Mr. OBEY. Would the gentleman yield further?
  Mr. KINGSTON. Yes, and then let me yield to the other gentleman.
  Mr. OBEY. What I find amusing is that the majority party insisted on 
raising the military budget by $20 billion above last year. They 
insisted on passing appropriation bills that had some $9 billion above 
the President's level for a variety of items, especially projects for 
Members in their districts, but then when it comes to education, which 
is where the final division lay, you were objecting in conference, or 
your representatives were, to our raising Pell grants to the amount 
that you yourself said you wanted them funded at in May. And your 
representatives were objecting to our raising funding for special 
education to the same level that you said on the floor you wanted it 
raised to in March of this year.
  So we were simply trying to prevent hypocrisy from having a bad name.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I appreciate the gentleman standing up for the 
Republican House Members in those conferences.
  The gentleman from Arizona.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. It begs a larger question. My friend from Wisconsin 
mentioned special education. Indeed, what we have done here in terms of 
funding, IDEA, has been to increase by some 100 percent the amounts of 
funds there. What we have also done under the leadership of the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling), chairman of the Committee 
on Education and the Workforce, was to fulfill a promise made when my 
friend was here much earlier. Almost a quarter century ago when I was 
still in high school, when this Congress went on record saying it would 
supply 40 percent of the total funding for that program, it took this 
Congress, the same Congress that balanced the budget, the same Congress 
that kept its hands out of the Social Security money, the same Congress 
that kept its hands out of the Medicare cookie jar, it took this 
Congress to achieve that promise.
  So I appreciate my friend's point of view from his inside view of the 
Committee on Appropriations, but I think from time to time we need to 
step back and take a look at the big picture.
  Mr. OBEY. If the gentleman would yield, he is misinformed on that.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. I would yield to my friend from Minnesota.
  Mr. OBEY. Would the gentleman yield on that question, because those 
numbers are wrong.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Let me pose another question. Then I would be happy to 
yield to the gentleman.
  Mr KINGSTON. The gentleman from Minnesota and then the gentleman from 
Wisconsin.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. The gentleman has taken some umbrage at us asking the 
question, how much is enough?
  Mr. OBEY. I would be very happy to answer that question, if you would 
yield me some time.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Let me just complete my thought here. Our colleague 
from Texas was quite upset that we had raised the spending caps, and so 
am I. But as far as I can remember, the President has signed the 
Defense bill. He did not quarrel with that. So we really are left with 
this question. Perhaps the gentleman from Wisconsin can tell us how 
much would be enough? How much more spending do we have to agree to?
  Mr. OBEY. If the gentleman would yield time so I can answer the 
question.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. I would be happy to. What is the final number?
  Mr. OBEY. Would the gentleman yield me some time so I can answer the 
question?
  Mr. KINGSTON. Let me say this.
  Mr. OBEY. I did not think the gentleman wanted a real answer.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I am going to yield time. I do want to remind my 
friends that as somebody who does special orders, never have 
Republicans received so much time during the Democrat hour, just to say 
that for a little advertising. And in the spirit of Hershey, let me 
yield to the distinguished gentleman.
  Mr. OBEY. I thank the gentleman. Let me point out with respect to 
IDEA, the fact is what was at stake in conference is whether or not we 
would be allowed to add an additional $300 million to the level that 
you appropriated in the House-passed bill. Your negotiators 
consistently resisted that until the last day when we finally obtained 
support for an additional $300 million above the House bill.
  That means that we are still only funding 17 percent of the promise 
that the Congress made on IDEA when we should be under 40 percent under 
the authorization.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Would the gentleman yield? That is exactly the point.
  Mr. OBEY. You do not want an answer, do you?
  Mr. HAYWORTH. That is the point I made to my friend from Wisconsin, 
who for a time chaired the Committee on Appropriations. The fact is, 
the problem is, the promise was made nearly a

[[Page 25952]]

quarter century ago. My friend from Wisconsin raises what should be 
considered a triumph, that after long and hard negotiating an agreement 
was reached. But the question was begged nearly a quarter century ago. 
Where was the funding then?
  Mr. OBEY. I see. If the gentleman would yield, when you want to raise 
IDEA it is okay; but when we want to add money to special education, 
then it is not okay. Is that it?
  Mr. HAYWORTH. If my friend would yield the time, this is precisely 
the point.
  Mr. OBEY. I see.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. This is precisely the point. I think my friend 
misunderstands the historical context because my friend had margins of 
votes in excess of 100 and could have, during the days when he 
controlled the purse, could have fully funded IDEA had he chosen to 
with other Members of the majority party then. That was then. This is 
now.
  I think it is profound, Mr. Speaker, that we have moved to fund the 
program, and I champion the fact that my friend sat down to negotiate.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Let me claim some time here because I really think this 
is a good dialogue; and I would say amongst those who are on the floor 
tonight, as long as we are talking we can move the ball further down 
the road and we can get somewhere with it.
  I want to shift just slightly the focus, though. As I see the 
President's proposal to federalize school construction, one of the 
things that is disturbing to me, and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Stenholm) somewhat agreed the other night, and I will let him restate 
whatever his position is, is the President's insistence, apparently a 
union payoff, to have Davis-Bacon part of local school construction, 
which means the cost of local school construction will be up 25 
percent. And that item is on the table, as I understand it. And that is 
something disturbing to me because when I go back to Glynn County, 
Brantley County, Wayne County, Georgia, they do not want to know, hey, 
the good news is the Federal Government is going to have more money for 
school construction; the bad news is it is going to cost you 25 percent 
more, and you probably should have just done it without the Federal 
Government's help.
  Could the gentleman from Wisconsin enlighten us where that is in the 
negotiation?
  Mr. OBEY. I would be happy to, if the gentleman would let me respond, 
and I thank the gentleman for the time.
  As the gentleman knows, there are two pieces to the school 
construction and school modernization proposals. In the bipartisan 
agreement, which your leadership blew up, in that bipartisan agreement, 
the construction modernization program was included in the bipartisan 
agreement.
  The school construction item was not. The school construction item 
under that agreement was moved to the tax bill, and the argument was 
left to the tax bill and to whatever fate the tax bill would 
experience.
  So in the package that your negotiators and I, representing the 
Democrats, agreed to, we have the school modernization program that was 
funded at a level of, I believe, $1.3 billion, and then 25 percent of 
the overall amount that originally had been aimed at school 
modernization was, at the insistence of the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
(Mr. Goodling) and Republicans, provided for other programs. It could 
have been used for either technology or it could have been used for 
special education. That was a bipartisan agreement which we agreed 
upon, and your leadership then blew up.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Let me say this: As I understand it, the reason why 
there was agreement on it is it was in exchange for other concessions 
which the White House was offering, and when the White House reneged on 
their part of the bargain then our House leadership said, okay, if that 
is the case then we are going to go back to square one.
  Mr. OBEY. That is a totally false statement.
  Mr. KINGSTON. That is what we understand from our leadership, and 
they have said that so far.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. If the gentleman would yield.
  Mr. OBEY. As is often the case, the gentleman's understanding is 
faulty.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Let me just come back. I am trying to keep a running 
total here, and you said all we needed was an extra $300 million for 
IDEA above and beyond what we already spent.
  Mr. OBEY. No, I believe we need $4 billion additional in IDEA.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. If I could just finish here, then you said but we also 
want another $1.3 billion for school construction. Is that all we are 
talking about?
  Mr. OBEY. No.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Because I understood that we were about $8 billion 
apart. Now back in Minnesota and Wisconsin, $8 billion is a lot of 
money. There must have been more money somewhere else.
  Mr. OBEY. I would be happy to give the gentleman the rest of the list 
if you would yield.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. If you could just give us the numbers. How far apart 
are we in the numbers?
  Mr. OBEY. We were not apart on any number. Every number in the bill 
had been agreed to by the negotiators. There was no disagreements left 
on the numbers.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. They may have been agreed to by the negotiators, but 
ultimately you have to get 218 votes around this place. Some of us are 
a little upset about how much we have spent already, as the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) indicated already.
  Mr. OBEY. You do not want to hear the answer, do you?
  Mr. KINGSTON. Let me reclaim the time here. One of the problems that 
we are having here is that it does appear often that when questions are 
answered they go on into speeches, and if we could just answer the 
questions it would probably be a lot faster.
  The gentleman from Minnesota.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. I think we, Members of the House, members of the 
general public, need to understand how much is enough? I mean, at what 
point do you see, yeah, that is all we want to spend. Is it $645 
billion? Is it $660 billion? Is it $700 billion? We never get a clear 
answer to that question.
  Mr. OBEY. Would the gentleman yield so I can respond?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Yes.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Yes.
  Mr. OBEY. I repeat, there was not a single difference remaining on 
numbers.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. But I did not hear a number.
  Mr. OBEY. We had an agreement.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. What is the number? How much?
  Mr. OBEY. Of what? The number of what?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. How much you want to spend? That is the question we 
have been asking all week. How much is enough?
  Mr. OBEY. I will be happy to answer.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Is it $670 billion? Is it $700 billion?
  Mr. OBEY. You asked what the differences were on the table, and I 
told you there were no dollar differences.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. How long do we have to wait? Lord, Lord, how long will 
it be? When will they tell us how much is enough? We have already gone 
over the spending caps.
  Mr. OBEY. The gentleman is debating himself.

                              {time}  2045

  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I think this is indicative of the process. 
I appreciate the good-faith efforts of the gentleman from Wisconsin 
(Mr. Obey), the ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations, who 
has served with distinction for going on 3 decades in this Chamber, but 
here is the quintessential difference. My friend from Minnesota is 
asking, what is the bottom line? My friend from Wisconsin wants to 
revisit a process which he knows full well also entails sitting down 
and achieving consensus, not only with those at the table, but also 
with those in the White House who earlier tonight he said could 
negotiate for the President, in lieu of the President, the same way it 
works here, where your side has a point of view, our side

[[Page 25953]]

has a point of view, and we attempt to reach a consensus.
  So I would again be interested to hear if there was, in fact, a 
number, rather than a process. What is the number? Mr. Speaker, my 
colleagues, how much is enough?
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to answer that, if the 
gentleman will yield. The gentleman asked me two different questions. I 
answered the first and the gentleman would not let me answer the 
second. Would the gentleman let me answer the second?
  If the gentleman wanted to know what we were asking for on education, 
what we were asking is that we add $4.2 billion above the conference 
bill for education. That is what we were asking for. We were asking for 
additional funding for after-school centers, additional funding for 
smaller class size, additional funding to correct the fact that one out 
of every 10 teachers is not certified to teach the subject that they 
are teaching, and additional funding to provide the largest increase in 
the Pell grants in the history of the program. And we had agreed, 
Republican and Democrat alike, on ever single one of those dollars. The 
Republican leadership blew it up, over a totally different issue not 
involving money at all.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, what was the issue?
  Mr. OBEY. The gentleman knows very well what the issue was.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. No, we do not.
  Mr. OBEY. The issue was whether or not the Congress should be allowed 
to block the President's effort to institute protection for workers 
against repetitive motion injuries.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman from Georgia will yield, 
because that is something very different. The President of the United 
States came out and said that it was the special interests who stopped 
this, not a legitimate question of policy. I am glad my friend from 
Wisconsin brought up the fact, and we affirm tonight, that there was a 
legitimate difference in terms of protecting small business people, and 
employers, and claiming that somehow people are captive of the special 
interests. I yield back to my friend from Georgia.
  Mr. OBEY. No, no.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. 
Gutknecht).
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Again, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Wisconsin is 
talking a policy issue, and we are trying to solve the appropriation 
bills.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues on the other side are not trying 
to solve anything tonight.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, whether it is illegal aliens or 
ergonomics, they are policy questions which I am not certain would 
pass.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, as I understand it, 
the House level of the Labor, Health and Human Services bill was about 
$106 billion, and the gentleman wants to add $4.2 billion.
  Mr. OBEY. No, that is not correct.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, can the gentleman tell me what the number 
was?
  Mr. OBEY. The number is $608.2, the House number.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Okay. Plus, then it would be $108. But then what we are 
arguing about are the riders that the President wants to put on there.
  Mr. OBEY. No, no, it was a Republican item. That was a Republican 
rider which the gentleman voted for.
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield.
  Mr. OBEY. The President was opposing your rider.
  Mr. KINGSTON. It is a rider, and the President is wanting to put the 
rider on the bill.
  Mr. OBEY. And your leadership voted to blow it up.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Texas has been standing 
here politely, and I yield to him.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. If we 
can kind of get back to the basic thesis of the whole 1-hour tonight 
that the gentleman from Georgia has started. On the question of how 
much is enough that my colleagues keep asking, but they are not 
listening to what is being said by someone who is on the Committee on 
Appropriations. The $645 billion has been set as a cap. Any additional 
fussing about additional money is going to have to be resolved under 
the House rules, which I assume you all will support; I certainly will.
  Now, when we start talking about ergonomics, let the record show, 
that was a rider added by your side of the aisle, which I supported. 
And let the record show that on school construction, I do agree that 
Davis-Bacon should not be applicable to local bond issues. But that was 
a rider that your side put on, not our side, but I happen to agree.
  Immigration, we have already talked about that one. I think we can 
find a middle ground that will treat people of our country who are 
doing tremendous service to our country fairly by finding an agreement, 
and I think the gentleman from Arizona and I would agree on that. But 
the $4 million is an erroneous number and should not be coming out on 
the House floor.
  The one area that I really disagree with the majority party on is in 
the area of hospitals, home health, nursing homes and other health care 
providers, the BBA fix. I happen to totally disagree with what your 
side has put together regarding how we are going to deal with a very 
serious problem facing our rural hospitals, which is my district, 
nursing homes; and I suspect we all agree to that. But you put together 
a package, your side put together a package, which you allowed no one 
on my side of the aisle to have any input into, and no one in the 
administration to have any input into, and you said, take it or leave 
it. Some of us said we think we can do better.
  If there is one reservation that I have about us going home before 
completing this, it is in this area, because it is giving a tremendous 
amount of uncertainty; but we are not going to finish that, because the 
Senate has gone home. But that is one area in which, again, I think, I 
think that reasonable people on both sides, once we get away from this 
rhetoric, the blame game, and I am not here defending the President, or 
defending my leadership, or defending anybody else, except when I think 
they are right, and in this case, I think they are right.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, let me reclaim the time, because we are 
going down to the wire and the gentleman has made his point.
  I want to point out that that bill was endorsed by the Rural Hospital 
Association and the American Hospital Association, and I believe the 
American Cancer Society. There was a whole list of associations who 
endorsed that.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, there is 
another important point. I appreciate my friend from Texas and his 
version of events, and I understand how he perceives this, but if I am 
not mistaken, the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Ways and 
Means offered that, and we can go back and check the vote, but I 
believe it was unanimous.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, it was the Committee on Commerce.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. There actually is joint jurisdiction.
  Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, it was the Committee on Commerce, it was not 
the Committee on Ways and Means.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. I stand corrected.
  Well, then, the Commerce section of the jurisdiction was cosponsored 
in bipartisan fashion by the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson), 
and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Luther), and there was bipartisan 
consensus bringing that out and bringing it to the floor.
  Now, good people can disagree. My vantage point is, also representing 
rural hospitals, I took a look at that $31 billion package, realizing 
that the bulk of the funding goes to the hospitals; some $11 billion, 
Mr. Speaker, and my colleagues, that is not hay, that is real money, 
going to help people. My friend has a different point of view, but I do 
not see how we can turn our backs on that.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I just want to come back. Apparently we 
are very close to an agreement on how

[[Page 25954]]

much is enough: $645 billion, is that right? The gentleman from 
Wisconsin, is that the final number, $645 billion?
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman totally misses the point. The 
issue is not how much was going to be spent, it was where it was going 
to be spent and what the priorities were going to be. There was no 
disagreement on the total amount of funding.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I do understand that, that there are 
differences in priorities. I understand that. I come from a different 
district than the gentleman from Wisconsin, and we all have different 
priorities, but we still have never gotten to the point as far as I am 
concerned of how much do we want to spend? What is the total number? 
Because then ultimately, reasonable people, and it happens in every 
State legislature, once they agree on how big the pie is, they can all 
sit down and decide how much is going to go to these various different 
programs.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, but the problem is, my Republican colleagues 
passed a budget resolution which pretended that they were going to 
spend $40 billion less than they knew they were going to spend.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. I guess we are not going to get an answer.
  Mr. OBEY. That is the problem.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, how much is enough? $645 is the number. We 
can fuss about how we spend it, but $645 billion is the number. So let 
me remind everyone now when we are talking about numbers, when we 
started this year, the Republican budget said 627 was enough. The 
President said 637 was enough. The Republicans said that was too much. 
The Blue Dogs came in at 633 and said that is a reasonable compromise.
  Well, where would we be tonight had the Republicans accepted our 
version and we would have been standing here tonight, and I suspect the 
gentleman from Wisconsin would have been agreeing with us on the 633, 
just like we are saying on the 645.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if I can claim some time, having come from 
the State legislative ranks and now serving on the Committee on 
Appropriations, one of my big disappointments is that it seems that 
regardless of who is in charge, the budget is ignored; and I think we 
have to all hold the line on spending. I do not know why we ignore it 
year after year.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, again, I 
thank my friend from Texas for bringing up a point and for his unending 
advocacy of the position of the Blue Dog Democrats. We look forward to 
working at a conservative governing coalition with my friend, provided 
that those who decide who comes back to this institution see fit to 
return to us, and we look forward to that.
  Yes, I think it begs a larger question of budget reform; but it still 
does not change the dynamic, which is even if we were to agree on a 
number, is there any guarantee that our President would likewise agree? 
And therein lies the problem: a continual moving target.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, the President does not sign the budget 
resolutions. The President has no authority under the law to sign 
budget resolutions.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Again, I thank my friend from Wisconsin who is a master 
of process. However, there is a larger question.
  Mr. Speaker, I extended to the gentleman the courtesy of not 
interrupting his speech, and I would appreciate the chance to respond, 
and then if my friend from Georgia chooses to yield the gentleman time, 
he can do so accordingly.
  Mr. Speaker, the American people want to know, can we come to an 
agreement. I think there are many different alternatives there, many 
different ways to get there. But I would hope that in the immediate 
days ahead, the President will return from the campaign trail, and the 
gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), the Democratic leader, will 
return from the campaign trail, and that working together, we can find 
a way to put people before politics.
  I have a great deal of respect for my friends on the other side of 
the aisle. There is not total agreement, but then again, that is the 
virtue, even with the challenge of serving in this institution; and I 
hope that we can put people before politics and people before process.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy, and 
I will be very brief.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Let me say one thing about the courtesy. I appreciate 
you all mentioning that, but we are here, as my Democratic colleagues 
all are here, because we really do want to resolve this. We have 
philosophical differences, but I think everybody in this Chamber knows 
that the people want a product here. So I think we are all here because 
we want to do the right thing.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I totally agree. When we talk about 
process, for 16 years of my 22, I was in the majority party, and many 
on the Republican side blamed me as a Democrat for being part of the 
big spending problem. And I had to accept it, because we were in the 
majority.
  My frustration with the Republican side, with the Republican 
leadership, not with my colleagues here tonight, but my frustration is, 
the Republicans continue to point the finger of blame at the minority 
side, and everyone that understands the process, understands that 
minorities cannot achieve that which the majority does not go along 
with.
  Mr. Speaker, a little constitutional reminder: when the President is 
of the other party, the President has sufficient power, and the only 
way we can beat a President is with a two-thirds vote override. When we 
have a very small majority, it is important that we work to achieve 
some help on the other side.
  My frustration is that at no time during the last 2 years has the 
Republican side ever attempted to work to override the President.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, we only have 2 minutes remaining. I yield 
to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht).
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, in summation, I think people of goodwill 
ought to be able to resolve this. I think the American people are 
really pretty tired of the partisan bickering. I have said from the 
beginning, it would seem to me that reasonable people could come up 
with a final number and then work out these differences.
  I do not think they are that big, but apparently some people believe 
that they could gain some political advantage by holding the Congress 
hostage through the month of October, and that strategy has not worked. 
Now, maybe after the break, we can come back and get this thing 
resolved.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. 
Hayworth).
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Georgia, and I 
thank my friends from the other side of the aisle who have taken the 
time to come down and offer their insights, their perspectives. I think 
even as frustrating as it gets, I think we ought to give thanks that we 
bring to this Chamber honest opinions and convictions, deeply held; and 
in an imperfect world, we attempt to find some sort of consensus and 
compromise. I think it is worth noting, as my friend from Texas has 
pointed out time and again, we have exceeded in terms of spending; and 
as my friend from Minnesota points out, the target tends to change, and 
again the question is, how much is enough?
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the participants of this 
Special Order and thank everyone for trying to keep working on these 
things dark into the night. Maybe, if we can get a few of our 
colleagues back here with us, we could resolve this.

                          ____________________