[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 18]
[House]
[Page 27020]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



MAKING IN ORDER AT ANY TIME CONSIDERATION OF CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 
 4577, DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, 
             AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2001

  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that it be 
in order at any time on the legislative day of December 15, 2000, to 
consider the conference report to accompany the bill (H.R. 4577) making 
appropriations for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, 
and Education, and Related Agencies for the fiscal year ending 
September 30, 2001, and for other purposes; that the conference report 
be considered as read;

that all points of order against the conference report and against its 
consideration be waived; and that the conference report be debatable 
for 90 minutes, equally divided and controlled by the chairman and 
ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations or their 
designees.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Florida?
  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I am 
concerned about what we are doing here today. We are being asked to 
vote on a huge package of bills that we have not seen, we have not 
read, and we certainly do not know what is in them. We are being asked 
to agree to dispense with the regular order of the House and simply 
vote ``yes'' on a combination of bills, despite the fact that we do not 
know for sure what bills they are, we do not know how they may or may 
not have been changed if we did know them, and we do not know what 
private dealings were struck and may have been inserted into those 
bills as recently as this afternoon.
  Now, many of us support some of the elements that we think are in 
this package, such as the Medicare add-backs, which our hospitals badly 
need and which I support; but we do not support other elements of this 
package. Nevertheless, we are going to be forced to vote on the whole 
package up or down.
  I know this certainly is not the first time we have been asked to 
vote on a package of bills that we have not seen, but that does not 
make it right. And I know we all want to go home. We all want to be 
with our families for the holidays. I certainly also want to do that. 
But do we not have a responsibility to our constituents to at least 
know what we are voting on when we vote on the largest nondefense 
appropriation bill in the Federal Government?
  We are going to vote on one element of this package which alone is 
$109 billion of taxpayer money. I think it is disturbing that we are 
going to vote on that without knowing the details. But what is almost 
as disturbing as what we do not know is the things that we do know, or 
at least I think we know, about what is in this package. Mr. Speaker, 
we know that the spending on the Labor-HHS portion of that 
appropriation bill is, frankly, out of control. Using the Committee on 
Appropriations' own numbers, the budget deal that we are going to vote 
on today increases spending by $12 billion, or nearly 12 percent or 
nearly 5 times the rate of inflation. And if we take into account all 
the funding gimmicks, like advanced funding, and we look on an apples-
to-apples basis, the actual money that will be spent is $23 billion 
more than in this previous year, an over-26 percent increase, nine 
times the rate of inflation. Frankly, we are squandering too much of 
the budget surplus that could be used for other purposes.
  The bill apparently is going to create untold new programs, and I do 
not know how many earmarks. It is $7 billion higher than what the House 
approved; it is $4 billion more than what the Senate approved; it is 
even $3 billion higher than the President's request. And of course, we 
are not sure exactly how all that money has been spent.
  Now, despite all of these big spending increases, some are probably 
going to come to this floor and say this is a cut of $3.6 billion from 
previously agreed-upon levels. Let me remind my colleagues that the so-
called agreement was to an arbitrary number by a handful of Members 
under the duress of a threatened veto which never was agreed to by 
either Chamber.
  If I went ahead and objected, Mr. Speaker, I am afraid that would not 
accomplish much. I know a rule could be brought up, it would be 
debated, it would be passed, and we would only be delaying the 
inevitable. But I will urge my colleagues to vote against final passage 
on this bill. Vote against the huge spending increase that is in this 
bill; vote against joining all these unrelated bills in one package; 
vote against a package the contents of which are a mystery to most of 
us.
  Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Florida?
  There was no objection.

                          ____________________