Roy Blunt

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. I would say to my friend, we do have a disagreement on this and I think we do see what my good friend perceives as a minor change in procedure differently because I don't think it is that at all. I would say a couple of things: one is 18 times at least in the minority our friends on the other side used the same rule that my friend now so vigorously objects to because it would kill the bill. Eighteen times. They never were able to do it, but 18 times used it, many times with the provisions just like the one I cited earlier that were every bit as tangential as the one the gentleman is speaking to. Also I am sure in terms of, I don't know if the word was ``sincerity'' or what, but I do know that our friend from Texas is a sincere and dedicated Member.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, my friend knows as well, if not better than anybody, how to explain exactly how a Member could be motivated to do both of those things and has defended the rights of the minority for a number of years in an extraordinary way on similar kinds of issues. But the point here is that we are about more than the moment, and my friend said that he wants to do everything he can to prevent his Members from being put in a difficult political situation. The truth is, this is a difficult job, and Members who run for it should understand it is a difficult job and there are things that not only have to be decided, but have to be explained as part of that job. And while changing a procedure, a process, in a way that has never been handled before with this tabling inclusion this week may seem insignificant, I don't think it is. Also, on our side during the time we had PAYGO, my friend mentioned spending, we never waived PAYGO for spending. On any spending bill, we always adhered to the PAYGO rule. You always had that available to you. We will move forward. I do appreciate the fact that we are going to continue to talk about these issues before we do anything to change the overall rules of the House. I am concerned, however, when we change what one of our outside observers has referred to recently as the norms of the House. This rule this week was not only outside the norms of the House; it was unique in the way it handled this tabling issue. It was not unique in the way it divided the bills. I am not complaining about that. I am complaining about the potential for a Member to use all the tools previously available to them to actually, frankly, stop legislation that they didn't like if they didn't like it. But you can't do that unless 217 other people join you in that. We are not in the majority on our side, we understand that, and for us to do anything under the rules of the House, with a majority vote, Democrats have to join us. If we make those options too appealing, that is, frankly, not our fault. Changing the rules for the momentary relief of Members has greater long-term consequences than I believe my friend realizes. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I'm confident that my 3 minutes will go quicker than my good friend's 1 minute just did. I don't hardly know how to respond to what I just heard on the floor from my good friend from Maryland. Whenever we had budget chairmen in those years when we balanced the budget, apparently there is no credit given for that. Mr. Kasich did draft a budget that balanced; certainly Mr. Nussle did; certainly there was a precedent. And I agree with my friend when he said 9/11 did have an impact. 9/11 did have an impact. The defense cost after 9/11 had an impact. The cost after 9/11 of homeland security had an impact. The flat economy coming out of 2000 had an impact and our tax policies had an impact. In fact, in 2005, the largest increase in revenue in the history of the Federal Government, 14.5 percent in 2005, because our tax policies worked and produced more than a shallow recovery. Permanent tax cuts? We would like to see permanent tax cuts, but, as my good friend and others know, unless you have 60 people on the other side of the building in the 100-Member Senate, you can't have permanent tax cuts. We have extended these tax cuts in a way that has extended our economy, extended our growth, increased our global competition in the marketplace. Mr. Ryan's alternative continues to do those things. The overall budget that we are talking about today as the underlying budget doesn't do that. Our friends on the other side, in fact, my very good friend from Maryland just said that they aren't increasing taxes, they are just letting current tax policies expire. When you make the same income and your taxes go up, that explanation rings pretty hollow. Your taxes increase as this budget anticipates they would. And then they say that many of these tax increases don't occur until the third year of this budget, so you're not going to see an immediate tax increase. But of course you're going to see an immediate increase in the spending of the money that those new tax revenues provide. Those tax increases do happen to start for some American families as early as the 1st of January, next year. Take, for example, the line in the Tax Code allowing many of our Nation's veterans and warfighters to collect the earned income tax credit. This budget anticipates that when that expires on December 31, 2007, it does not come back as part of the Tax Code, and the money that is produced by that tax increase is part of what this budget spends. The majority's budget renews the death tax. The majority's budget renews the marriage penalty that we have eliminated, and 48 million couples in 2011 would pay $2,900 more every year in Washington taxes than they did the year before. For that and many other reasons, Mr. Chairman, I urge that we stick with the policies that have grown our economy, that let us compete, that appreciate families and support this alternative.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. The gentleman said he expected that budget resolution to be on Friday?

Mr. BLUNT. Well, we traditionally have allowed substitutes. I will express to the gentleman my disappointment in the rule on the bill we just passed, which as far as I know is the first closed rule on an appropriations bill since 1992. And the previous appropriations bill was largely closed, and I hate to see us headed down that path. I think it is going to be much harder to get our appropriations work done. I know our appropriators are concerned that a long-standing tradition on appropriations bills has been violated, and I hope we don't see that same thing happen on the budget resolution coming to the floor next week.

Mr. BLUNT. I think the gentleman's suggestion that if we don't take advantage of whatever small parliamentary procedure we are allowed, that somehow that justifies not allowing us any amendments on the bill is not a very good excuse for that. I hope that we don't continue to see that happen. I was concerned about the CR and the way it was handled. I was concerned about this bill. The next logical step, when we get to the appropriations bills, is that they, too, would not have the opportunity for debate and amendment as this was, in violation of long-standing traditions in the House. The last time this happened was when the gentleman's party was in the majority, and I hate to see us revert back to that lack of debate. I hope the gentleman will work with me and others to try to do everything we can to move the process along, not only rapidly, but also appropriately.

Mr. BLUNT. I would.

Mr. BLUNT. Well, I think to make the gentleman's point, none of them were closed, and none of the wartime supplementals came in the fashion that this one did today, and I am disappointed with that. What is the gentleman's sense on when the work that was stopped in the middle, right before a vote yesterday on the D.C. bill, when will we see that again?

Mr. BLUNT. Do you think we will see it next week?

Mr. BLUNT. I thank my friend for that response. On the issue of merit, I suggest that the use of the procedural availability to the minority wouldn't be nearly as necessary if this bill is meritorious and has a majority of votes on the floor to actually have a debate where the bill is amendable, where there are substitutes available, where the other side of this debate has an opportunity to truly offer other ideas. And so far in this year we have not really seen an openness on any bill that was a bill that didn't pass in the last Congress on suspension to competition of real ideas and debate. I think that is what we saw on that bill. That is one of the reasons that that is one of the few alternatives we had to push back a bill that was not adequately debated, that has significant constitutional questions. We look forward to the bill being on the floor again.

Mr. BLUNT. I appreciate my friend's sense of that. But I would also say that if this bill has such broad support and such unquestioned merit, there shouldn't be any fear in having a full and open debate where the bill is amendable, where alternatives can be proposed, and where the only opportunity to slow this process down would not be to take advantage of the only possible rule available to us under a rule that was otherwise closed. That is my view of that. I thank my friend for his comments. We look forward to the budget debate next week.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my good friend, the majority leader, for the purpose of inquiring about next week's schedule.

Mr. BLUNT. Does the gentleman have a sense on the rule on the budget? Will there be substitutes allowed? What is the gentleman's sense on that?

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and for his hard work on this and other work that we do here. I believe, Mr. Speaker, that the debate on this emergency spending bill has provided the service of reminding Americans exactly what is at stake in Iraq, the prospects of victory, the consequences of defeat, and a better appreciation of how it is we do everything we possibly can to secure and support our men and women in harm's way. House Republicans, Mr. Speaker, asked the Speaker and her colleagues on the Appropriations Committee to produce a clean and straightforward supplemental emergency bill, a package worthy of our troops' hard work and dedication, with help we could deploy to the front lines as quickly as possible. What we got instead was a poorly assembled wish-list of nonemergency spending requests wrapped in a date-certain declaration of defeat, a confirmation to our enemies that if they hang on just a bit longer, we will be out of their way soon. I happen to believe the stakes in Iraq are too high and the sacrifices made by our military personnel and their families too great to be content with anything but success. But the bill brought before us today isn't written with victory in mind. Its prevailing tone is one of defeat, and its abiding premise is that America's mission in Iraq is over and our troops' continued status there is without merit. And just to drive the point home, it forces on General Petraeus and his commanders on the ground constant status and reporting requirements, designed not only to undermine their basic operational authority, but to hasten a withdrawal of troop support from the region. When the leaders of the majority were offered the opportunity for a secure briefing from General Petraeus a few days ago, they said no. When the majority was offered a briefing from Secretary Gates, Secretary Rice and Secretary Pace in the last few days, they said no again. Does anyone think that demoting our best generals to administrative assistants represents our best chance of achieving our goals in this region? Does anyone believe our commanders in the field have been given too much authority and too much flexibility to get the job done? Ultimate victory in Iraq is a proposition that is far from guaranteed, Mr. Speaker, but ultimate failure in Iraq is, if this attempt to co-opt the essential command-and-control responsibilities of our commanders in the field ever actually becomes law. Mr. Speaker, this emergency supplemental includes billions of dollars in nonemergency spending, offered as an excuse to vote for a bill that guarantees our defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan. I urge a ``no'' vote on this bill and ask my colleagues to join me in sending a message of strength and resolve to our friends and our enemies and, most importantly, to our troops in the field.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. On the supplemental, we have a fairly firm sense that that will be ready next week? The committee has dealt with it today.

Mr. BLUNT. You would expect that to be near the end of next week?

Mr. BLUNT. I thank my friend for that. On both of those bills, do you have a sense of the opportunities we will have on the D.C. voting bill and the supplemental to have amendments to those bills, to have the ability to change them?

Mr. BLUNT. I thank my friend for that response. I would say that there are few exceptions to the rule, but my experience has been, and I have had some experience on this question when we were in the majority and had chairmen, the chairman almost never wants to believe that the bill can be improved. So the chairman's desire for a closed rule is generally unanimous, though I know the chairman of the Finance Committee last week took a different view, and I was pleased to see his different view of that. I think on appropriations bills, there are very few, if any, exceptions where those bills have not come to the floor with an open rule. The gentleman is a member of the committee and would have a sense of that, but the tradition here is pretty strong. I don't know of any more important bill we are likely to deal with this year than this particular appropriations bill. I would hope that we have this kind of open process on the appropriations bill that we have had in the past. I would yield for a response.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that response. I would say that I believe that I reflect the view of this side that the debates both on the policy issues, that I frankly think may be appropriate in some other bill besides an appropriations bill, on the policy issues and the spending issues, a full and free opportunity to discuss those is the desire of this side. I think it serves the best interest of the country. As this appropriations bill gets broader and broader in the areas it deals with, it becomes more and more like the regular appropriations bills we will bring to the floor, and the tradition of the House, unaltered by any pattern I am aware of, has been on appropriations bills, as long as the Member was willing to say where they would pay for the change that they want to make, that they have been given the opportunity to make those amendments. I was disappointed, as broad-based and as big as the continuing resolution was that we passed earlier, that it violated what I considered a well-understood and time-honored principle of amending those bills. This bill would go even further if we did that, and it would be a bad pattern, I think. On the budget, does the gentleman have any information on the budget itself, when we might be able to see the majority's budget and when we would be voting on it, both? I would yield to my good friend.

Mr. BLUNT. And so my friend's expectation from the previous week is unchanged, that we will see the supplemental on the floor next week and the budget on the floor the following week would be your anticipation?

Mr. BLUNT. I have no other questions. I am pleased for the information and hope we have an opportunity to debate these bills.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring about next week's schedule from my friend, the majority leader; and I yield to my friend.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank my friend for the information. Mr. Speaker, on the I guess what I would consider the two major bills, the supplemental appropriations bill and the D.C. voting bill, I may be wrong in characterizing those are the two, but I would think they would. You would expect both of those to be on the floor next week, is that what I heard?

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Well, I would just say before I move to my next question, of course, this is, as we all know, an important and at the same time controversial piece of legislation, and we would hope for a full debate and an opportunity to have a chance to amend the bill on the floor. The leader also announced, I believe, this week, maybe it was late last week, that we should anticipate seeing legislation on the floor within the month on allowing the Delegate from D.C. to vote on the floor. I wonder if the leader could tell us a little more about his idea on what this proposal would include.

Mr. BLUNT. As I recall, that is exactly what the leader suggested, and now I have that straight in my mind, and those will be weeks that we would hope to have a full debate and important debate for the country. I thank my friend for the information he has provided.