Norm Dicks

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. DICKS. Reclaiming my time, I yield to the gentlelady from New York.

Mr. DICKS. Again, I strongly rise in support of the Holt amendment. If you look at history, in the years around 2003 to 2005, this budget was cut.

Mr. DICKS. Vote for the Holt amendment.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Reserving the right to object, I just want to also join the chairman in congratulating the staff. This is the hardest-working staff I have ever seen in my career. The effort that is put in on a bipartisan basis, this is the cohesive and professional staff that I have seen, and I have been up here on the Hill for over 40 years. I just want to say that Jennifer Miller and David Pomerantz worked very hard to put this agreement together. We asked for some additional time. Our Members wanted a chance to express themselves on some of these very important and sensitive issues that are in this legislation. But it is my judgement that we should not object; we should accept this agreement and proceed forward and finish this legislation. I withdraw my reservation.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment, and I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the distinguished ranking member.

Mr. DICKS. I yield to the gentleman from Iowa.

Mr. DICKS. Madam Chair, I move to strike the requisite number of words and rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. DICKS. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DICKS. I just want to rise in very strong support. This has been one of the most successful conservation programs. It brings in the private sector. They add two or three times to the contribution here. And I think this is a program that is very worthy and should be supported, and I hope the gentleman's amendment will be accepted.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I was very disappointed that the committee zeroed out the State and Tribal Wildlife Grant program. I think this has been a great program that has helped the States do plans on how they can use their habitat to protect endangered species. This is the kind of work that is necessary so that we don't get future listings. I know my friend from Idaho and others are concerned about the Endangered Species Act and the number of listings, and we will talk more about that later, but this was a very important program and one that I as chairman strongly supported and actually created. So I just want to mention that I hope in conference we can at least maintain some level of funding for this program. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DICKS. First of all, I have been on the committee for a long time, the Interior Appropriations Committee, and I can remember when Sid Yates from Chicago was the chairman, and we had arts funding at about $180 million, then we had new Republican leadership come in in 1994 and 1995 and they cut the endowments in half. What we found out was that when the endowment had less money to give out in grants, the private sector started to give less money for grants and to help these institutions. I applaud the gentleman for being a leader in his local arts community. Americans for the Arts did a major study 4 or 5 years ago about the economic impact of the arts, and the gentleman from Virginia is absolutely correct; the arts have exploded across the country. We have given grants now in almost every single congressional district, which has helped the proliferation of arts institutions. Consolidation, it doesn't scare me. I think that, in some areas, it might be a good idea. I've seen in the Puget Sound area, in Seattle, and in Tacoma how much this has meant to the local communities, and this is a relatively small amount of money. When I was chairman of the committee, I did increase it, but I never increased it by an amount that the Republican ranking member could not also support. So Rocco Landesman said, well, why didn't you just put up the $250 million. We did this on a bipartisan basis. We also have an Arts Caucus in the Congress that operates on a bipartisan basis, and we've had on the floor over the years a multiple of votes, and we've had, you know, 40 or 50 enlightened Republicans who have joined with us and made a good majority in support of these programs. The humanities is also extremely important in literature and in education and helping our teachers. So I think these are worthy programs. I think the committee made the right decision here. I wish it was still at $167.5 million, but they've reduced it down to about $145 million. I think that's good enough. I think going further than that will really do damage to both of these endowments that have been there since 1965 back in the Johnson administration, and I just think this would be a mistake. I support what the committee did, and I think we should stay with that number.

Mr. DICKS. I move to strike the last word.

Mr. DICKS. I rise in opposition to the amendment. I want to associate myself with the remarks of the ranking member, Mr. Moran. This is a program that was created because the arts institutions in the District of Columbia, many of them do not get any support from the District of Columbia government. And there's no State government. In New York, they get money from the city, from the boroughs, from the State government for their major arts institutions. This program was a very modest program that helps 23 performing arts institutions which are extremely important, all of which have very solid educational programs that help inner city youth here. We have a very high population of inner city youth in the District of Columbia. So I just think this has been a proven program. It is very modest. It's been cut in half. Last year I think we had it at about $9.5 million. It has been cut in half. I think we should leave that. I think the committee has made a decision; and to go further would just be, in my mind, punitive. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, the Community Service Block Grant program provides grants and other services to States to combat poverty and to increase self-sufficiency. The funding is directed to community organizers in poor neighborhoods. The range of services provided includes emergency services, housing, health care, food and nutrition, economic development, and education. States award the funds to Community Action Agencies. I've got several of them in my congressional district, which are nonprofit, private and public organizations established under the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. Today, there are approximately 1,000 Community Action Agencies serving the poor in every State. Now, I know the gentleman from Arizona is basing part of his cut on what is in the President's budget. From my perspective, the President's budget is wrong on this subject. To cut this program in half and then say we're going to have competitive bidding for the other half is going to hurt thousands, if not millions, of poor people in this country. It is not the right thing to do. This is shredding the safety net. Then this last $100 million, because so much of this money has already been spent this year, would take this program down to zero. It would be a disaster. All of these agencies would have to close, and the people who are the poorest people would not have any place to go to get help. So I just think it's despicable that we have finally gotten down to where we're going to go after the Community Service Block Grant, which helps the poorest people in each of our districts around the country. It's indefensible, it's just not right, and I hope that the gentleman from Arizona will reconsider this amendment, and I would hope that the committee would reconsider this in conference committee. I don't think the other body should in any way embrace this. This is a bad amendment, a bad cut, and it's going to hurt people, the poorest people in this country.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words, in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. DICKS. The Selective Service is a readiness issue. If we don't have the process all set up, it would take 2 years to restore it. And if we're in a national emergency--that's why we put the Selective Service thing in place--because if we were in a national emergency and we had to get more people and we couldn't do it through the all- volunteer force, we have to have a way to do it. And so we put this in place several years ago. It was very bipartisan at the time. I can understand the gentleman's skepticism, but this is the first we've heard of this. I think it would be better for the committee to look at this and maybe have a hearing on this and then we can address it again in the 2012 bill.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 minutes. Mr. Chairman, it is clear that a debt crisis is looming. There is no denying that we need a comprehensive plan to reduce the debt over the long term. What the majority offers instead in this bill is a one- dimensional focus on the smallest segment of spending in the Federal budget. We believe that at this time we should be putting everything on the table: discretionary spending, entitlements, and taxes. Without a more comprehensive approach to this debt crisis, we cannot effectively change the trajectory and begin to bring our public debt downward. Without a more comprehensive budgetary approach, what we would be offering to the American people would be what Alan Simpson has called ``a sparrow's belch in the midst of a typhoon.'' As we address the debt crisis, it is fundamental that we should first do no harm to the fragile economic recovery. Here I am just echoing what many others have said. As the bipartisan Fiscal Commission put it, ``In order to avoid shocking the fragile economy, the Commission recommends waiting until 2012 to begin enacting programmatic spending cuts, and waiting until fiscal year 2013 before making large nominal cuts.'' Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke in his testimony last week to the House Budget Committee said, ``To the extent you can change programs that will have long-term effects on spending and revenues, that will be a more effective and credible program than one that focuses only on the current fiscal year. The right way to do this doesn't put too much pressure on the ongoing recovery.'' As the Democratic leader just said, there is a recent analysis done by the Economic Policy Institute that says a full $100 billion cut to discretionary spending would likely result in job losses on the order of 994,000, using OMB's GDP projections and CBO projections based on current law, and assuming a fiscal multiplier of 1.5 percent. So this is a very serious matter. We Democrats support dealing with waste, fraud, and abuse. We want to see a program. I personally support President Obama's 5-year freeze on domestic spending, with puts and takes, because it doesn't cut as much in the first year. This is all about timing. And I recognize that my colleagues over on this side of the aisle believe and think that what they're doing is going to have a positive economic effect and that this will somehow create economic activity and lower the deficit, lower unemployment. I hope and pray they're right, because if what I think and most economists--reputable economists--think is true, this will have a negative effect and hurt the economy and hurt the people that are out there who are unemployed. So I think we need to think about this very, very carefully. And cuts of this magnitude, as the chairman said, have never been done before. We are in uncharted waters. We all recognize that we have to have a plan for the deficit. But the plan has to include entitlements, has to include taxes. Discretionary spending is one-third of the budget. You could cut and cut and cut, and you're still not going to solve the problem. So, hopefully, we can do what we did in the 1980s with Tip O'Neill and Bob Dole, and that is have a bipartisan approach, like they're doing in the Senate today, where Democrats and Republicans get together and work on all of these issues and come up with a credible plan. That is the way to do this. And I see my good friend, Mr. Young from Florida. I just want to say that I have enjoyed working with him for over 30 years, and I strongly support the defense part of this bill. The defense part of this bill has been worked out on a bipartisan basis by the Defense Subcommittee. It does make reductions in spending but it does it in a very careful and professional way. And I want to commend the gentleman from Florida for his leadership over the years on national security issues. I reserve the balance of my time.