David Dreier

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from South Boston, Massachusetts [Mr. Moakley], and pending that I yield myself such time as I may consume. All time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, this rule provides for consideration of H.R. 3019, the second Balanced Budget Down Payment Act, under a modified closed rule, providing 1 hour of general debate divided equally between the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations. The rule further provides for adoption in the House and in the Committee of the Whole for a technical amendment printed in section 2 of the resolution. Only amendments specified in the Committee on Rules report are in order. The rule makes in order four amendments: An amendment by the gentlewoman from New York [Mrs. Lowey] to strike language in the bill giving States authority to determine if Medicaid shall fund abortions other than to save the life of a mother within that State; an amendment by the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Istook] to require organizations that receive Federal grants to disclose their lobbying activities; an amendment by the gentleman from Idaho, [Mr. Crapo] to establish a deficit reduction lockbox; and a substitute that may be offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin, [Mr. Obey]. Mr. Speaker, the substitute amendment shall be debatable for 60 minutes. The other amendments shall be debatable for 20 minutes each. Time for each amendment shall be equally divided and controlled by an opponent and a proponent. All points of order against the amendments are waived. Each amendment shall be considered as read and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question in the House or in the Committee of the Whole. Finally, the rule provides that the previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit which, if containing instructions, may only be offered by the minority leader or his designee. Mr. Speaker, less than 6 weeks ago, the President stood right here in this Chamber and declared to the Congress and the American people that the era of big government is over. He also closed that State of the Union Message with a plea, a plea to all of us. He said, ``I challenge all of you in this Chamber. Let us never, ever, shut the Federal Government down again.'' Now, Mr. Speaker, this bill will prevent a partial Government shutdown on March 15. The bill essentially completes the fiscal year 1996 appropriations process so that this House can get down to the business of dealing with the fiscal year 1997. Most importantly, this bill continues the process of trimming Federal spending so that we can proceed to a balanced budget by 2002. It is critical that America's children wake up on January 1, 2000, and can see that we are on the verge of ending the annual deficits that are mortgaging their chance for a bright future. Regrettably, it appears that the era of big government has returned down at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. In order to increase Federal spending in his favored programs, the President is now threatening to, and listen to this carefully, Mr. Speaker, he is threatening to close down the Federal Government. He will again shut down the Government with his veto pen if we do not add another $8 billion in deficit spending to this bill. The crocodile tears are flooding out onto Pennsylvania Avenue, and the rhetoric is right from their pollsters and focus groups. The President will shut down the Federal Government again rather than sign a bill that does not spend more on Federal education, environment, and worker training programs. Mr. Speaker, there is no substance behind the White House charges. Just look at the issue of education, for example. Local communities and States carry the load on education, not the Federal Government. The President claims that we propose to cut spending by $3.3 billion. Now to put that into perspective, the United States spends over one-half trillion dollars a year, over $500 billion a year, on education. This Congress, the new majority, is strongly committed to improving education. The President, on the other hand, would not raise a finger to stand in the way of the powerful teachers unions that are strangling real education reforms in cities and towns all across this country, but he will shut down the Federal Government over a .6 of 1 percent cut in Federal spending. If he insists on threatening to shut down the Federal Government again, I wish he would at least threaten to shut down the Government if we did not pass a tax cut on families and a reduction in the capital gains tax to get wages moving up. That would finally address the Clinton crunch that is squeezing working families. Mr. Speaker, we have a moral obligation to our children to end the decades of deficits and debt. We must put families ahead of Government bureaucracies. This is a very tough job because the majority in Congress supports a smaller Government while the President wants the Government to solve more and more problems. Nevertheless, this Congress remains committed to proceeding down the road to a balanced budget, and this bill closes out the fiscal year 1996 appropriations process, consistent with that goal. The challenge that I would offer, Mr. Speaker, to our President is that he should never, never, ever shut the Federal Government down again. I also challenge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this rule and support the bill so we can work with the Senate and the White House to reduce the deficit and avoid a Federal Government shutdown. Mr. Speaker, I include the following information on the amendment process:

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would simply respond, Mr. Speaker, to my friend, the gentleman from Texas, and say that it is absolutely preposterous to make that claim. Jesse Brown has moved throughout this country attacking this new majority, which is strongly committed to our Nation's veterans. We, to this day, are committed to ensuring that our veterans are in no way jeopardized. I hope that that message will get through. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to my friend, the gentleman from Sanibel, FL [Mr. Goss], chairman of the Subcommittee on Legislative and Budget Process of the Committee on Rules. (Mr. GOSS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished gentleman from Glens Falls, NY [Mr. Solomon], chairman of the Committee on Rules to counter those arguments that we want to jeopardize people from getting college degrees and some of the other crazy things we have just heard. (Mr. SOLOMON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. SOLOMON Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, I have a prepared statement here, but I think I will just throw it away and say I have just heard the greatest speech on this floor about continuing the status quo, the failed status quo on welfare and all of these other programs, that I have ever heard on this floor. I commend my counterpart, the ranking member of the Committee on Rules. (Mr. SOLOMON asked and was given permission to speak out of order.) Announcement Regarding Schedule and Submission of Amendments

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished gentleman from Metairie, LA [Mr. Livingston], the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations. (Mr. LIVINGSTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Walker] the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Science and the vice chairman of the Committee on the Budget, for an explanation of that.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to my friend, the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. Bunn]. (Mr. BUNN of Oregon asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished chairman of the committee for yielding time to me. I have the highest regard and admiration for my friend from Ohio and, of course, from Illinois and for both of my friends from Michigan, who are great Americans and patriots in this institution, but they are both totally wrong on this issue. Let me give one little example that I think is very important for us to listen to. I heard it said twice, sneaky foreigners. Wow. That is kind of a frightful statement to me. When I think of, in Great Britain, the prospect of a small, little barber, maybe he is a sneaky foreigner but if he has a little barber shop there and he stirs up his own shaving cream and sells it to an unsuspecting victim who comes to the United States of America and happens to use it here, what happens when that person comes with that shaving cream to the United States? The entire Federal bureaucracy is unleashed on that unsuspecting victim. It seems to me that this provision is clearly antitrade, antibusiness, and it seriously jeopardizes our agreements that we have internationally. And something else that has not been said is that there are in fact recourses for people who do feel as if they have been victims. That is under the Hague Convention today. So I believe that it was a real mistake to have this measure get in there. It is another attempt to expand the reach of the Federal Government, to bash our trading partners. And my friend, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Dingell], worked long and hard on a very important telecommunications bill, which recognizes that we have a global economy that has been created. He does that on one hand and then supports this measure which just slaps what he describes as those sneaky foreigners, and I think it is dead wrong. I hope this House will unite in a bipartisan way in opposition.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished chairman of the subcommittee for yielding, and I would simply rise and congratulate him and the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Leach], and others who have played a key role in this legislation. Mr. Speaker, this is a very important day because it marks another success for a concept that Speaker Gingrich put forward early on in this Congress, that being the establishment of Corrections Day. We know that there are a great many laws and regulations which are absolutely preposterous, and Speaker Gingrich offered the proposal to establish a Corrections Day, and so far we have, out of this House, passed 11 items under the Corrections Day Calendar. Four have passed both the House and Senate and become public law. If the Senate agrees with this measure that is before us, it will be the fifth, and I believe that we have been able to work with our Corrections Day Advisory Group in a bipartisan way, and that is very, very great testimony to the effort that has come from both Democrats and Republicans in dealing with this question. Obviously the issue that has been addressed here is one that has been very near and dear to me. Six years ago I introduced legislation dealing with the issue of drug dealers and public housing, and this specifically goes at the question of the elderly and those who have been tragically victimized, and I believe that the entire package that has been brought forward here will go a long way toward addressing that and other major concerns, and I would simply like to congratulate the subcommittee and the gentleman from New York, Chairman Lazio and the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy, the ranking member, and others who have been involved in this and look forward to another great Corrections Day success here.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend for yielding. I would simply say that it is true that we were able to move legislation. But I believe very sincerely that the reforms that we put into place as it came to jurisdiction and also the referral process has helped us move more expeditiously with this legislation in the 104th Congress. And I believe, also looking at the issue of unfunded mandates and reform of unfunded mandates, that was another very important reform which allowed us to deal with this.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding me the time and congratulate him on his fine work on this effort. This is obviously a great day. It has been decades in the making. As we all know, it has been over six decades since we have been able to deal as comprehensively with this issue. But I would like to make just a few points as we move ahead. First and foremost, the success of this conference demonstrates that in a bipartisan way there is an understanding that competition works. It clearly creates a great opportunity to create jobs, creates an opportunity to benefit the consumer, which is what we want to do. We want to provide the widest range of choices, and that is exactly what is going to happen here. We have learned from the fall of the former Soviet Union that regulated monopolies do not work, whether it is in business, whether it is even in public education. We have found that they do not work, and I think that the realization that we are going to finally bring telecommunications law up to the market is, I think, something that is very, very important. The second point that I would like to make is that the success of this conference is due in large part to the reforms that were put into place at the beginning of the 104th Congress. We know that, as we have looked at the many people who have been involved in this, that if we had been living with the older system that we had, which is, I know, inside baseball here to talk about this, but the referral process for legislation was one which played a role, I believe, in jeopardizing success in the past. The change that we made at the beginning of this Congress, I believe, went a long way toward dealing with that. The other thing that was very important was that we overhauled committee jurisdictions at the beginning of this Congress, and we have had some marvelous success in that overhaul, which I believe has gone a long way toward benefiting the legislative process. Mr. Speaker, let me just say in closing, the State of California is pivotal to the success of this, too. California is providing the hardware and the software that is going to allow us to move into the 21st century, and this legislation will be key. We in California have what is known as the Silicon Valley where the hardware is going to be emanating from and Hollywood where the software will be emanating from, so our State is on the cutting edge, and it will go a long way toward creating jobs and opportunity. I urge support of this very balanced rule, and I urge support of the conference report.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I have taken this time to make some brief comments on the State of the Union Message last night to say first that, as I said earlier today, it was interesting to juxtapose the State of the Union Messages of the past to the State of the Union Message that we got last night. If we go back to the campaign of 1992, we heard a very strong message that came from candidate Bill Clinton. He promised to end welfare as we know it, balance the Federal budget, and in fact, bring about a reduction of the tax burden on working Americans, that middle class tax cut. Then, in the State of the Union Message in 1993, we obviously saw the message that ended up being the largest tax increase in American history. Then, 2 years ago, we saw right here in the well of the House a State of the Union Message in which the President held up a card, a card in which we were going to move ahead and see the Federal Government usurp control of one-seventh of our economy with a national health care plan. Then last night he said that the era of Big Government has come to an end, so I was gratified to see that shift, but if one looks at those speeches that have been delivered from the campaign of 1992 through the governance of the Clinton administration over the past 3 years to the speech that was delivered right behind me here last night, it is very interesting. One of the things in the speech that troubled me greatly was a statement that was made toward the end of his speech. I would like to share that, because it is something that concerns not only all of us from California, but from other parts of the country as well. The President said, ``but there are some areas that the Federal Government'' must address directly and strongly. One of these is the problem of illegal immigration. ``After years and years of neglect, this administration has taken a strong stand to stiffen the protection of our borders.'' The thing that troubles me about that is that while it is great that the President said it, it is great that the President is proceeding with a focus on this issue, but over the past year, since we have seen a new majority come into this Congress, since we have seen the fine work of my colleague, the gentleman from California, Elton Gallegly, who chairs our task force on illegal immigration, since we have seen the Speaker's Task Force on California focus on the issue of illegal immigration as its number one priority, and thanks to the great work of people like the gentleman from Kentucky, Hal Rogers, and the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, we have been able to move ahead with very important legislation that, tragically, the President has vetoed. I would like to share with my colleagues a letter which I have just sent today to the President, in which I say, ``I was greatly encouraged by your decision to include addressing illegal immigration as a national priority in Tuesday's State of the Union Address. However, in this light, I was dismayed by your veto record that has killed historic congressional proposals to combat illegal immigration and lift the burden of illegal immigration from States like California.'' Those include, Mr. Speaker, providing $500 million to reimburse States for the cost of incarcerating illegal immigrant felons in State prisons, tripling prior year funding, and relieving California taxpayers of a $300 million burden that clearly is a Federal responsibility; Second, increasing funding for INS border control efforts by $300 million, to add 1,000 Border Patrol agents and 400 support staff; Third, establishing that illegal immigrants do not qualify for any Federal or State welfare programs; Fourth, prohibiting illegal immigrants from qualifying for taxpayer- provided health care services; And finally, creating a new $3.5 billion Federal fund to assist hospitals with the cost of emergency health care to illegal immigrants, with $1.6 billion of that going to the State of California. Mr. Speaker, it was wonderful that the president would stand here and talk about this issue, but he has been given the opportunity to address those concerns that not only the people in that State, where 54 electoral votes are held, but people around the country are concerned, and when he has been given that opportunity, he has chosen to bring out his veto pen and in fact slap the face of those who have been focusing on this issue. He opposed proposition 187 in California, which passed by an overwhelming landslide, people saying that the State of California should not be responsible for what is clearly a Federal issue. So it saddens me that while I am pleased that the statement was made, that the record of President Clinton on the issue of illegal immigration and the record of past congresses in the control of his party is that people have chosen to ignore this. In the past year, we have successfully stepped up to the plate to deal with it, and unfortunately, the President has chosen to veto it. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the letter of January 24, 1996, to which I referred: Congress of the United States, Office of the Speaker, Washington, DC, January 24, 1996. Task Force on California. Dear Mr. President: I was greatly encouraged by your decision to include addressing illegal immigration as a national priority in Tuesday's State of the Union Address. However, in this light, I was dismayed by your veto record that has killed historic congressional proposals to combat illegal immigration and lift the burden of illegal immigration from states like California. These proposals include: Providing $500 million to reimburse states for the cost of incarcerating illegal immigrant felons in state prisons, tripling prior year funding and relieving California taxpayers of a $300 million burden; Increasing funding for INS border control efforts by $300 million to add 1,000 border patrol agents and 400 inspectors; Establishing that illegal immigrants do not qualify for any federal or state welfare programs; Prohibiting illegal immigrants from qualifying for taxpayer-provided health care services; and Creating a new $3.5 billion federal fund to assist hospitals with the cost of emergency health care to illegal immigrants, with $1.6 billion targeted to California. While I was disappointed in 1994 when you chose to oppose California's Proposition 187, which was overwhelmingly supported by California citizens, it has been more disheartening to see vetoed the California delegation's efforts to implement federal policies to meet the goals of Proposition 187. I look forward to working with you to see each of these measures, as well as comprehensive immigration reform, enacted this year. Sincerely, David Dreier, Chairman.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I too was gratified by much of what I heard last night. But as I looked around the Chamber, I saw several of my colleagues look much younger. It was the same speech that we heard throughout the 1992 campaign: Ending welfare as we know it; balancing the budget; reducing the size and scope of Government. The fascinating thing for us to do was to juxtapose the speech in 1992 that was given by the President through his campaign and then look at the State of the Union Messages that we have gotten before. In 1993, we heard about the importance of increasing taxes on the middle class. We got that in 1993, the largest tax increase ever. Then I will never forget seeing the President deliver his State of the Union Message in this Chamber, and he held up a card. That card was going to be designed to ensure that every American was part of a national health care system, a program that would usurp one-seventh of our entire economy into a package like that. The speech last night got back to the basis of that 1992 campaign. I hope very much that during this 2d session of the 104th Congress, we will be able to govern just the way he talked.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to my friend, the gentleman from Glens Falls, NY [Mr. Solomon].

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, we have, I believe, 3\3/4\ minutes remaining, and I do not plan to use that time because we want to get these essential Government programs open as quickly as possible. With that, I urge an ``aye'' vote on this. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to my friend, the gentleman from Metairie, LA [Mr. Livingston], the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for not objecting.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would continue to yield, no other material is going to be inserted in the Record other than this material that the gentleman from Illinois, my friend, has handed me.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is correct.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, what this is, is material that I am told was provided to the minority side about 20 minutes ago that the chairman of the subcommittee wishes to have printed in the Congressional Record following his statement.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman yield?

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Porter] be allowed to insert tabular and extraneous material in the Record following the point at which he spoke.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Albuquerque, NM [Mr. Schiff], the chairman of the Subcommittee on Basic Research.