Barney Frank

Mr FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I am grateful to my colleagues from Massachusetts and Minnesota for offering this amendment because it gives us a chance to make a point that must be made again and again. The debate that is now taking place in this Congress is not over whether or not to reduce the deficit and get to a balanced budget. The debate is over how we do that, what choices do we make. What is being proposed in this overall budget is a continuation of the assault on the notion that the Federal Government should help people in economic distress with housing. What this amendment would do would be to make a fairly small reduction in the space station so that we can provide desperately needed assistance to working families to lower-income wage earners and their children, particularly those who live in parts of the country where housing is a very expensive cost. We know that there are in this country millions of people who work very hard every day at difficult jobs. They clean. They manufacture. They serve, and they work at low wages. What this amendment tries to do is to reach out to tens of thousands of families, not nearly enough but at least something, and say to them that we will make it a little easier for them to live. What is the alternative? It is the space station. Now, having people living in outer space serves some useful psychological and scientific purposes. But the choice is precisely whether we will spend billions of dollars so a few people can live in outer space in relative comfort or if we will use some of that money, a small percentage of it, for hard- working people so hard-working people and their children can live here in minimal comfort at home. Let us be very clear. Members can decide this is a bad idea, that sending this money into space is more important. But let us be clear what the opportunity cost of that is, in economist terms, what do we do by keeping that money in the space station. This is beyond dispute. Will we say to tens of thousands of Americans, you will continue to live in great deprivation and poverty, because that is the option. We can increase the number of people who receive housing assistance or we can say, no, not that important, sorry about that. Remember, we are talking here about units that are available for families. We are talking about poor children. We are talking about all of the values that get a lot of support in principle from Members in this House, but tragically little in practice. That is what is served here. We are not even talking about building new units. We are not talking about putting Government back into the business of constructing public housing. We can talk about that at other times. This is the privatized program. The section 8 program is one whereby this is for tenant-based, as we call it. This would give to individual families the ability to go out into the private rental market and pay no more than 30 percent; I think it is still 30 percent. I do not know. Did we raise that percentage lately? We have this tendency to raise the rent percentage. The last I looked it was still 30 percent. It may be going up. But for these poor people, even if we get it up to 35 percent or whatever the latest ploy will be, it is still very, very important. So that is the choice. This has nothing to do with balancing the budget. This has nothing to do with reducing the deficit. Those issues are neutral here. The question is this: Do you maximize the speed by which we have a few people living in outer space when that means that tens of thousands of working poor people, people who labor hard, who do everything you tell them they are supposed to do, but find because of circumstances beyond their control that they are not able financially to live as they should? Do we condemn their children to substandard and unsafe housing conditions or do we take a small percentage away from the space station? Maybe it takes them a couple of months longer to get there, and instead make a very real difference in the lives of the working poor? I do not think we will have in this budget season many more graphic choices between people whose values are somewhere out beyond the limits of the atmosphere and those of us who are concerned that working Americans here ought to have some compassion and some concern.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I am sorry to interrupt this praise, but I have to differ with my friend. Tell me that we need the money for the space station and therefore cannot afford to put it here, and I will disagree. But it seems to me that is within the realm of factual accuracy. But I do not think that it is fair to say that we are giving these programs as much as they can use. We should not comfort ourselves with the notion that, if we did not give them extra money, they could not use it well. That simply is not true. Say that we have a tough choice to make and I agree, but do not say that they could not use it if we gave it to them.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Will the gentleman yield? Will the gentleman yield me 30 seconds?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I recently received a letter from a former congressional staffer who passed along to me a column she had found in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on the subject of the pending same sex marriage bill. I think the article is an eloquent and forceful explanation of a point of view which very much ought to be understood by the Members before they vote on this legislation, and I ask that it be reprinted here. [From the Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 9, 1996] Same-Sex Marriages Deserve Recognition; Partners Need the Chance to Live in Peace In a nation wracked by child abuse, domestic violence and divorce, it's hard to believe that politicians would spend their energy condemning people for loving each other. But that's exactly the effect of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, which would prevent the U.S. government from recognizing same-sex marriages, even if those marriages are legal in individual states. The act's congressional sponsors describe it as ``protection'' for the American family. However, as a married man, I am unable to discern the threat. On the contrary, I have come to believe that legalizing gay unions would actually strengthen the institution of marriage. I did not always hold this conviction. As a teenager, I was bombarded with the same messages about homosexuals as most Americans. And I absorbed those messages: Gays were strange, perverted, lacking in morals. Besides, in my obsession with my own burgeoning heterosexuality, it seemed unfathomable that any male would not be sexually interested in females. In the ensuing years, my opinions began to shift as I learned about the origins of sexual orientation. But I didn't change much until about age 25. That's when I met Bob and Scott. Bob was a co-worker of Kelly, my girlfriend whom I would later marry. One day, Bob asked Kelly if we would like to join them for dinner. Kelly accepted readily, but my discomfort was palpable. On the way there, I asked Kelly what I should do if either of these men tried to hug me. My uneasiness lasted throughout the evening. And even today, more than a decade later, it still creeps up on me at times. But as I got to know Bob and Scott, and other gay people since then, I reached this conclusion about homosexual relationships: They are not much different from heterosexual ones. At their essence is the same kind of spark that exists between straight couples. They go through the same excitements and disappointments. And, like their straight counterparts, gay relationships are far more about respect, trust and commitment than they are about sex. The most significant difference between gay and straight relationships, I discovered, was the atmosphere in which they exist. The love between straight people is celebrated and affirmed; gay love is attacked and condemned. Legalizing homosexual marriages would diminish these attacks. It would take the wind from the sails of the true sexual bigots, encouraging an evolution in attitude similar to the one we have experienced with interracial and inter- religious unions. Gay people, at least to some extent, would be freed from their embattled status. But the benefits of gay marriage, I believe, would extend beyond the gay community. The rest of us would benefit because legitimizing gay marriage would bolster the institution of marriage. How? By reminding all of us that at its core, marriage is not so much about gender, or sex, or politics, but about caring, maturing, committed love.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I understand that, but the Pentagon wants it. What is debt reduction compared against the desires of the Pentagon? The gentlewoman must understand what is going to win around here. So I assume we are not going to do that. This, of course, is the account in which the magical increasing missing intelligence pot comes. You remember that. That was the $1 billion that we checked into, and we made it $2 billion. Then our diligent overseers checked into it and it became $4 billion. That is hidden in here. Who knows how much it is? You are saying now that, gee, we cannot afford to take away $6 billion which is what happened when we caught them with money that they were withholding. We let them spend it elsewhere. So the first part is the real cost of this. Second, let us also retitle this bill. This is the foreign aid bill. We spend more in foreign aid in one military budget than we spend in all the so-called foreign aid budgets because, as was noted, Japan and England and Germany and France and Norway and Belgium and all of the other wealthy countries in the world are the beneficiaries of those who vote to kill this amendment because none of them have military budgets as a percentage of their governments, of their gross product like ours. We confer on them this great benefit. Of course, there are bad people in the world. But there are also some good countries in the world that are the potential victims. They understand that they do not have to do things. Virtually, all of our allies are making very significant military cutbacks. Why? Because the Soviet Union has collapsed and because the Pentagon wants more money. Therefore, since we will give the Pentagon what they want, they do not have to do it in England, in Germany, and elsewhere. This is the subsidy to our competitors economically. It is an imposition on every other Government program. It undercuts one basic point. People have said we have to tell the American people they have to sacrifice, we have to cut back on Medicare. They cannot have Social Security. Give the Pentagon everything it wants, and you undercut your ability to get other people to accept sacrifice.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. But we will not go on to the next debate until the next votes?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, are we going to roll this vote? Just for the guidance of the Members, is it the intention of the Chair to now take the pending votes and go on to the next amendment in debate?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I want to be very clear again about what we are discussing. The gentleman from Washington was very honest. He said he does not think this budget is enough. I will be honest and say that, even if this amendment passes, I think it will be too much. I asked for a realistic threat assessment. I asked the same intellectual and mathematical standards be applied to the Pentagon as elsewhere. We do not do enough with the FBI. We do not do enough to reduce serious hazardous weight. We do not do enough to improve air traffic safety. We do not do enough to provide health care for older people. We are about to tell older people they will have to take some reduction in the kind of health care that is available to them. You cannot exempt one area from that. If you reject this amendment, that is what you do. This amendment does not cut the Pentagon. It cuts it from the inflation adjusted figure which I thought we were not using anymore. This amendment says the Pentagon and the intelligence entities. Let us be clear, not just the Pentagon, It is all the intelligence agencies as well. They will get the same amount of money this year as they had last year. Unlike almost any other agency of government, they will be held harmless against the reductions. Now look at the threats in the world. Yes, we have Iran and we have Iraq. We had them when we had the Soviet Union as well. I do not believe that they are at this point a greater threat than the collectivity of crime, hazardous waste, air traffic problems, terrorism. We have serious problems here at home as well. Here is what we do if we reject this amendment. We say to the wealthy European and Asian nations of this world, do not worry about defending yourselves because that is what we are talking about here. When we talk about a two-war strategy, had we talked about the broad projections of American power, we are talking explicitly in defense planning of saying to Europe and Asia, those prosperous areas of the world, you need not spend very much on your own defense. We will do it. Save your money to become more efficient. Save your money so you can outcompete us. Let us adopt this amendment as a beginning of a rational decision to deal with military spending in the same way that we should deal with other spending.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Let me say to my good friend from Washington, I do not disagree with his history. It is his mathematics that I want to focus on. The gentleman is the most honest advocate of increased military spending. He says the military budget would be $340 billion. But it was never in dollars more than about 200 billion. What did he do? He used an inflation adjusted figure and that is at the heart of this discussion. We are talking about dollars being dollars. The gentleman from Washington says, it is a cut in part because we have not keep up with inflation. So I ask, particularly Members on the other side, if that is the accounting they want to go back to, OK. But understand that that is the basis for the gentleman from Washington's argument. He talks about a reduction from $340 billion, but we never got to $340 billion. It is the inflation adjustment. This is a freeze. This is the same dollars. That is the issue here. Are we going to adopt a whole different set of accounting for the military? My friend says, 340, understand that that is getting you into inflation adjusted accounting. And if you do not keep up with inflation, it is a cut. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Hinchey].

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 seconds. Mr. Chairman, I am learning the lexicon. Sometimes a freeze is a cut, and sometimes a freeze is a freeze. A freeze is a cut when it is for some programs and a freeze is not a cut or is just a freeze for the Pentagon. Mr. Chairman. I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Luther].

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, what is the time remaining, please?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes, because I want to comment on this notion that defense and intelligence is somehow an obligation different than every other. In this budget, remember the intelligence agencies, for instance, have now gotten into economic intelligence. The budget does not just talk about guns and ships and men and women in uniform. This funds the intelligence agency, where we have been told the intelligence agencies have decided to do economic analysis. I am glad they are, but is economic analysis in the intelligence budget of a qualitatively different nature from economic analysis elsewhere so that it should be exempted from any kind of budget scrutiny? Because all this is a freeze. All we are saying is they do not get more than they got last year. It is a freeze, not a cut, that we are advocating. Let us talk about other Government functions; the FBI, faced in Montana with a difficult situation. We are told in the Judiciary that, yes, they did not have quite as many agents to investigate church burnings. We were going to adjourn temporarily to deal with the terrible issue of church burnings. I think putting a stop to church burnings is a very significant Federal responsibility. That takes well- financed Federal agencies. What about Immigration protecting our borders? What about the problem of drug-induced crime? What about the problem of terrible toxic dumps? We have had to slow down the money we put into reducing hazards where small children live because we have said to people we do not have enough money. All we are saying is, yes, defense is a very important function. So is domestic law enforcement. So is taking poison away from small children. So is having adequate control of our borders. But we cannot do all of it to the extent that we would like. And a freeze, giving the Defense Department the same amount of money this year in this budget as they had in the year before, given the trends the gentleman from Wisconsin quite thoughtfully pointed out, given the fact of the diminution in the exterior threat, indeed if we look at America today compared to 8 years ago, where has the threat to our security gotten worse? I think it is more domestic than exterior. Frankly, I think with the collapse of the Soviet Union, we are somewhat safer internationally than we were before. I wish we could say the same about crime and about environmental problems. So does it make sense to exempt from the process of freezing and discipline the foreign area, where we are almost certainly safer, and take out even more from the domestic area where the threats sadly are even greater?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds to say I am struck by how we are told that cutting $1.8 billion could cause such havoc. The appropriations subcommittee underestimated its own skill. They were just told by the Committee on the Budget cut $700 million and they did it fairly painlessly. Apparently, they were able to get rid of 700 million and America is still secure; no invasion impends, no health care has been cut back. They could cut 700 million apparently with no problem. I think if they worked a little harder, they could cut another $1.8 billion, which is still less than 1 percent of the total budget. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Meehan].

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire how much time is remaining on both sides?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Chairman, we now have the question as to whether this is a Congress seriously dedicated to reducing the budget deficit, understanding that that causes some difficult choices everywhere, or whether we will, as this appropriations bill does, exempt the defense and intelligence budgets together from any significant budget discipline. Remember, we talk about the entitlements leaving us only a certain amount of discretionary spending. We are talking about approximately half the discretionary spending. If you go forward and provide this significant increase for the defense and intelligence budgets, an intelligence budget which found, and let us be very clear, this cut would be $1.8 billion from the appropriations proposal, which would make it a freeze. It is acknowledged by the intelligence agencies which are part of this budget that they misplaced more than twice this amount. More than twice the amount of $1.8 billion was kind of lost because they have got so much money they cannot keep track of it. So that notion that we have got to cut health or cut this or cut that, we will hear all kinds of exaggerations. All we are saying to the defense and intelligence agencies together is, ``No, live this year with the same amount you had last year and you will be doing better than many, many other agencies.'' Reject this amendment, and I think this is too small of a cut, but if this amendment is rejected, then you have said, no, we will get into a situation where we will reduce the deficit, reduce every other discretionary program so the Pentagon can go up and up and up, and your ability to persuade people that they should accept sacrifices elsewhere will be substantially eroded. This leaves entire discretion to appropriators and the Defense Department to make this cut of less than 1 percent. I hope the amendment is adopted.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I appreciate that, and I would not object if we were talking about 1 hour on the amendment that the gentleman is offering, and any amendment to the amendment would have to be dealt with separately, that it would not come out of that limit.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, I just wanted to clarify that if any amendments to the amendment were offered, they would not come out of the hour. We certainly, I think, would agree to the hour but just in case any amendments to the amendment were offered, they would not come out of the hour.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I would take back my time to point out to the gentleman that if the amendment that the gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder] offered passes, you will still have $5 billion over the President's request. If the amendment of the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Shays], I, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Neumann], and others is adopted, you will have $9 billion over the President's request. The fact is that you do not have to listen to the President's request. So the notion that by cutting $1.8 billion, which would still leave it $9 billion over the President's request, we have endangered that $475 million, I guess that is the kind of excessive threat assessment that leads you to think that you have got to keep pumping this bill up. But the fact is that there is no rational connection between the two and this is a preview of coming distractions.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I want to comment on the gentleman from Florida's threat assessment that the amendment of the gentlewoman from Colorado cuts $6 billion or the amendment that will be offered by the gentleman from Kansas, the gentleman from Wisconsin, myself, and others, our amendment would cut $1.8 billion from this, and he says this might endanger this particular project. Only if you want to. Our amendment gives total discretion to the defense appropriators and the Defense Department as to where to cut. So I would just make a prediction to Members. As we talk about cutting $1.8 billion, we will hear people opposing this threaten that it is going to cost about $40 billion in cuts. Add up how many times that $1.8 billion is going to be spent. In fact, a $1.8 million cut out of this $240 billion budget in no way, shape, or form would threaten this particular program unless the people involved do not like the program and want to threaten it.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentlewoman from Colorado.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I was impressed with the candor of the explanation as to how the appropriations subcommittee budgets for the Pentagon. They ask them what they want; they give them most of it. That is a pleasant way to spend one's time but not a wise way to spend one's money. Let us understand a couple of points. First of all, the price of this budget, absent the amendment of the gentlewoman from Colorado, who spent more than 20 years on the Committee on Armed Services and has time and again demonstrated the wisdom of her judgments in this area, the price of this amendment being defeated is cutbacks everywhere else. We are going to balance the budget. We are going to reduce spending. If you continue the pattern of insulating the pentagon and the CIA and the intelligence agencies, which are included in this budget, from any significant budgetary discipline, and it does not seem to me that it is budgetary discipline when the justification for the budget is, that is what the agency wanted, if you continue to insult the Pentagon from that, then every other area government gets hurt. Now there are Members in the House who do not care much about environmental programs. There are Members who think that we should not be spending as much money to help young people to go to college. There are Members who do not like the community development block grant program. I assume they can easily vote against this amendment. But any Member who has told people in his or her district, I am sorry we cannot do more in Medicare, I regret that we have to cut back as much as we have in Medicaid, I wish we could do more for this program, I am sorry about it, vote against this amendment and you have undercut the accuracy of these statements, because if you give the Pentagon an additional $6.5 billion because they want it, then that $6.5 billion will come from education, from the environment, from public safety. Yes, this is a dangerous world. But I believe $6.5 billion could be far better spent protecting Americans against crime in their cities, against drug-induced problems, against serious environmental hazards than it would be against foreign enemies who are already dwarf with our military power. That is the choice. Do you think people are endangered by hazardous waste or are they endangered by crimes, by drugs, or by outdated infrastructure, or are they endangered by the countries which collectively spend a very small percentage of what we spend?