Porter Goss

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I missed some of the debate, but if I heard correctly, the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Moran] says the President cannot alter the budget of the judiciary submitted to him by that branch. I do not think the gentleman from Virginia would argue that somehow the Congress is bound not to alter the request that we get from the judiciary in the appropriations bill. That just would not make sense. Of course, as I believe the chairman of Committee on Rules pointed out, the judicial branch last year actually got a little less from us than they wanted, than they submitted. The point I am trying to make is I do not think we should treat the branches of government differently and put one above and out and off the reservation because of some concern that someday we might have intimidation or some other thing. That is all part of the give and take of the process. We are trying to open up the process, open it up to the sunshine, saying this is an orderly way to submit a budget, everybody will honor the budget. Then it goes through a process. Then when we add the powers we have to do the business of governance in our Nation and clarify what should be done and should not be done, that is the process. If we find we are spending more than we are taking in, then we have the opportunity for some rescission. It is at that point that we work together with the executive and say, together, how do we deal with this prioritizing where we want to spend our money. I think that is the point we are trying to make. I think the point you all are trying to make is that we are somehow going to have to set the judiciary off the reservation; it would be out of the process because they are somehow sacrosanct. I just do not think that is an accurate description of the way it is supposed to work. I think we are all supposed to equally participate. If there is belt tightening, it is everywhere. If we accomplish all budgets that are appropriate, then we will do that.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I will close with a few brief comments. We have had in this general debate process a preview of some of the proposed amendments that we may be talking about, and they really underscore what the debate is. We have got a debate on a major policy issue of whether we want a real line-item veto with a two-thirds vote required to overturn the President's decision, or whether we want to stick to the simple majority rule of approval that we have had here under various titles and labels over the years, which is not really a line-item veto. It is a very good debate, and it is one that has already started, and I hope it ends up with the toughest version, but I respect very much those proponents of the other way. My view on the other way is it clearly has not worked; otherwise we would not be looking at couple-hundred-billion-dollar deficits every year, we would not be looking at a $4.5 trillion national debt, which is growing and predicted to grow over $6 trillion despite our current President's best efforts. It seems to me is we have to say, ``We surrender. it does not work. We need a better system, better machinery, and better tools.'' And that is what this process is about. There is a concern that this is somehow going to get out of control. We have built in, as a result of the deliberative process through the committees, some oversight monitoring with GAO. It is a good provision. We have gone into streamlining the time for review by the various bodies, the executive and the legislative bodies, so that we move this thing more quickly and do not interfere with the normal flow of Government business, but we have check and balance points that come more quickly. We created a new process to guarantee every Member of this institution the right to get an objection to what the President does to the floor of the House for not one vote, not two votes, but in some cases three votes, depending on which procedure is used. We have picked the toughest way to go, because this is the toughest problem we have in our country right now. There has been some talk about if we do this we will never be able to change it. Well, I hope we are not going to be able to change it, because it is the medicine this country needs. I do not want to change it. But I would point out I think most people will understand these types of measures in fact can be checked or withdrawn by actions taken on independent appropriations bills only must pass legislation that exempts certain provisions that would override some of the concerns I have expressed here today. I hope that does not happen, because I think that would be weakening, but there is always a back door, it seems, in Washington. I think there is a real benefit to bringing the President into the loop. It is not just the benefit of accountability and making the President, if he catches a bit of mischief coming out of Congress, being complicit in it. He has the opportunity and responsibility to erase it. And this gives the American voters one more shot at accountability when the November elections come. Of course, it is the November elections that really are the core of democracy. But beyond that, that extra accountability for the President, we have something that I think is very beneficial that has been alluded to by several of our speakers, and that is the interaction between the legislative and the executive branches in the process of developing the budget for our country as we go through the year. I think that is a process that clearly is going to yield a better product than we have had so far, less surprises, both happy and unhappy, more predictable results, more efficient use of tax dollars, more on-time targeting of the way we spend our money. And I think we all come out ahead if we do this. We do not present this legislation lightly. This has been well thought out. It has been through the mill, through the cooperative committee process, and I am very pleased to be associated with this legislation and look Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire how much time is left on each side?

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Huntington Beach, CA [Mr. Rohrabacher].

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Mississippi, [Mr. Parker].

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I am very happy to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Fowler]. (Mrs. FOWLER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the blizzard of numbers and figures that define our annual budget deficits and the accruing national debt sort of tends to numb us. It is a sort of my-eyes-are-glazing-over type of situation. We talk about the billions, the trillions, the several hundred billion dollar annual deficits we face, the $4.5 trillion in rising debt we are passing along to our children. These aggregate numbers can often seem very far away and unreal, especially when you are standing in a wonderful place like this. But when we bring those numbers down to the individual level of our daily lives, when we realize that our debt translates into approximately $18,000 of liability for every man, woman, and child right now, today, in our country, that is a tremendous burden to carry. I heard testimony yesterday in the Committee on Rules that, well, it is not really that bad, because we have all these national treasures out there that we can use as assets to offset that debt. I do not know whether there is a distinction there about cash flow or not, but I have not heard any serious proposals to sell Yosemite or the Grand Teton Park or any of those places, so I would suggest those may be assets, but they are not liquid assets, and that $18,000 of liability is real. And it is real at tax time, because we are paying a huge, huge interest on an incredibly enormous national debt. It is a problem there with real weight that Americans have felt increasingly over the years. The time has come. I think the need to change the process has been expressed, and the outrage against politicians, frankly, who have not taken corrective action. And we are the people. We are those politicians. That is why an overwhelming majority of Americans support a balanced budget amendment and a line-item veto. And they are fiscal tools, we admit that. They are not magic remedies. They are fiscal tools that will help bring the Federal budget process under control. Today we begin the task of implementing a line-item veto. It is a milestone clearly in the mission of budget reform. It is not the only one. For all the rhetoric in the past years, this House has never demonstrated its commitment to a real line-item veto, one which actually makes it harder to spend money than it is to save it. We have always tilted it the other way. We have made it easier to spend than to save. Today the policy issue is if you want to save it, go with the tougher version, the version that is in H.R. 2. If you want to spend it, go with the amendments that are going to try and gut it and make it easier to spend it. That is the policy issue. Some can say it is an issue over 72 votes. Some can say it is an issue over whether or not there is a shift in Government power. What it is, is an issue over whether we are going to spend or whether we are going to save. We have voted on measures in the past that have been labeled ``line- item veto.'' They are not real line-item veto. We have never passed a bill that shifts the burden, that requires Congress to say ``no'' to a President's spending cuts and force Congress then to come up with a two-thirds majority to make that ``no'' stick and spend the money that the President wants to cut. These are tough measures, I admit it. They are the tough measures the President asked for. But our budget problems are tough problems, and they are the ones that the people we work for, the American people, have brought to our attention, most recently in November. We have a system where it is just too easy for low priority or wasteful programs to make their way into massive spending bills and onto the President's desk where they do slide into law because he has got to sign the whole bill. No one would argue that a line-item veto on its own will make our budget problems disappear. No one is claiming that. But clearly our fiscal crisis goes much deeper than the abuses we have seen of the appropriations process and discretionary spending. I am amused today to see that we are going to have an amendment that suddenly we are going to open the door and all the skeletons are going to fall out and we are going to find out somehow or another there somewhere have been abuses. Imagine that. I am delighted for that opportunity to review those abuses, because once we review them, maybe we can stop them. Still, H.R. 2 marks the beginning of a monumental effort to change the way Congress does business and restore public confidence in its ability to manage the Nation's finances. This is one piece of the puzzle, and it is a necessary step on the road toward better management which we are asked to achieve here as part of our public trust. H.R. 2 says to Congress that if a President wants to line out certain spending, the Congress cannot hide anymore. Unlike current law, which allows Congress to ignore a President's spending cuts and get away with spending the money, under H.R. 2 the Congress is going to have to come out into the sunshine and make its case. The harsh glare of accountability, coming up with that extra level of support to insist on spending what the President opposes. Remember, insist on spending issue. During the course of this debate we will hear principled arguments from people who strongly believe that the line-item veto gives too much authority to the President. It is an interesting argument; it is an important argument, but it is not the main issue. We will hear that we should set up an approval process instead, so that a simple majority of Congress can block a President's spending cuts. I understand that argument and respect its proponents for their commitment to preserving the institutional power of Congress. But I believe, and I truly believe this, that the American people have asked us to deliver the toughest possible line-item veto, one that makes it harder to spend their hard-earned tax dollars and easier to save the money. That is what we pledged to do in the Contract With America, and that is what H.R. 2 delivers to the floor. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon], the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Rules. (Mr. SOLOMON asked and was given permission to extend his remarks.)

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I move the previous question on the resolution. The previous question was ordered.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished gentleman from Florida [Mr. Diaz-Balart], a distinguished member of the Committee on Rules.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the amendment to the amendment.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Nethercutt]. (Mr. NETHERCUTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon], the chairman of the committee.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against the amendment and ask to be heard on my point of order. Mr. Chairman, the amendment violates clause 7 of rule XVI, the germaneness rule, and introduces a new subject. It really does. We are getting out of discretionary budget authority into entitlements, mandatory spending, obviously. This is wildly beyond the territory, as I believe the gentleman knows. I want to assure everybody that that was not the intent. We are talking about discretionary budget authority. I want to put the gentleman's mind at ease that there is no attack on Social unfortunately, out of bounds.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I listened with great intensity to this. This is a very important subject, and I believe the people who have made this amendment have done it out of the spirit of a very strong conviction about the need for national defense, and we do not do anything here that could possibly interfere with the best possible national security we can provide for every American. I think, however, that their effort has been a little misguided perhaps because they are not familiar with what else is in this legislation, and I reluctantly, as the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Clinger] did, have to come to the conclusion that this is not a good amendment and that there are perhaps other ways to achieve what is being argued for, which I certainly support, which is the best possible national defense, the most efficient cost. In fact, Mr. Chairman, I am afraid this amendment, as it is reported, as I understand it, may actually tend to undermine the intent of this bill because it opens the door. We have not opened any other door, and we heard the gentleman from Wisconsin has spoken very eloquently about what will happen if we open the door: ``If you open one, they are all going to open.'' Then there is talk a little bit further about what is going to happen if we do not do this amendment. There is no other way to solve these problems to protect the defense. Well, we have just agreed to the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Thurman] which I think will help. We have created an expedited process in committee to make sure that we can deal with these things quickly. We have guaranteed every Member a vote. We have gone the extra length to make sure every Member can get out and get on this concern, whatever it may be, and there will be only defense, and deal with it, and I would even suggest to the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Skelton], for whom I have the deepest respect, there may even be better ways outside the scope of H.R. 2 today that we are talking about, and I would be happy to share those with him because in committee we did talk about some of those things, and I think there are a number of other options, and I think we only make exceptions of the magnitude that we would have to make if we favored this that would open those doors that the gentleman from Wisconsin has referred to if there are no other choices, and it is clear there are other choices. I am very concerned about the trigger that has been set. It is arbitrary. If this is law, it becomes law for a long time. Is that the right number for a long period of time? Will it be changed? Will it be changed and abused after a period of time? Those kinds of questions have be asked. But perhaps the most serious concerns I have are what we would put this exception. Now, when I look at the appendix of some of the nondefense-related programs funded by defense in 1993, I get into things like disaster relief, disaster relief, legacy resource management, World Cup USA, environmental impact on Indian lands, World University Games, breast cancer research, AIDS research, prostate research, a whole bunch of things that are critically important programs. I would not doubt that for 1 minute, but wonder if they are really central and paramount to the major defense mission of national security, and what I am concerned about is, if we tried to create an exemption like this, that suddenly everything will be defense related, there really will not be very much else to talk about, and that concerns me very, very much, and I realize that some of those programs, in an abundance of caution and fairness I will say, would not reach the trigger today, but that does not mean they would not reach the trigger tomorrow, as we get more and more into these things, and I say AIDS research might be an area where we might have that number go up dramatically. But the other point that is perhaps more serious: It seems to me that the gentleman or the gentlelady in the White House is our President, and I wonder why we would exempt the Commander in Chief from jurisdiction over a defense program. That is a puzzle.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the following committees and their subcommittees be permitted to sit tomorrow while the House is meeting in the Committee of the Whole House under the 5- minute rule: the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities, the Committee on the Judiciary, and the Committee on Science. Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that the minority has been consulted and that there is no objection to these requests.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, U.S. military occupation of Haiti continues, but mandate of the Haitian Parliament will end. The time line for new parliamentary elections has already slipped from last December to perhaps sometime in May. I ask, ``But how can you build a democracy without a parliament, without a legislative branch, Aristide?'' Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, in 1991 he fell prey to the drive to consolidate power that has historically characterized Haitian politics, and he has failed to learn a very basic lesson of democracy, and that is that shared power makes for better governments, and it is vital for true democracy. Lack of progress on the elections in Haiti means President Aristide will be ruling Haiti without checks or balances. Mr. Speaker, the time for free and fair elections in Haiti is now. We must bring our troops home today. Bring on Haitian elections now, and save both democracy in Haiti and American taxpayers' dollars.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I would like to further state that the Committee on Rules did respond in a very cooperative way to what we think was a very legitimate concern by the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight on how to work out a compromise that would work on this, and we did come up with an amendment which we called the Goss amendment which we thought resolved the issue pretty well. I would like to point out that this is a subject that went through a briefing, a hearing, a markup, and not a little bit of debate, to say nothing at all of the fact that we had a rule discussion on it. So we have really given this a lot of analysis. My concern about a killer amendment is very real. We have tried to weigh and balance, and we have got a protection built in. I say this sincerely, because I speak as a local government official who has come out of being a mayor and a county chairman. I have very strong, deep personal feelings about dealing with unfunded mandates whether they come from the Federal Government or the State capital, and that is, that we have got our Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, and we have been given, I think, very strong promises of commitment from the leadership that we are going to pay attention to what they say. We are going to have a report, a study, monitoring, and I think we have hit middle ground here. Until we know a little better whether there is a problem or there is not, I think we ought to go as the committee has presented it. I thank the distinguished gentleman for yielding. I regrettably say that I will be in opposition to the Cooley amendment.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I rise very reluctantly, as the distinguished gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hall] knows, in opposition to his amendment. I want to go through a scenario that gives me some serious concern. It is difficult to precisely read Mr. Hall's amendment because there is no specific line number in the amendment. It appears the amendment would foreclose the Federal Government's ability to ever cut or impose a cap on a number of low-income programs which are listed in section 255(h) of the Budget Act. In essence, any cut or cap would be by definition a Federal intergovernmental mandate even if the States have the authority to change their financial or programmatic responsibilities. This would trigger the point of order. Now, to get specific and go to one of the programs listed in 255(h), Medicaid, the Hall amendment would define any cut or cap in the Medicaid Program as an unfunded mandate regardless of the fact that the States have the flexibility to change their programs. To demonstrate that this is not good policy in the Medicaid Program, I would like to remind my colleagues about a sad chapter in the Medicaid Program involving provider-specific taxes and disproportionate share payments to hospitals. Because of a change in Medicaid law in 1990, provider-specific taxes help cause an annual growth in Federal Medicaid payments to the tune of $10 billion per year, that is annually, $10 billion per year, every year. Now, to help close this loophole, legislation was passed in 1991; the provider-specific tax amendments of 1991 and in OBRA 1993 to place a cap on disproportionate share payments. Now, my friend, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hall] voted for both of these caps on the Medicaid Program. In both instances these caps were placing limits on an element of the Medicaid Program that was being abused; I think we agree. In both instances the States had the flexibility to change their programs. If Mr. Hall's amendment was in effect, his votes would be defined as an unfunded intergovernmental mandate subject to points of order. So it is for that very technical reason, even though I understand what the gentleman is trying to accomplish, that I have to again underscore that while this is well meaning it is not going to have a benign effect on what we are trying to do, in my view, and is going to remove flexibility. The States have asked for that flexibility. To take that away from them, especially after what we just heard from the Governors, just does not make a lot of sense to me at this time.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I read in the paper this morning that the United Nations is going to take over the Haiti mission because things are stable and secure in that country now. Of course, they are still going to rely mainly on U.S. troops down there, but there will be new rules of engagement. We are only going to use weapons in self-defense. But then we read on a little further, and our Ambassador to the United Nations, Ambassador Albright, says, ``But if this U.N. force is pushed, it has the leaders, the mandate, the firepower, and the will to push back.'' Now, I call that doublespeak. That is the kind of thing that confuses our troops, it confuses us, it confuses our allies, but it probably does not confuse our enemies. It raises the specter of our troops under foreign command in another country, under U.N. command, under Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and it causes us problems because we do not know what their mission is. Ambassador Albright also said that Aristide has wide popular support, and that is true. But she failed to say that apparently the United Nations is unaware that there is intense brutal opposition to Aristide as well. So all is not well, and we should keep our eyes on foreign policy in Haiti.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, our Caribbean immigration policy is a three- sided disaster. It is a disaster for Floridians, actually for all Americans, for Cubans, and for Haitians. When the Federal Government fails to control our borders or to enforce our immigration laws, the financial responsibility for that inevitably falls to the States. Florida in fact has borne the brunt of the combined impact of the last 2 years of ineffective Caribbean policymaking and inability to enforce laws designed to create a fair and orderly asylum process which we all want. We are talking here about hundreds of millions of dollars of unfair costs. Floridians recently applauded Senator Bob Graham for his amendments to the unfunded mandates bill in the other body requiring that the Federal Government must acknowledge the cost of its failed immigration policy. No more ducking and hiding on this. The Clinton White House has been unable to address the problems in our failed national immigration program. Perhaps it is because they are unwilling, perhaps because they do not know how. They keep repeating pledges to fix what is broken, but it is not happening. In fact, the administration is headed in exactly the wrong direction in one important area. By negotiating and striking deals with Fidel Castro, the Clinton team is playing into the hands of what we know to be a brutal dictator who stands at the core of one of the most serious immigration enigmas we have. The White House has given him exactly what he wants, a safety valve to drive out a minimum of 20,000 Cubans a year, most of them dissidents, all headed for America, and the legitimacy that comes from a high-level dialog with the United States that gives Castro some cover. Of course, he is also getting a diversion from the internal human rights violations that are going on in Castro Cuba, including the inhumane sinking of the tugboat March 13. Then there is Haiti where the administration's performance has been especially troubling. In what I would call a ham-handed effort to bring the military regime to its knees there, the White House slapped a brutal embargo on the poorest people in the hemisphere and then trumpeted a policy that said, ``If you can make it out to international waters, we'll pick you up and give you a safe haven.'' Is it any wonder that desperate Haitians came by the tens of thousands? It was a self-manufactured crisis that is now a serious infection festering under a band-aid solution. At the height of the combined Cuban and Haitian crises this past summer, more than 30,000 Cuban refugees and thousands of Haitian refugees sat in limbo in the heat, in tent camps in Panama and Guantanamo, patrolled and operated by United States soldiers at a very substantial cost to United States taxpayers. In the past few months, the administration has been quietly paroling many refugees into the United States, more than we know, we do not have a number, more than 1,000 from the Panama camps alone. No matter how much passion Americans have for the plight of these refugees, and we do have compassion because of the miserable situations in their countries, they also know that this type of open-ended policy creates more problems than it solves. Why? Because the Federal dollars do not flow to the places where the refugees do, and when it comes time to settle these newcomers into the United States, there is no provision for them. It discourages individuals from using the orderly asylum process that is out there, which has worked well and served this country for years. And it encourages the truly desperate to take to the high seas in their rickety, overloaded boats, and sadly we have many examples of tragedy. It is also a losing proposition for most of the refugees. The White House has just completed the process of returning Haitian refugees to their country, the last 4,000 dramatically against their will, literally kicking and screaming, being dragged off boats. These repatriations occurred despite the protests of the Haitian Government which asked for time to set up a system to reintegrate the refugees and exists in Haiti today. Many of these disgruntled and frightened refugees are camped out now in Port-Au-Prince demanding employment from a government that has no means to provide employment. Likewise the Cuban refugees are still smarting from the abrupt abrogation of the terms of the Cuban Adjustment Act. All the while the policy is failing in every direction, the bills are mounting. Look for a defense supplemental as early as next week to provide billions of American tax dollars in funds to pay for these extra missions. And we must not forget that there are more than 6,000 American soldiers at risk on the ground in Haiti while there are still more in Panama right now donning riot gear and strapping on rifles in anticipation of rioting, arson, escape attempts, and suicides among the 7,500 Cubans being moved from Panama to Guantanamo now. What does the administration plan to deal with its Caribbean crises? Where is the focus on national security in our own backyard? It appears from the weekend papers that the Clinton administration has decided that a replacement for Joycelyn Elders in the Surgeon General's Office takes a higher priority than the search for a new CIA director or for attention on our national security. I think that says something. I think maybe it is time we paid attention to the real problems that are affecting this country and leave some of the social thoughts to another day.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing a bill which would accomplish real campaign reform. It addresses the true problems with the current system without costly, artificial, and probably unconstitutional provisions like spending limits or public financing. For example, to address the free mailing advantage incumbents enjoy, my bill would cut the franking allowance in half and ban all unsolicited mail 60 days before a primary and general election. Also, in order to get rid of the perceived edge that PAC's have over individual contributors, my bill would limit PAC campaign contributions to $1,000. The President challenged Members to stop taking gifts from lobbists--my bill would prohibit lobbyist-paid travel for any Member or employee of the House of Representatives. Congress needs campaign reform--but we don't need to reinvent the wheel to achieve it. By applying a to look at my bill.