Gil Gutknecht

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to my colleague, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Neumann].

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I will end this debate the way I began. I do respect the work that is done on the Subcommittee on the District of Columbia of Committee on Appropriations for the District of Columbia. This is a very serious problem. But I would have to agree with my colleague, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Hostettler], who spoke earlier. The problem is not necessarily that there is not enough tax money flowing through the District of Columbia. On a per capita basis, if we compare the schools, for example, how much we spend back in Minnesota on our public schools, something like $5,600. Here in the District of Columbia, by some estimates, it is almost $10,000. The problem is not that we are not spending enough money, but the District and the Federal Government, as oversight, have not been ensuring that those moneys are spent properly. Mr. Chairman, what this amendment is really about is keeping our promises of last year. As the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Souder] said, if we cannot cut 1.9 percent this year, how are we going to cut 4 percent next year? Balancing the budget is not what you do next year, it is not what you do 2 years from now, it is what you do this year. I think we have to keep faith with what we told the voters 2 years ago. I think we have to keep faith with our children. This is about generational equity, it is not about whether potholes are going to be filled in Washington, DC. They have not been filled in the past and perhaps they will not be filled in the future. But we can balance the Federal budget, if everybody is willing to tighten their belts just a little bit. If we take 1.9 percent across-the-broad and we compare it to a haircut, and what we are talking about is giving the bureaucracy a slight haircut, it is like cutting your hair about one-eighth of an inch. Most people would not even notice the difference.

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

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this is the next installment of the amendments that I have been offering to all of the appropriation bills since the House passed the joint budget conference committee report, and as my colleagues will probably recall, under that report this House for the first time in the last 4 years is actually going to allow the deficit of the United States to go up in the next fiscal year, and many of us who were upset upon learning that went back to our offices and tried to figure out what it was that perhaps we could do on a constructive basis to recover that fumble. And what we came up with was the notion that if we offered a 1.9 percent across-the-board reduction on the balance of the appropriation bills that were still out there, we could recover $4.1 billion in additional Federal spending. So I offer this amendment in good faith even though I serve in the District of Columbia Oversight Subcommittee, and I appreciate the work that the gentleman from New York [Mr. Walsh] and his subcommittee have done in terms of controlling the level of spending and trying to get the fiscal house in order not only for the District of Columbia, but for all of the taxpayers of the United States. But, Mr. Chairman, I think, in fairness, if we are going to offer this to one appropriation bill, we have to offer it to all of them. This amendment that I am offering today affects the $660 million that goes to the District of Columbia in the way of a Federal payment. It does not affect the Federal contributions to employees' retirement accounts, it does not affect the rest of the $5 billion which flows through the District of Columbia general fund, and it does not unfairly pick on the District of Columbia. We have offered this same amendment to all appropriation bills since the approval of the joint budget resolution conference committee report. We are asking the District of Columbia government to make the same kind of sacrifice that we have asked the rest of the Federal Government to make, a simple 1.9 percent reduction. As I said earlier, I serve on the District of Columbia Subcommittee, I appreciate the work that that District of Columbia Subcommittee has done, and I appreciate the work that the financial oversight board has been doing to try and put the District of Columbia back on a financial path toward solvency. But I believe that if we are going to be fair and if we are going to be honest and if we are going to be consistent in what we do around here, I have to offer this amendment in good faith. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Souder].

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance on my time.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I am afraid I do not know why, the reasons the staff recommended we change location.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, at several points in this debate we heard about priorities, and I just want to make it clear we are not changing the priorities of this subcommittee, and we are not saying they did the wrong things, but what we are saying is, I think it is an old German expression, it maybe an old Iowa expression: ``Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me,'' and if we look at the history of what has happened around this place and in this city over the last 10 or 15 years, we have one budget deal after another budget deal. We had Gramm-Rudman, we had this deal, there were promises made to the American people, and what they all amounted to was this: Manana, tomorrow, next year; we are going to fix it next year. But if we are going to balance the budget, it is not what we do next year that counts. It is what we do now, it is what we do every day, it is what we do on every appropriation bill. Now, I think those guys have done great work, and I admire the Committee on Appropriations and the Committee on the Budget for all they have done. I do not serve on either on those committees, and a little over a month ago they brought a bill or the Committee on the Budget brought a bill to the floor, and I voted against it, and a bunch of my freshman colleagues voted against it because we began down that slippery slope once again saying, ``Well, the deficit is going to go up this year, but we'll fix it next year.'' We cannot cut 4.1 billion dollars' worth of spending in this appropriation bill, but in 3 years we will cut $47 billion. Now, maybe my colleagues believe that, maybe the American people believe that, but I have got to tell my colleagues as just one Member I have trouble believing that. And so it is what we do every day that counts. That is why this little 1.9-percent amendment is so important. It is about setting priorities that our colleagues set, it is accepting those priorities, but it is saying we are going to ask the bureaucracies at every level to find an extra 1.9-percent worth of fat in their budget, and I do not think there is a small business person, I do not think there is a farmer, I do not think there is a taxpayer in America who does not believe that we cannot find 1.9 percent worth of fat in every Federal bureaucracy. That is what this amendment is about. It is about keeping our word, it is about doing our work every single year and not saying manana, next year, next 3 years from now, then we are going to balance the budget. This is hard work, but the American taxpayers and the American families did not send us here to do what was easy. They sent us here to do what was hard; 1.9 percent is not too much to ask. It is about preserving the American dream for our kids. It is an important amendment. I would request a ``yes'' vote.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman I yield myself the balance of the time.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Coburn]. (Mr. COBURN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I demanded a recorded vote.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Yes.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Chairman, I feel a little bit like the famous cartoon character Horton, who hatched the egg. Just to remind Members what this is all about, back when we passed the budget resolution the joint conference committee report with the Senate, this Congress did something which many of us felt was inappropriate and something that needed to be corrected. We literally agreed to increase spending by $4.1 billion more than we had agreed we would spend last year. Unfortunately, that budget resolution, the conference committee came back after we passed a couple of the budget bills previous to this. Now, I certainly do not want to cast any aspersions on the subcommittee chairman and the work of the Committee on Appropriations, but I think in terms of keeping faith with our promises last year and keeping faith with the American people and most importantly keeping faith with the American children, I think it is important that we do everything within our power to try to recover that fumble. What we did was we increased spending by $4.1 billion. So we sat down, some of us freshmen with our staff, and said how can we help recover that fumble. One of the ways we can do that is offer an amendment to every appropriation bill for the balance of the appropriation season that would cut discretionary spending 1.9 percent across the board. Now, 1.9 percent is not a huge cut. As a matter of fact, in this bill we are talking about total spending of $23 billion. Applying our formula, we are asking the full committee here to reduce spending $213 million. Now, $213 million is a lot of money, but in terms of a percentage of the total spending in this bill it is less than 1 percent. So applying the 1.9 percent formula just to the discretionary side of this appropriating bill cuts $213 million. The question we have to ask ourselves, and I think a legitimate question the American people should ask us, if we cannot cut 1 percent off the total spending in this bill, how in the world are we going to say to the American people that in 3 years we are going to be able to cut $47 billion in spending. The unvarnished truth is we may not be able to. Mr. Chairman, this is an important amendment, and I would appreciate my colleagues support.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Souder]. (Mr. SOUDER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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

Mr. GUTKNECHT. No, I have no other amendments.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I think I can honestly say, this will be the last 1.9 percent amendment on this bill, yes.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, we believe it is No. 1.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I think I can clear this up. My amendment is not intended to affect appropriations for fiscal year 1996. That is the reason it has to be moved to the different location. We only want to affect discretionary appropriations for fiscal year 1997.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, that is correct.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I believe that is correct.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, perhaps I can modify my request. What I would request of the Chair is that I be permitted to substitute amendment No. 7 for amendment No. 2, and I would request unanimous consent.