Joel Hefley

Mr. HEFLEY

Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, the third time is a charm, right? Well, not for this President. Last week he tried, once again, to lay out a balanced budget plan. Unfortunately, the President missed the mark by well, $400 billion. The simple fact is, the only budget proposal proposed thus far that balances the budget in 7 years, cuts taxes for working families, saves Medicare from bankruptcy, and reforms welfare is the Balanced Budget Act of 1995 which President Clinton vetoed last week. The President has now presented three budgets to Congress, well, one budget and two sets of talking points; yet none of them comes into balance. Mr. Speaker, it is time for the President to keep the promise he made 23 days ago: Balance the budget in 7 years using honest numbers. There is only one person standing between the American people and a balanced budget, and that one person is Bill Clinton.

Mr. HEFLEY

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

Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Chairman, I originally had two amendments, one which would have made sure that we were putting Amtrak on a glidepath to getting rid of the Federal subsidy, and the committee has done that, and I want to commend the gentlewoman from New York [Ms. Molinari] and the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Shuster], the chairman of the committee, for doing that. So I withdraw that amendment. Mr. Chairman, I am proud of the Republican majority. We are in the midst of passing legislation which will balance the Federal budget in 7 years. Not since 1969 has that happened. I am proud of the Republican majority, and I am proud of many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that think this is important. It is not easy to balance the budget. We are all finding that we have had to make some tough choices on what this country's priorities must be. Each and every time we authorize a single dollar, we have had to ask the question, should the Federal Government be involved in this? If the answer to that question is yes, then we ask another question: Can we afford it? There are many expenditures that the Federal Government never should have made, but there have been a host of other items that we would love to fund if we had the money. But the fact is, we just cannot afford many of them. That is why I need to be able to go back home, as all of us do, and tell our constituents that we think the priorities set in Congress were priorities we believe in, I need to be able to defend why one program was cut and another authorized. That is why I have to offer this amendment. I simply cannot go back home and defend authorizing almost $4 million over 4 years, even with the technical amendment which we just passed here, for a train station in New York that has already received, and I wish my colleagues would listen to this, it has already received $60 million in taxpayer money, and that many people argue is not even necessary. I am not going to argue whether the train station should be moved from its current location at the Farley Post Office. Only the local community can answer that. But I must disagree that with these lean budget times we should tell the American people that one of our priorities is a project to move a train station across the street where bigger and better shops can be built to create a Union Station atmosphere in New York City. It will be tough enough to tell them that legislation has already been signed into law this year that provides this project $26 million. The National Highway System legislation was able to creatively include funding for this project. In fact, one Member of this Chamber described the efforts of Senator Moynihan as a masterful use of the process in getting that money allocated. Supporters of the Penn Station project may tell you the current location is rundown and unsafe, but that is why the Transportation appropriation legislation appropriated $20 million to Amtrak and Penn Station for important life safety improvements. So that makes $46 million so far this year. Here we are in lean budget times and one train station gets not only $20 million to improve its current home but another $26 million to help build its new home. Except for my colleagues from New York, I am not sure there is anyone in this Chamber that can look their constituents in the eye and tell them this should be a priority project. Supporters of the project will also tell you that this is a $315 million project, and only $100 million is asked for from the Federal Government. Where is the other money coming from? Some $115 million is coming from private investors that, to the best of my knowledge, have not anted up a dime; another $75 million from the State of New York, who has not appropriated a dime; and New York City, whose $25 million contribution is really only $8 million so far. How much more will this black hole of taxpayer money receive? Mr. Chairman, we all need to ask ourselves the question, is the Penn Station project one that the Federal Government should be involved in, and, if it is, can we afford to fund it? I am convinced that each and every Member of this body, if they really look at the budget and what we are trying to do, will answer that question by supporting this amendment and supporting fiscal responsibility in these lean times.

Mr. HEFLEY

Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, last night the President came to the American people to convince us it is a good idea to send ground troops to Bosnia. He says he will come to Congress. Both of these things are the things he should be doing. We have been asking him to do it. I sat there in front of my television half wanting to be convinced, because you do not want to embarrass the President, you want him to be right, you want him to represent the country in the right way. What I found with his speech was a great deal of emotion. He talked about rapes and concentration camps and mass executions, all things that we would like to stop if we possibly could, but he was short on substance. He talked about vital American interests but he does not tell us what that was. He talked about American leadership and he seemed to be saying that the only way we can have American leadership is if we pay the bill, if we pay the price with our blood and with our money. I found myself wondering, I wonder if it is so bad if in some cases if someone else takes the leadership. Do we have to lead in everything? Is this not a European problem? Could we not rely on Europe to take the leadership in this? I wonder how the President is going to respond to the families who lose children in this conflict, and they will lose some. Is he going to say, ``Your son died for the future of NATO?'' Is he going to say, ``Your son died because we might stop World War III?'' Is he going to say, ``Your son died for American leadership?'' I do not think he has made the case.

Mr. HEFLEY

Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California [Mr. Baker]. (Mr. BAKER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Taylor].

Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California [Mrs. Seastrand].

Mr. HEFLEY. Mr Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Manzullo]. (Mr. MANZULLO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Fowler].

Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Bateman].

Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Ramstad].

Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Chabot].

Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Bonilla].

Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Traficant]. (Mr. TRAFICANT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from San Diego, CA [Mr. Hunter].

Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan].

Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Weldon]. (Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Utah [Mr. Hansen]. (Mr. HANSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman], the chairman of the Committee on International Relations. (Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. DeLay], the distinguished Republican whip.

Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Weldon]. (Mr. WELDON of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me say it is very important that we debate this measure now. This is not a trivial matter. I know the gentleman from California [Mr. Dellums] shares my deep conviction about that. I would hope that everybody who speaks on this will not put it in the context of politics, Democrat, Republican, conservation, liberal, presidential, Congress. That is not what we want to talk about here today. We want to talk about American lives and American families. For many American families, this is the most important vote that the 104th Congress will name and make no mistake about it. As the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Roth] said earlier, this is the vote on Bosnia. This is the vote on Bosnia. Do not think you can go home and say, ``Well, I didn't really approve of sending troops to Bosnia but we ought to do it, the timing was just bad.'' That is not the way it is going to work. If we want a meaningful vote, it has to be right now. This bill does one thing: It requires specific appropriation of money prior to ground troops being inserted in Bosnia. That is all it does. It does not infringe on the rights of the Commander in Chief. It does not tell him what he can and cannot do. It simply says, do not do it until you have Congress and the American people behind you. How much stronger the effort will be if we have the President and Congress and the American people all together signing off the shame sheet. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Florida [Mr. Young].

Mr. HEFLEY

Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon] and commend the President on getting these combatants together to talk about this and to try to strike a deal. That is important and that is his role. That is the role that the President of the United States should play. But the President should not commit U.S. forces without Congress' approval, except in unusual circumstances. And what are those unusual circumstances? They are circumstances where we need secrecy, for instance. Or they are circumstances where there is an emergency. And this is neither of those. The President committed these forces 2 years ago, in an offhand manner. Committed these forces without knowing what kind of peace agreement there would be. Just offered 25,000 troops 2 years ago. We had Ambassador Kirkpatrick before our Committee on National Security a few days ago, and let me quote from her statement on page 5. She said when asked if we should send 25,000 troops there, she said, ``Not unless President Clinton makes a persuasive case for this deployment.'' She further went on to say, ``Bill Clinton should make his case to the people and take his case to the Congress.'' Now, there will be a lot of people today talking about the fact that the President said he will come to the Congress. Just moments ago, on the telephone in the Cloakroom, when I asked the President if we postpone this vote and he brings his case to the Congress, will he abide by the will of the Congress, he said, no, no, I would not give up the prerogative that I have. I do not know that I blame him for telling me that answer, but I just want to put it in perspective that, yes, he will bring the case to the Congress, but the further along we go down the road, the more difficult it will be, if we decide to say no. We do not know we will say no. Maybe he will make a persuasive case, as the Ambassador said. Telling the President that we want and need careful consideration before we take action that will cost American lives seems intimately reasonable to me. We want answers. Mr. Speaker, we tried the soft approach. We gave the resolution that says do not make troops a part of the agreement. The next day Secretary Christopher was saying we do not care what Congress says, we are going to do it anyway. So this says to the President to include us in this situation before the fact and not after the fact, if he really wants the Congress and the American people behind him on this. This is an important thing. We should be a part of it up front not after the fact. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon] once again, and the Committee on Rules for this rule. This is something that I think all of us feel on both sides very passionately about, and I appreciate the amount of time that they allotted for this very important debate this afternoon.

Mr. HEFLEY

Mr. HEFLEY. Day four of the Clinton shutdown of the Government. Why? Because he cannot even agree in principle that we should balance the budget in 7 years. Let me say that again. The President will not even agree in principle that we should balance the budget in 7 years. We are not talking about specifics here. All we want the President to agree to is the concept that we should pass a plan based on independent, honest Congressional Budget Office numbers that balances the budget in 7 years. Period. But the President will not agree to a 7-year plan to balance the budget. Why? Because right now his pollsters and campaign advisers have told him that he needs to appear decisive. So the President is willing to keep the Government shut down. Mr. Speaker, no more excuses, no more Washington gimmicks. Republicans are committed to a balanced budget. It is time for the President, not Dick Morris who evidently is running the country, to join in that commitment.