Dave Hobson

Mr. HOBSON

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to respond to the previous speaker that I believe in the previous Congress he was talking about, Tip O'Neill was the Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Stearns]. (Mr. STEARNS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Kolbe].

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Miller].

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Goodlatte]. (Mr. GOODLATTE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Speaker, I do not think there are any telephone numbers in there of the previous staffers, as there was in the Democratic budget. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Ramstad].

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Bilirakis]. (Mr. BILIRAKIS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Bunning]. (Mr. BUNNING of Kentucky asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Shays].

Mr. HOBSON

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Speaker, a lot of people promised they would balance the budget. Nobody believed that it could be done, but one person believed and one person persevered. He persevered for the future of our children. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of our time to the gentleman from Ohio, John Kasich, my fellow Buckeye, and the chairman of the Committee on the Budget.

Mr. HOBSON

Mr. HOBSON. The other inconsistency in the gentleman's statement is that we are not spending less money, we are spending more money. I know $1 trillion is an increase that is difficult for the other side to understand, but that is what we are spending.

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, this is a philosophical difference, and I want to say that State government has changed since many of the Members came to this body; I think the State government was in trouble, and I think State government has improved dramatically. In my State we had large institutions where we used to put the mentally ill. We reversed that, we changed that. Our State changed that. I think there is a different philosophical understanding between our two sides here. The Democratic side still thinks that the answer to everything is the Federal Government. We do not believe that.

Mr. HOBSON. Let me say one thing about this, Mr. Speaker. The plan the gentleman is talking about is a plan that I worked on in the legislature with a Democratic Governor. It is called the Dayton area health plan. It started as a plan for ADC mothers and their chidren. That program had to come down here on bended knee to get an HCFA waiver in order to do that program for these people. It took months. We had to come back time and time again to do that program. Right now as a matter of fact, in this bill is a provision extending that, because we are worried about a time factor on it. This Governor thought that the previous Democratic Governor did such a good job that that program is now, as John said, going statewide. So the States can do things. The problem is, we want more money to go back to the States; the gentleman wants to leave it all here with some bureaucrat here that we have to come down and fight with all of the time. We do not want to do that.

Mr. HOBSON. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would say to the gentleman, I do not work for the Federal Government. I work for the people of the Seventh Congressional District. I work for the people.

Mr. HOBSON. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. HOBSON. I would tell the gentlewoman, Mr. Speaker, I would believe that. I think that was a number of years ago. I think the States have gotten better; maybe not Florida, I understand. I do not know about Florida. I could tell the Members about Ohio. The gentleman from Florida [Mr. Gibbons] is laughing. Maybe he comes from a State where that is not true. In my State, that is true. I have until recently sat on the board of the oldest African-American university in the country, and on the board of the public school there, run by the State of Ohio. We have a good record. We have worked on it. I am just saying we want to preserve these things, we want to do these things, and we are going to try to do that in the conference committee. We are going to do a number of issues where we will go in and we will work to try to get them better than what we have done here and they have done there, but we are not going to impose this particular restraint upon our conference committee at this point.

Mr. HOBSON. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida. [[Page H 11415]]

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this motion to instruct. Like the gentlewoman from Florida, [Mrs. Meek], I spent a lot of time on the State legislature. I have served on the Committee on the Budget. I was chairman of the Committee on Health, Human Services and Aging for many years in the State Senate. I can tell the Members that I had Governors tell me, other people tell me, ``If we could just get the Federal Government off of our backs, we could do better, we will do better.'' This is a difference of philosophies here. We believe that there is a better way to do things for those children than is happening today. We believe in those children, and we want to help those children, but we do not think putting on burdens from the Federal Government time and time again and increasing costs as a result of duplicate regulations is the way to do it. We would be better, we think, in going back and to allow States to do that, and allow States to do it with a certain amount of regulation. There are some good things here and we are going to look at those, but we do not want to be tied into this particular type of instruction at this point on those things that relate to children. There are some other things. We want to help pregnant women and children with disabilities. I think I have a good record of doing that. I think I will continue to do that.

Mr. HOBSON

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I turned 59 years old last week, and in an effort to remind me of the advanced age I'm reaching, one of my friends sent me a birthday card which displayed the prices of common household items in the year I was born. A gallon of gas was a dime, a new car was $600, and a new home was $6,000. My second grandchild was born recently, and I think of these prices when I consider what kind of future he will face. How much will Jameson, David, my most recent grandchild, and Katie Marie, see prices rise during their lifetime? Will the country still be a place of opportunity? Will there still be a thriving economy to support their generation? When I think about the answers to these questions, it becomes increasingly clear to me that the best thing I can do for my new grandchild is to vote ``yes'' on the reconciliation package. When they look back on this day, our own children and grandchildren will judge us--and judge us harshly--if we fail to do our duty, if we continue to rob future generations because we do not have enough backbone to control our spending in this Chamber. Every time we deficit-spend we are refusing to take responsibility for our actions. We know what needs to be done, we should follow through with what we know is right. Many constituents I've talked to have had concerns about specific programs they benefit from, but without fail, they also remind me to follow through with the promise to balance the budget. People are willing to accept the changes necessary to preserve our country's fiscal security, but they want us to make sure that what we do is fair, and that we follow through on our commitment to balance the budget. What we do in this bill impacts the full scope of Federal spending. It engages everyone in the task of balancing the budget. I know there are many here today whose parochial interests lead them to declare this plan unfair. To those people I ask them to consider this: Is it fair to take the money, future, and opportunity from generations of Americans who aren't even born yet, who don't have representation yet? That's what we do when we deficit-spend and run up the debt. Someone pays and it isn't those of us in this room, it is our children and grandchildren who trust us to look out for them. Protect our children's and grandchildren's future, ensure a future of opportunity, hold Government to the same balanced budget standards of families and businesses: pass reconciliation.

Mr. HOBSON

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. HOBSON

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the fiscal year 1996 Defense appropriations conference report. This agreement provides $243 billion for the Department of Defense including $69 billion for military personnel, $81.5 billion for operation and maintenance, and $44.4 billion for procurement. Total funding is $746 million less than the House-passed bill and $1.7 billion more than enacted in fiscal year 1995. As the No. 2 member of the Budget Committee, I can confirm that the Defense appropriations conference report is in line with the balanced budget priorities we established in the budget resolution. There should be no fiscal objection to this conference agreement. It is one which everybody can support. As a member of the conference committee, I can attest that the House conferees stood up for the priorities established in the House bill, especially the military readiness and quality of life improvements which our servicemen and women deserve. Readiness is funded at $647 million more than the President's request and quality of life improvements are funded at $332 million more than the President's request. These increases are responsible and needed to cover our Nation's legitimate military requirements. This is a conference report which protects the troops who protect us. It has my wholehearted support and should have the support of all my colleagues as well.

Mr. HOBSON

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the bill.

Mr. HOBSON

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, my substitute amendment would require that any Federal training be, first, related to employee productivity and effectiveness; second, be appropriate for the workplace; third, provide advanced notification of the content and methods to be used in the training; and fourth, grant employees an opt-out if they raise religious or moral reasons for the training. The Packard-Dornan amendment reacts to methods and abuses in training programs that I agree with, but I think it goes too far. It is so restrictive that it results in incomplete information being presented Federal employees that they need. One person could kill an entire program. Let me be clear that my substitute addresses these legitimate concerns about abuse in training programs and prevents them in the future. However, instead of prohibiting certain types of information, my substitute allows it, provided that it meets certain strict qualifications. First, it must be workplace specific, and second it must improve the effectiveness of the Federal employees, two requirements which should be the centerpiece of any Federal training programs. In the Ohio Senate I sponsored a bill that established a lot of health care protocols for treating persons who were affected with the AIDS virus. A big part of that piece of legislation was education. I believe education is very necessary in the prevention of the transmission of certain diseases. From this experience, though, I also learned and understand the intense emotion that surrounds this issue, but this is a health issue that we need to discuss and not hide from. Just because there has been abuse in training programs, we should not use that as leverage to penalize people by not allowing appropriate education. We should not use that as leverage to withhold training, and we should not use that as leverage to prevent health care education. I think the pendulum is swinging too far, certainly. Training abuses were part of a pendulum that swung too far in the wrong direction. I think the Packard-Dornan amendment swung too far in the other direction. I think my substitute stakes out a responsive middle ground tradition. Let us not narrow training programs so far that important information is prohibited, but let us narrow them, one, so they are workplace specific and, two, improve the effectiveness of Federal employees. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment as a substitute for the amendment.

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes, the balance of my time. First of all, under my amendment, the course must be workplace- specific, it must improve the effectiveness of the Federal employees. I do not want to lose sight of that. That is, I think, a common ground that needs to be addressed here. What I think is also important is that in the opt-out provision, each individual that wants to can opt out without killing the program for the rest of the people who may wish to get the training. I think the Packard amendment is deficient in the fact that it does not allow the training or the understanding of how this disease is transmitted. I think that is a very important message that needs to be sent across this country to save people's lives. This is a design to treat all people the same, and it is designed to try to save lives. It is trying to get to the people that need the appropriate training. I do not believe that the Packard amendment, however well meaning it is, does that. I think I agree with those who say that there have been wrong programs in this and wrong things have been done, and I applaud the gentleman from California [Mr. Packard] for trying to get at that, and I voted for his original amendment. But after looking at it, I thought it was deficient and this was a better way to go about it, and that is why I put up this amendment with this type of language in it so that we can save people's lives and see that they get the appropriate training. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.