Daniel Inouye

Mr. INOUYE

Mr. INOUYE. Madam President, I have been advised by the Senator from Oklahoma that we have had enough debate. Therefore, I move to table amendment No. 4232 and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. INOUYE. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. INOUYE. Madam President, the Senator from Oklahoma feels we have had enough debate, so we will not debate this further. I move to table amendment No. 4231, as modified. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. INOUYE

Mr. INOUYE. Madam President, it was not my intention to rise, but after listening to the remarks of the Senator from North Carolina, I felt it obligatory that I say something to clarify the record. I think it is well that we review a bit of the history of World War II. On July 26, 1941, the President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, invited the Filipinos, issued a military order, and said: Join our forces in the Far East. If you do, at the end of the war you will be entitled to, well, apply for citizenship and receive all the benefits of a veteran of the United States. That was a promise made by the President of the United States in March of 1942. After going through the horror of Bataan and Corregidor, the Congress of the United States passed a law doing exactly that: authorizing Filipinos who wished to be naturalized to do so; and upon naturalization, a receipt of citizenship, they were entitled to all the benefits. Madam President, 470,000 volunteered, and many died as we know. Most of the men who marched in the Bataan Death March were not Americans; they were Filipinos. But then, when the war ended, we did send one member of the Immigration and Naturalization Service to Manila to take applications for citizenship. Before he settled down, he was recalled back to Washington. The Congress of the United States, in March of 1946, repealed that law, denying the Filipinos and reneging on the promise we made. When I took the oath as a soldier in World War II, after the oath, the company commander told me there are three words that are precious: ``duty,'' ``honor,'' and ``country.'' Duty to your country, never dishonor the country. Show your love for your country. Well, in this case, it should be apparent to all of us what we did was not right. We made a promise. We were honor bound to those men who served and got wounded. The emergency is very simple: they are dying by the dozens each day. They are old men. Their average age is 87. They do not have too many months left in their lives. That is why it is in this supplemental bill. If we wait another year, who knows how many will be left? I just wanted the record to be clear this is a matter of honor. We should uphold our promises. We are complaining to other countries when they violate a little portion of a treaty. This was a promise made by Congress and the President of the United States, and we reneged soon after the war. It is so obvious. Would we have done that to other countries? Madam President, I am glad it is not coming up for a vote because I think it would be a sad day if we voted it down. I yield the floor.

Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the remaining votes in this sequence be limited to 10 minutes each.

Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the previous order be modified to provide that amendments Nos. 4184, as modified, and 4213 as modified not be withdrawn.

Mr. INOUYE. Pursuant to the order, I call up the managers' package, which is at the desk.

Mr. INOUYE. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, on May 7, Secretary Shinseki sent a letter informing me that the Department underestimated the number of eligible Filipino veterans, especially those who have become U.S. citizens, in calculating the amount needed for this program. More than 42,000 applications were received. Based on the actual applications received before the deadline, the Department has recalculated the estimates and identified a shortfall of $67 million. The provision included in this supplemental does not cost a dime. It simply allows any savings, currently unobligated and not assigned to any ongoing project, which the VA realizes is the result of a favorable contract environment, to be transferred to the Filipino Veterans Equity Compensation Fund and/or retained for authorized major medical facility projects of the Department of Veterans Affairs. It does not mandate this transfer. It simply gives the VA the flexibility should the Department want to transfer the funds for these purposes. Just a reminder: In July of 1941 President Roosevelt invited the Filipinos to volunteer and join the American forces, and 470,000 volunteered. In March of 1942 this Congress passed a law stating that Filipinos who volunteered may, after the war, apply for citizenship and receive all the benefits of American citizenship. In March of 1946 this Congress reneged and repealed that law. We must fulfill this commitment the country made to the Filipino veterans who fought so bravely under our command because to deny the VA authority to transfer to this account would renege on our commitment and would send a dangerous signal that the Senate may not honor past and future commitments to veterans. Is the amendment up for consideration?

Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up my amendment No. 4299.

Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, the Senator from Rhode Island is correct about the intent of the funding provided here. As the Senator knows, the Appropriations Committee's capacity to provide additional funding for disaster recovery is constrained by the President's top-line number for emergency supplemental appropriations. Given the relatively modest funding available in comparison to previous disaster supplemental appropriations bills, the intent is to focus CDBG and EDA assistance on Rhode Island and Tennessee, where the underlying economic need is greatest. We will work to clarify and maintain that position during conference with the House.

Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Tennessee for his comments, and we will continue to work with him and the Senator from Rhode Island to help address the needs of their States.

Mr. INOUYE

Mr. INOUYE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. INOUYE. Madam President, the Senator from Oklahoma has proposed two amendments, both of which are designed to offset the cost of the supplemental bill before us. He argues that the Nation needs to find ways to use existing funds to meet these needs. He even argues that some of the items were not unforeseen and, therefore, do not qualify as emergencies. I would respond, do not tell the people of Rhode Island and Tennessee that the floods in their States are not emergencies. I would say any of us watching television are aware of the emergency which is occurring now on the gulf coast. I would even say those in Oklahoma whose forests and towns have been damaged by tornadoes are aware of what an emergency is. The Senator suggested we should not declare the cost of war as an emergency since we have known about the costs of war since September 11, 2001. I would remind the Senator and my colleagues that the current administration did its best to foresee the costs of war and included funding for those costs as part of its budget request, and the Congress acted to meet these needs. But circumstances change. The deteriorating conditions in Afghanistan led our military leaders to recommend, and the President to conclude, that we needed to increase our forces in Afghanistan. The funds in this bill are that unforeseen portion of the cost of war. For someone to argue they do not qualify as an emergency is most unfortunate. The Senator suggests we should cut unobligated balances. Several others have suggested we should cut from the stimulus bill. Nearly every dollar remaining in the stimulus bill has been committed to a particular project if not yet obligated. If we look at what is left, the largest item that is unobligated at the moment is for high-speed rail--approximately $7.9 billion--but those funds have been awarded to specific projects. We know where the funds are going, and they will all be awarded on contracts soon. There is some $6 billion in unobligated Pell grant funding. But that amount is already assumed in the fiscal year 2011 budget. We already have a $5.7 billion shortfall in this great scholarship funding program. If we rescind this $6 billion, we will need to find nearly $12 billion in fiscal year 2011 to meet the shortfall. More than $6 billion remains available to pay the States for fiscal stabilization. Thirty-four States have written budgets assuming these funds would be available to them. States such as Texas are scheduled to receive more than $1 billion of this amount. These funds are unobligated, but that does not mean they are not wanted. More than $4 billion remains unobligated for education reform. The funds are ready for award and will be obligated in the next 4 months. Is this the program we want to stop? Several Senators have proposed specifically rescinding funds from the Recovery Act. Senator Coburn also suggests this is one possible area of savings. Well, unless we want to cut the programs I have listed above, there are no funds to rescind from the stimulus bill. The Senator from Oklahoma is indiscriminate in his suggestion we cut unexpended balances. Let me say this to my colleagues, in a trillion dollar discretionary budget, we better hope we have unobligated balances because if we did not, we would be terminating government services with a third of the year still remaining to be funded. For example, there would be no one to send out Social Security checks, no one to keep our national parks open, and no funds to maintain a terrorist watch list or fight our wars. But unobligated does not mean unneeded. On Monday, I noted we have $8.3 billion in unobligated balances in the Joint Strike Fighter Program, but the Senator does not say what programs he would propose for the bulk of the cuts he is mandating. In one amendment, he says, do not cut defense spending. In the other, it is, do not cut veterans funding. I share that sentiment, but if we are talking about cutting discretionary funding, the large unobligated balances are in the Defense Department. As of last month, the Defense Department had nearly $400 billion in unobligated balances. There are plenty of unobligated balances to pay for the supplemental. But what sense does it make to cut defense spending so we can increase funds to cover the cost of war? Even the Senator seemingly agrees it would make no sense. The $80 billion rescission authority in the Senator's amendment is virtually unworkable. In fiscal year 2010, the Federal funds unobligated balances, excluding the Defense Department and the Veterans' Administration, are about $597 billion. More than half of that--$330 billion--is unobligated balances for Treasury which are mostly financing mechanisms such as credit reform balances. These cannot be rescinded. That leaves only about $267 billion for the $80 billion of proposed rescissions. Nearly one-third of the funds available to continue government operations for the remainder of the fiscal year would have to be eliminated. And, under the amendment, the Congress would defer to the unelected OMB Director to determine where to make the cuts. Not only is this a terrible concept, it is an abrogation of our responsibility to make spending decisions for the Nation. And, you can be sure, were we to adopt this amendment, the first thing to be cut would be congressional priorities. It is always easy to suggest we should cut unobligated balances, or waste, fraud, and abuse, or someone else's earmarks. What is much harder to identify is specific programs which should be cut. By way of example, if we cut funding for NOAA, it will mean reducing our capabilities to track the devastating oil spill washing up on our gulf coast communities at this moment. Slashing unobligated funding would curtail the efforts to restore wetlands and beaches that are vital to the environment and the local economy and to our fishermen who are banned from fishing, evidenced by the fishing disaster just declared by Secretary Locke. In the case of homeland security, most of the unobligated balances which remain available are for acquisitions such as the national security cutter, aircraft for border security, border station construction, explosive detection equipment for our airports, radiation portal monitors, and border technology such as sensors, cameras, and x- ray machines. This amendment would force us to curtail spending on these programs at the same time other Senators are urging the Senate to increase funding for them. The Senator's two amendments fall short in identifying reasonable offsets for the cost of these bills. Does this body want to penalize all civil servants by not allowing any cost-of-living adjustment for the coming year? Do we want to encourage our most skilled workers to leave Federal service because their pay, which already doesn't match the employment cost index when comparing similar jobs in the private sector, would be frozen? What sense does it make to encourage our best workers to quit? That is not good management. Few successful private enterprises would suggest freezing pay for all their workers. There are items that I believe have merit in the Senator's proposal, and I hope the committee can work with him as we move forward into fiscal year 2011 to identify them. Cutting overhead and saving funding through taxpayer compliance are good ideas which I know our appropriations subcommittees share. The government should rid itself of excess real property, and it should be encouraged to do so. But to set an arbitrary target of cutting $15 billion seems unrealistic, unwarranted, and unwise. All my colleagues should be advised that it is very difficult to make significant reductions in spending 7 months into the fiscal year. At this point, we have made commitments to our agencies, and they, in turn, have made commitments to contractors and grant recipients. No, they haven't spent all their funding for the entire fiscal year, but nor do they have large unneeded balances that can be reapplied to cover the cost of emergent requirements. If the Senate were to agree to cut $100 billion from the legislative budget at this juncture, the Congress would have two choices: lay off our staffs so that we are unable to meet the legislative demands of the institution or stop work on maintenance. The Architect of the Capitol, Mr. Stephen Ayers, just testified that the Capitol Complex faces a growing backlog of deferred maintenance projects totaling over $1.6 billion which must be funded in the near future. Many of these projects are fire- and life-safety related. The Architect has received numerous citations about the urgency of the needed repairs to the aging infrastructure in the historical buildings within our complex. The Russell, Cannon, Capitol, and the Thomas Jefferson Library of Congress buildings are all in violation of current fire safety codes. The longer this work is delayed, the more it will ultimately cost. Each year, the Appropriations Legislative Branch Subcommittee attempts to whittle away at this backlog by funding a handful of these projects in the annual appropriations bill. So we could cut $100 million from the legislative budget, but it would be penny wise and pound foolish, as the old adage says. One suggestion made by the Senator from Oklahoma is to cut the administrative expenses of the Federal agencies by 5 percent. Again, it is an idea that sounds good. Surely every bureaucracy can be cut back. I would note that on the Appropriations Committee, we look for such cuts every year, but setting arbitrary targets would be irresponsible. For example, in the case of the State Department and the USAID, which lost large percentages of their professional staff during the 1990s or had them transferred from Washington to other embassies in Iraq or Afghanistan after 9/11, it will exacerbate an already unsustainable situation. Some of our embassies are 20 percent short of staff. USAID is being asked to do more and more, especially in key countries such as Pakistan, without nearly half the staff to manage the funds and conduct the necessary oversight. Here are a few examples of what a 5-percent cut means. The Indian Health Service medical services would be cut by $185 million. This means 10,000 fewer inpatient admissions, 195,000 fewer dental patient visits, 55,000 fewer mental health patient visits, and 85,000 fewer public health nursing visits. The National Park Service base operations would be cut by $115 million and result in a loss of 1,130 park rangers nationwide. This would necessitate the closure of most national parks where security and health and safety maintenance could not be maintained, such as the Statue of Liberty, the Washington Monument, the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and the Yellowstone National Park. Just think of the impact of such an action as we head into the busy summer months. The American people would be incensed by such a recommendation. This amendment would cut the childhood immunization program by $25 million, preventing more than 30,000 children from being vaccinated this year.

Mr. INOUYE. Yes, I will be glad to.

Mr. INOUYE. We have looked into that, and I can assure my colleague that all the statements I have made have been verified. Further, it would eliminate childcare subsidies for 35,000 low-income children and their working families who depend on subsidies in order to be able to work. It would eliminate over 40,000 Head Start slots that provide comprehensive early childhood services to low-income children. It would more than double the number of people waiting on their disability decisions from the Social Security Administration and delay benefits for everyone waiting on a decision. It would eliminate 13 million meals for older Americans, many of whom are low income, disabled, and depend on these meals for the majority of their daily food intake. On another matter, these amendments would also arbitrarily cap voluntary payments to the United Nations by $1 billion. No matter how important to U.S. security, no matter how much our allies are contributing, no matter that our influence is often the function of how much we contribute, the amendment picks a round number out of the air and prohibits spending $1 more. Those calculations must be made program by program, agency by agency, whether for UNICEF, the World Food Programme, the International Atomic Energy Agency, or some other U.N. organization. The decisions should be based on the merits and the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States, not on some arbitrary amount proposed in this amendment. Let's stop trying to legislate by formula. If there are U.N. programs that do not deserve to be funded, I am all for cutting our contributions, but this amendment does not name a single one. Placing a cap on new Federal employees would create problems for several agencies. If Homeland Security needs to increase the number of Border Patrol agents to secure the border or the number of TSA operators to screen passengers for explosives under their clothes, does that mean we must cut the number of Secret Service agents or Coast Guard personnel or customs inspectors or FEMA personnel who are now helping to respond to disasters in Tennessee, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Mississippi? The same point can be made for the IRS and the HHS because most fraud, abuse, and waste is in the Tax Code and in Medicare. We need additional personnel to uncover this waste. For the Veterans' Administration, when the agency is seeing an increasing number of veterans suffering from complex combat-related injuries and mental health problems due to numerous deployments, this is exactly the type of government action our veterans do not need or deserve. Congress has consistently, on a bipartisan basis, increased funding for the VA to build its capacity to handle these types of disorders. This type of zero sum amendment would ensure that in order to adequately serve veterans suffering from mental health and other combat-related injuries, the VA would have to decrease its capacity to handle other services, including addressing the backlog of claims processing. This is a small point, but since the Senator chose to raise it yesterday, I wish to respond. I find it to be a clear example of the way the Senator misunderstands the work of the Appropriations Committee. In his remarks yesterday, the Senator noted that the bill includes $1.8 million for the work of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and stated that it was inappropriate to include $1.8 million in emergency funding to continue the efforts of this Commission. Several Members of this Chamber disagree with the judgment of the Senator that the Commission is unnecessary, but on one point I agree with the Senator. I share his views that the continuation of the Commission does not constitute an emergency, and for that reason, the Financial Services Subcommittee has been directed to identify an offset in discretionary funds to pay for this Commission, and they did. The cost of the Commission is fully offset with discretionary rescissions. I will reiterate what I said on Monday. The vice chairman and I worked to ensure that only emergencies were funded in this act. In the few cases where nonemergency projects were funded, we insisted that these programs be offset. This may be the first time in decades that the committee has followed such a strict policy. Collectively, it was the judgment of the members of the committee that these are, indeed, tough times and we have to be very stingy with our taxpayers' funds. But let me repeat: The fiscal crisis the country faces cannot be overcome by failing to invest in those programs which are essential to our Nation. The amendments offered by the Senator are unworkable. They represent a classic case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Should we cut the pay of our employees at the same time we are asking them to be more efficient? That makes little sense. Should we cap the number of Federal employees when demands for veterans services, border security, and ferreting out waste are on the rise? Again, in sound bites, it does sound good. But in implementing the concept, we see it is unworkable. Finally, I think the Senate should thank the Senator from Oklahoma for drawing attention to the matter that we need to do more with less. As chairman of the Appropriations Committee, I can see the belt tightening that will be required in the coming years as we get our fiscal house in order. There are elements of this proposal I intend to have our subcommittees incorporate as we move bills for fiscal year 2011. I can assure the Senator and all members of the committee that the committee will continue to stress the requirement to uncover waste and cut it. We will scrutinize all aspects of the Federal budget to identify the duplication and unnecessary spending, and we will use these savings to invest in the shortfalls the Nation faces. I urge my colleagues to reject these amendments because, on balance, they are the wrong approach to solving our Nation's emergency needs. I yield the floor.

Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INOUYE. Madam President, I thank and commend my friend for his presentation. He is one of the hardest working subcommittee chairmen of the Appropriations Committee. If I may, I wish to be a bit personal. As some of my colleagues are aware, I did put on the uniform of this land and served in a war that was fought about six decades ago--ancient times. A few things happened between that time and this war. For example, although the regiment I was privileged to serve in had about the highest casualties per capita in the European conflict, it may be hard to believe but there was not a single double amputee survivor. Today, if one goes to Walter Reed Hospital, one will see dozens of double amputees. Why? Because of high tech. For example--I am being personal now--in my case, it took 9 hours to evacuate me. Nine hours? That is a long time. But in Italy, they have hills. We had no helicopters in those days. You had to be carried by hand. As a result, no brain injuries survived and no double amputees survived. So the families did not have the problem then that they are having now. There is another big difference. For example, if I wrote a letter as a soldier in Italy, that letter was censored by my commanding officer. I could not say anything about the war. All I could say is: Italy is a beautiful place. The food is fabulous. Nothing else. You could not say that my buddy Tom was shot. What they received at home were pleasant notes. Today we have what is known as cell phones and other technology. You can communicate with your spouse every day. And these items are not censored. I have had members on my staff with husbands fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. They communicate all the time. Imagine if you are communicating with your husband in Iraq and suddenly you see that evening on CNN a program with that outfit in combat and your husband does not call you the next day. The stress disorder complex is not only hitting the GIs, it is hitting families. And now we are trying to cut VA, the Veterans' Administration, when the need is much greater? I cannot understand that. I concur with the chairman that, if anything, if we are to show appreciation and gratitude, we should not be cutting, we should be helping. I commend the Senator. I yield the floor.

Mr. INOUYE. I would say to my friend from Vermont that is correct, we intend those vetting procedures to apply to these funds. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INOUYE

Mr. INOUYE. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INOUYE. I do.

Mr. INOUYE

Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, reluctantly I object. I suggest the absence of a quorum so I may discuss this matter with Senator Collins.