Jim Kolbe

Mr. KOLBE

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps).

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. The committee has the right to close.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, let me use the closing moments to correct a couple of things that were said. There was a statement made by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner) and I do appreciate his statements about the support that the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), my ranking member, and I have given over the years to Israel because we certainly strongly support the Israeli state in not only its creation but its protection and its security. The gentleman made the statement that we would not think of funding NGOs in some countries, the gentleman said something like Iran, and I would add we do have NGOs that we work with in countries like Iran and Zimbabwe and other countries like that. We work with NGOs because there we can be sure the money is not flowing into the government. That is exactly what we are doing here with funds for the Palestinian people. This money goes to projects. It does not go to the Palestinian Authority. The gentleman made the statement, he said we should provide these funds incrementally. We should spend the money in increments. But the fact of the matter is the gentleman's amendments would not allow you to do that. The gentleman's amendment says none of the funds may be spent in the West Bank or in the Gaza area. So even if they did comply with all of the requirements, none of the money still could be spent. So there is no way that you could possibly reword this. Yes, the gentleman is right that we have had high hopes after other discussions after the Oslo agreement and after the Wye Accords. We had high hopes at that time and they have been dashed. But the money that we allocated at that time, none of that was ever given to the Palestinian Authority. It was given in terms of projects of what we wanted to do to try to provide the carrot. It may not have worked but it was not money that was lost either. So the gentleman is simply saying that we have less confidence in this new Palestinian Authority leadership than we did in the leadership of Arafat. That certainly makes no sense whatsoever. For us to deny any of these funds to be used to help bring about a peaceful settlement now would be absolutely the wrong thing for us to do. I would urge my colleagues to reject this amendment. We have good reporting requirements in the legislation. We have restrictions on how funding can be used. It cannot go to the Palestinian Authority. It goes for projects. It goes through NGOs. But we want to send the right signal, the right signal to Israel, and the right signal to Palestinians, that we believe together they can work to achieve a peaceful settlement. Then the U.S. we will be there as a partner in achieving this peaceful settlement. I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment so that peace may have a chance of coming to the Middle East. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. KOLBE

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that debate on this amendment, and any amendments thereto, be limited to 10 minutes, to be equally divided and controlled by the proponent and myself, the opponent.

Mr. KOLBE. If the gentleman will yield, of his 5 minutes, that is correct.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the gentleman's amendment, and since the gentleman from Texas has already spoken, I do not know whether he intends to speak again before I make the point of order or whether he is prepared to go forward at this time.

Mr. KOLBE. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I make the point of order, as the chairman of the full committee has said on several occasions. I am more than sympathetic. He is more than sympathetic to some of these amendments. I especially feel that way with this amendment, given the fact that it deals with something that is very dear to me, the issue of border security. However, I would make a point of order against the amendment which is not the humdrum of little technicalities. This is the rules of the House. It proposes to change existing law and constitutes legislation in an appropriation bill and, therefore, violates clause 2 of rule XXI. The rule states in pertinent part that an amendment to a general appropriation bill shall not be in order if in changing existing law it gives affirmative direction in effect. This amendment would do that, and I ask for a ruling from the Chair.

Mr. KOLBE. That is correct. When you make the unanimous consent request, it is all amendments to this amendment.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I have looked at the amendment, and I understand what the gentlewoman is talking about, what her intentions or how it would be used in the Tsunami Recovery Fund. It does not, of course, specifically provide for that, and I am prepared to accept this amendment if the gentlewoman would be willing to move the discussion along as quickly as possible.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman, I really do not understand the need for this amendment that is offered by the gentleman from New York. Surely as he knows, there are not any funds in this bill for Saudi Arabia in the foreign operations chapter. Additionally, there are reporting requirements to ensure that the funds are spent exactly as the committee intends. We do not intend that any of the funds should go to Saudi Arabia. So the gentleman from New York is incorrect when he says this is similar to the legislation that was passed last year on the regular appropriation bill. There was some money in last year's bill that went to Saudi Arabia. This bill does not have any money for Saudi Arabia, so it is completely unnecessary. It is a gratuitous kind of amendment. It is an absolute slap in the face to everybody that has been involved. The gentleman himself has talked about the changes that have taken place in Saudi Arabia. When there is no money in this bill, for us to include this kind of provision is not only absolutely unnecessary; it is completely wrong. I would also point out, as I just mentioned, that we included the prohibition in the 2005 regular appropriation bill. Section 575 of Public Law 108-447 states: ``None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available pursuant to that act shall be obligated or expended to finance any assistance to Saudi Arabia.'' The prohibition that is in that legislation extends to the fiscal year 2005 supplemental bills. Supplemental legislation includes appropriations that are added on top of the regular appropriations. So the underlying prohibition also applies here. There are no funds in this bill that could be used for Saudi Arabia. This is simply repeating something that has already been added into the regular legislation. The gentleman from New York is simply wrong when he says that the President could come and reprogram funds for Saudi Arabia. The underlying prohibition would prohibit that. The administration can reprogram funds, but they cannot reprogram them to spend them in Saudi Arabia. The gentleman is simply wrong about that. I am sure the gentleman is aware of these facts and I am sure he is aware, as he has pointed out, of how helpful Saudi Arabia has been very recently in helping to defuse the situation in Lebanon, the very direct statements that were made to President Assad about how his troops should depart from Lebanon. If the gentleman wants to make his statement, fine, I would encourage him to do so; but the appropriation bills include the substance of what is in his amendment; and since there is no money in this bill for Saudi Arabia, this amendment is not only redundant, it is unnecessary, it is a slap in the face, it is just simply absolutely wrong for us to do this. I strongly urge the defeat of this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I strongly oppose this amendment. I think most of my colleagues know that there were at least 225,000, maybe many more than that, people who were killed in the countries affected by the December 2004 tsunami, most particularly Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and other countries as well. There were 1.1 million displaced persons, 1.1 million displaced persons. This is a disaster and it is an emergency. The President has outlined a recovery plan. This amendment, although it does not strike the dollars, makes funding ineligible to be spent for these purposes. Some of these funds would go to reimburse accounts already depleted, USAID accounts, emergency disaster relief accounts, that have been previously spent. So it is very important that we retain those accounts and that we retain the money for those. The rest of the funds are for a reconstruction plan that has been I think fairly well thought out. It is not, I do not think, extraordinary given the size of the catastrophe that we have experienced, $340 million to rebuild infrastructure, roads, ports, bridges, water treatment plants and a signature project which would be the construction of a 250 kilometer stretch of road from the capital, Banda Aceh, at the north end of Sumatra down the west coast to Meulaboh in Indonesia. This road is the only link that these little communities that are utterly devastated and destroyed by the tsunami--this road is the only link that these communities will have with the outside world. These reconstruction projects needs to get under way immediately. Until that happens, the only contact, the only way to get relief supplies to these little valleys which on the back side has a very high ridge of mountains and no access by road, the only way to get supplies to them is by air or by sea, a very expensive project. The road needs to be constructed. I think it is an emergency and I believe most of my colleagues would agree with that. The U.S. has had a history of responding in a very compassionate way to disasters wherever they occur, here in the United States and also abroad, and I believe that this compassion is something that marks Americans and makes us who we are. And I would certainly hope that my colleagues would agree that these funds are a relatively small amount of money, given the total level of devastation of the disaster there, a relatively small amount of money to help this area recover and to replenish the money that was already spent in relief. Mr. Chairman, I would urge my colleagues to defeat this amendment.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, can the gentlewoman clarify which amendment we are talking about here?

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I think I heard the reading of two amendments. Which one are we on here at this point? Are we on the one that is $3 million or the one that was the larger one that I heard read first?

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. KOLBE. Is that the one we are considering? Is that the understanding of the Chair?

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I am now clear which amendment we are talking about. I appreciate the gentlewoman yielding for that purpose.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I want to congratulate the gentleman on this, his first bill to be brought to the floor of the House of Representatives. I think it is indicative of the good work that he and his staff are doing. Mr. Chairman, I want to talk about the funding of programs that are under the jurisdiction of the subcommittee that I chair, that is, the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs. It totals $2.7 billion. However, approximately $1 billion of that is offset with a cut to previously appropriated funds. The remaining $1.75 billion is provided as emergency spending and includes $656 million for tsunami recovery. The committee's overall recommendation for all the programs under the jurisdiction of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs is $1.2 billion less than the President requested. However, with the $1 billion offset, less than half of the President's request will impact the Federal deficit. Let me say once again that I do strongly support the objectives that the President seeks to achieve with this request as it relates to Afghanistan, the Middle East, the Ukraine and the tsunami-devastated areas of Asia. But I did tell Chairman Lewis that I would scrutinize this request, and the result of that scrutiny is what is before the Members today. We have assigned the highest priority to programs that can be implemented and executed during 2005 and that are not likely to be funded by other donors. The resulting recommendation is a balanced approach to supporting the President's request and provides much-needed emergency appropriations to further the fight against terror and provide disaster assistance. Let me explain further the recommendation for the programs under the foreign operations jurisdiction. We broke the President's request down into three different categories. The first includes programs that are true emergencies, such as replenishment of funds that were reprogrammed previously for tsunami disaster assistance and poppy eradication in Afghanistan, funds for the humanitarian crisis in Darfur and in Asia, and funds to train Afghan police, funds that are necessary to improve conditions that would enable us to bring our troops home as soon as possible. Total emergency spending under this first category is $1.75 billion, as I already indicated. The second category of funds includes those programs requested by the President that we have determined to not be an emergency, but are important to U.S. leadership abroad. Additionally, this category includes reconstruction resources to stabilize and improve conditions in Afghanistan and the Middle East which support our efforts to bring our troops home, funds to support the democratic movement and government in Ukraine, and funds for programs in the West Bank and Gaza. We have provided $995 million in this second category of nonemergency spending and have offset these funds with the rescission of prior foreign assistance appropriations, specifically funds that were appropriated for Turkey in the fiscal year 2003 supplemental bill. I think my colleagues recognize that we are faced with unique opportunities in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Our leadership can have positive influence in both the West Bank and Gaza, in Ukraine, in Indonesia and Sri Lanka and, of course, in Afghanistan. I saw a press report recently from Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, that showed that the backing for Osama bin Laden had dropped from 58 percent in 2003 to 23 percent today. I believe part of that is due to the efficiency and the generosity of U.S. relief efforts after the December tsunami. As chairman of the Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs Subcommittee, I am repeatedly reminded of how much we as a nation do each year to provide disaster assistance and relief. It is encouraging to know that at least one important Muslim country has started to take notice. Finally, the last category includes programs requested by the administration that we determined were less urgent and could be considered in the 2006 budget process. This category totals $1.2 billion in funding and includes fiscal year 2006 operating costs of our programs overseas and large construction projects that can either wait for consideration or would have a possible revenue stream, making them ideal projects for World Bank and Asian Development Bank funding. These programs total $616 million for Afghanistan, $200 million for the new Global War on Terror Partners Fund, the new $200 million Solidarity Fund, and $45 million in debt relief for countries affected by the December tsunami. Let me say that the funds we are providing in the foreign assistance chapter must be considered an investment in security both in the region and on American soil. It is also a responsibility to our future. We must not be faced 20 years in the future with the knowledge that we looked at the opportunities of a Taliban-free Afghan government, a democracy-oriented government in the Ukraine, a Middle East craving freedom and representative government, only to turn away and leave them to their own meager means with no U.S. influence. Mr. Chairman, I urge that this legislation be adopted. I believe that this is a good bill and a well written one.

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

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I just want to clarify one point the gentleman from Massachusetts made about the $8.8 billion, and I just think we Members need to understand we are talking about funds that came not from the United States taxpayers, but those $8.8 billion are funds from the Iraqi fund, which was Iraqi dinars that had been collected as a result of oil sales. It was a chaotic situation at the end of the war, as we all know, and ministries had collapsed. There was no communication. There were no accounting systems. The bureaucrats had not functioned for years. It was very difficult, at the very best, to know how to handle those in the very best way. It was really a choice of whether or not we were going to get the projects done as quickly as possible and get the country functioning again. So I think, to me, the choice was fairly clear. I just want to make people understand we are not talking about U.S. dollars when we talk about the 8.8.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. As the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson) knows, I spoke in committee against this amendment which was then part of a larger amendment and these two were combined at that point. I made the point that I was not at all sure that this additional money was needed in Darfur, Sudan in light of the amount of money that is already in the 2005 bill and the amount of money that is in the supplemental for this region. However, I understand the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson) feels very strongly about this. He and I traveled together to the Darfur region. We saw the terrible, terrible suffering that the people there are going through. We are in complete agreement on our need to take every step that we can to provide not only for a peaceful solution in the area, but also to provide for humanitarian relief for the people who live in that region, and therefore I am prepared today with concurrence of the chairman of the committee to accept this en bloc amendment, and we will take a very good look at this in the conference with the Senate and see where we are at that point. We will be a little bit further down the road and have some time to get a better handle on this at that point. I again want to commend the gentleman for his commitment, his dedication, his passion in offering this amendment today.

Mr. KOLBE

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. KOLBE

Mr. KOLBE. I thank the gentleman again for his comments. The gentleman is a bit younger than I am. I am afraid I got ahead of the baby boomers on this.

Mr. KOLBE. One of the few left around here. Mr. Speaker, I agree with what my colleague has just said, and I think he is exactly on target. We do need to be thinking about all the different ways in which we could fix this. Certainly taxes is one of the ways we can fix this. Certainly we can do some reduction of benefits. But, really, if you think about it, there are really only three ways you can have a fix or do something to really reform Social Security. One is increase the revenues. That is increase the amount of taxes you collect; whether you increase the amount of wages subject to the taxation, or whether you raise the rate of taxation, that is the rate of the Social Security tax we are paying today. The second, of course, is to make some reductions in the benefits. You can make the reductions for future retirees, or whatever, what ever other retirees we are talking about. But you can reduce the benefits. The third thing is to increase the rate of return on the investment. And that really gets us to the personal accounts, which I want to talk about in just a moment. But before I do, I thought maybe it might be useful for us to talk a little bit about the town halls that I have been holding, and I know a number of my colleagues have been holding about Social Security. Of course, for me, having had a proposal, a complete proposal introduced in Congress for the last 8 years, and having been talking about this for at least the last 10 years on the floor of this House and in every single town hall I have done, we have been talking about this. And I am talking about in my retirement communities, where everyone who comes to the town hall is 65 and over, I have been talking about this for a long, long time. So I am not fazed by the fact that a handful of people show up at my most recent town hall and they are, well, let us say fairly vitriolic. They have a few unkind words to say because they have not been there before. And I know these people are coming as a result of some e-mails that were received from different organizations. But by and large, the vast majority of the people that have come to my town halls during this last recess that we had were interested in seriously hearing about the nature of the problem and what kind of fixes we could have. I think on that score, by the way, the President has won the first round of this battle. My colleagues on the other side that want to deny that there is a problem have lost that battle. Because the polls now show by an overwhelming margin that the American people do think there is a problem with Social Security, and they think Congress needs to fix it, and they think it needs to be the highest priority of Congress to strengthen Social Security. So we have reached over that first hurdle. Okay, there is a problem. Now, let us get to talking about what are the solutions. What are the things we might do that could make Social Security a better program for the future. Coming back to my town halls, I just wanted to share this one story. And I do not know if the gentleman from Minnesota has some others that he might want to share, some of the experiences he has had in talking about this, but I had a town hall down in Sierra Vista, which is one of the communities in my district. There is a large military facility down there and we talked about Social Security for 1 hour of the meeting. I had two women who came up to me after the town hall was over and they both said they were Democrats. And they said they had come to the meeting as a result of an e-mail they had gotten and they had come opposed to reform and very much opposed to the concept of personal accounts. But after hearing the facts and the data, and we did have a real debate because there were plenty of people in the audience that were trying to dispute the things I was saying, so we had a real discussion about it. But they said after hearing the facts, the data, and the reason why reform is essential, they told me they were supporters of the concept of personal accounts, and that they were going to go away and explain to their Democratic friends why personal accounts are necessary and why we really ought to be doing something to reform Social Security now. So I say that there is no doubt that if we talk about this issue with our constituents, with the people we represent at home, I think there is no doubt that they will understand that there is a need to do something to strengthen it. I think there is still a lot of uncertainty about what the reform should be. How should we fix it? How should we make it better? How should we strengthen it? But I think there is a growing awareness that we do have a real problem there. Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to yield again to the gentleman.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I take the time this evening to rise on a subject that we have just heard a great deal about this last hour, and I certainly invite my colleagues from the Democratic side to stay around. I would be happy to yield part of my time to them so maybe we could begin this dialogue that we heard about in the last hour that is much needed here because I do believe that we do need to have a dialogue. I have actually been conducting a dialogue on this for a long time. 10 years ago, 10 years ago this spring, Congressman Charlie Stenholm of Texas and I formed the Public Pension Reform Caucus in the House of Representatives to begin to educate members of the House and the American public and staff here in the House about some of the issues, the looming issues of Social Security. Ten years ago it was as obvious as it is today or perhaps today it is even more obvious, but it was obvious even then because of the demographics that we were facing a problem with Social Security. And we thought that it was time for us to start addressing and to talk about what ought to be done. So tonight we are here to talk about strengthening Social Security. I heard the word ``gutting'' Social Security used by the other side a few minutes ago. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing could be more like gutting Social Security than to do absolutely nothing. That truly is the way to hollow out Social Security and say to the next generation and the generations that follow that there will not be Social Security. But there is a way that we can strengthen Social Security, make sure that that benefit is there for the women and children that we heard about here, for the low-income person, for the retiree that does not have much else. We can make sure that it is there. We can do it by coming together, reasoning together and making some suggestions and ideas, coming up with ideas about how we can strengthen Social Security, how we can protect it for the future, how we can protect it for current retirees and how we can make sure that the next generations of retirees have a Social Security benefit. Now, it is not certainly just our side on the aisle that has been talking about this. We seem to agree on this idea that there is a problem. And even before we began this discussion this year on this, I am delighted to see that there are previous high-ranking Democrats that have been talking about this. President Clinton in 1998 talked about Social Security and said that, Of all of these achievements, the economic achievements, and our increasing social coherence and cohesion, our increasing efforts to reduce poverty among our younger generation, all of them are threatened by the looming fiscal crisis in Social Security. That is 7 years ago. President Clinton identified that there was a looming fiscal crisis in Social Security. He did not say Social Security was in danger of going away. He did not say Social Security was in danger of being gutted. He said there was a fiscal crisis, and that is exactly what we face today. It was a cash-flow crisis. Senator Hillary Clinton while she was still first lady, she said that one of the most critical challenges of our time is preserving and strengthening Social Security for future generations. That is exactly what we are talking about here tonight. We are talking about how can we make sure that Social Security is preserved for those who need it today, how can we make sure it is strengthened for those who will need it in the next generations. That is precisely what we are talking about. Now, we will look a little bit at some of the dimensions of the problem as to why we do have a problem. And by the way, problem, crisis: there is a lot of talk around here. It is not a crisis. In fact, we are hearing it is not a problem at all. Obviously, President Clinton did not agree with that. Obviously, Senator Clinton did not agree with that. I have never used the term ``crisis,'' but it is a problem. You know what happens when you have a problem and you do not do something about it: it becomes a crisis. If you ignore it, the problem becomes a crisis. It is not a crisis today, but we can see the crisis looming in the future. And I can tell you from having introduced the only bipartisan and the only comprehensive Social Security reform bill for these last 8 years, that Former Congressman Stenholm and I introduced and the current Congressman, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd), and I have introduced it this year, still a bipartisan bill that covers every detail of strengthening Social Security. I can tell you that if you do not work on strengthening and if you do not work on fixing it now, it becomes more difficult in the future. Every 2 years when we introduce our bill in the next Congress, we have to go back, of course, and recalculate the figures for the fact that 2 years have passed by, the demographics have changed a bit, and it becomes more difficult. It becomes more expensive. It becomes more costly. It becomes harder for the next generation, and it becomes harder for the current generations. What is the problem? What is the basic problem that we have in Social Security? It is a problem of demographics, that people are living longer. We have more people who are retiring. They are living a longer life. And at the other end we have families that are smaller. They are being started later. And so we have fewer people coming into the workforce. I have heard here this evening the talk about how this is a social insurance program. It is social insurance. It is social insurance, but the insurance program, the insurance that we have here is a contract between generations because Social Security, and let us make no mistake about this. If we do nothing else this evening, I hope we can convey one thought: Social Security is a pay-as-you-go program. Taxes are collected today that are paid out in benefits at the end of the month. The contract is between generations, that when the next generation gets ready to retire that there will be somebody there to pay their benefits. Let me go through this chart and let me yield to my distinguished colleague here because this is the fundamental problem that we face. In 1950, there were 16 workers paying their taxes for every single person that was receiving Social Security benefits, 16 people working, for every one receiving their benefits. Today there is only 3, 3\1/3\ people working for every one that is receiving their benefits. When the younger workers retire in 20 years, that is not so young actually, but when people start retiring in 20 years, there will only be two workers that are going to be paying for the taxes for every single beneficiary. That is two people are going to have to pay their taxes each month to equal the benefit that is going to one retiree. That is a huge tax that people are going to have to pay. The reason is quite simple, as we just said. All the baby boomers begin retiring in the year 2008, and then we have those people living a lot longer, and a smaller number of people coming into the workforce to cover those taxes. That is the essence of the problem that we have got. That is why working together here, Republicans and Democrats, both sides of the aisle here, we need to work together to find a way to strengthen Social Security, to make sure that it is strengthened for the next generation, that we preserve it for the current retirees, but that the young people will have some hope that there will be something there for them. I know the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kline) has worked very hard on this issue. I know he has conducted some town halls, which I want to talk about some that I have done recently; and I would like to yield to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kline).