Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman would yield for just a second before doing that, I also have an agreement to yield to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Wilson] on the remainder of my time. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Wilson].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, again, this amendment restores language, again through the device of a limitation which has been carried in the foreign operations bill for several years. It limits to $100 million the amount that can be spent for direct commercial contracts, except for Egypt and Israel. Its effect is to limit the extent to which countries can contract on their own for goods and services and thereby escape the oversight requirements of the Export Control Act. Mr. Chairman, it is again an anti-fraud safeguard. I attempted during debate on the bill last week to restore this language in identical form in the appropriate place in the bill, but the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman] made a point of order against the amendment because it was legislative in nature. Because I feel so strongly about the need to include this provision in the legislation, I am now offering it in the form of a limitation. Again, because of the requirement to do so in this form, its effect is slightly different than the current law, but it is my understanding that the chairman will accept the amendment. I can assure him I have no intention of changing current law, and will work with him to bring it into compliance as we meet in conference.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this amendment restores through a limitation a requirement that foreign countries agree to an outside audit as a condition of receiving FMF grants from the United States. It was included in the foreign operations bill some time ago as a result of several rather notable bribery cases involving U.S. funds and foreign officials. It is my understanding that the chairman is prepared to accept this amendment because it is drafted as a limitation. Its effect is slightly different than current law. I can assure the chairman I have no intention to change current law, and would work with him in conference to restore the language of current law in the appropriate place in the bill.

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

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from Alabama.

Mr. OBEY. Reserving the right to object, Mr. Speaker, could I simply ask the gentleman, on amendment No. 69, I confess I am not fully familiar with the contents. Is there any intention that there is going to be an amendment to amendment No. 69?

Mr. OBEY. There is no amendment? I thank the gentleman, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. When the legislature passed the bill that we are now discussing, which is, after all, effective come late 1997, when the Governor made the 1997 changes he made in that legislative product, the law was clear: The Department of Health and Social Services was supposed to review that plan after giving every citizen of the State of Wisconsin 30 days to make a comment on it. Now, much has been said about the President and the fact that it has been 8 whole days and he has not approved the waiver. The President did not say in his radio address I shall be a rubber stamp for Tommy Thompson. What he said is I am encouraged by what I have seen so far, and then he went on to say, Wisconsin has the makings of a solid, bold welfare plan and I pledge that I will work with Wisconsin to make it work. That is what he said. I would point out that the President, in 3 years, has granted 61 waivers to 38 States, including Wisconsin on a number of occasions. That, by the way, is double the number of welfare waivers approved in the entire 12 years that Ronald Reagan and President Bush were President; 1,400 Bush, 1,500 Reagan. Now, I think what has happened is simply this. Speaker Gingrich evidently got irritated because the President indicated, a few days before Mr. Dole went to Wisconsin, that he liked what he had seen so far about the welfare plan and would work with Wisconsin to get it approved. And so, because of the Speaker's irritation, and perhaps we could solve that, maybe the way Wisconsin can stop being a ping-pong ball in the Presidential campaign is to make an agreement that neither party's candidate will come to Wisconsin in the campaign. Maybe that will take the politics out of it and we can get serious again. But, anyway, the bill before us today says that there will be no opportunity for Wisconsin citizens to comment; that the Congress is simply going to vote for it sight unseen, with virtually no one in this House having any idea what is in the package except perhaps some of us from Wisconsin. I would ask my colleagues one question. How much do we think people have really learned from this debate today about what is in the Wisconsin plan as it affects human beings? I would venture to say virtually nothing. All the substitute does that the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Kleczka] is proposing is to guarantee that no action is taken before every Wisconsin citizen has a chance to comment for 30 days. And the amendment says that the department shall evaluate the plan not based on its own opinions but based on the seven key features which the Wisconsin Governor himself has asserted are in that plan. If they are, this resolution says approve it. That is all we ask. What is wrong with that? What are we trying to hide? I would also point out that the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Sensenbrenner] is wrong when he says there is not a hard date. The language of the Kleczka amendment makes quite clear that the agency ``shall complete such consideration not later than July 31, 1996.'' That is pretty clear to me. And guess what, it is written in English. We can even understand it. That is the deadline, folks. So all I would ask us to do is forget the politics, forget the maneuvering, please do not continue what has become, unfortunately, a day-to-day event where the House appears to be nothing more than a political extension of the Presidential campaign. This House is better than that, at least it ought to be. We have a lot of serious work to do, let us do it in a serious way. Let us not demean our processes by every day in every way being nothing but ventriloquist dummies for our respective Presidential candidates. This House has a lot of work to do. Let us get on with it and let us stop the political games. This is a political game. Do it the right way, support the Kleczka amendment.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, are we waiving the plan as the Governor passed it or the plan as the legislature may change it, if they reject his vetoes?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Stenholm].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Hefner].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, all I would say is that the substitute we are going to offer simply asks two things: make sure there is a 30-day comment period because the proposal before us does not go into effect for a year and a half, so there is hardly a rush. And, second, we are taking the seven standards defined by the Governor and simply asking HHS to determine whether or not the bill does in fact meet these seven standards defined by the Governor on page 4 of his presentation document. If these seven statements are true, they waive it. If they are not, they work with the State to make certain that they are true. This is not a legislative opportunity before us. This is a 2-year cooked-up special order, pretending that we are doing something when, in fact, nothing real is going to happen. In my view this is simply a Gingrich political special. It is another exercise in dividing people, in pretending there are divisions when there are none. Every Member of the Wisconsin delegation wants the Wisconsin welfare program to be tried. Most of my political allies in the State legislature voted for it. All we want to do is to exercise our responsibility as Federal Representatives of Wisconsin to see to it that this package is what we are told it is. That is all the resolution asks for. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. If anybody is interested in working with each other rather than simply playing political games, they will vote for the Kleczka amendment.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. OBEY. What is the legislature going to do? Are they going to accept those line item vetoes or not?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I want to make one thing clear again. This Wisconsin proposal does not go into effect until late 1997. There is absolutely no reason for 435 people who do not know their ear from second base about what is in this package to actually vote on it rather than having the people who have approved the previous nine requests Wisconsin has had for waivers making their decision on it. I am tired of hearing what the President said misdescribed. The President had not seen the submission document that the Governor was going to present to him. The President in his radio statement simply said, ``I am encouraged by what I have seen so far''. He said, Wisconsin ``has the makings'' of a solid, bold, welfare reform plan. ``I pledge my administration will work with Wisconsin to make an effective transition to a new vision of welfare.'' Why do we not take him up on it? Instead of having a cheap political grandstand for 2 hours on this floor, we ought to be taking the President up on that on a bipartisan basis. Quit inventing differences where there are none.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, let me simply say that the gentleman referred to the hearing that was held in my hometown. I would simply observe that that hearing was held before the fact. The citizens of Wisconsin have had no opportunity to comment on their view of the Governor's 97 item vetoes and the changes that that made in the process. My understanding is he made 97 changes on 27 separate items. I would bet that no member of the Wisconsin delegation can define those. So all we are saying is we ought to leave the process to the same people who provided Wisconsin's nine previous waivers. At least they know something about what is in the package. Certainly no one on this floor does.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I would just like to observe, if we really want to measure whether anything real is happening here or not we would recognize that right now outside of the Wisconsin delegation on the House floor there are exactly two people from other States. Virtually everybody in this House, on both sides of the aisle, knows this is just one of those demeaning political exercises. We have simply got a couple of hours where people are going to get up and bash the President or bash Mr. Dole or bash somebody else. It does no credit to anyone in this institution. I got into politics for the same reason I am sure the gentleman did, and our other colleague from Wisconsin, Mr. Kleczka, did, and I hope everybody else did, because we thought politicians were supposed to solve problems, not use them in order to gain a political edge here or gain a political edge there and bamboozle somebody again. There is literally nobody on this floor. How on Earth can we ask people to vote on this legislation when they have not read it, they have not heard the debate, they could care less about the debate? They are already getting ready to go to the airport, and we are pretending this is a real legislative day. Grow up, fellas. Grow up.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, the biggest social failure in this country is welfare. I think everybody understands that. It is a mess. It destroys work incentives. It is hated by many of the people on it and it is hated by the taxpayers. I think the No. 1 priority of the country is to see welfare reformed, and I do not believe that the country is going to have much confidence in its Government until the Government demonstrates that it can distinguish between the truly needy and those who take no personal responsibility. The American people deserve to have the welfare issue dealt with in a way that puts their needs first. Instead, in my view, the issue is being used as a political football by politicians to meet the needs of politicians, in order to help them gain an edge on each other. This bill is part of that circus. It is not real, it will not become law, it is simply part of a political game to tweak the President of the United States. The problem is that long after President Clinton and would-be President Dole are gone, my constituents will have to live with the consequences. We have before us today one-half of Governor Thompson's welfare reform package. Under the Wisconsin welfare reform package, low-income people are going to be taken off welfare in many instances, but the second half of the welfare package in Wisconsin is to put the Milwaukee Brewers and their owner on welfare, making them biggest welfare queen in Wisconsin. I find that interesting. What we have before us is the fact that the Wisconsin legislature passed a reform bill. The Governor may have had 27 separate changes in it through item vetoes. The normal next step is for the Department of Health and Social Services to allow a 30-day comment period from the public, and then make a decision on the welfare requests. This bill cuts the public out. It simply says that 435 people in the Congress of the United States, at least in the House, who have never read the waiver proposition, who know virtually nothing about it, are going to be voting on it, instead of allowing the department to proceed to do what it has done on every other occasion, which is to grant waiver requests which Wisconsin has made. The gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Kleczka] and the rest of the Democrats in the Wisconsin delegation are offering a simple substitute. Since, after all, this welfare reform proposal does not go into effect until September 1997, it simply urges the department to approve Wisconsin's request after two conditions are met: Number one, after we have a 30-day comment period, so that the public can be cut in on the deal, and they can finally have a say-so so our constituents can participate, not just the politicians at the State and the Federal level; and second, after the department has determined that the alternative meets each of the seven tests laid down for it by the Governor himself in his document, on page 4. Unlike the bill, we do not cut out the public, and we do not have the Congress interfering in something it knows nothing about. I want to make very clear, Mr. Speaker, that when the President spoke 2 weeks ago and endorsed the general thrust of the Wisconsin plan, he said that that plan had the makings of a good proposal, and that he wanted to work with the State of Wisconsin to see it accomplished. That is exactly what ought to happen. We ought to stop inventing differences where there are none. We ought to stop the politics. We ought to get on with the process and get those waivers approved so Wisconsin can proceed with the experiment that the legislature passed, which the Governor changed with his vetoes and which they are now asking the Federal Government to support. That is the nonpolitical, rational way to go about things, and I urge Members to support the Kleczka amendment.

Mr. OBEY. Quit playing politics and answer the question.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, what happens if the legislature turns some of those down? Does the State then amend it? Do we then pass another bill? Why do we not wait until the legislature has acted?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, the reason for the unanimous-consent request is because I have an amendment to cut another item in this title. I am required to be in a leadership meeting for the next 10 minutes.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would simply take this time to say that it is my understanding, and I think it is the understanding of the gentleman from Texas and the gentleman from Alabama, that if discussion ends on this amendment, we can have a series of votes on the pending amendments and go home tonight, and I would urge that we do that.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 30 seconds.