Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner).

Mr. OBEY. I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Filner).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Walz).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Speaker, Just Imagine! The mortal sin that we're accused of committing on this side of the aisle is believing that we ought to provide some additional economic assistance to people who have been hit the hardest by economic dislocation and have been unemployed until their benefits have expired and haven't been able to find a job. It's suggested that we're doing this ``on the backs'' of our fighting men and women who return home. I'd suggest it's just the opposite. When a man or a woman returns home from Iraq, when we find out that in addition to their having their reentry problem, they also, some of them, may have post-trauma stress reaction, they find out in addition to what they have to worry about for themselves, they also have to worry about the fact that their sister or their brother-in-law is now unemployed, adding to the burden on that family.

Mr. OBEY. I yield myself 30 seconds. I think those GIs recognize this is supposed to be a seamless society. We're supposed to help take care of the people who are in the most trouble, and I don't apologize for using some of the money that we use for veterans benefits. I don't apologize for getting that money from some of the people in this society who have had the least stress in their lives. It seems to me that that's what the Judeo-Christian ethic is all about, and we plead fully guilty on this side of the aisle.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. OBEY. I yield myself 30 seconds, and I yield to the gentleman from Texas. I would like the gentleman from Texas to point out a single piece of Member pork in this bill.

Mr. OBEY. Yes.

Mr. OBEY. I yield myself 1 additional minute. And through the Chair, I would invite the Member to name a specific piece of congressional pork in this bill. He cannot because there is none. He's at least had enough time to read the bill to know that. The only possible piece of pork in this bill is one which we inserted at the request of the Deputy Secretary of Defense for a military hospital in Guam that came here at the request of the Secretary of Defense's office. You can find no Member's pork in this package, and you know it as well as I do.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott). (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to answer the gentleman's question. The gentleman wants to know why do we have money in this bill for the census? Simple. It's because the Secretary of Commerce asked us to put it in because they've had a huge technical screw-up in the Department of the Census. The last time I looked, the Secretary of Commerce was appointed by the President of the United States, Mr. George W. Bush. He wants to know why we have money in this bill for prisons. Simple. We've been told by the Bureau of Prisons--last time I looked, it's run by the Bush Administration--that if we didn't provide this money, because of cost overruns they're going to have to fire guards and lay off people in Federal prisons. Anybody interested in law and order I don't think is going to be happy about that. So it seems to me it is responsible to respond to emergencies on both the domestic side and on the international side. I'm sorry that the gentleman doesn't seem to be aware of the fact that we have, in writing, requests from both of those agencies, but that happens to be the fact. And that's the answer.

Mr. OBEY. I yield myself 10 seconds. Once again, when they can't argue about the substance, they whine about process. That's not going to impress very many people. It certainly didn't in Mississippi yesterday. With that, I would like to yield 1 minute to the distinguished Speaker of the House, the gentlewoman from California.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd).

Mr. OBEY. Could I inquire of the gentleman from California how many speakers he has remaining.

Mr. OBEY. I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Patrick J. Murphy).

Mr. OBEY. I yield the gentleman 30 additional seconds.

Mr. OBEY. How many speakers does the gentleman have remaining?

Mr. OBEY. I'm sorry. I couldn't hear you.

Mr. OBEY. I guess by default I am the last remaining speaker. The majority leader is otherwise occupied and so I would ask the gentleman to proceed.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remainder of the time. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want Members to understand this bill was not written in the Speaker's office or any other leadership office. Virtually every appropriation issue of this bill was written in the Appropriations Committee. We did not, obviously, write language that has previously passed the House under the control of other committees. The Energy and Commerce Committee produced the language, for instance, on the Medicaid rules. And the authorizing committee produced the language on unemployment compensation. That's normal. In fact, the Speaker herself was joking the other day and teasing me, indicating that there were three items that she had wanted in the bill that the committee had turned down. So I would suggest this is not quite the dictatorship that the myth-makers on the other side of the aisle are trying to portray. Having said that, let me explain what it is we are doing here today, since the minority leader was courteous enough to ask. What we are trying to do is to recognize a sad fact, which is that as long as George Bush is President of the United States, we are not going to be able to shut down the war. So what we are trying to do is proceed in the most responsible possible manner in order to assure that the next President, whoever he or she is, has at least 3 or 4 months to think through how he or she would get us out of this god-awful mess in Iraq, which I regard to be the most misguided foreign policy decision in my lifetime. What we are trying to do is to recognize that we do not have a majority in the United States Senate to shut down this war. And so we are looking at ways to provide Members with an opportunity to speak out on whether they want to see that war funding go ahead or not, a straight up-or-down vote. No coercion, at least on this side of the aisle, no whipping that question on this side of the aisle. Members were told, ``Vote your conscience.'' We are also trying to do two other things. We are trying, once again, to attach conditions to the use of this money. Now I myself will vote against the first amendment because I have no guarantee that the conditions in the second amendment will survive Senate action. If they did, I would be perfectly comfortable with the first amendment because I think the first amendment is a straight effort to do what I just described a minute ago. But the reason we want to pursue the second amendment is because we think it is about time that the Iraqis, now that they are generating oil surpluses and budget surpluses, we believe it is about time that they begin to assume the costs of their own reconstruction, at least 50 percent of it. This is why we have a 50-50, dollar-for-dollar match requirement which we are imposing on the Iraqis if we are to be expected to spend any more money in reconstructing Iraq. We think that's eminently sensible. We also think it is about time that Iraq quit overcharging the U.S. military for the price of gasoline. There is no reason why we should be paying through the nose at a much higher price than Iraqis are paying for gasoline. And then thirdly, we are asking the President of the United States to remember that the United States of America still exists, too, and that there are some problems that we need to address here. In fact, the administration itself has recognized some of them because the administration sent down a reprogramming request to deal with the problem of the Bureau of Prisons. They sent down a reprogramming request to deal with the census. We didn't think we ought to fix those problems by cutting even more deeply into local law enforcement funding, because those budgets have already been cut far too much. So we rejected the way that the administration wanted to pay for those items. And instead we have included them in this bill fully, fully paid for. We also have the temerity to believe that if we are going to fight this war, then we ought to also provide a thank you note, a healthy thank you note, for the people who fought the war on our behalf. That is why we are insistent that we pass the expansion of the GI Bill so that you can take people whose lives have been turned upside-down for years, military families from the east coast to the west coast, their lives have been disrupted for years. We want to say ``we want to at least partially compensate you by giving you the opportunity for a full, 4-year college education at any State university in your State.'' And we have provisions that will even expand beyond that if they go to other schools that also participate in helping finance their education. We make no apology for including that. We have heard from at least three speakers on that side of the aisle that we are providing $51 billion for that on the backs of the soldiers. It isn't on their backs. It's an effort to help them. I would point out in the previous GI Bill in World War II, this country got a return of $7 for every dollar that it invested in the GI Bill. We recognize the value of doing that again. We recognize the moral obligation of doing that again, and we make no apology in going forward with it. We also make no apology for recognizing that when we have millions of Americans unemployed, that there is no harm done by providing to those who have been unemployed the longest and have exhausted their benefits, with 13 weeks of additional assistance as those people look for jobs. This Congress sits here in a comfortable room making $160,000 a year, nickel nursing about our efforts to provide a few additional benefits to people who have been unemployed that long. If we don't vote for that provision, we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. I ask each and every Member to vote your conscience. I am not going to tell you how to vote on any of the amendments. I will be voting against the first, for the second and the third. But I urge us to get on with it. This is the only way that we can get the problem dealt with.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, following is an explanation of the amendments of the House of Representatives (relating to supplemental appropriations for fiscal years 2008 and 2009) to the amendment of the Senate to H.R. 2642, the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, 2008. In this statement, the provisions of the House amendments to the Senate amendment are generally referred to as ``the amended bill''. House Amendment 1 strikes lines 1 through 3 on page 60 of the Senate amendment and inserts language providing supplemental appropriations for the Department of Defense for fiscal year 2008, and additional supplemental funds for fiscal year 2009 for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. House Amendment 2 inserts after line 3 on page 60 of the Senate amendment language regarding policy for operations in Iraq and reforms relating to war profiteering and contractors. House Amendment 3 strikes line 1 on page 1 of the Senate amendment and all that follows through line 21 on page 59, and inserts language providing supplemental appropriations for military construction, international affairs, and other security-related and domestic needs, as well as language providing for improved veterans education benefits, temporary extended unemployment compensation, and a moratorium on certain Medicaid regulations, and establishing a surtax on high income taxpayers to offset the cost of the veterans benefit provision. The texts of the amendments are printed in the Rules Committee report (H. Rpt. 110-636) to accompany House Resolution 1197. Unless otherwise noted, all appropriations in the amendments are designated as emergency requirements and necessary to meet emergency needs pursuant to subsections (a) and (b) of section 204 of S. Con. Res. 21, the congressional budget resolution for fiscal year 2008.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the time. Let me simply say this bill is intended to increase the small business set-aside for these research programs. That does no harm for a large agency whose budget has been rising, such as the Department of Defense, but it can do immeasurable harm to the crown jewel of our research agencies in this country, the National Institutes of Health. If we were to do what this bill does to NIH, it would result in $187 million less being available for traditional medical research grants at medical research centers and universities. I think that that is not a good idea. The President's budget has already reduced the number of grants that NIH will be able to provide by almost 500 grants. This will add about another 500 grant reduction to the President's budget. That would mean that we would be supporting a grant level for the traditional NIH grants at about 1,100 grants fewer than was the case in 2007. I think that is a very bad idea. Therefore, when the bill comes before us, I would urge support of the Ehlers amendment, which will correct the problem with respect to the National Institutes of Health. I know that some people will say, ``Well, we're not reducing the number of grants, we're simply shifting the nature of grants from traditional grants to small business grants.'' But the fact is that the success rate for small business grants under this bill is expected to rise to 52 percent whereas the success rate for applications for traditional NIH grants is expected to decline to 18 percent. That is a disparity that the scientific community and the country at large simply cannot afford. NIH believes that there will not be sufficient high-quality grants under the small business set-aside to pass peer review over time, and that means they would simply have to lapse back precious research money that could be used for heart disease, for Parkinson's, for cancer, things like that. So I would strongly urge, when this bill comes before us, to vote for the Ehlers amendment as a way to address that balance.