Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on the pending legislation.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I think people know what this bill is all about and, at this point, I don't have any intention of talking more about it, unless provoked. But let me simply take this time to bring to the House's attention the fact that Frank Cushing, who is a 23-year Hill veteran, is leaving the Congress at the end of this term. Frank has served as the staff director for the Republican majority, and now also for the Republican minority. He's also, in the past, served the House as the chief clerk of the VA/HUD Appropriations Subcommittee. And I know I should not say it in this body, but he also served numerous positions in the Senate, including staff director for both the majority and minority of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and clerk of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee. I think that the House owes Frank a debt of gratitude for the work that he's done through the years. I think the country owes Frank a debt of gratitude. He's a fine public servant. I hate to see him go, and I'm sure that that sentiment is shared in spades by the gentleman from California and the other side of the aisle. So I want to extend my best wishes to Frank. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished majority leader, Mr. Hoyer.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I have no speakers at this time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. The last people I will take any lectures from on earmarking are my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. The last time I chaired the Labor-Health-Education appropriation bill, there were no earmarks. In the last year of the Republican regime, there were over 3,000. Earmarks exploded under their rule. Two years ago, there were $16 billion in earmarks. The bill that we bring tonight contains a 43 percent reduction in that amount. In July, I offered this House an opportunity to strip all earmarks from the bill. We got exactly one Republican vote out of five in support of that motion. We got 45 Republican votes for that motion, less than 22 percent. Last week, I suggested again that all earmarks be removed. I was run over by a majority of both caucuses. Let me also point out that if the gentleman is complaining about so- called air-drops in projects, of course there are projects that were air-dropped. There were two appropriation bills that left the House that had no earmarks because they were the first ones out of the box, and we were trying to stay on schedule. Every Member in the House except the most obtuse knew that those earmarks would have to be added in the Senate, and they were, in the Homeland Security bill and in the Military Construction bill. As far as the Labor-Health Subcommittee is concerned, the earmarks that were added there are only the earmarks that were added from Members who were not in the House at the time that the House bill passed. Those districts are entitled to representation, too, and those Members are entitled to be treated with consideration, just as every other Member of the House is. So with all due respect, one last point: the gentleman complains, again, about the fact that we are passing an omnibus appropriation bill containing hundreds of pages and billions of dollars. I will hold that in this hand. I'm holding in my right hand all of the pages from the domestic budget that the Republican Congress passed when they were in power. You know how many pages there were? None, because they never got the job done on a single appropriation bill. So if I have to choose between getting our work done in an omnibus bill like this or doing nothing and turning your job over to the next Congress, pardon me, it may not be elegant, but I'll take the product that chose the work. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. The gentleman complains that we're spending 60 minutes debating the contents of this bill tonight. Mr. Speaker, do you know how many minutes we spent debating the contents of the domestic appropriation bill conference reports in the last session of Congress when the Republicans controlled? Zero, because they produced zero legislation. They left their dirty work to us, so we had to do twice the work this year because they didn't do any of it on the domestic side of the ledger last year. So 60 minutes may not be a lot to debate, but it's a whole lot more than zero. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, the Energy and Water Subcommittee didn't add 36 earmarks. It added 38.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I want to express my appreciation for the tremendous work done by the entire staff. It's already been mentioned by the gentleman from California. I want to publicly express my gratitude to the entire staff on both sides of the aisle as well as the associate staff and especially Rob Nabors, our staff director on the committee. I don't think Members sufficiently appreciate how many nights in a row these staff people go without sleep. These people have literally been here virtually around the clock for the last 3 days. It's a miracle that they don't make some major mistakes. I also want to express our special concern tonight for Dixon Butler, a staffer who has served the committee very well who underwent some very serious surgery yesterday. I think it's safe to say that Members on both sides of the aisle are very concerned about him, and we hope he'll take all the time he needs to get well. I also want to make a few remarks to put this bill in context, because it is the major domestic achievement of the Congress for this year. Last year, Mr. Speaker, in November, the public sent two messages. One was that they wanted to end the war in Iraq. The second was that they wanted a change in national priorities. We have struggled mightily to bring about both, and we have failed for two reasons. Number one, because we have not had enough votes in the Senate. The public thinks that my party has control of the United States Senate. Unfortunately, we merely have custody of it. Under their peculiar rules, they require 60 percent of the votes to make a major decision. We only have 51 percent of those votes on our side of the aisle in the Senate. The second reason that we have failed to accomplish a good many things that we wanted to accomplish is because the President, after the election, essentially told the American people, Forget what message you thought you were sending. I'm the great decider. We're going to continue to do things my way. And that is what he has tried to do. The result is that we have passed bills to try to change direction in Iraq twice. The President vetoed one of them, and he has blocked action on the other one in the United States Senate. He has insisted that we spend nearly $200 billion more for Iraq, but he said at the same time that we could not afford one-tenth that amount for crucial investments here at home. We sent appropriation bills containing 70 percent of domestic discretionary spending to the President. On a bipartisan basis we sent those bills down. We averaged almost 60 Republican votes. He chose the veto path instead, and so only the Defense appropriation bill has become law. He has insisted that he write the top line in the budget. If we did that, we would have cut 800 grants from the National Institutes of Health. We would have cut access to health care by $600 million. We would have cut rural health by 54 percent, vocational education by 50 percent. We would have eliminated every student aid program except Pell Grant and Work-Study. We would have cut the State and local law enforcement grants by $1.2 billion. We would have cut deeply into renewable energy. We sent to him legislation which had very different priorities. He vetoed it. Next we asked, Why don't we split the difference? Why don't we go halfway to the President and have him come halfway to us? His response was, No way. So now, as the majority leader has said, we're at the end of the road. This is the last chance to produce a set of domestic priorities that are different from those the President proposes. In my view, this bill is totally inadequate to meet the long-term investment needs of the country, but it is a whole lot better than would have been the case if we had not waged the fight. Because of that fight, this bill will contain $600 million more than the President wanted for the National Institutes of Health. It will contain $1 billion more than the President wanted for community health centers and other points of health care access. It will contain $150 million more to help rural communities deal with their health problems. It will contain $150 million more for the Social Security Administration to deal with its disability backlogs. It will contain $800 million more in elementary and secondary education than the President wanted. It will provide $575 million above the President for vocational education. It will provide $1.2 billion more in State and local law enforcement assistance than the President wanted. It will provide $1.8 billion more for homeland and border security. And it will provide $500 million more for renewable energy and energy efficiency. And, most importantly, it will provide $3.7 billion more for veterans' health care. It seems to me if the President can ask us to spend $200 billion more on the war in Iraq, we can spend $3.7 billion more to help those who wage the war at great risk to their own health and their own lives. This bill also contains $7 billion in emergency funding. Eighty-five percent of that money has been asked for by the administration. It didn't originate here. All in all, we have been able to move about $21 billion into a better set of priorities than we were presented with when we were presented with the President's budget. We have heard a lot about all of the shortcomings in process tonight, but let me make clear there is one vital difference between what we are doing this year and what we did a year ago. Last year under a Republican majority, our friends on the other side of the aisle were not able to complete action on a single domestic appropriation bill, so we were left to deal with that when we took control of this institution in January. The difference is that this year we are recognizing that in an adult world, win, lose, or draw, we have an obligation to reach some final decisions. We have an obligation to compromise and move on. And that's what we are trying to do with this legislation. It is a responsible thing to do. I want to thank every Democrat who supported it. I want to thank every Republican who will support it. And I would hope that this can finally wrap up the session, reflecting somewhat better than the President's budget has what the priority wishes are of the American people. I ask for ``aye'' votes on the two amendments.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 869, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 69) making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2008, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on H.J. Res. 69.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, we have had virtually no time to understand what the content of this resolution is; but as I read it, I would make a point of order against the amendment on germaneness grounds because the resolution adheres to a December 21 delimiting date, whereas the instructions in the proposed amendment refers to matters outside of the time period in question, and I will, therefore, suggest that the motion is not in order.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I move to table the motion.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I reserve a point of order on the motion.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. It is now 1:30 in the afternoon, very late into December and we have to decide how soon we want to get out of town so that we don't have to look at each other for the remainder of the year. This vehicle is necessary to simply keep the government open while we're making the final decisions on all remaining appropriations for the fiscal year. There have been numerous meetings going on this week all over Capitol Hill, and there have obviously been many communications going on between the Hill and other locuses of influence and power in the city. And I would hope that those would bear fruition sometime soon. Meanwhile, if we want to keep the government open, we have no choice but to pass this continuing resolution. It simply extends, it keeps the government open for another week, to December 21, 2007. I think it's self-explanatory. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I had thought that perhaps once this session we could simply do our jobs straightaway without having the usual, trite partisan slogans uttered again and again. I'd hoped that we wouldn't continue to chew the same cud over and over again. But evidently we can't. So I will simply take a couple of minutes to respond to the gentleman's comments. For me to take lectures from the minority party on fiscal management or the management of appropriations would be akin to Willie Sutton lecturing the House on bank security. It wouldn't be taken very seriously. But let me, nonetheless, since the gentleman has chosen to engage in yet another round of carping, let me simply point out that the gentleman is now making a fuss, once again, because we have not passed appropriation bills singly and now face the prospect of an omnibus appropriation bill with all domestic appropriations tossed into one budget document. If that, in fact, occurs, what it will mean is that the President sent us one budget document and we sent him one back. That's hardly a Federal offense, the last time that I checked. Secondly, I would simply point out that this Congress has passed and sent to the President appropriation bills totaling about 75 percent of all of the discretionary spending in the budget. The reason that none of the domestic bills have been finalized is because the President chose to veto the Labor, Health, Education appropriation bill. So we are now engaged in the only action left open to us, which is to reach a negotiated agreement between the Senate and the House and between the Congress and the President. We are trying to achieve the required negotiated result between the two branches of government and between the two branches of the legislative portion of the government. Let me simply say that there will be, at the end of this year, there will be one critical difference between this Congress and the previous Congress controlled by our friends on the other side. In the previous Congress, they were able to pass not a single domestic appropriation bill through the Congress. They had passed them through the House, just as we passed all of our appropriation bills through the House. In fact, they didn't pass all of their appropriations bills through the House. They didn't get the Labor-H bill passed last year, which was the major domestic appropriation because they did not see fit to provide a minimum wage increase for workers, and so they preferred to bury the bill rather than have a bill pass which carried a minimum wage increase for America's workers. But the critical difference between them and us is that when we took over this Congress in January, we had to first clean up their mess. We had to spend the first six weeks passing appropriation bills to make up for the fact that they had not passed a single domestic appropriation bill. And so, as a consequence, we will have one critical difference when our work is done, hopefully at the end of next week. We will have passed all of the appropriation bills necessary to keep the government running for a full fiscal year. We may not have done it in single fashion, as they would prefer, but the fact is that, whether they like the packaging, we will have done our jobs, and I would submit we will have done our jobs on a bipartisan basis. There were, on average, 60 Republicans who helped us every step of the way in trying to pass these appropriation bills. I think that demonstrates that we had bipartisan legislation before us in virtually all instances on those appropriation bills, and that was reflected in the fact that, on average, we had over 60 Republicans supporting each of those bills. We could not get the bills through the Senate, but they will, in the end, be passed, and that, in the end, will be a critical difference between the result of the record produced by our friends on the other side last year and one that will be produced, I would hope, on a bipartisan basis this year under different management. So with that, if the gentleman has any further comments, I'll withhold. If he has any further speakers, I'll withhold. If he doesn't, I'm prepared to yield back.

Mr. OBEY. Let me simply take a moment to indicate where I think we are on the appropriation matters. I think we have a reasonable prospect of finishing our work for the year come the middle of next week. I had originally been predicting that we would be out of here on the 22nd of December and reconvene after the 27th. I'm now slightly more optimistic than I was initially. And I think that, while none of us may be particularly enamored of the final result, I think that we are getting closer to having a result which can be supported by many people on both sides of the aisle, at least in the House itself. I cannot speak for what the Senate will produce, but I would hope that Members would familiarize themselves. As soon as we have the final product available, we will try to make that product available to Members so that they have an opportunity to review it before we actually vote on it next week. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I would just like to respond briefly to some of the assertions made a few minutes ago under which the Clinton administration was attacked for supposedly not correcting the alternative minimum tax problem. I want to read from the administration's statement when the President vetoed the budget reconciliation bill, which contained the so-called AMT fix. The President pointed out at the time that in addition to supposedly dealing with the alternative minimum tax, that that bill would have cut Medicare by $270 billion, it would have cut Federal Medicaid payments to States by $163 billion, it would have virtually eliminated the direct student loan program, it would have provided huge tax cuts, over 47 percent of the benefits would have gone to the top 12 percent of earners in the country. I think that's enough said. If you want to understand why the Clinton administration vetoed the bill, it was not because they were against an alternative minimum tax fix. In fact, the President specifically supported it in his comments. What he objected to was using the alternative minimum tax proposal as a Trojan horse to bring in huge gifts for the most well off people in this society paid for by huge funding cuts for those in our society who were the most vulnerable. The President didn't apologize for his action at the time, and we shouldn't, either. It was the right thing to do.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, for the purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh). General Leave

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 3043.

Mr. OBEY. I yield myself 30 seconds. Madam Speaker, I think we have an understanding that the other side will have two statements; we will have one. We do not expect to take anywhere near the full hour. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 10 minutes. Madam Speaker, I recognize Members want to get out of here and, as I indicated, we are going to facilitate that. But this is an important issue, and it deserves a few minutes of discussion. As I said on the floor last week, in November I believe the American people sent two messages to this body and to the White House. Number one, they wanted a change in policy in Iraq; and, number two, they wanted a change in domestic priorities here at home. I think that the White House, by its insistence on no compromise on both the Iraqi front and on the domestic appropriations front, has indicated that it would prefer to tell the American people: We don't care what you thought you were telling us in November, we are going to do it our way; and, it is our way or the highway. Madam Speaker, it is simply not credible for a President who is asking us to spend $200 billion in additional money in Iraq, it is not credible for a President who is asking us to spend $50 billion to $60 billion again this year on tax cuts for people who make over $1 million a year, to then say that we cannot afford to make basic investments in education, in health care, in medical research. The President insists that we follow his budget with respect to this bill. If we do, we would cut vocational education 50 percent; we would eliminate every student aid program except Pell Grants and work study; we would cut handicapped education by $300 million; we would cut mental health resources by $100 million; we would cut the training in children's hospitals by 63 percent; we would cut rural health by 54 percent; and, we would cut low-income heating assistance by 18 percent. The gentleman from New York mentioned the need for compromise on this bill. We have already had incredible compromise. We have had compromise on virtually every item in this bill, on every issue ranging from family planning to special education, and the minority has been involved every step of the way. When the bill was reported out of subcommittee, every single member of the subcommittee signed the committee report, and yet today we face a Presidential veto. Madam Speaker, I want to make one thing clear. We have said from the beginning to the White House we would like to compromise. We have asked the White House, I have asked Mr. Nussle, I know our leadership has asked the President personally, to sit down and work out our differences. We have been told as recently as last Saturday by the press secretary speaking for the White House that the White House had no intention of compromising, and that all the Congress had to do to meet the President's standards was to submit a bill which was fully identical with his budget. I'm sorry, this is an independent branch of government, and we have an obligation to do better than that. Now, I was asked by a number of members of the press earlier today why the Senate majority leader had released information indicating that I and Senator Byrd were in the process of trying to put together a split-the-difference appropriation bill for all of the remaining appropriation items that still have yet to be finished. I want to take this opportunity to explain why we've done that. People might like to cast a vote without having to take responsibility for knowing the consequences, but there are severe consequences for voting against overriding the President's veto of the Labor-Health-Education bill. If this veto is not overridden, the best that could happen is that we will wind up splitting the difference with the President's wholly inadequate budgets. If we were to do a 50 percent cut to the difference between the Labor-Health-Education bill and the President's budget, what will that mean for the programs that so many Members of Congress claim that they are for? For medical research into diseases like cancer, Parkinson's and diabetes at the National Institutes of Health, meeting the President halfway would put us $700 million below the bill we are considering today. That means 700 fewer grants for research to treat and cure all of the deadly diseases that all of us like to tell our constituents we're sworn to try to overcome. I don't want to have to go back home and explain that kind of cut in NIH, but that's one of the things that will happen undoubtedly, if this veto is not overridden tonight. For health care access, to provide 1.2 million more Americans with access to community health centers, this bill is $200 million above the President's request. Under a split-the- difference scenario, access for 600,000 Americans will evaporate. Likewise, this bill provides $95 million so that 200,000 Americans who can't get insurance because they are medically high risk will have access to health insurance at the State level. That insurance also evaporates for 100,000 people if we split the difference. Under the President's budget, vocational education would be cut by 50 percent. This bill eliminates that cut, but meeting him halfway would still mean a 25 percent cut. My Republican colleagues worked hard to push funding up for special education, even beyond what I had proposed in committee, funding the program $800 million above the President's request. Defeat of this bill will slash that increase by $400 million. This bill provides $400 million above the President to serve nearly 120,000 more low-income kids with title I grants. But 60,000 of those kids will be out of luck if we meet the President's budget halfway. For the LIHEAP program, this bill also helps around 1\1/2\ million more families to pay their energy bills by providing $630 million more than the President's budget. Anyone who votes against this bill will be making inevitable at least a $315 million cut. That means 750,000 fewer families will have help this winter. Now, please remember, everything that I've described is, at best, a best-case scenario if this bill is defeated and we have to pursue a split-the-difference alternative. In fact, as long as a sufficient number of Republican Members continue to follow the President's budget priorities, the result is likely to be even worse. Those who vote against overriding this veto will take full responsibility for the cuts in these essential investments. I would like to make one other point. I know most of you on that side of the aisle, and I recognize that there are probably 50 or 60 of you who are so indifferent to these programs that you could care less what happens, but I don't believe that that's true about the rest of you. I think you care about America's children as much as I do. I think you care about medical research as much as I do. And many of you have told me that you wish you could vote for this bill, but your party leadership won't give you a permission slip. I ask you to use your own judgment. I ask you to recognize that this issue may not be important to you, but it's important to the American families who are affected by what you do here tonight. It affects the quality of their education; it affects the degree to which we will protect the health and safety of American workers; it protects our ability to dig into the problem of serious disease across the board. You know in your hearts that this is a decent bill. This is a bipartisan product put together in a bipartisan way. It deserves a bipartisan vote.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I move a call of the House.