Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, we used to have a Member of this body by the name of Jimmy Burke, and Jimmy Burke said once to the freshman class incoming, he said, oh, I understand your problem; you think this place is on the level. Well, I want to tell you that does not matter what you do on this amendment. This amendment ain't on the level. This amendment is consumer fraud masquerading as legislation, and it ain't going to do nothing to nobody and let me tell you why. If you look at the language carefully, the language purports to send the message that what we are doing is, oh, oh, look at the muscles. We are telling those Frenchies and those German companies, you cannot participate; but if you look at the actual language, the language allows those companies to get around this limitation by doing the same thing that corporate expatriates have done in this country by simply setting up a mailing address in Bermuda or any other offshore place. So it is what I call a holy picture amendment. The politicians pause for holy pictures, boy, we really did something. But you have got language that does not do nothing to nobody. This language has absolutely no effect whatsoever except that it makes the job of the White House and the State Department more difficult, which is I assume why we have the letter from the State Department which says that such an amendment would jeopardize the type of support we are attempting to build within the United Nations, support which aims to unite the international community in a forward- looking effort to build a better future for the people of Iraq. Now, if we were wise, and I know that is beyond reasonable expectations often in a legislative body, but if we were wise, what we would, in fact, be doing is looking at tomorrow rather than yesterday. We are going to, whether we like it or not, need to rebuild the alliances which have been temporarily shaken by our divisions in this war. We are going to have to rebuild the United Nations and rebuild NATO so that we are more unified in dealing with postwar Iraq and the rest of the world; and we are going to have to overcome the fact that because of divisions we have right now, pro-U.S. responses in public opinion polls throughout Europe have dropped by about 20 percent. Now, to me, the way that we overcome that, the way we overcome the world's cynicism is by demonstrating traditional American magnanimity, which is what we did in the Marshall Plan and what we have done so many times in our country's history. So I would simply say, Mr. Chairman, who am I to stand in the way, if majority party members want to make life a little more difficult for a Republican administration? Now, I stand here, I hope as a patriot; and I believe that this amendment does cause the administration additional problems. I am so proud of the chairman of this committee because this committee produced legislation which guaranteed that the executive branch could not cross the line and trample on legislative prerogatives, and I congratulate and I honor the chairman for having the guts to do that. But we also, we also as legislators from time to time have to restrain ourselves and recognize that sometimes we do the Nation no good when we impinge upon executive branch prerogatives, as this amendment I believe does. So I am standing here as a Republican who has a minimum of, as the Democrat, as my friends know, I started out life as a Republican but then when I learned to read I switched parties. But let me simply say, I stand here, I hope, as a patriot, and I think that this is one place where George Bush needs some running room. If you do not have enough confidence in him to let him make the right choice, then by all means vote for this amendment; but you know, it does not do nothing to nobody except enable politicians to pose for political holy pictures. What is new around here?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I object.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against the amendment.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, it is in violation of clause 2, rule XXII. Mr. Chairman, the minority has been told all day and all evening that we had to abide by the rules, even though the rule waived points of order against the majority bill. Now we have a situation where a majority Member chooses to try to substitute another amendment for the amendment that was presented by the Clerk. I am sorry, but if we are going to stick by the rules, I am sticking by the rules, and I make a point of order against the amendment.

Mr. OBEY. Reserving the right to object, Mr. Chairman, could I suggest that the gentleman, since it is late and we do have other amendments to dispose of, how much did the gentleman suggest in time?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, I was having difficulty hearing here. The chairman is indicating that 15 minutes would be reserved for the gentleman from Washington, 5 minutes for the gentleman from Florida, and 10 minutes for yours truly? Is the gentleman opposed to the amendment?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the amendment.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hinojosa).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield my remaining time to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I am told that I am asking permission to strike the last word.

Mr. OBEY. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, if you follow the logic of the last speaker, what you are saying is that we should provide in this bill $3.25 billion to the airline industry, which we do not owe, but that we should not provide the funds in the bill to reimburse the volunteers for services, for which we do owe. I find that that makes no sense whatsoever. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh) is absolutely right. This is an obligation which government has. We should not blame the recipients, we should not blame the participants in this program for the screw-ups of the agency on their bookkeeping balances. The fact is that this is totally defensible at a time when we are trying to encourage volunteerism, at a time when we are trying to encourage a sense of self-sacrifice. It would be a strange message indeed to say that we are not going to meet our obligations to the volunteers under this program.

Mr. OBEY. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, in light of the recent colloquy, let me simply say that I am getting whiplash from trying to follow the lead of the majority party and the White House on the issue that was just under discussion. We had before us earlier in the week this bill to essentially pay for the first downpayment on the Iraq war. We were trying to get additional money in the bill for homeland security so that we could protect ourselves at home from the retaliation that was likely to come from that involvement in the war. The House Republican leadership would not see its way fit to allow us to even debate that amendment and come to a vote on the House floor; and yet they arbitrarily ordered the Committee on Appropriations to include the $3.5 billion bailout for the airline industry that was just discussed a moment ago. Then, after that happened, then the White House issued a statement saying that, in fact, the package before the House for airline bailout was too generous. I am having a little difficulty following the lead of the majority and the lead of the White House because they seem to be working at cross purposes, and I am further confounded by the fact that this House is willing to consider a huge expenditure of funds like this with no hearings and to have it dealt with by a committee that has no special understanding of the problem; and it seems to me that a much better way, well, it just seems to me that we ought to be asking a fundamental question. It seems to me we ought to be asking the question of whether or not we have a viable airline industry in this country. In my view, we have a bunch of let's-pretend capitalists who have to come to the government for a bailout every time something happens in the economy. Now, they are essential to our national welfare and to our economic well-being. So I think we obviously need to keep the airline industry functioning, but I do not know how many times an airline has to go bankrupt before it is bankrupt. I do not know how many times they have to come to the taxpayers for additional money before we decide that a better way is to simply regulate them as a necessary public utility or as a public utility providing necessary service to the country, and that is what I really believe in the long term we ought to do. But I also must protest the slap dash way that this issue has wound up on the appropriation bill because I find it quaint that the House Republican leadership would demand the House go one way while the White House seems to indicate it wants to go another way. It is pretty hard to follow that kind of leadership, and I admire the gentleman from Florida for being a good soldier and responding to the instructions of his leadership; but I would have a difficult time trying to explain this to any taxpayer, any of my constituents. I would just hope that in the future we can do a better job of managing a problem like this, and I wish we could get to discuss the fundamentals on this issue rather than simply throwing more money at the problem. We were told that we cannot throw more money at homeland security, and yet we are providing billions of dollars to the airline industry without doing one whit to help the employees of those same airlines. I find that quaint. It is always the corporate part of the industry that gets the attention of Congress; and the working stiff sort of gets left in the caboose, if I can change transportation modes.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I would like to simply point out to the House that there are still, as near as I can count, 14 amendments remaining. If we are going to debate 14 amendments, Members can calculate for themselves how long we will be here. That is all I have to say. Amendment Offered by Mr. Rothman

Mr. OBEY. Reserving the right to object, as I said earlier, we have over 40 amendments left to go. I understand this is an important amendment. We just had over an hour on an amendment from the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) that was considered important. If we provide 40 minutes' time for this amendment, I do not want the expectation to be that we will do that for every other amendment. I would hope that we understand that this is the last amendment we would ask significant time for, and Members can expect us to ask unanimous consent in order to hold each future amendment to considerably less time than this.

Mr. OBEY. Reserving the right to object, Mr. Chairman, I know that there are a number of people on this side of the aisle who want to participate in debate on this amendment. So I would ask whether the time arrangements could be adjusted so we would be guaranteed some time on this side of the aisle.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word, and I yield to the gentleman from Florida for a time request.

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

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, because she has laryngitis, I ask unanimous consent that the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey) may be permitted to insert a statement in the Record at this point.

Mr. OBEY. With all due respect, Mr. Chairman, we have answered those statements twice, and I also answered them earlier in the debate. The fact is if Members think there is enough money being provided to protect the homeland, vote against the amendment. If they think there is not enough money, vote for it. But at least let us have a vote.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks).

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I would like to propound a question to the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Appropriations. As I review the number of amendments pending, I see 39 remaining amendments on the Democratic side of the aisle and 6 on the Republican side of the aisle. As I calculate the clock, that means that if all of those amendments are only debated for 5 minutes per side, without counting the time for roll calls, that we would be here until midnight. If we then have actual votes on those amendments, I calculate that that would take us till at least 2 a.m. or 3 a.m.. If we have an additional 5 minutes per side or debate on half of those amendments, that would take us until about 5 o'clock in the morning. And if we have no time agreements on these amendments, we will be here at 10 a.m. tomorrow morning. That is the reality of the clock that faces us. So I want Members to understand why it is that we are going to be seeking time agreements. Because if we do not, and the leadership has said we were not going to be here tomorrow, which means we may not start a session tomorrow but we are certainly going to be here tomorrow approaching noon unless we get time agreements on these amendments. So I just wanted to put the House on notice that the gentleman and I are trying to reach an understanding on time limits and we need those time limits to be as tight as is reasonably possible, or else Members are going to be spending an awful lot of time tonight with each other when they would rather be spending that time with somebody else.