Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I intend to vote to authorize the President to use military force against Iraq, provided that we are part of an allied coalition under the authority of a new U.N. resolution. But if the President cannot obtain the support of our allies or passage of such a U.N. resolution, then the congressional resolution must provide an opportunity for Congress to evaluate the situation at the time before deciding on unilateral action. I would not be comfortable supporting any resolution that is an immediate blank check, Gulf of Tonkin, take-it-or-leave-it abdication of congressional responsibility that would not provide for that opportunity. Saddam Hussein is a bad actor who must be dealt with. The issue is not whether Saddam will be dealt with, but how. The United States' interests are best preserved over the long haul if we act in concert with our allies and with the approval of the United Nations. The U.N. cannot have a veto, but Congress should know where it and our allies stand and how much of the effort and cost they will bear before we decide to proceed unilaterally. The best way to unite this country and the world in this effort is to follow a careful, two-step process; and I am convinced that this is the wisest course to follow if we want to minimize regional instability and maintain the broadest possible international support for our war against terrorism. It is more important that we do things right than that we do things fast, because the fight against terrorism is a long-term, not a one- week struggle, and we must think long term. Over the long haul, we will not be able to conduct a successful war against terrorism without the sustained support of our allies. Senator Vandenberg, the wise Republican foreign policy leader, once told Harry Truman that if presidents wanted Congress with them on what could be crash landings, they needed to be with him on the takeoffs. That is just as true for our allies as it is for the Congress. It takes a little longer, but it makes us stronger. Despite the dangers involved in an initial attack on Iraq, the most serious consequences could well be those we face after Iraq is occupied, unless this effort is well thought out. Based on discussions with the administration and the intelligence community, I believe much more work needs to be done to put together a plan that will avoid an anti-U.S. backlash in the Arab world, a backlash that could generate thousands of new recruits for al Qaeda, Hamas and other terrorist organizations. We need an after-the-attack plan that demonstrates we are not just going after another Arab country and not just doing it for oil. Part of that plan should be an effort with our European and Middle Eastern allies to attack the poverty, anger, and ignorance that plague so many in a region in which a small elite displays almost obscene palatial riches. If we are to deny bin Laden and other terrorists thousands of recruits because of our actions, we must show what we are for as well as what we are against in that part of the world. One of the things we must be for is a resolution of the Palestinian problem. We must be ready to immediately demonstrate our determination to resolve that problem in order to make clear that our target is Saddam's reckless despotism and not the Arab world in general, and we need allies to make that believable. That is why I will vote for the Spratt amendment. Mr. Speaker, I would also hope that once this debate is over we will also give equal attention to the problems that we have in this country, problems of unemployment, problems of retirement insecurity, problems of a deteriorating economy. We must have a strong economic base if we are to have the social and political cohesion necessary to fight any war against terrorists or anyone else. I urge that this Congress give at least as much attention to those problems as it has given to the Iraq issue over the last month. That will truly produce the kind of balance that will be best for our country.

Mr. OBEY

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I am amazed by what I have just heard from the gentleman from Iowa. Apparently, the gentleman is only now beginning to face what a miserable mess is often created when we have to run the government under continuing resolutions. I would simply say that there are a lot of things in the continuing resolution that the gentleman from Florida and I do not like; but the fact is, when we are prevented from doing our work in passing the regular appropriation bills, then, in the end, we are stuck with only one alternative, and that alternative is to simply run the government by formula until people come to their senses. So that is what this continuing resolution has to do. Apparently, the gentleman from Iowa is only now beginning to understand what a mighty mess he and his colleagues have created. Now, he was talking about one-time spending, as though that is a clearly defined item, and he uses as his example the Pentagon. Well, I would point out that the Pentagon was repaired as a result of the hit that we took on September 11, but the Pentagon reconstruction project was going on before that time as well. We were upgrading safety at the Pentagon; and without those upgrades, a lot more people could have died in the hit on September 11. So we have now one section of the Pentagon that is reconstructed with a lot more safety measures included in the rest of the building, but there are still four wings left to go. Now, I do not know how the gentleman from Iowa feels; but as far as I am concerned, we need to continue that reconstruction work at the Pentagon so that we can make all of the wings of the Pentagon as safe as the new wing has been made with its construction program. And I make no apology for the fact that that program will continue under the continuing resolution. It should and it must if we are concerned about the safety of people who work at the Pentagon. Beyond that, I would note that another example used by OMB of one- time spending is the national pharmaceutical stockpile. Well, that is true. We spent a lot of extra money last year on that program, but now we are also being asked by the President to purchase anthrax vaccines for everybody. I assume the gentleman would like to see that continue, even though that would be defined as a continuation of a so-called 1-year expenditure. Again, I make no apology for the fact that the continuing resolution will allow that to continue. So I think before the gentleman takes an oversimplified look at what constitutes 1-year spending, he ought to ask whether or not that spending is justifiably continued, because we have higher priorities such as keeping all of the people at the Pentagon more safe and seeing to it that this country has an adequate pharmaceutical stockpile. I would also note the gentleman is going to be asked to provide several billion dollars in directed scoring for the defense budget. I believe the gentleman provided that last year; and yet he did not want to do the same thing for highway spending. If that is the case, that is the gentleman's prerogative, but it means that the bill that contains an important bridge in his district is not going to be able to go forward on this House floor. So when we look at the details, I think we will find reasons why some of this funding continues, even though if we take a look at a brief staff memo on it, one might conclude that it is all not worth it. I think some of it is, and I think I have just cited several cases that are.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Ohio is suggesting that somehow because the budget resolution has not been agreed to by both parties, that we cannot proceed on appropriation bills. I would ask him when was the budget resolution approved in fiscal 1999? I guess the gentleman has left the floor. But the answer is it was never approved, and despite that fact, this House completed action on 12 of its 13 appropriation bills. The gentleman is desperately looking for a way to blame anybody except ourselves for the fact that this House is not doing its business. We do not need to have a budget resolution passed for the House to pass its appropriation bills. We passed a number of appropriation bills already without an agreement between the Senate and the House on a budget resolution. Why cannot we also pass the Labor-H bill? It is because the majority party leadership does not know which way to turn, and so they are spinning in circles instead. That is the problem. Secondly, I would point out that the gentleman is talking about what is being promised in the future by the Republican budget. Let me point out I am more interested in what is being delivered, and if we take a look at the President's budget for Title I, the President's budget falls $4 billion below the promises in the bill that the gentleman from Ohio brought to the floor. So forget the promises, baby. Where is the delivery? Then let us take special education, both parties crying all over the floor about the fact we do not provide enough for special education. When we look at the President's budget, the President's budget for education falls far below, at least half a billion dollars below, where it would be if we were to keep the increases for special education that we have had the last 5 years. Then if we take a look at the kids who are having trouble with English and need to learn English, what do you do there? You cut them 10 percent on a per-student basis under the President's budget. So do not give me this baloney about what future authorization propositions you are making. I am interested in what you are delivering, and right now you are delivering zip; you are delivering nothing. The President is suggesting we have a hard freeze on the education budget. If you are comfortable with that, bring it out. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the distinguished whip, is standing there grinning. He may think it is funny that he does not have the capacity to bring forth an education budget; he may think it is funny that people are losing their health insurance and the President is cutting back health programs by $1.4 billion, but we do not think that is funny.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), the ranking member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Speaker, I think the last speaker has just revealed what the problem is in this place. We are being told that we will eventually get together after the election and get these problems solved. The fact is that when we come back after the election, we will have a huge Iraq war supplemental facing us, we will have the need to pass next year's appropriation bills, and we will never get to these unless we do our work now. The second point I would make is that much has been made of the fact that the other body has not passed a budget resolution. In fact, in fiscal year 1999, this Congress never agreed to a budget resolution. Despite that fact, by October 1, the House had passed 12 of its 13 appropriation bills. So that demonstrates to me that if there is a will to address issues rather than avoid them, that you can get things done. It happened in 1999. The only reason we are wrapped around the axle now is because the hard right of the majority Republican caucus does not want to pass any education bill except the President's budget-level bill, and a lot of other Members in the Republican Party recognize that that would be politically disastrous to them because the public does not want to bring to a screeching halt the 5-year progress we have made in expanding education resources all around the country. They do not want to put a freeze on per-pupil education spending after 5 years of strengthening spending for education. And so we get all these red herrings. People say, ``Oh, we have not passed a budget resolution,'' or ``The Senate has not acted.'' The fact is we are here stuck for only one reason, because the majority party leadership has lost control of its own caucus, they do not know what to do, and as a consequence they are punting. That may not hurt in a football game, but it eventually will hurt every single school district that needs to know how to plan, it is going to hurt students who need to know what they are going to get on Pell grants, and in addition to that it is going to hurt the country if we do not move on to do our other jobs, such as expanding unemployment insurance, doing something to help small business with the cost of their health care plans. I cannot walk into a small business in my district where someone does not say to me, ``My God, I don't know how we can afford to keep our health insurance for our employees because of the cost.'' This place has been in a shutdown since Labor Day. We all came back here with the expectation we would be dealing with appropriation bills. The gentleman from Florida has been blocked from doing his job, and I have been blocked from doing my job because of an internal war in the majority party caucus. It would be good for the country if that war would end. Now. Not after the election. The public has a right to know where we stand on education, where we stand on the environment, where we stand on housing before the election, not after the election. We are hell-bent to have a vote on Iraq 2 or 3 months before anybody thinks that we are going to war; but, no, we cannot have a vote on the budgets that are already expired for the year so we can deal with our own problems here at home. I have one message to the majority party leadership in this House: Shape up. Do your job. Meet your responsibilities instead of running away from them and trying to hide until after the election. You must think you have a pretty lousy case if you are hiding it until after the election.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm). (Mr. STENHOLM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, the previous Republican speaker is the majority party whip. It is his job to line up votes to pass every bill that the Republican leadership brings to the floor. The reason we are seeing no appropriation bills come to the floor is because he cannot find the votes in his own caucus for the President's education budget, so his answer to everything is, delay and delay and delay. What I would suggest to the gentleman, he is absolutely right: On this side of the aisle, we do want to provide more money for education than the President; we do want to provide more money for environmental protection; and we do want to provide more money for health care, because too many people are losing health coverage, and we need to do something about it. Now, I would say to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), he gives great speeches about how the Democratic position in wanting to do those three things is irresponsible. If Members think it is, put it to the test: Bring the bill out. It is their bill, they are in the majority, and they ought to have the votes to pass their bill. If they do not, it is because people in their own caucus are telling them it is cockamamie. If Members want to see movement in this House, bring the bills out, and they should take their chances. If they have the best arguments, they will whip us. But just because they think we in the minority are wrong is no excuse for their doing nothing at all. Right now that is what the majority party whip is leading his caucus to do: no action on education; no action on health care; no action on housing; no action on environmental cleanup; no action on agriculture; nothing but delay, delay, delay, and duck. What leadership. It is dazzling in its irresponsibility.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I am going to give the gentleman who just spoke the ``Alibi Ike of the Cosmos'' award. He is essentially saying, ``Gee whiz, folks, the reason that we can't pass these eight appropriation bills is because if we do, the other body won't have passed them, and so therefore it's them there other guys' fault.'' I do not think that is a very impressive argument. I know of absolutely no reason whatsoever that the House has not been able to deal with the HUD appropriation bill, with the transportation appropriation bill, with the Labor-H bill, the Commerce-State-Justice bill, the agriculture bill, the foreign ops bill, the energy and water bill, and the District of Columbia bill. Nothing whatsoever is preventing this House from taking up those bills and sending them to the other body except the internal war which is going on in the majority party caucus which has created a situation in which the gentleman from Florida is not being allowed to bring these other bills to the floor. So I would suggest, folks, nobody is going to be impressed by blaming somebody else for your own inaction. Once you have passed those bills, then you will have a right to squawk at the Senate. Until then, who are you kidding? You are just passing the buck, and you know it as well as I do.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, ever since Labor Day this Congress and the President have been focused almost exclusively on Iraq, and there is absolutely no question that we will soon be at war. Meanwhile, the economy is showing serious signs of stress, and this body is doing virtually nothing about it. Only 10 percent of our domestic appropriation bills are in place for the coming year. We are looking down a deep economic shaft with very little light at the end of the tunnel. We are in danger of leaving for the election with almost nothing being done to help provide that light, and there is a lot of talk in this institution about simply passing a series of continuing resolutions and then finally kicking all of these problems over until after the election, conveniently. Mr. Speaker, the rules of this House are designed to help the House leadership address problems. Instead, on this occasion as they have been used on so many other occasions, they are being used to avoid problems. And then, even though we have only passed five of the 13 appropriation bills required in this House, we have some Members of this House who sound like the great Alibi Ike of the Cosmos, because they look for somebody else to blame for the fact that we have not been able to do our own job. I think that that has to stop. I think people need to understand just how bad it would be if this government were to function on a continuing resolution for any significant period of time. That action would put the economy at high risk, in my view. It will virtually guarantee that almost nothing will be done about our economic problems. Political positions of both parties on a variety of issues will harden, and we will come back after the election, and we will be faced with a large supplemental request for Iraq, and the need to pass all of next year's fiscal 2004 appropriation bills. That will create a huge incentive to simply extend last year's spending patterns through the coming year, and that will have very bad effects on the economy. It will also lead to a lot of nasty and unintended consequences. Example: it will leave a number of agencies funded at levels significantly below where they need to be, and many of those agencies will be at the center of our efforts to protect our people against terrorist threats. But we will also have other programs for which spending will be at higher levels than Congress expected or intended. Example: the highway spending that is in the continuing resolution right now is $4 billion higher than the level it was intended to be under the Republican budget resolution. And also, we have an anomaly, which means that the National Institutes of Health, which both parties have promised to increase by 15 percent this year, we will have the National Institutes of Health funded at $3.8 billion less than the President's budget. That does not make any sense. But that is what is going to happen if this House continues to avoid its responsibility to bring up the Labor-Health bill and other appropriation bills. The problem we have is there is an impasse within the Republican caucus between conservatives and moderates over what spending levels ought to be on education and on the Labor, Health and Education bill in general. And because of that impasse, the leadership is refusing to bring that bill up, and they are also acquiescing to the demand of a few hard-liners in their caucus that because they do not bring up the Labor-HHS bill, they should not bring up any other appropriation bill either. Well, I sent a letter to the Speaker trying to propose a way out of this box, and I suggested that the Speaker allow the President's education budget to come to the floor; in fact, bring the whole Labor-HHS bill to the floor, bring the President's budget to the floor, if you want, allow the Republican caucus to offer a substitute to that, and allow the minority to offer our substitute, and let the chips fall where they may. It does not guarantee an outcome, but it does move the process forward. In the past, many times, past Speakers have allowed controversial bills to go forward, even when they could not guarantee a result, because they understood the gravity of continuing on a long-term continuing resolution and all of the programmatic harm that would do to the country and the economy. So the very least that the majority should do, instead of just passing another CR, is to bring to the floor the Labor, Health and Education bill so we can meet our primary domestic responsibilities. Mr. Speaker, I think we ought to do something else. We have a very shaky economy, and in the midst of that, we are going to be dislodging Saddam Hussein. He is a bad actor, we will all welcome his departure, and no doubt that departure would be good for the people of Iraq. Sanctions would be lifted, they would have a renewed opportunity for a better life. But our economic problems here at home will still remain, and the economic problems of people who live along the Mississippi will not be taken care of by whatever we do on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. We also need to have an economic stabilization package that recognizes that things are dangerously different here at home than they were when the majority passed its budget resolution and its tax provisions a year ago. In addition to putting the Labor, Health and Education bill on the floor so we can face up to our choices rather than avoid them on that issue, we also ought to see an economic stabilization package on this floor that would include, for example, extension of unemployment insurance, a strengthening of the safety net for programs for families hit by economic weakness, help to small business and farmers who are losing their ability to pay for health insurance, protections for investors, and protection for workers' pensions, additional infrastructure funding to provide for immediate job growths and, if I may be so bold, I know we are not supposed to say that nasty word around here, but we also do need a restructuring of the tax cuts to focus more of those cuts on low- and middle-income taxpayers struggling to get by and less on the economic elite which is doing quite well in comparison to their less well-off neighbors. That is what we ought to do if we were in the business of solving problems, but it appears to me that, with the exception of dealing with Iraq, this House is going to be essentially a bystander. As a practical matter, we have a government shutdown as far as the House of Representatives is concerned, so the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) is stuck with the responsibility under these circumstances of bringing another CR to the floor when we all know that he would prefer to meet his responsibilities, as we would prefer to meet ours. But we are not being given that opportunity because of an internal war within the Republican caucus. In my view, the Republican leadership needs to bring that bill to the floor. Their refusal to do so is nothing, in my view, but a confession of either incompetence or irresponsibility, I am not sure which. So I would urge, Mr. Speaker, that we vote down this rule, that we vote down the previous question on the rule, so that we can bring something back to the floor which represents a real and broad-based attack on the economic problems facing this country.

Mr. OBEY

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman) this question. I note that another continuing resolution is being scheduled, sort of like Groundhog Day. We just finished one today. The purpose of continuing resolutions is to give us time to do our other business. Given that fact, can the gentleman tell me, are there any plans for the majority to bring the agriculture appropriations bill before us any time soon?

Mr. OBEY. If the gentlewoman will yield further, with all due respect, Mr. Speaker, nothing is required of the Senate for us to do our work. I assume that there are no plans to bring the District of Columbia appropriations bill out; the labor, health, education bill out; the foreign operations bill out, which has some crucial funding for Afghanistan and other areas; the transportation and the energy and water bills. So am I to conclude, therefore, that despite the fact that we are passing a continuing resolution, we are not going to use that time to do any of our other regular appropriations work?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentlewoman will continue to yield, let me indicate that I am reaching the point where I am becoming highly reluctant to support any other continuing resolutions of a week or longer in nature because they do not seem to be affording us or they do not seem to be providing any pressure for us to pass our regular appropriation bills. I think it is probably about time that we start thinking about having 1-day continuing resolutions in order to put maximum pressure on this House to perform. I thank the gentlewoman for her time.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of the privileges of the House, and I offer a privileged resolution, that I noticed on Monday, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, rule IX of the House rules states clearly that ``questions of privilege shall be first those affecting the rights of the House collectively, its safety, dignity, and the integrity of its proceedings.'' The refusal of the majority party leadership to allow the House to take up the Labor-Health appropriations bill and, thereby, to block increased education funding that is critical to the Nation's schools, and to hold hostage the remaining appropriation bills that the House has yet to consider obviously brings ridicule upon the House. The integrity and the dignity of the House are at stake. It is a clear reflection on the dignity of the House and on the integrity of its proceedings when the House has not completed its appropriations bills and then uses its rules to avoid responsibilities rather than to meet them. It also subjects the House to ridicule when the House spends a great amount of time passing resolutions lecturing the Senate to take actions on authorization bills which are far less crucial to the operations of the government than the House's failure to act on its core responsibility, which is to pass appropriation bills, including and especially the Labor, Health and Education appropriation bill. Funding education at a continuing-resolution level brings to a screeching halt the progress that we have made in the past 5 years in providing average increases of about 14 percent a year for education. At the same time, that continuing resolution freezes many other programs and would fund the National Institutes of Health at a level $3.8 billion below the amount that both parties have announced that they want to see it funded at. In my view, the inconsistency is glaring and again brings ridicule on the House. The House is discredited, Mr. Speaker, not only because of the spectacular failure of the House leadership to get the education funding bill or any of the 13 appropriation bills adopted by the start of the fiscal year which began yesterday, but also because the House has abdicated its constitutional responsibilities and, in that sense, is avoiding the very accountability which we say we want to provide. Rule IX of the House rules outlines questions of privilege relating to constitutional prerogatives. Under our Constitution, the Congress has the power to appropriate. We determine the Nation's spending priorities and, by law, must pass all 13 appropriation bills by October 1, yesterday, the beginning of the new year. Mr. Speaker, in my view, the House leadership has abrogated its constitutional responsibilities in regard to appropriations, and I would argue that their continued inaction on these urgent priorities, priorities as crucial as additional funding for education, meets the test for privileged resolutions, and I would ask for such a ruling.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I regretfully appeal the ruling of the Chair.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, until last Saturday, Patsy was one of the three people left in this House who was here when I first came. At that time, she was one of a handful of progressives who would gather each week to discuss ways that we could prod our own party into being more aggressive in pushing for education and health and retirement needs of working people. I learned oh, so much from her. She was one of the best debaters in this House. She was a superb legislative craftsman; and above all, she had steel, and she had something else. She had a passion for justice, for women, for minorities, and the poor. She had a sense of rage about the opportunities that this House misses every day to do more for the people who have no other resource. We respected her, we loved her, this tiny woman with that giant heart. We were very lucky to have her as long as we had her. She made us all better than we ever expected to be.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 2(a)(1) of House rule IX, I rise to give notice of my intent to present a question of privileges of the House. The form of the resolution is as follows: Education Privileged Resolution A resolution, in accordance with House Rule IX, expressing a sense of the House that its integrity has been impugned and Constitutional duty hampered by the failure of the House to bring to the floor on a timely basis the Fiscal Year 2003 Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. Whereas Article I, Section IX, of the Constitution states that no money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by law. Whereas it is the fiscal duty of the Congress to appropriate annually, by October 1st of each year, the funds needed to support the execution of programs and operations of the Federal government. Whereas the House to date has only considered five Appropriations bills, and has failed to consider the Fiscal Year 2003 Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act which would provide funding for critical areas of national policy including pre-school, elementary and secondary education, special education, higher education and student loans. Whereas as President, George W. Bush supported and signed into law Public Law 107-110, the ``Leave No Child Behind Act,'' which imposes substantial accountability and performance mandates on elementary and secondary schools in every state and congressional district in the United States. Whereas the ``Leave No Child Behind Act'' included the authorization of significant additional resources to assist the states and local education agencies to provide the mandated improved educational services to America's schoolchildren. Whereas within weeks of signing the ``Leave No Child Behind'' Act, the President submitted the FY 2003 budget provides an increase in education funding of 0.5 percent (one half of one percent) compared with an average increase of 12 percent in the six years prior to enactment of the new law. Whereas President Bush's FY 2003 education budget request fails to provide the promised level of funding to states and local education agencies which are required to implement significant educational reforms. Whereas President Bush's FY 2003 budget would provide only 18 percent of the increase in compensatory education funding promise by the ``Leave No Child Behind'' Act. Whereas about one third of the 53.6 million children now in elementary and secondary schools in America are at serious risk of educational failure without the resources promised in the ``Leave No Child Behind'' Act. Whereas the funding level for improving teach quality in President Bush's budget would not even keep pace with the current level of funding, let alone help promote the expanded teacher quality programs contained in the ``Leave No Child Behind'' Act. Whereas the President's education budget also fails to provide the level of federal assistance for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act that was promised to states more than 27 years ago. Whereas by failing to appropriate the funds it has promised to pay for the new accountability requirements for students, teachers and schools, the Congress would bring discredit on itself and undermine the ability of our schools to provide the improved education services for which the House has overwhelmingly voted. Now therefore be it, Resolved that it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the Congress should complete action on the Fiscal Year 2003 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations before recessing and should fund the ``Leave No Child Behind'' Act at levels commensurate with levels promised by the act less than a year ago.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask to be heard at the appropriate time on the question of whether this resolution constitutes a question of privilege.