Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

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 the remaining 1\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Speaker, under the rules of the House, the gentleman from Florida has the right to close; he still has a lot of time remaining, and so much may be said which we will not be able to respond to. But having said that, let me simply say that I think every Member of the House wishes the chairman well. He is being honored tonight for his leadership on bone marrow research, and I hope we do not tie him up too late here so that he can receive that award. I want to congratulate him for it. I think all of us in the House know that he deserves it, and his mother will be proud. Let me also say, Mr. Speaker, we are simply here because this resolution will extend the ability of the government to function until October 4. It is then my understanding there is another plan to move us to October 11; and then after that, evidently, an effort will be made to move us past the election. I want the majority leadership to understand, I will not vote for a resolution that moves us past the election without doing our duty to pass the education bill, to pass the science bill, to pass the other appropriation bills that this House has a duty to pass. We should not sneak out of town before we have done our duty, especially our duty by the children of America. Mr. Speaker, I urge the House leadership to take the time afforded by this resolution to face up to their responsibilities to bring the Labor-Health-Education bill to the floor, as well as the other bills, so that the House can finish its business. When we finish our business, then we can squawk about the other body. Until then, we have no claim in the world to do so. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Phelps).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor).

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. I would simply like to say to the gentleman who just spoke, the worst thing that can happen in this town is when we believe our own baloney, and the fact is I have just heard a lot of it. We hear speech after speech from the majority side of the aisle saying, It's them thar other guys on the other side of the Capitol what's caused this problem. That is really not the problem. The problem can be summed up in a quote from Shakespeare: ``The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars but in ourselves.'' I would say to my friends in the majority, you are in the majority. Act like it. Bring the bill to the floor. If you have got the votes, you have got the votes. If you do not, we will reach some other result. But do not stymie the Congress into paralysis and then govern by continuing resolution because you do not have the courage of your convictions. Bring the bills up and see whether the majority whip or other factions in the caucus win. The only reason the majority whip does not want to bring the bill up is because he knows he does not have the votes in his own caucus. I dare him to bring the Labor-Health- Education bill up. I dare him to put the President's budget on the floor. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), ranking member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo).

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, how much time is remaining on both sides?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Speaker, we have just been told by the majority party whip that he is holding back an ocean wave of spending. Well, what is it that he is holding back? What is he using his hammer to hold back in his own caucus? He is using his hammer in order to prevent this House from voting on the education and health appropriations bill. He has his ideological views and he has assessed the votes in his own caucus and he has decided he does not even have the votes in his own caucus to squeeze down education as much as the President wants to do in his own budget. If The Hammer, as he is known on that side of the aisle, if the gentleman is so confident that he can prevail, then why do you not allow the committee to bring up the Labor-Health-Education bill? I wrote to the Speaker and I said, Mr. Speaker, you have got a fight between your conservatives and your moderates and so you are hung up and so you do not want to bring a bill up because you cannot guarantee an outcome, why do you not simply bring the bill to the floor and let us let the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) offer the President's budget, which he tried to do, let your Republican caucus offer any other alternative they want, and then let us offer an alternative we want and let us see which package wins? The reason you will not bring the Education bill to the floor is because you know you cannot win it. It is also because you know that your Members desperately want to avoid voting on the President's Education budget before the election. Why? Because in the last 5 years, we have delivered on average a 13 percent increase for education each year, and now you want to freeze it. Now you want to freeze it and your moderate Members know that that will not fly with the American people. It will not do any good for America's kids. It will not help build America's future, and it will not help you in the election. Bring the bill out. That is what we are asking. As for the Senate being responsible, the fact is that 90 percent of the domestic budget has not passed, and that is no fault of the Senate. You have only produced on this floor the smallest of the domestic appropriation bills and only the Treasury-Post Office bill has become law. We are going to have a conference on Defense next week but you have abdicated your responsibility. The gentleman from Texas, I say to you, you have abdicated the responsibility as majority party whip to do the Nation's business. You say you have completed the Nation's business. Then why is it that 90 percent of the domestic appropriations are being bottled up by the majority party? Why do you not do your duty and bring those bills to the floor? Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bentsen). (Mr. BENTSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 14 minutes. Mr. Speaker, this is a serious time for the country. In 2 years' time we have seen a record surplus go to record deficits, almost 2 million people more out of work today than there were a year ago, a year and a half ago. Economic growth is more anemic than at any time in 20 years. Corporate marauders have swindled investors and ruined workers' pension plans. The stock market has lost more than $4 trillion in value, and the price of health care and prescription drugs is skyrocketing. And almost nothing is being done about that by the American people's government. We also are conducting a war against terrorism, and now we are considering taking on a new war against Iraq. In the midst of all of that, because of an unreal and incredibly mismanaged budget, this Congress has passed only one of 13 appropriation bills, and that means that 90 percent of our domestic budget is likely by the end of next week still to be unfunded. Even the defense budget is not funded at this point; we hope it will be funded next week. Under these circumstances we need to work together; we need a cooperative spirit. The last time we went to war against Iraq, President Bush, Sr., consulted broadly, he respected differences of opinion, he set the tone for cooperation between the U.S. and our allies, between the U.S. and the U.N., between the executive and legislative branches of government, between the Democrats and Republicans who serve in this Congress. The result was that we had a spirited debate which I had the privilege to chair at that time; and after the vote, we all came together, united in purpose and in spirit. But this time the situation is sadly different, and this President is taking a much different approach at a time when we need to keep discussion on a high plane. We have seen the report in The Washington Post yesterday which questioned the concern of the Senate Democrats about national security. The kind of rhetoric that we saw emanating from the President on seven occasions is divisive when it should be unifying, it personalizes issues that ought to be substantive, and it weakens this country's ability to find consensus at a time when we need it badly. Now, the White House issued a limp apology yesterday and said ``Oh, the President did not mean it; he was not talking about the Iraq debate, he was talking about homeland security.'' I would point out that when this President questions someone else's concern for national security because of their positions on homeland security issues, this is the same President who told me nose-to-nose in the White House that the bipartisan package that the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) and I were producing to buttress our homeland security programs after September 11 would be vetoed if we spent one dime more than the President had himself requested for homeland security. This is the President who resisted our efforts to provide more money to the FBI so that we could end the disgraceful situation under which 50 percent of the FBI's computers could not even send a picture of a terrorist or a suspected terrorist to another FBI computer around the country. This is the same President who resisted our efforts to add more funding for Canadian border security, when I stood in this well holding a traffic cone, saying that on many of the stations on the Canadian border, after they were closed at night, the only deterrent we had to terrorists crossing the border was a traffic cone. I am sure they were scared stiff of that. This is the same President who resisted our efforts to strengthen funding for the Nunn-Lugar program to secure nuclear material in the former Soviet Union before it fell into terrorist hands. This is the same President who resisted our efforts to add money above his budget request to protect our nuclear plants and to protect other sensitive Federal installations from terrorist attack. Now, I have served with seven Presidents. I have never seen any President during all of that time, except Richard Nixon--the only President I ever saw use that kind of innuendo, questioning someone else's dedication to the security interests of this country was President Nixon. The reason I am so passionate about this issue is because I get my dander up when people question any other public servant's commitment to this country's security interest. Because I come from the State of Joe McCarthy, and I saw how he denigrated the political debate in this country, and I think that no one ought to emulate that. Unfortunately, I think we have seen remarks that came pretty close. I would also point out, it was not the other body of this Congress, if the President wants to know, it was not the other body that blocked funds that his own Secretary of Energy requested to protect the shipment of nuclear warheads down U.S. highways from terrorist attacks. Huge bipartisan majorities of this House and the other body approved those funds, but the President said no. It was not the other body of this Congress that blocked funds to bring the Federal Bureau of Investigation into the information age. Huge bipartisan majorities in both Houses of Congress approved those funds in the recent supplemental, but the President said no. It was not the other body of this Congress that blocked funds to establish a global system of checking containerized cargo on cargo ships before they leave ports overseas rather than after they are on American soil in order to determine if they have radioactive material, chemical, or biological weapons, or other material that may be used to launch acts of terror. Huge bipartisan majorities in both Houses of Congress approved those funds, but the President said no. It was not the other body of this Congress that blocked funds to help the Immigration and Naturalization Service develop the analytical capability they needed to prioritize and track the thousands of illegal immigrants who were inside the United States and identify the ones that are likely to pose the greatest threat to the citizens of this country. Huge bipartisan majorities in both Houses of Congress approved those funds also, but the President said no. It was not the other body of this Congress that blocked funds to help the National Weapons and Research Laboratories to make certain that they can defend themselves and their employees against cyberattacks and espionage conducted by terrorist organizations. Huge bipartisan majorities in both Houses of Congress approved those funds, but the President said no. Despite all of that, I do not think we saw Democrats in either this body or the other body questioning the President's patriotism or his commitment to national security. We took those differences to be honest differences. The President owes us and the other body the same courtesy. We all have obligations of conscience, and we should respect them, including the President of the United States. And we have other obligations. Because this House has not met those obligations, we are here today with this continuing resolution. Because at this point, this House, if we can quit blaming somebody else for a change, this House, not the other body, this House has passed only five appropriation bills out of the 13 required to finish our business. This chart demonstrates what has happened every year since 1988. The worst record during that period from 1988 through today, the worst record we had was in 1991 when the House only finished 10 of its 13 appropriation bills, and in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 years, the House finished all of them. This year, the House has done virtually nothing of its appropriations work, and that is not the fault of the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, and it is not the fault of the Committee on Appropriations. It is because there is an internal war in the majority party caucus over one bill, the Labor, Health and Education bill. The conservatives in the majority party caucus do not want to see any appropriation bill brought to this floor until the education budget is brought to this floor and passed at the President's level, and the Republican leadership's dilemma is that they know they do not have the votes for that in their own caucus. Because the moderates in the Republican caucus know that the President's budget is inadequate, and they do not want to go home having stopped the progress we have made on education over the last few years. Now, I will say one thing for the President. He has had a lot of photo ops. He has been in elementary schools more often than students over the past year, posing for political holy pictures with children promoting the No Child Left Behind Education Act. We passed that with large bipartisan majorities, and what that act said is that we are going to reform the education programs and then we are going to fund them. Well, we reformed them. Where is the funding? Before that act passed, this Congress, over a 5-year period, virtually doubled support for public education. But what budget did the President send down to match his talk as he goes from schoolroom to schoolroom, trying to create the image that he is putting education first in this country? The President's education budget brings to a screaming halt the progress we have made in expanding education funding over the past 5 years. He puts a financial freeze on education when we look at it on a per-student basis. That is not what my constituents tell me they want when I go home. The reason this continuing resolution is here is for only one reason: it is because the majority party does not want to have to vote on the President's education budget before the election. The only group that appears to want to vote on it are the conservatives in the Republican caucus. But the rest of the caucus does not want to have to vote on the President's budget because they know they would vote no, because the President's rhetoric is not matched by his actions. Mr. Speaker, the President is not putting our money where our mouths are, and I call that posing for political holy pictures. As far as I can see, the Nation's schools are regarded as the number one photo op for the White House political staff and the number one target by the White House budget staff. I would like to know which of those two groups our friends in the majority party are actually going to be supporting. But this CR is here because they do not want to have to vote on that issue. They do not want to have to expose their own chaos and their own different vision in their own caucus. So I want to make clear to the leadership in this House, I will vote for this resolution today, this short-term continuing resolution, because we have no option if we are going to keep the government open. But I will not vote for an extended continuing resolution. I will not vote for a continuing resolution that allows this body to push these issues off until after the election so they can have a collective Republican duck. I will not do that. This House needs to finish its business. It needs to pass the Labor- HHS bill, it needs to pass the transportation bill, it needs to pass the budget for science, it needs to pass the budget for defense. In short, we need to meet our basic responsibilities. When all we can do is produce five of these 13 bills and then somehow blame the other body for the fact that we have not even seen these bills come up here, that to me is a confession of institutional impotence and a demonstration of political incompetence; and neither one of them ought to make anybody very proud.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. Mr. Speaker, it is not the other body that has prevented this House from bringing out the Labor-Health and Education budget, or the Science budget, or the Housing or Transportation budget. It is the fact that the majority caucus is wrapped around the axle because they cannot get an agreement on any approach that will bring those bills to the floor and allow them to pass them. That is what the problem is. Now we have an effort to shift the blame somewhere else. I guess that is the normal course of action around here. That does not make it right. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the 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 30 seconds. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is certainly a friend of education and health care; but I would simply point out that the issue is not what we have done last year, it is what we are going to do next year. We still have not seen a bill produced by the majority, and the President's budget for health care cuts back $1.4 billion in crucial health care programs outside of NIH. It essentially fails to provide anywhere near the support level that is needed for programs that help low-income students, for programs that help the handicapped, and for children who need help with second languages. So there are going to be thousands of children, indeed, left behind by the President's budget, and we would like to correct that, but we cannot get the Republican majority to bring a bill to the floor. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson). (Mr. JACKSON of Illinois asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. The previous speaker leaves a false impression in the House because of his constant reference to budget resolutions rather than appropriations. Budget resolutions do not provide one dime for students. Appropriations bills do. The fact is despite the fact that the President of the United States made a big thing out of being for the No Child Left Behind authorization bill, there will be hundreds of thousands of children left behind under the budget that he proposed, which does not in any way match that original legislation. Example: Special education, the budget he proposed this year is one-half billion dollars below what it would have to be to meet the promises of the Individuals with Disabilities Act. In Title I, they are $4.6 billion below where they would have to be in order to meet the promised funding level under the No Child Left Behind Act, and even the small $1 billion increase in that package is paid for by cuts in other programs that affect the very same children who need help the most, and then you have in addition the President cutting the comprehensive school reform program by 24 percent, eliminating the smaller schools appropriations. So then if you take the children who are most at risk, because they have difficulty with languages, this budget on a pupil basis provides a 10 percent real reduction in programs to help children who have trouble with the English language. No child left behind, it sounds nice. Why do you not back it up with your money?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost).

Mr. OBEY

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, of course not. That is the problem. This House has ducked its responsibility for 8 months, and is now looking for a way to get out of town without having voted on the specifics. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

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