Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I urge a yes vote on the motion to instruct, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Speaker, a lot of people in this Chamber have spent their entire career talking about their opposition to raising the national debt. In fact, the majority of the Members of the Republican Party in this House have sponsored with much fanfare a constitutional amendment requiring an explicit vote by two-thirds of the House in order to raise the debt limit. This motion simply strikes the provision in the bill that paves the way to raise that debt limit by $750 billion. For my colleagues to vote against this motion to prevent turning the Social Security card into the Nation's credit card would give hypocrisy a bad name. 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 the final 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), the ranking member of the Committee on Ways and Means, which ducked its responsibility to bring a free-standing debt ceiling to the floor of the House.

Mr. OBEY. I am, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, since we are pretending that this is a new legislative day, I thought the least I could do is pretend that I had gone home and put on a different set of clothes and freshen up a bit, and I think we might as well continue the pretense for a while. This bill started out as a bipartisan wartime supplemental supported by both parties. Then, as they had previously done on so many other occasions, on patients' protection, on the energy bill, on airline security, on the Patriots Act, on pension reform and the welfare bill, the majority leadership decided to obliterate the legislative process. They discarded a bipartisan committee product, and they threw in unrelated partisan political items that characterized a full partisan agenda. They imposed a partisan unrelated budget resolution which pretends that they will spend $10 billion less next year than they are asking us to spend in this bill this year. They also slipped in without a vote a sleight-of-hand, hidden debt increase of $750 billion, and then they threw in enough special goodies for a few friends to get the votes to pass this shameful smorgasbord. They did it all to preserve their tax cut promises to the most well-off 2 percent of the population, promises that have turned surpluses into deficits as far as the eye can see, and deprived us of the dollars we need to strengthen Social Security and to make other crucial investments. Now, the debate the last two days has been to try to get them to make this a real legislative debate about real choices. Instead, they have taken abusive power to a new level. The new rule invents the fiction of a new legislative day to destroy the legislative process even further. What we are left with is not even a real debate. It is not even a real legislative product. This House is not behaving like a real legislative body. It has been turned into an ATM machine for the most privileged which stays in power by abusing the legislative process to avoid any real voting record. What a shame, when the legislative process is corrupted to polarize a product that should have been used to forge national unity. It belies the false pieties that we will undoubtedly hear tonight. Our friends on the other side may say they are doing the best they can. As my old friend, Archy the Cockroach would say, ``Hell's bells, Mehitabel. That is only an explanation. It is not an excuse.''

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. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I agree with the gentleman, and I am perfectly willing to ask people on my side of the aisle to withhold their comments so that we can get to additional amendments, if the same thing would happen on that side.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Very interesting. I cannot believe what I just heard the gentleman from Florida say. He said we ought to support the bipartisan compromise that has just been worked out in the committee on this product. That is what we have been saying for the last 2 days with respect to the entire bill. What we have said on the bill is we had a bipartisan bill as it came out of the committee. It has been hijacked by the Republican leadership. If you want to continue bipartisan cooperation, which we ought to have, if this is indeed a war supplemental, then drop the partisan agenda that has been imposed by the Republican leadership of this House and stick to the bipartisan compromise. That is what we have been saying. We have been ignored all day long until now. Suddenly it meets someone's convenience to utter those same words. Stick to the bipartisan compromise. Well, I am going to do that. I happen to think that our policy in Colombia is futile. I have been following developments in Colombian society for almost 40 years. I do not for the slightest moment think that they have the capacity either economically or politically or socially to do what is necessary to help themselves against the FARC and the other terrorist organizations in that country, and I do not believe in getting involved in futile exercises. That is why I think the whole policy is stupid and doomed. Frankly, if I had my way I would flip it. This language that is in the bill does not particularly bother me because the language says if you are already going after FARC and the ELN and the paramilitary groups on the drug front, also go after them on the terrorism and kidnapping front. I do not have a special problem with that. In fact, I wish it were the other way around. I would be a whole lot more comfortable seeing them focus on terrorism than on drugs because on drugs we are only fighting half a battle. We are sending our troops down to Colombia to advise them how to fight a war on drugs when we are not fighting that same war at home. We have tried consistently, consistently, at home to say that if you are going to invest $500 million or $1 billion in Colombia to fight drugs, do the same thing at home to build enough drug treatment slots so that we take care of the demand here. That is the way to fight drugs, but we have not been able to get the majority party to support that. There is one difference between me and the leadership of your party. I am going to stick to the bipartisan deals that I sign on to. They have not. They sucker us on each bill. They say put together a bipartisan compromise, work together, and we do, and then they decide to impose a partisan agenda. So I do not have any faith in this policy, but we worked in good faith with the gentleman from Arizona and others to work out language on this bill as part of a bipartisan compromise that would prevent the administration from providing all of the waivers that are in existing law that are protections against excess involvement, and while I am not satisfied with that and I do not think in the end it will work, because I believe on whole I am a person of integrity, I am going to stick to the deal that we made even though I do not think that it will work, and I hope that we can in the Senate work out a different arrangement. So I am going to take the advice of the gentleman from Florida. I believe on the big questions, as well as the little ones, we should stick to the bipartisan compromise. God, I wish your leadership agreed.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I take this time to inform the House tongue in cheek that I have just been informed by an intelligence agency that the Netherlands are preparing for an invasion by the United States in response to the bill now before us. I have a note from Harry DeWit, counselor of cultural affairs, Netherlands Embassy saying, ``We are quite alarmed to hear about the impending invasion of the Netherlands. Our military is on high alert. We would really value you forwarding any news and relevant information as soon as it comes to your attention and, in particular, as it regards the timing. I would like to be able to notify my superiors at the ministry prior to any invasion, and by doing so, I hope to improve my chances for promotion. I would appreciate your contacting me at your earliest convenience.'' Mr. Chairman, I assume that is because the DeLay amendment to this bill, which is now part of this bill, gives the President the authority to use military force to extract prisoners from the World Court if they are accused of war crimes, but it does not just apply to U.S. citizens, it also applies to allies. So we could have an appointed official from a foreign country who we are going to use our military force against such as the Netherlands in order to ``rescue.'' If we did that, I am informed we would also be in violation of the NATO charter, because the NATO charter says, if you make war against one NATO ally, you make war against them all. I have a chart here which I showed my colleagues yesterday labeled ``Tom DeLay's Proposed Invasion of the Netherlands.'' It shows that perhaps we might do it by sea, we might do it by air, we might involve paratroopers. To make sure that this time, the gentleman from Texas knows where the Hague is, we have listed it on the map. I do not know what military force the Netherlands would use to repel our invasion, but I assume they will use something. So I would simply say that this appears like a laughing matter, but it is not. The greatest deliberative body in the world, the House of Representatives, for the greatest democracy in the world, the United States of America, ought to approach these issues with more seriousness than was demonstrated by the lack of care in the drafting of the DeLay amendment. I think the DeLay amendment raises a legitimate question with respect to United States citizens, but I think the proper way to deal with that is to allow the President to negotiate changes in the treaty, rather than having Congress ride off like the Lone Ranger, Marshal Dillon, and Daffy Duck at the same time. So with that, I would urge Members to think soberly about how this proposal as presently constituted makes us look to the world. Motion To Rise Offered by Mr. Obey

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, we have just heard the most bizarre rewriting of fiscal history that I have heard on that side of the aisle in at least the last 5 minutes. Let me try to bring us back to reality and recite what the true record of fiscal discipline has been over the past 25 years. Up until Ronald Reagan walked into the White House, we never had a deficit larger than $73 billion. Then Ronald Reagan introduced in the Congress the David Stockman wonder bus budget and somehow we were supposed to be able to double military spending, cut taxes by huge amounts, especially for those at the top end of the scale, and we were told that would finally produce balanced budgets. Instead, the deficits quadrupled. The national debt rose from less than $1 trillion to over $3 trillion. So much for Republican fiscal discipline in the 1980s. We then had an initial effort by the father of the existing President to try to get those deficits under control. He took the first needed steps in order to reduce the rate of increase of the Federal deficit. I congratulate him for his efforts. But that only got us to the point where the size of the deficits were slowing in their rate of increase. It did not turn them downward. So then Bill Clinton was elected and he proposed a series of economic and fiscal measures to the Congress and over time, over a period of 8 months, we were able to put together the votes to enact that package. We did so without the vote of a single Republican in either House. Not a single Republican Senator or House Member voted for that package. We were told by Mr. Gingrich, your Speaker, we were told by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey), your floor leader, that it would lead to a massive recession and job loss. Instead, just the opposite. We had the longest period of sustained prosperity in the post-war period in this country. But it cost us, because we had to do unpopular things, and because of that we were attacked by your side, unmercifully so, and we lost our majority. But in the process of losing our majority in this House we were able to put this country back on a sound financial footing, and not a single Democrat on this side regrets that. Mr. Clinton was succeeded by Mr. Bush, and within 1 year you blew it. You imposed tax cuts that over the next 20 years are going to result in $7 trillion of lost revenue to the Federal Treasury. Then you wonder why we are not going to have enough money in the till to pay down the debt so we can prepare ourselves for the day when the baby-boomers retire and we are going to need to shell out huge amounts under Social Security. So now, after you did that and after you committed us to massive future tax cuts, you now see that we are facing potentially $300 billion deficits again, and at least half of those deficits are caused by your tax action. So now you come in here and try to sneak through the place a fancy two-stepper, which will enable you to raise the national debt, raise the national credit card limit, by $750 billion, so you can continue to pay off your rich friends with their tax cuts. That is what this fight is all about. We are resisting that because we care about the future of this country and we are dedicated to fiscal responsibility. No Democrat after the 1980s under Ronald Reagan, the free-lunch-era, no Democrat in either House has to take any lectures from the Republican Party leadership, most especially the gentleman who just talked, about fiscal responsibility. That gentleman himself added an amendment to the bill which added $200 million to the cost of the bill. So I would say: End of history rewrite! Bring us back to reality. You know what the truth is. Every person in this Chamber does.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move the Committee do now rise.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, I appreciate the gentleman doing that. Mr. Chairman, this is simply a technical fix to the amendment on Intelligence, which was passed just a few moments ago and accepted by the committee.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the Obey amendment that was adopted to the paragraph that spans pages 26 and 27 be modified by the form that I have placed at the desk.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote, and pending that, I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to explain one other reason that we need to adopt this amendment. We discovered, and we discussed with the Attorney General in the hearing, the fact that up until September 11, the Justice Department appeared insistent on downplaying the importance of antiterrorism activities. This is a document which demonstrates the papers that were presented to the Attorney General shortly before the events of September 11. As it was discussed in our hearing, apparently what happened is that the FBI was trying to push to have a higher emphasis on terrorism. Newsweek magazine contains a story discussing the difference between former director of the FBI Louis Freeh and the Attorney General about the relative importance that should be placed on antiterrorist activities. The FBI made it quite clear that they wanted antiterrorism activities to be given a much greater emphasis than the Attorney General was comfortable in giving them. This chart was a chart given to the Attorney General. He was asked to spell out for the agency staff what his priorities were. He was asked to designate what his priorities were for the department for the coming year. The objectives were listed; fighting violent crime, dealing with illegal drugs, combating terrorist activities by developing maximum intelligence and investigative capacity. The Attorney General declined to indicate that combating terrorism was one of his top priorities and instead insisted that other items be given top priority. Anyone can make that judgment. I am not saying this today in order to criticize the Attorney General. But I think it does emphasize the need for the amendment, because the relationship of the Justice Department with the FBI shows that consistently the FBI has tried to get a tighter focus on terrorism and they have met considerable resistance in doing that from the Justice Department. So that is another reason why I am offering this amendment today, to make certain that OMB cannot exercise an item veto with respect to these appropriations to the FBI for counterterrorism activities. I think it is essential. I am also frankly unhappy about the fact that the Attorney General apparently was willing to charter personal planes for himself at the same time that notices were not being given to the general public that there were security reasons that would lead people to be concerned about flying commercial. I think all of this demonstrates a certain lack of judgment at the Department of Justice that in essence got in the way of the FBI's trying to get a tighter focus on terrorism. I think this amendment will help contribute to the ability of the FBI to do its job of putting terrorism at the top of the priority list.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote, and pending that, I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, we have heard a lot today about the need to pass this bill in order to support our troops in the field, and we have heard a lot about how we need to be tough in fighting terrorism. This amendment is the first of two amendments that I will try to offer, one to this section, the FBI, and another to the Department of Defense budget, which will do the following: With respect to the FBI, in January, the FBI argued for additional funds for several critical activities to upgrade the security of their new computer system and to make certain that it is backed up and protected against loss in the event of terrorist attack. The FBI also asked for funds to increase their access to foreign language translators and analysts, because the FBI and other intelligence agencies have huge amounts of paper lying around which they want to sift through for intelligence information but they cannot because they do not have the translators. What this amendment does with respect to that item is to eliminate the line-item veto which this bill presently contains for the President. There is a clause on line 12 of page 6 which indicates that all of the amounts that we are appropriating to the FBI cannot be spent unless the President designates them all as an emergency. What we are trying to do is to eliminate that language, to make clear that we think that this money to the FBI is a high enough priority that it needs to be provided and should not be blocked by a decision by OMB. We will also have, when we get to the next section of the bill, a companion amendment. That amendment will add $790 million to the amount that will be spent, not subject to an item veto, to assure that we do not have to demobilize nearly 20 percent of the Guard and Reserves who were called up after the events of September 11. Those Guard and Reserve forces are doing some fundamental work on behalf of this country. It is a poor policy decision that would require us for lack of money to demobilize 20 percent of those forces. The President has said that we would spend whatever it takes in order to win the war on terrorism. Yet OMB has denied the request of the Department of Defense to appropriate all of the money needed so that they do not have to demobilize these forces. The Secretary of Defense issued an internal memorandum to his senior staff complaining about the high pace of operations on regular forces and saying it was creating a strain on those regular forces. Now we have fresh warnings that a reconstituted al Qaeda is planning an attack in the U.S. bigger than that that we saw on September 11. There is good reason to keep Guard and Reserve personnel on board as long as that is the situation. I do not believe that we should continue to treat Guard and Reserve as second-class forces. They are an integral part of our military operations today. I think we need to act as such. These amendments are made possible because of the peculiar accounting practice associated with one provision in the bill. I do not particularly care for that accounting practice, but as long as it has been imposed upon us by OMB and by the senior House leadership, I think at least we ought to provide some constructive use for that language and for that provision. I would say all of you who have been talking all day long about how we need to support the troops, about how we need to be tough on terrorism, you can back up your words with your vote by supporting this amendment and the next amendment that comes along shortly.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman. Mr. Chairman, what this amendment does is to take away the President's line item veto authority of the money that this bill contains to fund full mobilization for the Guard and Reserve. As I indicated earlier, we had been told that one of the things that held up the administration's request for a supplemental was the argument between OMB and DOD about whether or not full funding should be provided for the mobilization costs associated with Guard and Reserve forces after September 11. DOD lost the argument, and that meant that they did not get the money which would require 20 percent demobilization. That comes despite the fact that the Secretary of Defense on May 13 sent a memorandum to his senior staff reading as follows: ``We have had stop-loss in place for some months preventing people on active duty from leaving the service. In addition, we are extending the assignment of thousands and thousands of Guard and Reserves who have been called away from homes and normal employment to serve on active duty. The entire force is facing the adverse results of the high pace OPTEMPO and PERSTEMPO.'' We are past the point where the Department can, without an unbelievably compelling reason, make additional commitments. Yet if OMB were to be listened to, we would not have all of the funds necessary in this bill to provide for the continued use of Guard and Reserve forces in the post-September 11 activities that they are now engaged in. Again, we have heard a lot of talk on this floor today about the need to support our troops. Well, this is a concrete way we can do it. This makes certain that every dime that this bill contains will actually be provided for those forces. I think it is the responsible thing to do, given the fact that we have been given fresh warnings that a reconstituted al Qaeda force is planning something even worse than they planned on September 11. There is good reason to keep these forces active, given the strain that we have on regular forces, and I appreciate the fact that the gentleman has accepted the amendment on behalf of the committee and would support a vote.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.