Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the gentleman from New York and the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan) for the agreement. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I just do so in order to allow the gentleman to make clear to the membership what this will mean for all of them for the rest of the day, and what it will mean for the further consideration of this bill. It is my understanding that this will mean that after we take up the Menendez amendment, we will then vote on the accumulated amendments, and that there will be no further votes today; that the committee will rise, and that we will resume consideration of this bill Monday after 7, and proceed to completion of the bill Monday evening.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise to strongly support this amendment. This amendment, very simply, restores 270 positions that are being cut by the Bush administration, positions that are needed to enforce our environmental laws. I think the cutbacks that the administration is providing are consistent with what I regard as its generally misguided policy on environmental cleanup. I think the cutbacks they are trying to achieve in EPA enforcement are similar to the weakening of our attack on environmental problems that we see by their walking away from our obligation to try to work out an international treaty on global warming, for instance. I think that their efforts to cut back on EPA enforcement are consistent with the White House efforts to reverse the new, more stringent standards for air-conditioning efficiency, a standard which the Clinton administration tried to implement and which would have saved us billions of dollars in energy costs if the White House had not walked away from those new standards. If we take a look generally across the board at what the administration tried to do to shred the New Lands Legacy Agreement, which we reached in the Subcommittee on Interior last year, which over the next 6 years essentially doubles our ability to purchase key parcels of lands for future generations, all of those initiatives that the administration has taken have operated to reduce rather than strengthen our support for environmental cleanup. This is just one more instance. It may seem like a small thing, but in my view it is not. The amendment is consistent with our efforts, for instance, to strengthen standards on arsenic in drinking water, which we just completed. So I would urge the House to support this amendment. I congratulate the gentleman for offering it, and I am happy to cosponsor it with him, and I would urge that the House adopt this amendment unanimously. I cannot think of a single constructive argument against the amendment.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield further, I will simply reemphasize that. If Members have amendments, they have a responsibility to be here in a timely fashion. It is not the committee's responsibility to protect Members who are not protecting themselves.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I am happy to say that I have two healthy sons. When you look at your kids when they are newborn and you ask yourself, what do you want for them, what you conclude is that you want them to be able to go to a good school, you want them to be able to get a good job, you want them to be able to find a good life's partner, and you hope to God that they live long, happy, healthy lives. The little things mean a lot. People talk about security for your families. The number one thing you want to know in your own home is that when you turn on that tap water, it is safe, it is reliable, it is not going to do any long-term damage. And people really do not know, they just count on their public authorities to keep their kids from harm. That is what this amendment is trying to do, plain and simple. You have a choice. You can recognize the standards that were recommended by the scientific community, or you can decide you are going to stick by an outmoded standard which has been on the books since 1942. To any of you who are about to have children or grandchildren, I would suggest that is not even a close call. The Bonior amendment is clearly in the interest of public health, public safety. It is clearly in the interest of every single child and every single family in America. When people prattle on in political debates about family values, I would suggest that this is a family value that ought to be put at the top of the list. Keeping every kid safe when they pick up a glass of water or when they go to a hamburger stand and get a hamburger or when they walk into a restaurant and get a glass of water, those are the basic issues that really account for quality in life. That is what the gentleman from Michigan is trying to say with this amendment. I am proud to cosponsor it with him. I would urge the House to adopt the amendment.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I have first a question and then a comment. If this request is granted, it is my understanding that this in no way affects the rights of other amendments to be offered, even though when we consider some of these amendments we would be moving ahead in the bill.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Let me simply say I share the gentleman's desire to try to find a way to reach some type of understanding on this bill, but we have a practical problem. The problem is that there is considerable feeling on this side of the aisle that it is a might strange to ask for cooperation from the minority in setting time immediately after a martial law approach to this House was just rammed down our throats. So while I will certainly work with the gentleman and I would urge every Member who has a potential amendment to, by the time general debate is over, get the text of those amendments to both sides so that we have some idea of what the universe of amendments is and we can try to work out a proposed timetable, I am not very optimistic at this point that we can get clearance on our side of the aisle. I am told, for instance, that our leadership at this point is not contemplating providing clearance, but I would like us to continue to try to work this out. I know the possibility has been raised by myself of trying to get a time limit that would make certain that we would finish this bill. If we cannot finish it today, we could make sure that the timetable assured that we could finish it early on whatever day it was continued to. I would hope, in light of the requests we have had from both sides, that that would not be tomorrow; that if we could not finish it tonight, it would go over to Monday or Tuesday. But I frankly do not care. I will be here either time. But I think people on the majority side need to understand that it is very difficult to get clearance on this side of the aisle after martial law has just been rammed down our throats. That is not usually the way in which the majority in this House elicits the cooperation of the minority in changing the rules.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman continue to yield?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I would simply like to point out to the House that each of the previous regular appropriations bills has been supported on a bipartisan basis by the majority and minority. This is the first bill that we run into trouble on because, in our view, the allocation provided to the bill is insufficient, which means we will be starving housing, we will be starving veterans medical care and environmental enforcement. Nonetheless, we had indicated our intention to work with the majority to try to work out time limits, but a little thing called martial law has blown that up. And I wish that people who have no responsibility for managing bills in this place, and I am speaking specifically of the leadership on the other side of the aisle, I know they like to wave magic wands and tell the committee to get its work done, but I wish that people who have an interest in seeing that work done in a timely fashion would work in a more cooperative manner with this side of the aisle if they are asking me to be able to get cooperation on this side of the aisle so we can do what the majority leadership wants to do. It is sometimes hard to help people who do not want to help themselves.

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

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, so far, with the six appropriations bills which have passed the House, we have seen bipartisan support for every single one of them. This is the first bill that will generate considerable opposition, and I want to explain why. The fault does not lie with the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh) or the subcommittee. He has done the very best job he could possibly do, given the allocation that he was given. The problem is that the allocation is too low, and that forces the bill to be at least a half billion dollars lower than it should be for veterans health care, and it cripples the enforcement of clean air and water laws across the country. It forces the bill to provide inadequate funding for housing for poor kids. It forces the bill to eliminate the National Service Corps, which even the subcommittee itself admits is not a serious initiative, but they had to do it to, quote, ``fit into the so-called budget rules''. It forces a number of other reductions which everyone understands in the end are essentially irresponsible. Why does it do that? It does it because the tax bill passed earlier in the year by this Congress sucked up every single dollar on the table, which meant that we had nothing left to deal with the long-term problems of Social Security, of Medicare, of education, of veterans medical care, of environmental protection or any other national priority. Essentially, the House majority prevented the House from facing the real world trade-offs between tax cuts of the most well-off people in our society and other crucial funding for middle income and lower income people. Mr. Speaker, that is why I asked the Committee on Rules to make in order an amendment. Since they are providing numerous other waivers, I asked them to make in order an amendment that would allow us to add $300 million to veterans health care, add $382 million to housing, add $311 million to the National Service Corps, add enough to restore the 65 EPA environmental enforcement positions that they have cut. And we paid for it without cutting into the Medicare surplus, without adding to the deficit, by simply scaling back the size of the tax cut for people with incomes of over $330,000, by dropping it from 39.6 to 39.1 percent instead of the 38.6 percent that the House passed earlier this year. Mr. Speaker, the folks we are talking about have seen their after-tax income grow by $414,000 per family over the last 20 years. I do not think that it is asking of them too much to say, instead of getting an average tax cut of $53,000, to only get a tax cut of about $25,000. I hardly think that is going to put them in the poorhouse. If we had that amendment before us, we would be able to try to use that money, which would be $1.3 billion, use a billion of it in this bill for veterans health care, for housing, for environmental enforcement and the like, still leaving $300 million available for additional education and defense priorities. That to me is what we ought to do, but the rule did not allow it. So I will be asking each and every one of my colleagues to vote against the previous question on the rule so that we can offer this amendment to allow the House to choose whether giving a $53,000 tax cut to people who make $1 million or more a year is more important than enforcing our environmental laws, more important than giving veterans the medical care they need, more important than providing decent housing for poor kids. Mr. Speaker, I think the moral choice is obvious. I would hope that the House would allow us to face these trade-offs. The problem with the budget that has been passed is that, very skillfully, these trade-offs have been avoided. We have not been allowed to exercise real-world choices. It is time that we grow up and make these choices.

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

Mr. OBEY. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Let me simply say that I am concerned with the integrity of this Congress. And I think we can start demonstrating that integrity by being willing to make the specific trade-offs that we have to make in the real world. The problem that we have is that the tax bill was passed before we ever had a budget. That was a clever device by which the House was shielded from having to choose whether it was more important to cut taxes by a specific amount for high-income folks or whether it was more important to use some of that money for veterans, for education, or for other high priorities. We have been denied every other way to make those trade-offs evident, so this is the only avenue left open to us. It may not be perfect, but it is a whole lot better than not joining the issue at all.

Mr. OBEY

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is fully consistent with the rules of the House. The House would have had the opportunity to vote on it if the Committee on Rules had waived the rules of the House in the same manner that they waived those rules for consideration of this bill as a whole. So I believe the amendment is consistent with the rules of the House. However, the manner in which those rules have been exercised I recognize has effectively blocked us from having this amendment come to a vote. I regret that, but I cannot do much about that.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman, this amendment does not reduce the size of the tax cut for a single middle-income American. The only persons affected on the tax side by this amendment are people in the top 1 percent of earners in this country who make more than $330,000 a year. I am sure that they are all fine people. That is not the issue. I do believe that they can afford to have a slightly smaller tax cut. I do believe they do not need an entire $53,000 tax cut, which is on average what they will receive under the tax package that was passed. I do not believe that they need that full tax cut as much as sick veterans need better medical care, or as much as low-income children need to get out of rat traps and into decent housing, or as much as we all need adequate enforcement of our laws to protect the environment. I am amused by one of the previous speakers who talked about the tax rebate and who it ought to go to. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the tax rebate. People are going to get their tax rebates, although I would note I did get a complaint from a reporter in my district because his grandmother, who died a year and a half ago, did get a tax rebate in the mail, and the letter was labeled: Blank name, ``deceased.'' With all due respect, I do not know many people whose last name is ``deceased.'' I would prefer to see to it that what tax rebates we do give go to live veterans in need of health care, go to the families of live children who need better housing, and go to those Americans who are sacrificing in order to provide national service in their own communities; and I make no apology for that. I find it interesting that somehow people talk about class warfare. I think the middle class has already lost, if there has been a war, because the CBO shows that the top 1 percent of earners over the past 20 years has had their after-tax income rise by $414,000, while the middle class has had their income rise over that same period, their after-tax income, by about $3,400. Some victory for the middle class. So I would suggest, Mr. Chairman, if people think veterans are getting adequate health care, fine; oppose the amendment. If you think poor kids are getting adequate housing, fine; oppose the amendment. This issue is not whether you are for or against tax cuts. This is an issue of who you think has a greater need, who you think has a greater requirement for assistance from Uncle Sam. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. I will be prepared to yield back the remainder of the time when the gentleman is prepared to yield back the remainder of his time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh). Mr. Chairman, let me explain what this amendment is all about. I served in the legislature with a fellow by the name of Harvey Dueholm, who was a retired farmer, probably the single best legislator I ever knew. He had a number of pithy observations of life and politics in this country. One of the things he said regularly is that one of the problems with this country is all that too often the poor and the rich get the same amount of ice, but the poor get theirs in the wintertime. That is certainly the case with respect to the tax bill which this Congress passed a number of weeks ago. To correct that, I am trying to offer this amendment today along with the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Evans) and let me explain what it is we are trying to do. When the House voted on the tax bill, it voted on it separately before we even had a budget. That meant that, in effect, Members of this House were being shielded from the responsibility to make public choices about the trade-offs that were wrapped into that tax bill. We were never allowed the opportunity to explain in explicit terms what the size of that tax bill meant in terms of our ability to, for instance, deal with long-term shortfalls in Social Security, to deal with long-term shortfalls in Medicare, to deal with problems of short-funding in education or any other field. I make no apology for the fact that I believe that it is more important for us to shore up Social Security than it is for us to give people a $300 refund check. I make no apology for my belief that it is more important for us to shore up Medicare long term than to provide a $53,000 tax cut to the wealthiest 1 percent of people in this country. I make no apology for the fact that I oppose the idea that we ought to cut in half the rate of increase we have had in Federal support for education over the past 5 years. I make no apology for my belief that veterans are not receiving the health care they need in this country. I make no apology for my concern about the lack of adequate shelter for some of the poorest children in this country. I make no apology for the belief that we ought to have stronger environmental enforcement and that we ought to be willing to pay for it. I think all of those priorities are a whale of a lot more important than providing the tax cut that we have provided to the wealthiest 1 percent of people in our society who make more than $330,000 a year. So what this amendment tries to do is to make this Congress finally make specific choices about specific tax cuts versus specific funding programs. It is my belief that there is nothing wrong with cutting in half the tax cut that goes to people who make more than $330,000 a year so that we will have some money left on the table to provide what this amendment tries to provide, which is a $300 million increase in funding for veterans' health care and the various increases that I described previously in my statement to this House. We are going to be providing well over $300 million in additional funds under this amendment for housing. We are going to be providing funds for Federal EPA enforcement to restore the positions that were cut for Federal enforcement. We are going to be restoring partially the funding for the Corporation for National Service. We pay for that by simply cutting in half the tax cut that was provided to the wealthiest 1 percent of people in this society. Mr. Chairman, I bet that at least two-thirds of the people in that top 1 percent, if asked, would say that they would rather that we provide adequate housing and adequate health care for veterans than to keep whole their new-found tax bonanza. I have a sign on the wall of my office, and every time a group comes in asking for money, which is about 18 times a day, before they sit down and talk about what they want out of Uncle Sam, I make them read the sign on the wall which says this: ``What is there that you want me to do for somebody else that is more important than whatever it is you are going to ask me to do for you today?'' Mr. Chairman, I believe in a Judeo-Christian society. That is the fundamental question we ought to be asking ourselves. I believe if we ask that question of the folks who came in to lobby for those tax cuts for the most privileged people in this society that a whole lot of them would say, ``We do not mind if you scaled our tax cut back just a little bit so you can provide to the least fortunate people in society or, in the case of veterans, to the people who decided that they would be willing to risk everything for somebody else.'' Mr. Chairman, that is the choice that we are attempting to have the House make here today. I recognize that it is an unusual procedure because this is not in the jurisdiction of the Committee on Ways and Means, but I think doing the right thing is more important than jurisdictional dunghills. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Evans), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Veterans Affairs.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I offer a series of amendments, and I ask unanimous consent they be considered en bloc.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, the Congressional Budget Office just finished the study which showed that over the last 20 years the wealthiest 1 percent of people in this country had an after-tax income gain on an annual basis of $414,000 per year. The tax bill which this Congress passed just a couple of months ago gave those people on average a $53,000 tax cut, about an 8 percent increase in their after-tax income. That study also showed if you are exactly in the middle of the income stream, you have had an income increase over the past 20 years of about $3,400, and the tax bill that passed gave those folks not an 8 percent or 7 percent or 6 percent increase in their after-tax income, it gave those folks a 2 percent increase in their after-tax income. That study also showed if you were in the poorest 20 percent of people in this society, that you actually have lost $100 in your annual income over the last 20 years, and those folks got a 1 percent on average increase in their after-tax income by the tax bill that passed, except for the almost one-third of people in that bracket who got nothing whatsoever because they made too little money to qualify for the tax cut. That tax bill took so much money that it made it impossible for the Committee on Appropriations to give the gentleman from New York an adequate allocation for this bill; and because of that fact, not because of the desires of the gentleman, but because of the realities imposed by that misguided tax bill, this bill today is at least half a billion dollars short in providing needed veterans medical care. It is desperately short of the levels we need to be at to provide assistance for low-income people to obtain decent housing. It weakens our ability to provide environmental protection, and it does a number of other things that are not in the long-term interests of this country. I have voted for the last five appropriation bills this House produced because I thought they were decent, bipartisan products, even though they were not perfect. But this bill I will not be supporting because of the shortcomings that I have cited. I do want to say, however, that I think the gentleman from New York has done a very decent job with the limited amount of resources that he had available to him, and I especially commend him for the way he dealt with the science budget. We needed an increase over the White House budget for science. There is another strange twist to this bill, however. We tried on this side of the aisle on three occasions to get the majority to recognize that we were going to need more money for disaster assistance in FEMA's budget for the existing fiscal year. We were blocked on each of those three occasions. Now, however, this bill contains a $1.3 billion item which has been labeled an emergency by no one less than the distinguished majority whip. That is the same distinguished majority whip who last year took the floor to defend the idea that somehow funding the census was an emergency, as though we did not know that every 10 years we are required by the Constitution to conduct a census. So I find that flip- flop strange indeed. It is because of that flip-flop that this bill has been delayed for the better part of a day, and yet the majority leadership now somehow expects us to be able to make up the time lost by the internal divisions within the majority party caucus on this issue, and yet they expect us to work a miracle and finish this bill by 10, 11, 12 o'clock tonight. There are some 44 amendments pending. I do not believe it is possible to come anywhere near closure, even though we will try to work with the majority. So I would simply say that if this bill cannot be finished tonight, it ought to be clearly understood why. It is not because of any delay on the part of anyone. It is simply because of the inconsistency which was noticed by the majority party caucus, the inconsistency represented by the DeLay amendment. While I support the DeLay amendment, I regret the ridiculous turmoil that it has caused.