Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, to explain why this piece of legislation is a turkey and wrongheaded.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 7 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I have a great deal of respect for the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Shuster), and I have a great deal of respect and affection for the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar). He is a good friend of mine. But I simply cannot, in good conscience, abide in any way this legislation before us today. Five years ago, when the majority party took control of this institution, we were told that we were going to see a new day and that we were going to see a high degree of fiscal responsibility and balance. Instead, this bill for the second time throws that promise out the window. Two years ago, this House voted to require large increases in spending for highways and they put that requirement ahead of every other priority in Government. Now, I am a strong supporter of the trust funds and I am a strong supporter of highway construction and airport construction, but I do not believe that that ought to be a higher priority than education, than health care, than cancer research, than environmental cleanup, than support for our farmers or support for our national defense. And yet, the House voted to put highways ahead of all of those 2 years ago. Now, today it is taking us down that path for a second time and it is saying that our highest priority before all others is the funding of concrete to build new airports. Now, I want to see new airport construction. The problem with this bill is that it pretends that it is only directing the spending of trust fund money, but, in reality, it also directs the spending of non- trust fund money. Here is how it does it: It appropriates about $40 billion over the next 3 years to the FAA. It guarantees that $3.3 billion of that will have to be spent on bricks and mortar, on construction items. And it leaves us in this situation: It means that, if we do not then fully fund the remainder of that $40 billion out of non-trust fund monies in the appropriations process, that then the operations portion of the budget for the flying public will be severely crippled and shortchanged. And, obviously, we do not want to be in the position to do that. The Committee on Appropriations is effectively denied by this legislation the ability to trade off the funding that we spend for operation versus construction by taking a bit out of the construction portion of the budget to fund operations. And the result is that that means that we are going to inevitably require reductions in many of the programs I have just mentioned. Let me explain why. I am the one of the biggest supporters I know of for highway construction and airport construction. But this proposal requires the 64 percent increase in just 1 year for airport entitlements without examining competing needs in education, biomedical research, veterans' health care, or anywhere else. An extra billion dollars that is taken by this bill to fund airports is a billion dollars that we cannot use to fund 3,000 NIH grants for research and cancer and diabetes. It is a billion dollars that we cannot provide for special education. It is a billion dollars that prevents us from putting a dent in the $112 billion of renovation needs of our schools. It is a billion dollars that we cannot use to fund 9,000 security officers in our schools with the worst violence and drug problems. What is happening is that this bill is being passed without regard to what is happening to the budget in the Committee on the Budget. And what is happening there is that the majority party is planning to mark up a FY 2001 budget resolution that provides only $289 billion in appropriation room for the coming year on the domestic side of the ledger. That is some $25 billion below the amount requested by the President, and it is some 2 percent below a freeze level. Now, if we are going to provide outlays for highway and transit that are $3 billion this year above last year and $4.8 billion, or 19 percent, above by the year 2003, that means that other cuts are going to be required on other programs. And that seems to me that we should not want to do that. If we take a look at this bill, under this bill, aviation outlays would escalate by 3 percent in 2001 and 41 percent by 2003. And all of that is supposed to take place in the context of a budget which will provide a cut below freeze level. If we pass this bill today, I do not want to hear anyone who votes for it saying that they were for making more room for cancer research or for making more room for education or for making more room for defense, because they will be denying the Committee on Appropriations the flexibility that we need to try to meet all of those problems. I would point out one additional problem with this legislation. It allows the Senate and the President to determine what the internal rules of the House of Representatives are going to be because it puts into law changes in House rules. It puts into law two new points of order that are aimed at precluding any current or future Member of the House from offering any bill, conference report, motion, amendment, or resolution that would alter aviation funding guarantees for the next 3 years in any way whatsoever. Do we really believe that this institution ought to have to go to the President of the United States to get his permission to change our internal rules? I think that is outrageous. It has been said that the leadership of both parties are in support of this bill today. If that is the case, then all it demonstrates is that the leadership of both parties are abdicating their responsibilities to the greater prerogatives and needs of this institution. And that is a crying shame, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Sabo), the ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Transportation. (Mr. SABO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute and 20 seconds to the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Moran.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Speaker, there are over 100 trust funds and other special funds in the Federal budget. Should we put all of them ahead of cancer research, ahead of education, ahead of defense, ahead of other national priorities? I think not. I am all for the trust funds. I am all for the trust funds, but I am not for placing this particular trust fund ahead of every other need of government. That is unfair. It is not right to have a 41 percent increase in 3 years for this program, while cutting all other domestic appropriations by $25 billion, as the Committee on Budget intends to do.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds. Mr. Speaker, the issue is not whether we favor trust funds. We do favor trust funds. The issue is whether we ought to abuse trust funds and in the process leverage other spending outside of the trust fund. That is the issue. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf).

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, it is my understanding that both the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Shuster) and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar) support the conference report. If that is the case, then under rule XXII, I ask that I be assigned one-third of the time in opposition.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Yes, I did, Mr. Speaker. Motion To Table Offered By Mr. Young of Florida

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote by which the House voted to reject the motion to recommit the bill to the Committee on Appropriations.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 20 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I would very much like to see Members get home for Thanksgiving, but I think my public duty is to help Members understand what they are going to be voting on before they go home, because otherwise when they do go home, their experience with the news media and angry constituents is not going to be a very pleasant one; and I am afraid there are a lot of nasty surprises in this bill, some of which I will be discussing over the next 12 to 15 hours. Let me say, first of all, that this bill has been a battleground about national priorities and national direction. It has been the arena for battles between the President and his allies on one side and his political opponents on the other. By any measure, I think it is safe to say that the President has won victory after victory. We are going to be stuck having to extend the government, I am afraid, several times through CRs like this one because of some of the decisions made in the bill that is coming next, and people need to understand how they interrelate. I think you can say, for instance, that in the area of international leadership, the President and those of us who agree with him have won a great victory in funding the Wye peace process agreement. We have won a very important battle in making sure that debts that would never be repaid are going to be wiped out so that Latin America and Africa can, in fact, become good markets for our products as well as stable neighbors in an ever more complicated world. We have won the fight to, at least for now, take the U.S. off the list of U.N. deadbeats. On the environmental front, the President has beaten down virtually every antienvironmental rider that was tossed his way. In the fight against street crime, the President won 50,000 new cops. On the education front, it is important to understand some of the major achievements that we have made. We have seen a lot of people denigrate the President's effort to provide for 100,000 new teachers. I want to put that effort in context. What Democrats have been fighting for on education in this package is a four-pronged research-based attack on educational incompetence and poor performance. The research shows, for instance, that children do much better in smaller classes. That is why the President fought so hard for and won the battle for 100,000 new teachers. That research also shows that, especially at the high school level, students perform better, they exhibit less antisocial adolescent behavior, and there is far less violence in high schools that are smaller. And so we have an initiative that will provide for smaller high schools, or at least to help local school districts build smaller learning centers within their high schools. The research also shows that students do best when their teachers are welltrained. It sounds obvious, but some people seem to have missed it. So we have an initiative in this bill that will add additional funding for partnership grants between university schools of education and local school districts so that those schools of education are producing the kinds of teachers that the districts actually need. And also in the process, we are trying to raise the standards for those teachers so that they are actually getting a degree in the subject that they are going to wind up teaching, also I guess a shocking idea in some quarters. And lastly, research also shows that if you want to reform schools, you need to do it from bottom to top and around again, that reform has to be comprehensive, systemic; and that is why this bill adds additional money to the Obey-Porter bipartisan comprehensive school reform package. All of those are very good things. I say that there is no doubt on the major issues that have divided us the last 3 months, the President has run the table. He has won on issue after issue. But I think there are some things that are just as important as winning and losing, and I want to talk about some of them as we discuss this continuing resolution. We are being asked to continue the government a few more days so it gives us time to pass the next bill that is coming at us. I think we need to understand what is in that bill before we vote on this resolution. There are many things in that package that disturb me. The protracted battle to persuade the majority to allow the United States to pay its back dues to the United Nations has resulted in a compromise that may still prevent release of all of the funds that are needed to return the U.S. to a position of good standing in the U.N. I think that is regrettable. The Republican majority was also steadfast in its refusal to provide the Justice Department with the $14 million that they need to pursue tobacco litigation. This money is needed for efforts to recover the hundreds of billions of tax dollars paid through the Medicare trust fund, the Public Health Service, the veterans and military medical systems, and the Social Security disability fund in dealing with tobacco-related illnesses. The tobacco companies that lied repeatedly to the American people about the health effects of smoking should pay a substantial portion of those costs. The Republican majority is clearly trying to protect them from having to repay the taxpayers. I believe funds will be found by the administration to initiate litigation; but as everybody knows, legal outcomes are often dictated by the relative size of legal war chests. That is one of the things, for instance, that I am told CBS news had to take into account when they discussed whether or not to put on that famous ``60 Minutes'' special which went after the tobacco companies for not telling the truth. I would say that while the appropriation requested by the Justice Department to augment their ability to pursue that issue is small, the long-term fiscal impact on the Federal Government could be enormous; and we have failed to recognize that in the bill that is coming to us. The Republican majority also repeatedly refused to include language that both the White House and I asked them to include to ensure that 100 percent of the money paid from the Medicare and Social Security trust funds is returned to those trust funds if it is recovered in litigation. That item was repeatedly raised during negotiations. It is the fair thing to do with those funds. I find it hard to construct an argument that they should be used for a different purpose, but the Republican leadership flatly rejected that concept in both the Senate and the House. I think the reason (and this was even said in conference,) they did not want to approve this language is because it would provide incentives to proceed with the lawsuit. Well, we ought to proceed with that lawsuit. I think nothing more clearly underlies or underscores the hollowness of the claim of the majority that they have suffered a recent conversion and are now strong supporters of Social Security. Nothing is more clearly underscoring of the hollowness of that claim than their new-found concern over the solvency of those trust funds. It is a concern that suddenly emerged around here after Labor Day when polling data demonstrated to them how badly they had been damaged by their attempts to pass a huge tax bill that rewarded the rich, using all of the resources needed to strengthen Social Security and Medicare. Another issue at the center of negotiations was whether to include a small across-the-board cut. This cut was not necessary to reach the offset targets to make sure the bill was paid for; more than enough money was available from other sources. It is simply an attempt by the majority to create a symbol that could be used to pretend that in the midst of this orgy of gimmickry in spending, that they are continuing to be fiscally responsible. If my colleagues take a look at the dollars being provided across the board by the majority, it is apparent, it is apparent to me that the Republican leadership is willing to spend almost any amount to get out of town, just so long as we can obscure how much that really is through accounting gimmicks. I think that is a big mistake. The problem with an across-the-board cut is that people say, ``My God, any agency head ought to be able to administer a half a percent cut across the board.'' Of course they could. They could easily find waste if they are left to their own devices. But that is not the way this across-the-board cut is designed. Their across-the-board cut completely abandons the core responsibility of Congress to determine spending priorities. There are programs that could afford a 1 or 2 or even 10 percent cut. But, instead, the Congress requires much more limited authority be given to the President, and that means that this Congress ignores the fact that there are some programs that require a precise amount of money in order to protect the taxpayers' interest. Those kinds of programs fall into two categories: one, to protect public safety, and the other to control the in-flow and out-flow of public funds. These are largely accounts that include things like the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Air Traffic Control, Customs Service, and Border Patrol. Numerous studies have demonstrated that cuts in the administration of the Social Security agency can drive up the error rate in the disbursement of those funds enough to cost the Federal Government as much as $6 for every dollar saved in reduced expenditures in Social Security Administration; and yet those studies are ignored in the way this cut is applied. Then we get to the question of national defense. The way national defense is treated in this across-the-board cut is very interesting. It was treated the way this bill treats it in order to protect congressional pork. So what the provision requires is that we will have to see about a $520 million reduction in operation and maintenance accounts, which is the core of our military readiness, and that is occurring at the same time that the Pentagon reported that two out of the 10 divisions in the U.S. Army are now rated at C-4; in other words, not close to having the parts, people, and maintenance that are necessary to undertake military action. Yet, operation and maintenance is going to be required to be cut by a larger percentage than anything else in this bill. The reason for that is because the folks who put this bill together wanted to protect the projects and the pork in the research and procurement accounts. So we get that weird anomalous result. I will insert in the Record at this point, Mr. Speaker, extraneous material related to my remarks, and I will expand further on that subject for the Record.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I am amazed, for instance, that on pay-fors, that the conferees chose to ignore the opportunity to recoup for the taxpayers money that we should be recouping from the sale of what is known as the Block C portion of spectrum sales. Several years ago when block seed portion of the spectrum was auctioned off a number of winning bidders went into bankruptcy without paying the Government for the spectrum rights that they had purchased. They have been allowed to hold on to those spectrum rights, refused to make any payments, and now they have the prospect of reemerging from bankruptcy by selling their share of the spectrum for a good deal more than they paid for it. It is a good deal if you can get it, but the American taxpayers are taking a bath; and we were blocked from correcting this specifically by one Member of the House Republican leadership. But what bothers me the most about this proposal is the fact that it is laced through with accounting fixes to conceal an orgy of spending that every Member would deny if confronted with it by his constituents. I will insert in the Record a chart which shows that when this bill is passed, the Congress will have spent $17,400 million that will not be counted in determining how much that we have spent. It also has declared almost $15 billion in expenditures to emergency spending so that they are also exempt from spending limits we are supposed to be abiding by.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my distinguished colleague for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, once again I want to make clear why I have offered the motions that I have offered for the past 2\1/2\ hours. I did so because it was the plan of the leadership to bring the rule and the continuing resolution that just passed, to have that up right away at 10 o'clock, whiz it through the House, immediately move to the rule, which we are now on, and then move immediately to the omnibus appropriation bill, which none of us have read and none of us understand. And that vote would have been taken by noon without even having a single copy of that bill on the floor. What I was trying to do is to give Members, first of all, enough time to simply get a copy on the floor; secondly, to give our staffs an opportunity to try to determine with greater certainty exactly what is in the authorization attachments and what is not; and thirdly, to develop at least some pieces of information available to rank and file Members so that those Members who were not in the negotiations understand just how replete with gimmicks and replete with fraud this upcoming bill is. Now, we have done I think as much as we could reasonably do. It has never been my intention once the debate on the bill starts to offer further motions because I think both parties are entitled to lay out their views on that bill without interruption, and I have no intention of making future motions once we get to the bill itself. I do ask the House, on this bill, to vote against this rule because we have no business doing business this way. We have no business adding nine separate authorization bills to the underlying appropriations bill. We have no business hiding from Members the $45 billion in spending gimmicks that are in these bills. It just seems to me that the way we should proceed is to have an hour's debate on each of the provisions being added to the appropriations bills so that, whether Members are for them or against them, the House at least has an opportunity to understand what it is doing. Nobody knows what we are doing on these bills except perhaps a few of the staffers who put them together, I will grant that. But I doubt that any Member is fully aware of all of the provisions in these bills. And we are going to regret a good many of them, I am sad to say. I would simply say, for instance, that there are pieces of this bill, and this is not true of the appropriation items, but there are other pieces of the bill which we will consider which have not yet been scored by the Congressional Budget Office. We ought to know what they estimate the cost to be before we vote on this bill. So I would urge my colleagues to vote against the rule.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I am trying to understand what the import of the previous motion was. I understand that this is the method which will gag us and prevent any further motions being offered in protest to the rule that is brought before us. That is the effect of the gentleman's motion. It is, in fact, a new gag order, which will prevent us from doing anything except obediently moving toward passage of the bill. I am not going to contest it, but I think people need to know what it is. It is another symptom of how this House is run.

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, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, continuing under my reservation, I would simply note two things and then ask a question. When we were debating how dairy would be handled, we were told that it had to be on the budget because we did not have any other vehicles. Now, in the space of about 15 minutes, the House has created two additional vehicles. I am beginning to think that we are making the keystone cops look like Barishnikov. Mr. Speaker, I do not understand what the magic difference is between December 2 and December 3. Perhaps we could reach a compromise on December 2\1/2\. I do not know what is going on. I mean, I have heard of continuing resolutions for a year, an hour, but not 10 minutes, which is what it has been since we passed the last one. How many more are we going to have to pass before we get our act together tonight?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I think the House needs to understand exactly what it is we are doing, and I yield to the gentleman for the purpose of explaining what is happening again.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, continuing under my reservation, I would say I thought that is what we were told a few minutes ago, that we needed to pass the last one so we would not be in session. I hope that sooner or later, we get things right.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, continuing under my reservation, I do not quarrel with that statement with respect to the committee, but I do think that this process, I have to say, has been the most chaotic that I have seen in the 31 years that I have been privileged to be a Member of this body. I do not think what is happening is the fault of the gentleman from Florida, it certainly is not mine, but I would hope that when we return in the first of the year in the next millennium, we will have a different set of arrangements that will enable us to do things in a quite different fashion. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

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. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

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.