Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. I think he owes a retraction to the gentleman.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, the response of the House Committee on Rules to the events at Columbine High School will be to allow the House to vote on treating 13-year-olds as adults in court, but they refuse to allow my amendment to be voted on, which would have greatly expanded comprehensive school-based programs to provide for early identification and intervention with emotionally troubled youth who give indication that they might be prone to violent acts. I would make one point. Those two kids at Columbine would not have been deterred by the threat to be tried as an adult in court. They were willing to be killed to make their twisted statement. They might have responded to early mental health counseling and intervention. This House unfortunately today will not pass thoughtful legislation affecting school violence. It will, instead, pass political press releases. We ought to be able to do better.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes and 40 seconds. Mr. Chairman, I strongly support the Young amendment and urge Members to vote for it. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Shuster) is wrong. This amendment does not take the beef out of the burger, this takes the pork out of the pork barrel. That is what we are trying to do. I strongly support airport modernization. My record here over the past 30 years shows that. But I oppose this bill because of two aspects of the Shuster bill. First of all, at a time of huge budget crunches, this bill takes airport spending off budget. The result is that there will be at least $23 billion in extra spending above the amount originally planned in the budget. That money comes out of the surplus. And in my view it is wrong to take it out of the surplus before we consider all other competing needs, including Social Security, cancer research, veterans' health care, and a host of other items. Secondly, even with the manager's amendment, this bill still provides $12 to $16 billion less room for other high-priority programs, such as education and health and veterans, and that is wrong. Airport safety is a high priority, but I do not see why we ought to insulate them from cuts and yet, in the process, force even deeper cuts in other programs. Under the budget we have already adopted, this next year alone we will be requiring about a 19 percent across-the-board cut in all of the programs funded under the Labor, Health, Education bill. That means a $3 billion cut in National Institutes of Health; it means denying 2.5 million children access to title I; it means cutting Pell Grants by $300; it means cutting a million families out of LIHEAP; it means cutting veterans' health care benefits by 8 percent. Why should we make those cuts even deeper in order to make sure that airports wind up as the number one funding priority of the government? It makes no sense. I want to make one other point. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Shuster) complains about the trust funds not being supported. That is absolutely not true. The trust funds guarantee airports a source of revenue. The trust funds were never meant to guarantee exemptions from a spending squeeze for anybody. And if my colleagues doubt that, they should read the GAO study, which makes clear two things: Number one, it makes clear there is no reason why operating expenses should not be funded out of the trust fund; and, secondly, it makes quite clear that these funds were never intended to be exempted from the regular appropriations process. Read Senator Norris Cotton's statements during the debate on the bill if anyone should have any doubt about that. Now, the gentleman from Pennsylvania said that the Committee on Appropriations would continue to have regular oversight. That is nonsense. In fact, what the Shuster bill does is remove any incentive for the Committee on Appropriations to apply any fiscal discipline whatsoever to the airport account because it requires that every dollar that is cut out of operating expenses be transferred into the AIP account. That is oversight without an ability to control funds. That is meaningless oversight. Mr. Chairman, I do not want to have any Member come to the Committee on Appropriations and squawk again about an appropriations bill being over the limit in the budget if they support the Shuster bill. That would be the height of inconsistency. If Members believe in treating programs the same, they ought not vote for this. If my colleagues think airports are more important than cancer research, if they think airports are more important than veterans' health care, then by all means, vote for the bill. I do not think that is true, which is why I support the Young amendment.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would simply observe that this is not the first time there has been a problem in the Capitol. But I agree with the gentleman's solution.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Chairman, I repeat once again, the issue is not whether the trust fund should be spent on other purposes other than aviation; it should not. The question is whether or not the general fund should be required to subsidize the Aviation Trust Fund above and beyond the money that is spent out of the trust fund, even if that subsidization means additional reductions in cancer research, in veterans' health care, in diabetes research, in education, in Pell grants; and, in my view, it should not. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Shuster) said the AFL-CIO is for his bill, the NFIB is for it, and the Chamber of Commerce is for it. If that is true, then we have a trifecta today. All three of them are wrong. If we want to preserve budget discipline, if we want to preserve budget discipline, if we want to preserve budget balance and fairness, my colleagues will support the Young amendment, and they will oppose the Shuster amendment unless the Young amendment carries. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. I think there is another question that ought to be asked: How will it affect the country if we blow the budget?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute and 45 seconds to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Transportation of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg). (Mr. SHADEGG asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Sabo). (Mr. SABO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, the issue is not whether the airport tax should be used for other purposes. It will not be, and it should not be. It is an issue of whether the general fund should continue to subsidize the airport trust fund, and it is an issue of whether or not airport spending should come before cancer research, before veterans' health care, before education, before any other priority in Government. Obviously, it should not. And that is why we support the Young amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY

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

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman. Let me simply say that I am not the only Member of the House tonight trying to celebrate his anniversary. One other Member has come up to me with the same problem. I would simply thank my colleagues on the other side, and say that I hope this is a demonstration of the fact that we can fight over substance but still get along as friends.

Mr. OBEY. I certainly am, Mr. Speaker.

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

Mr. OBEY

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

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. Chairman, it is important that the previous speaker understand that what has been happening in this House tonight on these motions to adjourn has nothing whatsoever to do with whether any of us want to work or do not want to work. They do have everything to do with procedural fairness and treating the average Member of this House the same way the leadership is treated. For three out of the four appropriation bills which have been brought to the floor this year, we have had the Republican leadership unilaterally rewrite committee products with no consultation with the minority party. The first of those occurred on the original hurricane supplemental, where the leadership unilaterally decided to rewrite that bill after it had left the committee. The second was the agriculture appropriations bill. Again, we had a bipartisan bill as it emerged from the committee. It was rewritten unilaterally by the leadership of this House, and that caused considerable problems, as you know. We now had a third bipartisan bill, the legislative appropriations bill, and again today the House leadership unilaterally rewrote that bill, without any consultation with the minority and without any consultation with the Committee on House Administration, which has authorization jurisdiction over House accounts. Now what we are asked to do is to approve a rule which will allow for only one amendment. The practical result of that will be that the majority whip will be protected in his 30 percent increase in his office account, other leadership Members will be protected with their increases in their office accounts, committees will be protected from significant reductions, but the rank and file Members of this House will have their office accounts frozen. That will mean that the average member will have a very difficult time providing a cost-of-living increase for their employees in their offices, even though they work just as hard as committee employees, but the committees will have no trouble providing cost-of-living increases for their staffers, and the leadership certainly will have no problem providing cost-of-living increases for their staff. That is reason number two why we have had these actions. Thirdly, at this point this bill has become so politicized that in my view it should not be considered until we know how other branches of government are treated. This Congress has no right to be treated any better than any other branch of government, and it has no obligation to be treated worse. We should be treated precisely the same. But at this point we have no idea what is going to happen to other agencies of government, and so, until we do, in my view, we should not be considering this bill at all. Fourthly, we have no idea what is going to happen to the American public in terms of the programs that affect them. We do know that we are going to see substantial cuts in Head Start, we are going to see a substantial squeeze on education, we are going to see a substantial squeeze on the Environmental Protection Agency budgets, and yet the Congress itself is being treated rather modestly in this legislation. It seems to me that that is not fair to our constituents. So, for a lot of reasons, we feel that this bill should not be before us tonight. I do not care when you bring it up, but it should not be brought up until we know how other branches of government are going to be dealt with and until we know how we are going to treat our own constituents with respect to programs that are of vital concern to them. We will not be able to amend tonight the account of the General Accounting Office. We will not be able to amend the account for the Speaker's office or for the majority leader's office or the minority leader's office or the whip's office. We will not be able to amend the budget for the Government Printing Office, for the Congressional Budget Office or a variety of other offices on the Hill. We will only be allowed to vote on that one amendment. Last week we had amendment after amendment on the agriculture appropriation bill. All of those accounts were subject to cuts. But under this rule tonight, very few accounts will be subject to reductions under the rule. That, to me, does not seem to be a fair way to do business. Now, I apologize to the House because taking a stand on principle is inconveniencing Members tonight. I am sorry about that. It is also inconveniencing me personally. Yesterday was my 37th anniversary. My wife and I did not get a chance to celebrate it last night. We expected to do it tonight. My wife is not a very happy person right now, and she has every right to be unhappy. But there are some matters of principle that we need to deal with whenever they arise. I knew the Republican leadership believed in trickle-down economics for the public. I did not know that the Republican leadership believed in trickle-down economics when it came to the House leadership versus the way they treat every other Member of the House. I find it interesting; I also find it not very healthy for the House. So I would say again in closing, this bill should not be before us until we know how we are going to deal with other bills that affect our constituents, and it certainly should not be before us until we know how we are going to treat other departments of government. We should be treated no worse than any other branch of government and we should be treated no better, and certainly we will have no way of measuring that if this bill is brought up on this ill-advised schedule this evening.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote by which the resolution was adopted. Motion to Table Offered by Ms. Pryce of Ohio

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I have a preferential motion.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I apologize to the Committee for not informing them ahead of time of this motion, but I made the motion in order to obtain the time to respond to some of the comments that I have just heard. I think if this institution is to regain an ounce of credibility in the way it has dealt with this entire issue of the war in Kosovo, it must pass the Skelton amendment. I simply do not understand what I have seen in this House in the last 2 months on this issue. I have seen our good friends in the majority first vote against substituting a ground war for the air war that NATO is conducting. Then I have seen them vote against supporting the air actions that were being taken by our forces in the field. And then, in a double reverse that would make Barry Sanders proud, they voted to double the amount of money that they wanted to spend on the same war they said they did not want to see fought. I saw one member of the majority leadership in the other body stand up twice in meetings that we had with the President and tell the President that he was wrong to conduct military operations of any kind against Mr. Milosevic, and he even suggested that the United States was guilty of attacking a sovereign country. That same Senator, the day the peace accord was signed, then attacked the President because Mr. Milosevic was being allowed to stay in power under the agreement that was just signed. I guess that means he believes that new governments can be brought into being in Yugoslavia through immaculate conception. I do not quite understand how that is possible, but I guess some people think it is. That kind of double reverse is enough to give anybody watching, a bad case of whiplash. What is important here at this time is for the Congress not to make a negative statement about what is happening in Yugoslavia but to make a positive statement. Of all times, it is necessary for us to be unified if we are going to be in the strongest possible position to carry out our opportunity and our duties and our responsibilities because of the apparent ending of military action in Kosovo. It seems to me that the way that we can assert a positive position at this time is to eliminate the language that the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) is trying to eliminate and, on a bipartisan basis, see to it that the way we handle our forces in that area is consistent with our national interest and consistent with stabilizing that area so we do not have to go through this again. I urge support for the Skelton amendment. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my motion.