Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I am opposed to this bill in its present form. In substance, we will be providing one-third fewer dollars this year than we are providing at the present time to support the needs of our farmers, and that creates no compulsion at all to vote for this bill as far as I am concerned. This recommittal motion restores $21 million to the Food and Drug Administration just cut by the previous amendment. Now, those who are opposed to this amendment will say the money is not needed. If that is the case, I would ask one simple question: Why did we put it in the bill in the first place? This cut, as the gentleman from Maryland indicated, was not made to solve any substantive problem with the bill. It was made to simply solve a political problem within the majority party caucus because the problem was that last week they had a worse week than Charismatic and they were trying to figure out how to recover. And so what they decided to do is to try to take a nip and a tuck out of some bills without regard to the substantive effect. This amendment was not meant to solve a substantive problem. It was meant to simply help the majority party get another week through the legislative agenda while they try to figure out how to correct the fact that they are essentially $35 billion from reality in terms of overall appropriations. If Members are opposed to this amendment, I would simply ask: Are we really doing too much to achieve food safety in this country? Are we really doing too much to inspect foreign fruits and vegetables? Are we really doing too much to speed the delivery of new life-saving drugs to the marketplace? We will, sometime this year, be voting on about $15 billion for the National Institutes of Health. About $5 billion of that will be for cancer research. We have been told that the chairman of the subcommittee on the majority side wants to double spending for the National Institutes of Health over the next 5 years. That is a lot of ``blagole.'' But no matter how much we put into research, if we contribute to bottlenecks at FDA, we are delaying the day when new life-saving drugs will reach the marketplace; life-saving drugs that deal with cancer, that deal with Parkinson's Disease, that deal with every other disease known to man. I would urge my colleagues when they cast their votes tonight on this amendment to vote on substance, not politics; vote to restore this badly needed $21 million. That is the least we can do to correct some of the damage just done by the previous amendment.

Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio.

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

Mr. OBEY. Yes, I am, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, let me introduce myself. My name is Hillary Clinton. I say that because I see that we have a bill before us today which says that a bill may in the future declare itself to be whatever it wishes to declare itself. I thought since the majority seems to take that seriously, I would see how seriously they took me if I introduced myself as Hillary Clinton. Let me simply say that if Members look at this bill, what it says is that no point of order will lodge against a bill if it declares itself to be social security or Medicare reform. Boy, there is really some protection, is there not? I remember that their leader 2 years ago said that social security should be allowed to wither on the vine. I know that their existing floor leader has said that, as far as he is concerned, there should be no room for a program like Medicare in a free society. I would simply say that letting legislation written by people like that self-declare itself to be reform legislation is a little like asking John Dillinger to pretend that he is Mother Teresa. It may be believable to some people, but it certainly would not be believable to me. What this bill says, and man, it has muscle, what it says is this Congress will put every dollar on the books into social security unless it votes not to. That is what this wonderful lockbox says. It is just wonderful, what the Congress can do to pass its time when it is not being serious about real legislation. I would simply suggest to my friends on the majority side of the aisle that if they are serious about saving social security, then I would urge the Members to quit promising the American public that we can provide $1.7 trillion in tax cuts in the next 15 years and still protect social security and still protect Medicare. We all know that that is not possible, and we can get on with serious legislation as soon as everybody in this place admits it. I have a simple suggestion. We were sent here not to adopt gimmicks, we were sent here to deal with our problems in serious legislative ways. If Members want to save social security, bring out a bill that saves social security. Do not bring out something which ought to be labeled the number one legislative fraud of the year.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I have had difficulty figuring out where I am today. When I came over here, I thought that I was attending a session of the House of Representatives. I did not know that I was really attending a session of the Republican Caucus. It has been very interesting. I am not quite sure what to say about it. Let me simply suggest that the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations has, on three occasions, tried to produce legislation which would meet with bipartisan approval in this House. Each time, it is interesting to note that he has run into a roadblock. That roadblock has not been constructed by members of our party, the minority; that roadblock has been placed in his way by members of the majority party, the Committee on Appropriations chairman's own party. I think all of us know that the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) is trying to do the right thing both for his party and for this institution, and for this country. And I, for one, make no apology, and I do not think he does either, for the level at which this bill is funded. I know of no group in the country that has suffered a larger erosion of income over the past decade or two decades than have American farmers. I know that we hear a lot about urban poverty, but the fact is, I can take my colleagues into communities where poverty is just as excruciating in rural areas. It is just a little bit more anonymous and it is a little bit further away from the television reporters who are located in the urban centers of this country. So I think, given that fact and given the fact that American farmers are now being exposed to the crunch of world markets as never before, I do not think we have to apologize for the high funding level in this bill. This bill, if we compare it to what we appropriated last year, out of all spigots including emergency appropriations and the famous Omnibus Appropriations bill, this bill represents a 31 percent cut from last year. Now, I would simply say this: We have tried on this side of the aisle. I did not vote for the budget 2 years ago. I thought that it was ill-conceived for this Congress to pass it; I thought it was ill- conceived for this President to sign it. There are a lot of things that this Congress and this President have done that I think are ill-conceived. That was the most spectacular, in my view. But nonetheless, even though I have disagreed with that budget, I tried to cooperate with the committee, because that is our institutional responsibility. But sooner or later, we are going to have to face the fact that we either make some compromises or nothing further will get done this year. This is, as I say, the third time that we have seen a different play called after the committee brought its legislation, or tried to bring its legislation, out of subcommittee. On the last vote, I understand virtually all of the Republican leadership voted for the amendment that eliminated the funds contained in the original committee bill. I make no apology for supporting this bill, but I want to say this to those on my side of the aisle. I do not believe that we have any greater obligation to stick to the committee product than does the majority party. And if the leadership of the majority party is going to vote for amendments which are admitted by the author to be part of a tactical filibuster, then I would say the leadership of the House on the Republican side is cooperating in the destruction of its own ability to produce any progress on appropriation bills for the rest of the year. Now, if they want to do that, that is up to them, but I do not think that is going to be healthy for the House or, in the end, healthy for their record come October.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott). (Mr. McDERMONT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller). (Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 minutes. (Mr. OBEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I do want to compliment my friend, the gentleman from Florida, the distinguished chairman of the committee. I do not think much of the product that the committee brought forth, but I do want to say that it was obvious to everyone in that conference that he, as chairman of the conference, handled it extremely well. He was absolutely, totally fair with everyone, and sometimes that took a lot of patience. I think that he did the House proud and the committee proud in the way he conducted that operation. Mr. Speaker, I think there is a lot that is good in this bill. It is far from the worst bill that the House has ever produced. But I am going to vote no, and I want to tell the Members why. Some of the good things in it, it finally, after a considerable delay, is providing much needed help to our American farmers who suffered crop damage as well as collapsing prices. It is finally producing action to help recover from the horrible hemispheric weather that we had in Hurricane Mitch. We no longer have the threats to the IFIs, the international financial institutions, that were represented by the original offsets in this bill, and this bill no longer threatens our ability to conclude a negotiation with Russia on the disposal of weapons-grade plutonium, a provision which unwisely was included in the original House bill. It also eliminated a number of riders that should have not been in this bill in the first place. I am pleased about that. But there are a number of things in this bill still that should not be here. As I said in the conference, my main problem with this bill is that it is a symbol of the mendacity that dominates the Federal budget process. We have a two-tier system for determining budgets in the Congress. In the spring we adopt a budget resolution produced by the Committee on the Budget. That establishes overall spending levels, and it is largely political in nature. As a result, in my view, those numbers are highly unrealistic, and have been for years. Then we have a second level that has to take over in the process, represented by the Committee on Ways and Means and the Committee on Appropriations. Those committees are then asked to produce real pieces of legislation under the guidelines set by the Committee on the Budget. The problem is that because the first set of numbers are not real, we are then, for the remainder of the year in the appropriations process, forced to engage in accounting tricks in order to find the votes to pass various appropriation bills. Last year, for instance, in October, after going through a year-long charade, we wound up adding $22 billion to spending above the amounts allowed in the budget resolution, and now this bill adds more than $14 billion to that. That means that we have a total of $37 billion that will be spent in this fiscal year above the level that would be allowed by those so-called budget caps. Example: We have $5 billion in military spending above and beyond the amount needed to pursue the war in Kosovo. Why do we have that? I will tell the Members why. In conference, the chairman of the Committee on the Budget from the other body revealed the game plan. He told the conference that we had to pour as many dollars as possible into this bill because it will be labeled an emergency and will not count against the spending limits, or else, he said, the spending caps, which his own committee imposed on this House just a month ago, would not work, in his words, not mine. Members will be told that there is no military pork in this bill. That is largely true. It is not fully true, but it is largely true. But the real point is that on the military side, this bill shovels a lot of regular items into a so-called emergency bill. That means that it frees up, in essence, about $5 billion worth of room for pork in the defense appropriation bill which will shortly follow. That is the problem. Secondly, and perhaps the worst and most expensive provision in this bill, is an amendment to the Medicaid law, which is not even in the Committee on Appropriations' jurisdiction, which will allow State governments over the course of the next 25 years to keep $150 billion in Federal funds with no requirement whatsoever that those funds be used for health. Under existing law, the Federal Government pays more than half of the cost of State Medicaid programs. In return, that law requires the States to act as the principal agent for both themselves and the Federal Government in recovering overpayments and collecting payments from third parties when they are liable for care that has been paid for by the Medicaid system. But this emergency bill rewrites that longstanding provision of law. Federal funds that have been recovered by States in recent tobacco legislation can be retained totally by States and used for whatever purposes the various Governors and legislatures deem appropriate, even though those funds were recovered for health reasons, and in my view should be used by the States if they keep the money in order to deal with health problems. The Federal funds involved would be sufficient to expand health care coverage to millions of Americans who are presently not under Medicaid and have no form of insurance, but this conference report precludes that. I think it is a further outrage that this crucial decision is being made on an emergency appropriation, brought to the floor primarily for a military action in Europe and hurricane relief in Central America. There were no hearings or the normal opportunities to debate this issue. The Committee on Commerce that has jurisdiction over this entitlement spending was not even involved in the decision. In addition, as the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutsch) has pointed out, there are three anti-environmental riders contained in this bill. One, the crown jewel, is a mine provision. One blocks new rules on determining the value of crude oil which is extracted from taxpayer- owned public lands. That provision costs taxpayers $75 million. And we also have a provision in this bill which prevents the updating of ancient rules on hardrock mining, something which this committee in my view had no business doing, as well. Lastly, it adds, again, to the mendacity of the process as a sop to some of the budget hawks in this House because it pretends to pay for some of the costs associated with this bill, such as the hurricane in this hemisphere, by cutting $1.2 billion out of food stamps. The fact is those cuts save not $1, because that money would never have been spent, even if the committee had not touched it. So despite those cuts, because the food stamps are required by law to be paid at whatever level that the demand requires, if in fact there is additional demand for that program, the Federal Government will have to pay out additional money. So there is no saving whatsoever to be had by that offset. I think it adds further to the general disingenuousness which generally accompanies the overall budget process. So as I said earlier, we have passed worse bills. This one bothers me more than most because war is being used as an excuse to, on a number of occasions in this bill, rip off the taxpaying public. It is also being used as a vehicle by which we will ignore the health care needs of millions of Americans. It adds to the phoniness of the budget process overall. I think we can do better; and until we do, I will vote no. I recognize that there will not be very many no votes cast against this provision. But I think in defense of the integrity of the budget process, what little there is left of it, I am at least going to vote no. Mr. Speaker, I include the following article for the Record: [From the Washington Post, May 18, 1999] Medical Outcasts: Does Anyone Care? (By David S. Broder) It is quite a trick for something to grow larger and at the same time become more invisible. But that is what's happening to the health care problem in the United States. The greater the number of people without medical insurance, the less the politicians want to talk about it--let alone deal with it. In 1992, when the plight of the uninsured became a major issue in the presidential campaign, there were 38 million non-covered Americans below Medicare age. Five years later, according to a report released last week, the number has grown by 5 million. And the rate of increase is accelerating, from an average of half a million annually in the first two years to an average of 1.2 million annually in the three most recent years. But last week, when the National Coalition on Health Care, a bipartisan group headed by former presidents Bush, Carter and Ford, put out its latest report on ``The Erosion of Health Insurance Coverage in the United States,'' it barely made a ripple. Monica Lewinsky's appearance on ``Saturday Night Live'' drew more coverage than the fact that in the most recent year cited by the report, 1.7 million Americans were added to the ranks of the uninsured. Why is this happening? The report's authors, Steven Findlay and Joel Miller--who had the assistance of Tulane University's Kenneth Thorpe, probably the country's leading authority on this question--say the legions of the uninsured are rising because of fundamental economic and demographic forces, which, by themselves, are certain to make the problem worse. The authors say that ``even if the rosy economic conditions prevalent since 1992 prevail for another decade, a projected 52 million to 54 million non-elderly Americans--one in five--will be uninsured in 2009.'' If a recession occurs, that number likely will jump to 61 million--one in four. Most of the uninsured have jobs, but increasingly, they work in small businesses or in service sectors that either do not cover employees or require them to pay so much for health insurance that they cannot afford it. The growing numbers of self-employed, part-timers and contract workers swell the totals. It is a double whammy. Between 1996 and 1998, the percentage of small firms (with fewer than 200 employees) offering health insurance dropped from 59 percent to 54 percent. On average, their employees were required to pay almost half (44 percent) of the policy premiums for themselves and their families. Faced with those costs, more workers are declining health insurance. The economic changes are exacerbated by demographics. Minorities--who have higher unemployment rates and tend to work in lower-wage jobs--are twice as likely to be uninsured as whites; as the minority's percentage of the population increases, so will this problem. Even government policy is adding to the crisis. The welfare reform bill of 1996 supposedly provided a Medicaid cushion for women making the transition from welfare to work. But, as the authors report, ``there are strong early signs that many former welfare recipients are not gaining coverage at new jobs and that those dropping off the welfare rolls are losing Medicaid coverage.'' In New York State, for example, the number of Medicaid enrollees dropped by 300,000 between 1995 and 1998, but in the same three years the number of uninsured rose by 450,000. The study also notes that it is increasingly difficult for the uninsured to get health care. In one survey of more than 10,000 doctors, those receiving no income from managed care companies reported spending about 10 hours a month treating indigents. But those who get the bulk of their income from these companies gave up only half as much of their time to charity. As cost-containment pressures increase, the uninsured face ever greater medical risks. In language that is remarkably calm, given the contents of their report, the authors conclude, ``The accelerating decline in health insurance coverage in the United States is a serious problem, affecting the financial security and health of millions of Americans every day. * * * Despite strong economic growth and low unemployment, employer- sponsored health insurance coverage has continued to erode throughout the past decade.'' When more and more Americans cannot pay their own medical bills, it threatens the quality of health care that those with insurance receive. Cost, quality and access are linked as inextricably today as they were when the Clintons took their unsuccessful run at the problem six years ago. You'd think it would be an issue every presidential candidate would address. Instead, what we hear is silence. The last sentence in the report is: ``We continue to ignore this problem at our peril.'' And yet, we continue to ignore it. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. I most certainly am, Mr. Speaker, but certainly not for the reasons the gentleman indicated.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley). (Mr. CROWLEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. I would simply say if our friends on the majority side of the aisle were so concerned about readiness, why is it that out of the $27 billion that they have added to the President's defense budget the last 4 years that only $3.5 billion of that went to readiness and the rest went for pork? Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. The gentleman acts as though those of us on this side of the aisle are not for funding national security items. The amendment that I offered for national security purposes was $4 billion above the request by the White House. I know that that is pocket change for some people in this House, but from where I come from, that is still a lot of money. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Kilpatrick). (Ms. KILPATRICK asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Meek).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Speaker, I say in response to the gentleman who just spoke that I believe that those supporting this bill are trying to have it both ways on the issue of offsets at the same time. First of all, they tell the conservative action group on the Republican side of the aisle, do not worry, we have offset a piece of this bill because we are cutting food stamps and cutting Section 8 and that is how we are going to offset the cost. Then when they get an argument from the other end and people say, gee, but if we cut those two programs, we are going to hurt people, they say, oh, but by the way, do not believe it because we are not actually going to cut a dime because this money would not be spent anyway. Now, that may either say something about the hypocrisy of those who offer the amendment, which I doubt, or it may say something about the hypocrisy of the process. Either way, I think people can be forgiven for being concerned that when they put a cut in the bill, they just might really mean it.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining on each side.