Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, let me explain what we have just seen and let me explain this motion. The majority party is insisting that we pass a resolution which continues in place lower funding levels that cut some $3 billion out of education and continue very savage reductions in environmental cleanup legislation. They argue the necessity to do that because the chairman has pointed out the abuse of a few programs. I just tried to offer a motion directed to eliminating every single abuse the gentleman just mentioned. I asked unanimous consent that they eliminate under safe and drug-free schools the ability to fund programs such as the gentleman just objected to. I also asked that under this bill we eliminate all funding for schools of cosmetology and massage therapy because the gentleman has objected to those. The gentleman then accuses me of a smokescreen for responding to the criticisms he has made in existing programs. He said, ``Why don't we fix it when we go into conference?'' Why do we not fix it right now? I would suggest what is really at stake here is they are desperately trying to hang onto the money they are cutting out of education so they can funnel it into their tax cuts for very wealthy people. And I do not think we ought to lay off 40,000 teachers so they can give a gift to their rich contributors. So what I am saying is simply this. In this recommit motion, we are simply asking the committee to go back into committee and to restore all of the funds necessary so that no local school district has to lay off any teaching personnel. What this motion does is ensure that those local school districts will have the Federal funds they need to pay for the teachers and other instructional personnel to provide the reading and math classes for disadvantaged kids, to hire guidance counselors, to provide antidrug abuse and drug prevention education to both teachers and students, to retain teachers and counselors to help students make a successful transition from schools to jobs, and to the jobs they need. What this simply says is, do not fund your tax cuts by cutting the guts out of personnel in the local school districts. That is what it says. I urge a vote for the motion.

Mr. OBEY

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I know Members want to get out of here, and I join in that sentiment. It was not my choice to deal with this issue tonight, but we are dealing with it. So I would like Members to know what it is that we are asking them to vote on. What we have pending before the House is a motion to go to conference on the long term. The chairman of the committee has just moved that the House go to conference on the long-term continuing resolution. Earlier today, we passed another one of our week-to-week CRs. Mr. Speaker, the problem we face is that with the five bills that still are not in law, the five appropriation bills for this fiscal year, those bills have come in at a rate of about $25 billion below the amount being asked for by the President of the United States. The President has indicated that if language differences can be eliminated so that we can remove some of the special interest language provisions that have been inserted in the bill, that he is willing to sign off on the bill if he can get roughly $8 billion back out of that $25 billion. So he is asking for about 30 cents on the dollar. The Senate, rather than providing the 30 cents on the dollar, has added back about $3.8 billion, which represents about 14 cents out of every dollar that the President wanted. In my view, we are not going to be able to finish that conference by the end of next week unless we can cut through a lot of the fog and recognize that where we have to start in that conference is at the Senate level. So what I am trying to do here tonight is to bring us closer to that point. What this motion would do is instruct the conferees to accept the Senate increases in education, which would mean increases in Goals 2000, an increase of $814 million in chapter 1. We are asking to put $814 million in for title I because we think that we should make it easier, not harder, for kids to learn how to read and to learn how to deal with math. Mr. Speaker, we are asking to put back $200 million for safe and drug-free schools because we think that our communities are going to be safer and our kids healthier if they learn at an early age to stay away from drugs. We are adding $8 million for charter schools, some additional money in the education area, including vocational and adult education. We are asking to add back $137 million for Head Start, which is what the Senate has added back. In the Labor Department, we are asking that funding be added back for school-to-work programs, for dislocated worker assistance, for one stop career shopping, for summer youth, $635 million for summer youth. Mr. Speaker, we are asking in the Veterans, HUD and independent agencies bill that we add $115 million for operating programs to the EPA, including enforcement activities, $300 million for EPA, States and tribal assistance grants, water and wastewater infrastructure financing. The Senate bill added $50 million or $150 million for EPA Superfund program. We are asking that we accept the Senate judgment on those programs. We are also asking to accept the Senate level for the cops on the beat program rather than the House insisting on its block grant program as a substitute for the cops on the beat program. We think that program has been demonstrated to be successful. The President places a very high priority on that item and will not sign a bill, in my judgment, unless we do considerably better than the Senate has done on this program. We intend in conference to insist on a higher level for cops on the beat than the Senate has provided, but what we want to do is to try to begin the process at least recognizing as the Senate did that we have to restore at least 50 percent of that going in. Mr. Speaker, we are also asking that Members delete the Istook amendment, which in essence creates a huge blizzard of paperwork on most of the groups who have the temerity to want to comment to their elected Representatives on the actions that we are taking. We think they have that right, and the Istook amendment gets in the way of that. We are also asking that we restore $1 billion for the low-income heating assistance program and take the Pell grant program up to maximum grants of $2,500 rather than the amount in the House bill. We believe that that is the very minimum that is necessary to get the conference off to a good start. It is my firm belief that in fact we will have to go further in those restorations before the President signs the bill. The President is not going to settle for 15 cents on the dollar, as the Senate has provided. He is going to insist that we do a better job than that in protecting education, protecting environmental cleanup, protecting our efforts to fight crime. I would ask for a yea vote on the motion.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself just 30 seconds. The Senate has offset all of the funding that they have provided so they do not add to spending levels for this fiscal year, and all of the items for fiscal year 1997 will be constrained by the caps, as everyone knows. So this is not an issue of how much spending there shall be. This is an issue of where that spending ought to be targeted. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I cannot believe what I just heard from the previous speaker. He referred to the problem of unfunded mandates. If he is so concerned about those unfunded mandates, why did he oppose my amendment in the Committee on Rules that would have required that for all refugees who come into this country, that the Federal Government assume the full cost of educating and training those refugees, rather than dumping those very same costs onto the local units of government? I would also like to know why they refused to support the idea that we ought to have the Federal Government provide for the education costs, rather than dumping those costs, as we do now for legal refugees, onto the backs of local school districts. I know I am talking about legal refugees, as opposed to illegal immigrants, but the fact is every time a refugee is allowed into this country, that is a foreign policy decision made by the national Government. Why should local governments be stuck with meeting the costs of those foreign policy decisions?

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I take the well to regrettably indicate that I do not intend to vote for this rule, and I do intend to support the gentleman from California [Mr. Beilenson] in his motion, because I think the Committee on Rules made a major mistake in deciding which amendments they were going to allow this House to vote on. We have a very serious issue facing this country with respect to refugees, and I am talking about legal refugees, not illegal refugees. The problem is that the U.S. Government makes a foreign policy decision to allow thousands and thousands and thousands of refugees to come into this country and then it dumps the cost of educating and training and supporting those refugees onto local units of government. Now, I think that ought to stop. So I offered an amendment before the Committee on Rules which would simply say that if the Federal Government is going to make a foreign policy decision to allow refugees into this country, that they then ought to pay for the cost of educating and training them and providing worker training and providing language training so that a foreign policy decision of the U.S. Government does not become an unfair burden on local taxpayers. Now, Gov. Pete Wilson of California has been making this point strenuously for years with respect to immigrants. I think the point is equally correct with respect to refugees. So my amendment would have required that Uncle Sam pay for the costs of those refugees for the first 3 years rather than dumping it off on the local governments, and it would have required something which both the Bush administration and the Clinton administration tried to do but which they were blocked from doing by the court. And that is to require that, for the first year, those refugees be enrolled in intensive language training programs and job training programs so that they do not become long term burdens to local taxpayers. I see absolutely nothing whatsoever wrong with that amendment, and I would point out this is not a new idea. Catholic Charities tested this approach in Chicago and they reduced the long-term percentage of refugees who remained on welfare by astounding percentages. They tried the same thing in San Diego and had similar very successful results. They tried it in Florida and also had very successful results. So what the amendment would have tried to do is simply take a proposal which has already been tested at the local level in pilot projects and implement it, so that we require for any refugee that comes into this country for the first year, rather than marching them right into the local welfare office, as now occurs, that what you do is instead put them in a private program run by local PVO's to teach them job training and to teach them English. The long-term savings of that cannot be doubted. For the life of me, I do not understand any substantive reason why the Committee on Rules did not make that amendment in order. We can talk all we want about cleaning up the immigration and refugee problems that this country faces, but until this Congress recognizes that they have absolutely no moral right to stick local property taxpayers with the cost of foreign policy decisions, this Congress is not living up to its job in dealing with major problems presented to local governments by actions of the Federal Government. I do not see, for instance, why local school districts should be burdened with the inordinate cost of providing education and language training to legal refugees, rather than having the Federal Government meet the costs, since the Federal Government made the decision to require those costs to be incurred by somebody in the first place. This is a case of the Federal Government, in my view, bugging out on its responsibilities to both the refugees they allow into this country and to the local communities and school districts who get hit with the consequences; and I think it is also a case in this instance of the Congress itself bugging out on its responsibilities to correct the situation, which is why I intend to support the amendment of the gentleman from California, if given that opportunity.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. Mr. Speaker, let me simply point out that one of the key leaders in proposing the changes which we now have in student loan programs, including the direct loan program, was that ``well-known left-wing radical,'' the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Petri], who last time I looked was a Republican. He helped this House lead us into a better mix of student aid. You people are now trying to cap the programs that represented the reforms of just a year ago. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior], the minority whip.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Speaker, the argument from the other side is we are not doing as well in international comparisons on education as we should, and so what we ought to do is cut education support by $3.3 billion. That may not be extremist. It is dumb. The issue is not who did what in the Senate or in the House. The issue is simply whether or not it is smart to run the Government 1 week at a time so that nobody can plan what to do next in every local school district in the country. Again, that may not be extremist. It is dumb. I would urge you to stop it and recognize we need to fund this Government for a full year at a reasonable level. If you do not like these other programs, reform them. But I do not see any arguments that you made for cutting back on chapter 1. I do not see any arguments you made for cutting back on school-to-work. It would be kind of nice if we paid some attention to kids in this country who are not going to college. That is what the school-to-work program tries to do. Again, it may not be extremist, but it is dumb to cut those programs. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California [Mr. Miller].

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 myself 4 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I would like to correct some of the statements made by the distinguished chairman of the committee. The President has not asked us to spend more money. What happened is very simple: The majority party in this House decided that they wanted to spend $7 billion more on the Pentagon budget than the President wanted them to spend. The President decided, in the midst of the Bosnia crisis, that while he was opposed to that increase, he would accept the passage of that bill as a good will gesture during budgeted negotiations, as much as he did not want to spend that additional money. So that $7 billion is moved over to the Pentagon. Now the majority party is insisting that that $7 billion come out of the hide of environmental cleanup enforcement, out of the hide of education, and out of the hide of the Interior appropriations bill. So they have made these cuts in education programs, in job training programs, in drug education programs and the like. The President said, ``I do not think that is a good idea, folks.'' So he came down here and suggested offsets. I have got a copy of them in my hand. He suggested spending offsets, areas of the budget that could be cut in order to finance the restorations he is looking for in education and training and in the environment. So, No. 1, get off this idea that he is asking that more money be spent in the aggregate. He has suggested cuts to offset the money. If you do not like where he has taken the offsets, bring up your own list. But do not say the President has not offered ways to offset it. Let me also point out that what you have got here in my view is a political rather than a substantive problem. Robert Novak's column this morning points out that the majority leader suggested that, and I am reading now, ``There was no hope for the Republican Party if it succumbed to Clinton. Instead of cutting a deal with the President,'' he said, ``Let's fund the government with a series of short-term extensions of spending authority.'' Then he goes on to say it was asserted that there ``would not be much chance for the Republican Party to win the allegiance of Pat Buchanan's followers if the party leadership showed the feather.'' That is what is going on here; it is politics, and, because of that, we are being asked to take huge reductions in education funding. Now my colleagues can laugh all they want about the GLOBE Program. I visited a GLOBE Program in Chippewa County in my own district and watched those very young kids learn something about climate, learn something about the interconnection of various parts of the globe because of the environmental issue. I think the tiny amount of money spent on that program was well worth teaching those youngsters that we are all connected on this globe. If we take a look at safe and drug-free schools, I will stipulate, if my colleagues do not like the way, and the gentleman just mentioned six items he did not like, spending for those items. I will happily accept cuts in all of these programs for the dollar amounts of the screw-ups that the gentleman has cited by the local school districts. But I do not grant that because some of the school district in Florida or some other State has screwed up the way they use safe and drug-free school money that my district should not get any, or that my district should not get summer youth because some other district may have screwed up the way they spent it. Fix it up in that locality, do not savage the program; that is the way to deal with it. My local police chief happens to think that safe and drug-free schools is an important program. As far as student loans are concerned, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever why we ought to raise the cost of going to college for kids in this country by $10 billion over the next 7 years. That is what our colleagues are asking us to do. Title I; I do not know how many of my colleagues visited title I projects. I think they are crucial to an awful lot of families in my district. AmeriCorps; my colleagues can laugh all they want about it, but those volunteers help coordinate other neighborhood volunteers to supervise kids who commit the majority of youth crime in this country, majority of violent crimes, between 3 o'clock and 6 o'clock in the afternoons because they are not supervised. That is one of the things AmeriCorps is trying to correct. So do not tell Chippewa Falls district, do not tell Wausau, do not tell Colby school districts, or all the other school districts in my district they have got to take a cut because of some political agenda of the majority party. I do not think the country is going to buy that.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, when we cut through all the shouting, I think it is easy to see by looking at the actions of other parties who is the odd man out today and who is not. The Senate 2 days ago, with only 14 dissenting votes--and the last time I looked, the Senate was controlled by the Republican Party, the Majority Leader was a fellow who is going to be the Republican candidate for President. When the Senate acted on this bill, on the Labor-Health-Education-social services funding bill, with only 14 dissenting votes out of 100, they put back $60 million in the Goals 2000 program. They put back $917 million in the school-to-work program. They put back $814 million in title I to teach the most disadvantaged kids in this country. They put back $82 million in vocational education. The gentleman from Florida says it does not work well in Florida. It works terrifically well in Wisconsin, and we do not want to cripple that program. They put back $58 million in Perkins loans. They put back $32 million in SSIG. Summer youth, you are wiping out that program, an awful lot of jobs for kids who are going to be on the street instead of learning how to work. School-to-work programs in the Department of Labor $91 million that they are trying to put back. Head Start, $136 million. We can talk all we want about how some local school district has applied for money and used it in a stupid way. I do not doubt that. It is the job of government to try to cull those out. You talk about the way some proprietary schools have abused these student aid programs. That is why I would like to see most of them largely declared ineligible, unless they can demonstrate they have a solid record of performance. I pay taxes, just like you do. My constituents pay taxes, just like you do. I deeply resent it when a dime of it is wasted. But I also deeply regret it when Members of this House use some little screw-up somewhere to provide an excuse for obliterating support for chapter I for a million kids in this country who need some help to get ahead. Now, I just released a report on Monday which showed that the wealthiest one-half of 1 percent of American families in this country saw their net worth grow from $8.5 million in 1983 to $12.5 million in 1989, just in the 1980's alone. The net worth of 90 percent of American families did not grow by almost $4 million, as it did for the high rollers in this society. The net worth for most families in this country, 90 percent of them, grew by $2,000 in the 1980's. They had a grand total of $29,000 in assets. The best way for most working families to get off the treadmill, to get ahead for their kids, to build a decent future for their kids, is to expand, not contract, educational opportunity. Now, if you do not like what was done in the past, fix it. You are the majority party. If you want to consolidate those programs and clean them up, do it, and we will try to help you. But do not use some of these local screw-ups as an excuse to gut chapter I for a million kids or to say to hundreds of thousands of kids who are looking for summer jobs, ``Sorry, it's more important go give the wealthiest 1 percent of people in this country another tax cut. You guys worry about your kids some other day''. That is what you are saying when you are cutting education by over $3 billion. When you come in here and say we ought to cut back on environmental enforcement by 22 percent, that is disgraceful. It destroys the future environment for every family that wants a decent environment. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Vote ``no'' on this proposition. It is a silly 1-week, childish game.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 7\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Speaker, I honestly do not know quite what to say about this proposition before us. This is both a remarkable and a very frustrating day in the history of this institution as far as I am concerned. It is frustrating to me personally because regardless of the partisan differences which we have had in this House through the years, the Committee on Appropriations and the appropriations process has been a bipartisan exception on most occasions to the partisanship which has sometimes plagued this House. This year it is amazingly different, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with any shortcomings of the chairman of the committee. He has tried his level best to see to it that the committee functions and he has tried his level best to see to it that bipartisanship remains, because this committee, when all of the shouting is over, has the job, the way this House works and the way the Congress works, this committee has the job to try to make things work after all the shouting is over. Yet, for a variety of reasons, we are not going to be allowed to perform that function. We are now 166 days into the new fiscal year. We are debating, I believe, the 11th continuing resolution. We were supposed to have all of our work done by the 1st of October. But 80 percent of the domestic appropriations of the U.S. Government is still not in law, and we are now considering a 7-day continuation of funding in order to keep the Government open, and probably next week we will have to consider another 7-day continuing resolution. Stop and go, stop and go, and I think in the process, this House is going to look sillier and sillier and sillier. The main job assigned to the Congress of the United States by the Constitution is to serve as the chief stewards for the public purse and to allocate funding of taxpayers' money. And I am sad to say that on that score this year this body has become virtually dysfunctional. The machinery has stopped. Congress is stuck. This House has taken a position, at least the majority within this House, has taken a position on insisting on very severe cutbacks in education funding, very severe cutbacks in environmental cleanup funding. That is a position which has not been taken by Republicans in the Senate. It has not been taken by Democrats in the Senate. It has not been taken by the White House. And it has not been taken by the American people. And yet we are stuck because the one caucus, the one group of folks who could change their position and help do something about this impasse will not do it. Then we see in the Washington Post this morning a column by Robert Novak indicating that a number of freshman Republicans have gone to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Armey], the floor leader, asking him to stand pat against even the modest increases in education that were supported on a bipartisan basis, with only 14 dissenting votes in the Senate, just 2 days ago. So I think that gives you some idea of what we are up against in trying to do the people's business. Now the problem is not just that the Congress is looking sillier and sillier on this. The problem is also that that silliness and that obstreperousness is affecting the day-to-day ability of local school districts to function in an orderly way. I visited a wide variety of schools in my district during the recess, looked at a lot of Federal programs in those school districts. The problem is that those local school districts are being left hung out to dry by this ying-yanging here in the congressional appropriations process. April is the month that schools are supposed to sign contracts with the people who will be teaching our kids in September. Lots of those school districts do not know who is going to be in the front of the classroom in many of those classrooms. They do not know how they are going to be able to absorb the $3.3 billion reduction in education, the largest education cut in the history of the country. The Senate is moving somewhat in the President's direction. But this House is still stuck, and I would predict right now flatly that next week we are going to have to go through this entire process again. I think that is a shame. I think it is a shame for your local school districts. I think it is a shame for people who think that at least once in a while Government ought to look like it knows what it is doing. I certainly think it is a shame for the local school districts in my district who are going to experience continued turmoil and continued unanswered questions. And, frankly, I have had enough of it. I just do not think this ought to continue. I would call to the leadership of this House to do what everybody knows is going to have to be done if this is going to be resolved. It is not going to do us any good to sit in a conference between the Senate appropriators and the House appropriators next week when we do not know what the House leadership will accept by way of restorations or by way of offsets for education and for environmental funding that is essential to the well-being of this country and the citizens we represent. Until this House leadership focuses on that question, we are facing the prospect of another Government shutdown. There is no mistake about it. There is absolutely no reason that should happen. But people are going to have to give up their ideological Jihad on this issue if we are to break through this impasse. And so I call upon the House leadership, rather than going to war again, as some of our majority Members of this House appear to want the majority leader to do, I think this is the time to work things out. So I would urge that proper attention be paid by the leadership of this House before this country stumbles into another shutdown which will further discredit this institution, which all of us are supposed to respect and love. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Speaker, I do not think the chairman of this committee ought to take the blame for it. It is not the gentleman's fault and I recognize that. But I do think that it is necessary to understand that the President was representing the overwhelming number of Americans when he decided that it was not correct to cut education funding by over $3 billion; when he decided it was not correct to cut environmental enforcement by 22 percent; when he decided it was not correct to allow massive new timber cutting in the Tongass rain forest; when he decided it was not correct to allow a whole laundry list of environmental and other legislative riders to be added to these bills which have nothing whatsoever to do with budgeting. So it seems to me that the record is clear that it is this House which is out of step with public opinion and with the needs of the country. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Speaker, yes, I support a special interest in the area of education. The special interest I support is kids. They are our Nation's future, and I make absolutely no apology for it. Let me simply say, the facts remain that if we follow you on the reconciliation bill, we will wind up requiring people to spend $10 billion more on interest costs for student loans over the next 7 years because of what they put in the reconciliation bill. And that is going to benefit the banks. That is not going to benefit students. I have talked to college after college in my district, desperate to see the direct loan program expanded so they can get rid of some of the paperwork under the indirect loans that favor the banks but not the kids. I would also make the point that if my colleagues do not like the fact the proprietary schools are included in some of these programs, cut them out. I am for that. If my colleagues do not like the way some of the education programs work, cut them out. But then use that money in other education programs of a higher priority. Do not use education cuts to finance a tax cut for rich people. That is not what this country is looking for. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Doggett].

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Reserving the right to object, Mr. Speaker, and I certainly would not object, I would like to inquire of the chairman if he has any idea what time tomorrow this would be brought up on the floor.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1\1/4\ minutes. Mr. Chairman, again this bill is being offered as a bill which is trying to move the process forward and help resolve remaining differences between the White House and the Congress. I have already described why that is not so, but I have another example. I have just been handed a 5 page set of instructions which evidently the subcommittee chair for the Labor, Health and Education bill plans to insert in the Record, providing detailed instructions on how the money that is supposedly in this bill is supposed to be spent. We have never seen this until just a few moments ago. It makes some policy changes. It redirects funds and creates greater likelihood that they will go to some contractors rather than others. It just seems to me that if they are trying to minimize the differences between the White House and themselves on this issue, this is a mighty strange process to go through in that effort.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior], the distinguished minority whip.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Levin]. (Mr. LEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, as everyone knows, we have already indicated the problems in this bill for education and for environmental cleanup. The focus of this motion to recommit is quite different. Mr. Speaker, after passage of the Veterans' Administration appropriation bill through the House, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs was not exactly bashful in indicating his displeasure with some of the funding cuts and policy recommendations adopted by the House. As a citizen of a free country and a congressionally confirmed member of the President's Cabinet, he was completely within his rights and was simply executing part of his duties as the administration's principal advocate for veterans. But apparently that demonstration of free speech was too much for those who did not agree with his statements. The result in conference was language sharply limiting the Secretary's travel budget and reducing a number of personnel positions available to the Secretary. This bill contains those provisions. The message is apparently very clear: Disagree with the majority who run this house on a veterans' issue and you will pay the price. I might add this is not an isolated incident. The Secretary of the Interior has also been treated in a similar manner. He too has been very vocal in expressing his concerns about some of the provisions in the appropriation bill for Interior. His punishment was to see his office budget reduced by an additional 10 percent because he spoke out. This motion is very simple and it applies only to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs. It takes the gag off the Secretary of Veterans Affairs by restoring his office budget and restoring his travel budget. He has a right to talk to the country about his concerns about some of the cuts that were provided in this bill or any other bill that affect veterans and veterans' health care. Now, I want to make clear the objection to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs is not based on the amount of money he spent. His predecessor, Mr. Derwinski, a good friend of ours, his highest travel budget was $198,000 in any one year. His lowest travel budget was $131,000. Secretary Brown's today, his highest travel budget is $131,000, equal to Mr. Derwinski's lowest, and his lowest travel budget was $105,000. The bill before us would cut that travel budget to $50,000. Now, there is absolutely no reason why the Secretary should not be able to move around the country. There is no reason why he should not be able to move around the country doing his job. I want to point out that the intent of this amendment is supported by the veterans' service organizations like the Disabled American Veterans, the American Legion and the VFW. I will read one paragraph from the DAV letter: The Secretary will be forced to curtail other activities which directly support our Nation's sick and disabled veterans. Specifically, these spending restrictions will have an adverse effect upon the ability of the Office of Public Affairs to assist with the participation in direct patient care activities such as disabled veterans winter sports clinic, national veterans wheelchair games, golden age games and the creative art festival. These events, individually and collectively, represent a true therapeutic and rehabilitative milieu unmatched in the traditional medical setting. I would urge support for the amendment. Take the gag off the Secretary of Veterans Affairs.