Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer].

Mr. OBEY. I ask unanimous consent that on page 2, after line 19, that the resolution may be amended to allow the continuation of all projects and activities of the FBI and the Border Patrol and unemployment compensation benefits activities.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, one last unanimous-consent request.

Mr. OBEY. I would appreciate it if the gentleman would at least let me explain what it is I am doing.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I would ask unanimous consent that the motion be amended to include an amendment in the joint resolution on page 2, after line 19, allowing for the Gallaudet University and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf to be funded so that they might not have to close in 10 days.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the motion be amended to include an amendment in the joint resolution on page 2, after line 19, allowing all nursing homes safety and standards enforcement activities to continue.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the motion be amended in the joint resolution on page 2, after line 19, to permit all research projects and activities at the National Cancer Institute to continue.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the motion be amended to include language which would insert in this bill, in its proper place, the agreement on an entire CR that was offered to the Republican leadership of the Congress last night by the President of the United States.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas [Mr. Edwards], a member of the Committee on National Security.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Montana [Mr. Williams].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Montgomery], the ranking Democrat on the Committee on Veterans' Affairs. (Mr. MONTGOMERY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 20 seconds. The fact is we have still not heard from that side of the aisle one reason why you could not have included these other items including military pay. The fact is you are insisting that in order for the military to be guaranteed they are going to be getting their pay that he ought to sign a bill which makes him spend $7 billion more than he wanted to, which makes him buy 40 B-2s rather than the 20 the Pentagon wanted, and you are holding him hostage for that. That is nonsense.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 seconds. If you want to guarantee that pay, accept the 11 words of the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Edwards]. That is the way to do it. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from West Virginia [Mr. Mollohan], the ranking Democrat on the State- Justice-Commerce Appropriations Subcommittee.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Wynn].

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, let me simply point out the gentleman from Florida is incorrect. The military pay raise cannot go into effect until the authorization level is passed, and that legislation is tied up between the two Houses. So the military personnel will not get their pay raise.

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, the gentleman is supposed to sit down until the words have been taken down.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I had not intended at this early hour to begin rehashing this stuff again, but given the comments of the last speaker, I think I need to make a few observations. Mr. Speaker, we are here on Saturday working on a weekend at the same time most Government workers are being prevented from working on weekdays because we have an impasse over the continuing resolution. The continuing resolution is necessitated by the fact that this Congress has not done its work. We still have over 85 percent of the appropriations part of the Federal budget which has not yet been approved by the Congress; and because of that, we have to have a resolution continuing the financing of the Government. Our friends on the Republican side of the aisle, led by Mr. Gingrich, are using the fact that Congress has not done its work to try to spill other issues into the continuing resolution; and they want to get a debate going before we even sit down in conference on the budget, and they want to get a debate going dealing with the issues involved in the 7-year budget. Now, it just seems to me that there is no useful purpose to be served by continuing that linkage. The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hoke] just said that because the President is objecting to the language that the Speaker wanted with respect to 7 years, that somehow that means the President does not want to balance the budget. That is nonsense. Let's simply stipulate facts. The House, in dragging an extraneous issue into this discussion is saying that they want us to achieve a balanced budget in 7 years using the economic assumptions of the Congressional [[Page H 13301]] Budget Office. Period. And they want the White House to sign on to that statement. That is impossible for the White House to do, because that is not the White House position. It is perfectly reasonable for the Congress to state its own position in a continuing resolution. It is not reasonable for the Congress to expect that the President sign on to a statement that he does not believe in. The issue is very simple. The President has indicated that he would like to see a balanced budget, but the timetable is going to be determined frankly by the size of the tax cut. Obviously if you are going to need $200 billion extra on the tax side, it is going to take you longer to reach a budget balance than if you are going to have zero dollars on the tax side. The President also wants to remain flexible in terms of the timetable because that timetable is also determined to some extent by the way you measure the budget, whether the Congressional Budget Office measures it or somebody else. So basically the administration has wanted to go into these negotiations with no preconditions, and the majority party in this House seeks to impose preconditions before the negotiations ever start. But you have two illegitimate approaches in my view. You first of all have an extraneous issue of what the timetable is going to be on another bill being debated in the process when all we need to do to solve this problem is to pass a simple, clean continuing resolution, and then in addition to that they want to drag in yet another extraneous condition demanding that the President go into the negotiations with the same set of assumptions held by the Speaker of the House. That simply is not factual to expect the President to buy those assumptions, and it seems to me the height of unreasonableness to drag the entire country through this debate simply because the Speaker wants the President to say: ``I agree with every assumption held by Mr. Gingrich.'' The fact is he does not, and whatever continuing resolution that is passed ought to simply admit that. It should not get into the issue at all, but if it insist, it ought to simply admit that there are differences between the parties as we go into negotiations. I also want to take just a moment to express my concern about what this rule is going to do when coupled with the next rule coming out of the Committee on Rules. We are being told that there will be put on suspension one bill which allows the continuation of three additional functions in the Government, but evidently it has been determined that no other functions in the Government ought to be allowed to continue. It seems to be that the very fact that that bill is going to be brought before us demonstrates that the majority party recognizes that it is illegitimate to be holding up the Government. And when that bill comes to the floor, we will face the question, well, if you are going to do it for certain aspects of the Social Security Administration or certain aspects of the Veterans' Administration, why should you not also allow people to continue their work if by doing so they can keep national parks open so that people do not have to spend a good deal of money to go on vacation only to find out the money has been wasted because of a silly spat in the Congress? Why should we not also expand it to provide for the continuation of all work necessary in the Justice Department to go after drug dealers? Why should we not also allow the Government to function in cases where, for instance, in the case of Gallaudet University, which is about to have to close because of this impasse, why should we not allow them to continue to operate? Why should we not allow all elderly nutrition activities at the Department of Health and Human Services to continue? Why should we not allow all civil rights and antidiscrimination law enforcement activities to continue? There are a lot of other legitimate areas of activity. I have had a number of Republican Members of the House talk to me about concerns that they have about some of their constituents who cannot get passports and who have an immediate family crunch on their hands. But this is not going to allow that activity to continue. It just seems to me that the previous speaker mentioned in a condemnatory tone the offer that Mr. Panetta made last night. Let me simply read the language that Mr. Panetta offered. It says, ``The goal of negotiations is to enact a budget agreement that balances the budget in 7 years under Congressional Budget Office economic assumptions, or in a timeframe and under economic assumptions agreed to by the negotiators.'' I have a suggestion. If you do not like that as a goal, or as a commitment, put into the language whatever your commitment is and allow the President to put into the language whatever his commitment is, so that the two sides are simply stating the facts, without attacking each other, without trying to score points against each other. Just simply you state how you see the framing of the negotiations, and have the White House state how it sees the framing of the negotiations. Instead of debating each other, simply state the facts and move on. What would be wrong with that? All the President is trying to convey is that the two sides are known to have an occasional disagreement on these issues, and I myself must say that I think you will find a lot of Members on this side of the aisle who are interested in a 7-year timetable to balance the budget provided that you are not providing huge tax cuts, especially to higher income people which force you to make deeper cuts in education, force you to make deeper cuts in Medicaid, for instance, than we think would be justifiable. If those tax cuts are smaller you can speed up the time frame for balancing the budget. That is simple logic. I do not see why we need to get involved in a long, protracted debate that keeps 800,000 Government workers out of their offices just because we want to continue on this resolution to pretend that everybody is in agreement when they are not. Not on this resolution but on the other resolution that at this point is in the other body. Mr. Speaker, I would simply urge our friends on the other side of the aisle to simply quit belaboring the point, allow the process to continue. I will have a number of motions that I will be making today on subsequent legislation before this House to try to expand the number of activities which are allowed to proceed. To me, when I look at the next bill coming, my impression from reading that bill is that somebody had decided, ``Well, let's move on the three items that we are taking the most political heat on so that we can continue to hold everybody else hostage.'' They may be convenient politically but it is not the right thing to do on the merits, it is not practical thing to do. We have no objection to expanding or to opening up of Government for those functions, but we think we ought to go beyond that and stop this institutional temper tantrum.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, this is such a silly situation, it is very difficult to know where to start. But let simply say that what this rule is going to do is to make it possible for the House leadership to bring up an additional continuing resolution today, and my understanding of what is going to happen is that that continuing resolution will allow three additional functions of Government to continue that are now closed down. It will expand the ability of the Social Security Administration to meet and process its work, it will expand the ability of the folks running the Medicare Program to do the same thing; and it will expand the ability of the Veterans' Administration folks to do the same thing. There is nothing wrong with any of those three actions, and I would be surprised if we do not have a unanimous vote in support of them in the House. But the problem is that those are not the only three functions which ought to be released from their hostage situation. So when we get to the bill which this rule will allow to come forward, a bill which is going to be unamenable because it is on the Suspension Calendar, I will be asking to make a number of unanimous-consent requests to try to expand the number of Government functions which will be allowed to open. I do not see, for instance, why Gallaudet University, why that university for those kids, deaf kids, why they should be forced to close. But we have a letter indicating that they will if we do not let them out of the hostage box. I do not see why we should not make certain that all research at the National Cancer Institute is allowed to proceed. I do not see why we should not make certain that the civilians can be brought back to work in the Pentagon so that all of the military checks can be provided on the 29th. There is some concern they will not be able to do that unless those civilian employees are brought back. I do not see why we should not open up our national parks so that American families who have spent a good deal of money on vacation plans do not have that money wasted because of this silly argument on the floor of the Congress of the United States. So on the next bill that will be coming as a result of this rule, we will be trying to expand those functions of Government, or open up those functions of Government again. But I must say that I will be asking for a ``no'' vote on the previous question on the rule because I believe that what this rule ought to provide is for the continuation of another full blown CR which will allow all of the functions of Government to continue while the Congress and the President go to the table on the budget. Again, I repeat, we have two separate problems here. We have a difference between the President and the majority in the Congress on what the outcome of those budget negotiations ought to be on the reconciliation bill that passed yesterday. The way to resolve that is to resolve it not to continue to talk about how you are going to resolve it, but simply go to the table and work out the disagreements. But the reason we need a continuing resolution is an entirely separate reason, and that is because this Congress has only passed at this point 4 of the 13 appropriation bills necessary to keep the Government open. Mr. Panetta, the President's Chief of Staff, has just asked me by telephone to ask the Congress to send down to the White House the Legislative appropriations bill and the Treasury-Postal bill. They will sign them. That will make 6 bills out of the 13 that will have crossed the congressional finish line. But we still have the Interior bill, the Foreign Operations bill, the Veterans-HUD bill, the Defense bill, the District of Columbia bill, the Commerce- Justice-State, and the Labor- HHS bill that have not gotten through the congressional process. The President is not holding those up. The Congress is. In most instances, it is because there is an argument between Republican Members in the House and Republican Members in the Senate, who control both bodies, about what the content of those bills ought to be. [[Page H 13308]] So I would suggest the simple way is for us to simply defeat the previous question on the rule, go back and get another rule, go back and send to us another continuing resolution on the House floor so that we can open up all of Government so that we do not continue to look like a bunch of silly children who are tying to dictate what the other's negotiating position ought to be.

Mr. OBEY. Let me simply respond to the previous speaker by saying nobody objects to opening those functions. You are going to see virtually every single one of us for the opening of those functions. We want you to open more of them. We want you to let all of the Government workers go. We do not want you to continue to hold any hostages.

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

Mr. OBEY. But you said, Mr. Speaker, taking back my time, that we were continuing to try to hold these people hostage. We want you to let them go.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I think what the Chair is saying is that the gentleman can proceed if he is not discussing the committee, but discussing floor action.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, is the Chair suggesting that it is out of order to discuss a matter which occurred on the House floor? Because that is the action to which the gentleman's remarks were referring.