Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from California [Mr. Dellums], the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on National Security.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Doggett].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote. A recorded vote was ordered.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes and 30 seconds to the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Roemer]. (Mr. ROEMER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Edwards].

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy]. (Mr. KENNEDY of Massachusetts asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks).

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

Mr. OBEY. In its present form I am, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 6\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Speaker, nobody in this House can say that I have routinely and blindly defended the President of the United States. If you doubt that, all you have to do is take a look at the newspapers this morning. But having said that, I want to stand here and defend him from some of the things that I have heard this evening. Mr. Speaker, this debate, unfortunately, is not being driven by policy. It is, in my judgment, being driven by sheer, raw power politics. There is no question that the Speaker has been planning for a long time for this moment. All you have to do is to go back to his quotations in April and May, where he made quite clear that he was just waiting for the time that he could load up a debt ceiling or a CR and send it to the President, and he made quite clear on numerous occasions that he did not care what the price was. He made that clear as recently, I believe, as yesterday. I don't care what price political parties pay, or what people pay on this House floor, but I do care about the price that our system pays when the public concludes that what we are doing is driven by raw politics and raw personal ambition. And yet that is what the public has concluded on the basis of this sorry episode. We are in this position because this Congress has not finished its work. We are in this position because over 90 percent of the appropriations still have not become law, and that has given the Speaker an opportunity to try to leverage his position by sending down to the President a series of poison pills. First, he sent down to the President the CR which the President vetoed because that contained the poison pill that required Medicare premiums to be virtually doubled over the next few years. The President vetoed that. The majority party took a big public relations bath for that effort. Now you are in the process of trying to send a second poison pill down to the White House. That poison pill is to demand that the President, sight unseen, with no understanding of what underlying assumptions there are. Except for CBO's technical and economic assumptions, it demands that, sight unseen, he buy into the idea of a 7 years balanced budget. Let me tell you why I am suspicious of that timetable. Because I have been here long enough to see three previous promises broken in terms of multiyear budgets. This chart shows the contrast between the promises that Ronald Reagan told us, that he would balance the budget in 4 years, versus, in the red bars, the performance. He promised that in 4 years we would hit a zero deficit. They missed by $185 billion. Then we were told, ``Well, let's try Gramm-Rudman.'' Again, they promised in 5 years we would get to a balanced budget. They only missed by $220 billion. Then they tried Gramm-Rudman II, and again, they promised that they would take us down to zero deficit. They only missed by $290 billion. So I think we have a lot of reasons to be suspicious of these political promises about multiyear balanced budgets. Nonetheless, nonetheless, I am willing to support that idea, provided we know what your other assumptions are. That is why the recommit motion, which I will offer tonight, would have us accept this proposition, provided that you buy some of our assumptions. Our assumptions would be: First, no tax cut shall be provided until the budget is in balance; Second, no reduction should be made in education which closed the door of opportunity to young people; Third, no alterations in the Medicare program should restrict the access or quality of care available to senior citizens, or disproportionately increase the cost of that care to those citizens; Fourth, no money may be appropriated, and no targeted tax benefits will be provided, including all fiscal 1996 appropriation measures and the reconciliation bill you are about to produce, if they are not subjected to a line-item veto which the President can exercise to hold us to that 7-year timetable. You want us to buy your technical assumptions on CBO. I will be happy to buy them, but we want to know that in the process you are not going to gut social security, you are not going to gut Medicare, you are not going to gut education, you are not going to provide a tax cut, a huge percentage of which goes to the highest income people in this country. We want to know in short order that your economic prescription for reaching that balance is not going to fall disproportionately on the shoulders of working people so that once again the richest one-half million families in this country can clean up on the gravy train as they have done by your policies for the last 12 years. You buy our assumptions, we will buy yours.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the distinguished gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Gephardt], minority leader.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, what this motion to recommit says is that we will be happy to buy into the idea of a 7-year balanced budget despite all of the blindfolds that that implies provided that the majority party will be willing to buy into the following requirements: First of all, that a tax cut will be provided only after the budget is in balance. We do not want any $14,000 tax cuts going to people making $300,000 a year before the budget is balanced. I do not want them anytime. We also do not want any reductions in education which will close the doors of opportunity for young people. I thought the reason we came here was to open doors of opportunity, not close them. Mr. Speaker, we also do not want to see tax cuts that are provided by cuts in Medicare and cuts in Medicaid, and we do not want cuts in those programs to affect the quality of care or disproportionately increase the cost of that care to the citizens who rely on those programs. Lastly, we want the line-item veto to apply to each and every appropriation bill that passes for this fiscal year, we want it to apply to every item in the reconciliation bill that passes, and we also want it to apply to all of the tax goodies that from time to time work their way into bills in this place, especially for rich friends. We want the President to be able, if he indeed is expected to adhere to a timetable of 7 years, we want the President to have all of those tools available, and we want them available now. Now everybody talks about personal experiences. I held a lot of hearings in my district over the past months, and the person I will never forget is a young woman who was 22 or 23 from Rhinelander, WI, who appeared at a hearing of mine. She had two young children. She divorced her husband because he beat the hell out of her on a regular basis, and she needed Medicaid desperately, she needed to maintain her student loan, she was homeless for 4 months last year, and yet she kept going to school each and every day because she wanted to make something of herself. I do not want to balance the budget on the backs of people like that when at the same time in the reconciliation package coming down at us on that freight train we are going to be asked to make life a whole lot easier for the wealthiest people in this society. Mr. Speaker, I have absolutely nothing against rich people. I want everybody to be rich. But in the 1980's, in the 1980's, we saw the richest one-half million families in this country increase their share of national wealth from 24 percent to 32 percent. Think about it. At the same time we saw the average working person in this country either hang on or lose ground. We want to change that. We do not want to see the budget balanced in a way which increases the disparity--in income and well-being--between the very wealthiest people in this society and the folks, the everyday folks, who struggle every day just to make ends meet. If we are going to listen to the accountants who tell us how we numerically pull the numbers together, we also want to listen to the folks who will talk to us about the morality associated with these choices so that we also pay attention to the need to hold this society together. And we will not hold this society together if we continue to follow a prescription which asks as its first question, ``What can we do for the boys on the top?'' We will not hold this society together if we wind up with a prescription that gives table scraps to everybody else in this society, and that is what has been happening for the last 12 to 15 years. I urge my colleagues to vote for this motion to recommit, and I urge my colleagues to vote against this resolution if the motion to recommit is not adopted. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Sabo], the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on the Budget. (Mr. SABO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Gibbons]. (Mr. GIBBONS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from North Dakota [Mr. Pomeroy].

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, my friend, the distinguished subcommittee chairman, just indicated that this bill is before us because we had to move these appropriations bills forward. I agree that we do. The problem is this motion does not do that. It keeps the Congress stuck on dead center on another 1 of the 10 appropriation bills which still have not made their way into law. We have been here before, Mr. Speaker. Three weeks ago we went through this exercise. The House voted to insist on its position on this matter. It was sent to the Senate and the Senate turned it down. I know of absolutely no development which has changed the Senate position to this point. What we have is, I think, another example of why the Government at this moment is shut down with over 90 percent of the appropriations still not in law for the coming fiscal year. Frankly, there are a whole lot more issues in this bill that I care about more than how we come down on the Mexico City issue. I have been trying through the years to find any way to resolve that issue, and I offered a compromise motion the last time we were on the floor with this issue. We lost. The rules do not allow me to make that same motion again. If they did, I would make that motion again because I think both chambers need to show some movement. I respect people's strong views on this subject, on both sides, but it seems to me we are caught in a higher problem this morning. It seems to me that this motion is again, in a small way, a vivid example of why the Congress has not been able to finish its work, why we are sitting here wrapped around the axle with the Government shut down, with the majority party blaming the President because he has not signed bills they have not sent him yet. It just seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that the way out of this box is to, not just on this bill but on all the other bills that have not yet become law, try to find ways to bridge the differences between the House and the Senate, not to keep those differences going. This motion keeps that difference going this morning. It does nothing constructive to either move this bill to the White House or to lessen the portion of the Federal budget which has still not been passed for the coming fiscal year. I will vote against the motion, Mr. Speaker, not because of any particularly strong feelings about the motion per se, but simply because I do have strong feelings that we ought to be moving these bills forward, as the subcommittee chair indicates, but this motion is not doing that. I really think that sooner or later people have to get over their insistence on first preferences. We have to recognize that we have an obligation in a legislative body to get our work done, and continuing to polarize this issue between the House and the Senate is not making any significant contribution toward that end.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde] said a couple of minutes ago that anyone who opposes this amendment is for the abortion of an unwanted child. That is absolute baloney. The gentleman is perfectly entitled to describe his own motives. He certainly by no means has any right to describe mine. Mr. Speaker, I am opposed to abortions period. I just do not happen to think that I ought to be making the decision for every woman in this country. That is a distinction which I think the gentleman from Illinois is bright enough to understand. I also want to say that with respect to the China issue, I want to read the language of the amendment that the gentleman who just spoke voted against the last time it was before us on the floor. My amendment said in section 518 (a): Notwithstanding any other provision of this act or other law, none of the funds appropriated by this act may be made available for the United Nations Population Fund unless the President certifies to the appropriate congressional committees that, one: The United Nations Population Fund will terminate all family planning activities in the People's Republic of China no later than May 1, 1996; or two: During the 12 months preceding such certification, there have been no abortions as a result of coercion associated with the family planning activities of the national government or other governmental entities within the People's Republic of China. Now, that language is very clear, and my statement was very clear at the time. I wanted us to end funding for the U.N. Population Program if it does not pull the plug in China, because I believe, and most of us believe on this side of the aisle, that China does have a coercive program and we have no business being associated with a program that does not recognize that. I feel that very strongly and have felt that way for 5 years. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Smith] says that he thinks the language in this amendment is a compromise. Well, that is very nice. The fact is, the Senate does not think it is a compromise, because they have already voted against it. All I am suggesting is that if the gentleman wants to move this bill forward, the gentleman will find some other formulation than the one in this bill. Mr. Speaker, we have already tried this route. The Senate has already voted it down, and the hardheadedness that is demonstrated by insisting on everyone's first principles is a clear demonstration of why 10 out of the 13 appropriations bills still have not become law and we are sitting here today with the Government in a situation where it is shut down. Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that if the gentleman wants to compromise, it has to be a compromise somewhere other than in your own mind. It has to be a compromise which is generally recognized.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I was not referring to the gentleman's comments; I was referring to the comments of the gentleman from Pennsylvania. But I would simply say, as I said once before and I will say it again and again until the majority finally gets it, that issue is not present on this bill. That issue is not present on any of the appropriations bills, except, so far as I know, only the interrelationship between the Labor-HEW and the Defense bill. The point is simply that what the timetable will be on the budget and what will be required in order to meet that will be determined on the reconciliation bill. But you are trying to make the President buy into ahead of time the idea that he will buy huge cuts in Medicare in order to reach your time table on a budget, and, in order to get him to do that, you are trying to hold up the ability of this House to keep the Government open, and you are trying to shift the debate from one venue to another. That is not a legitimate position for the Congress to take. I would simply say that in the end, what happened in the past is not important. What counts is what we are going to do now to make today sensible and tomorrow better. That is what is at issue here, and that is why these bills need to pass, and that is why a clean CR needs to pass.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, let us talk about conditions that do exist instead of talking about fantasy conditions.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. I would simply suggest, as I did yesterday, instead of looking at the deep, dark, distant past, why not look at last year. Last year, I took over as chairman of the Committee on Appropriations. We finished all 13 appropriations bills. They were all signed by the President before the end of the fiscal year. The reason that happened is because I went to the ranking Republican and I said let us work out a bipartisan approach to all 13 bills. It was the very first thing I did. We did, and that is why it passed. If the majority had done the same thing on these bills, they might have had the same result. But they did not, which is why 10 of them are still stuck in the muck.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, just to correct the misstatement of history, Gramm-Rudman was passed in 1985, not 1987. The Republicans controlled the Senate when it happened. That is why it is named Gramm and Rudman.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, the previous speaker is just plain wrong. This debate on this bill is not about the deficit. This debate is about whether or not the President of the United States, some 800,000 workers, and the entire country will be held hostage to the demand by Speaker Gingrich and others on his team that the President buy into a budget concept and timetable that will require huge reductions in future Medicare payments by this Government and a doubling of Medicare premiums. That is what is going on here. That debate about what happens to Medicare and that debate about the shape and nature of the path to a balanced budget is supposed to occur on the reconciliation bill which is now in conference between the House and the Senate. That is a multiyear fight. That is a multiyear bill. But that bill has not yet even gone to the President, so the President is not even in a position to determine whether he would sign it or veto it, because we still do not know what the final contents of that will be. Meanwhile, what we have before us is the fact that we still have ten 1-year appropriation bills which have not made their way to the White House. The President cannot rationally be criticized for not signing something that has not yet been sent to him. What we have at issue now, today, is whether the Treasury-Post Office appropriation bill, 1 of the 10 remaining unsigned bills because it has not yet gotten to the President, whether that bill ought to be moved forward. We think it should. We have a significant disagreement with the majority party on their underfunding of the IRS, because ironically while the gentleman from Pennsylvania says he is concerned about getting the deficit down, the underfunding of the IRS is actually going to add to the deficit next year, because we will not be collecting revenues that are due the Government. But despite that difference, we are willing to support the basic thrust of this bill. Most of us on this side of the aisle will vote for this bill when we get to the question of final passage. But what we are suggesting is this: We are suggesting that this bill only allows 100,000 workers to go back to work if it is signed by the President, and what we are suggesting is that all 800,000 workers who are out of work ought to be able to go back. The fastest way to accomplish that is to turn down the previous question, turn down the rule, and allow me to offer this amendment to the resolution before us. This resolution will simply say that when this bill passes and when it is signed by the President, that the other operations of Government are continued until December 13, 1995. That is all we are trying to do. We have, at this moment as I speak, some 125 cosponsors to this proposition, and by the end of the day we are going to have a whole lot more than that. We had every single Democrat vote yesterday plus three Republicans who voted yesterday to try to extend the continuation of the Government action so that we do not continue this silly spectacle of the Government being shut down while we are trying to pass our annual appropriation bills. Do not be confused. Do not be fooled. This issue is not about whether there is going to be a 7-year deficit path to zero or not. This is a fight about whether or not the Government is going to do its basic business, whether the services that people have a right to expect from the Government are going to be provided, whether Social Security recipients are going to get their questions answered, whether veterans are going to be able to get their questions answered. I understand that one State announced yesterday they may have to cancel a portion of their hunting season because their national forests will not be open because of the shutdown of the agencies involved. That may not be very important to some people on this floor but it is awfully important to an awful lot of hunters in this country. The list of services goes on and on. I would suggest what is at issue is not the content of this bill. What is at issue is whether or not we are going to meet our responsibilities to keep the Government open without engaging in blackmail using many thousand American citizens as hostages.

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