Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Get your own time. Once today you ought to follow the rules.

Mr. OBEY. Get your own time.

Mr. OBEY. I did not consider that to be a private conversation. I considered it to be a conversation made on the floor of the peoples' House.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer]. (Mr. HOYER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. I will not challenge the ruling of the Chair in the interest of comity, but I do want to observe that when the gentleman says that something was done for reasons of down-and-dirty gutter politics and then he points his finger over here and says. ``You will pay,'' there is no doubt in my mind who he is talking about. He told me privately that he was not talking about us. He was talking about the President of the United States. I do not believe that the rules of the House ought to allow anyone's motives to be impugned, whether they are a Member of the House or the President of the United States. I hope the gentleman will not deny that statement.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 minutes. Mr. Speaker, first of all, before I start, I want to wish a belated happy anniversary to my distinguished friend from Louisiana. I understand how he felt when last night, in the midst of everything that was happening, he was trying to celebrate his 30th wedding anniversary and a few other things got in the way. I know how that feels. Let me also say that I think I know my friend from Louisiana well enough to know that he is not very happy with the situation in which we find ourselves. Neither is any other thoughtful Member of this House. Because there is no reason for this impasse to exist on the appropriation bill. We have two very different discussions going on. One relates to the need to raise the debt ceiling, and that subject is real and ought to be dealt with separately. In fact, we have three issues. The second issue is what ought to happen in the multiyear budget reconciliation fight, which is occurring now in this Capitol. Then the third issue is whether or not the Government is simply going to be allowed to conduct its business while we finish the job that we have had given to us of passing all 13 appropriation bills so that we can at least keep the Government functioning in its basic operations. Mr. Speaker, my remarks are going to be primarily directed at our moderate friends on the Republican side of the aisle because I, frankly, think that they at this point are the only ones who have sufficient leverage to help end this impasse. The problem that we are faced with now is that, frankly, we are wrapped around the axle; and the Government, because of that, is rapidly falling into disrepute with most Americans. I think that the choice of what happens is largely in the hands of the moderate Republicans who, I think, have a crucial choice to make. I think they have to choose whether or not they are going to continue to show the same kind of statesmanship which they showed on the Stokes amendment on the HUD appropriation bill a few weeks, or a few days ago when they joined with us to jettison 17 extraneous items, or whether or not they are going to continue to make alliance with the 75 most extreme Members of their caucus and, in the process, hold an awful lot of innocent people hostage. Mr. Speaker, I would point out that this is not the first time that we have had a political impasse associated with appropriation bills. We have had a number of continuing resolutions required in the past. But the fact is that in almost all cases those arguments involved political divisions between the President and the Congress and, in most instances, they involved the failure of a legislative product to be accepted by one branch or another. That is not what is happening here. What is happening here is that we had the leadership of this House, most especially the Speaker, simply determine that an extraneous matter was going to be brought into the appropriation process, and that it was going to be wedged into that process, in hopes that his agenda could be leveraged through by threatening to hold up the ability of the Government to function, and that issue in Medicare. So we were told over the weekend that we had to buy into the idea that Medicare premiums would be essentially more than doubled and we had to start the process now by dragging it into this appropriation debate. Then, Mr. Speaker, last night, just when it was clear to most people, I believe, that the majority party was taking a drubbing in the court of public opinion on that matter, then all of a sudden that was cast aside and now the great cause to them has been whether or not somehow people are going to commit to a 7-year balanced budget. I would say, Mr. Speaker, that that is a very interesting debate, but it does not belong on this bill, it does not belong on this instrument, because what we ought to be doing here is to simply keep the Government open until we have time to finish the appropriations work that so far the Congress has not done. The Congress institutionally has no business trying to blackmail the President into buying into someone else's vision on an entirely different cluster of issues simply in order to make up for the fact that the Congress has not yet finished its appropriation business, as this chart demonstrates. What this chart demonstrates is that only 3 appropriations bills, Military Construction, Agriculture, and Energy and Water, have been passed by the Congress and sent to the President for his signature, and have have had the benefit of the President's signature. Agriculture and Energy and Water is at the White House and soon will become law, but all of the rest of the bills are stuck, at this point, not in the White House, but in the Congress, in the legislative process. The Transportation bill has not yet been finished by the Congress. The Legislative bill on its second round has not been finished by the Congress. Treasury-Post Office has been hung up for almost 60 days by an extraneous matter, the Istook amendment. The Interior Department appropriation bill has been hung up again on extraneous matters, including how much of a political favor this Congress is going to continue to give to mining companies. Mr. Speaker, Foreign Operations is tied up because of the abortion issue; it is tied up again in the Congress. VA, HUD, and Independent Agencies, they have been held up for eons, it seems, because of those 17 environmental riders that were attached by the majority party. The Defense bill at this point is [[Page H 12240]] hung up on a combination of arguments over spending levels and the abortion issue. The District of Columbia bill has barely made it through the starting gate in this House. Commerce, Justice, State and the Judiciary has not even met yet in conference, and the Labor-HHS bill passed the House in such extreme form that the Republican chairman of the subcommittee himself is embarrassed by it, and it is clearly the case that the Republican majority in the Senate is so embarrassed by that extremism that they will not even take the bill up, and they cannot even agree to pass it on a voice vote with no one being on record because that bill is so bad. Now, there is only one way out of this, and the way out of this is not to have the President cave in to the Speaker's extraneous demands. The way out of it is to simply extend the ability of Government to do its business and serve our constituents, I would hope for 1 month at a time, but if that cannot be done, then it ought to be extended 1 day at a time. Mr. Speaker, I am perfectly happy to stand here all day today and tomorrow or for as long as it takes and continue to offer that motion in the hopes that at some time sanity will prevail and the leadership of this House will recognize that the entire Government of the United States should not be held hostage to the whims of one political leader with an extreme agenda. That is why, Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that rather than debating all of these extraneous issues, even if we have deep partisan divisions on all of the other issues remaining, there should not be a partisan issue between us on the issue of whether or not the Government performs its basic duties on a day-to-day basis. That is why, again, I would urge our moderate friends on the Republican side of the aisle to join with us, not to adopt any agenda that we have, not to reject any agenda that your leadership might have, but simply to perform the ministerial function of keeping the Government open, keeping it running while we have these other debates for as long as they take. In the end, the President is not being held hostage; the American people are being held hostage. That should not be allowed to continue, and I would urge our friends on that side of the aisle to reconsider the action that they have been taking by allowing this impasse to continue. I thank the House for its attention.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, despite the fact that the gentleman would not yield to me, yes, I will yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, it is true that we have had a number of them, although I do not know what the specific number is. All I would say to the gentleman is that the issue is not the past, the issue is what should we do now and what are we going to do to make tomorrow better. We are not going to make tomorrow better by standing here and holding our breath. We need to keep the Government open.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Gephardt], the distinguished minority leader.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I demand the gentleman's words to be taken down.

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

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, does the gentleman from Louisiana have only one remaining speaker?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee]. (Ms. JACKSON-LEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, under the procedures triggered by my request, is the gentleman supposed to be discussing this directly with the Parliamentarian?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute, just to point out to the gentleman that he has pointed out certain factors of history, and I would like to point out some rather more recent history. Last year, when I chaired the Committee on Appropriations, we had 13 appropriations bill, and all 13 of them passed on time. There was no need to pass a continuing resolution because of the failure of a single appropriations bill, and the reason that happened is because we determined on this side of the aisle not to follow an ideological agenda, but we determined, and I decided as my first act as chairman, that I would simply step across the aisle and talk to the ranking Republican and work out a bipartisan division of funds between all 13 bills. Mr. Speaker, we did that, we had a bipartisan product and we had a bipartisan finish, and as a result, the entire House was able to finish its work product. The gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], I am sure, had he been left to his own devices would have done the same, but the fact is he has been given a different set of marching orders, and I understand that. However, I do think if the gentleman is going to talk about ancient history, I think he ought to talk about recent history as well, and I simply want to bring that to the gentleman's attention.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I would urge the Speaker to clear such a motion. It obviously needs to be done.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Appropriations be discharged from further consideration of House Joint Resolution 119, a clean continuing resolution through midnight tomorrow, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. I simply would like to welcome the gentleman back also, and I say that his comments remind me of the late Claude Pepper when Claude came back after open heart surgery. I heard him at a senior citizen convention. They gave him a big round of applause, and he said, ``I want to thank you from the bottom of a very repaired heart.''

Mr. OBEY

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

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I hope it is cleared by the other side sometime tonight.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Appropriations be discharged from further consideration of House Joint Resolution 118, a clean continuing resolution, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. I thank the gentleman.