Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, we are told this amendment to cut $1 billion is going to cost money. The fact is the amendment saves $1 billion. The fact is that the GAO, the General Accounting Office, says we ought to delay the purchase of these planes for 7 years. All this amendment does is delay it for 5. We have heard a couple of speakers from Georgia, where this baby is going [[Page H 8623]] to be built, tell us that our friends abroad, our foreign friends, need the F-22. I find that argument ironic, because one of the arguments being used by the supporters of the F-22 is that they are saying ``Well, we have to build the F-22 because we have sold so many F-16's to our allies around the world that we now have to buy the F-22 to stay ahead of the threat from our own allies, because we sold too many planes abroad.'' I find that argument coming back and meeting itself. I also find it interesting that the president of Lockheed, the company who is going to build this, has already been saying that he is going to be selling this baby at the Paris Air Show next year. That tells me this is in the budget for purposes of promoting military sales, to increase the profitability of military contractors, and they have been careful to subcontract this baby over 48 States in the Union. That does not tell me much at all about the need for this in order to maintain U.S. air superiority. Very clearly we have a huge lead and we have a huge domination over every other military force in the world, and we will continue to do so until well into the next century. There is absolutely no reason to refuse to save $1 billion. We ought to take the advice of the GAO, delay this program. If you do not do that, you do not understand the rest of the content of the budget. No one who voted to preserve the B-2 can afford to vote to keep this F-22 on purchase schedule, because if you do, there will simply not be any room for it and the vote you just cast did not mean anything.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I can read the handwriting on the wall. I will not be offering the amendments.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes and 30 seconds. Members, I find this whole debate absolutely mind boggling. For the last month, the Congress has passed appropriation bill after appropriation bill and we have cut education, we have cut student loans, we have cut low-income heating assistance programs for poverty- ridden senior citizens, we have cut science budgets, we have cut virally everything you can think of on the domestic side of the ledger, and yet some of the same people who enthusiastically embraced those cuts are now saying, oh, but we have to have more spending on this turkey of a B-2 bomber. We are now being asked to spend money to buy more B-2's than the Pentagon itself is asking for, more than the President is asking for, and we are told that because some former Secretaries of Defense would like us to buy some of these toys, that we ought to do it. I would suggest the right people to ask are not former Secretaries of Defense but the former Directors of the Office of Management and Budget, because I will bet you, if you ask any of them, they will tell you that we simply cannot afford this plane, either militarily or fiscally. Now, we can get into all of the discussions we want about whether or not this money would be better spent on the domestic side of the ledger than the defense side of the ledger. Let us say it is not going to be. I would submit that we still have to face the fact, and this Congress must face the fact, that we cannot afford to buy the items that we are already promising to buy in the Pentagon budget. We cannot afford to buy the items that we are listing in the Pentagon budget unless we eliminate the additional purchases of the B-2 plus one other major weapon system at least. Mr. Chairman, while in the near years, the congressional Republican budget would be higher than the President's budget on defense, after 7 years this budget is lower than the President's budget, and we simply do not have the room in the defense budget to buy every little item we would like to buy. I just want to put this in context for those who think we can afford this. We have some tough choices we have to make. The cost of one of these bombers would pay for the cost of tuition for every single student at the University of Wisconsin for the next 11 years. That is all. The cost of these bombers, which is highly disputable to begin with, because we have three different estimates of what they are likely to cost, but no matter how we slice it, we cannot afford the cost when measured against domestic priorities, we cannot afford the cost when measured against other military priorities, and we ought to pass this amendment and turn down this ridiculous spending today.

Mr. OBEY

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

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. At the present time, Mr. Speaker, yes.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I do support the cuts in this bill, but I do not believe that Congress ought to be exempted from the negotiating squeeze if, in fact, the entire national budget is headed for a train wreck. The President has indicated that, if we send this bill to him before other issues are resolved, he will veto it. That is not going to be in anybody's interest, so it seems to me what we ought to do is to delay the sending of this bill to the President. That is why the motion to recommit, which I will offer in just a moment, will do just that. It will simply recommit the conference report to the committee with instructions that the conference not meet until subsequently instructed to do so by the House pursuant to clause 1(c) of rule XXVIII. That would simply facilitate the delaying of this bill until other budget issues are worked out in other appropriation bills so that we are not in the unseemly position of appearing to be trying to speed passage through of the bill that funds our agencies while other agencies are going to get caught in the squeeze.

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

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I take the time to simply inform Members what I plan to do on the motion to recommit, and also to urge opposition to the previous question on the rule. As the gentlewoman from Colorado has indicated, I think it is extremely unseemly, when it appears that we are headed into a train wreck with the Government shutting down because of the nonpassage of various appropriations bills, I think it is unseemly that the one bill which would be released from the track so it will not participate in that train wreck is the bill that funds the legislative branch of Government. I do not think the public will understand that, I do not think we would want to have to go home and explain that. If other groups in this society are going to be held hostage, so should we. That is why I will offer a motion to recommit, which would require that the bill be recommitted to the committee on conference with instructions that the conferees not meet until they are subsequently instructed to do so by the House, so we can in fact pass our other business before we take care of our own. Second, with respect to the previous question, I simply want to say that I find it amazing that the majority party cannot object at all when 17 separate legislative riders were attached to the EPA appropriation bill, virtually all of which were special interest deals. Yet, they somehow are morally offended when we try to attach an amendment to the legislative appropriations bill which cleans up the relationship between Members of Congress and lobbyists. I for one am tired of seeing network news programs run stories about Members of Congress schmoozing with lobbyists on beaches or on golf courses. We all understand the special advantage that gives them. We think it is a special advantage that ought to be taken away. That is why the Bryant amendment ought to pass. With respect to the equation of PAC contributions, let me simply say this. I myself make no apologies whatsoever for any PAC contributions I have ever received. They are fully aboveboard, they are reported, and I have no objection to having a bunch of workers in the back of the shop being able to unite to contribute collectively as much as four chief executives in the front office can contribute to the other side in any corporation. I would also say that I frankly find it a joke to have Members of the majority party concerned about a $5,000 PAC contribution and the damage that may do to the legislative process, but they have no objection whatsoever to one family in Wisconsin contributing $1 million to the empire of the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Gingrich], GOPAC, and the other pieces. If we want to get worried about buying special privileges, I would say that is what we ought to start looking at.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Porter], the distinguished subcommittee chairman.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. You betcha I voted against your amendment because of where you took the money. You had a personal axe to grind with Overnite Truck, with the NLRB because you did not like what they had done in the Overnite Truck situation. So what did you do? After you sent a letter to the NLRB telling them you wanted them to rule a certain way and they did not rule that way, you offered an amendment to cut the guts out of their budget, and then you put it in Head Start. And you want us to give you gold stars? Baloney. I think that is crossing the line. I am not only proud that I voted against your amendment, I think you should have been ashamed for offering it.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer].

Mr. OBEY. If we could shorten things up by accepting the amendment, would the gentleman be persuaded to shorten things up?

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Davis].

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Edwards].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds to say that the gentleman indicates that he is guaranteed that the $35 million in the defense bill will materialize. That requires a little matter of having to pass the House, pass the Senate, go into conference; and frankly, at this point, I do not know if the defense bill is going to be finished before we leave here for the August recess. The gentleman may have a greater comfort level in the security of that guarantee than I have.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me simply say that I do not want to make a Federal case out of this. Again, while I have misgivings about it, I will not push it to a roll call. Let me simply explain to the Members of the House the situation we are in. It appears that at this point that what the gentleman is asking will in fact result in a negligible impact on a lot of districts. We are not quite certain, frankly, because we do not yet have an official computer run from the agency or CBO or anybody else. The problem is that, at least I feel that there is a much bigger impact on the local school districts with A's than there is with B's, because you have a double loss of property tax base with the folks involved. I also would point out that whether or not this turns out to be a reasonable balance depends upon a further contribution from the defense bill. And while I expect that that is going to occur, we do not have any official certainty that it is going to occur. Mr. Chairman, I am minimally enthused about the gentleman's amendment, to put it politely, for the moment. But as I say, while I have misgivings about it, I am not going to push it to a vote. I understand the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Porter] is going to accept it. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Edwards].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I take this time simply to try to tie up some loose ends on the last discussion. By all means, cut the deficit. By all means, for the 105th time we say: ``We agree, cut duplicative programs and cut waste.'' But you cannot have it both ways. You cannot say to the American people, ``Oh, we are going to have sweeping change throughout this country,'' and then say, ``Oh, but, by the way, do not worry about it, folks; nobody will feel anything when we make these major cuts.'' The distinguished chairman of the Committee on Appropriations says let [[Page H 8355]] us quit taking money from the taxpayers. The fact is that the education programs we have been describing have been our Nation's effort to give money back to those working taxpayers. Evidently our friends on the majority side do not want to do that, at least not as much as we used to. Instead, they want to give billions of dollars back to the truly needy corporations of this world, everybody from AT&T, Texaco, International Minerals, Xerox, Union Camp, Panhandle, Grace, you name it. They want to give them back billions of dollars, because they want to eliminate the corporate minimum tax. Even though companies make billions of dollars in profits, they do not pay zip in taxes. So you put corporations ahead of students and working families. I do not think that makes much sense. We are also told, ``Oh, we are increasing opportunity.'' Very interesting. The last time I looked, the discretionary funds in this bill went from $72 billion last year to $62 billion this year. That is a $10 billion reduction. In addition to that, in the reconciliation bill which you intend to do, it is to take away another $10 billion in student aid and raise the cost to the average student getting help under these programs by 20 percent over their lifetime. You say, ``Oh, we didn't cut Pell.'' Thank God for small favors. But the fact is that the Pell program under this budget is still in real dollar terms $300 below where it was in 1991. The reason we are upset with these reductions in education is because this is what has happened in the budget since 1980. In 1980, what we spent on our budget on investment, and I mean investment in kids by way of education, investment in infrastructure by way of decent roads and bridges, investment in science so we could make the economy grow and create better opportunity for everybody, investment was 16 cents out of every budget dollar in 1980, before Ronald Reagan walked into the White House. By 1992 it had been cut down to 9 percent. That is about a 40-percent reduction as the share of our national budget. That is a mistake. We are eating our own seed corn. When you deny student loans to kids, that is exactly what you are doing. It is penny-wise and pound-foolish, and it is cruel to boot. We urge Members to vote no on this bill.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, the Perkins Loan Program began in 1958 in response to the Russian Sputnik program. It was part of the National Defense Education Act. I would not be here in Congress today if it were not for that National Defense Education Act. That is what enabled me to get a college education. This Congress, a long time ago, decided to give people like me the opportunity to work their way up the opportunity ladder, and I am very grateful for it. About one-third of the Members of this Congress have been beneficiaries of the very same program which we are suggesting now that we will not fund for the first time since 1958. I ask my colleagues to not pull the ladder of opportunity up after they have climbed it before they let others do the same thing. Give them the same opportunity that we have had. The Republican majority says, ``Oh, don't worry, don't worry. This isn't much of a cut.'' Tell that to the 150,000 students who are not going to get Perkins loans. Tell that to them. Go ahead. And keep in mind the second step is going to come in September when the reconciliation bill comes to this House, and in that bill the Congress is going to be cutting $10 billion additional money out of student aid. That is estimated to increase the cost to student borrowers on average by 20 percent. If my colleagues think increasing the cost to student borrowers by 20 percent is opening the door of opportunity, I think they need a new dictionary. I just cannot believe that we are about to do this. You talk about a $10 billion reduction, they talk about the elimination of the Perkins loan program, as though it is nothing at all. Well, if it is not real savings, then how are we going to be able to use that $10 billion for the purpose you intend, which is again to provide those tax cuts for people making more than $100,000 a year. It is a bad mistake. Defeat this bill.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, to make one point. Mr. Chairman, there is $20 million increase in the budget for this operation. There is a potential increase in responsibilities of $200 million. Sounds to me like that is about 10 cents on the dollar. Far from having increased ability to do the research they need, they are going to be squeezed incredibly. I think Members need to understand that. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.