Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Meek]. (Mrs. MEEK of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Chairman, listening to all this, I would think I was born in Jamaica where the motto is ``No problem, No problem.'' You are taking 150,000 student loans away from kids under the Perkins Loan Program. You are cutting drug-free schools by 50 percent. You are eliminating 1 million kids out of chapter 1. You are cutting 55,000 kids out of Head Start. Eight hundred people died in this country 2 weeks ago and you are saying, no problem, we are going to eliminate the program for them. [[Page H 8321]] You are cutting MediGap counseling so seniors do not get chiseled by insurance companies on phony MediGap policies. You are cutting that promise to help them by 50 percent. Yet you have got guts enough to talk about spending. Before your President Ronald Reagan took over and you swallowed his line of malarkey, we never had a deficit larger than $65 billion. We followed your advice, passed those budgets, deficits are now over $200 billion. Thanks a lot for your fiscal discipline. Ha, ha, ha. You are talking about spending, cutting spending. You are going to keep the F-22. You are going to keep the B-2. Just one of those B-2 bombers--and you are buying a heck of a lot more than the Pentagon wants--just one of them will fund the tuition for every student at the University of Wisconsin for the next 12 years. Where in God's name are your priorities? Then you talk about Head Start. That chart talks about the dollars. As Members know, we have had a bipartisan recognition that Head Start needed a quality improvement. We need to improve the quality of teachers. We need to improve the quality of services. And so that is where the money has gone, to try to improve quality. As a result, under your budget, the number of kids who are going to be enrolled in Head Start next year is going to drop from 752,000 to 704,000. Maybe you do not care about those kids who are going to be dropped off the program. We do. Forget your phoney numbers game. Look at the people behind those numbers.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer], a member of the subcommittee.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Oberstar]. (Mr. OBERSTAR asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would like to be recognized in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 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. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield the remainder of my time, 1\1/2\ minutes, to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Durbin].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would simply like to say on this side, we accept the amendment. This is a tiny fix-up in a massively messed up bill, but we have no problem with the particulars of this amendment.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman yielding to me. Mr. Chairman, I must say that I can understand the position of the gentleman from Illinois, [Mr. Porter] but I guess I would say after all of the decisions that have been made in this House tonight that have come down against average people and against common people, this is at least one decision that would be made on the side of common people, working people, and against the side of those who would gouge them. I personally, on behalf of this side, would accept the amendment.

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

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Sam Johnson, has asked if I would accept his amendment. Let me say I have great misgivings about it. I agree with the gentleman from California [Mr. Thomas] on this, and I agree with the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Archer]. I am very reluctant to accept the amendment. I guess I could be persuaded to do so provided that my colleagues understand one thing: When you propose to cut Medicare by $270 billion, what you are telling the American people is that you can do it all without hurting senior citizens. I very, very deeply question that, but if we are [[Page H 8414]] to minimize the hit on recipients of Medicare, we have to know how we can save money by eliminating waste in Medicare. This agency which you are cutting is the agency that is supposed to supply us with that information by doing the outcomes research that they do. I was going to read a whole series of examples of how we have had major savings in health care costs on a number of procedures, but in the interests of time I will not, with this simple statement: I will for the moment accept this simply because it helps on the vocational education side, but I think it is going to be essential, if this turkey of a bill ever manages to squeak out of this place, I think it is going to be essential for us to repair the damage in conference to this agency, because without it you can kiss goodbye any hope that you can cut any money out of Medicare without a substantial clobbering of senior citizens.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I do.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I simply say in the interest of time, there may be some problems with this. I think if there are, we can look at it in conference. In the interest of saving time, I would be willing to accept the amendment if we could move ahead.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman would then yield me 30 seconds I would appreciate it, and then we would be happy to accept the amendment.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I believe that we are at the end and if we are I would simply want to say that the most that can be said about this bill, or everything that can be said about this bill has been said, I hope. I do not want to take any more time than necessary. I simply want to say this is one mean and ugly piece of work. It makes deep cuts in programs that protect workers' pension, health benefits frauds, industrial accidents, and the right to request for pay and better working conditions. It cuts buildings and Federal payments to local school districts. It will force educational quality to go down and property taxes to go up. It hammers vulnerable Americans, devastates training programs, and cuts student loans. For the first time in 37 years this bill will provide no contribution to the national defense education loan fund. It devastates training programs. We are quick in this Congress to promise training when we are rounding up votes for some new trade deal that will boost the profits of big multinational corporations, but when it comes to paying for that training we forget about our commitments, do we not? That is what has happened, is it not? The bad news does not end there. We also have legislation which is loaded with special interest provisions. It is a tool by which the rights of citizens affected by this legislation to petition Congress and make their views known is being denied and squelched in many ways. I would say all in all that this is the most vicious exercise of public power that I would ever hope to see in this democracy on an appropriation bill. I hope the American people wake up very soon to what is going on. This is an antieducation, antiworking family, antiwoman, antiopportunity appropriation act of 1995. It would end the bipartisan commitment to education, to worker dignity, to dignified retirement that has existed in this House for as long as I have been here. I will simply say this, it is up to Republicans, who I know are troubled with the extremism of this bill, to decide whether this bill will succeed in breaking that bipartisan commitment. I hope that you do not let it do it so that we can send this bill back to committee, repair the 602 allocation, remove the imbalances that presently are demonstrated in this bill, and resume the bipartisan commitment regardless of which party is in control of this joint, resume the bipartisan commitment that this country simply [[Page H 8418]] must have if we are to make the investments we need and move this country forward.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I would simply say very quickly that I come from a rural district. I have many small financial institutions, and I suspect that what the gentleman is trying to accomplish may very well be right on the button. I do not want to suggest that it is not. But I have to say this: It is now 5 minutes to midnight. We are talking about taxpayers' money, and what the amendment does is to exempt from audit requirement a number of financial institutions who deal with this program. I am certain that the authorizing committee has the capacity to come up with the kind of exemptions that we ought to provide for those financial institutions. With all due respect, I do not think that 20 people on this House floor have any idea what we ought to be doing on this tonight. And because we are talking about taxpayers' money, because I have a funny quality of not liking to be embarrassed by finding that some strange things have happened with taxpayers' money, I am reluctant to just say we are going to exempt these folks from audit, because I think there might be another way. So I am not going to press this. I am not going to push it to rollcall or anything like that. If the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Porter] wants to accept it, that is his prerogative on behalf of the committee. I simply say I have great misgivings, and even it is accepted, I want to say that I will have to be very, very much persuaded in conference before we allow this to move ahead. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I certainly will not take the 5 minutes. I simply want to say two things. First of all, I want to alert members to the fact that there will be two votes, obviously, with a motion to recommit, and then final passage. What this recommittal motion simply does is to try to redress some of the damage that this bill does to the dignity of workers in this country. It strikes sections 103, which would block the President's authority to enforce executive orders, barring striker replacements on Federal contracts. Second, it strikes section 105, which blocks development of workplace standards related to ergonomic injures. Third, it strikes limitations on the National Labor Relations Board authority to protect collective bargaining rights of workers, the 10(j) injunctions. Mr. Speaker, we have already had the debates on all of these. There is no point in pursuing it. I would simply urge an ``aye'' vote on the motion to recommit, and I would ask for a rollcall. I would remind people there would be two votes.

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

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

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Doggett].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Olver].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 8 minutes. Mr. Chairman, yesterday we talked about the implications of this bill for working Americans. Today we are moving to the portion of the bill that attacks our most vulnerable citizens. This is really the second stage of a three-stage attack on the elderly, on disabled, and poor Americans. Last week, this House adopted legislation which will substantially increase the rent that low-income elderly will pay to live in section 8 housing and other federally subsidized housing. In September we will be considering legislation that will radically scale back the options of senior citizens on Medicare and will substantially increase their out- of-pocket expenses, and today we are attacking vulnerable Americans on another front in this bill. This bill kills the program that helps pay winter fuel bills and summer air- [[Page H 8316]] conditioning costs when the alternative is that their heat and electricity will be cut off, 6 million American families, 80 percent of whom make less than $10,000 a year, we are going to kill that program. The bill will dramatically cut back opportunities for part-time community service work for programs like Green Thumb. We are cutting Federal support for senior center activities, RSVP programs, senior aides, foster grandparents. We are even cutting elderly nutrition programs, and so we are at midstream in a process that hits the same group of people, older Americans living on $8,000 to $10,000 a year or less, and we are hitting them over and over and over again. The problem is that right now people are living on the edge. They cannot take one hit much less three, and so I think you have a right to ask who is going to pick up the slack. In some cases, no question, maybe their kids may be able to step in. In those cases, we will be shifting the burden right back on to working Americans. In other cases, there may be some local help. But given the cuts that we are already making in aid to schools and other areas, that is not very likely. So, in many cases, we are simply looking at the prospect of many of these people falling through the cracks or being tossed out the window, and if you think it is hyperbole, listen to what the Wall Street Journal reported last November when it said, ``More than two decades after the creation of a Federal law aimed at providing free meals to anyone over 60, several million older Americans are going hungry and their numbers are growing steadily. The Federal food programs cannot keep up with the Nation's rapidly graying population. For the first time, we have growing waiting lists,'' it quotes a Federal official as saying. ``The level of malnutrition is only increasing.'' This was not in a left-wing newspaper. This was in the Wall Street Journal. Or take a look at this New York Times headline and the story. The story read, ``A gray-haired man in a blue Yankee cap lifts the lid off of a garbage bin next to a supermarket. Peering inside, he pulls out a tray of mushrooms still wrapped in plastic, slips it surreptitiously into a small gym bag, as shoppers stroll in front of the supermarket. Elderly people go almost unnoticed as they scavenge for food in garbage bins just around the corner.'' These are not homeless people. They are not entirely destitute. But they are driven to the unappealing and even humiliating task of foraging through trash by a disturbing combination of immediate financial need and more general fear of the future. This picture, while I know it does not show up very well, shows older Americans searching for food outside of a supermarket in a dumpster--in a dumpster. We have come to this. We are going to be providing a big capital gains tax cut. We are going to be eliminating the minimum corporate tax that the high-flying, truly needy corporations of this country now pay but will not be paying under the new tax bill. So that again you have a laundry list of large corporations ranging from AT&T down through you name it, who will wind up not paying taxes, again, just like they did not pay taxes between 1982 and 1995 even though they made $60 billion in profits. We are going to be doing all of that and paying for it by taking jobs away from our seniors and by taking literally food out of the mouths of not just kids, but out of our low-income elderly. Mr. Chairman, it is really hard to put this bill in context because there is really no precedent for what is being done. We are witnessing an attempt to implement policies that are radically out of the mainstream. Take, for instance, the foster grandparents program. It is hard to find anybody who is familiar with that program who does not think it is one of the best things that has ever happened to this country. It takes low-income elderly, gives them a minimum wage for providing care and companionship to young kids 20 hours a week. These are kids in foster care or State institutions. Some are very severely retarded, they are autistic; they are kids who would not receive love or attention from any other source. Some people thought the Reagan administration was pretty hard- hearted, particularly when it came to the disadvantaged and to programs to help them, but I would like to read something. Mr. Chairman, let me read this quote: ``It is really hard to say who benefits more in this program, the child or the foster grandparent. What of the children in the program? They have been abandoned, forgotten, the victims of pernicious neglect. They range in age from infancy to 21 years. The fact is, it is doubly beneficial. That is one reason why the cost of the program is so worthwhile.'' You know who said that? Not some left-wing socialist. Nancy Reagan. That is who said that. Yet, you are going to gut those programs. Mr. Chairman, I would simply say, I know that there are going to be some amendments offered today to try to make a token apology to the seniors and the vulnerable in this country by restoring a few pennies in the almost $10 billion savaging that you are doing these populations, and I guess there is no harm in bringing up those amendments. It is a little conscience money that you are going to provide so you can take back home and tell your constituents, you care at least a little bit. All I would say is that regardless of how many fig leafs you pass on this floor today, you cannot fix up this bill, and those little conscience amendments still do not remove the obligation for people of both parties to keep our bipartisan commitment to these programs for the vulnerable. Some of these programs were started on a bipartisan basis by people like Mel Laird and Gaylord Nelson, two bipartisan Wisconsin products. We ought not abandon these programs or the people who are helped by them. I urge you, no matter what happens on amendments today, vote this turkey down. I reserve the balance of my time.