Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, because we have no other way to bring this to the House, I most reluctantly appeal the ruling of the Chair.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the gentleman from California why he introduced a counterfeit Murtha resolution rather than allowing us to vote on the real Murtha resolution, if he wanted us to vote at all.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, how dare you. How dare you. Yesterday, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha), the ranking Democrat on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, a 27-year marine, a veteran of, I believe, three tours in Vietnam, a well-known conservative hawk, announced that he was introducing a resolution that was meant to stimulate a thoughtful and profound debate on how we salvage a failed policy in Iraq. That resolution was meant to stimulate the kind of hearings that Bill Fulbright ran during the Vietnam War, hearings which could bring in the best military minds and the best experts on the Middle East to try to help us find a new direction to American policy in Iraq. The reaction of the Republican leadership of this House is nothing short of disgraceful, and, in my view, that reaction dishonors the traditions of this House and this democracy. This resolution, which is now going to be offered as an amendment to this rule out of the Rules Committee, is nothing less than an effort to drive a stake through the heart of the Murtha resolution, without any effort to get at the facts with respect to Iraq. For the House to be asked to vote on whether or not we ought to withdraw immediately from Iraq without having the benefit of those thoughtful hearings is a disgraceful abdication of our responsibility to think this issue through clearly and with judgment. I am absolutely appalled, I am absolutely appalled, at this action. It is a cheap political stunt that does a disservice to every serviceman and woman fighting in Iraq today, and whoever thought up this pipe dream should be ashamed of themselves. It brings incredible shame to this House. If I have to choose between supporting the Murtha resolution, even without these hearings, and the failed, discredited policy that we are now pursuing in Iraq that dead-end nowhere-going policy, I would happily endorse as an alternative the Murtha amendment. It is irresponsible of the House to be dealing with this in this manner. What this House ought to do is to set aside the cheap political tricks and to address the thought behind the Murtha proposal. This House, instead of politicizing this issue, ought to try to find a way for once to bring people in this institution together, instead of dividing them by phony, cynical, political, outrageously tricky and sneaky maneuvers like this.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 minutes. Mr. Speaker, let me say, first of all, I want to congratulate the gentleman from New York. He always does a fine job. On this bill, he has not only done a good job on substance, he has dealt with the ranking minority member, Mr. Edwards, with fairness and openness and we appreciate it. In contrast to the Labor-Health-Education bill which caused so much trouble yesterday, I am happy to support this bill today, and I know Mr. Edwards will be, too. But before we vote, I would simply like to recite some facts about the history of veterans health care, because I think it is important that no matter how divided we might be on any given military action, whether it be Vietnam in the past or Iraq in the present, we should not be divided on the question of what we owe to each and every person who has worn the uniform of the United States and defended the national interests of the United States, often at great risk to their own lives and at great risk to the future economic security of their own families. That is why this bill is so important. I want to recite what has happened on veterans health care in the hopes that the divisions which we have had over the level of funding for veterans health care in the past will not be repeated in the future. Here is that history. In March of 2003, House Republicans voted for a budget resolution that called for cutting veterans health care by $14 billion over 10 years. In July 2003, after agreeing to reduce some of those budget cuts in the House, the GOP reneged on its promise to increase funding for VA health care and passed an appropriation bill providing $1.8 billion less than what was called for in their fiscal 2004 budget. Mr. Edwards tried to offer an amendment to that bill to add $2.2 billion for veterans health care, but he was blocked. In October 2003, I offered a motion to recommit on the Iraqi supplemental that called for an additional $1.3 billion for veterans health care. The majority rejected it. We continued to push for veterans in fiscal 2005. For 2005, the administration requested $18.3 billion for veterans medical services. In subcommittee, the House recommended $19.5 billion. At that time, veterans groups and many Members on this side of the aisle indicated we felt that those numbers fell far short. The Republican chairman of the Veterans Committee agreed. Unfortunately for him, a year later, he was removed from his position as chairman and he was removed from the committee by the Republican leadership because he had the temerity to agree with us and with veterans groups that more funding was needed in order to meet our obligations to veterans on the health care front. In full committee, Mr. Edwards in July 2004 offered an amendment to try to do the right thing and bring the VA medical services account up another $1.3 billion. He was defeated on a party-line vote. Of course, the bill had so many problems that the majority could not even bring it to the House floor. It ended up getting wrapped up into the omnibus. On September 29, 2004, I again offered a motion to recommit on the first CR, trying to add $1.3 billion for veterans health care, and that effort was rejected. On June 23, 2005, we learned how wrong that original mark had been. The administration admitted they were a billion dollars short and even admitted that they had known about it for months. The next day, Mr. Edwards tried to offer an amendment to the Labor-Health bill on the House floor to try to use that vehicle to make up the $1 billion shortfall in VA health care, but again we were blocked by the majority. After that failed, I offered a motion to recommit with instructions to include the $1 billion for veterans. Again, I was blocked. On June 29, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) was blocked again from bringing up an amendment to add to the veterans budget $1 billion. This time we tried to use the transportation appropriation bill as the vehicle. And now we come to the subject of this conference for 2006. When the request came at the beginning of the year, the administration was only asking for $20 billion for medical services. On the other hand, veterans organizations' independent budgets said that $22.5 billion would be needed. In May 2005, the subcommittee increased the medical care account to $21 billion, a half step in the right direction. In full committee, I offered an amendment that would have added $1.5 billion to this medical care account, plus increased funding to some other areas. That would have brought us pretty much to where we are today, except that my amendment would have been paid for because I proposed reducing somewhat the tax cut that was scheduled for the wealthiest of Americans, those making over $400,000 a year. This agreement before us uses an emergency designation so the costs will go directly to the deficit. The majority defeated my amendment. Then, in July of this year, the administration finally admitted that the 2006 bill was short as well. They amended the VA budget request, asking for an additional $2 billion. Some of the carryover funds from the additional $1.5 billion that was provided last summer is being used, and the conference agreement before us includes, guess what, $22.5 billion for VA medical services. I hope that number sounds familiar. I will repeat it, $22.5 billion in medical services. That is what the veterans organizations said they needed. It is what we were trying to get on this side of the aisle. I simply say ``Welcome Aboard'' to our friends on the majority side. I want to make clear, I believe every Member of this House, regardless of party, recognizes their commitment to the veterans. The problem is that all too often in this place we wind up with pressures of party or party program getting in the way of our better judgment and making choices that really do not measure up to the facts. I believe that was the case over the past 3 years, because I believe that fealty to the Republican budget resolution and to the Republican leadership's desire for tax cuts, especially tax cuts that were aimed at the very high-income people, I believe that that fealty prevented the House from doing what it really knew needed to be done on both sides of the aisle, or at least had a strong suspicion needed to be done, and when the numbers finally were revealed, it has become difficult for people to avoid reality, and so I think this bill reflects reality. I will say that with one caveat. I hope that we can count on the numbers that are coming from OMB and the Veterans Administration on this bill. I hope we can count on them, because if we cannot, then we will have to be back here again asking for yet more money. It is not enough for us to applaud the troops when they are leaving to go to war, when the bands are playing, when everyone's blood is up. What we have to be willing to do is to remember our fundamental obligation to those troops when they return. I do not believe that we are doing enough to meet our obligations to those troops, but this bill is certainly a good-faith effort, and I congratulate the gentleman from New York for the role he has played in trying to get here. I most especially want to congratulate the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards), the subcommittee ranking member. There is no one in this House who has had a more dedicated history of fighting for the needs of veterans on the health care front and on so many other fronts than has the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards), and I am pleased to stand in for him temporarily this morning. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I will not take very long on this bill either, but I do think it is important to take note of a few facts. At the beginning of this year, it was made quite clear by the majority that they desired to finish all appropriations bills on time and that there be no omnibus appropriations bill lumping all kinds of disassociated items into the same package. We on the minority side of the aisle have provided procedural cooperation at virtually every step of the way. We have provided time limits on debate on virtually every bill that we were asked to provide them. Those time limits were sometimes stringent and they met with objection from a number of Members. We provided unanimous consent so that the scheduling of legislation could be accelerated on numerous occasions. And despite that fact, today some 6 weeks into the fiscal year, we have four bills which are still not finished. Those bills are the Treasury, Transportation, HUD bill, the military quality of life bill, the Labor, Health, Education and Social Services bill, and the defense appropriations bill. Together, those four bills, which we have yet to complete, represent 78 percent of appropriated financing for the coming year. Why are we still not finished? It is certainly not because of any failure on the part of the Appropriations Committee. The Appropriations Committee kept to its schedule and every bill was passed earlier than almost any year that I can recall. And yet we are here with so much unfinished business on the appropriations side of the ledger. The reason I think is very clear. Despite the fact that the White House, the Senate and the House are all under control of the majority party, despite that fact we have reached this delay and are forced once again to seek another continuing resolution. The reason that has occurred, in my view, is because the budget resolution was so skewed in favor of the ideological right within the majority party caucus that in the end, even a number of Republican moderates have not wanted to vote for some of these bills, most especially in the Senate. And we find that even Republican committee chairmen, like Senator Specter, have described one of the bills as being totally inadequate to its responsibilities. This country is in the middle of fighting a war. That war has a huge cost, and yet the Republican majority is in pursuit of its goal of providing huge tax cuts, a huge percentage of which will be put into the pockets of the most wealthy people in this country. Their desire to do that has led them to a willingness to borrow whatever it takes in order to put the money in those pockets and then use the resulting deficit as a reason to cut back on a number of other bills. They use it as a reason to make significant cuts in education, in health, in science, environmental protection and the rest, and then pretend that the cost of Katrina is what made them do it, when, in fact, the cost of tax cuts for persons in the top 1 percent of income in this country over the next decade will cost about 10 times as much as the cost of Katrina. So then we are forced because of the squeeze, we are forced to endure delays, and we have to bring forward a continuing resolution such as we are doing today. And I would point out that after we have gone through all of this effort, we, in the end, are probably still going to be stuck with an omnibus appropriations bill at the end, despite the fact that the majority party indicated they were going to move heaven and Earth in order to avoid such an eventuality. The game plan apparently is to try to pass three appropriations bills yet this week, and then that will leave us in December with the defense appropriations bill, and evidently the intention at this point is to attach everything but the kitchen sink to that bill so that we will, in effect, have a recreated omnibus. It is my understanding that the people expect to attach the bird flu appropriations, the appropriations for Katrina supplemental, and every other special deal that somebody can conjure up and attach it to the defense bill, and then hide it behind the skirts of military spending. The betting is that Members will want to support funding for the troops and so they will vote for whatever other garbage is attached to that bill by way of nongermane items. That, I think, would be a dysfunctional result, but that appears to be where we are headed. It could be avoided if the majority had chosen to be a little less ideological, if they had chosen to pull the rubber band just a little less tightly, and if they had chosen to cross the aisle and work in a bipartisan fashion on taxes, on spending, and on other items that affect the shape and nature of the budget. We have not seen that, and so that is why we are here today with the necessity to pass a continuing resolution. I will vote for the continuing resolution at this point because we need to keep the government open, but I am certainly not very pleased with how we have gotten here. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 11 minutes. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Ohio is my friend. I have a great deal of respect for him, and I know he tries to do the best job with the tools he is given. The problem is that he has been given a totally inadequate set of tools. ``This is the budget that you get when you elect a Republican White House, a Republican House of Representatives, and a Republican Senate.'' I did not say that. The former majority leader of the Republican caucus said that, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay). This is the day when the price of Republican tax cuts for the wealthy becomes quite clear, on this bill and on the bill that will follow, the reconciliation bill. This is the day when this Congress chooses to walk away from its investments: obligations in education, health care, job training and the like. This is the bill which shortchanges the Social Gospel. This is the day that we pass legislation that chooses to make the lives of the most privileged among us quite a bit more pleasant because of their tax cuts while at the same time we are making the lives of the poor just a little bit more desperate. This is a growing country. It has growing problems. It has growing opportunities. If this bill does not grow with it, then we lose ground; and we are certainly losing ground under this bill today. This is the bill for education, health, social services, worker protection programs. This is the guts of the Federal effort to try to see to it that, regardless of one's station in life, people have the greatest possible opportunity to get ahead. Yet, this bill is $1.5 billion on a program-for-program basis, once you cut out the funny accounting, this is a bill which is $1.5 billion below last year. The Department of Labor, funding in that Department: $37 million below the House bill, $193 million below the Senate bill. There are 7.5 million Americans out of work. Yet the bill cuts $437 million out of training and employment services. That is the lowest level of adult training grants in a decade. This bill also cuts the Community College Initiative, the President's initiative for community colleges, an effort to train workers for high- skill, high-paying jobs. It cuts that effort by $125 million and rescinds $125 million from funds provided last year, denying the help that the President was talking about giving to 100,000 Americans. State unemployment insurance and employment service offices are cut by $245 million, eliminating help for 1.9 million people. The International Labor Affairs Bureau will certainly have a hard time protecting American workers from being undercut by child and slave labor abroad after this program has been cut by 20 percent. In the health and human services area, this bill cuts health care to the poor and underserved rural areas of the country. It eliminates the community access program that helps coordinate services and programs to provide health care to people who do not have it. This bill cuts by 69 percent health professions training. This bill cuts by 73 percent funding for rural health outreach. We have only about 10 percent of physicians in America who practice in rural areas, and yet one-fourth of the U.S. population lives in those areas. We have huge shortages of health care providers in urban, underserved areas as well, but training grants for health care professionals are cut by $206 million. We have the Maternal/Child Health Care Block Grant. That program is cut by 20 percent below fiscal 2002 levels, and we have a 24 percent cut in block grants for State health departments. And then, all of us are going to run home and brag about how much we have done to prepare the country for public health disasters. My friend talked about the National Institutes of Health. We have the smallest increase for NIH in 36 years, and under that budget, because funding for NIH does not keep pace with inflation, we will actually see 500 fewer research grants coming out of NIH than we would have seen 2 years ago. We have effectively ended the President's initiative to expand the number and the capacity of community health centers around the country, $238 million less than the President requested. For the low-income heating assistance program, our oil companies, one company, $10 billion profit the last quarter. We expect to see natural gas prices rise 46 percent, home heating oil prices rise 28 percent, and yet we freeze the program that is supposed to provide help to people to pay their bills so they do not have to choose between heating and eating, and we only serve 15 percent of the persons who are eligible to be served under that program. Education: This is the first cut in education funding in a decade. Education programs under the No Child Left Behind rubric are cut by $784 million below last year. That is $13 billion below the authorization, and on a cumulative basis, it is some $40 billion short of what we promised we would have provided these past years since we passed No Child Left Behind. Title I is up $100 million. That is in comparison to a $600 million increase that came from that well-known ``liberal'' George W. Bush. Special education, it is up $100 million in comparison to the $508 million request from the President of the United States. Because we mandated that local school districts provide service to special education children, we are supposed to be providing 40 percent of the cost. This bill actually reduces the Federal share of that cost from 18.6 to 18 percent. That is going in the wrong direction. The Comprehensive School Reform Program, totally wiped out. The Goodling Even Start Program, named after Bill Goodling, the former Republican chairman of the Education Committee, cut by 56 percent. Education technology cut by 45 percent, and that comes on top of a 28 percent cut that was made last year. We cut Safe and Drug-Free Schools by 20 percent in this bill. We freeze afterschool programs for the 4th year in a row. That means that there are 14 million kids in this country who want those services who will not get them. And I could go on and on. On higher education, the college board tells us that the 4-year cost of attending a public university has increased by $3,100 over the past 5 years. The President's answer was to raise the Pell Grant maximum by 100 bucks. A $100 solution to a $3,100 problem. The Congress said ``No, that is too much.'' The House cut it to $50. This conference report totally eliminates it, totally eliminates it. No increase in the maximum grant. And then in the reconciliation bill that follows today, they are going to add $8 billion more in costs to students who borrow money to go to college. And then this bill freezes all other student aid programs, SEOG, Work-Study, Perkins, TRIO, GEAR UP. It freezes title VI foreign language program. The backlog at Social Security, those caseload backlogs are going to increase. This bill provides $189 million less than the President asked, $80 million less than was in the House bill, $130 million less than the Senate bill. And we do all of this in order to free up necessary room so the Republican Party can deliver on its $100,000-plus tax cuts for people who make 1 million bucks. This is going in the wrong direction. These priorities are wrong. This bill is a disgrace. The gentleman would have provided a much better bill if he had been given a decent allocation, but he was not. So he did not have the tools to do it. There is no reason to vote for this bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman brags about the additional money that the Republican Congress has put into education. President Clinton and the Democrats had to drag them kicking and screaming into providing that money. We provided $19 billion more in education since they took over the Congress than would have been provided if we had simply passed the Republican House bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson). (Mr. JACKSON of Illinois asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds. Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman claimed there is a $115 million increase in here for low income heating assistance. There is not. The formula grant has been increased by $115 million, but the contingency portion of the program has been reduced by $115 million. The net result: no help in the teeth of huge energy increases. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the distinguished minority whip.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Kennedy).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. A previous majority Member said today that this bill represented fiscal responsibility. The fact is the Republican Party will provide, over the next decade, $1.2 trillion in tax cuts to people who make over $1 million a year. Yet in this bill, they will freeze student loans, they will allow people without health care to increase in number by 2 million, they will provide the first cut in education in a decade, they will cut safe and drug-free schools by 20 percent, and they will slash the President's initiative for math and science education. In the teeth of the fact that they have given $14 billion in subsidies to the big energy companies, they then say to low-income people who have to pay those higher prices, ``Sorry. Despite the fact you're going to have a huge increase in home heating costs, we're not going to give you a dime in additional money in this bill.'' That is what they do. What we are going to see today in the reconciliation bill and in this bill is a double whammy on the most vulnerable people in this society. That is wrong morally and it is wrong economically. We hear a lot of talk on this floor about preserving life. Yet this program is going to cut maternal and child health care by 20 percent below the 2001 level. How is that going to encourage women to carry their babies to term? This bill falls far short of our responsibilities in meeting the growing economic and social needs of this country. It ought to be defeated. We should not put tax cuts for millionaires ahead of providing basic education, basic health care and basic job protection to America's working people. I urge a ``no'' vote on the conference report.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Madam Speaker, I want to say at the outset I have a great deal of admiration for the gentleman from Virginia. I think he is one of the best committee chairmen in this House, and I think he has treated the substance of this bill absolutely down the center, and I think he has dealt with the majority and the minority in a very even-handed fashion. I respect that and appreciate that. Frankly, I had thought I would be voting for this bill as I have for the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill, and as I intend to work for the Energy and Water conference report. But I find myself unable to support this bill in the final instance for a number of reasons which have very little to do with the gentleman from Virginia or the gentleman from West Virginia. I have three basic problems with this bill. First of all, the conferees stripped the Sanders amendment out of the bill. I think this Congress has done a miserable job of oversight with respect to Iraq, a miserable job with respect to oversight of the PATRIOT Act and a number of other security-related issues. I might not be so concerned about the fact that the conferees stripped out the amendment which precluded the administration from snooping into people's use of libraries, I might not feel so strongly about it if I felt that the Congress had a better record of conducting oversight hearings on this, but I do not. So under those circumstances, I think what the committee has done in stripping out that language is quite dangerous. Secondly, I would say there is a kabuki dance going on in this town with respect to local and State law enforcement funding. This bill now effectively funds State and local law enforcement at a level which is $1 billion less than it was in fiscal year 2001. What happens each year is that the President makes very large cuts in that program. This committee then restores a significant portion of those funds, but still leaving us below the funding level for last year. As a result, this bill is $300 million below last year in terms of its aid for State and local law enforcement assistance; and last year was $226 million below the year before. I think that is headed in the wrong direction. Lastly, I think there is one provision in this bill which is especially mean and that is the funding level for legal services. Legal services is the program that we provide in order to enable indigent people to have some access to civil courts, and yet this bill reduces funding for legal services below last year's level. As I said in the conference, every day we come onto this floor and we pledge allegiance to the flag, and at the end of that pledge, we talk about our dedication to providing ``liberty and justice for all''. I do not think anybody can stand on this floor with a straight face and say that anymore. I think, if you vote to cut legal services, what you are really saying is that we stand for liberty and justice ``for those who can pay for it''. I do not think that is what this country is supposed to be all about. By the time you take into account not just the nominal number in this bill for legal service, but when you take into account the across-the- board cut that has already been applied, and when you add to that the additional across-the-board cut which is expected to be applied at some point in the process before we are finished, you have substantially weakened funding for legal services. I think that is an indefensible thing to do. I would point out that these reductions are being made at the same time that NASA is being given upwards of $2 billion to deal with a manned mission to Mars. I have nothing against going to Mars. I think in the long term it is a wonderful expansion of the human endeavor. But I do believe that to add that kind of funding to NASA for a Mars mission and to make the kind of tax cuts for the most wealthy people in this society that the Congress is going to be supporting in the coming days, while at the same time we are cutting legal service funds for the indigent, cutting aid for local and State law enforcement grants, I think that represents a wrong set of priorities. I think it is taking us in the wrong direction. I note that this subcommittee has been reorganized at the demand of the ex-majority leader on the other side of the aisle, Mr. DeLay, who last year, representing Houston, wanted to see to it that NASA had a clear track to funding increases. So he did a very effective job of representing his district by moving NASA into this subcommittee where it has to compete against programs such as I have just mentioned. And as a result, NASA is at the front of the train and some of these other priorities are at the back of the train. I regret that. I do appreciate very much the dedication that the gentleman has shown to the science budget. I think the National Science Foundation is one of the keys to our future economic growth. I congratulate him for that. But in the end, for the reasons I have cited, I am going to feel constrained to cast a ``no'' vote on the passage of the conference report.

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I object to the gentleman's words. He is reminding me of a painful loss to Penn State.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct conferees.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I will not take more than 3. I simply would like to, as a courtesy to the House, explain the motion. For the last 2 weeks, the attention of the House has been focused on the efforts of the majority party to pass its reconciliation bill, which includes significant cuts in food stamps, in child support enforcement, in disability payments in order to pay for the tax cuts which this Congress has already largely passed. The problem that we have with that is that this bill, in effect, hits those same poor people a second time with cuts in education, health, worker protection programs that are in the bill. The Senate appeared to give the persons interested in this bill some hope that those cuts could be avoided by adding a $3 billion financing gimmick to their proposal. But it is clear now that that provision is being discarded, and that means that the new caps that the Appropriations Committee adopted last week will eliminate the ability of the Senate to provide that extra $3 billion. That means that the only way that we can avoid that hit is to reduce the size of the tax cuts being provided to make room in the budget for some of these crucial items. So this motion simply attempts to instruct the conferees to accept the Harkin amendment which would add $8 billion in order to pay fully for the flu pandemic work that needs to be done. It would instruct the conferees to add $3 billion to the low-income heating assistance program to take into account the huge increase in home energy prices that consumers will face this year, especially low-income consumers. It would provide an additional $1.5 billion in programs that are meant to discourage abortion, programs such as a maternal and child health block grant, Head Start, domestic violence and numerous others, one-half billion dollars to restore health professions training, and $3 billion to put title I on a 5-year track to full funding under No Child Left Behind; $1.6 billion in additional funding for disabled and handicapped children trying to put that program on the same 5-year glide path; and one-half billion dollars in restoration for worker training and job training programs. It would ask the conferees to support a provision which would reduce the size of the tax cuts for millionaires from an average of $140,000 to $36,000. That is still a pretty hefty cut. Mr. Speaker, in essence, that is what the motion to instruct would provide. We are offering it because this is the last chance that this body has to reach a different set of judgments concerning budget priorities that affect the poorest and most defenseless people in this society. Point of Order

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, if one looks at the Budget Act, the purpose of the Budget Act was to force a Congress to get away from runaway spending and runaway deficits by forcing the Congress to confront trade-offs between spending and revenues. In fact, the Congress is being prevented from doing that and the Congress is being shielded from facing those explicit trade-offs unless amendments such as this are offered and debated fully in the House. We recognize that funding for these programs under the budget resolution is being cut back in order to make room in that same budget resolution for the tax cuts that have been provided and to make room for further tax cuts which the majority party is talking about offering this week. If we cannot offer this kind of an amendment, then it would seem to me that the entire budget process has been intellectually corrupted and turned into a mere enforcement mechanism for majority party will rather than being used as a device to work out an explicit and forthright set of trade-offs. I would urge the Chair to reject the point of order.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, most reluctantly, I do appeal the ruling of the Chair, not because I have any fault with the Chair, but because this is the only opportunity this institution will have to make a different set of priority choices.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for the time. Mr. Speaker, I intend to vote for this bill; but I want to make a few observations, some of which I find to be quite ironic in the process. I want to congratulate the chairman of the subcommittee. He has done his usual workman-like job. He is a first-rate public servant, and I appreciate the bipartisan and nonideological tone that he brings to his work. That is fully appropriate to the nature of the bill that he brings to this House. But I must confess a sense of irony. This Congress has already voted to provide $1.2 trillion in tax cuts for millionaires over the next decade. It has voted to provide more than $250 billion in spending for the war in Iraq; and yet, there are a number of Members of this body who begrudge the fact that in this bill you would find roughly $15 billion to be spent on what I would call the tools of peace and mercy: peace because I think economic assistance to the poverty stricken parts of the world help create conditions that avoid war, and mercy because I think a good portion of this bill could be called the most important pro-life bill that we vote on each year. Literally in the hour that it took to deal with the rule, you will have had several hundred children in this world die, and that is no accident. A lot of it occurs simply because of the negligence of the developed world, and I would like to think that that would rapidly change; but I do not expect to see it, unfortunately. The New York Times wrote an editorial this morning suggesting that this bill be vetoed because this bill provides $2 billion or so less than the President supposedly requested to attack poverty problems in the Third World. I agree with the concerns expressed in that New York Times editorial; and I would say, imagine how different the world would be if instead of spending $250 billion on the dumbest war in American history, at least since the War of 1812, imagine how changed the world would be if we led the world and provided just 10 percent that amount each year to see that by the end of the next decade we could deliver clean drinking water to every single human being on this planet. Imagine how the world's attitude toward the United States would change. I doubt very much that you would see some of the poll responses that we see these days where a majority of people in all too many countries consider America to be a threat, unfortunately, rather than a friend. I think the view of the United States is unjustified; but nonetheless, that is the way a lot of people think around the world, and it is in very large part because we put so much money into an action like Iraq and put so little money into helping people achieve the basic necessities of life. But I do not think that this bill can be blamed for the fact that we fall short of the President's budget for economic and anti-poverty help. What I do not understand is why anybody takes the President's budget seriously on this, because the President knew full well that while he was asking for this money, he knew full well that his allies in Congress would never allow that kind of an increase in foreign assistance as long as they were gleefully cutting aid to children under Medicaid, as long as they were gleefully about to take 300,000 American families off food stamps, as long as they were gleefully cutting children off the SCHIP welfare rolls in this country. They knew that public opinion would not tolerate providing large increases even for starving people around the world. So in that sense, I think the New York Times editorial is aiming at the wrong target. It is not the fault of the gentleman from Arizona or the gentlewoman from New York. It is not the fault of this committee that these misbegotten priorities are being carried out. It is the fault of the Republican Party leadership in this country, led by President Bush and the leadership in this House. I want to say one other thing. We saw yesterday headlines about the fact that $100 million was being surreptitiously spent by this administration to develop secret detention centers where torture is performed around the world. What is ironic is this bill contains $21.5 million in appropriations for the victims of the torture. How hypocritical it must seem for the United States to provide money for the victims of torture at the same time that we allow torture to go on in our name around the world. Do we really want to have people every time they hear the words George W. Bush, do we really want them to think in their minds George W. Pinochet? I do not; but, unfortunately, that is what you are going to trigger in people's minds around the world. I hope that this Congress will live up to its responsibilities to end that practice by supporting the McCain amendment on the Defense bill. I hope that when that Defense bill leaves the House and goes to the White House that it contains that provision, despite the White House's threat of a veto, despite the action of the Secretary of Defense in opposing the McCain amendment. It is a moral imperative that we adopt that amendment on the Defense bill. Otherwise, the $21 million in this bill for victims of torture is a joke and a sham.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct conferees.