Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I do not believe in gun control laws. I think in most instances they don't work and I think lots of times they are designed by people who would not know one end of a gun from the other. But having said that, there is something that bugs me about this amendment, and that is that I did not come here to be a city councilman for the District of Columbia. I represent the people of my congressional district. The other thing that bugs me is that the citizens of the District of Columbia have no vote in this body, and in my view, as long as the citizens of the District of Columbia have no vote in this body, this body has no business telling the District of Columbia what their municipal laws ought to be. Now, I have an amendment that I am going to offer if this amendment passes and that amendment reads as follows: ``The salary for individual Members of Congress shall be paid out of the funds provided in this bill for the District of Columbia and shall be limited to $92,500.'' That is the salary of a District of Columbia city councilman. If the people of this House want to act like you are a D.C. city councilman, then you ought to get paid like you are a D.C. city councilman, which means you can take about a $70,000 pay cut and I think that would be fitting. I do not have the slightest idea what kind of laws the District of Columbia ought to have with respect to guns, but I do know one thing. I very often simply vote ``present'' whenever any matter affecting the District of Columbia comes up on this floor, because I think we have no business trying to interfere with what the city does on any subject so long as that city and its citizens do not have a vote in this Chamber. The gentlewoman from the District can speak, but when it comes to voting, she is out in the hall, just like anybody else who is not a Member of Congress. So what you are saying is that you are going to take advantage of the fact that she has no ability to defend her district by voting in this place and you are going to say, ``Well, that's tough, but we're going to impose our judgment.'' If you want to tell the District of Columbia what their laws ought to be, run for the city council. This is not the city council. We look ridiculous and abusive when we try to act as though we are.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the Clerk read the amendment.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the purpose of this amendment is simple. I happen to agree with the gentleman from Indiana that I think that the provision in D.C. law that he referred to on guns is a dumb law, and I would hope that it would be overturned by the city council. But what I resent is year after year after year having to vote on issues that belong in the backyard of the D.C. City Council, not the House of Representatives. I have taken this position for a good long time. The second term I was here, I organized the effort that eventually freed up the money for the D.C. subway, when our distinguished friend Bill Natcher decided to hold up that money until the District of Columbia was forced to proceed with building the Three Sisters Bridge. Thankfully, that bridge was never built, and the Congress did not dictate to the District that they do so. But the purpose of this amendment is simply to illustrate the fact that the Congress is acting like it is the city council for the District of Columbia; and as long as it is acting that way, that is the way it ought to be paid. I do not object to any Member of Congress having any view he wants with respect to the District of Columbia, but I feel strongly that it is wrong for this Congress to dictate to the District what any of their local laws are so long as their representative does not have a vote. That is the point that I am trying to make to the gentleman from Indiana. The problem is not that Congress has opinions about the District. The problem is that the District of Columbia has no way to express their own views on their own issues through their own elected representative because their elected representative does not have a vote in this Chamber. Until she does, I think the Congress ought to stay out of these issues. Much though I agree with the gentleman from Indiana on the substance, in this case it seems to me that democratic processes are much more important than my individual opinion on any subject matter. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. Point of Order

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from California has made a point of order. I am simply offering the amendment to make a point. I concede the point of order.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, if this amendment passes, you might as well tear up the Constitution and toss it in the ash basket. That is what this amendment does. I happen to think that the Supreme Court decision that came down last week was nutty, and I agree with the gentleman on the substance. But if we disagree with court decisions, folks who are a heck of a lot smarter than we are, the Founding Fathers, spelled out a way to deal with that. It is called passing a law. All we have to do if we do not like the Supreme Court decision is to bring legislation into this House, take it before the proper committee, have the committee have sensible hearings so that all points of view can be heard, and then bring to the floor either a piece of legislation or a constitutional amendment, whichever you want. But the idea that this House, every time we do not like a court decision, should decide that we are not going to allow Federal money to be used to enforce that court decision is as nutty as the original court decision in the first place. So I would hope that we would recognize that the Founding Fathers created the system of separation of powers; they created three independent branches of government for a purpose. I would not ordinarily rise to oppose an amendment like this, because it is so ridiculous on its face, but it follows in a long line of actions that I have seen coming from that side of the aisle since the beginning of the year. First, you called the Congress back in order to try to pass legislation saying that you knew better than the Florida courts in the Schiavo case. Then we had another attack launched on independent judges in the form of speeches given by your majority leader and others, and then we have seen various other activities; in fact, I listened to the majority leader himself in a conversation the other day tell some Supreme Court Justices that they were way out of line, and that if they wanted to understand American public opinion, they needed to go through the United States Congress. Well, God help us if the Supreme Court ever starts going through the United States Congress for its advice on every subject under the sun. They are supposed to use their own independent judgment and, once in a while, they may make a screwy decision, and I think they did last week. But that does not mean that we ought to act in a way which is just as screwy as the original Court decision. I would urge that we vote down this ridiculous amendment.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous content that the Clerk read the amendment in its entirety.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, how much time do we have remaining on both sides?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I reserve my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the distinguished minority whip.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer) said he found this amendment ``peculiar.'' I do not know what is peculiar about simply saying that any witness who appears before Congress ought to tell the truth. I find it peculiar that someone thinks that that is peculiar. Let me also make the point that he is chairman of that committee today, the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, because the previous committee chairman, Republican chairman, was removed by his party's leadership because the previous committee chairman agreed with Democrats that the veterans' budget was inadequate. He told the truth and he paid a high price for it. There is no question that this administration has hidden the cost of the Iraqi war. They have revealed the cost on the installment plan, a little bit at a time. There is no question that the administration threatened the firing of the man who was charged with telling Congress what the cost of the new Medicare prescription drug program would be. And there is no question that they did fire the National Park Service Chief of Police for telling the truth about the safety of her forces. And there is no question they did fire former Congressman Mike Parker for telling the truth with respect to the Corps of Engineers. With respect to the ridiculous contention on the part of the gentleman from California that during the Nicaraguan war, Democrats were ``for the Sandinistas,'' I would remind the gentleman that we signed a letter to the Sandinistas demanding that they listen to the Reagan administration's demands for free elections in Nicaragua. I would also remind the gentleman that what we were opposed to was the illegal arms-for-hostages trade with the Iranians. And I would remind him that we were against an illegal, and I emphasize ``illegal,'' war in Nicaragua. So so much for the gentleman's ridiculous contention. I have a simple suggestion, Mr. Chairman. If the gentlemen on the other side of the aisle think that witnesses should not tell the truth when they are before the Congress, then, by all means, vote against this amendment. I remember Lyndon Johnson lied to this country about the war in Vietnam, and we paid a high price for it for years. And when he did that, I vowed, every day I served in this Congress, that I would see to it that whoever testified before us, and whoever talked to us, whether it was President or the most lowly administration official, would be held to a high standard of truth. Because when they are not, people die.

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

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, all I can say to our Republican friends on the other side of the aisle is: ``Welcome Aboard,'' even if you are a little short and even if you are a little late. The fact is that for the last 3 years we have had a history of resistance by the majority party in this House to efforts by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) and me to add funding for veterans health care above the amounts that the Republican majority saw fit to provide. Example: fiscal 2005, the budget resolution. We asked that $1.3 billion more be made available for veterans health care. We were turned down. In a continuing resolution for fiscal 2005, we tried to add $2.5 billion for veterans health care. We were turned down. As recently as a month ago, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) was called a demagogue by a member of the majority party because he was insisting that the VA estimates were too low and that we needed more money. Now the VA belatedly admits that they have found a problem. The only problem is even under their story they found it in April and they did not reveal it until now. I would suggest that the VA also has a history of trying to chisel on veterans' benefits. Three years ago, they sent out instructions to veterans' service officers not to engage in outreach in order to inform veterans what they were entitled to, and we had to scold them day by day on this House floor to try to get them to back off, and they are still being penurious about it. The sad fact is that tonight what we ought to do is to take what the Senate did. We ought to take the $1.5 billion that the Senate Appropriations Committee reported out unanimously, every Republican, every Democrat, $1.5 billion, and they suggested that if we passed that, we could pass it immediately, no need for a conference, and we would be in great shape. We were told yesterday we should not bother with bringing funding up on the Treasury Transport bill because we wanted to rush bills through that could be signed faster. Well, the best way to get a bill through this place immediately is to take the same number the Senate is taking and pass it. Let me also simply say that I find amusing this scramble by the majority party leadership to finally get on board in a recognition that veterans need more funding. It was just 6 months ago that the majority party dumped the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) from his chairmanship of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs because he had been too insistent on adding money for veterans' health care. So when he got out of line, you dumped him and you substituted someone you thought would be more compliant with party leadership. The gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hooley) pointed out to me that this message was on a billboard in a veterans hospital in her district. It reads: ``Important: We regret to inform you that, due to budget issues, we can no longer supply meals to patients. Please bring a meal from home if you are going to be in the short-stay unit. We apologize for any inconvenience.'' Well, I think this Congress ought to apologize for the inconvenience that they have caused veterans for the past 3 years by refusing to recognize that these budgets are inadequate. We are oh so good at praising the soldiers when the bands are playing and they are going off to war. We have an obligation to be just as enthusiastic in meeting their needs when they come home. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time, and I hope we would vote against the previous question so we can adopt the $1.5 billion solution which the Senate, on a unanimous basis in the Senate Appropriations Committee, indicated was necessary.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and let me simply say that I appreciate the fact that the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg) has tried to do everything in his power to make this bill as acceptable as possible, given the circumstances. So I do not object to what he has done, but I do object to the circumstances. I would simply say that the problem is that Chairman Knollenberg has not been given the tools necessary to make this a desirable bill. It is sort of like giving a surgeon a spoon and telling him to go ahead and perform surgery. He needs more than that in order to get the job done. This bill, I think, is an important failure in terms of our obligation to meet a number of national needs. As has been mentioned previously, we have a number of important HUD programs which are crunched and zeroed out. Brownfields, for instance. My community has had some wonderful successes in cleaning up polluted areas through the use of that program. That program, if this bill has its way, would be gone. We have other problems in the housing area which have already been discussed. Amtrak. As my friends in this House know, I often quote my favorite philosopher, Archie the Cockroach. Archie said once: ``Did you ever notice when a politician does get an idea, he gets it all wrong?'' And I would say that this budget for Amtrak gets it all wrong. Amtrak, frankly, does not impact my district to any significant degree, but the fact is it is an important national resource which should not be scuttled like it is an old World War I battleship. The fact is that it provides an important national service, and we ought to be able to preserve a national passenger rail system. The idea that is wrong is the idea that somehow we ought to require passenger rail service in this country to show a profit. We do not require airlines to do that. The Federal Government pumps a lot of money into the budget in order to provide service to hard-to-serve areas in the country as far as air travel is concerned, and we need to treat rail transportation the same way. We would not have a Federal highway system if we only built the routes that ``paid for themselves.'' Most of rural America would be flat out of luck, especially the West, when it comes to highways, if we applied the same logic to highway construction that the House is trying to apply to railway transportation in this bill. Another shortcoming, in my view, is the fact that it provides a $250 million reduction to the Community Development Block Grant. I do not represent a city over 40,000 in my entire district, but those small- town mayors that I represent make terrific use of the money in this program in order to revitalize neighborhoods in ways that they otherwise would never be able to do. I would also say, and this is no particular fault of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg) either, but this bill represents the last chance that we have to do something about the fact that the administration for 2 years has kept the truth from Congress about the needs of the veterans health care system in this country. We have been trying for 2 years to get more money into the VA for veterans health care. We have steadily been told by the administration, No, no, no, the budget is fully adequate, we do not need any more money. Now we know it has all been baloney. Yesterday, the administration finally broke down and admitted that they are more than a billion dollars short for this year, and for the coming year, they will be $2.6 billion short. We have an obligation to do something about it. The Senate did something yesterday on the Interior bill. The Senate added $1.4 billion as an emergency appropriation to deal with what is an emergency situation in the veterans health care agency. This is the last appropriation bill that is going to go through here on a regular basis, and because we were not allowed to offer this amendment on the subcommittee bill where it should have been offered, we have no choice but to try to get it offered to this bill, unless this House wants to sit, as FDR used to say, ``frozen in the ice of its own indifference.'' I would hope we would not do that and would respond to the challenge at hand.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would simply state that the House is in a strange position today because, under the rules of the House, every item that is brought to the floor is supposed to be germane to the bill at hand unless the Committee on Rules has provided exceptions to that. My understanding of the rules is that notwithstanding the fact that the rule does not specifically allow for this amendment, if no Member objects, this amendment could be considered. So I would simply ask every Member of the House, through the Chair, whether or not this matter is sufficiently important enough that a point of order not be lodged. The gentleman from California suggested that this ought to be considered in some other venue. We would be happy to do that if someone had another suggestion; but right now, this is the only dog in the hunt. I am afraid that if the gentleman persists in his point of order, the gentleman from Texas and I would have to concede the point of order; but I would hope that we would not be pushed into that position.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Let me simply say, I hate to say, we told you so, but we told you so. We warned the majority that, if you listened to the denials of the Veterans Administration, you would eventually be embarrassed because their request was inadequate to meet the needs of returning veterans. We have now been told yesterday, finally the VA is telling us the truth, and the fact is, this is the only remaining appropriation vehicle that we can use to add the necessary funds. The Senate added $1.4 billion yesterday to the Interior bill. That was not germane either, but the Senate did not let dunghill jurisdictional politics get in the way of dealing with the problems of veterans. I would urge the House to follow the lead of the Senate and to allow this amendment to be added so that we can take care of the problem. We are not even adding the extra $400 million that the Senate added yesterday. We are simply saying, take what the VA has already admitted they need for this year. We know it is going to be more for next year. But at least take the $1 billion we know is needed now, so that we do not continue to listen to false promises from the VA. Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to bring the House's attention to one fact: Since Members keep asking me, are we going to be here Friday, I would like to make the point simply that this is the 224-page bill. We are still on page 2.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment, and I want to just comment on a couple of things that were said by the distinguished subcommittee chairman during the debate. He described this amendment as being a ``slash and burn amendment.'' Well, I want to suggest that what was ``slash and burn'' was the budget resolution which has enforced these kinds of reductions across the budget. In my view, it is the budget resolution which slashed and burned when it wound up producing an education budget that left No Child Left Behind education programs $800 million below last year. It was slash and burn which left the National Institutes of Health with 500 fewer medical research grants than they had 2 years ago. It was slash and burn that eliminated nine out of the 10 programs that were supposed to focus on the development of health professions in rural areas and in urban inner-cities. It was slash and burn which has caused this very bill to provide, in essence, a shutdown of Amtrak. The gentleman from Oregon summed it up as well as anyone in the debate today when he pointed out the strange dichotomy that exists between believing that railroad transportation must show a profit, but airline transportation, passenger service at least, does not have to. And I would add that there are hundreds of miles, thousands of miles in this country of interstate highway that in actuality have very few riders and standing alone could not justify their construction in the first place. So it seems to me, as has been said, we need a balanced set of transportation alternatives in this country. And you do not balance your transportation system by putting one leg of that transportation system out of business, as this committee product essentially does. Mr. Chairman, I would urge support for the amendment. I do not like the reductions in the offsets any more than many other persons in this Chamber like them, but the fact is they were forced by every single Member who voted for that Republican budget resolution. So like it or not, those are the choices you enforced, and we choose not to shut down one of the major transportation legs in this country.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, this House, just a short while ago, adopted the LaTourette and Oberstar amendment, the clear intent of which was to restore passenger service to the routes shown in the map that everybody has been showing around today, the areas, the routes in red. It was meant to retain a truly national passenger railroad service. Without the subsequent amendment of the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown), that initial action by the House remains essentially meaningless, and it means that the only thing that the money would be used for, which was gained in that LaTourette amendment, would be to pay shutdown costs to the former employees of the parts of Amtrak that are being shut down. I do not think that action is going to please anybody. I do not think it is going to fool anybody. We clearly need this amendment, and I would urge support for it. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. We have finally found a Republican who cares about any kind of a poor people program. Hallelujah. What has the world come to? Let me tell you some of the things that you scuttled for poor people before you started with crocodile tears on this amendment. Let me just list some of the programs for poor people you have scuttled over the last 4 years. The earned income tax credit: You only qualify for it if you make less than $27,000 a year, but oh, you had to have a major effort on that side of the aisle to cut it. Housing: How many times have you come to this floor cutting housing programs for low-income, squeezing housing programs for elderly, low- income? Dental care programs: How many times in the Labor, Health, Education bill have you opposed efforts to try to increase dental care service? What did you do just last week in the Labor HHS bill when you scuttled the community services block grant, when you savaged it? That is a program that many rural communities use to help the homeless, to help the low-income. What did you do about low-income heating assistance? Last week, you cut it by $200 million bucks. What did you do about the minimum wage? How many times have you tried to block an increase in the minimum wage? I just have to say, I am thunderstruck. I am amazed we have finally found a Republican who would put something on the Floor to help poor people, except that is not the real intent; is it? Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that it is rather convenient that we have a newfound concern for the poor at a time when, by expressing concern for the poor, it facilitates the scuttling of a national transportation system. So I just have to say, I do not know how this amendment's going to go, but I have no doubt that the purpose of the amendment is simply to scuttle what is left of our ability to provide a national transportation system, and if, for a few moments, the poor people of this country are fooled into thinking that the other side actually cares about them, well, this is politically so much better for you; is it not?

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, as I understand this unanimous consent proposal, what this means is that we still face the need to dispose of some 43 amendments. As I calculate it, given the time allotted to each, that means that with the slippage that normally occurs, we are looking at approximately 9 hours of additional debate on these issues, without counting the time that it takes to conduct the roll calls on whatever issues are put to a roll call. I would urge Members to recognize that if all of these amendments are offered, we are going to be here until the cows come home, as they say in my area, and I think we would prefer to see debate more focused than that. For instance, under this agreement, we face the prospect of having some 10 amendments on Cuba. I would hope that we could focus that issue on the most important issues that are involved. Having said that, I would simply like to ask one question under my reservation: It is my understanding that if this unanimous consent agreement is agreed to, that we would proceed to debate further issues until 9:45 tonight. At 9:45, we will take whatever votes are pending. We would then resume action in the House tomorrow at 10 o'clock, and that this committee would be allowed to complete its business before any other matter comes before the House. Is that a correct understanding?

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman. I would simply like to point out, it is not particularly important to me whether we finish the appropriation bills before we leave for the July 4 recess or not, but I was under the impression that it was important to the gentleman from California and to the majority leadership. I am willing to cooperate in that effort, but I do not want any other committee business to come before the House that would get in the way of accomplishing that end. So if that is the understanding and if the gentleman is in fact speaking for the leadership on that matter?