Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Continuing my reservation, Mr. Chairman. I would simply say that perhaps the speech of my good friend from Florida (Mr. Young) urging that we stop talking on this amendment and get to the vote, perhaps his speech came 5 minutes too late. It is too bad, not too late, because if we had voted before the last speaker, the House would not have seen this unfortunate event present itself. So, Mr. Chairman, I would simply say that I think perhaps the best thing to do in the interests of restoring a decent amount of civility and comity to the House this afternoon is for the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Hostettler) as he has suggested, to withdraw his words and for us to get onto a vote and pass this amendment to make quite clear that every Member of this House, save perhaps a few, recognize that we have an obligation to each and every cadet at the Air Force Academy, to see that they can practice their religion without fear of ridicule, without fear of condemnation, without fear of intimidation by anyone else, be they Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, or any other religion that anyone of us can think of. This language in the committee bill, the language which we are restoring by my amendment, is an effort to protect all religions, all religions. I would ask for an aye vote when the amendment comes.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

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

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the time. Mr. Speaker, I would strongly urge that this House vote ``no'' on the previous question for the reasons just laid out by the distinguished minority leader. I think there are some other reasons as well. I happen to think that the Iraqi war is the dumbest war that we have engaged in since the War of 1812, but my opinion is not relevant on that point today. We are there, and the question is how do we best deal with the problem now that we are. To me, it is irresponsible and mindless for us to be involved in a war unless we have some kind of idea how we will define success. How will we know when we have won; or conversely, how will we know if and when this effort becomes obviously counterproductive? Right now we have no specific measuring stick. All we know is that we are in a morass, and we are likely to remain there for years. I would predict American troops are going to be there for a decade under existing policy. I do not think the American people will stand for that unless there is a clear policy and a clear set of goals and a clear set of tools to evaluate what it is we are doing. We need to know what standard of success will be held up for training Iraqi replacements. We need to know the answer to a wide variety of other questions. But there is another reason why I think this is important. The bill we will debate today spends $45 billion in a ``bridge fund'' for Iraq. That means that we are bumping up against the ceiling in the budget resolution. The problem is that the $45 billion in the defense bill today only pays for 6 months of the war. How are we going to pay for the other 6 months? The answer is, we do not know. All we know is that the next time a supplemental comes up to pay for that war, we are going to have to find $40 billion or more. I would suggest if we have to do that, there are only two ways that are responsible: one is to require the Budget Committee to come up with another resolution which spells out how we are going to pay for that additional $40 to $45 billion without raising the deficit. The second way to do it would be to have reconciliation instructions to the Ways and Means Committee to actually find ways to raise enough revenue to pay for that next $40 or $45 billion so that we do not increase the deficit even further. If we do not do one of those two things, then this House engaged in an elaborate sham when it passed the last budget resolution, because everybody knows it only paid for half the cost of the war this year. Therefore, I think that what the gentlewoman from California is trying to do is infinitely reasonable; it is certainly prudent and fiscally responsible, and it produces a product that every soldier fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan today has a right to see produced. They have a right to know that they are not in an open-ended mess. They have a right to know that we know what we are doing. They have a right to know that we will have some idea of how to gauge whether what we are doing is productive or counterproductive. Right now, we are simply flying blind. I congratulate the gentleman from Virginia for offering the original language on the supplemental. This is a follow-up to that in a simplified version, but it aims at the same thing. It says, ``Mr. President, tell us how you are going to determine whether this policy is a success or not. Quit the bull gravy. Give us specifics, not generalized platitudes which the Congress has been getting on this subject for the last 2 years.''

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. I understand. But the gentleman, among other things, is cutting into their education programs. This country is on the edge of being scientifically illiterate. We cannot afford to cut back science education in one classroom, in one university, in one corporation. We have got to have it all, and we need to have much more than we have right now.

Mr. OBEY. If I can take back my time, I understand that. That is why I had an amendment yesterday to add $400 million to local law enforcement. The majority rejected that. I had another amendment adding $200 million to local law enforcement. My position in favor of the COPS program is clear. My brother-in-law is a former district attorney who was shot. I have no less concern about law enforcement than the gentleman from New York. But the National Science Foundation and all of its ancillary programs, especially its education programs, are crucial to the future health of this country. It would be mindless to pass this amendment.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I have spent a lot of time not just this session, but in the two previous sessions of this Congress fighting for additional funding for law enforcement assistance grants. I take a back seat to no one in my interest in doing that. But I absolutely agree with virtually every word said by the subcommittee chairman the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), and by the ranking member the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan). I have spent over 30 years on the Labor- Health-Education subcommittee. One of our main concerns on that subcommittee is health research principally centered in the National Institutes of Health. Anyone from NIH will tell you that much of the progress that they have been able to make in the past 20 years has been rooted in the most basic of all scientific research, and a good deal of that research has been funded in the past by the National Science Foundation. If we cut back the National Science Foundation, we are eating our own seed corn, we are eroding the ability of this economy to grow, we are weakening the ability of this society to increase human knowledge, and we are weakening our efforts to improve health as well. If you would take a look at our research budget today, at our basic research budget, we are spending a smaller percentage of our national income on basic research today than we have been spending at any time since those numbers have been kept. We do not want to weaken that even more. I would also point out that in the area of health, if you take a look at the issue of three-dimensional imaging, that has been greatly enhanced by basic research done under contract with the National Science Foundation. Research into materials, into changing materials that you can use for joints, for heart valves, much of that has originated in research financed by the National Science Foundation. Eye surgery has been refined to a great extent by what we have learned under the auspices of the National Science Foundation. I applaud the gentleman from New York in wanting to increase funding for the COPS program. I think it is outrageous that we have seen these long-term reductions. But if we do cut back on the National Science Foundation, we not only threaten the health of America's citizens, we threaten the health of America's economic system as well. I think this is one of those examples where this agency does not have a lot of political support, but it is absolutely imperative that we step in and see to it that we make the advances that are possible with decent levels of funding.

Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. OBEY

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I note the majority leader's reference to morality. It is really interesting indeed to be lectured on morality by the majority leader, almost makes me laugh. But let me simply say one thing. We are here today with a bill brought by a fine Member of Congress, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), who does his dead level best to provide a fair allocation of money within the amount assigned to his subcommittee. The problem is that because the majority party has already made its basic budget decisions, and it has made as its number one priority providing tax cuts including $140,000-a-year tax cuts for people making more than a million bucks, because of that, there is very little left on the table for any of the domestic programs. And so the majority is now bringing to the floor bills which are inadequate for education, inadequate for science, inadequate for health, inadequate for law enforcement. Now, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the distinguished majority leader, objects to the amendment that I intend to offer. Let me tell you how we got here. Last year, the gentleman was unhappy because the funding for NASA was scaled back by the VA HUD subcommittee in order to provide more room, in order to provide more money for housing, and to provide more money for veterans care. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) did not like that arrangement, so he abolished that subcommittee because the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) is from Houston and he wanted an exception to the rule that required everybody else to have their pet programs squeezed except him. So he abolished the subcommittee. Instead, he rearranged the jurisdiction of the subcommittee. So now, NASA is in competition, not with housing, not with veterans health care. Now NASA is in competition with local law enforcement. So you have got a $500 million increase in this account for NASA, and it is paid for by a $400 million cut in local law enforcement. My first choice was to go to the Rules Committee and ask them to allow me to offer an amendment to scale back the size of the tax cut for those making a million dollars or more a year by $2,000. That means those poor devils are going to have to get by with a $138,000 tax cut next year. The majority party denied that. They force me now to look for other sources within the bill. So what I have done is to look at the places where this bill has increased over last year, because local law enforcement, since 2001, has been cut by a billion dollars. And so what the amendment does, it says let us scale back our plans to go to Mars by 2030 and instead make as a higher priority providing better law enforcement for grandma and grandpa back home. That is what we are trying to do. I make no apology for it. If the majority leader does not like the fact that we had to go to NASA to take the money out in order to fund local law enforcement, he has only himself to blame because he reorganized the subcommittees in the first place to create this jurisdictional trade-off. If the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) does not like the result, he ought to look in the mirror.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I believe the House is familiar with this amendment. I have offered similar amendments a number of times. It does go straight to the question of our national priorities. Let me take a little broader view than just this year. If we look at some of the reductions in this bill, and just look at the 1-year reductions, such as we have here in EDA or such as we have in law enforcement, the 1-year reductions do not look too bad, but if we take a look at what happened to these programs since fiscal year 2001, we see that we still have a deep reduction in some of these activities. For example, the State and local law enforcement grants have been cut by $1 billion over that time. There is no way that we cannot have an effect on local law enforcement by having cuts of that magnitude over that period of time. The same is true with EDA. There are many urban districts who do not care much about EDA, but my district, I do not have a city over 37,000. Small cities like that cannot hire a bunch of fancy grant writers. They need all of the help they can get to compete for Federal money for job creation, and the Economic Development Administration, EDA, tries to provide that. What this amendment would simply do is to try to restore the $410 million cut by the committee for local law enforcement grants and increase funding for EDA by $53 million, restoring that cut, and it would simply pay for that cut by reducing the size of the tax cut this House has previously approved for persons who make over $1 million. It would simply reduce that tax cut by $2,000. So instead of getting on average a $140,000 tax cut, they would get a $138,000 tax cut. It is hardly draconian, but it would help take care of a significant national priority. I know that taxes are under the jurisdiction of the Committee on Ways and Means, but the fact is that because the Committee on Ways and Means jurisdiction was placed first in terms of a priority by the Committee on the Budget, that means every time we have a tax cut paid for with borrowed money, you wind up putting an additional squeeze on deserving appropriated programs, including local law enforcement. This amendment tries to correct that imbalance to a very small degree. I would urge support for the amendment.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, as I understand the rules under which this bill is brought to the floor, this amendment would be in order if no Member of the House chooses to lodge a point of order against it. My understanding of the rule that the committee reported is that it has waived the rules for numerous provisions that were placed in the bill by the majority party. It is hard for me to imagine that the House would feel comfortable in not providing that same courtesy to this amendment. I would also suggest that what I am trying to do by this amendment is to do a favor for the majority leader, because he does not want us to have to cut into NASA in order to fund this restoration for law enforcement grants. If he allows this amendment to go forward, if no Member of the majority party lodges a point of order against this amendment, then we can restore the badly needed funds for local law enforcement without having to go after some of the increases in the majority leader's favorite program. I would urge the House to do a favor for the majority leader by not lodging a point of order against this amendment. If they do that, we could proceed to restore badly needed funds. I would concede, Mr. Chairman, that if any individual Member does lodge a point of order, I would have to concede the point of order, but I would hope that a point of order would not be offered, or if it has already been offered, I would hope that it would be withdrawn as a special favor to the majority leader. Mr. Chairman, I concede the point of order.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I think my admiration for the subcommittee chairman is well known. I think he does a great job for his district and for this House, but we have been placed in a very tough position because of the priorities that were laid out by the budget resolution adopted by this House earlier this year. Because of those priorities, we are faced today with the necessity for a trade-off. What has happened in this bill over the last 4 years is that State and local law enforcement grants have been cut by almost a billion dollars. They are cut from last year to this year by $410 million in this bill. I am simply trying by this amendment to restore half of that money, restore $200 million. Half would go into the COPS program, half into the Justice Assistance Grant program, and we would pay for that, in contrast to another amendment that I understand a Member may offer, which would pay for it by going after basic science programs in the National Science Foundation. This amendment would not do that. I think we need to put more money in science, not less. What this amendment would do, and I offer it reluctantly because I would have preferred the first amendment, but the action of the majority party requires me to go to this option. What this amendment does is to say we should scale back the $500 million increase in the account that contains the Moon and Mars mission by $200 million in order to pay for this law enforcement assistance. Of that $200 million, $160 million would be taken from Project Prometheus. NASA, the agency in charge, still has not been able to identify a relevant mission for the funds in that account. The planning is certainly not ripe, and so what we are saying in essence is since this is a pilot mission which would take place roughly around the year 2020 or 2030, what we are saying instead is for the moment we ought to put more money into law enforcement to help buttress law enforcement in our local communities, and we can on another day decide where we can get the money for Project Prometheus so that sometime 20 or 25 years from now, we can use nuclear-powered craft to go to Mars. I do not think it is even a close choice, and I would ask for an aye vote. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak).

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I think I am hearing a different amendment being debated. The fact is this amendment does not cut our core sciences. The President's budget is the one that squeezed those programs. This amendment does nothing of the kind. This amendment is very simple. This bill before us has increased the account that contains the Moon to Mars mission which is a mission that is going to occur 25 years in the future. This bill raises that account by half a billion dollars, $500 million. It is paid for by cutting $400 million out of local law enforcement. All I am suggesting is that we take $200 million of that back and give it to the local law enforcement agencies so we have a better balance between the two programs. I do not like the fact that we have to cut these programs. I would have preferred to do it the other way. But the majority party blocked me from doing that. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) took the floor a while earlier crying about the fact that we were trying to cut the NASA budget. We are not trying to cut the NASA budget. The committee has cut the law enforcement budget. It has increased the NASA budget. We are simply trying to modify the increase to some degree in order to save local law enforcement. If the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) does not like the trade-off, then he ought to look in the mirror because he is the fellow who required it. Earlier we had a different jurisdiction of this subcommittee, but the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) did not like the fact that last year the subcommittee took money out of NASA in order to fund other programs including housing and veterans' health care. So he rearranged the jurisdiction of the committees; so now it means that NASA is in competition with local law enforcement. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) has given us no place to go. So the choice is simple. If Members want to pay for a $500 million increase in a mission to Mars that is going to take place 25 years from now, if they want to pay for that by cutting back local law enforcement, then vote against the amendment. If they do not, then vote for it. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I thought I heard the gentleman say something like 40.

Mr. OBEY. But the committee has provided a number of waivers?

Mr. OBEY. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. OBEY. Let me just say, then, Mr. Speaker, that is why I intend to oppose the previous question and the rule on this bill, because the Committee on Rules did some picking and choosing. They provided waivers to the rules when they wanted to, and they did not when they did not want to. As a result, they have tried to block my ability to offer the amendment that was our number one priority on the minority side of the aisle, which is to restore the funding for the local law enforcement grants and to restore the cuts in EPA that were made by simply reducing the size of the tax cut that persons making $1 million a year or more will get in this country by $2,000. That would mean instead of getting $140,000 tax cut this year, a millionaire would have to settle for $138,000. I know there are many Members on the majority side of the aisle who get irritated when I keep bringing up this trade-off, but the fact is that the wealthiest one- thousandth of 1 percent of our citizens have seen their share of the national income double since 1980. The bottom 90 percent of earners in this economy have seen their share of income fall. The 400 most well- off taxpayers in this country make at least $87 million a year. Those earning $10 million per year pay a smaller share of their income in taxes than those making $100,000 a year. Meanwhile, while the upper crust is having a high old time, the folks in the middle are struggling. They struggle to pay unexpected bills. It is harder for them to send their kids to college. It is harder for local communities to provide needed services. Law enforcement services are being cut back. The previous speaker mentioned what is happening to our antimeth programs around the country. I think it is important for the House to understand that, for instance, this bill has a substantial increase, over a billion dollars, for deep space programs, and yet since fiscal year 2001, local law enforcement programs have been cut by a billion dollars, and Economic Development Administration programs which are principally targeted to help small communities such as those I represent, that program has been cut by 50 percent since 2001. I do not think that reflects the priorities of the American people. It certainly does not reflect the priorities of most people on this side of the aisle. So I am going to be voting against the previous question on the rule and the rule itself if there is a rollcall to protest the fact while the Committee on Rules has been magnanimous in providing many waivers, it has not provided a waiver for the key amendment that would enable us to restore needed funding for local law enforcement. I do not believe the priorities represented by this committee's judgment represent the priorities of the American people. When the time comes, I will be offering whatever amendments I am allowed to offer under the rules to try to change those priorities. The subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), is a very able Member, but he cannot perform a miracle without resources, and the allocation he was given are totally inadequate to the task at hand. The quality of America's law enforcement at the local level will suffer because of it.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to ask the gentleman from Georgia a question. In his opening statement, he indicated how many times, or how many waivers had been provided. In the gentleman's statement he indicated the number of waivers that this rule provided.

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