Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

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

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order against the amendment, and I would ask the gentleman from Ohio if he intends to claim the time in opposition to the amendment. If he does not, then I would like to claim the time.

Mr. OBEY. I do, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee), ranking member on the subcommittee with jurisdiction.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Kennedy).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Berkley).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, a few years ago I endured efforts to recall me because I steadfastly supported the principle of tribal sovereignty, and I do not regret that. I think I took the right position. But I am opposed to this amendment because of something that happened in Wisconsin several years ago. One of the tribes in my district contracted out for the operation of a casino to a private operator. That private operator had some very strange rules. One of the rules when women were hired was very blunt: Put out or get out. It was an outrageous way to deal with female employees, but we had no way to reach into that situation and protect those women workers because the State compacts did not provide protection under such circumstances. I do not ever want that to happen again to any woman working anywhere in my State or any other State in the Union. That is why I believe that the correct vote on this amendment is to vote against this amendment because the last time I looked, the United States Constitution guarantees equal protection under the law to every citizen; and I am not about to suggest that in cases of casinos, for instance, on or off reservation, that the people who work for those casinos are not going to be entitled to the protection which they need in order to experience decent working conditions. I think a Congress that cannot protect women in those circumstances is a Congress that is impotent, and I do not believe Congress ought to be impotent in those situations, so I urge a ``no'' vote on the amendment.

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

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

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I certainly agree with the gentleman's comments. I have great respect and affection for the gentleman from Texas. I know that he believes what he believes deeply, and I respect that. But I just would have to say that I wish we were at the stage in this country in terms of our recognition of mental illness, I wish we were at the stage in this country where we could provide every child with the opportunity to be screened, so that we can catch ahead of time developing problems and help families who otherwise have nowhere to turn. I join with the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) in opposition to the amendment.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would simply like to assure the gentleman of my agreement with his comments. I think that we have become incredibly arrogant in assuming that we have conquered these virus- borne diseases and other communicable diseases. In fact, we are learning that we are going to be facing a whole new generation of threats to public health, and I think even with this additional money in the bill, there needs to be much, much more.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I would like to explain to the House why there will not be a recommittal motion. Mr. Chairman, I voted to report this bill from subcommittee and full committee to the House in order to give the House an opportunity to make some hard choices, but I had frankly expected to vote against the bill for all of the reasons listed in the minority views in the committee report beginning on page 281, and I submit for the Record at this point the minority views signed onto by the Democratic members of the subcommittee which outline in some detail what we consider to be the shortcomings of this bill.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, a few minutes ago we heard one of the speakers on the majority side of the aisle talk about this bill in terms of being a bill which meets our promises. I am not quite sure what bill she was referring to, but it certainly could not have been this one because this bill is a monument to broken promises and is an embarrassment to the institution, in my view, if this institution pretends that it cares about making the long-term investments in our economy and in our kids that are necessary. If you take a look at what this bill does not produce, this bill falls $9.5 billion below the promises in the No Child Left Behind Act of just 3 years ago for Title I alone, which is the major program by which we attack poor education systems for disadvantaged children. For Title I alone, this bill is $7 billion short of the promises laid out in the No Child Left Behind Act. Special education: Both political parties posed for political holy pictures in terms of how much we are going to try to do for handicapped children, and yet this bill provides $2.5 billion less than the Republicans promised in their own budget of just 1 year ago. Then if we look at Pell grants, I was so flabbergasted, I practically fell onto the floor when I saw the President of the United States speak to the Republican convention and talk about his determination to increase Pell grants, when, in fact, the majority has frozen Pell grants for 2 years in a row, and this bill is part of that freezing process. So Pell grants have been frozen while tuition has gone up at the average 4-year university by almost 17 percent in that same time period. In the Department of Labor, we have almost a million and a half fewer private sector jobs than we had 4 years ago, and yet this legislation cuts help for people making a job search through State agencies by 10 percent. The Community Access Program, which attempts to provide access to decent health care for poor people, is eliminated. The After School Center Program, which is an effort to see to it that kids do not go home to an empty nest after they finish the school day and can still receive some meaningful instruction, that program is frozen. NIH, National Institutes of Health, which do the basic research on all disease: smallest increase in 19 years. Now these cuts are not necessitated, as was indicated on the majority side, because we are at war; these cuts are necessitated because the majority has decided that their top priority is to provide people who make a million dollars a year with a $127,000 tax cut next year. That is why these squeezes are made necessary. So, Mr. Speaker, I am going to ask the House to vote against the previous question on the rule so that we can offer an amendment that would shave those tax cuts for millionaires from $127,000 to a mere $89,000. I do not know how they will be able to get along with a mere $89,000 tax cut, the poor devils, but they are just going to have to do it. We are going to try to shave that tax cut for the most well-off people in this society so we can continue to meet our obligation to the least well-off people in our society. What is at stake, in my view, is whether or not this Congress is willing to slowly shred the safety net for the middle class, or whether we are going to continue to build that safety net. I want to be able to offer an amendment which will restore $5.5 billion more to education, which will invest $200 million more in workforce training, invest an additional $1.6 billion to provide more assistance to the 45 million people without health care, and make a series of other adjustments that will make this a far more progressive and humane bill. The only way we can do that is if we defeat the motion on the previous question on the rule. I would urge the House to do just that when the opportunity comes in just a few moments.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds. I will include at this point in the debate the supplemental views that I and my Democratic colleagues wrote on this bill which lay out our concerns about this bill's shortcomings. I think they will be sufficient to explain why so many of us have such grave misgivings about this bill.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 seconds. Mr. Chairman, I simply want to say that I agree with the remarks of the gentleman from Texas, and I hope the committee will listen to what he said. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 4 minutes. Mr. Chairman, this Labor, Health and Education bill is supposed to be that portion of the budget which invests in our children, which opens the door of opportunity for young people, which opens the door to the doctor's office or to the hospital for people who live life on its underside and do not have access to regular health care. It is supposed to protect the interests of workers. This bill falls far short on all fronts. This bill does nothing to help workers, to protect workers against the efforts of employers to chisel on overtime pay. It falls billions of dollars behind the No Child Left Behind legislation in terms of meeting our obligations to support the education of our children. It brings to a screeching halt the healthy expansion of after-school programs. It does, in so many ways, fall short of where we ought to be; and it does that because the majority, as I said earlier, has made a decision that its top legislative priority is ever more and always to provide very large tax cuts to people who are already very well off. I really believe that there is no way to fix this bill, because this bill is the result of two past decisions. It is the result, as the gentleman from Ohio has said, it is the result of the Republican majority's passing a budget resolution which provides inadequate room for education, health, and worker-protection programs. It is also the result of the second vote which occurred on this House floor just a few weeks ago on a resolution that I offered to try to amend that budget resolution so that it would be a somewhat more progressive product that we could be proud of. At this point, the only way that you could help this bill is to move it on to the Senate in the hopes that the Senate will provide better numbers so that in conference we can provide more resources for education, health care, and worker-protection bills that are so crucial to the welfare of this country's population. I would say, Mr. Chairman, that there is only one way in the long term that we can fix this problem, and that is to put a different person in the White House and a different majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Because what is really at stake in this election, in my view, as someone said on the other side of the aisle, what is really at stake is whether or not this country is going to continue to build a social safety net for the middle class, for the broad working class of this country, or whether we are going to say, in effect, ``Sorry, but everybody is going to be on their own. You are going to rely on the luck of the draw. If life treats you happily, you will come out as one of life's winners; and if life does not treat you so happily, sorry, but you are on your own. We have no obligation to help in any significant way.'' This bill does a number of things for people, but it does not do nearly enough to meet the rising challenges that we have. And I regret very much that we are in that position, but there is not much we in the minority can do to change it except to make clear what is happening. So I urge Members to remember that as we go through the bill this afternoon. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute, and I would simply say to the gentleman the issue is not whether we should have cut taxes. Obviously, any time the economy is underperforming, it is perfectly legitimate to cut taxes over the short term. FDR invented that, and I am fully subscribed to that Keynesian approach to economics. What I do not subscribe to is the idea that in the context of cutting taxes we have to give people who make $1 million a year a $127,000 tax cut. I think we could very well limit the size of that tax cut. That is the only tax cut that we have objected to and tried to change in order to finance this bill.