Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Speaker, I am confident we will find overwhelming support in the House for this measure. I am certain it will be bipartisan to a very great degree. I certainly expect to be voting for it. I would simply make one observation in the process, however. We should not be surprised that FEMA is at this point running out of money, because in the conference on the legislative appropriation bill last year when additional supplemental funding for FEMA was being attached, a number of us on this side of the aisle warned at that time, I know the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) did, I know I did, we warned at that time that because we were appropriating $800 million less than the historical average of the last 5 years, we would not have enough money without additional funding. And now because of that shortfall, it is obvious we have no choice but to move tonight. I would simply say I hope in the future any administration, regardless of party, will request the amount that represents their full expectations of national need in terms of dealing with disasters. I would also hope in the long run we can come up with a better way to finance national disasters, because it seems to me that there ought to be some kind of a self-insurance fund established between the States, backed up and guaranteed by the Federal Government so we do not have to keep funding this on a horseback basis every time there is another problem. We ought to be able to fund this program much the way we fund worker's compensation, with an insurance fund into which States buy on an experience-rated basis. That would be much more fiscally responsible than the way we go about it these days. Having said that, I urge support on both sides of the aisle for this request. I know the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) is most concerned about it. These storms have affected his district significantly. I have been to his district, and it is a beautiful place. As soon as we can get this money down to those folks who need it, the better. There are a lot of my neighbors in Wisconsin who spend their winters in areas of Florida hit by these two storms, and we fully expect yet another storm to be hitting the Southeastern region of the country within a very short period of time. I think we have no choice tonight but to act on this measure. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek), a member of the committee.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutsch).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, would the Speaker be kind enough to inform me how much time I have remaining?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I at this point have no further requests for time. There may be one other Member coming. So if the gentleman from Florida needs more time, I would be happy to yield him 2\1/2\ additional minutes.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I would simply observe that no two people in this House have worked harder to keep partisanship or any other illegitimate consideration out of this issue than have the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards). They have proceeded in tandem to try to produce concrete, as opposed to theoretical, results for the military families in this country who are deserving of a decent place to live. But what we are being faced with is this: my mentor in this House, when I first came, was Dick Bolling from Missouri who for many years served this House in spectacular fashion on the Committee on Rules, and he often told me that the greatest enemy to true legislative progress was what he called ``dung hill politics.'' By that he meant Members being more interested in preserving the jurisdiction of their committee or the narrow interest that was associated with a committee or subcommittee, rather than focusing on the broader interests of the American people who we are supposed to serve. It seems to me that this discussion tonight is an example of what Dick Bolling was worried about because what we have going here, as I said yesterday, is a charade. The gentleman from Michigan and the gentleman from Texas have brought to the floor a bill which provides concrete assurances that at least 24,000 more military families will receive decent housing; but apparently the Committee on the Budget is unhappy, at least the chairman of the Committee on the Budget is unhappy, with the way the committee has gone about this; and so he intends, as I understand it, shortly to exercise a point of order which will strike from this bill the Congress' ability to deliver that housing to those military families. In order to create an impression that these families are not being hurt, it appears that what the House will now hide behind is a motion taken yesterday to try to increase the authorization for this program, which would have the result, if the bill was enacted into law, of accomplishing the very same thing that is being accomplished by this bill. The problem is the way this Congress works, there is absolutely no assurance that a freestanding, independent authorization bill will go anywhere in the other body; and that is why, if you want to preserve that housing for those members, it is essential to keep this language in this bill. That is what the gentleman from Michigan has been trying to do. That is what the gentleman from Texas has been trying to do on a bipartisan basis, and we ought to be supporting that effort rather than finding technicalities as reasons to deep-six the very fine work that they have attempted to do.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise to be heard on the point of order. Mr. Chairman, it is important for us to respect the rules of the House, but sometimes the rules give Members powers to do things that they ought not do. Just because we have the power to do something does not necessarily mean that it is the right thing to do it. Sometimes it is important to exercise restraint. I think this is one of those cases. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) correctly points out that an hour ago we waived all points of order on a huge spending bill, many times more dollars than we have in this bill. There were many points of order that could have been lodged against this bill when it came from the Committee on Rules, but the House leadership chose to expose only one item in the bill to a point of order, and that is the item that would have delivered decent housing to 24,000 military families. What the House did or what the majority did by adopting that rule is to say in effect that peace in the family was more important than the sure delivery of decent housing to 24,000 military families. Mr. Chairman, I think it is unfortunate that the majority leadership has dictated to the House that it must allow this one provision to be eliminated, but there is not much we can do about it and I also unfortunately have to concede the point of order.

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

Mr. OBEY. Unless the motion is adopted, Mr. Speaker, yes.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, what this amendment attempts to do is to restore the language just stricken by the gentleman. If the gentleman insists on his point of order, then obviously once again the House will have missed an opportunity to provide housing for these 24,000 military families.

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

Mr. OBEY. Unless the motion is adopted, Mr. Speaker, yes.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, this is the last opportunity the House will have to do the right thing for 24,000 military families. This motion to recommit instructs the Committee on Appropriations to report the bill back with the cap lifted by $500 million for a total of $1.35 billion. This does not incur any additional costs. It simply allows existing funds and other assets to be used for privatization. The problem seems to be, as Members have pointed out, that CBO wants to charge these privately raised funds against the budget allocation, which does not make any sense to anyone who lives in the real world. Any Member who has visited a military base and seen family housing knows this is a real need. Raising the cap enjoys broad support on both sides of the aisle and the White House. I urge Members to join in support of this motion to recommit and give military families the decent housing they deserve. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, to those who would cite the action taken by the House yesterday on the authorization bill, I would simply say that was not a substantive fix. That was a political fix, which is going nowhere because there is no assurance whatsoever that that bill will pass. This bill is a must-pass vehicle. That is why this provision ought to be attached to this bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. Let me simply point out to the gentleman from Iowa that the bill that the gentleman from Iowa is suggesting that we focus on is the bill that is going nowhere for the next 6 weeks either. The only difference between this bill and the bill that the gentleman is now purportedly supporting is that this bill will after the summer recess go somewhere. The bill the gentleman supported yesterday is going nowhere. That is a big difference to military families.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I think that the speech we just heard indeed does illustrate rather dramatically the difference in priorities between most of us on this side of the aisle and many others on that side of the aisle. What is before us is this: we routinely see Members of both parties in this House talk about the need for shared sacrifice, and we routinely see Members of both political parties posing for political holy pictures because they both profess to be so concerned about the welfare of our soldiers who are fighting our wars on behalf of our national interest. But this rule walks away blatantly--it walks away from our obligation to those military families who are the backbone of our military efforts, whether in Iraq or other places around the world. Now, the bill as it was reported by the Committee on Appropriations at the request of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards), who is the primary mover on this issue, included a provision which allowed the Military Housing Privatization Program to continue to operate. That is important, because 160,000 military families right now live in sub- standard housing, and the provision in this bill to raise the cap on that program would have helped 50,000 of those military families to wind up living in decent housing. This rule will allow a single Member of this House to knock out that provision. So here we are in the middle of a war. We talk about shared sacrifice, but in the end, how does that shared sacrifice really apply? To some folks in the military, those folks are asked to do their duty not just once, but twice. Some of them have already done one tour in Iraq. Now they are being called upon to do it again. Meanwhile, the rest of us in the country can sit back and ``sacrifice'' by accepting our tax cuts. Now, the gentleman who just spoke, the chairman of the Committee on the Budget, produced a budget resolution which sacrificed virtually every national priority to his preference that we provide supersized tax cuts to people who make $1 million a year. So the budget resolution which that gentleman brought to the floor guaranteed that we were going to be able to give $90,000 tax cuts to people who make $1 million a year. Where did the money come from? By squeezing on military housing, by squeezing on aid to education, by squeezing on health research at NIH, by squeezing on law enforcement funding. The gentleman has very frankly stated his priorities, and I congratulate him for his honesty. I do not think much of his judgment, however, because if we were to follow his judgment and if we vote for this rule, that gentleman will be allowed to strike this provision on military housing. If we follow this rule, if we allow this rule to pass, we will be in a situation where one Member of the House can exercise his personal preferences and knock out the provision that the Committee on Appropriations, on a bipartisan basis, put in this bill, to try to provide some help to the people who are doing the most to support the national policies of this country, and that is military families. I think that the result of this rule would be shameful. Now, frankly, I was surprised when I heard the gentleman from Iowa oppose the rule, because this rule is here because of his pressure on the Committee on Rules. But, Mr. Speaker, now as I think about it, I finally realize what the game is. The gentleman from Iowa wanted the Committee on Rules to do the dirty work. He wanted them to directly eliminate that provision, rather than having to take the personal heat by standing up and knocking out that provision on a point of order. Well, I would suggest the way to correct this problem is to vote down this rule, to vote down the previous question so that we can bring to the House a bill which protects this provision. The rule provided waivers for all kinds of other provisions in the bill. Why did it exempt from that protection military families who need our help the most?