Louise Slaughter

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, both the rule and the underlying bill have provisions that I support, but they also include provisions that I must oppose. In general the rule is an open rule that would allow the Members of the House to offer germane perfecting amendments. However, the rule is partisan and unfair in which provisions of the bill it protects from points of order. The rule protects provisions that will delay new worker safety provisions, particularly those designed to protect workers from repetitive motion injuries. But it subjects to a point of order by a single Member, important language guaranteeing a woman the option of choosing an obstetrician-gynecologist as her primary physician. The rule makes in order a vital amendment offered by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) to modify ill-conceived restrictions that this bill would place on Title X family planning services. The current version of the bill would require all clinics that provide Title 10 family planning services to minors to notify his or her parents 5 days before doing so. I would suggest that this provision takes a hopelessly naive view of our world and our children. As much as we might wish we could, Congress cannot legislate healthy family relationships and good communication between parents and children. The parental consent provision of this bill sets up a deceptively attractive choice for Congress. Its proponents claim that we are simply ensuring that minors involve parents in their decisions to become sexually active and to seek family planning. In reality, however, this legislation will not compel any young man or young woman to talk to their parents about decisions. Instead, it will simply drive minors away from family planning services and lead them to engage in risky sexual behavior without the benefit of contraceptives. A vote for the Greenwood amendment is a vote to reduce teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, and I urge all of my colleagues to support it and oppose the Istook substitute. Like the rule, the underlying bill has some very positive provisions and others that I strongly oppose. As a former microbiologist and supporter of basic biomedical research, I applaud the committee's decision to increase funding for the National Institutes of Health, and I am pleased to see that the committee report addresses vital health issues like eating disorders, colorectal cancer, and female genital mutilation. I am very pleased that the bill provides $30 million for the education of homeless children, Mr. Speaker. This small initiative has had a big effect on helping homeless children stay in school and giving them the tools to succeed. I also commend the $834 million increase in Pell Grant funding. It will allow more economically disadvantaged students to participate and increases the maximum grant to $3,150. However, I am extremely disappointed by the committee's decision to slash funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program by $1.1 billion. In my home district of Rochester, New York, the average winter temperature is 12 degrees below freezing. I am sure my colleagues would not deny my constituents access to literally life-saving home heating. The bill will hurt American workers also. Workplace safety enforcement is cut. The riders in the bill delay all new worker safety safeguards and block the reform of Black Lung benefits. But, Mr. Speaker, perhaps most egregiously, the majority has not taken advantage of an opportunity to raise the performance of our public schools. This bill does nothing to fund school modernization, nothing to reduce class size, nothing to help train teachers, and nothing to fulfill an agreement, made just last year, to provide opportunities for children unable to read. Mr. Speaker, our children represent this Nation's most precious resource, and I hope that no one in this chamber would ever dispute that fact. If we fail in our solemn responsibility to prepare them for the future, we will be faced with a work force unable to compete in a global economy. When I criticize the bill, I recognize that many of its problems stem from the fact that the subcommittee was not given a high enough appropriation allocation to meet all of the important needs in its jurisdiction. And the fact that we have never adopted a final budget resolution, as required by law, certainly contributed to that failing. Mr. Speaker, I have been proud to support Labor-HHS appropriations bills in the past, but this bill will hurt the poor, who will have to choose between food and heat; it will hurt children, who will not receive the special assistance they need to fulfill their potential; it will hurt the American worker, who may be unnecessarily injured on the job. Mr. Speaker, we can craft a better bill and we can craft a better rule. I ask my colleagues to defeat the rule and the bill so that we can do better. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. 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.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I want to urge my colleagues to join me in opposing the rule. Vote ``no'' on the previous question. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment that will be offered if the previous question is not ordered at this point in the Record.

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

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt). (Mr. SPRATT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin). (Mr. CARDIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm). (Mr. STENHOLM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez). (Mr. MENENDEZ asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel). (Mr. RANGEL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Wise).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this rule. The rule sets the stage for Congress to take up a destructive, irresponsible set of proposals that will simultaneously raid the Social Security trust fund and explode the deficit. This package threatens to destroy our hard-won budgetary discipline and send us, like Alice in Wonderland, through the looking glass into a place where long-standing budget rules do not apply and a budget deficit is called a surplus. This rule will allow Congress to consider H.R. 4578 and H.R. 4579, the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of budget politics. The first bill, H.R. 4578, would set aside a portion of the Social Security surplus in a mythical special reserve account where it would supposedly be saved. The second bill, H.R. 4579, would use the remainder of the Social Security surplus to pay for tax cuts. It is bad enough that these proposals are irresponsible and shortsighted. To make matters worse, we are being denied a full and open debate on them. The modified closed rule does a disservice to the American people by barring the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) from offering his alternative. The Stenholm proposal would cut taxes without raiding Social Security or threatening to increase the deficit. Unfortunately this fiscally responsible bill was banned from the House floor in favor of the majority's reckless plan to raid future retirees' savings. In addition, constructive proposals sponsored by the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Sanchez) and the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Maloney) were denied the opportunity for floor consideration. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 4578 and H.R. 4579 illustrate how the majority is indulging in creative accounting to invent a surplus that they can use to justify tax cuts. Over the next five years our Nation is projected to have a Social Security surplus of $657 billion and a budget deficit of $137 billion. The majority is using the Social Security surplus to cancel out that budget deficit and declare a total budget surplus of $520 billion free for the taking. But as my colleagues can see, the surplus is not a real surplus. It is a mirage. It is a surplus of Social Security taxes which we need to hold in reserve for that approaching day when Social Security begins to have financial problems. The Federal budget will remain in deficit or just barely in balance until at least the year 2005 even assuming the economy remains as robust as it is now. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has warned repeatedly that our economy could take a downturn which could wipe out the surplus and multiply the cost of the proposed tax cut. H.R. 4578 places 90 percent of the Social Security surplus in a reserve account in the U.S. Treasury. This account is nothing but a budget gimmick. There is nothing to prevent Congress from spending these funds in the future. If the majority is spending the surplus on tax cuts now, what will stop them in the future for using it for other purposes? The majority is referring to their proposal as the 90-10 plan. I would suggest that that means if you live to be 90 you might get 10 percent of the Social Security benefits you are due. Democrats are committed to reserving all, 100 percent, of the surplus for Social Security. Our alternative will place the entire surplus in a special account in the New York Federal Reserve Bank where Congress is completely unable to reach it. This is the only proposal that guarantees the surplus will be used solely to save Social Security and not for politically irresistible goodies. Democrats support tax cuts. Most of the proposals in the majority's package were originally Democrat bills. But we will not cut taxes without paying for them. The Democratic alternative includes all the same tax cuts but provides they will not take effect until Congress has enacted legislation to preserve Social Security. Social Security is a Democrat program, and we have always kept our promises to the Nation's seniors. We will again before we start making new promises to Americans. The Democratic alternative enacts tax relief and saves Social Security. I would like to note that the majority's misguided proposal has no chance of becoming law. The President has vowed to veto any proposal that raids the Social Security surplus to pay for tax cuts. Americans should recognize this tax bill for the cynical election-year ploy that it is. Democrats will protect Social Security while Republicans protect their majority. We should save Social Security first. This bill is an unwelcome flashback to the Reagan era of deficit spending. The majority's proposal places in jeopardy the Social Security benefits of over 44 million older Americans, many of whom rely on their benefits as their sole source of income. While we would all like to cut taxes, we cannot do so at the expense of the balanced budget and the Social Security trust fund. We owe our senior citizens and all Americans better than that. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Wynn).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York for yielding me the customary 30 minutes and I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Ms. SLAUGHTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Ms. SLAUGHTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time. May I ask if my colleague has further requests?

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Brown). (Mr. BROWN of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens). (Mr. OWENS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Klink).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I will not actively oppose this rule. The agreement that has been crafted with the administration addresses some of the concerns my colleagues and I have with the underlying bill, but I do have concerns about how we arrived at this rule. The process we adopted seems to abolish as irrelevant the committee process in the House of Representatives. This rule throws out the crafted consensus bill reported by the Committee on the Judiciary by a 23 to 4 vote; that is right, a 23 to 4 vote. The Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims heard from a variety of witnesses at its April hearing, including representatives from affected businesses, academia, labor unions and the Labor Department. At its markup, the subcommittee reported the bill by voice vote. The full Committee on the Judiciary, working in bipartisan cooperation, fully considered the bill, adopting 11 amendments by voice vote. The committee report included a letter from the White House commending the committee-reported bill as a good basis for fine tuning final legislation that the administration could support. One might have thought that the legislative process had worked, producing a bill that addresses a problem and it could be enacted into law. But last July, when the Committee on Rules first considered this rule, the Committee on Rules majority decided that the work of the Committee on the Judiciary, reported by a 23 to 4 margin, could be discarded at its whim. The Committee on Rules majority appropriated to itself the right to substitute a wholly different bill, drafted in secret, without the benefit of hearings or the expertise of the authorizing committee. Unfortunately, this circumvention of the committee process is becoming a bad habit. Last month, we voted on a health care bill which no committee considered, and it had no chance of being enacted into law. Last week, we considered important bills to fight drug use that no committee had considered, marked up or reported. And why should the American public care? Is this just inside baseball, irrelevant to the final legislative product? No. Far too often, the Congress has hastily passed ill-considered legislation that had many unforeseen consequences. As I noted, the majority in the Committee on the Judiciary have reached an agreement with the White House that will allow this bill to be signed into law. The agreement was reached last night, although few of us and almost probably none of us have any idea what it is, and none of us have had the opportunity to examine it. The Committee on the Judiciary-reported bill should have been brought to the House floor in regular order under an open rule. Unfortunately, that is not the circumstances in which we find ourselves. I register my objection. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.