John Spratt

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill, to defend those who defend us. Our young men and women in uniform should not be prey to unscrupulous types who take advantage of their inexperience, in ways that they pay for, and for years thereafter. Our service members are focused on the mission at hand: defending our nation. In their enthusiasm, and on the eve of their deployments, they should not be subjected to unscrupulous agents who exploit their fears of family members not being provided for, should they be killed or wounded in the line of the duty. They should not be exposed to brokers making promises of big returns on investments, while extracting exorbitant fees up front. We have worked hard to improve the benefits that our government provides for our troops and their families. We have increased the death gratuity dramatically. We have increased life insurance coverage. But we can do better. We can ban the sale of periodic payment plan certificates. We can clarify the law by making it known that the states have a duty to regulate sales conducted on military bases. We can ensure that our young men and women in uniform are educated about the benefits the government provides for them and their families, and that they receive clear and comprehensible information about the federally subsidized life insurance available to them. We can require registration of agents and a registry for complaints about agents so that our service members can see who has had complaints and disciplinary actions. And Congress can monitor these practices better. This bill does these things. And while it does not go as far as some of us in the House would like, I believe it is a good place to start. It enables us to stop some of the most damaging practices against those who defend our I urge support of this bill.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, let's make something clear: the Veterans Health Care Act of 1992 directs drug companies to grant discounts on all drugs that are supplied to the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Public Health Service, and the Coast Guard. These are significant discounts. On average they lower the cost to the government for pharmaceuticals provided to beneficiaries by 30 to 40 percent. The Department of Defense is able to take advantage of these discounts in its mail order program and in dispensing drugs in its military treatment facilities, hospitals and clinics. But the pharmaceutical companies have been balking, refusing to grant these discounts to TRICARE beneficiaries. Those are the families of active duty members and families of reservists deployed. TRICARE beneficiaries, wanting to shop, understandably, with their local pharmacy, their local corner drugstore, they have not been able to obtain the advantages of these discounted drug prices. The Senate has recognized the problem here and has acted to resolve it by simply providing that in the future, after this bill becomes law, the discounted drug provision will apply not just to military treatment facilities, not just to the mail order program, but to TRICARE beneficiaries going to private drugstores. And it should. Can anybody tell me a reason it should not? Can anybody tell me a reason that TRICARE beneficiaries, our military members, shouldn't be able to shop, when necessary, at their local pharmacy? That is all we are doing here. The Senate approved this 92-0, and we are simply saying here, let us recede to the Senate provision, let us take a law adopted in 1992 and apply it to all aspects of military health care. This has a couple of collateral benefits in addition to saving money. One is that the House provision, which raises copays for drugs purchased otherwise at military facilities, will not be necessary because we will save enough money here to make it unnecessary. Another is that the Senate provision, harsh I think, which requires mandatory mail order as opposed to local pharmacies, that provision too can be dispensed with because we will save enough money to do so. This is a win-win-win proposition. There is no reason the House should not take up the logic and policy of the Senate bill and adopt this same provision. Every Member here should vote to instruct our conferees to recede to the Senate on this critical provision. It will save money and make life better for our TRICARE beneficiaries. There is no reason not to do it. There is every reason to do it. I urge its support.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I am an original cosponsor of this bill, along with Mr. Whitfield and Mr. Sweeney. This bill is to prevent the violent practice of slaughtering horses for human consumption. Why are we offering it? If you have grown up with horses, you know why we are offering it. They are as close to human as any animal you can get. Why are we offering it? Because there are three foreign-owned slaughter houses, just three, in the United States where these horses are slaughtered, various means, jacking them up by their hind legs, slitting their throats. Why does this practice continue? So that these slaughter houses can keep a steady flow of horse meat to the dinner tables and meat markets, not in the United States, but of Asia and Europe where horse meat is still eaten. Americans do not even eat horse meat. The Horse Slaughter Prevention Act before us today, if passed into law, will simply end this practice once and for all across the entire United States. The opponents of this bill have come up with a number of objections, reasons they think it is a bad idea. First of all, they would have us believe that this is a first step down a slippery slope. That next will come cows and then hogs and then chickens and then other animals consumed by Americans. But the Horse Slaughter Prevention Act does nothing of the kind, and it will not lead in that direction, because horses are unique and distinct. We all know that. Second, the opponents claim that banning horse slaughter will result in an overpopulation of horses in this country. Once again, this is not true. There are currently three slaughter houses in the United States in two States. In five States, including California, a law banning horse slaughter has been in effect for 7 years. What has been the effect? There have been no effects. There have not been animals that are left derelict. There haven't been animals that are not buried. There have not been too few euthanasias. Practically speaking, in all five States where this law is already the law of the land, there has been no effect whatsoever. Each year, about 90,000 horses are slaughtered. So there is no real impact in a country as large as the United States in the disposing of those 90,000 horses by means other than horse meat slaughtering. Third and finally, our opponents have touted letters from cattlemen and chicken farmers and all sorts of livestock raisers who say they oppose the bill. We have and we will gladly display to anyone who wants to see it a seven-page memorandum, single spaced, of supporters all over the country who know horses, who love horses; they are horse raisers, horse racers, horse lovers, you name it. Everybody has signed on to this saying it is time we do something like this. Last year, when it appeared that the Horse Slaughter Prevention Act would never get its day on the House floor, Mr. Sweeney and Mr. Whitfield and I offered an amendment to the House ag appropriations bill to ban Federal funding to facilitate horse slaughter for 1 year. That amendment drew 269 votes in support; 269 Members passed it by a substantial majority. I hope that today my colleagues will remember the vote they cast last year and will see fit to end the brutal practice of killing horses and will vote not only for the bill but against all amendments because they would only debilitate and defeat the bill.

Mr. SPRATT

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

Mr. SPRATT. I thank my colleagues for that clarification. As a further point of clarification, India's prime minister has reported to his parliament that, ``the United States will support an Indian effort to develop a strategic reserve of nuclear fuel to guard against any disruption of supply over the lifetime of India's reactor.'' A sizeable fuel reserve could conceivably minimize the impact of a U.S. decision to cut off fuel supplies should India conduct a nuclear test. Mr. Royce and Mr. Lantos, is it your understanding that aiding in the development of a fuel reserve is not intended to facilitate a decision by the government of India to resume nuclear testing? I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SPRATT. Finally, would the gentlemen then agree with me that any fuel reserve provided to the Indians for use in safeguarded, civilian nuclear facilities should be sized in a way that maintains continued fuel supply as a deterrent to Indian nuclear testing? I yield to the gentlemen.

Mr. SPRATT. I thank Mr. Royce and Mr. Lantos for that clarification and commend you for your excellent work on this important legislation.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I would like to engage my colleagues and managers of this bill, Mr. Royce and Mr. Lantos, in a colloquy on the issue of India's nuclear testing moratorium. Section 129 of the Atomic Energy Act provides that, ``No nuclear materials and equipment or sensitive nuclear technology shall be exported to any non-nuclear weapon state that is found by the President to have detonated a nuclear device.'' It is my understanding that section 4(a)(3)(A) of H.R. 5682 waives this restriction for any nuclear test that occurred before July 18, 2005, effectively allowing nuclear cooperation in spite of India's past nuclear tests, but not for any detonation or tests after that day. Therefore, if India were to do so, continued nuclear cooperation would be in jeopardy. Is that an accurate assessment?

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

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, had it been my decision, I would not have released a report on the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, and I co- sponsored H. Res. 900 to register my disapproval. For no good reason, H. Res. 900 was not made in order as a substitute amendment. I have reluctantly decided not to vote for H. Res. 895 for the following reasons. H.R. 895 was written exclusively by Republicans, with no Democratic input, no committee hearings, and no committee mark- up. The resolution was rushed to the floor shortly after being filed under a rule that prohibits amendments of any kind, for one hour's debate, and then a vote up or down. I agree with much of the resolution. I wholeheartedly support ``efforts to identify, track, and pursue suspected foreign terrorists and their financial supporters by tracking money flows and by uncovering terrorists networks here and abroad.'' I have not been briefed on the program, however, and I am no position to find ``that the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program has been conducted in accordance with applicable laws, regulations and Executive Orders, and that appropriate safeguards and reviews have been instituted to protect individual civil liberties, and that Congress has been appropriately informed and consulted for the duration of the Program and will continue its oversight of the Program.'' I hope that is the case, but I have no basis on which to make such a judgment, and I do not think that Members of Congress should hold out such a conclusion if we cannot support it.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. I am in its present form.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, the motion to recommit concerns entirely the budget process. It is germane and completely germane to the budget process. We add to the bill or would add to the bill the so-called pay- as-you-go provisions which were the law of the land from 1990 to 2002. We reinstate that as a complement to, and it is complementary to, the other powers granted by this bill. It relates to entitlement spending. The bill relates to entitlement spending. So this is well within the ambit of the subject matter of this bill.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I offer an alternate motion to recommit, which does not contain the objectionable features.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, this could be a bipartisan bill. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) has taken the bill that the President sent us, which is a classic case of overreaching, and improved it very much and I commend him for that. But it is not good enough; it is not worthy of passage, in my opinion. If it really was to be a bipartisan bill, if that is what you wanted, why did I get shut out in the Rules Committee? I came forward with two substitutes, one germane, one nongermane, with various individual amendments, all of them serious substantive things. Sure, we could disagree about them, but I didn't get to the opportunity under the Rules Committee's provision to come here and offer those on the floor of the House. I think in wrapping up, it is worth showing these charts to everybody again to show the path we are on, which is this path right here: a deficit this year of $300 billion to $350 billion, more than $400 billion last year; intractable, structural deficits. And, as you will see from the costs plotted by CBO, the numbers only get worse here that show the deficit sinking to almost $500 billion in 10 years. The consequence of that? First of all, the debt ceiling, the legal limit to which we can borrow, we have seen an increase in the debt ceiling in the United States since President Bush came to office under your watch of $3.668 trillion. That is the increase in 5 fiscal years of the debt ceiling of the United States. And the total indebtedness of the United States is shown right here. The statutory debt was $5.9 trillion when President Bush took office. If we continue on the track that we are on now with his budgets, we can expect to have a debt of nearly $11.3 trillion by the year 2011. That is where we are going. It is hard to avoid the suspicion that this bill today is sort of a diversionary tactic because, by everybody's admission, even its more ardent proponents, this won't even put a dent in the deficit. As I said, we just adopted a bill which could have an impact on revenues over 10 years, when fully implemented, of $823 billion. This will barely, barely amount to a dent in the budget, a deficit addition of that kind. Now, the gentleman said that I have engaged in acrobatics, as if I weren't serious and sincere about the amendments I am proposing. But I have a problem with giving the President 45 days to pick through appropriation bills, because the wider the window, the more apt he will be to use it for political purposes. I have a problem with having the President send up five bills for every appropriation bill. There are 11 appropriation bills. We could have as many as 55 rescission bills here on the House floor, and then I am sure, as we take up these bills on Christmas Eve, you will be having Members ask: Who came up with these ideas? I have a problem with direct spending that is reaching too far. If this is an experiment to start with, why not stick to discretionary spending? None of the previous bills have included that. So for all of these reasons, this could be a much better bill. And I would offer on a motion to recommit my only opportunity a substantial improvement to the bill, and I hope every Member will seriously consider it and will also vote for it.

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

Mr. SPRATT. I am in its present form.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, let me just tell you quickly, by laundry- list fashion, the changes that this amendment would add to the bill. First of all, we have followed the model of similar bills, the bills that were passed by this House in 1993 and 1994. We have gone back to those to create expedited rescission authority. Secondly, we have prohibited the President or any other officer of the executive branch from using the rescission authority, that power, as a bargaining tool to extract votes on other unrelated legislation. Number three, we have provided that during the consideration of a rescission request by the President, there is to be a motion to strike; in other words, a provision by which 100 Members of the House could ask for a separate vote on a separate item which they deem worthy, and they could have an opportunity in the well of the House to make the case for this worthy spending item. Number four, we have limited the number of cancellation proposals that the President can send up to one appropriation bill, which is an entirely sensible change to the bill. Otherwise, under the terms of the bill, the President will be able to send 5 different rescission requests on 11 different appropriations bills, in total 55 bills, which could wreak havoc with the process and in this place. It invites chaos. It is not necessary. It was not in previous bills. It does not need to be in this bill. Number five, we have reduced the amount of time the President has to propose a cancellation or rescission after signing a bill from 45 days to 10 days. Why is that? We think that 10 days is more than enough. The original bills passed by the House provided only 3 days. We have extended it to 10 days, but 10 days give the President all the time he needs for a budgetary scrub-down of the budget. Forty-five days is apt to cause him to look for political applications as opposed to budgetary applications. Number six, we have reduced the amount of time that the President can withhold funds, impound funds when he proposes a rescission or cancellation from 90 days, as in the bill, to 30 days and 7 days for emergency spending. We think that is reasonable. That is roughly the time it would take for a rescission to run its course. Then we think this is extremely important, not just reasonable, but critically important. This is a major experiment. Let us not extend it to entitlement spending. Americans depend upon Social Security and Medicare and veterans benefits. Are we going to take something that important from which people depend and put it on the fast track, the up-or-down vote process that this vote calls for? I would hope not. This particular amendment would put Social Security and Medicare and veterans benefits beyond the reach of the President's rescission power, fast-track rescission powers. This then defines tax benefits the way we originally defined it. One of the evolutions in the history of this bill was for us to go back and say a lot of money is spent through tax expenditures in the Tax Code. There are a lot of earmarks in the Tax Code, as well as in the appropriation bills. So let us call attention to something called the targeted tax benefits that have fewer than 100 intended beneficiaries, and let us provide as to these earmarks in the tax bill the President will have the same authority. This bill has been changed significantly from 100 beneficiaries to 1 beneficiary, which guts the meaning of that original provision. Finally, this is an experiment. We are ceding a lot of authority to the President of the United States that the Congress has under Article I of the Constitution. In order to make sure that this authority is not misused or abused or manipulated, we are providing simply that we have a sunset of 2 years. Two full years would mean President Bush would have this authority for 2 fiscal years, but that we would review it and decide whether or not we should go forward with it or make major changes. These are all serious, substantive amendments. They are not tilted in any direction at all except in the direction of getting a better bill which we can vote upon.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to address an issue that Mr. Ryan spoke to just a moment ago. This bill does apply to new direct spending items. Now, there could be some disagreement over what that means, but direct spending is mandatory spending, it is entitlement spending, and under that broad rubric falls Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and veterans benefits. The reason we are very concerned about broadening the reach to include mandatory programs like that is that these are programs people depend upon; and what this bill essentially does is create a fast track, a 30-day turnaround. The President sends a bill here, we can't amend it in committee, we can't amend it on the floor, we only have an up-or-down vote, we have a limited amount of time for debate. It is a fast track with no substantive input from Congress, and I would hate to see us make an ill-advised change in Social Security or Medicare simply because it got wrapped up with other spending issues and was pushed through here on such a small fast track that we didn't realize the consequences until we woke up a month or two later. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown). (Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the distinguished Democratic whip.