John Spratt

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

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

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I might also say that the veterans are funded on average at $19.4 million, which is $100 million over and above this year for the next 5 years. The Republicans fund the increase for 1 year but it falls off after that. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Minge).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 90 seconds to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bentsen). (Mr. BENTSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. On defense, I would remind the gentleman that their budget over 10 years is $198 billion below the President's budget. We came to the House floor and said, my colleagues did not provide for the military pay increase. Despite the fact they were on notice, this budget does not provide for the selected pay grade increase of 5.5 percent. This budget does not provide for the repeal of redux. It zaps it. They were put on notice. They still ignored it. They also did not give anything for the veterans except for 1 year. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Filner) because he is a member of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott). (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Minge) for a response.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Minge).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Clement).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds, and I ask the gentleman from Connecticut why does the Republican budget, in Function 950, not provide for the pay table reform, the 5.5 percent increase for our senior NCOs and selected junior officers? And why does it not provide for a reform of REDUC, so that those service members who have served 20 years will get 50 percent of their base pay in retirement as opposed to 40 percent?

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to respond that the numbers do not bear the gentleman's statement out. And I would just like to go down the list again, looking at this budget, of the things that are literally cut. We are not talking about reductions in current services, we are not talking about reducing the rate of increase. Over 10 years, we have just heard the veterans' function, Function 700 in this budget, is cut by $2.3 billion. That is below a hard freeze, below 1999 levels, even though, as we have been told, the World War II veterans are reaching the peak demand for services on the Veterans Administration. Agriculture, Function 350, over 10 years is cut by $4.9 billion. In that second 5-year period of time, to sustain the crop insurance program, we will need $9.4 billion. We put together a budget that provided that $9.4 billion, still provided for tax cuts, still provided for more debt reduction, and sustained the crop insurance program for the full 10-year period. Health, research and public health, two vitally important programs, Function 550 of the budget, they are cut by a whopping $25.3 billion below a hard freeze, below 1999 levels in this budget. The same goes on for other programs. If we take all State, local and regional government programs, which is Function 450, there is a cut of 46.4 percent. But there is another cut in this budget, a huge cut. In fact, this budget sets a record, Mr. Speaker. Many of these cuts that are destined to happen because of this budget are not identified. They are just aggregate cuts in the authorized amount of spending. In order to avoid specific criticism, there is an account called allowances, Function 920 of the budget. In that account, over 10 years, this budget contains $81.4 billion. In other words, that is $81.4 billion in cuts they have not even identified to any of the 20 functions in the budget. $81.4 billion is a record high for an addition to a budget. That means we have not done the work. Somebody else is going to have to do it. But there is bad news in store for all of these other programs which are already cut below a hard freeze, below 1999 levels. Veterans, agriculture, environment and natural resources, health research, biomedical research, all of these portions of the budget are still subject to a whopping $81.4 billion reduction which has not yet been identified or allocated over the next 10 years, Mr. Speaker. There is a different way to do it. The Republicans, whenever they want to criticize the budget, bring up the President's budget. They do not acknowledge that we had an alternative budget here on the floor. We had a Democratic alternative. We took all of the Social Security money and recommitted it to Social Security with a lock box that was built into law, not some point of order. We are stretching everybody's credulity by calling a lock box a simple point of order, which the Committee on Rules can mow right over, and does every day of the week. Even though we fully provided for Social Security, and the actuaries said we had extended its life until past 2050, we also provided $502.5 billion more for defense and nondefense discretionary programs than the Republicans provided. We targeted tax cuts, gross tax cuts of $165 billion, over the next 10 years. We generated higher surpluses and, therefore, we paid off more debt than the Republicans. Not over 10 years, but every year over 10 years; every year over the next 10 years, totaling $151 billion more in debt reduction. We had that alternative. We could have at least put our alternative on the table in a conference and said, where can we meet in the middle, because we have got here a better product, we think. We did not have that kind of conference. We did not have that kind of comparison and compromise, and what we have got here is a budget that is deficient in the process by which it has been developed and deficient in substance, as well. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Speaker, this year we mark the 25th anniversary of the congressional budget process and there is a lot to be proud of here because the budget process has helped us get to where we are, to the best fiscal position we have been in in 25 to 50 years, but this is not a very auspicious way to market because the budget before us is not realistic. It has been hastily prepared, hastily presented. We have been able to cobble together what it meant in the last couple of hours when we received a copy of it this morning, but let me say what it means. First of all, take discretionary spending because we will be dealing with that shortly as the appropriations come. It has been capped for the last 10 years. We have to adjust a cap of $6.5 billion reduction this year and then over the next 10 years, between now and 2009, this budget would lower discretionary spending by $16 billion. Last year we spent $299 billion. In 2009, if we follow the pattern of this budget, we will spend $284 billion, a $16 billion reduction. Once we take the total of inflation off that amount of money, that means we will have one-third less to spend for discretionary programs. While this budget is not very specific, it uses big numbers and very few details, there are some harsh realities in it. Veterans, for example, we have the swell in the World War II population pressing greater demands than ever on the Veterans Administration. They plus it up next year and reduce it in every year thereafter. We create a crop insurance program, badly needed, only to unfund it 5 years from now because the money is not there. It has to make way for a tax cut. The Republicans touted the fact that they were going to plus up NIH because we are on the cusp of major breakthroughs in biomedical research. What do they do with the health function, function 550, in this budget? They slice it by $25 billion over the next 10 years. NIH takes up 52 percent of that function. Anybody who thinks that NIH is going to be plussed up if we pass this budget really does need medical help. Science and space research, $9 billion reduction, below a hard freeze. I am not talking about current services; $9 billion below a hard freeze. Law enforcement, when we are making gains in crime, cut $14.5 billion below a hard freeze. The harsh message comes as to Social Security. Two days ago, 480 Members of this body said let us do Social Security first, then Medicare, then we will take up tax cuts. We are not opposed to tax cuts. They are in our budget, but we said there is a proper priority, a proper sequence here. Let us do tax cuts after we have saved Social Security. Let us not drain the budget of resources that we might need for these two critical programs. What do they do? In this resolution, they take the date on which the tax cut bill is to come to the floor of the House, which originally was no later than September the 30th, and move it up. They do not even follow the sequence, the priorities, that we set by an overwhelming vote just 2 days ago on the House floor. This is not a good budget. This is another riverboat gamble with the budget and that is no way to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the budget process. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, this is not just a railroad. This is a high-speed train. This is one of those bullet trains. In France they call it the TGV. Yesterday, at 6 o'clock, we had our first conference meeting, if we want to call it that. It was really a photo-op session, cameo session. We were handed a document with two columns, Democratic position, Republican position, points and places where these two resolutions differ. There was no third column, the resolution by the conferees, just the House position and the Senate position. There was no debate, no discussion, no motions, no amendments, nothing. They handed us this document. Not even the conference report itself. Not even the latest draft of it. Though I am sure everyone knows the procedure here. It was in the word processor. Not even the latest rough draft of the conference report, even though only a few issues remained in contention between the Senate Republicans and the House Republicans at that point. At 1:30 last night, I stayed here until about 10:30 or 11:00, at 1:30 the House Committee on Rules reported this resolution under the cloak of darkness. When I came to the floor this morning for this debate and asked for a copy of the conference report, it was not to be had. Our staff have been able to get a copy, and they are working on it right now trying to get a bullet analysis of it so that we can hand it out to our Members. We are talking about $1.8 trillion. We are talking about the document that frames our priorities this year and, to some extent, for the next 5 or 10 years. Now, yesterday at our conference report and today on the House floor we will hear the Republican Members congratulate themselves because for the first time in a long time the budget resolution is being adopted on time, April 15; last year we did not have one at all; this year we are doing it right, we are doing it on time. But I beg to disagree. This looks like we are making the trains run on time but, in truth, down the track a train wreck awaits us. This budget resolution is totally unrealistic. It is not a document for the budget for FY 2000. It is a political statement. Let me give my colleagues a classic example of sort of just stiff- arming not just the Democratic side of the House but the whole House. Just a day ago, we had the appointment of the conferees, the impaneling of the conference, and we offered a motion to instruct the conferees, that they get their priorities straight, that we do first Social Security, next Medicare and then tax cuts, in that sequence, because that is the right sequence of priorities. First save Social Security, then shore up Medicare, then with what is left before we drain the budget dry of resources, then we can do tax cuts. Three hundred eighty Members voted for it. The chairman of this committee, the House Budget Committee, came over here on the floor and said he would accept the amendment. What happened the next day? The next day we changed the date for the reconciliation bill to include the tax cuts to be July 12. The only reason it is July 12 is, we all know, this budget resolution is a placeholder. We are simply waiting and hoping the CBO will have a July surprise for us, a plus-up in revenues so we can come out here and redo what we have tried to do here. I do not think this budget leads us anywhere. This is not an occasion to celebrate the budget process, unfortunately, even though it marks on this occasion its 25th anniversary. This is just a tread water maneuver. It would take us backward on our efforts to balance the budget if we passed it. This rule and this budget both should be voted down.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Ford).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his compliments. When he said I have been right there, I thought he was about to say I have been right. 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.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hooley).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. Let me say there was an alternative budget on the floor, the House Democrats' budget. We would have put up $502.5 billion more for nondefense and defense discretionary programs, $165 billion in targeted tax cuts, high surpluses, and therefore lower debt than the Republicans in every year. In fact, we would have had $151 billion more in national debt reduction than they have. There was an alternative, and 100 percent of our Social Security money went back to Social Security. So they keep raising a red herring, a straw man. There was an alternative that was rejected, and it was a better bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time. Vote for this budget and we will vote to reverse the priorities we set on this floor just 2 days ago. We said that we should save Social Security first, we should shore up Medicare for some years to come, we should do this first before we address tax cuts. We did not rule out tax cuts. We said these things came first. Two days ago, 380 Members of the House voted for that. Today if we vote for this resolution we vote to reverse it. We will vote to put those programs at risk because the tax cuts that are proposed in this resolution will drain the budget dry of anything that can be used to fix Social Security and fix Medicare. Even worse, if these surpluses that we see now, which are no more than economist constructs, do not obtain, if they do not materialize, then we will be spending Social Security payroll taxes because there will not be enough income taxes to fund the budget we have got right here. So this is a reversal. This is a retreat. This goes down the path that we took years ago and have tried to reverse and correct for the last 10 years. It would be a sham and a shame if we passed a budget of this kind. And, in fact, we will not. We will pass it, of course, but this budget is not going to be the operative document that determines the budget for this year, fortunately, because it is simply not a workable instrument of policy. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2\1/4\ minutes, the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, the resolution we are about to send to conference does not protect Social Security, and it does not protect Medicare. It does not extend the life of either program or assure the solvency of either by 1 day. It does not rise to the challenge. Worse still, the enormous tax cuts that it calls for could undercut Social Security and Medicare, especially, Mr. Speaker, if the surpluses projected do not materialize. The tax cuts are locked in: $143 billion the first 5 years, $788 billion the second 5 years, $1.66 trillion the third 5 years. They are a certainty. They are locked in. The surpluses are economists' constructs. They may happen. I hope they do, but they may not. If they do not, what happens? What happens? How do we run the government when we do not have enough income tax and other tax revenues? We spend the payroll tax revenues. The problem with that is that the demand upon the Treasury that this bill will make are greatest at the time when Social Security is in greatest need, between 2009 and 2014 when the war babies begin to retire and baby boomers begin to retire. So this resolution says fix this budget resolution in conference. Save Social Security first, save Medicare as well, and then do tax cuts. Mr. Speaker, given what the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) has said, I would say that everyone who votes with this motion to instruct conferees is making a pledge to follow these priorities, making a pledge to follow these procedures, and specifically making a pledge not to bring a tax bill to the floor of the House for consideration until Social Security is assuredly solvent, until Medicare is assuredly solvent, until both of those things are accomplished and enacted. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Speaker, we have come a long way, but we are still a long way apart. Number one, there is a major difference between our position and theirs in the two opposing budget resolutions brought to the Floor of the House 2 weeks ago. First of all, we have a lockbox that works. Theirs has a loose lid and a trap door. We have one that works. It sees that the social security surpluses are used solely for social security. Secondly, over 15 years, we pay down debt by $474 billion. That in itself reinforces the solvency of social security. Thirdly, we came to the Floor with a letter from the chief actuary of the Social Security Administration and made it part of the record of that debate, certifying that our proposal would extend the life, the solvency, of social security until 2052. They have no such plan. They have not added one day to the solvency of social security. And, finally, this is our concern in this resolution. This is our concern that in acting, locking in these huge tax cuts that get bigger and bigger such that in the 5-year period from 2009 until 2014, we will have $1.66 trillion in tax reduction at a time when Social Security will be in duress. What happens if these surpluses do not materialize? What happens to Social Security under the Republican budget? What happens if the surpluses do not materialize and the tax cuts do?

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Speaker, I shudder to follow that eloquence. The gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt) and I grew up 30 miles apart. He is from Charlotte, North Carolina. I am from York, South Carolina. Not Alabama, not Mississippi, but still the segregated south. I was 12 years old in 1954, about 18, 19, 20 years old when the civil rights movement started. And while York County was not the same as Neshoba, Mississippi, when the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) made his first stop in Rock Hill, South Carolina, 13 miles from where I live on the Freedom Rider bus, he was met by thugs in the bus station who took him on, took him down, and he received the first of I guess many batterings on the head, bloodied up badly. But here is the profound point about it and the reason this pilgrimage we made is so important to understanding ourselves as a people and understanding what this movement is about. A police officer, as I recall the story, had been standing on the sidelines watching the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) take the beating, and at some point he sort of interceded and asked him, do you want to prefer charges, which he could have done. And he said, no, I do not have anything against him individually. I am against the system, the oppression, the way it affects white people and black people, causes them to do things like this. I did not come down here to get this man in trouble. I came to lift us all out of this oppression. In that same city of Rock Hill, about the third or fourth series of sit-in strikes developed at the local McCrory's from a small, black Baptist college called Friendship College. It started more or less spontaneously, but they were following what was happening at North Carolina A&T and what was happening at Nashville. And they did the same thing in Rock Hill except they did something different. When they were taken to the county prison, which, believe me, the prison campus is not a place where anybody of any color would want to be, when they were taken there, they did not post bond; they took their toothbrushes with them and they stayed for the duration, 30 days. The significance of what they did was not appreciated by those of us who were outside onlookers. It was not appreciated by me until I read Taylor Branch's book. Because SNCC at that point was just about broke, they did not have money to send bail money up to get these young college students out of jail, and they developed a motto that would exonerate SNCC from having to come up with that money: ``Jail. No bail.'' Now, my colleagues would think that that was just a bunch of hard- headed college kids out to make a point. But the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis), when I asked him about the significance of it, told me, no, that helped us show the world that we were not just a bunch of college kids out fighting for our rights, but it was something more profound here. There is a profoundness of doctrine about civil disobedience, a profoundness of doctrine about nonviolence that we all need to learn in this country today. And that is why this pilgrimage was more than just some symbolic journey. We all need to learn this. Every school child in America grows up and knows what Lexington Green is. He or she should also know what Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham is. Every school child in this country grows up and knows what Concord Bridge is in Massachusetts and what happened there. He or she should know what happened at the Edmund Pettis Bridge, too. It is a part of our history. And the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt) put it far better than I. For 200 years just about, this country professed to be the greatest constitutional democracy in the world. We lived under a Declaration of Independence which guaranteed all men the pursuit of happiness, equality. But it was not true. The Supreme Court of this country said black people were not even people. The Constitution did not even count them. That was the kind of lie that this country lived. And these people, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) and so many others in these places, made America rise up and live out the true meaning of her creed. It was an enormous accomplishment. It was a second American Revolution. No question about it. Back when the Friendship Nine went to the county prison and stayed there, told SNCC they did not want bail, one of the early organizers of the movement in Nashville, Diane Nash, was in Atlanta; and she was so moved by what they did that she drove her car to Rock Hill and got picked up at McCrory's and taken to the county jail, and she stayed there with them just to give them the spirit to persevere. She said something about the movement once when someone had made a paean to Dr. King, who was truly an American hero, no doubt about it. She said, do not make him superhuman. Do not enlarge him beyond the point that he is bigger than life itself. Because if you do, she said, you will misunderstand the meaning of the movement. There were all kinds of people involved in the movement. Rosa Parks stands for the kind of participation that made the movement work, young members like the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis), coming out of a small rural community in Alabama and just following their gut instincts. We made the movement. These people made the movement. And if we understand that, and that is part of what we understand when we go to Selma and Birmingham and Montgomery, if we understand that, we realize that we do not need some big Messianic figure to come lead us down the path to the future; it is our responsibility, all of our responsibilities. And the abiding message in this experience is, we can change this country for the better and it is a responsibility of each of us to do it.