Pat Toomey

Mr. TOOMEY

Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. I would just make the following observation, Mr. Chairman. Most of us on both sides of the aisle talk a pretty good game about fiscal discipline. Here is the opportunity to walk the walk. This substitute budget slows down the growth rate of government spending. It has more in tax cuts to get this economy growing again. It reaches a balance faster than any other budget that is considered today on the floor. It does so within 4 years. It is endorsed by Americans for Tax Reform and Citizens Against Government Waste. For any of our colleagues who are serious about getting our deficit under control, I urge a ``yes'' vote on this substitute.

Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg).

Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Chairman, I apologize to the gentleman from South Carolina. That was the one mistake I just made. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Akin).

Mr. TOOMEY

Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to discuss briefly the derivative transactions which this amendment addresses. I should point out that with the possible exceptions of mutual funds, derivatives contracts, including over-the- counter derivatives, are perhaps the most important, creative and innovative development in finance in the last 30 years. Derivatives are financial contracts used by parties wishing to hedge the risk of fluctuations in the value of some commodity, often a financial commodity such as interest rates.

Mr. TOOMEY. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

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

Mr. TOOMEY

Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support for this rule, and as a cosponsor and strong supporter of H.R. 534, and I urge my colleagues to vote against the substitute amendment. As the President stated just a few weeks ago, ``Because no human life should be started or ended as the object of an experiment, I ask you to set a high standard for humanity, and pass a law against all human cloning.'' I am certainly very sympathetic to all those who suffer from incurable or chronic afflictions, and we are all committed to helping find cures. I understand the good intentions of those who advocate human cloning in the hope that research on these clones might yield cures for major illnesses. But for a variety of reasons, both technical and ethical, I believe it is wrong to pursue this approach. On the technical level, the evidence suggests that cloned human embryos are not likely to yield cures for major illnesses. Hopes to the contrary are just not well founded and they provide false hopes for the afflicted. Supporters of human cloning for research purposes have proposed limitations which they claim will prevent a cloned baby from being born, but they would allow cloned embryos to develop indefinitely, as long as they are outside of a woman's womb. Where will this end? The process of transferring a somatic cell nucleus into an enucleated egg produces a human embryo that has the potential to be implanted in utero and developed to term. In others words, the embryo produced for the purpose of therapeutic cloning, as some call it, is biologically indistinguishable from an embryo intended for reproduction. It is a human life, at a very early stage of development, of course, but entirely human nevertheless. Thus, creating cloned human embryos for research purposes means creating human life for the purpose of research and with the intent of destroying it. This commodification and exploitation strikes me as a profound undermining of our society's sense of human dignity, and in doing so, it undermines our very humanity. Again, I urge a vote in favor of the rule, against the substitute amendment, and in favor of H.R. 534.

Mr. TOOMEY

Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to offer congratulations and thanks to Mr. Richard Biolsi, Chief Operating Officer of KidsPeace, one of America's most comprehensive children's mental health charities which is headquartered in the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania. Rich is retiring this year after 34 years of dedicated service to America's youth. Over that span, Rich has served as a social worker, Vice President for Programs, Executive Vice-President for Programs, interim Chief Executive Officer, and Chief Operating Officer for KidsPeace. When he began his career with KidsPeace in 1969, the fledgling service organization was caring for only 35 children in a run-down home with very few resources. Now, 34 years later, KidsPeace directly cares for nearly 3,000 children at more than 50 centers across the country. What once was a single-home orphanage for children in the Lehigh Valley has become one of the most comprehensive children's mental health charities in the nation that has helped millions of children in every state of our nation, on overseas military bases, and in 70 foreign countries. Many of these accomplishments, in no small part, can be attributed to Rich's efforts and strategic organizational leadership. From the development of six major residential campuses in four states, the establishment of the KidsPeace Hospital, and the creation of a unique and effective foster care program that provides homes for children in crisis in nine states, Rich has been an integral component of KidsPeace's success. Rich's accomplishments extend well beyond the borders of KidsPeace. In 2001, he was named Social Worker of the Year by the National Association of Social Workers. KidsPeace estimates that during his distinguished career, Rich and the programs he has created and overseen have directly cared for nearly 80,000 children in emotional crisis. So today, Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize the outstanding dedication of Mr. Richard Biolsi to America's most vulnerable children. His commitment to excellence has enriched the lives of each of the children he cared for. I offer congratulations on his outstanding career, and the thanks of a grateful nation.

Mr. TOOMEY

Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to share my Report from Pennsylvania for my colleagues and the American people. All across Pennsylvania's 15th Congressional District there are some amazing people who do good things to make our communities a better place. These are individuals of all ages who truly make a difference and help others. I like to call these individuals Lehigh Valley Heroes for their good deeds and efforts. Today, I would like to recognize Mrs. Grace Hart O'Boyle of Bethlehem. Mrs. O'Boyle is a prime example of someone who has devoted her life to the betterment of our communities. Mrs. O'Boyle served the Bethlehem City Schools as a teacher at Northeast Junior High and was an active participant in the city's summer school program for many decades. Despite commitments to Brownie troops and other youth organizations, Mrs. O'Boyle found time to raise a family and her strong commitment to education and the community is reflected in her own children's education-based careers. While most would relax in their retirement, Mrs. O'Boyle saw her retirement only as an opportunity to help her community. She continued to substitute teach and was a member of Bethlehem's Professional Woman's Association, American Association of University Women, and served with various other Organizations. Mrs. O'Boyle is marked by her humbleness and devotion, which she exhibited on her 80th birthday. Instead of accepting the flowers and gifts that usually mark such an occasion, Mrs. O'Boyle established a Scholarship fund to help bright, dedicated students at her local parish school. Mrs. O'Boyle stands out as an example of the effect one person can have upon their community and for this she is a Lehigh Valley Hero in my book. Mr. Speaker, this concludes my Report from Pennsylvania.

Mr. TOOMEY

Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share two patriotic poems with my colleagues entitled ``A Veteran'' and ``Remember Me?'' These poems were brought to my attention by a constituent of mine, Gerald Grimm of the Lehigh County Council of the American Legion. A Veteran What is a veteran, just look around Right where you've standing, He fought for that ground. A Vet is a person, who answered the call Who went into war, and gave it his all. He defended a way of life that we love, But much preferred peace, Like the way of the dove. He asked not the reason, as he stood in his trench He faltered not once, in the muck and the stench As soldiers in legions, they stood side by side, They knew some would fall, as many more died. They whispered their prayers, in a helmet of sweat, Shells bursting above, wouldn't let them forget. Tears in their eyes, as their friend lays so still, One hour ago, he was king of the hill. Many more wounded, spilling their life, When will it end, this battle of strife? For many, the battles, never will end, Now they're civilians, and find they can't blend. Some are disabled, and some are disturbed, After coming from hell, they find they've been curbed. A veteran is special, to be not denied, He put it up front, he need never hide. Now is the time, to honor our vets, Remember their pain, don't ever forget. Remember them now, and give them their due, Stand by their side, cause they did it for you.

Mr. TOOMEY

Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, clearly, the most painful and difficult and important decision that any of us here in Congress will ever face is the decision to send young men and women to war, knowing, as we all do, that many will be injured, some will die, as will, sadly, but unavoidably, soldiers and civilians in the country we are fighting. So we have an obligation to think very long and hard and wrestle with many questions, including those that have been raised by a number of my friends and colleagues who oppose this resolution, and to consider those questions before we take that decision. I wanted to reflect on two questions that have been raised several times today in this debate. First is the question of whether or not Saddam Hussein poses a sufficient and a sufficiently imminent threat to Americans to justify American military action against his regime. Let us consider what we know for facts. First, we know he has massive stockpiles of chemical weapons, we know he has huge stockpiles of biological weapons, and we know he has full- scale and urgent programs under way to develop nuclear weapons, as well. No one disputes that he has these terrible weapons. So the next question becomes, well, is there much chance that he would ever consider using them against us? Well, consider this is a regime that has invaded its neighbors without provocation, resulting in untold thousands of deaths; that Saddam Hussein has ordered chemical attacks on Iran, and on more than 40 villages in his own country, resulting in the death of his own people. In the last year alone, the Iraqi military has fired upon American and British pilots more than 750 times. He has repeatedly expressed his deep hatred of the United States. Also, Iraq is and continues to harbor terrorists and to finance terrorism. Given his weapons, his history, his threats, and his relationships with known terrorists, my question is, How could we possibly sit back and just wait? The first and most important responsibility of the Federal Government is to protect the lives of our citizens, and the catastrophe that would result if he used weapons of mass destruction on Americans is so great that we simply cannot risk that event. Now, the President has described Saddam Hussein as presenting a grave and gathering threat. I think he aptly invokes the term that Winston Churchill used in the title of the first volume of his seminal series on the history of World War II, which he called ``The Gathering Storm.'' Hitler and the Nazis were, in the 1930s, a gathering threat; and today Saddam Hussein is a gathering threat, gathering in the sense that it is a growing, accumulating, worsening threat and becoming more and more dangerous as his weapons grow in size and sophistication. For these reasons, I believe that the threat is sufficient and sufficiently imminent that, should we fail to eliminate that threat, we would be shirking that first and foremost responsibility that we have to protect our fellow citizens. Others have suggested that, unless we get permission for this action from the U.N., we would basically lack the legal and moral authority to use military force. Mr. Speaker, to that I respond that our Constitution does not delegate to the U.N. responsibility to provide for the common defense of our citizens. That is our responsibility. We would be wrong to abdicate that responsibility. While I hope that we get a strong resolution from the U.N., and I hope we have a broad international coalition to support this effort, if we cannot get that broad support, our responsibility is to proceed with those allies who will join us. Still others have suggested that using the Armed Forces to preempt an adversary is without precedent in American history. That is just factually wrong. On other occasions, including in 1962 when the United States Government imposed a naval blockade of Cuba, it did so to prevent a threat from emerging. There are many other legitimate questions, Mr. Speaker; and I have tried to evaluate them honestly and dispassionately. The conclusion that I keep coming to is that this is a grave and gathering threat that is simply too dangerous and could result in too many lost American lives, should we ignore it any longer. We have tried diplomacy, embargoes, inspectors, all forms of political and economic pressure; and all the while the threat has gathered and grown. We cannot afford to wait any longer. Unless Saddam Hussein immediately, completely, openly acknowledges and destroys all of his weapons of mass destruction and allows immediate, unfettered access to really every inch of his country, to weapons inspectors that can operate freely, whenever, wherever, without providing notice, failure to do that means we must achieve this disarmament by force. That is what this resolution authorizes the President to do. That is why I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. TOOMEY

Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge my colleagues to support H.R. 4685, the Accountability for Tax Dollars Act. Mr. Speaker, I first introduced this bill actually in the 106th Congress as a good government measure to combat waste, fraud, and abuse at Federal agencies. I reintroduced this legislation in this Congress with bipartisan support. The Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial Management and Intergovernmental Affairs of the Committee on Government Reform then held a hearing and a markup of the bill before reporting it out favorably. And I want to thank very much the subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn), not only for his support for this legislation, without his help we would not have this bill on the floor today, but in addition to that help, I want to thank him for his career-long commitment to improving the operations of government, improving the management and effectiveness and efficiency, as well as the accountability, of government. The gentleman from California deserves to be recognized for that commitment. Mr. Speaker, I decided to introduce this legislation when I discovered, much to my surprise, that actually a majority of Federal agencies are not required by law to prepare audited financial statements even though, of course, we mandate that publicly traded private enterprises do in fact perform such audited financial statements. This strikes me as unacceptable for several reasons: first, the agencies themselves really need reliable financial statements in order to evaluate their own operations and operate efficiently. But, secondly, Congress has an important oversight responsibility over all of these agencies. And we cannot conduct that oversight properly if we do not have reliable financial information. Thirdly, taxpayers themselves ought to be able to look at financial information that they can rely upon so they can evaluate whether their Federal tax dollars are being used appropriately and efficiently. Finally, the government ought to be willing to impose upon itself those mandates that we are willing and able to impose on the private sector. It is a little bit ironic that Federal law requires, as I said, that publicly traded private companies file audited financial statements with whom? With the SEC. The SEC, who ironically is not required to prepare such audits on themselves. It is interesting Congress did not formally require that any agency prepare audits on its financial statements until fiscal year 1996. And even then we only required 24 of the largest agencies, those covered by the Chief Financial Officers Act, to perform these audits. The list of agencies that do not audit their financial statements includes large agencies charged with very significant regulatory and fiduciary responsibilities, including the Federal Communications Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the National Labor Relations Board, just to name a few. Well, in the process of evaluating this issue, I asked the General Accounting Office to survey agencies which are not required to prepare audited financial statements in order that we could learn a little bit about them, and specifically to determine what degree of effort would be required for agencies to implement this requirement, and also whether non-CFO agencies that voluntarily do audit their own financial statements, and there are a number of do, whether they have realized benefits from having done so. The GAO study was very interesting. It found out that, first of all, the surveyed agencies reported they either achieved significant benefits or anticipated achieving major benefits from auditing their financial statements. Twenty-one of the 26 largest agencies that are not required to audit their financial statements thought that the Federal agencies in fact should be required to audit these financial statements. All of the surveyed agencies that have voluntarily adopted a standard of auditing their statements reported significant benefits, including enhanced accountability, greater ability to identify inefficiencies and weaknesses, improved internal controls, compliance with statutory requirements, and better monitoring of assets and liabilities. Probably the most convincing result of the GAO survey was the fact that almost all of the agencies that do not prepare audited financial statements reported that the absence of a statutory requirement was the main reason for not doing such an audit. So what does H.R. 4685 actually do? Well, the Accountability of Tax Dollars Act of 2002 would extend the CFO act requirements currently imposed on the major agencies to all Federal agencies. The act then gives the Office of Management and Budget the authority to waive the audit requirements for agencies with annual budgets less than $25 million. And I share the chairman's hope that this provision will be seldom, if ever, invoked. Now to ease the transition of this new requirement, the Office of Management and Budget director will be given discretion for the first 2 years to waive the application of this provision for those agencies where he deems it necessary. The agencies covered by this bill have a combined annual budget of tens of billions of dollars, huge significant sums of money that simply should be accounted for more rigorously. In summary, Mr. Speaker, in our current climate of budget constraints, a Federal agency really should be able to demonstrate measurable outcomes and demonstrate it with audited financial statements. Audits make an agency's transactions public so that an agency can be evaluated on how well their programs perform; and how well they are fulfilling their mission, rewarding the successful agencies, and, frankly, withholding resources from those who are failing can only be achieved if we have complete and audited financial information on which we can rely to make our judgments. Mr. Speaker, I believe that H.R. 4685 takes us one step closer to achieving this goal. Both the GAO and the administration support this bill. It was introduced with bipartisan support. I would like to thank my colleague from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kanjorski) for being an original cosponsor of this bill. I also want to thank the GAO for their work in looking into this issue, and my staff for the hard work that they did in determining an appropriate response to this. I relied on the expertise of the GAO and the staff and their insights regarding the costs and benefits of implementing this rule. Once again, I want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn) for making it possible to have this bill on the floor today. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this important good government legislation.

Mr. TOOMEY

Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this rule and in support of the continuing resolution. I have listened to some of the debate this morning and have heard a number of my Democratic colleagues harshly critical of this continuing resolution. I do not know whether they intend to vote for the continuing resolution or not; but as we all know, a vote against the continuing resolution is a vote to shut down the government. And while we are struggling to finish this appropriations process, and it is a struggle, today the Republicans are going to make it very clear that we do not think that we should shut down the government while we work out the differences that we still have. So we are going to pass this continuing resolution today. I hope we have support from my Democratic colleagues on that. Judging from the discussion so far this morning, I am not terribly optimistic; but I hope we will because, as I said, we should keep the government open while we resolve these differences. As always for the CR itself, frankly, I would not write it. If it were up to me, I would not write it exactly this way, but it is a short term CR; it does not take us terribly long into the future. Hopefully, it will take us past the time in which the defense appropriations bill will be signed into law. That is about half of the discretionary spending in this process, and that will give us a chance to revisit this issue. And if we have not worked out the rest of the appropriations bills, we can refine and improve and hopefully perfect the continuing resolution that might be required at that point. If we can do that, I will support that CR. If we cannot improve it and correct the flaws, then I will vote against that continuing resolution. But the point is as we go through this process we Republicans are responsibly trying to struggle through a difficult process to work out our differences and pass the spending bills necessary for this government. And it is a difficult process for a simple reason. We think there ought to be some budgetary restraints. We think there is a point at which we have got to say to the American people what we have said twice on this floor when we have passed the budget resolution, a second time when we have passed the deeming resolution acknowledging that as an operative budget. What we said is we have got huge new needs for funding this war on terrorism. We have got huge new expenses we have got to incur to protect our homeland. And given those huge new expenses which we all accept, we have got to tighten our belts in some of the other areas of government where we cannot afford to keep growing all of these programs at three, four and five times the rate of inflation, as we have in recent years. What we are simply saying is we need a little bit of restraint in these other areas of government. Now, there would be an easy solution to this and it is the solution that would draw a tremendous majority of votes on the Democratic side of this aisle, and that would be to forget about the budget and just spend a whole lot more. Maybe we could just agree to whatever number is being floated at the other end of this building or maybe a higher number still because the objection on this side of the aisle is that we are not spending enough money. Well, my colleagues, we have been spending too much money for too long. We have got legitimate needs in defense and homeland security. It is time to tighten our belts in the other areas. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the continuing resolution and continue this struggle for a responsible budget.

Mr. TOOMEY

Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to share my Report from Pennsylvania for my colleagues and the American people. All across Pennsylvania's 15th Congressional District there are some amazing people who do good things to make our communities a better place. These are individuals of all ages who truly make a difference and help others. I like to call these individuals Lehigh Valley Heroes for their good deeds and efforts. Today, I would like to recognize Mrs. Grace Hart O'Boyle of Bethlehem. Mrs. O'Boyle is a prime example of someone who has devoted her life to the betterment of our communities. Mrs. O'Boyle served Bethlehem Township as a junior high school, business and English teacher and was an active participant in the city's summer school program for many decades. Despite commitments to Brownie troops and other youth organizations, Mrs. O'Boyle found time to raise a family and her strong commitment to education and the community is reflected in her own children's education-based careers. While most would relax in their retirement, Mrs. O'Boyle saw her retirement only as an opportunity to help her community. She continued to substitute teach and was a member of Bethlehem's Professional Woman's Association, American Association of University Women, and served with various other Organizations. Mrs. O'Boyle is marked by her humbleness and devotion, which she exhibited on her 80th birthday. Instead of accepting the flowers and gifts that usually mark such an occasion, Mrs. O'Boyle established a Scholarship fund to help bright, needy students at her local parish school. Mrs. O'Boyle stands out as an example of the effect one person can have upon their community and for this she is a Lehigh Valley Hero in my book. Mr. Speaker, this concludes my Report from Pennsylvania.

Mr. TOOMEY

Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, the outright fraud of the recent accounting scandals constitutes theft that is appalling in nature and staggering in size. Millions of honest hardworking Americans who played by the rules, made sacrifices so that they could save and invest, saw those investments devastated when they were lied to by senior executives who cooked the books for their own personal gains. Fact is, we have been robbed; and the outrage is justified. But, today, Congress will pass tough legislation to begin to restore confidence, to start to provide new protections for small investors, workers and pension holders. Mr. Speaker, as you know, we passed a strong bill in this House last April. I am very happy that we finally got a product from the other body in July and we were able very quickly to reach a consensus and pass this tough historic legislation that will just take us closer to that vital goal that we are trying to accomplish, which is greater transparency and truthfulness in financial reporting. I would just want to remind my colleagues that despite the calamities that we have recently seen, our free enterprise system is still the greatest wealth- producing, poverty-destroying, opportunity-creating system in the history of the world. And with these reforms, our system will start to recover the confidence that it deserves from investors in America and all around the world. Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley), the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaFalce), and the other members of the conference committee for getting this job done quickly.

Mr. TOOMEY

Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for yielding to me. I would say to the gentleman from Tennessee, we do have a number of additional amendments which we would certainly reserve the right to introduce. However, we recognize many Members have important amendments, and in the interest of cooperation here and in giving everybody their opportunity, we would agree to not object to any agreements on time limits on the amendments that the gentleman would like to offer in title I, provided that when the gentleman finishes with his amendment, the committee rises without closing out title I.

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

Mr. TOOMEY. I object, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TOOMEY

Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Chairman, I would like to begin this discussion with just a brief commendation of my own for the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen) who has provided such a great service to his constituents, to his State, and to America for many, many years. I think it is appropriate and fitting that he was recognized for the outstanding work that he has done over many years. I am sure that very much of what is in this bill I would be happy to agree with. And let me start with recognition that the funds that are in here to fight the forest fires are an important topic for us to consider. First of all, there is no question this has been a devastating season for forest fires. It has been incredibly costly, and devastating to many Americans. The point I want to make is we should not be putting this into this bill, an appropriation bill for fiscal year 2003. We should be putting this into the supplemental bill, which is long overdue, which would make the funds available much sooner, whatever the appropriate amount is. That is what we ought to be doing with the firefighting, and I think some Members on the other side of the aisle and our side probably agree with that. But the bigger issue is the path that we are on, the path that this bill takes us down, in terms of overall spending. That is a path that will bust the budget that we adopted in this House, a budget which we later confirmed with a deeming resolution on this floor, and a budget that the President has indicated that he fully supports. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) I think very accurately agreed with my assessment. In his comments during the discussion of rule, he talked about the fact that the big bills, the bills that are in many ways more difficult to pass, they have been rather low-balled, certainly with respect to the President's request. Funds have been taken from them and added to these earlier bills, the bills like Interior and Agriculture and Treasury-Postal. By loading up these bills, he can probably pass them because bills are easier to pass with the more spending there is. But the problem is we will get to the end of this cycle, and we will find, as the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) observed, that we do not have the votes to pass those bills. Now the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and I would probably disagree what we ought to do about this dilemma, but we agree that we have a fundamental dilemma here. I would suggest that the chairman of the Committee on the Budget confirm that he has a concern about this process, a concern that some of these smaller bills have been added to make them easier to pass, but making it harder to pass the final ones. I think this is a very serious concern. The fact is in recent years, spending has been out of control. The Federal Government has grown much faster than the rate of inflation, much faster than the rate of economic growth of our country. In fact, in recent years it has approached an average rate of 9 percent per year. When that happens, the Federal Government is squeezing out the private sector, it is undermining the performance of our economy, and it is very harmful for our future because now, sadly, it is also contributing to a deficit. We worked so hard for so many years to get this budget in balance, and we did it. We started paying down the debt. We did that, Mr. Chairman, by restraining spending. When spending is out of control, we will stay in deficits and go deeper in deficits. We learned just yesterday that we are now facing for fiscal year 2002 a budget deficit of about $165 billion. There is a reason for that. We are fighting a war. We have got a war that is extremely costly. We have to rebuild the defense capabilities of our Nation from years of neglect. We need to put a lot of money into defense. That is appropriate. We also have vulnerabilities here. We have vulnerabilities to future terrorist attacks, and we need to spend money to enhance ourselves to defend ourselves against those attacks, or to respond, God forbid, if they should occur. These are big expenses, and we have to accept them. It is all the more reason that we have to tighten our belts in the other areas so we can get back to the budget surpluses that we want to return to. If we keep spending too much money, we will never get there. The reason we are in the dilemma we are in today, we have built the spending base up too high, and now we are adding to it. Mr. Chairman, I have offered an amendment that simply says let us take a management fund, funds that are used to pay salaries and other administrative costs for the Bureau of Land Management, and let us reduce that back down to the level it would be at today if only we had grown spending on this account since 1996 at the rate of inflation. In other words, if we said the rate of inflation is an appropriate spending increase each and every year, we would be at the level that I am proposing in my amendment. Instead, we are much higher than that in the underlying bill. My amendment would have the effect of reducing spending by $162,254,000, bringing us that much closer to getting this budget in balance and getting back to the surpluses that we ought to return to.

Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. TOOMEY. I object, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Chairman, I do not know exactly how many amendments we have. I would be happy to step off the floor and have this discussion, and see if we can reach an agreement on this vote. I am not prepared to do that at the moment.

Mr. TOOMEY

Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington for yielding me the time, and I rise this afternoon reluctantly to oppose the rule that we have before us today, and I want to cite a couple of problems that I see with the rule. The first is actually, in my judgment, not the biggest of the problems that we have. The first, however, does require, I think, some observation, and that is, that we have added $700 million to this as an emergency measure to fight fires, apparently. This has been done despite the fact that there is no such request from the administration. This has been done despite the fact that evidently most, if not all, the fires are out, and although there probably is some need for some firefighting funds, this is probably considerably more than what is needed. Frankly, where this belongs, and there probably is a need for some funds for firefighting, but it should be on the supplemental, and that is where we should be doing this kind of thing. In fact, the President, it is my understanding, has offered to put it on the supplemental, and to find offsets so that we can do that supplemental, get it done, get it done at the level that the President has asked and that the House has passed. The point that I want to make is that there is another place for the appropriate number. I do not think that is the appropriate number. I do not think this is the appropriate place. I think it ought to be on the supplemental which, by the way, I do not know what is holding up the supplemental. It has been something like 120 days, and we still have not been able to get that done. That is the small problem that I see with this rule and this bill. This larger problem is that this bill puts us on a path to bust the budget, and I think that that is a big, big mistake. We passed a budget on this floor, basically passed it twice, once as a budget resolution. A second time, we deemed that resolution to be the operative budget since we never got a budget out of the Senate and, in addition, the President has indicated that he wants to stick with the House-passed budget. I think we owe it to the American people that we do stick to that budget. Let us think about this. We have a war under way. There are huge costs to that war. We have vulnerabilities that require huge expenditures for homeland defense and for security, completely legitimate and important. We are no longer able to set aside the surplus from Social Security as we did, as the Republican-controlled Congress did for a number of years. We are now running a deficit and we are told just yesterday that that deficit for this year alone will be approximately $165 billion. Yet this bill, if we proceed as it is currently contemplated, virtually assures us that we are not even going to stick to the budget that we passed, and let me explain why. The reason is that the allocation of the total amount of spending that we agreed in the budget resolution, the allocation amongst the 13 appropriation bills, contemplates significant increases in spending much above and beyond the President's request, way above and beyond last year's level, on a handful of bills that are generally relatively easy to pass and that the plan is to pass them early. Well, they will pass easily, bills like Interior and Agriculture and Treasury Postal, where there are big plus-ups above and beyond the President's request. The problem is to make the numbers add up. The assumption is that we are going to be able to pass Labor, Health and Human Services and VA, HUD, and Commerce-Justice-State, the assumption is that we are going to pass those bills at lower levels, and we know realistically that is not going to happen. So if we are serious about delivering on the budget resolution that we voted to, that we adopted in this House and that the President wants us to stick with, if we are serious about that, and by all means we should be, then we need to stop this process right now and rethink these 302(b) allocations. Maybe I am all mistaken and maybe this is just not the case at all and that every one of these bills can and will be brought out and we will pass it and that is the intention here. If so, then I would suggest let us start with the hard ones, not the easy ones. Why do we not start off with CJS right now, why do we not do VA-HUD, why do we not do Labor-HHS now, rather than at the end of this process, when in all past years when we get to the end, we shrug our shoulders and say, imagine that, there is not enough money to pass these bills, and then we bust the budget. At this time when we are running the deficits that we are, when we have the vital challenges facing our Nation to equip our men and women in uniform, to protect our homeland from the threats that it faces, we cannot afford big increases in bills that are not as vital, and so I urge my colleagues to vote against this rule.