Lynn Westmoreland

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Parliamentary Inquiry.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Could the Speaker tell me what the magic number was that rose in order to get a vote?

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I appreciate the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the debate, and I haven't heard of any way that this is going to be paid for, the 130 something billion dollars over 10 years, except for 45 cent a pack increase in the tax on tobacco. So while I heard some Members over there talking about this is going to be a deterrent to people smoking, you better hope a bunch of people start smoking because you're going to have to sell a ton of cigarettes to come up with $132 billion. But then the closer you look at it, you find out that this is, again, smoke and mirrors from this majority in Congress. What this is going to do in 2011 is actually cut doctors' pay 12 percent. Now, if anybody really believes in this room that we're going to cut doctors' pay by 10 or 12 percent, they're kidding themselves. This is another gimmick, more smoke and mirrors, more illusion for the people of this country. The people of this country are smarter than that. When they recognize what this is, then I think that the majority is going to find out that they do not want the CHUMP bill passed.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. A parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Point of order.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. The same parliamentary inquiry. Is it not true that when the gentleman that is chair of Energy and Commerce----

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Further parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Madam Chairman, further parliamentary inquiry. Is it not true that the chairman of Energy and Commerce came to the floor and never mentioned the amendment that was being discussed?

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Do the rules of this House apply to every Member equally?

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Madam Chairman, do the rules of this House apply the same to every Member of the House?

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Parliamentary inquiry, Madam Chairman.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Speaker, I am trying to get a point of clarification from you. The parliamentary inquiry is, is it true that this bill could be reported back to the committee and reported back to this House on the next legislative day?

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Further parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker. I am not talking about any bill.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Speaker, is it true that this bill, this bill, if this motion passes to this bill and this bill is promptly reported back to the committee, is it possible under the rules of this House that this bill could be reported back to this House the next legislative day?

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Speaker, further parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry, a point of clarification.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Speaker, further parliamentary inquiry. Is there any rule that would preclude a bill going back to committee and the committee reporting it back the next legislative day?

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Speaker, is it not true that if indeed this motion passed, that this bill could be reported back to the respective committee from which it was assigned and passed out, and that the bill could be reported back to the House tomorrow?

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentlelady for yielding. I rise in support of her amendment. Mr. Chairman, I want to tell a story for you and other people that might be listening about a gentleman who was a wide receiver for the Atlanta Falcons. His name was Alex Hawkins. One night he didn't come home. He had a history of maybe carousing around and staying out a little bit too late. He didn't come home one night, so he snuck in the door early the next morning, and his wife said, ``Hawk, where have you been?'' He said, ``Well, I got in kind of late last night and didn't want to wake you up, and I fell asleep outside in the hammock on the porch.'' She said, ``Alex, that hammock has been gone for a year.'' He looked kind of puzzled and he said, ``Well, Honey, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.'' That is what the other side is doing. They have a story, and they are sticking to it. I want to give you, Mr. Chairman, a math problem. Other people who want to work this math problem can, too, but I want to give you a math problem. If you take $53.6 billion and you multiply it times 0.025 percent, Mr. Chairman, will you get more than $53.6 billion? I think you will. I think it will be an increase over that number. So what this amendment does, it gives an increase over last year's spending. Now, did the FBI come in and say, We don't need any more money? I doubt it. So really and truly, if you want to take the kind of logic that the majority is taking because they can't do math very well, then the FBI could have come in and said, You know what? We want $10 billion more. Well, I can't give you that. So in reality, they are cutting the FBI from the request that they made even though they are getting more money. Now, this is fuzzy math, I know, and, Mr. Chairman, for any young people that might be listening to this, I hope you don't get confused. I know all these speeches are somewhat, Mr. Chairman, like an algebra problem, but we are asking, this is an increase? It is an increase over last year for these FBI agents and these police officers. It is not a cut. I don't know how else to explain it. And, you know, I'm sure that Alex Hawkins knew that his wife knew that he was lying, but that was his story, and he's sticking to it. The same thing goes to the majority party. The sad part about this, Mr. Chairman, is when we're all going to realize the truth, and many of us realize it's the truth now, it is when the taxpayers of this country and those family budgets are getting judged.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I thank my friend for yielding. I just want to clear up one thing. Let's clear the smoke out of the room here and put some facts in the discussion. The Clinton administration awarded the Halliburton contract. Mr. Cheney only extended it. The Bush administration only extended it after trouble in the Middle East broke out.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I want to thank the gentleman for bringing this amendment. It's interesting to hear about all the savings that the majority party, Mr. Chairman, claims that they have saved. I'm interested to get to the debate on the farm bill so we can hear of all the savings that's in it, and we will see how the next tax increase is going to be explained as some type of offset, or, as they have done so well this whole 110th Congress, is the smoke-and-mirror thing. They do a great job with it. I believe when people do a good job, they should be complimented. I've never seen an illusionist as good, especially convincing people that they are actually getting something accomplished. If this Congress really wants to get something accomplished, we'll pass the amendment from Mr. Jordan, because it's real savings to the taxpayers of $1.6 billion. Now, in the scheme of things, and I never thought I would be up here long enough to say that that's a small amount of money compared to the amount of money that we spend in Congress, but it is a reasonable savings. And not only that, but it's an important first step, the first time in the 110th Congress, and really, I think, probably one of the first times up here that we've actually saved some money, and there's nothing wrong with that. And even though it's a small start, it's a good start. This bill is $3.2 billion above last year, or a little over 3 percent more than it was last year. And while it's a modest increase, a 3 percent increase, I think that we would do much better going back to last year's level and learning to live within that means, Mr. Chairman, than trying to expand the programs.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

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

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Chairman, I missed in the rule book where you needed to call any Member or anything to discuss an amendment that you might have, and I apologize for not reading that chapter in the rule book. And, Mr. Chairman, I think I was raised very appropriately from a family that had to watch their money. My father worked two jobs. He was an Atlanta firefighter, and he worked shifts. In one week he'd be gone, work at the fire department during the day and then he'd be home at night. And then the next week he worked surveying during the day and the fire station at night, so we didn't see him for a week at a time. And he would watch every dollar that he had, and I think he did a great job in raising me and my sister and providing for our family. He never really asked for anything from the government, and so I guess that I'm very careful about some of the ways that we spend our money, and especially when it is on a program that I look at as a set- aside program. And whether the gentleman from Hawaii or the lady from Hawaii look at it as a set-aside or not, I don't know. That's their right. And I understand that they may know some things that I don't know. And I can just look at this as a Member of Congress and look at see what the Congresses have done in the past. And for some reason, Mr. Chairman, the tendency for the majority party now is to tell me and other Members that stand up here and try to look after the taxpayers' dollars what the Republicans did. I don't care what the Republicans did. What they did, what other people did in the past doesn't make what we're doing today right or wrong. And so all I'm doing is bringing up the point that this is a set- aside for somebody, for a group of people that are not Native Americans. They're not an Indian tribe. This is a race group, and that's as simple as it is. Now, we can argue all the points that we want to argue, and the learned gentleman from Hawaii is a very smart guy. I know he's probably a doctor in sociology. And he can come down here and talk negatively about me if he wants to. That's his prerogative. But I was asking a learned defense attorney one day, I said, you know, what does it feel like to have a client that you're trying to defend, and all the information and the facts are against you? He said, you know what, you just have to really get up and talk as loud as you can and really be as mad as you can and really talk about anything other than the facts. And I know I've seen that on a couple of occasions here from different people. And so all I'm asking is that we have a chance, in this House, to vote on this amendment. And I think it's fair that we vote on this amendment; that we vote on this amendment to try to decide if we want to give another $8.7 million, and regardless of what they've gotten from the Republican Congress since 2002, that we could start anew. And so I think it's worthwhile that we can offer an amendment that we can have a vote on trying to take a special set-aside for a racial group to have something different than the rest of the people in this country have.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Speaker, the Representatives in these hallowed halls of Congress come from every corner of the United States, and our pallets and diets are as varied as our accents. When I say ``barbecue'' here in Washington that means something totally different to people from different parts of this country. In Texas, barbecue is beef. To others, barbecue is pretty much anything cooked on a grill. But in my home State of Georgia and in surrounding southern States, barbecue means only one thing: pit-cooked pork. Americans concerned about the ``McDonald's-ization'' of this Nation need only come down South for some fine barbecue cuisine. While pork is always at the base of southern barbecue, the secret is in the sauce and in the sides. Drive a hundred-mile radius from any barbecue joint in the South and the meal and preparation will probably be totally different. In parts of the Carolinas, you're more likely to get mustard-based sauce while pretty much throughout Georgia the sauce of choice is vinegar-based. In east Georgia, your side might be hash and rice; in west Georgia where I live, you'll probably get a side of Brunswick stew. One thing that's always the same: No matter where you go in the South, the locals think their brand of barbecue beats out the rest. Residents of Fayette County in Georgia's Third Congressional District have dined on pork barbecue and Brunswick stew and sweet tea at Melear's Barbecue for 50 years this month. Restaurants make their profits pennies on the plate and they have to sell a lot of plates to stay in business. The majority of eateries go out of business within 2 years of opening. To survive for 25 times that long testifies to the Melear family's good business sense, yes, but also to their good barbecue. The fine Southern cuisine isn't Melear's only draw; it's also a neighborhood gathering spot for the people of Fayetteville. It's where local city council members, county commissioners and sheriff's deputies meet up to plot plans, and it's where aspiring politicians running statewide in Georgia head to shake hands with the community's leaders. Melear's is a special barbecue restaurant in that it's open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I confess that as a longtime homebuilder in Fayette County, there was a time when I started every day off right with a heaping breakfast served up by Kenny Melear. The people of Fayette County and I personally am thankful for 50 years of fine meals and good company at Melear's. I congratulate Kenny and his family for a half-century of success and send best wishes for a half-century more. And with those best wishes, I'd like a barbecue plate with Brunswick stew and a big glass of sweet tea.