Lynn Westmoreland

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Chairman, I have a point of order.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Chairman, I just heard some great news down here. We have cut 250 programs. I'm excited because, you know, I used to be in the construction business, and one time we had a superintendent that was not getting his job done, not performing, not getting the houses built on time. And the gentleman we worked for went in one day and he said, Jerry, I want you to go out there and I want you to fire somebody. And Jerry said, Who do you want me to fire? And he said, I don't care. Just fire somebody so they will know who's in charge. We need to fire somebody. We need to cut something somewhere. And I am excited to hear that we have cut 250 programs at a savings to the taxpayers of $6 billion because, what that means to the taxpayers, Mr. Chairman, is that now we've only spent $80 billion more than we did in 2007. So we took the first step in a long, long journey to get down to where we get back to the level of 2007. I hope that the chairman, Mr. Chairman, of appropriations, the full Appropriations Committee, will supply every Member in this body a list of the 250 programs that have been cut, because I want to see that. I want to be able to take that back home to my constituents and say, You know what? We are cutting the size of government. And here are the 250 programs that we've cut. Now, what I would also like for him to bring me when he brings me the 250 programs that we have cut, I hope that he will bring me a list of the other programs in the other expansion of government that we have done to spend another $80 billion. Now, Mr. Chairman, a lot of people may not understand how much a billion dollars is. If you spent a dollar a day, no, if you spent a dollar a second, a dollar a second, it would take you 31\1/2\ years to spend a billion dollars; 31\1/2\ years to spend a billion dollars if you spent a dollar a second. Mr. Chairman, I hope the people of America know that we have spent $80 billion more than we did last year. That scares me. That scares me not only for me. It scares me for my children. It scares me for my grandchildren. And it scares me for my great grandchildren. And so I hope that somewhere we'll fire somebody, just one person, one cut that we can make and let the people of America see it.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank my colleague for yielding. Congressman Jack Flynt was a lifelong resident of Spalding County in my district. After gaining a bachelor's degree at the University of Georgia and a law degree at George Washington University, a young Jack Flynt enlisted in the Army Reserves. He fought the war in France, won a Bronze Star, and retired as a colonel in the Reserves. After serving his Nation at war and in the Congress, Congressman Flynt came home to Griffin for the last 20 years of his life and he continued working in his hometown community. On behalf of the people of my district, the Third District of Georgia, and the great State of Georgia, I thank Congressman Flynt for his lifetime of service, and our thoughts and prayers are with his wife and family.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Chairman, rule XX, clause 2(a) says that no vote will be held open to change the outcome.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Chairman, if I understand it correctly, the rule XX, clause 2(a) was put into effect to keep votes open and keep people from lobbying to change their votes. That is exactly what happened on this vote, and it is against the rules. Amendment Offered by Mr. Lamborn

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Chairman, I understand that you hold the vote open for people not having voted, but this was a specific case of people changing their vote after the limit.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I just want to say a couple of things. I know, Mr. Chairman, people watching this on TV probably think they are in the Twilight Zone or caught up in the middle of Alice in Wonderland because you don't know which side to believe. The chairman of the subcommittee said people couldn't sleep or wouldn't be able to sleep worrying about these cuts. Nobody in Grantville, Georgia, will be staying up worrying about the government cutting its own size. We are talking about saving time. We have been debating for about 14 hours $28 billion. I don't know about anybody on the other side of the aisle, but I know that when me and my family sit down and discuss a budget, it took a lot longer for us to discuss our little pittance of a budget than 14 hours to discuss $27 billion. The other thing, we are hearing all of this whining about we borrowed $3 trillion in the last 6 years. We ran up the deficit. And then we hear about we cut the budget $16 billion. Now listen, where I come from, you can't have your cake and eat it, too. We were either wrong in borrowing the money, or we were wrong in not spending the money, but you can't be wrong in both of them. Somebody has to make up their mind. We talked the other night that you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. I would like to say that I think the majority is running out of time, because pretty soon, the gig is going to be up. We tried pinpointing, Mr. Hensarling, Mr. Flake, we tried pinpointing, doing some accurate bombing or cutting on this bill; but that didn't work. Now it's being talked about using the meat-cleaver approach. When I get those 250 programs that have been cut and the $6 billion that has been saved, and the list of the $80 billion that we are spending more, could you send me maybe a method to do some cutting? Because if we can't pinpoint, we can't use a scalpel, and we can't use a meat cleaver, how can we do it? I think that is what the taxpayers want to know. Who is going to stand up for them? We call each other ``my good friend'' and ``my good buddy'' and ``my colleague'' and this and that. What we need to be doing is being a good friend to the taxpayer. We are not being a good friend to the taxpayer. We talk about national parks being closed down, and yet we spend another $7 million expanding the Carl Sandburg property.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Madam Speaker, I stayed at home due to an ongoing medical condition of a family member. As a result, I missed a number of votes. Had I been present, I would have voted the following: Aye on H. Res. 189, expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that a ``Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day'' should be established. (Rollcall No. 549) Aye on H.R. 2546, to designate the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Asheville, North Carolina, as the ``Charles George Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center.'' (Rollcall No. 550)

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I just want to say that I am certainly not in favor of, Mr. Chairman, increasing this bill any more. In fact, I think we really need to look at where it is at. At $27.6 billion in discretionary funding, that is $1.9 billion or 7.5 percent more than the President requested, and it is $1.2 billion over fiscal year 2007. So it is about, I guess, $700 million more than the President requested. We have been on this floor, Mr. Chairman, and have heard the majority brag about how they were spending less than the President requested and that they had actually cut it and it wasn't as much as the President had requested. Well, here is one that is more than the President requested. And it is adding money for the Climate Change Commission, the sense of Congress. We are looking at maybe not becoming dependent on our own oil supply and requiring and leaning more on the foreign oil supply. So I hope that we would not look at this as, I guess, doing something that needs to be done. It is a process of spending more money. If you look at the 302(b) allocations for fiscal year 2008, Mr. Chairman, $83 billion. And most Americans, including myself, don't really understand what $1 billion is. There are very few people in this country that are even worth $1 billion. This spends $83 billion more than the 2007 enacted budget levels. I have heard the majority say, well, we have got this increase because these programs were starved to death during the last 6 years. They were just starved to death. Well, the reality is domestic discretionary spending has increased 40 percent since 2001. Let me say this, and I spoke about it before in my last conversation, the process is broken and the product is flawed. Let's recognize that and don't pass another flawed product because the process is not breaking itself; we are breaking the process because we are the ones that the people elect to put in charge of the process to make it run correctly.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I want to stand up in support of my colleague from Georgia's amendment. I spent 12 years in the Georgia House in the minority. What I tried to do for that 12 years is change the process, because the process was broken. When the process is broken, the product is flawed. When I came to Congress, I came as a freshman in the majority, and found that the process was still broken. So I found myself going from being in the minority trying to change the process, to being in the majority trying to change the process that the majority was using. Now I find myself back in the minority still trying to change the process, because the process in Washington is broken. I think Mr. Gingrey's amendment highlights that, in that we adopted rules in this House on first day, but we keep waiving those rules when those rules don't fit what we want to do. Now this is not to say anything about a Commission on Climate Change. But when you let public opinion, and you let political winds determine public policy, then the taxpayers of this country pay for it. That's exactly what the majority party is doing. In fact, Mr. Chairman, we used to have a majority party and a minority party. I think, now, some people in this body think they are a monarchy, that they control everything, that the process should just be overlooked. The gentleman's amendment talks about this process and who has authorization and who has oversight. If you will remember when we first opened up and we had the first 100 hours or 100 days or 100 amendments or 6 for '06 or whatever it was, we didn't go through any regular process, no regular order. So we have seen this body go from what the minority, now the majority, used to complain about us. You know, my momma used to say to me, Lynn, if your buddy jumped off the cliff, would you jump after him? Well, I am going to ask, I am going to ask the side over there, if we jumped off a cliff or no matter what we had done, are you saying, well, you all did it. That sounds like a bunch of kids playing in a sandbox. We need to stop the things that are wrong with the process today, no matter who used to do them. No matter what's been done in the past, let's look at today. Let's see if we can't make a difference. That's what I ask, that we go through the normal process. I think the gentleman from Georgia's amendment gets us back to that place. It puts the Rules Committee, hopefully, back in a light to where they understand that we are not going to stand for the continual waiving of the rules that this House adopted. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I love coming down and listening to the majority leader when he comes down. You know, I was a real estate salesman. I felt like I was a pretty good real estate salesman. And a good salesman loves to hear another salesman. And I think the majority leader could sell an Eskimo ice cubes. But let me say this. He made a statement that the Republicans did not fool the people in November. We didn't. Y'all did. And I think the joke is up. I think the gig is up. I think the foolish is up, because now the ratings of this Congress are at 13 percent, which is about half of what they were when the Republicans in charge. So you're right. You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the learned orthopedic surgeon from Georgia for yielding me this time. I want to say something to the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. When he was talking about an idiot can offer a 1 percent cut amendment, I certainly hope he wasn't talking about my good friend from Georgia. Now if you want to talk about fuzzy math and idiots, we can do that here tonight. Because this bill increases the spending 9\1/2\ percent. What the learned surgeon's amendment does is cut that by 1 percent. Now you can say this isn't going to cause a tax increase, you can say it is not going to cost people more money, you can say anything you want to, but the people of this country are smarter than that because they know every day that if they spend more money it is going to cost somebody at some point. So they can say anything they want to. They can talk about all of the fuzzy math, whether it is going to be a tax increase or not a tax increase. But when you spend 10 percent more money, somebody is going to pay for it.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I want to thank my friend, Mr. Gingrey, for doing this and his tireless work on presenting the WHINSEC good faith that they do. Mr. Chairman, it's a shame that every year defenders of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation have to fight for its very existence. But the annual efforts of my colleague, Mr. McGovern, and others to close this important institution at least gives us a regular opportunity to discuss the great work done at WHINSEC in a national forum. It also gives Members of the House a chance to show their support for this educational institution that spreads American know-how and American values to our neighbors and allies throughout Latin America. At least since the administration of Woodrow Wilson, presidents and congressional leaders of both parties have included promotion of democracy throughout our hemisphere and the rest the world as a central tenet of U.S. foreign policy. The last 20 years have witnessed significant global progress in scores of countries. From the southern tip of South America to the northern reaches of Central Europe and throughout the Pacific Rim, the oppressed have become liberated. From the beginning of our Nation, we have belief that the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness comes not from man or from law; those rights are God-given. Thus, we knows as Americans that we can't take all the credit for the growth of liberty and human rights, but we can take pride that our Nation has served for more than 100 years as the loudest voice, the greatest advocate and the fiercest defender of democracy, liberty and individual determination. When we must, we wield the stick. We have fought and shed blood for democracy on the beaches of Normandy, the jungles of Vietnam and the deserts of Iraq. When we can, we wield the carrot. We promote our values to foreign students and our world-leading university system by increasing development through trade agreements and through targeted foreign aid. WHINSEC is a great example of the carrot approach. It's a positive influence through soft power. In other words, it's a positive influence through education and training. WHINSEC is based at Fort Benning, the world's largest infantry training center, which is in my district. Fort Benning plays a huge role in training the U.S. Army, the greatest fighting force in the history of the world. Manuals currently used at WHINSEC are identical to those used to train all U.S. Army personnel. WHINSEC operates the most advanced and sophisticated military human rights training program in the world. Comparable training is not available from any other nation or in any other American training facility. Without WHINSEC, Latin American militaries would not have any access to training in military human rights. In the past 20 to 30 years, we have seen great transition in the Latin American countries from the chains of totalitarianism towards the freedom of democracy. We have seen democratically elected governments become more stable, we have seen progress on free trade and more open markets, and we have seen economic growth. It's getting better, but challenges in the region remain. Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez remain vocal adversaries to freedom in the American values. The arc of the universe bends toward justice, and these foes of freedom will fail in time, but the United States must continue to be the lighthouse among rocky waters. We must cooperate, educate, and assist our friends and our neighbors in Latin America. We do that best by supporting WHINSEC and the crucial work that is done there. I urge my colleagues to defeat the McGovern amendment and let freedom ring throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I'm glad to hear that from the ranking member. But let's have a start. Let's prioritize. Let's tell the Corps with this amendment that we're going to cut this money, and that we need to see a prioritization schedule from them on how we're going to spend it; that we're going to be responsible for taxpayers' money.

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

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

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to point out to the ranking member that he's exactly right. And if you look at the bill, I think it will talk about that specific amounts of this money has been itemized to go to section 107 of the River Harbor Act of 1960; $45 million to go to the Flood Control Act of 1948; $10 million to go to the Flood Control Act of 1946; $25 million to go exclusively for projects of the Water Resource Development Act of 1986; $25 million for the Water Resource Act of 1996. This is all because we have continued to put money into construction, and I hope that what the ranking member was saying is that there's no new projects in here. And maybe this is to finish up some of the projects. Maybe we can go back and finish some of the projects of the 1946 act or the 1986 act.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Speaker, this amendment would reduce the amount by $481,186,000. It's in the area of construction. Last year, $2.37 billion was spent. The President requested $1.5 billion, and the proposed budget is a little over $2 billion. Mr. Chairman, we have talked about the overspending, and we have just heard about the 404 permitting process and the regulatory process. Let me say that the Corps of Engineers is a great organization. They do a wonderful job. The problem is that they have a general or colonel, depending on what area of the country it is, that rotates in or out, and what we are left with are life-long bureaucrats that control the Corps of Engineers. I appreciate listening to the chairman of the subcommittee and the ranking member and others as they have promised to get into speeding up the process and going through these regulations and making sure that these projects that are so important to our citizens move along at a pace and not impaired by just red tape and bureaucracy. This construction area is somewhere that we have spent a lot of dollars. The President came back, and as we mentioned in the last amendment that we had, and said, look, we have got such a backlog of projects already, why don't we make sure and get those out of the way before we go on to spending more money. Let me say this, even though we may look at this as a construction, when you put more money into these agencies, it does nothing but build a bureaucracy and broaden the red tape that our citizens have to go through to deal with these agencies. As I made the last comment on the last amendment, there has been at least $105 billion in new Federal spending over the next 5 years that has been authorized, and will be authorized by this new Democratic Congress, the leadership of this House. In enacting the largest tax increase in American history, this Democratic budget will allow for $23 billion in spending over what the President's budget request was. We, as a party, as a former majority party, the Republican Party, understood that people got tired of their government growing at a rate so much faster than the population of this country and the excessive spending that we did. It's time for us to try to get back the confidence of the American people, not just Republicans, or the minority party, but Congress in general. The ratings of this Congress is at a record low, record low. The majority seems to think that they've heard the voice last November of the American people. Well, I hope that they're listening to the voice now because their rating is even lower than what the Republican rating was last November. But this amendment is designed to save the taxpayers about $480 million, and although, there again, the last amendment was just for $30 million, this one's for $481 million, it's just a small dent in the amount of money that we're spending here. But I think it is a small indication to the people of this country that we're willing to be wise stewards of their money. So I ask all of the Members here today if they would support this amendment to reduce the construction in the Corps of Engineers by $481 million.

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

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

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to comment on the chairman's comment about rules change every day. They do change every day, but when someone has based a project on the prior rules and regulations of the Corps, and they have based their whole project, and proceeded with that project, when the rules change and they come back to reinvestigate, that's no way to do business.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Chairman, I almost feel like rather than offering an amendment that I need to ask everybody to stand up and we'll hold hands and sing Kumbaya, but I guess it's easy and people are in a good mood and very agreeable when you're talking about spending other people's money. And in this case, we're talking about spending taxpayers' hard-earned dollars where we have very little control over how hard it is for them to make their money, but we spend it pretty easily. This amendment takes $30 million out of the Corps of Engineers' investigation budget. It brings it down to the spending level that the President has requested in his budget request. The Energy and Water appropriations bill is $1.1 billion over the President's request, and this amendment would reduce the funding for the investigation account under the Corps of Engineers by the $30 million, bringing it back down to the President's original request. The investigations and construction funding is used to collect and study the basic information pertaining to local water projects such as flood and storm damage reduction. The funding is also used to restudy projects already authorized by Congress which can lead to additional Federal spending on local projects that have already received Federal funds. Let me say that on some of these projects that we've heard about today from the delays, and Ranking Member Hobson mentioned the MOX project which has been delayed for a number of years, probably that's not only due to funding but in these additional restudies that the Corps of Engineers has had to do on the project. The Corps of Engineers has greatly expanded over the last decade. In addition, according to the administration, the Corps already has a large backlog of ongoing construction work, and the President's budget limits funding for the study and design of additional projects. So, in other words, by limiting new Corps investigations, this amendment would ensure that the current Corps projects move forward at a pace to bring them to completion without further delays. So far there has been at least a $105.5 billion in new Federal spending over the next 5 years that has been authorized by this new leadership, the democratically controlled Congress this year, in enacting the largest tax increase in American history, the Democrat budget allows for $23 billion in spending over the President's budget's request. This amendment is designed to save the taxpayers $30 million, only a small amount, just a small dent, in the unnecessary increase in Federal spending this year, and this again is fueled by the largest tax increase in the history of this country. So, Mr. Chairman, I ask that all Members support this amendment. It is a small dent in the large increase in Federal spending.

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

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Madam Speaker, on Friday, June 15 until the end of the legislative day, I was home in Georgia due to an unexpected medical condition of a family member. As a result, I missed a number of votes. Had I been present, I would have voted the following: ``Aye'' on the McHenry 2nd Degree Amendment to the Fox Amendment to H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (rollcall 466). ``Aye'' on the Fox Amendment to H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (rollcall 467). ``Aye'' on the Fallin Amendment to H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (rollcall 468). ``Aye'' on the Drake Amendment to H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (rollcall 469). ``Aye'' on the King (NY) Amendment to H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (rollcall 470). ``Aye'' on the Brown-Waite Amendment to H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (rollcall 471). ``Aye'' on the Burgess Amendment to H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (rollcall 472). ``Aye'' on the Ferguson Amendment to H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (rollcall 473). ``Aye'' on the McHenry Amendment to H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (rollcall 474). ``Aye'' on the Pearce Amendment to H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (rollcall 475). ``Aye'' on the Carter Amendment to H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (rollcall 476). ``Aye'' on the McCaul (TX) Amendment No. 98 to H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (Rollcall 477). ``Aye'' on the King (IA) Amendment to H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (Rollcall 478). ``Aye'' on the Bilbray Amendment to H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (Rollcall 479). ``Aye'' on the McCaul (TX) Amendment No. 99 to H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (Rollcall 480). ``Aye'' on the Rogers Amendment No. 2 to H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (Rollcall 481). ``Aye'' on the Poe Amendment to H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (Rollcall 482). ``No'' on the LaTourette Amendment to H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (Rollcall 483). ``Aye'' on the Tancredo Amendment to H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (Rollcall 484). ``Aye'' on the Tancredo Amendment No. 7 to H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (Rollcall 485). ``Aye'' on the Royce Amendment to H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (Rollcall 486). ``Aye'' on the Forbes Amendment to H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (Rollcall 487). ``Aye'' on the Rogers (KY) Amendment to H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (Rollcall 488). ``Aye'' on the Rogers (KY) Amendment No. 1 to H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (Rollcall 489). ``Aye'' on the Motion to Recommit H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (Rollcall 490). ``No'' on Passage of H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (Rollcall 491). ``Aye'' on Hayes Amendment to H.R. 2642, the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2008 (Rollcall 492). ``No'' on the Blumenauer Amendment to H.R. 2642, the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2008 (Rollcall 493). ``Aye'' on the Price (GA) Amendment No. 17 to H.R. 2642, the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2008 (Rollcall 494). ``Aye'' on the Moran (KS) Amendment to H.R. 2642, the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2008 (Rollcall 495). ``Aye'' on the Garrett Amendment No. 1 to H.R. 2642, the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2008 (Rollcall 496). ``Aye'' on the Musgrave Amendment to H.R. 2642, the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2008 (Rollcall 497). ``Aye'' on Passage of H.R. 2642, the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2008 (Rollcall 498).