C. Young

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 345, I call up the conference report on the bill (H.R. 3064) making appropriations for the government of the District of Columbia and other activities chargeable in whole or in part against revenues of said District for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2000, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. The gentleman has had his hour.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, before closing comments on the bill itself, I wanted to add to the comments that were made about our friend Bob Knisely at the beginning of the debate and say that I certainly agree with those comments. I would also like to say that the Committee on Appropriations staff, we have a tremendous staff, and they work long, hard hours and long days and after we have finished our 12- and 14-hour days as Members, they add another 5 or 6 hours to put on paper or put into the computer decisions that we made during that day. I want to thank Jim Dyer, who is the clerk of the full Committee on Appropriations and Chuck Parkinson and Dale Oak and John Mikel and all the staff of the Committee on Appropriations. They all do a tremendous job, and I think they deserve that recognition. I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that I envy the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey). The gentleman from Wisconsin had the privilege to chair this committee for a year and during that time the gentleman had 81 more Democrats than we had Republicans. As Chairman in this year I only have 10 more Republicans than Democrats. That makes it a lot different. In addition, the gentleman from Wisconsin was able to spend $60 billion out of the Social Security trust fund that year. Chairman Young cannot spend anything out of the Social Security trust fund and does not want to. Despite the fact that we have this small majority, which we hope will increase the next time we organize the next Congress, there are some things that we promised to do. A lot of people do not realize that politicians keep their promises. We promised to do everything we could to balance the budget. We kept that promise. The report yesterday said that we not only have a budget surplus this year but we had one last year. This is record-setting. This is the first time since Eisenhower's administration that we had two back-to-back surpluses. We promised to increase national defense. And if I misspoke and said that we were $16 billion over the President's budget, that was not correct. This budget is $16 billion over last year, the fiscal year 1999 defense budget. So we have increased our investment in national defense, a promise that we made. We have increased medical research, a promise that we made. Despite the rhetoric today to the contrary, we have increased medical research. We have increased education, over and above the President's request. The only argument that we have with the Democrats and the administration on education is who makes the decision on how it is spent. Does some bureaucrat in Washington make that decision or do our local school boards make the decision? The needs in one district may be different than the needs in another district and those needs should be determined by the people who control and are elected in those school districts to make those decisions. We stopped spending the Social Security money. The gentleman from Wisconsin's party controlled this Congress for 40 years. What did they do about Social Security? They spent it. The gentleman from Wisconsin just said that this bill does nothing to deal with Medicare or prescription drugs. That is true. Why? This committee does not have jurisdiction over that issue. That is a Ways and Means issue. But I would say again, the gentleman from Wisconsin's party controlled this House for 40 years. What did they do in 40 years to provide for prescription drugs and Medicare? Nothing.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I had not intended to get into this give and take on the political argument, but I listened to this rhetoric about the farm emergencies, and let me tell you what the truth is, and here is the paperwork, the documentation that proves it. Last year this Congress added as an emergency amount of money for the farm emergencies $6 billion, $5.916 billion, to be exact. Then, when the next supplemental request came from the administration, we added to that request for the Hurricane Mitch supplemental $700 million. Most of it was not requested, we added it. Then in the regular fiscal year 2000 agriculture bill, which we passed and the President has signed, we added $8.7 billion to deal with farm emergencies. The President did not request any of this $8.7 billion. We still do not have a request from the President for agricultural losses this hurricane season. Now, for someone over there to stand and say this Congress has neglected the farmer and the emergencies in the agriculture community is just not right. It is not accurate. It is not truthful. It is purely political rhetoric. The facts are here, and you are welcome to look at them.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter) the distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am now happy to yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich), the distinguished chairman of the Committee on the Budget.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook), the very distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Appropriations for the District of Columbia.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume. Mr. Speaker, I believe all of the Members understand now that this conference report includes, not only the District of Columbia appropriations bill, that was rewritten and passed after the President vetoed the first one, but it also includes the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education bill, which is the 13th appropriations bill to be sent to the President's desk. The submission of these 13 bills plus the two supplementals will end this phase of the appropriations process. The next phase of the process, then, is to receive the vetoes from the President on those bills which the President determines that he does not like, and to work with the White House Office of Management and Budget and the President himself, if he is available, on whatever differences we can to try to get subsequent legislation signed, because all of these appropriations bills must become law. Much of the debate will be related probably, not to the District of Columbia portion of the bill, but the Labor, HHS portion and to the offset section. One of the issues that we will hear about, I know, because we heard a lot about it during consideration of the CR and also the rule on this bill, is the across-the-board cut, which is less than 1 percent. I am not a great proponent of across-the-board cuts, but we are doing everything that we possibly can to make sure that we do not spend any of the Social Security money. To do this we made this less than 1 percent across-the-board cut part of our offset package. Now, there has been and there will be a lot of criticism of this across-the-board cut, but everyone that I know who lives outside the Beltway is convinced that the Government wastes a lot of money, a lot of their money. And I know that the folks back in my district would laugh at me, and anyone else who would try to convince them that our government could not find 1 penny out of every tax dollar from the discretionary accounts; that we could not save one penny out of every dollar. I think we would be laughed out of town if we tried to convince our constituents that this government, that has considerable waste, and we try to weed out the waste the best that we can, but it continues to pop up, we would be laughed out of town if we tried to convince our constituents that this government could not save 1 penny out of every dollar that we appropriate. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter), the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the conference report to accompany H.R. 3064, and that I and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter) and the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook) may include tabular and extraneous material.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it has not been easy because of a small majority. And the 1997 budget accord which the gentleman from Wisconsin did not have to deal with, either, because he was Chairman before the 1997 budget agreement has not made it easy. But we made promises, and we have kept those promises, and this bill today will complete the promise of having 13 bills on the President's desk. Then we will go to the final phase of our appropriations process for this year, and then we can all go home and be with our constituents, where we should spend considerable time. After this bill gets to the White House, then the final phase will be to deal with the President's vetoes, on whichever bill he determines to veto. At that point the gentleman from Wisconsin and I will once again become major players to try to settle those differences and get signable bills. But now let us vote against the motion to recommit and vote for this conference report.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I compliment both sides of the debate for their chartsmanship, because we have produced some nice-looking charts. This one that I am going to refer to today has a lot of writing on it. Members may not be able to see it too well, but I will refer to it. I wanted to say to my friend, the gentleman from South Carolina, who said that we cannot get our job done, I want the Members of the Congress to know that we are getting our job done. When we pass the next bill today, we will have sent all 13 appropriation bills to the President, along with the two supplementals that the President had asked for. We are doing it without a massive omnibus appropriations bill like we saw last year, and that most all of us pledged not to let happen again. I want to thank my friend, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey). While we have had some fairly strong political differences, and we have had different approaches to our positions, the fact is that we have worked together very well, and we have cooperated with each other in order to get the job done. Let me tell the Members how the job has been done. If we look at this chart, there are 30 items on this chart that the Committee on Appropriations will have done at the end of this day, 30 items. I challenge any other committee in the House or the Senate to have produced 30 measures to bring before their body for votes. Let us just take a look at it: the Kosovo emergency supplemental; the Hurricane Mitch supplemental; the conference report on the two supplementals; the Agricultural Appropriations bill; the conference report on the Agriculture bill; the Commerce-Justice-State Appropriations bill; the conference report on Commerce-Justice-State; the Defense Appropriations bill; the conference report on the Defense Appropriations bill; the District of Columbia Appropriations bill No. 1; the conference report on the D.C. bill No. 1; the District of Columbia bill No. 2; the Energy and Water bill; the conference report on Energy and Water; the Foreign Operations appropriations bill; the conference report on the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill; the Interior Appropriations bill; the conference report on the Interior Appropriations bill; the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill; the conference report on the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill; the Military Construction Appropriations bill; the conference report on the Military Construction Appropriations bill; the Transportation Appropriations bill; the conference report on the Transportation Appropriations bill; the Treasury-Postal Service Appropriations bill; the conference report on that bill; the VA-HUD-Independent Agencies Appropriations bill; the conference report on the VA bill; the steel, oil, and gas loan program issue that came to us from the Senate; and today, then, item No. 30, the conference report on D.C. No. 2 and Labor-HHS. So the Committee on Appropriations, while we have had political differences, has worked well together to produce these items. They all will have been on the President's desk by the end of this week. The President will probably veto the last five bills. He has signed the first eight, which I think is a major accomplishment. There are five bills that we expect will be vetoed. We need to have this last bill on the President's desk so that then we can deal with the President's vetos specifically. Once he vetoes the bill, he sends that message back to us and he tells us why he rejects that bill. That gives us somewhere to start in the final negotiations to find how we can rewrite those bills to get them signed by the President. So contrary to those who say we cannot get our job done, the Committee on Appropriations is and has been getting its job done. I think the appropriators on both sides of the aisle, while maybe not totally supportive of everything in all of these bills, ought to be rather proud of the record they have established here. Again, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) for helping us move these bills. I want to say a word about our leadership. Our leadership has come in for some criticism because they have involved themselves in appropriations issues on occasion. Well, that is the role of the leadership. They have a right to do that. I have to tell our Members that, when I, as speaking from the Committee on Appropriations, presented a problem or had a discussion, I found great support for the strategies that we were suggesting, for the policies that we were suggesting. Our leadership supported us every way they could. Did they have input? Of course they did. That is why we elect leaders, to have something to say about the outcome of the legislative process. So all in all, despite being miles apart on political rhetoric, we are fairly close together on getting our job done. I am proud of the Members of the Committee on Appropriations on both sides. While I may disagree with some of them, especially on that side, I am very proud of the fact that we have been able to produce 30 separate appropriations issues and passed all of them but one, and we are going to pass that one today. I would also like to add that, up until today and all the votes that we have had on appropriations bills, we have received 8,702 aye votes to 3,514 no votes. That is almost three to one ayes. So the House, in my opinion, has shown great support for the work product of the Committee on Appropriations. I am very, very proud of that record. I hope that all of the members on the Committee on Appropriations on both sides share that pride, because we are getting our job done. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw), who plays a major role on the issue of Social Security as a senior member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I would concede to the gentleman that we are using and cooperating with the President's Office of Management and Budget in this issue of scoring, so I wanted them to know that. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my distinguished colleague, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson), a member of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from California, the chairman of the Subcommittee on Defense of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I know there is a little confusion here today about which bill we are considering. We are considering actually a continuing resolution, and we are not continuing the several bills that the gentleman who just spoke had referred to, but he made a couple of comments that I think we cannot allow to go unchallenged. First, he talked about veterans health care. What our colleagues on both sides of the aisle ought to realize is that in the bill that we presented for veterans health care, we increased the President's budget request for veterans health care by $1.7 billion. We increased veterans health care over the President's budget, contrary to what the gentleman in the well had just said. Then he talked about cuts in salaries. No salaries will be cut by the language in the next bill that we consider, nor this bill, and this bill does not cut anybody's salary. The CR does not cut anything. The next bill does not cut anybody's salaries, except Members of Congress. So I am not sure where all these confusing statistics are coming from. Then there is one more item that supposedly comes from the Congressional Budget Office. What the Members on the other side, who are referring to Mr. Crippen's papers, failed to go to is the next two lines. The next two lines say ``Congressional scorekeeping adjustments, $18.1 billion,'' which brings us to an on-budget surplus of $1 billion, according to Mr. Crippen, who they are quoting in their debate. Here is the paper from the Congressional Budget Office. It says using the scorekeeping adjustments, we have saved $18.1 billion. So, Mr. Speaker, I realize there is some confusion here as to which bill we are considering. We are considering a continuing resolution, and I think everybody supports it, including the President of the United States. We are debating a number of other bills. We will, after we pass the CR, get to the actual bill, the conference report on the District of Columbia and the Labor-Health and Human Services appropriations bill, but that is not what is the issue before us at this time. Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment the chart makers on both sides. While we have used a lot of charts today, and I am going to use one in my final presentation that I think is a great chart, we have really improved our ability to present charts, and I compliment both sides for that.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the very distinguished gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan), chairman of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs. (Mr. CALLAHAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter), who is the very distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the very distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston), a member of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. First, I would like to get back to the subject of the continuing resolution. I listened with interest to the debate of my friend from Wisconsin. His debate went to the overall issue of budget items as well as the bill that we are going to consider next. But right now, what we have before us, is the continuing resolution. I want to tell my friend from Wisconsin when he says we are not that far apart, he is pretty accurate. We are not that far apart on our legislation. We are miles apart on the political rhetoric. And I am afraid that it is going to be more difficult to close that gap between the political rhetoric than it will be to solve the problems of the appropriations bills. The gentleman suggested that we should consider the President's new tax program that he sent to us. We did. Maybe the gentleman forgot. But the President's package of tax increases was presented to this House just about a week ago, and after great debate, not a Republican voted for that tax package and not an independent voted for that tax package, and not a Democrat voted for that tax package. So the effect, Mr. Speaker, was that the President's plan to increase taxes got zero votes in the House of Representatives. My friend from Wisconsin said that it is pretend time. Let me tell you how much pretending we are doing here. Yesterday, official figures released show that the Federal Government ran a surplus of $122.7 billion in the last fiscal year, fiscal year 1999, which just ended September 30th. That is the first time the government has recorded back-to-back surpluses since the Eisenhower administration in 1956- 1957. The 1999 surplus was almost double the 1998 surplus, which was $69.2 billion. So we are getting there. We are getting to the point. We are not spending Social Security surpluses. And in fiscal year 2000, we will not spend Social Security surpluses. That is not pretend time, that is the fact. I am basing this on official reports that were released yesterday. I am not going to do this now but I might do this later and show how much various Congresses spent out of the Social Security trust fund in recent years. It is a tremendous amount, as high as $60 billion in the year that the gentleman from Wisconsin chaired the Committee on Appropriations. So a lot of money was spent out of the Social Security trust fund in the past. But in fiscal year 2000, that will not be the case. We are keeping our word. We are not dipping into the Social Security trust fund to finance the day-to-day operation of the government. We are saving that money for the people that it was promised to. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers), the distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, and Judiciary.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the continuing resolution before us extends current spending levels for a week, until November 5. That is one week from tomorrow. The current rates, as contained in the original continuing resolution, are continued for the five bills which have not been signed into law. And, of course, for those eight that have been signed into law, the funding levels in those bills are the controlling elements. There are two technical provisions for two anomalies which need to be adjusted in the continuing resolution, the waiver of the quorum requirement for the Export-Import Bank, and adjusted funding rate for the census. Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that this is acceptable to the President, that he is willing to support this and to sign this continuing resolution, and I would hope that we could expedite this matter. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on H. J. Res. 73, and that I may include tabular and extraneous material.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the order of the House of Wednesday, October 27, 1999, I call up the joint resolution (H. J. Res 73) making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2000, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I want to respond to the gentleman from Wisconsin. As usual, his numbers are correct. However, I want to highlight a difference in how we are proceeding this year. The Office of Management and Budget would like us to package up all of these appropriations bills and put them into one package so that we could have another disaster like the omnibus appropriations bill that we had last year. We are determined not to do that. It is our intention and our plan, and we are on course, to send the individual bills to the President's desk for his consideration. The reason we want to do that is that we would like to know if he has specific objections to those bills. We would like to know what they are, not in generalities, but specifically, so that we can actually focus on what the differences really are. Our experience has been that the only way we find exactly what the President's opposition is, is in a veto message where he must be specific and he must put it on paper so that we can read it and understand it. But I want to assure the gentleman from Wisconsin that whether we have an omnibus bill such as the Office of Management and Budget wants, or whether we are going to have individual bills the way that we want, we will not go above the budget agreement. We will not use any money out of the Social Security Trust Fund. The Sequestration would not be triggered unless all bills were signed into law and exceeded the budget agreement. That is not going to happen. But we are going to deal with these bills one at a time so that they retain their identity and so that we can deal with specific objections from the White House rather than generalities. Now, Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this rule and the conference report on the Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2000. This is the twelfth fiscal year 2000 appropriations conference report to come before the House. Number 13 should be ready soon. This is a good conference agreement. It provides important funding for the highest priority needs of operating and maintaining our existing national parks and wildlife refuges. It includes funding to manage our Federal lands. Important to my State is funding for the Everglades restoration. At this point, I want to make note of the fact that this is the anniversary of the enactment of last year's omnibus appropriations bill. Because the terms and conditions of many of the appropriations bills that were included in that legislation still have effect today because of the terms of the continuing resolution we were operating under, I take this time to highlight one such provision that is important to the Office of Management and Budget and to the administration. That is that the continuing resolution will preserve the President's authority under section 540(d) of the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 1999, to waive section 1003 of Public Law 100-204. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman's figures are correct; however, the gentleman also knows that before we complete the appropriations process totally, there may be needed some additional.