C. Young

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I appreciate the gentleman yielding. Mr. Chairman, in response to the gentleman's comment about the American Legion, I have a letter here from the American Legion supporting strongly this supplemental appropriations bill. There is also one here from The Military Coalition signed by about 25 members of The Military Coalition, also one from The Retired Enlisted Association. While they may have some concern about whether they support the mission or not or the decision to get into the mission, they do support our troops. That is what this bill does. This bill supports our troops, provides them training, provides them equipment, provides them technology to do their job.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, the comments of the gentleman from Oklahoma are well-taken. Certainly the committee has always responded rapidly to damage done by natural disasters to any of our military facilities. However, a point of order does lie against his amendment at this point. And I would just say to the gentleman that there are other opportunities to address this. We can address it in the conference. There is the regular appropriations bill. I understand the urgency involved here, but I must make the point of order against the amendment. The gentleman may withdraw it if he would like. But he has my assurances that we will deal with this issue very, very expeditiously.

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the amendment of the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook).

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to close, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Again, I want to say, Mr. Chairman, that I am reluctant in my opposition to this amendment to offset the spending, because my history in this House has been to vote for as many spending cuts as I possibly could. However, to make spending offsets from the fiscal year 2000 funds that have not even been appropriated yet to pay for a fiscal year 1999 expenditure is just not right and it is not workable. The gentleman is correct. There are a lot of ways and a lot of places where we can save money. One of the areas that has been rather sacrosanct for a long time is mandatory spending. The 4 years my party has been in the majority, the Committee on Appropriations, has put forth to this body major reductions in many, many programs, some of them very difficult to vote for, but we did. We started to get our fiscal house in order, but we did not touch the mandatory programs, and those are programs where the money has to be spent without some change in the basic law. That might be a place that the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn) and I could look for future offset funding; but for a fiscal year 1999 supplemental, we should not be reaching out to fiscal year 2000 where the money has not even been appropriated. Now, on the Social Security issue, and I agree with the gentleman, we have an obligation. We have made a commitment on Social Security, and I represent a district that has more Social Security recipients than most anybody in this House, and I certainly would be extremely careful of anything that we do relative to Social Security. But, understand, again we are talking about fiscal year 1999 money. The budget resolution, the setting aside of the Social Security Trust Fund and all those monies are in fiscal year 2000, not fiscal year 1999. So the issue does not really apply to the bill that we are dealing with today. Now, the last point. Based on the omnibus appropriations bill that was approved by this Congress last year, and I certainly hope that that never happens again, because that is not something any of us are really proud of, but based on that bill, the baseline or a freeze at fiscal year 1999 levels takes us $17 billion over the budget caps of 1997 for fiscal year 2000. And if we continue the things that we really are obligated to do, where we have commitments, where we have contracts already in the procedure, we are then up to over $30 billion over the 1997 budget caps. If we take 14 percent cut in nondefense spending for fiscal year 2000, we cannot get there from here. So as much as I appreciate the gentleman's efforts and the work we have done together over the years for national defense, I cannot support his amendment, and I would hope that the House would reject that amendment.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize an outstanding Naval Officer, Commander Mark Leary who has served with distinction for the past 3 years for the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Financial Management and Comptroller as a Principle Assistant and Deputy in the Appropriations Matters Office. It is a privilege for me to recognize his many outstanding achievements and commend him for the superb service he has provided to the Navy, the Congress, and our great Nation as a whole. During his tenure in the Appropriations Matters Office, which began in January of 1996, Commander Leary has provided members of the House Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Defense as well as our professional and personal staffs with timely and accurate support regarding Navy plans, programs and budget decisions. His valuable contributions have enabled the Subcommittee and the Department of the Navy to strengthen its close working relationship and to ensure the most modern, well trained and well equipped naval forces attainable for the defense of our great nation. Mr. Speaker, Mark Leary and his wife Paula have made many sacrifices during his naval career and as they embark once again on that greatest adventure of a Naval Aviator's career, commander of a helicopter squadron, I call upon my colleagues to wish him every success as well as fair winds and following seas.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize an outstanding Marine Corps Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Chester A. Riley who has served with distinction for the past three years for the Commandant of the Marine Corps and the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Financial Management and Comptroller as a Principal Assistant and Deputy in the Appropriations Matters Office. It is a privilege for me to recognize his many outstanding achievements and commend him for the superb service he has provided to the Marine Corps, the Department of the Navy, the Congress, and our great Nation as a whole. During his tenure in the Appropriations Matters Office, which began in October of 1996, Lieutenant Colonel Riley has provided members of the House Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Defense as well as our professional and personal staffs with timely and accurate support regarding Marine Corps plans, programs and budget decisions. His valuable contributions have enabled the Subcommittee and the Department of the Navy to strengthen its close working relationship and to ensure the most modern, well trained and well equipped naval forces attainable for the defense of our great nation. Mr. Speaker, Chet Riley and his wife Licia have made many sacrifices during his career in the Marine Corps and as they embark the next great adventure beyond their beloved Corps I call upon my colleagues to wish him every success and to thank him for his long, distinguished and ever faithful service to God, country and Corps. Semper Fidelis.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to introduce today the chaplain who delivered our opening prayer. Pastor Charlie Martin is the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Indian Rocks, which is in Largo, Florida, which is right in the heart of the Tenth Congressional District that I have the privilege to represent. Like many of my colleagues, I have an opportunity to visit with many churches throughout the district and throughout our State, and I must say that I have found no one who is more inspiring in their message and delivery of the Bible than Pastor Charlie Martin. He is a dynamic religious leader, and he makes going to church a lot of fun. He delivers his messages in such an entertaining way that people clamor to come to the church to the effect that he has to have at least three services every Sunday morning. He is respected and loved in our community. His ministry is very unique. He reaches out to everyone. He has a community outreach program that goes far beyond the county limits of our county back home. It is worldwide, in effect. Mr. Speaker, I would just like to mention an example of the worldwide outreach. Many of us know the problems of the people in Bosnia, the refugees and orphans that are housed with very little clothing, very little supplies. We called this to the attention of Pastor Charlie and he and the members of the church turned out in large numbers, collected an airplane full of shoes and sweaters and supplies for babies, and we had it delivered to Bosnia to the orphanages. That is just one example of many, many more. As I said, Pastor Charlie is the pastor of our people, he is our pastor at home, and wherever I go throughout my congressional district, people are approaching me constantly saying, ``Congressman, it is nice to see you in Pastor Charlie's church,'' or ``Congressman, I am a member of Pastor Charlie's church,'' and everyone knows who Pastor Charlie is. Now my colleagues have had an opportunity to meet him and have him here today. I am very proud to have him as our guest here today, Pastor Charlie Martin of the Indian Rocks Baptist Church in Largo, Florida.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Madam Speaker, having been led to believe there was not to be any debate on this motion, I yielded back my time. But at this time I ask unanimous consent that I may reclaim my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 1141) making emergency supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1999, and for other purposes, with a Senate amendment thereto, disagree to the Senate amendment, and agree to the conference asked by the Senate.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I did believe that we were not to have any debate here so that we could expedite this motion and get on with the rest of the business of the House. But I would like to respond again, as I said earlier, we did not agree with the Senate offsets in the bill. That is why I am willing to support this motion that does not agree with the Senate offsets. There has been sufficient leadership in the House on this measure to move this to conference, and we will move it to conference quickly. The gentlewoman is right, there has been a little bit of a delay on the part of the other body. I met with the majority leader of the Senate yesterday and discussed that issue and we are prepared to move expeditiously. There will be differences, even among those of us who are conferees, on the House offsets. But what I have to tell my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, we made a determination that we were going to, except for true national defense emergencies, offset the spending bills. Now, when we dealt with disasters in our own country just a few years back, we offset the money that we spent for those disasters. In fact, one of the sources for those offsets was one of the offsets that the other side objects to now. So we will work this out, but I would hope that we would keep this from becoming a partisan political issue. I am attempting to move the appropriations bills in such a way that they relate to the needs of the country and to move them as expeditiously as possible under the House rules. So we are prepared to do this, and we are prepared to accept this motion today. I would suggest that I am ready to vote if the gentleman from Wisconsin is ready to vote. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on this motion to instruct conferees and that I may include tabular and extraneous material.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and I agree on the need to move this bill quickly. We are dealing with a true emergency in Central America. Immediately upon recognizing the result of Hurricane Mitch, American armed forces were sent to Central America, and they did a tremendous humanitarian job. They saved lives. They pulled people out of swollen rivers. They helped get people out of the mud. They helped people get water that they could drink, and they improved sanitary conditions. The United States military did an outstanding job in Hurricane Mitch, but there is more to be done. As one of their good neighbors who spent billions of dollars in the late 1970's and early 1980's to stop communism from taking over that part of the world, which was a successful effort, by the way, I might say, we now have an obligation to help our friends and neighbors when they are in a real time of need. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and I do not disagree too much on what we included in the bill for the obligations that needed to be met with the funding that we did include in this bill. We did have some differences on whether or not the spending should be offset by reducing other accounts in our Federal budget. The decision was made to offset all but the military part of this bill, and we did that. We had already seen the offsets provided by the other body when we developed our bill. As the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) said, we disagreed with the offsets suggested by the other body, and so we developed our own list of offsets. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and I disagree somewhat on some of those. But, Madam Speaker, the important thing is we need to get this bill moving. We need to get to conference. In conference, we will have great debates, especially about the offsets in this proposal. But we need to get it done, and we can't get it done until we appoint the conferees today. I have no objection to the motion that the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) has offered because I agree with him. We do not agree with the offsets that the other body used. There will be, as I said, some vigorous debate on this issue. But, Madam Speaker, I do not object to this motion today, and I would hope that the House could expedite our consideration of it, and move on to its next regular piece of business. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time. General Leave

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, I must respond that offsetting spending when we are trying to balance the Federal budget is not stupid. When we have a national debt that has debt service that is equal to or exceeds what we invest in our only national security, it is not stupid to try to do something about that debt and to try to balance the budget. And if we are going to spend on one hand without taking the budget into a deficit situation, we have got to take it away somewhere else. And we cannot go visiting around the world dropping off commitments for money for one thing or another without even consulting with the Congress and expect the Congress to just pay the bill when it gets here. Now, that is not partisan either. What it is is trying to be responsible and keep the commitment that all of us have made. I do not know of anyone, there may be one or two, that have said we should not balance the budget. But everyone that I know in this House has committed themselves to a balanced budget. And you cannot balance the budget by continuing to spend. So we take some of the items that are not quite as important as responding to the disaster and we offset them. Now let me mention what the offset was that the gentleman is so upset about. We used as an offset callable capital to the World Bank, callable capital which has not been called in over 20 years and that is not even important, but callable capital which was the same source that was used in this House to offset a disaster appropriations bill. For a disaster in the United States in the western part of our country, we used callable capital as the offset. I know the gentlewoman is shaking her head, but the fact is, the Congressional Record has it on record and indicates who voted for that amendment by our friend and previous colleague from California (Mr. Fazio) to reduce the callable capital for the World Bank by the amount needed to offset that bill. Now, if that consistency was mentioned before, if we are going to be consistent, if callable capital as an offset was okay now, why is it not okay now? So I think, Madam Speaker, that we have what I think Harry Truman called a red herring, but we are going to debate these issues in conference and we will come to a resolution and this bill will be provided. We are not withholding the immediate emergency support that was needed in Central America. We did that already. We sent troops and they took care of the immediate emergency requirements. So, anyway, despite all of this debate and despite this argument, I still support the motion made by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), and I say we get on about our business and get into conference and settle this bill. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would like to suggest that if the worst thing the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) calls me during the balance of the appropriations process this year is stupid, I will be happy because there are other things that will be mentioned.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. I want to thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for the very thoughtful remarks that he has made. I understand his problem. We worked together to try to develop a bill that would be bipartisan in nature, and we hope before it is over that that is the way it will be. But we have the problem of dealing with all of those who lead our government saying that we must live within the budget caps as established in 1997. That is not going to be easy. If anyone has heartburn over this small number of offsets, just wait till we start bringing the fiscal year 2000 appropriation bills on the floor, because there is going to be major heartburn then if we are going to live within the 1997 budget caps. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan), the very distinguished 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. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I do so to compliment the Chairman for having presided in this Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union in a very professional and magnificent fashion.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I make the point of order against the amendment because it proposes to change existing law and constitutes legislation on an appropriations bill, and therefore violates clause 2 of rule XXI. The rule states, in pertinent part, ``An amendment to a general appropriations bill shall not be in order if changing existing law.'' The amendment gives affirmative direction in effect. I ask for a ruling from the Chair.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against the amendment because it proposes to change existing law, constitutes legislation on an appropriations bill, and it violates clause 2 of rule XXI. The rule states, in pertinent part, ``No amendment to a general appropriations bill shall be in order if changing existing law.'' This amendment does not apply solely to the appropriation under consideration, and as much as I believe in what the gentleman is trying to do, and I think through the regular process we can do it, I must ask for a ruling of the Chair on this point of order.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

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, and that I may include tabular and extraneous material on the bill (H.R. 1141) making emergency supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1999, and for other purposes.