C. Young

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 on H.J. Res. 124 and that I may include tabular and extraneous material.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. That is roughly the situation. The gentleman has described a situation that was beyond our control, unfortunately. The budget that was deemed by the House of Representatives included a top-line number that was different from the number used by the Committee on Appropriations in the Senate. And so we did have a difference of numbers. The problem has been all along that we have not had the same numbers as the other body. But to get to the gentleman's specific point, the PAYGO issue. By the way, the PAYGO is not in this CR. There was an attempt to include it in the CR, but the committee objected to that, because PAYGO deals with mandatory spending. It relates to mandatory spending, of which we have no jurisdiction and no control. But as I have said on this floor many times and as my colleague from Wisconsin has said many times, a dollar is a dollar, it is all the same color whether it is in a mandatory account or whether it is in a discretionary account. The truth of the matter is that our mandatory spending has far exceeded what the Balanced Budget Act would allow for. And the PAYGO scorecard needs to be cleared so that the government does not become in violation of the Balanced Budget Act. Our committee does not deal with mandatory spending, so I did not think we had any obligation or responsibility or jurisdiction to deal with it in this CR. But again, and the gentleman makes a very good point, spending is spending. And while appropriators are often referred to as the big spenders, we stay within our allocation, the budget numbers. The mandatory spending accounts are the ones that get really out of balance. That is exactly what has happened here. That is why this PAYGO issue will be before the House later today. It is interesting to note that some of those who are most adamant on keeping down discretionary spending, regardless of what it might be for, seem to have no objection to mandatory spending despite the fact that it goes far above the budget, much more so than the appropriations bills. Our committee has been very careful to keep our spending bills within the budget numbers that were set. The same cannot be said for mandatory programs. So I appreciate the gentleman raising that issue. It is not something that is political. It is not partisan. It is not one party versus the other. It is just a matter of fact. Mandatory spending is spending exactly the same as discretionary spending. The problem is a lot of people do not understand that and they really need to, because mandatory spending is what is causing the biggest part of our budget problems today. That is why we are going to have to deal with a PAYGO bill later on today or tomorrow. I thank the gentleman for raising the issue.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the rule just adopted, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 124) making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2003, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, first let me welcome all the Members back from their election-day activities and suggest that we do have a lot of work to do, especially a lot of appropriations bills that need to be concluded. Mr. Speaker, this is a continuing resolution to keep the government functioning until such time as all appropriations bills are concluded. It would extend the date of the initial continuing resolution until the 11th of January and includes one additional anomaly that would extend the authorization for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the TANF program, through this same period. Mr. Speaker, the other anomalies that we had included in the original CRs are all the same, no changes. This is a clean CR. I do not think that there is any real controversy over the content of the CR. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Just a brief closing statement to say, Mr. Speaker, that a continuing resolution is not the best way to fund the government. There is no question about that, and I think most of our colleagues would agree with that. But circumstances today require us to deal with this continuing resolution. And just a couple of comments on the motion to recommit. These types of decisions should be made in the Committee and on the floor of the House once the Committee has reported the bill. And as the ranking member knows, the Committee on Appropriations in the House has marked up all of its bills but one. So these decisions really have been made in the committee, and once we move the bills many of the concerns that the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) is concerned about will be taken care of because they are legitimate needs of the government. We do not want to recommit this bill today. We want to pass this bill, get this business behind us, and get on to the balance of our responsibilities for today and tomorrow, and then we will begin to prepare for the beginning of the next session, and hopefully we will have the appropriations bills for 2003 ready to be completed when the House reconvenes. So, again, a continuing resolution is not the best way to deal with appropriations issues, but because of today's circumstances this is what is available to us, and, Mr. Speaker, I hope that we would reject the motion to recommit and that we would pass this CR and get on with the rest of our business.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time merely to say that again this is a continuation of the same CR that we passed last week. It merely extends the date. It is not a political document. It merely keeps the government functioning until we can get back to this House to continue our work on the appropriations process, the appropriations process which is alive and well, despite the fact that the budget process died before it concluded its business. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the continuing resolution is identical to the one we passed last week with the exception of the date change. As a matter of fact, the date in this CR is the one we started with last week but it was amended, as we recall, during the consideration of the rule. It would extend the CR until November 22, which would give the House an opportunity to finish some other unfinished business, would give the House an opportunity to wait upon the other body to send some of our legislation back to us that we have sent to them, and it maintains all of the other anomalies and provisions that the original CR included. Nothing new, no new starts. And I would say that I would like the Members to listen to this: Despite the fact we suggest November 22, it does not mean that the House will not be in session, because it is my understanding that the House will be in session for some unfinished business dealing with the other body. So, Mr. Speaker, I do not think we need a lot of debate on this. It is not a tax bill. It is not any kind of a bill other than a bill to extend the date of the CR to November 22. That will follow the elections, that will follow the reorganizational time that we have here in the Congress right after the election. It will give us time to proceed with and hopefully conclude our appropriations business. For some of those who spoke earlier on the rule who were concerned about a long-term CR into the next Congress, I have resisted that. I am resisting it today and I will continue to resist it. That is not a good plan for us. But this resolution today to take us into November, following the election is a good plan; and, Mr. Speaker, I hope that we can expedite the consideration. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I do, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the rule just adopted, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 123) making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2003, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I would simply say that this extends the CR until next Monday. That really is not workable, and I want to assure the Members that the fact that we adopt a CR that goes to beyond the election does not mean that the House will not be here, because the House will be here continuing to do other legislative matters, in addition to waiting on the other body to pass some of the legislation that we have sent to them. Mr. Speaker, with a strong objection and a strong hope for a strong ``no'' vote on the motion to recommit, I yield back the balance of my time.

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 on H.J. Res. 123, and that I may include tabular and extraneous material.

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 on H.J. Res. 122, and that I may include tabular and extraneous material.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I do, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, the motion to recommit offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin does not really work. I realize that he and I spend so much time together it is hard to create the separation, even for a weekend; but what this would do is a 1-day CR, a 1-day CR, a 1-day CR. And if all we do is a 1-day CR at a time, that is all we do. We would never get down to the real business. So we cannot agree to this 1-day CR. And I hope that everybody will vote ``no'' on the motion to recommit and then vote ``yes'' on the resolution, so that then we will get back about our business, the rest of our business, after we conclude the CR. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and all the members of the Committee on Appropriations on both sides of the aisle for having worked together so well this year to get our work where we are prepared to move, with very little notice, to complete this appropriations process. And it has been a good bipartisan effort. On a bipartisan note, I wanted to thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm). He and I exchanged some words earlier in the debate. He mentioned just in the last few minutes about the $400 billion increase in the debt. I want to talk about that just for a couple of minutes. He is right. He has been a trooper in this House ever since he came here to try to balance the budget, as have many of us been here to try to balance the budget. But I think the gentleman from Texas would agree with me in what I am about to say. The discretionary appropriation bills that the gentleman from Wisconsin and I and our chairman and ranking members present to the House are not the real culprit in the deficit. Mandatory spending, back-door spending, spending over which the appropriations process has no control whatsoever, that is the problem. For every dollar that we appropriate through our discretionary funds, there are two additional dollars, two additional dollars for every one that is spent through back-door spending, through mandatory programs. The latest example: the farm bill, the agriculture bill, which was like $106 billion over the baseline for a 10-year period. That is a lot of money over the baseline. But some of those who are giving us trouble on the discretionary spending bills lined up and voted for that bill. The director of the Office of Management and Budget, who has put such a top line lid on discretionary spending, signed off on that big agriculture bill. So we have to be consistent. If we are going to control this budget deficit, we have to turn off both spigots. We watch the discretionary; we watch the mandatory. Because mandatory spending programs spend $2 for every $1 that we appropriate in the discretionary programs.

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette).

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman for his comments. Mr. Speaker, this has been an interesting afternoon. Changes came and went and were never implemented, but we are finally at the point to vote on this continuing resolution to keep the government functioning beyond midnight tomorrow night, and to keep us going until midnight Friday of next week. I am satisfied that between now and then we will have another exercise very similar to this one. I look forward to that exercise, and I am sure all the Members of the House do. But for now, I would just ask the Members to vote this CR and let us adjourn for the night.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Isakson).

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. I have to suggest to the distinguished minority leader, and he is distinguished, and I have a lot of respect for him, and I understand being in the minority. I served in this House for 24 years in the minority, so I know what it means to be in the minority. But when he says that we did not pass a budget, he is wrong. That is not accurate. We passed a budget. And when we could not get it through the whole process because the other body would not pass one, we deemed our own budget. So the House did its job. It was not our fault that the other body controlled by the other party refused to even take up a budget. Just like in the House, their party did not offer a substitute for our budget. So, yes, Mr. Minority Leader, we passed a budget and when we could not get in conference with the other body, we deemed our own budget here in this House. So I just wanted to correct that. Then I wanted to say to the gentleman about ducking responsibilities, I have avoided getting into the partisanship and the political business here in this House. A lot of it takes place, and that is natural. We are approaching an election. I have done my best to keep the official business of the appropriations process on a nonpartisan, on a bipartisan, on a productive basis, what is good for the country. But, Mr. Speaker, my party did not duck its responsibilities. We have had a very productive year in this House of Representatives, only to find our efforts stymied by the other body who refused even to take it up. One of the appropriations bills that we passed early on they worked on for 3 weeks, and could not pass it, so they pulled it off of consideration. Talk about ducking responsibilities. We passed that bill. Anyway, Mr. Speaker, as the Speaker knows, I seldom get exercised to that extent. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the very honorable gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young), my distinguished colleague. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore