C. Young

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling), who is chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. No, if the gentlewoman will again yield, it is $1.4 billion. The President requested only $1.1 billion, so we went $300 million over the President's request.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise the gentlewoman that we do intend to support this motion to instruct, but before we get to that point and actually formally accept it, I wanted to point out that we have already agreed to fund the LIHEAP program above the President's request, not only for this year, but for next year as well. The LIHEAP program was fully funded in the preliminary conference agreement at the President's requested level of $1.1 billion for fiscal year 2001, plus an additional $300 million for any emergency that might develop. With recent negotiations, we added another $300 million to this program, bringing the total funding for fiscal year 2001 to $1.7 billion. We have agreed to advance-fund another $1.4 billion for fiscal year 2002, so that States will be able to adequately plan for next year. The President requested only $1.1 billion for next year, so we again are above the President's request. We have also provided an additional $600 million in the fiscal year 2000 supplemental bill this past spring, the same amount requested by the President for emergency spending in this program for this year because of the recent increases in fuel prices. So we have really gone above and beyond the President's request; but we understand the importance of this program, and we do not want any to suffer through the winter without adequate heat, and we are not going to allow that to happen. I might also say that there are some States where an extremely hot summer also causes severe problems, and deaths occur because of excessive heat, and we are not going to allow that to happen. We are also going to provide cooling assistance for those people who are exposed to that type of temperature fluctuation. So the gentlewoman and I, I think, are together on this; and I think both sides of the aisle are together on this, so we are more than happy to accept her motion to instruct.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I listened carefully to my friend's statement that was just made on the floor as to why we are here, and he mentioned a number of continuing resolutions. Well, the reason we are here today, Saturday, and the reason that we have an excessive number of continuing resolutions is simply because the President of the United States would only permit us to do one continuing resolution for one day at a time. Had he been a little more reasonable, we could have done a continuing resolution until Monday night or Tuesday night and then the appropriators who are involved in the negotiations with the White House could have had the weekend undisturbed to do those negotiations rather than spending all of our time here on the floor Saturday and probably tomorrow, Sunday. That is why we are here today. Are there differences? Of course there are differences. That is why we have the two different parties involved. There are major philosophical differences between the two parties. If there were not differences, we would probably only have one party, or no party. But compromise, when we have a very evenly divided House, a very evenly divided Senate both controlled by one party and the White House, the President of another party, is essential. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and I have spent a lot of time together. In fact, I think our families are keeping score and have decided that he and I are spending more time with each other than we are at home with our families. But that is okay. That is what we were hired to do. I want to thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for the willingness that he shows to compromise as we approach these difficult issues. One of the big problems here is, though, that, as I have said before, there are three parties involved. There is the House of Representatives, there is the Senate, and there is the President of the United States. Now, sometime we run into these negotiations with the President, and we find that compromise is compromise only if it is his way. Compromise means everybody gives a little, everybody gets a little and you try to come to a conclusion. In some cases the President has done this, but in other cases he has been stonewalling, and compromise is either his way or no way. In my opinion, that is not true compromise. That is not true negotiation. But, nevertheless, after we finish our work here on the floor today, the gentleman from Wisconsin and I are going to continue working with our counterparts in an attempt to reach the compromise on this one remaining appropriations bill where the appropriations issues have basically been decided. It is items that have nothing to do with appropriations that are holding up the compromise on that particular bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time for a closing statement.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, will the Chair advise how much time is remaining on each side?

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher), who would like to respond.

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Foley).

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, will the Chair advise us as to the time remaining on each side.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, since I would acknowledge that the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Scarborough) has in fact grown considerably during his time here, I yield him another minute.

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the very distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham), a member of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the statement of the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin), and I do not think he was talking about the appropriations bills, because for the appropriations bills, I think the minority would concede that we have worked together very well with them. We have not kept them out of any meetings or any consideration of appropriations bills and appropriations issues. And the gentleman's original statement that we had not yet begun to negotiate, I would ask him to talk with his distinguished leader, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), because I cannot tell the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) how many hours and how many days we have spent negotiating with the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) at the same table along with our subcommittee leadership and including the White House. We have been honestly negotiating; and as I pointed out, the appropriations issues have basically all been negotiated. They have all been settled. It is the extraneous legislative-type, philosophical-type issues that are holding us up, not appropriations issues.

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble).

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, very briefly, this is another of those 1-day CRs, continuing resolutions, that are necessary because the President of the United States has refused to sign anything other than a 1-day continuing resolution. It does not make any other changes to the current CR; it just continues the appropriations process until midnight tomorrow night. I assume there will be some lengthy debate, as there was yesterday, on the last one-day CR, but we will get to a vote as soon as we can. I would like to just briefly report that at the conclusion of business yesterday, we did resume negotiations with the other body and with White House representatives, and we made some progress. We will make more progress today, and we will make more progress on Sunday. If we could offer instructions to the conferees in the other body and instructions to the White House, the same as our colleagues want to offer instructions to the House conferees today and tomorrow, things might move along a lot more expeditiously. However, we only have the authority here to make non-binding instructions to ourselves. Mr. Speaker, there is more than the House involved in this process. I would just point out once again, as I have so many times before, the House did all of its appropriations business very early, and what is delaying the completion of the appropriations process today is not really appropriation issues. By far, the most part of the controversial issues that are out there have nothing to do with appropriations. They are philosophical in nature, they are political, and they are authorization issues as opposed to appropriation issues. But, since appropriations bills are the bills that have to pass, they become very, very fertile vehicles for those who would like to add extraneous items to the appropriations bills. Mr. Speaker, I guarantee my colleagues, we will get to the end of this process; we will conclude this business, and we will have Members home at least in time to vote on Election Day. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the provisions of House Resolution 646, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 118) and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

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

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. 118, making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2001, and for other purposes.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to thank the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) for the comments that he just made about the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter), our friend and colleague. I want to associate myself with those remarks. The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter) has been an outstanding Member of this House and has made a big difference in a lot of areas. He has a wealth of knowledge on the issues that he has responsibility for. He is a very distinguished gentleman. His word has always been his bond. I would say that there are many people who will have the advantage of life saving techniques and medical discoveries because of the work that the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter) has done to expedite and move along medical research in many, many areas. I want the gentleman to know that I will miss him, that he and I do not have as many differences as he and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) have, but it is a real pleasure to be working with him. I will certainly miss the gentleman from Illinois when he leaves here.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

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. 117, and that I may include tabular and extraneous material.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment the minority leader again today, as I did the last time that he made this same speech calling for bipartisanship and all working together. I am all for that. I think we ought to do that. But it is interesting. Almost immediately after he made the speech last week, all we heard from his side of the aisle was more partisan attacks, not even related to the issues that we were dealing with. Of all of the things that we have heard talked about today, I do not think more than one or two of them had to do with appropriations. We are here today to deal with an appropriations matter, not all of these other issues, these authorizing issues, these legislating issues. I find it difficult to keep track of what bill is before the House when we hear all of the rhetoric that in my opinion is purely campaign rhetoric. I think that those campaign speeches that we just heard this morning, I think that is about the 69th time that I have heard those same speeches in the last 60 days, and I think we should give them all a number. We could save the time of the House so that we could get about our business if we just took each one of their arguments and gave it a number. When they stand up, say ``Argument Number 2, Argument Number 10,'' we could save a lot of time, because we have memorized their speeches. Those speeches that should have been reserved for the campaign trail, because that is where they belong, not in this House where the people's business has to come first. We are also criticized for working at night. We work a lot of nights. We work all day long. And we work at night too. And not only the Republican side; the Democrats do too. Despite some of the accusations about secret meetings, in all of the negotiations the Republican Majority and the Democratic minority have been involved together and most of them have included representatives of the President from the White House. We have tried to be as totally fair as we possibly could be. We did not learn that was the right thing to do from the time that we were the minority, because we were never given those kind of opportunities. We were never allowed to participate in the decision-making, and so we vowed that the minority party would have the opportunity that we did not have as a minority when we gained the majority. And I think we have been pretty true to that. I do not think that there is any room for any criticism that we have excluded the minority from any of these conversations. Now, it is suggested that we ought to do everything that the President wants. Well, we are trying to accommodate the President, because he is the President and he has as much power at this stage of the appropriations process as two-thirds of this House and two-thirds of the Senate. Because if he decides to veto a bill, it takes two- thirds of the House and two-thirds of the Senate to override that veto. So he becomes very powerful in this process and that is why we have worked very diligently with the President's representatives to try to accommodate him to the best of our ability. Mr. Speaker, I will give an example on education. We have proposed in our legislation to provide considerably over a billion dollars more money for education than the President requested in his budget. The big holdup has been, we believe, that the local school officials, the elected school boards, in our counties and our districts should have the opportunity to decide if they need new school buildings? Do they need more teachers? Do they need more special education? Do they need books? Do they need supplies? They should make those decisions, not somebody sitting here in Washington. The minority side would like people to believe that Republicans really do not support education. That is just as phony as it can be. We are strong supporters of education. Let me give an example. Most of my colleagues in the House are very much aware that for all of the years that I have been here, I have spent most of my time dealing with national defense issues, national security and intelligence. And that is a fact. I have spent a lot of time on that because that is important to our Nation. If we do not have a secure Nation, we do not have much else. But after making all the speeches about national defense, let me suggest this. If we are going to sustain our position in the world due to high technology and state-of-the-art weapons and systems, and if we are going to sustain the ability of our young men and women to function with these systems and to operate them, we have got to have the best educational system possible. And I know that our strong national defense, our strong intelligence capabilities, our strong state-of-the- art technology, and the creation of new technology, do not happen if we do not have a strong and effective educational system. Republicans believe that. That is why we are so committed to having a very strong educational system. One of the issues that the minority leader mentioned just a few minutes ago was about the tax bill. That is not what is before us this morning. But he mentioned some of the groups that might have been affected by that tax bill. But one of our colleagues on our side, the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) just the other day read off a list of the people and the groups who supported the tax bill, and the groups that he mentioned were all supporters of the tax bill. They did not oppose it. They supported it. It is interesting when the government has a huge surplus of money, there are those who believe that surplus belongs to the government. Wrong. Wrong. That surplus belongs to the taxpayers of this great Nation. And just because it is there does not mean that the government should spend it. So the tax bill I think is supported dramatically by the American people. Now, if we have a large surplus, how did it come about? We came into this Congress as a majority party a few years back determined to balance the budget. We met all kind of resistance. We were told that we cannot do it, and we did not get much support from the other side to balance the budget. But we balanced it, and today they will stand and take credit for it. We turned the tables on those who were downsizing our national defense, and we began to rebuild. We began to replace spare parts that were needed. We began to create a much better quality of life for people in our military. We gave them the largest pay raise last year, another pay raise this year that the Congress initiated, but the administration is taking credit for it. We balanced the budget. We have a surplus. Mr. Speaker, since I became chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, we have not spent one dime out of the Social Security Trust Fund, and yet there are those candidates running around the country today saying, ``Oh, be careful of those Republicans. They are going to destroy your Social Security.'' Not true, Mr. Speaker. That is a phony argument and a phony accusation. We are the ones who stopped the raid on the Social Security fund. We have a record to be proud of in our appropriations bills. We are proud of that record too because this House of Representatives under our leadership passed all of our appropriations bills a long time ago. The holdup and the delay has not come from the House. The additional spending, the additional projects have not come from the House. But, Mr. Speaker, one of the biggest problems is all of the extraneous material, the 69 campaign speeches we have heard in the last 2 months. Those campaign speeches have talked about policy issues that some people would like to decide on in an appropriation bill. Well, there is a regular order in this House of Representatives on how we deal with those issues. We have numerous authorizing committees that have the jurisdiction and the responsibility to deal with those big issues. It has long been a practice that appropriation bills are appropriation bills and we do not legislate on appropriation bills, unless there is an exceptionally valid reason to do so. But now they want us to take all of the philosophical issues that are out there and lump them on to an appropriation bill without hearings, without the opportunity for the House to deal with those issues directly. They want to lump them on to an appropriation bill. And why is that? Because appropriation bills have to pass. If appropriation bills do not pass, then the government does not function. Mr. Speaker, we have approached our responsibilities in what I think is a very responsible way. I would prefer not to be here today with this one-day continuing resolution. We tried to meet yesterday with representatives from the President's office. They were not available to us yesterday so that we could work on the last bill. There is only one bill left out there. We hope to meet all day today with the administration and with the minority party on that one bill. And if we have to, we will go into the night. And if it takes going into the night, we are going to do it. And then we will be accused, of course, of doing something in the dark of night. But if we are going to work 16 or 18 hours a day, a lot of that time is dark time. We are going to work to get the people's job done. We are not here to make political campaign speeches in this House. We are here to do our job in a responsible fashion. We are here to put the people's business above politics. When we leave here, we will go home and that is where we will do our politics. Mr. Speaker, I ask for a ``yes'' vote on the CR, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. If the gentleman will yield, I believe this is the third 1-day CR, the seventh overall.