C. Young

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman from Alabama for those comments. I think it is important that our colleagues know this. We have been very diligent in communicating with the White House and the President's staff, and the Office of Management and Budget, to do the best we could to accommodate the wishes that they had within our strong desire to keep the budget balanced and to pay down a substantial amount on our national debt. Anyway, Mr. Speaker, we are at this point. This bill should be decided on its own merits. We should not vote for this bill or against this bill because of what may or may not be in some other appropriations bill. This is a good bill, and all of the minority members signed the conference report except for the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), so I think that is an indication that this is a pretty decent bipartisan appropriations bill. Again, I congratulate the gentleman from California (Chairman Packard) and the ranking member, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Visclosky), for bringing a good bill to this floor; and I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. I want to compliment the gentleman for a good job in getting the bill passed. Mr. Speaker, as my friend from Florida (Mr. Boyd) said, over 60 days ago we passed this bill in the House, and we have passed all 13 bills in the House. But as I listen to my friends on the other side, it looks to me like they are trying to create an issue that is not there, because my friend and colleague from New Mexico, the chairman, has said that he does not have any objection to this motion to instruct. So I do not understand the arguments, because they seem to try to make an issue that is not even there. As far as debating, as the last speaker said, we have spent more time in this Chamber and in the Committee on Appropriations this year debating matters that are extraneous and have nothing to do with appropriations bills. We have spent more time this year in genuine debate on those extraneous issues than we have in many, many years in the past. So I say again, I am glad they pointed out the fact that we have passed all of our bills, and I am glad to repeat what my friend the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen) has said, we do not object to this motion. So what is the issue?

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Give us 81 more Republicans than there are Democrats, and we will show you a real whirlwind of activity here.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's comments, and that is why I like him. I would be happy to yield him more time if he wants to compliment the Chair any more. But that is the process. There are 435 Members of this House and 100 Members of the other body, and that means there are 535 different opinions on almost any issue. It takes a while to resolve those differences because each House is equal to the other, and then when the President gets to the point that he can either accept or veto a bill, he becomes as powerful, understand this, he becomes as powerful as two thirds of us, because if he does not agree with something that we have done, it takes two thirds of us to override that veto. And so it is a process that is full of obstacles and pitfalls along the way. We do the best we can to work through them. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Speaker, the subject of Presidential vetoes has been raised here several times by my two friends who have just spoken. During the Committee on Appropriations work, we were told time after time after time by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) ``If you do it this way, the bill is going to be vetoed.'' How many times on the floor when we were considering the appropriations bills did the gentleman from Wisconsin say, ``If you do this, the bill is going to be vetoed,'' or ``If you do not do that, the bill is going to be vetoed.'' He is speaking for the administration. But we have had veto threats on almost every appropriations bill that we have considered here. When the gentleman tells us that a bill is going to be vetoed, then we will take the time to try to work with the White House and work together, as the gentleman suggested, and see if we can find a way to make that bill signable by the President rather than vetoed. But we take the gentleman from Wisconsin at his word. The gentleman tells us the bill is going to be vetoed. We are going to try to find a way to make that bill acceptable to the President if we can. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Scarborough).

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, my friend, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), has mentioned education; and this has been an ongoing debate and argument in the Congress. We believe that we have been more generous to the educational appropriation than the President requested. But the major difference has not been so much the numbers and the dollars. The major difference is how is the educational money going to be spent: Is some guru here in Washington going to sit down here and determine what is best for the school districts and the schools in every one of our counties and cities throughout America; or are the people elected at the local level going to make the decision on how they should use the money available to them? For example, in some case we need more buildings. In other cases we need more schoolteachers. In other cases we need computers. In other cases we need special education. There are so many, many different needs in education. And I think that it is far wiser to allow the people elected in the local school systems to make the decisions on what their needs really are to best educate the children in those schools. We are not arguing about the money; we are arguing about who makes the decision on how that money is used. And now, Mr. Speaker, after having nearly 2 hours of good political debate, many of the topics not having anything to do with this resolution before us, I want to thank my friend, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), for his support of this resolution and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer). We would all prefer not to have to do this. I agree with the gentleman from Wisconsin, that it would be better if all 13 bills were signed by the President. But we find ourselves today needing this continuing resolution until the 6th day of October in order to make certain of the smooth continuity of our Federal Government. So just let me ask the Members to support this continuing resolution. And then we will get back to the bargaining tables, negotiate, and find the solutions that are acceptable to the House, to the Senate, and to the President and then get on about the business of the Congress. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Granger), a member of the Committee on Appropriations.

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 591, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 109) making continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2001, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the legislation before the House, H.J. Res. 109, is a continuing resolution for fiscal year 2001. Legislation is needed because even though the House has passed all of the 13 appropriations bills, all 13 appropriations bills have not completed conference or been approved by the President and will not be so by October 1, the beginning of the fiscal year. So in order to keep the government operating and open the first day of the new fiscal year, we need to enact this continuing resolution. I do not think there is any controversy relative to the continuing resolution itself. The duration of the continuing resolution that is before the House is until October 6. Let me briefly describe the terms and conditions of this continuing resolution. It will continue all ongoing activities at current rates under the same terms and conditions as fiscal year 2000. Its remaining terms and conditions are the same as we have used in recent years. It does not allow new starts. It restricts obligations on high initial spendout programs so that final funding decisions will not be impacted. It includes eight funding or authorizing anomalies; four of them were in last year's continuing resolution or have been modified slightly from last year; four are new, and six from last year have been deleted. Mr. Speaker, this continuing resolution is noncontroversial. I am aware that the President has agreed to sign at least several short-term continuing resolutions, so I urge the House to move this legislation to the other body so that we can be sure that the government will operate smoothly and efficiently and so we can continue our regular work to finish our regular appropriations bills quickly. Before I reserve the balance of my time, Mr. Speaker, I compliment all of our colleagues in the House. While some of the debates took a long time, some of the amendments were difficult to deal with and some of them were hard political votes, despite all of this, the House has passed all 13 of the appropriations bills. I want to repeat that, Mr. Speaker: the House has passed all of its appropriations bills. So now we wait for conferences that cannot be scheduled because the other body has not passed all of the bills. We have outstanding differences with the President that we are trying diligently to work through. Hopefully, before too many more days have passed, we will have reached agreement and be able to say that all 13 bills have been passed by the House and the Senate and have been approved by the President. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Reclaiming my time, I would remind the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) that was the year that there were a few items that were held over until April of the following year, and the majority of basic fundamental appropriations for the government were completed prior to that; but those few items that we had agreed to hold over until the next spring caused the 208 days. But the gentleman covered the Republican history well enough, I thought, that I should cover the Democratic history, to point out that there is a problem in our process, to point out, if I had my big chart here, which the gentleman has seen, how many days the Committee on Appropriations loses in a fiscal year before we ever get a budget resolution. Mr. Speaker, that is a very telling chart, because the actual workdays available to appropriators after we receive the budget resolution are very limited.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to yield.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the very distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling), the chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce. (Mr. GOODLING asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I wanted to thank my friend, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), for the history lesson on continuing resolutions and who did what and when did they do it. I would say to my friend who asked about what inning are we in, I would say we are in the 9th inning and probably the bottom of the 9th. And in 4 days, I suggest that we are going to go into overtime because of a tie, a 3-way tie.

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I think we are going to have overtime here.

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. We are going to go into overtime, that overtime will soon start. The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) has just gone through the history of the 6 years of the Republican control of the House, so I thought I would come back with the last 6 years of the Democratic control of the House. Let us go back starting in fiscal year 1990, because that would be 6 years back. Under the Democratic leadership in the House, they had 51 days of continuing resolution. The one we present today asks for only 6 days. In fiscal year 1991, they had 36 days; in fiscal year 1992, they had 57 days of overtime under CRs; in fiscal year 1993, they did a little better, because they only had 5 days; in fiscal year 1994, they had 41 days. In fiscal year 1995, and I give my colleague from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) credit, that was the year that he chaired the committee, the bills were all completed on time. During the 6 years of the Republican control, during one year no CR was needed. But the truth is we have had CRs, except for 2 years, in the last 12 years. The 1 year that our friend, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), chaired the committee, he had the bills done on time; but, the gentleman had 81 more Democrats in the House than there were Republicans, and that makes the job a little bit easier. Mr. Speaker, with our breakdown today, the way I read it, there are 222 Republicans, 210 Democrats and two independents. Now, that makes our job a little bit tougher, and that is why it even took longer to get the bills through the House. I am glad my friend, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), repeated it again. We have passed all 13 bills in the House. That is the first thing that has to be done, and then we confer with our colleagues in the Senate, then we relate it to the White House and finally try to get a package.

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. 109 and that I may include tabular and extraneous material.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe), the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government and the bill that funds the White House, the President's activities.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe).

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for that, and I think that helps us expedite the business which needs to be expedited. So with that, Mr. Speaker, I just ask the Members to seriously consider this package, and let us vote it out of the House, get it through the Senate, and send it down to the White House and let the President make his decision once he sees the bill in its final form.