Military Housing Improvement Act of 2004

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to bring Members back up to date on what has happened on the legislation which we started considering yesterday.

This bill funds military construction, which includes a lot of quality of life programs for our military men and women and their families. The funding level is $10 billion, and I am disappointed that the actual funding level is only a 1.6 percent increase over military construction last year, which after inflation is actually a real cut in military construction funding during a time of war.

I think that is inexcusable given our war in Afghanistan and Iraq. This bill appropriates $489 million below what we actually spent for military construction 2 years ago before the Iraqi war even began. And even worse, it is $900 million below what President Bush said would be needed this year, just 12 months ago when he made that prediction.

Despite the fact that we are actually increasing military construction, not even enough funds to make up for inflation, we have 39,000 Army families living in inadequate housing, 34,000 Army barracks are inadequate, 70 percent of Army facilities are C-3 or C-4, which means they are mission impaired, 16,000 Navy and Marine Corps families live in inadequate housing, 31,000 Air Force families live in inadequate housing.

Given this inadequate allocation to address the real priority of military housing and construction and quality of life programs, I commend the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg). He has worked in a thorough and fair manner to take what is a wholly inadequate amount of funding for military construction and to spend that money as wisely and fairly and as carefully as possible, and I salute him in that effort.

The best thing about this bill, at least in this moment, is it prevents a looming crisis in military housing construction. That crisis is, if we do not allow an amendment passed by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg) in this bill to stay in this bill, this November we are going to put a freeze immediately on 24,000 new military homes throughout the United States, and that will delay by another year homes for another 26,000 military families next year.

So we are going to basically either freeze or delay new housing for 50,000 military families across 22 States, even recognizing some of those families have loved ones serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To recap further, unfortunately yesterday the House leadership strong-armed an atrocious rule through this House, a rule that I consider to be a slap in the face of every military family in America, a rule that took 20 to 25 minutes of extra arm twisting so it could pass by one vote. That rule, pushed by the Speaker and the majority leader, will allow one Member out of 435 in this House in the next few moments to basically kill our effort to resolve the military housing crisis, and every Member of the House who voted on that rule knew exactly what was going to happen when they voted for it.

I find it unbelievable that the same House leadership that just 2 months ago on the day that the Armed Services bill put a cap on this bill at the same level that will force this crisis, on that very same day the House leadership supported a $69 billion tax cut that will give Members of Congress a tax cut.

So here we are, the leadership is pushing tax cuts for Members of Congress, they can find time to rename dozens of post offices, they can find the money to push the $69 billion tax cut, but when it comes to protecting a promise of better housing for our military men and women and their families, the House leadership sadly and unfairly said, no, we cannot do that.

I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks).

Six thousand new Army homes.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his eloquent comments and his leadership and strong support for better quality housing for our families.

I want to summarize where we are. Basically, the same House leadership that said just 2 months ago on the same day we refused to increase the cap so 50,000 new military families over the next 2 years could get new housing, in the same day they push through a $69 billion tax cut that is going to give me a $2,000 tax break.

We could afford the tax break for Members of Congress but we could not afford to take care of our promise of better housing for military families.

Now, the gentleman talked about a poke in the eye. The final poke in the eye is this is not the only bad news that the servicemen and women and veterans are going to hear today, because the same leadership that could support the tax cuts for Members of Congress could not find a way to improve housing and fund that program for military families, the most important effective housing improvement program for our military in our Nation's history. Guess what, in the Committee on Appropriations today we voted out a veterans' health care appropriations bill that basically, well, let me tell you what the National Commander of Disabled American Veterans says about it.

``To the veterans of this Nation it is incomprehensive that our government cannot afford to fund their medical care and benefits programs at a time it can afford generous tax cuts costing hundreds of billions of dollars more.''

The American Legion, the DAV, the VFW all went on to say that the leadership-pushed veterans' health care bill today is going to cut, after inflation, real veterans' health care services by $1.3 billion.

Now with the action of the leadership yesterday on the rule and one Member of the House today, we will say to 50,000 military families, we will break our promise to you of better housing.

I think that is a terrible message for us to send our military families. While we go on a month long recess and vacation they are sitting there looking at veterans' health care cuts and frozen programs.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Let me put a face on these people.

We are talking about 1,194 military families at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska will next year have their housing delayed. In New York at Fort Drum, 2,272 military families, many of whom had loved ones that had already served in Iraq, will have their housing program this year frozen. In Florida, Eglin and Hurlburt Air Force Bases 2,739 military families will have their housing promises broken. In Virginia 1,268 families at Langley. In Texas, Sheppard Air Force Base 1,288 families.

This is one more broken promise to our military families at a time when they are making incredible sacrifices to our country.

What it does, we talked about a 1.6 percent increase for military construction in this bill, but the truth is that once this objection is raised then that will not allow us to even spend that meager amount of funding for our housing program. So we could end up with an actual cut not only in veterans' health care during a time of war this year, we could end up with an actual cut in military construction during a time of war. That is unconscionable coming from a leadership that said we could afford to give Members of Congress a tax cut just 2 months ago.

Mr. Chairman, let me first say that I worked for 6 months on a bipartisan basis, talking to everyone from the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle), the chairman of the Committee on the Budget; and the chairman of the authorizing committee to try to solve this in a bipartisan manner behind the scenes. At every step of the way for 6 months people said, well, it will get done, it will get done.

The problem is, we are about to take our August recess and it is not done.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

First, let me respond to the gentleman from California's (Mr. Lewis) comments that both parties, every Member cares about our troops. I absolutely agree with that. In fact, let me repeat the statement I made on the floor yesterday on this subject, and I quote myself, ``Every one of us, Democrat and Republican alike, genuinely respects the service and sacrifice of our troops and their families. No one should doubt that fact, but I strongly believe our budget priorities should better reflect that respect.''

Those were my comments. Let me talk about partisanship.

It was the Republican leadership that shoved through a rule last night or on the floor yesterday that was done on a partisan basis. In fact, it was so partisan they had to leave the vote open an extra 20, 25 minutes to, on a partisan basis, force Republicans or convince Republicans to vote against their own interests in their own districts to support a rule that is allowing 50,000 military family housing to be put at risk.

Secondly, the Committee on the Budget, as I last recall, and I am a member of that committee, put together its budget on a partisan basis. That is where the partisanship came in, if it came in at all.

But to totally put to bed any idea that this is a partisan issue, I have letters.

Mr. Chairman, the Air Force Association sent a letter to the chairman of the Committee on Rules asking them to not pass the rule that they did.

The Association of the U.S. Army, a letter signed by General Gordon Sullivan, former chief of staff for the Army, put in there that ``RCI,'' the Army's housing program, ``has a tremendous positive impact on quality of life for our soldiers.

``I would ask that you work to ensure the amendment'' to protect housing ``is protected by the Rules Committee and reaches the House floor.''

The Military Officers Association of America asks that the House leadership not shove through a partisan rule that would be unfair to military families.

So did the National Military Family Association.

I do not think any of our colleagues would suggest that the Association of the U.S. Army and the Military Officers Association of America and these other military organizations are acting out of a partisan basis. This does not have anything to do with partisanship. It has to do with standing up for fairness for military families who are making an incredible sacrifice for the American family during a time of war; and in doing so, I will not hesitate to stand up to the Republican leadership of this House which shoved through a rule that is going to allow this housing to be put at risk, and I will not hesitate to stand up to any Democrats who would hesitate in fully supporting military housing.

We all support our troops, but we have an opportunity by passing this bill without a point of order to do something tangible about it. Good intentions, goodwill do not provide better housing for 50,000 military families. Passing this bill, as we passed it out of committee in a bipartisan fashion, that is the way to make a difference for military families who are so deserving of this support.

Mr. Chairman, I do.

Mr. Chairman, what a difference 1 hour makes. Less than 1 hour ago on this floor the House of Representatives passed a rule for the defense appropriations bill which waives all points of order against that bill, and yet because the House leadership instructed the Committee on Rules and twisted arms to force many Republican House members to vote on a bill that does not protect a point of order on this, because of that decision, inconsistent with a rule we just passed in this House by unanimous vote less than 60 minutes ago, because of that we are basically going to put at risk the most important military housing improvement program in American history, a program that does not only improve housing and show respect in a tangible way to men and women and families, to children who are making incredible sacrifices for our country, but a measure that is saving taxpayers billions of dollars by building these houses more efficiently.

In a House that ignores technicalities every single day to carry out priorities much less important than quality military housing for our families during a time of war, we are going to put this incredibly important program at risk.

Finally, I want to say this. Let us be clear, this is not today just an action of one person, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle). I respect the gentleman. He is a person of principle. I might disagree with the debate on fiscal responsibility when we voted 2 months ago for a $69 billion tax cut that helps Members of Congress and today we cannot afford to take care of a few thousand military families' housing, but I do respect him. He is a person of deep principle.

This is not just an action of the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle). This was an action which was allowed and encouraged by the House leadership by forcing an unfair rule through this House, a rule that was opposed by the Military Officers Association of America, the Association of the U.S. Army, the Air Force Association, and the National Military Family Association.

This action is also something that was allowed by 212 votes, a passage of that rule by one vote, 212 to 211. One Member changing his or her vote, and we could have prevented this tragedy from happening today.

Mr. Chairman, I would urge the gentleman to consider not recognizing the technicality raised here that will harm tens of thousands of military families during a time of war.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I would just like to read into the Record the States and the specific military installations that have just had a guarantee of new housing for their military families taken away from them. Perhaps we will solve this another day. I have been trying to work for 6 months on a bipartisan basis to get this resolved. I am not sure this late in the Congress I have tremendous confidence that it will get resolved, but the real pity is that we could have resolved it today if the leadership had let go through the Committee on Rules the exact same rule we unanimously approved on the military appropriations bill just an hour ago.

The States that have just lost a chance because of this technicality that were allowed by the rule pushed by the leadership that will lose a guarantee to have new military housing for their service men and women are Alabama, Alaska, California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Wyoming.

To add to the military installations I had already mentioned a few moments ago that will either have their housing frozen this year and, in fact, a promise broken to those military families or have their housing expected in 2006 to be delayed a year would include Fort Knox, Kentucky, 3,380 military families affected by this technical ruling. Fort Rucker in Alabama, 1,516 military families. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 1,580 military families. Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi, 1,682 military families. New Mexico, Holloman Air Force Base, 1,440. Fort Gordon, Georgia, 872 families. Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, 475. MCB in Hawaii, Phase 1, 1,377 families will have their hopes for better housing dashed or delayed for a year or more. Camp Lejeune, an important Marine Corps installation in North Carolina, 838 families. In addition to an additional 3,516 families at Camp Lejeune that this year will have their new housing put on hold.

These are not just numbers and names, these are real men and women, real military families making unbelievable sacrifices in behalf of every family in this House and in our Nation that have just lost the opportunity because of an unfair rule opposed by numerous military organizations exercised, as the gentleman had the right to exercise, just a moment ago a technicality to kill that dream of a new home.

It is a shame that dream has been killed today. I certainly urge those who perhaps did not want it to be taken care of today to work together, and I will pledge to work together in good faith with them to try to solve it in the months ahead, but there was no reason not to give this promise today to our military people. They do not ask to be delayed when they are asked to serve their country. When they are asked to go to combat, they go. When we had an opportunity to stand up for them, we should not have been AWOL. We should not have delayed. We should have taken action. That is what is the most shameful thing about what has happened today on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.

Just a few minutes ago my colleagues on the other side of the aisle said we should work together in the days and months ahead to try to ensure the promise to our military families of better housing. I suggest we start right now, and it would be very simple, and we can send a clear message out to our families who have loved ones in harm's way that right now we are going to guarantee them the quality housing they are expecting.

All we need to do is take basically the exact same language that the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) put together in the bill he wrote yesterday and passed yesterday, which, by the way, was an example of what the leadership in this House can do when it wants to do something. Let us just adopt that same language in the gentleman from Wisconsin's (Mr. Obey) motion to recommit. It is the same language. What is the difference?

I tell the Members what the difference would be. If we would work together on a bipartisan basis right now not to object to this, we can send an important message to our troops out there and their loved ones that we are going to support them with better housing, especially during this time of war.

The language is the same. The gentleman's bill, H.R. 4879, that we passed yesterday that he talked about says we strike the number $850 million and insert $1.350 billion. The gentleman from Wisconsin's (Mr. Obey) motion to recommit that is now before the floor says let us go from $850 million to $1.3 billion on the limitation of military housing privatization programs. What is the difference?

Let us work together right now. Let us do the right thing. Let us not let a technicality prevent us from doing the right thing for tens of thousands of military families. We can do it together. We do not have to wait a week, a month, and the possibilities of what might or might not happen then. We can doing it right now. I urge this House to do so.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4879) to increase the military housing private investment cap.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the bill under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

(Mr. HUNTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4879, the Military Housing Improvement Act of 2004. We have spent the last several hours debating points of order and budgetary implications of a provision in the Military Construction Appropriations Act to address the housing privatization program. H.R. 4879, I am pleased to say, goes straight to the heart of the matter by raising the cap on the housing privatization program by $500 million, enough to permit DOD to continue the program through fiscal year 2005.

As Member after Member has pointed out today, the Military Housing Privatization Program has been an unqualified success. By leveraging the interest of private sector developers and property managers, housing privatization improves and manages military family housing better, more quickly, and at lower cost than our traditional military construction model.

To date, the housing privatization program has leveraged a government cash contribution of only $500 million to build approximately $5.6 billion in housing construction. Furthermore, privatized housing is a tremendous improvement over existing DOD housing facilities.

Privatized homes are often equipped with new appliances, built to modern standards, well-maintained, and are parts of communities. This is in stark contrast to the patchwork of poorly maintained housing for which DOD is known.

Despite the success of the housing privatization program, a legislative cap will soon bring a halt to the program by preventing DOD from entering into new privatization contracts after November 2004. The FY 2005 National Defense Authorization Act contains a partial fix to this problem. It eliminates the cap in fiscal year 2006. However, it leaves a gap between November 2004 and October 2005 during which DOD would be unable to sign any privatization contracts that would count against the cap. As a result, most projects DOD plans to begin in fiscal year 2005 would be delayed until October 2005. This would affect approximately 24,000 family housing units at at least 16 installations nationwide.

H.R. 4879 addresses this problem by increasing the cap on the program by $500 million, enough to allow DOD to proceed with its privatization program through FY 2005. The program is a success. I urge my colleagues to join with me in ensuring that it continues by supporting this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young).

Mr. Speaker, on that optimistic note, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me just address my friend who just spoke and all Members. This bill does have meaning because every time the full House manifests its will and gives a good majority vote, a good solid vote, that is a very important boost to the process. I would just tell the gentleman that we are going to make sure that by the time the smoke clears and the dust clears in this process, we are going to have these 24,000 units released for construction. It is important to everyone. I might say, also, and I appreciate my friend from Florida and all the great work he has done on this, and all the members of the Committee on Armed Services, that we do have this problem fixed from 2006 on. It is this gap, this bridge this year that we need to fix.

I might mention to my colleagues that the gentleman from Iowa is the author of this provision. I think that bespeaks of his good intentions to get this problem taken care of.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle), chairman of the Committee on the Budget.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, let me just say that we have obviously a difference of opinion as to how we get this particular measure forward, how we move it forward. We have got people of goodwill on both sides.

I have recommended today, even though we are the authorizing committee, that we give up some of our turf today and let this thing pass on the appropriations bill. There is obviously a problem with that occurring.

We have got this measure up, which is authored, in fact, by the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle), chairman of the Committee on the Budget, as evidence of the fact that he wants to get this thing to move forward; and I think if we pass this with an overwhelming vote, manifesting that will of the House is going to help this process.

We have got a long way to go before the dust settles on the spending bills this year. We are going to make sure that this problem is solved this year. The exact parliamentary road for that obviously has not been determined, as is, I think, evidenced by the debate that has taken place.

But I would just ask Members from all positions, from all points, who have one piece of common ground, and that is to get this very important housing measure passed, to work together on this thing and move forward.

I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time from my very good colleague, and I just remind him that no objection has been heard yet on the MILCON bill, and I would just would ask the gentleman, the chairman of the Budget Committee, to look at this as a very extraordinary situation, because it is an extraordinary situation in that we have a very unusual scoring application by CBO that is not endorsed by OMB and not, obviously, endorsed by us and does not make good sense. That is that the entire economic implication of this 24,000 units is being scored at one time, and that is a very unusual thing; and secondly, that we have a very unusual circumstance with this being the centerpiece of quality of life for our military folks.

So let me just suggest to my friend that we all have a job in this House and that the Committee on the Budget has undertaken to follow their duty, their obligation, in the manner they best see fit; and I would suggest to the gentleman that talking with them and working with them on this may be the way to get this thing done, and I would hope that the gentleman would talk with the Committee on the Budget.

Mr. Speaker, let me remind the gentleman that neither of us belongs to organized political parties. We are Republicans and Democrats. But I just want to remind the gentleman, too, that we are stretched between two cross-strains which are very familiar to this House. One is the strain and the discipline that is required for fiscal discipline. And we all know that, and I think we have to give some credence to the Committee on the Budget chairman's statement, because the chairman of the Committee on the Budget does stand here and he does take fusillades from both sides about spending money and about not having rules. On the other hand, we then have these extraordinary circumstances in which we beat up on the Committee on the Budget chairman for sticking with those rules.

And I told the gentleman that my position is, even though we own the turf on this as the authorizing committee, we think it is so extraordinary and so compelling we are willing to give up that turf and pass it in this particular bill.

But I would recommend to the gentleman that he talk with the members of the Committee on the Budget and remember that they have an obligation, too, and try to work through that obligation.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, let me respond to the gentleman because I think all of us were disappointed when we saw what I think is a very unusual ruling, that this is all to be costed up front, and that was a highly unusual ruling which I think is erroneous.

On the other hand, it has put us where we are. And what we have got to do is work through it, and I think we are going to work through it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to remind my friend that the same Republican leadership that he has criticized so heavily is the Republican leadership that passed concurrent receipt, where retirees can receive their checks and disability checks; has urged and has passed the survivor benefit program, which laid in state for years; has increased the equipment supply from an average of about $45 billion a year under the Clinton administration to an average of about $70 billion a year for new equipment for our troops in the field; and supplied the ammunition, force protection and, surveillance they have been so sorely lacking the last 15 years.

I would remind my friend, this should not be a blame day; this should be a day in which we all work and move forward. I think that every vote that one takes on an issue, one can call this a fig leaf vote if one wants, but I would remind my friend that every vote that we take on an issue is an important vote.

I would just tell my friend from Texas, at the end of this year when the dust clears on this process, which is obviously affected by the political season, we are going to have legislative vehicles come down the track and get across the finish line. This problem is going to be fixed.

If my friend wants to ask me to take the floor with him at the end of this session and we will prove up, I will be happy to tell him now, I will give him my word, this problem is going to be fixed.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young).

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I would simply observe that no two people in this House have worked harder to keep partisanship or any other illegitimate consideration out of this issue than have the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards). They have proceeded in tandem to try to produce concrete, as opposed to theoretical, results for the military families in this country who are deserving of a decent place to live.

But what we are being faced with is this: my mentor in this House, when I first came, was Dick Bolling from Missouri who for many years served this House in spectacular fashion on the Committee on Rules, and he often told me that the greatest enemy to true legislative progress was what he called ``dung hill politics.'' By that he meant Members being more interested in preserving the jurisdiction of their committee or the narrow interest that was associated with a committee or subcommittee, rather than focusing on the broader interests of the American people who we are supposed to serve.

It seems to me that this discussion tonight is an example of what Dick Bolling was worried about because what we have going here, as I said yesterday, is a charade.

The gentleman from Michigan and the gentleman from Texas have brought to the floor a bill which provides concrete assurances that at least 24,000 more military families will receive decent housing; but apparently the Committee on the Budget is unhappy, at least the chairman of the Committee on the Budget is unhappy, with the way the committee has gone about this; and so he intends, as I understand it, shortly to exercise a point of order which will strike from this bill the Congress' ability to deliver that housing to those military families.

In order to create an impression that these families are not being hurt, it appears that what the House will now hide behind is a motion taken yesterday to try to increase the authorization for this program, which would have the result, if the bill was enacted into law, of accomplishing the very same thing that is being accomplished by this bill. The problem is the way this Congress works, there is absolutely no assurance that a freestanding, independent authorization bill will go anywhere in the other body; and that is why, if you want to preserve that housing for those members, it is essential to keep this language in this bill.

That is what the gentleman from Michigan has been trying to do. That is what the gentleman from Texas has been trying to do on a bipartisan basis, and we ought to be supporting that effort rather than finding technicalities as reasons to deep-six the very fine work that they have attempted to do.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to be heard on the point of order.

Mr. Chairman, it is important for us to respect the rules of the House, but sometimes the rules give Members powers to do things that they ought not do. Just because we have the power to do something does not necessarily mean that it is the right thing to do it. Sometimes it is important to exercise restraint. I think this is one of those cases.

The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) correctly points out that an hour ago we waived all points of order on a huge spending bill, many times more dollars than we have in this bill. There were many points of order that could have been lodged against this bill when it came from the Committee on Rules, but the House leadership chose to expose only one item in the bill to a point of order, and that is the item that would have delivered decent housing to 24,000 military families.

What the House did or what the majority did by adopting that rule is to say in effect that peace in the family was more important than the sure delivery of decent housing to 24,000 military families.

Mr. Chairman, I think it is unfortunate that the majority leadership has dictated to the House that it must allow this one provision to be eliminated, but there is not much we can do about it and I also unfortunately have to concede the point of order.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.

Unless the motion is adopted, Mr. Speaker, yes.

Mr. Speaker, what this amendment attempts to do is to restore the language just stricken by the gentleman. If the gentleman insists on his point of order, then obviously once again the House will have missed an opportunity to provide housing for these 24,000 military families.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a subsequent motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, this is the last opportunity the House will have to do the right thing for 24,000 military families.

This motion to recommit instructs the Committee on Appropriations to report the bill back with the cap lifted by $500 million for a total of $1.35 billion. This does not incur any additional costs. It simply allows existing funds and other assets to be used for privatization.

The problem seems to be, as Members have pointed out, that CBO wants to charge these privately raised funds against the budget allocation, which does not make any sense to anyone who lives in the real world. Any Member who has visited a military base and seen family housing knows this is a real need. Raising the cap enjoys broad support on both sides of the aisle and the White House.

I urge Members to join in support of this motion to recommit and give military families the decent housing they deserve.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

Mr. Speaker, to those who would cite the action taken by the House yesterday on the authorization bill, I would simply say that was not a substantive fix. That was a political fix, which is going nowhere because there is no assurance whatsoever that that bill will pass. This bill is a must-pass vehicle. That is why this provision ought to be attached to this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.

Let me simply point out to the gentleman from Iowa that the bill that the gentleman from Iowa is suggesting that we focus on is the bill that is going nowhere for the next 6 weeks either. The only difference between this bill and the bill that the gentleman is now purportedly supporting is that this bill will after the summer recess go somewhere. The bill the gentleman supported yesterday is going nowhere. That is a big difference to military families.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the very distinguished chairman of the Committee on Armed Services for yielding me this time. There is no one in this body who has worked any harder than he has in making this issue resolved, getting it to resolution. I appreciate his willingness to expedite this bill that I introduced today in order to help deal with the problem.

To those who are suggesting that this bill goes nowhere after it passes unanimously today, I just ask them, why? I see them shaking their heads, but why is it that the other body would stop military families from receiving this benefit? And why is it that the other body would oppose the Department of Defense authorization, as we hear is occurring? Why are they stopping everything? For our defense needs, our intelligence needs, our military families, everything is stopped. They have not even been willing to vote on a budget.

I ask the Members, is that a problem? Of course it is. Do we break our rules? Do we bust our budget in order to do that, in order to fix it? I would suggest no. You have the right to overrule that. You have the right to vote differently. I would suggest you do that if that is how you feel. But then do not come to the floor and lecture the Committee on the Budget about how the budget process is broken. Do not come to the floor and lecture the American people about deficits and national debts and tell me time and time again during the budget debate itself how when you are in a hole, you stop digging. I believe if I had a nickel for every time that speech was made, we could probably resolve the national debt and the deficit, because when you are in a hole, you stop digging.

How could you do that? Today the Committee on Appropriations brought to the floor a bill that busts the budget by $1.2 billion instead of looking throughout the rest of their budget, the rest of their appropriations allocation of $821 billion, to find enough money in order to meet the needs of our military families.

So they came to the floor and for the very first time since Republicans took the majority, violated a rule, bringing to the floor an appropriation bill that busted their allocation called 302(b), which I understand most people watching do not pay any attention to.

Yes, these are arcane rules, but the reason that we have these rules is so that we can try to get a handle on spending. And, no, it is not just for military families. I ask Members to look through that $821 billion and they will find many places that are less important than our military families. That is why this bill needs to be supported. We need to pass it, and we need to put pressure on the other body that stands in the way of all progress for our military, passing the Department of Defense authorization, passing appropriation bills.

We are not even going to pass the Military Construction appropriation bill before the election. I will bet my colleagues on that one. Will we do what is called a CR? Probably. But do my colleagues think we are going to pass that before this election? Do my colleagues think we are not going to have CR and CR and CR? If it is such an important priority, where are these people rushing to get this done?

So I want to commend the gentleman who is the very distinguished chairman of the Committee on Armed Services who has jurisdiction over this issue, who has been working on this, who is bringing this bill today to the floor and deserves the ability to continue to work on this and not put it in an appropriation bill when it does not belong there, and it busts the budget.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I will insist on that.

Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman from Missouri, I have even been told today I was shooting at Santa Claus. Somebody came to the floor and said I shot Santa Claus today. My goodness, I have been accused of a lot of things, but shooting Santa Claus and personally, individually, one Member stopping 24,000 families from getting that housing, let us review the record.

If this was so important, would my colleagues not think that the Committee on Appropriations, in their base bill as it was reported to the subcommittee, do my colleagues not think that in that base bill they would have written this procedure in? It was not done. It was not done. In fact, it was done as an amendment at the committee.

So I understand that this is now a pretty important priority for a number of reasons. Some of it is politics. Some of it is expediency. Some of it is probably due to the fact that we have a body across the Rotunda that does not appear to be getting much accomplished. There is a lot of that that probably makes it very difficult. But that does not mean that we bend our rules, we break our rules here in the House in order to proceed.

There is not one family today that loses their housing as a result of a point of order on the House floor. My goodness, if that was the case, there would probably be a lot more Members down here doing a lot of points of order on a lot more issues.

What needs to be done is, priorities need to be made. We need to within the bills determine what is important, and I would stack up military housing to just about anything else in most of these bills that come to the floor called appropriation bills.

People want to talk about priorities? These are the priorities, and the gentleman from Missouri is as strong as the gentleman from California in understanding that. But I am, too, and every Member of this body is, too. And I appreciate the leadership that that gentleman from Missouri makes every day for our men and women. But we have many leaders who make that same sacrifice, and I do not count myself in the back seat to any one of them.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, it is a sad day today. I do not know if anybody else is as ashamed as I am that we are going through this kind of a process. When I think back at the times I have visited Iraq, five times that I have visited in Iraq, and I sit across the table, whether it is for breakfast, for lunch or for dinner, with the soldiers, they look at us and they have a trust that we are going to do the right thing. They look at us, and they know that we are going to represent their best interests.

In my district at Fort Bliss, Texas, there are about 2,500 military families that have been looking forward to getting a benefit from this program that we are talking about here. We were looking forward to it.

It is clear to me that what we are doing here today is a lot of political CYA and nothing substantial apparently is going to come from it. Shame on us for not having the guts to stand up and do what is right for our military families, and shame on us for passing emergency legislation, supplemental bills, that give $20 billion, $21 billion, whatever that figure is, to reconstruct neighborhoods, give garbage trucks and all of these other things in Iraq, when we cannot even do the basic thing for our military families.

So here we are in this situation here, where we are talking about what a great job our military is doing, how proud we are of them and how we consider them heroes; and at the same time, we cannot find a process to give their families who are sacrificing beyond what most of us can imagine, who are sacrificing, we cannot give them decent housing.

Shame on us. We call this the people's House? We ought to be ashamed of each and every one of these machinations that we put ourselves through.

So it is a sad day for me. It should be a sad day for all of us. But, most of all, as I look at my watch and it is sometime after midnight in Iraq, those soldiers are putting their lives on the line for us for everything that we hold dear. We ought to have enough guts to do whatever it takes to find the money, to ensure that the money is there.

I will tell you very honestly, I do not have the knowledge of the intricacies of the budget and all of these other things that my honorable colleagues have, but I do know one thing: do not run a sham on our military families. That is all they care about. All they want to know from us is, as they look in our eyes, that they can trust us, that we are going to deliver for them like they deliver for us every day. Shame on us.

Mr. Speaker, at Fort Bliss in my district, nearly half of the NCOs attending the Sergeant Major's Academy live in beautiful recently built homes. The other half live in what is affectionately referred to as ``Bedrock.'' While there is something nice about returning home to a neighborhood where your neighbors are Barney and Fred, it's not the neighbors that make this area of family housing on Fort Bliss resemble Bedrock--it's the fact that despite noble efforts by the folks at Fort Bliss, the houses are in poor shape and look like they were built in the Stone Age.

About 2,500 military families at Fort Bliss were looking forward to living in new or improved homes, thanks to the Military Housing Privatization Initiative (MHPI) that is scheduled to start this year. The Army's arm of this program, the Residential Communities Initiative (RCI), aims to eliminate inadequate housing on Army bases by 2007 through the construction of new homes, the improvement of current structures and the incorporation of community features such as recreation centers into military posts. At Fort Bliss, this means that ``Bedrock'' will be a thing of the past.

MHPI is an extremely cost-effective measure because contractors pay the up-front costs and recover their investment through rental payment. MHPI also stimulates local economies by providing job opportunities in the construction and maintenance of homes and facilities. Unfortunately for the 2,500 military families at Fort Bliss and for thousands of other families across the country, MHPI is threatened by a funding cap which will be reached in November of this year.

Mr. Speaker, earlier today, I stood on the floor of this House to urge my colleagues to vote against the rule for the FY05 MilCon appropriations. The rule would have stripped a provision from the bill to ensure that the MHPI program would continue. The passage of that rule almost ensures that this important provision will be eliminated from the appropriations bill. The bill now before us, H.R. 4879, contains language that is nearly identified to the military housing privatization provision in the MilCon appropriations bill. This bill is basically a face saving measure by the Republicans. This suspension bill that increases the housing cap does not keep out faith with our men and women in uniform. If the provision is in the MilCon appropriation bill, it will be committed to Conference and the Senate must deal with it. If, on the other hand, it is passed as a Suspension, the Senate is under no obligation whatsoever to consider the measure, and we have no idea if it will ever see the light of day--in short, the odds that it will become law are dramatically decreased. Mr. Speaker, this bill is a cynical gesture and a slap in the face of our brave men and women of the armed services. Our men and women in uniform and their families deserve the very best--and adequate housing is the least that we can provide for them. Unfortunately, this bill falls far short of ensuring that they will get the housing they so need and deserve.