Expressing the sense of Congress regarding the education curriculum in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 631 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

This resolution provides that certain specified measures may be considered under suspension of the rules at any time on the legislative day of Sunday, December 18, 2005.

Mr. Speaker, we are gathered here on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Washington, D.C., December 18, 2005. We have had our priest to open up this beautiful House today, asking that America and Americans understand our responsibilities. We are here today because we still have work yet to be done, but there are people that we need to give thanks to.

Mr. Speaker, our families expected us home weeks ago, but we are here because we have an obligation and a duty.

Mr. Speaker, we are here today under protection of members of the Capitol

Hill Police Department, members of the United States military who protect our great country, our staffs, as well as the people who work for the United States House of Representatives who serve with honor and distinction. We deserve to give them thanks for all that they have done on what surely will be the last day of this first session of Congress. But there is still much work left to be done, and we recognize that we are here to do that.

The Republican leadership of this House has set forth yet again a positive legislative agenda for the remainder of this week and the balance of this first session of the 109th Congress. The goal of this plan is to address a number of outstanding issues that still remain on Congress' calendar before we adjourn, and we must utilize this schedule to make sure we maintain our commitment to improving America's economic and national security.

One of the things, Mr. Speaker, that sets America apart from other nations is that we do not expect others to do the work for us. We take part and get it done ourselves, and that is what this Congress is doing.

Over the past year, we have passed a number of important new education, health care, trade, tax and national security bills that will keep America safer and healthier, create new jobs and improve our economy. This rule will allow the House to consider a number of additional bills today under suspension of the rules that will ensure that Congress can complete more additional work necessary before we go home for the holidays.

This rule makes in order the consideration of eight bills under suspension of the rules. These bills will accomplish important domestic goals such as reforming the Federal deposit insurance system and reauthorizing the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant program through March 31, 2006.

The suspension authority allows us to consider necessary and noncontroversial items such as H.R. 4501, which amends the Passport Act in order to comply with the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004; a bill to authorize the transfer of items in the War Reserves Stockpile; and H.R. 2329, to allow an officer of a foreign government to receive an award under the Department of State Rewards Program under certain circumstances.

This rule also recognizes the importance of democracy throughout the world. H. Con. Res. 284 expresses the sense of Congress with respect to the 2005 presidential and parliamentary elections in Egypt. Another resolution, H. Res. 545, expresses the sense of the House of Representatives on the arrest of Sanjar Umarov in Uzbekistan.

Finally, we have a great opportunity today to honor a very dear friend of mine and a friend of this House, Helen Sewell, as part of the suspension calendar today. This resolution honors Helen for her outstanding service to the United States House of Representatives throughout her work in the Republican cloakroom. During this time, Helen has not only touched the lives of countless Members who have served in this body but also counts President Ford, former President George Herbert Walker Bush and George W. Bush as good friends. It is an honor to stand here today and to join my colleagues in recognizing Helen Sewell for her over 70 years of service in the United States Congress.

All of these bills scheduled for consideration today by the House leadership are on behalf of the American public who enjoy broad support from both Members of the majority and the minority parties.

This rule simply provides us with the tools needed to ensure that all of this important work is completed before we adjourn and leave Washington to join our families and our communities to celebrate the holidays. Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this noncontroversial and balanced bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the gentleman from Massachusetts, who has very well articulated some of the differences that exist in this body. Our ability to work through those differences is why we come to work.

We recognize and know that we began this year with a presentation of the State of the Union by the President of the United States who clearly outlined those things which would be important goals for the year, not only for Congress but for the American people and certainly those things that deal with the war in Iraq.

My party, the Republican Party, has been very conscientious about those things which we believe we told the American people that we would do last November. We reiterated we would not raise taxes, as the Democrat Party wanted to do. We indicated that we would not cut and run from the war, which is what many people in the Democrat Party want to do. We recognize that those things that are ahead of us are very difficult choices that have to be made.

We have concentrated our activities on an attempt to streamline the budget process and make ourselves available to working with government for more efficiency. We accomplished for the first time this year a chance for all of our appropriations bills to be done by the July 4 break. Given the world as it was, that was a great idea. But we then were struck with a number of the largest hurricanes that have ever hit the United States of America, the largest storms in the history of the world.

We have worked through adversity. It has not been easy. It has caused great consternation throughout the United States. But I am pleased to tell you that this Congress has still come to work, we have debated the ideas, and it is the Republican Party that has the responsibility as a result of our being the majority party to come up with a plan of how to lead.

We have attempted to work as much as possible with the President of the United States and with our colleagues on the other side of the Capitol in the United States Senate on those things that would empower America. One of those things which we think we have done a very good job on is to say that we disagree with the rhetoric that says we have to raise taxes; that we have to increase spending; that we have to have government to be the answer.

We still reject those ideas here on what we think will be the last day of the first session of the 109th Congress; I still reject that in the face of adversity from the Democrat Party and those elements today who bring their case forward. We respect those thoughts and ideas. I respect very much the disagreement that we have in the Rules Committee on a regular basis. The articulation not only by the gentleman from Massachusetts but by others is very measured and very well said. However, we simply disagree with that; and that is why we will proceed the way in which we do. I respect our colleagues who bring adversity and their thoughts to the floor, and we will continue to do that today.

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

Mr. Speaker, we have had an opportunity again today to hear wonderful debate on the floor of the House of Representatives, the gentleman from Cleveland, speaking about some of those things which he deeply believes in. I also have a deep belief that we should be drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The American way of life, our ability to have energy independence, the opportunity for us to be able to explore for and find energy will determine, in my opinion, the success or failure of the economy of the United States. I do understand that many people who talk about this new way of life simply want us to ride bicycles and to destroy our economy to where we are no better or no worse than a Third World nation.

America, I believe, has set itself on a course where we believe that there is no problem bigger than a solution, and that we will find those avenues through research and development that can lead us on. An example of this would be we have utilized technology in our past for some 25 years. We have used about 21 million barrels of oil a day. It has been about constant what our utilization has been in the United States, and yet we continue to grow our economy. We continue to utilize these things with an increased population through efficiency.

The gentleman from Ohio had a chance to vote for a comprehensive energy bill just this year, a comprehensive energy bill that would put the Federal Government at the apex, at the forefront of making sure that we would lead the way through the government of finding and utilizing new technologies. The government will create a critical mass as a result of the spending which we will do to change government buildings and the way we do business to the most efficient forms that are available to us now and to create the future.

But I would say that this body, Mr. Speaker, needs to be mindful of a future that we are not afraid of, that the past which some of our Members would want us to go to find this opportunity for a new world with tribes and with global people who have been incapable of solving their own problems and addressing change is not the direction we should go.

We need to support an economy. We need to move forward to make sure we are solving the world's problems. Poverty and hunger are still problems in this world. We have opportunity today, as we handle bills, to solve some of the most basic problems through research and development, through medicine, and the opportunity for us to go to world leaders like Johns Hopkins University Medical Center, a leading edge in technologists and research and development people, people out at Stanford University Medical Center, like Dr. Bill Mobley, who are looking at genes and gene therapy and the opportunity through research and development to solve problems.

These problems, Mr. Speaker, are what America develops and spends their precious resources on to help the people of the world.

Yes, we know that there are people who want to go back and who want us to ride bicycles everywhere we go and to have an economy that is far different and do not do trade with the world, and isolate America, and cut and run from the war, and do not accept the responsibilities of the world leadership.

Mr. Speaker, I reject that thought process. I believe it will be done through the constant prodding and leadership of this House of Representatives, through our Speaker, Dennis Hastert, and through committee chairman like David Dreier from the Rules Committee, who give of themselves some 27 years of service as Mr. Dreier has given. Yes, we will even talk about years of service for Helen Sewell, who for over 70 years came to work almost every day for the benefit of America's future.

This is simply an experiment that we are engaged in, Mr. Speaker. There is no blueprint. There is no direction to say how we will handle things in the future, for we know not, any of us, what lies ahead of us.

But I have the confidence that the Republican Party and the things which we have done and will do will lead this great Nation, and the people will understand a vision, and we shall not perish. In God we trust.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for the opportunity for us to be here today and his collegial support of this rule. The gentleman very clearly understands as a result of his career that he has spent not only serving as a member of professional staff but also as a Member of Congress that Congress does engage in a lot of issues and ideas.

I would submit to him two things: Number one, that the process that we are going through is not perfect. It has existed this way because we have chosen the form of government that we have whereby two bodies get together on pieces of legislation that are of importance. This is something that we have lived through for a long period of time.

I would say to the gentleman that I respect his disagreement about how we should do everything in the day, and in the light of day and hold everything for days and let everybody know. In fact, almost every single piece of any bill has been debated and voted on. There are positions that Senators and Members of this House have taken that I hope are included. I hope that even though they may not be something that was completely understood by one body or another, they were well thought through thoughts and ideas that would be contained.

I believe that the idea of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one that has been debated in this country for over 10 or 12 years. It is time for resolution. For someone that does not understand that putting this on the DOD bill would be appropriate, I wonder who uses more energy than anyone, and it would probably be the Department of Defense. I think there is an intrinsic interest in us making sure that our own security of this country is participated in by and as a result of this being on the bill.

Mr. Speaker, lastly, I disagree with those who say that we need a change of leadership.

I do recognize that the other side, the Democrat Party, has different ideas about how to do things. But I am proud of my leadership, and I believe that the service of Dennis Hastert and those that are committee chairmen and those that are part of our leadership have stood the test of time to make sure that we are open and ready to do business, that we have the leading-edge thought process of this great Nation, that we are open to hearing from those who can help lead us to the greater pathways, and lastly, that we work with those constitutionally elected officials in a process to make sure that our Constitution is alive and well and a model to the world.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud of Dennis Hastert and his leadership of this House of Representatives and those Members, whether they be from Iowa, Texas, California or Massachusetts, who come to this great body for service to this great Nation. Once again, I am proud of that which we do.

Amendment Offered by Mr. Sessions

Mr. Speaker, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Speaker, again I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this rule to provide that suspensions will be in order at any time on the legislative day of December 18, 2005.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the amendment and on the resolution.

The previous question was ordered.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. We have before us a conference report that everybody should understand there has really been no conference in which House and Senate Democrats have had any meaningful role.

Our objection to this bill begins with its title: The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. Let us be honest, this bill does not reduce the deficit. When this reconciliation bill with spending cuts is paired with its counterpart, the reconciliation bill with tax cuts, the deficit is actually increased, not decreased; and the increase in the deficit gets worse when you add, as I think you should, the $50 bill in other tax cuts passed by the House over the last few months.

At the outset, the proponents of this bill called it necessary in order to help pay for hurricanes Katrina and Rita. That has proven to be a false claim, too. This bill has nothing to do with paying for Katrina. It has everything to do with facilitating further tax cuts. This bill comes out of a budget resolution that calls for a total of $106 billion in new and additional tax cuts, $70 billion reconciled, $36 billion unreconciled.

So the spending cuts in this bill are really just the first step in a three-step process. Step two will come when the tax cuts reconciliation bill emerges from conference. When these two bills are paired, the result will be a deficit bigger by about $60 billion over 5 years.

Then there is a third step. There is an increase in the national debt pending, an increase in the national debt ceiling of $781 billion necessary to accommodate budgets like the 2006 budget being passed here tonight. This increase was deemed approved when the Republican budget resolution passed the House several months ago.

Over the last 4 fiscal years, to make room for budgets of the Bush administration and budgets that have been passed by the majority in this House, we have had to raise the legal debt ceiling of the United States by $3.15 trillion to accommodate those budgets.

Once upon a time, the purpose of reconciliation was to rein in the deficit; but as you can see from the charts I am about to put up, and I knew this was just what you wanted me to serve you for breakfast this morning, more numbers and more charts, so I did not disappoint.

First of all, when you put this chart up, you can see what the debt increases have been over the last 4 or 5 fiscal years: $3.15 trillion. As Casey Stengel said, ``If you don't believe it, you can look it up.'' $3.15 trillion.

Next, let me show you what reconciliation in past years has accomplished as opposed to what reconciliation this year will accomplish in terms of reducing the deficit. In past years, for example the Bush budget summit in 1990, the deficit reduction due to reconciliation was $482 billion. In the Clinton budget in 1993, the deficit reduction due to reconciliation was $433 billion. In the balanced budget agreement of 1997, reconciliation produced savings of $118 billion over 5 years. This bill saves nothing. It aggravates and worsens the deficit.

Now, it is fair to ask: Why have the Republicans, those who put this budget together, why have they put spending cuts in one bill and tax cuts in another bill? Why did they not just combine the two so we could keep tabs on everything with one reconciliation bill? Which is typically what we have done in the past.

Well, there is a reason for this hiatus between spending cuts and tax cuts. The spending cuts made by this bill will hit the young, the old, the sick, and the poor, and hit them rather hard. The savings realized from these spending cuts will help offset tax cuts for top-bracket taxpayers. Our Republican colleagues want to avoid that connection, so they have produced two separate bills, one for tax cuts, and then a little later on, one for spending cuts.

Who bears the brunt of these bills? Single mothers still do. Despite some moderation in the effect of the cuts that were proposed originally, single mothers still take about a $2 billion hit. Students struggling to pay for their college education. The hit on student loans is $12.7 billion. The sick and the poor, whose only access to medical care is Medicaid. Medicaid still suffers a hit of $7 billion.

So these cuts have been moderated in the conference with the Senate, but

some of the worst of the House bill provisions are still there. A bit less significant, but still hurtful to the people who are the victims of these particular cuts.

And bear this in mind. Bear this in mind. This bill still increases, for all of the cuts it makes, still increases the deficit, still uses spending cuts to offset tax cuts, and still cuts services for the least among us, the most vulnerable and poorest Americans.

In short, there are many reasons this bill does not live up to its title, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. It makes deep and painful cuts still, only to pave the way for new and additional tax cuts and never mind the deficit. The result is a larger deficit. So in this respect, today's legislation is like the budget resolution that set it in motion. This is one of a series of fiscal actions that will cause the debt ceiling of the United States at the end of this year to be move to $3.15 trillion.

Bear in mind that when the Bush administration came to office, it inherited a surplus and predicted that this surplus would endure even if its trillion dollar tax cuts were adopted. Well, the Bush budget was adopted, and in fiscal 2005 the bottom line was not a surplus of $269 billion, as once projected, but a deficit of $319 billion.

Realistic estimates from CBO show that if you take the Bush budget of 2006 as last proposed in July, and they are updated, if you take that budget and run it out 10 years with all the assumptions made in the Bush budget, these are the results. The deficit of last year, which was $320 billion, this is CBO, will go to $640 billion, if you follow the trajectory shown here, the curve shown here. The deficit goes from $320 billion to $640 billion. It doubles.

Debt service on the debt goes from $182 billion last year to $458 billion in 10 years, and the national debt doubles. That is the course we are embarked upon as we do one more part of a long series of fiscal actions that are leading us deeper and deeper into debt, and nobody should be fooled by what is happening here on the House floor tonight. Once the pieces are all put together, and you can see the whole puzzle, this means a deeper deficit and no resolution to the problem before us.

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

Mr. Speaker, it may be 5:15 in the morning, but that is not our fault. We would liked to have done this in the light of day with a little more time to look at this package. Here is what we have got just 1 hour ago.

When we unpacked the package to see what was in it, we had the Speaker's press release, which told us earlier in the evening that, by golly, you would come up with $41.6 billion in total spending reductions. We got this package, and, finally, looking through 700 pages, we finally got a summary of the action taken, and they came to $39.7 billion. It was $1.9 billion less than the Speaker had claimed earlier. Even for government work, that is not very close.

Here is the Speaker's press release. We discern that this difference came from the fact that between the Speaker's press release and the release of this voluminous document here called the budget resolution, or the budget reconciliation bill, there was a deal made with the medical equipment manufacturers and suppliers with respect to Medicare reimbursement, a deal that costs your total package $1.9 billion.

If I am not right, I would like to be corrected, which leads us to ask, if you could adjust for them to the tune of $1.9 billion, couldn't we have gone back and looked at student loans and moderated the cuts being inflicted on them? Couldn't we have gone back and looked at children with delinquent dads and moderated what we were doing with respect to the cuts in child support enforcement, foster care, and the other things that are still in this bill? If you could do that for the medical equipment manufacturers, couldn't you do it for the least of these?

Mr. Speaker, it may be 5:20 in the morning, but Mr. Dingell is still up and ready for a good fight. I yield to the gentleman for 4 minutes.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the Democratic whip.

I yield to the gentleman from Maryland 3\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time.

Mr. Speaker, lest anyone think that we are about to launch a bill here that

will lead us to a balanced budget, let me disabuse you of that illusion.

First of all, let us look at some of the specific items in this particular package to see whether or not they are real in the way of budget reduction.

For example, this bill calls for the abolition of mandatory spending to administer the student loan program. Now, how do you administer the student loan program if you do not provide the funding for it? If you do not provide the mandatory funding for it, it has to come out of discretionary funding. That means we will be underfunding No Child Left Behind and other discretionary educational programs by $2 billion a year more, because that is where the money for administration of the student loan programs will have to come from if you bar its coming from mandatory spending. It is a phony cut.

Secondly, $3.6 billion is scored as a revenue to offset these spending increases, $3.6 billion in PBGC premiums. Now why is that not allowable? In my good accounting book, if you book all of the liabilities that PBGC is faced with over the foreseeable future, there is no net balance in that account, even after you add this $3.6 billion. That money is entrusted. It is encumbered and it cannot fairly be said to be available in the general fund to offset other spending. In truth, it will be spent much, much too soon anyway, and we will have to replenish it.

Third, child support enforcement. You have moderated that. You have brought it down from $4.9 billion, which was absurd, to $1.5 billion, which still hurts. You either shift that expense to the States that are responsible for child support enforcement, or parents who are looking to delinquent parents to pay their child support will have less assistance, and they will collect less in the way of child support. It is a false economy.

You say there are no tax increases in your bill. But the PBGC premium increase is certainly equivalent to the same thing. It will come out of paychecks. And the Medicare part B under your provisions is certainly going up. It will come out of Social Security checks. It is offset.

And then there is another thing about your bill that is myopic that gives us real problems with it. In looking for places to cut, you wholly ignore any kind of revenue effects connected with your tax cut agenda. And the way you are able to do this, and avoid responsibility for it, is you break the tax cuts into so many small pieces that you clutter the audit trail and make it hard for anybody, Members and otherwise, to follow just how big the tax tab, the tax cut tab is adding up to.

So let me take two charts here and try to reconstruct the path, the audit trail of tax cuts that has been implemented since the budget resolution for 2006 was passed just a few minutes ago, a few months ago, and what it means for the bottom line, that is, the deficit.

Let us start with the highway bill passed earlier this year. This revenue impact is about $500 million over 5 years. Next comes the energy policy act. Revenue loss over 5 years is $7.9 billion. Then there is the Katrina tax relief act of 2005, which we adopted a few weeks ago. It has a revenue head of $6 billion.

The biggest tax cuts come from that bill that is waiting in the wings for this bill to be passed; and it will come along a little bit later, the Tax Extension Reconciliation Act of 2006, 20005. It entails tax cuts for $56 billion over 5 years passed by this House, $80 billion over 10 years. Then there is the so-called Stealth Tax Relief Act, patching the alternative minimum tax for this year so that it affects no more taxpayers than it affected last year. The cost for 1 year: $31.2 billion. Covers only 1 year.

The Tax Revision Act of 2005 is just a sundry assortment of tax measures; but it has a revenue cost too, $153 million over 5 years. And finally there is the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005, revenue impact: $7 billion.

Now, add all of these together and you will see that the total revenue impact entailed by these tax policies comes to $110 billion. So this reconciliation bill offsets about $40 billion of that amount, leaving an additional debt of around $80 billion. That is the net effect of this reconciliation bill. That is why we say it does not decrease the deficit when you pair it up with this other reconciliation bill, the tax cuts. It increases the deficit. But that is not all. That is not the worst of it.

As we have shown, in patching up the AMT last year and again this year, it has to be fixed or it is going to raise the taxes of middle- income taxpayers for whom it was never intended. If we do basically in future years what we have done this year, the revenue impact of patching the AMT is shown right here, $167 billion. That makes the revenue impact of all seven tax cuts $307 billion. Offset your 40 billion against that, you have still got $267 billion in tax reduction over the next 5 years. That is why I say it is myopic. You are looking for solutions to this problem and overlooking one of the bases of the problem, ignoring the fact that if we are going to tackle a deficit worth 320 and rising, we have got to have action on the spending side of the ledger and on the tax side of the ledger as well.

That is the problem here, and that is why I say if you leave here thinking, after voting for this bill, that you have begun a series of fiscal actions that will bring the budget to heel, that you will finally reduce the deficit of $320 million, you are badly, badly disillusioned. Once again, let me show you a chart the CBO did for us last September when we asked them to take the budget that they had just portrayed out over a 10-year period of time and apply to it the President's budget policy as enunciated in his July mid-term review.

This is what happened. They said, you are going to follow this path right here that takes you to 640 billion total deficit, a doubling of the deficit over 10 years. You are going to increase the debt service in the United States from $182 billion to $458 billion 10 years from now, and you are going to double the national debt. That is the path we are on, and this bill tonight will not divert us 1 inch. Indeed, it will aggravate that path and that is the plea that I am making to you. That is why you should vote against this bill. Reject it now. Come back next year. Let us do something realistic about deficit reduction.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

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

Mr. Speaker, I do not object to this rule that will allow for the consideration of a number of suspension bills, and I expect that these bills, all of them, will be approved if not unanimously certainly overwhelmingly by this House.

As we gather here today, the Sunday before Christmas and Chanukah, it is the process and the way the Republican leadership are running this House that I strongly object to. These last few days, in fact the entire year, I think is a great example of how not to run a government.

Sometime today we expect to consider and vote on the Defense appropriations bill. No one will have time to read and examine the final product. We will not know what last-minute goodies are tucked into the bill. Mr. Speaker, we read news reports that drilling in the Arctic will be in the bill, but we do not know if ANWR is included because we have not yet seen it. And what drilling in Alaska's wilderness has to do with the Pentagon is beyond my comprehension, but there are some in the Republican leadership who do not care about the regular process and want to tuck this in the Defense bill because they know it cannot be enacted on its own.

We also do not know exactly what else is attached to the Defense appropriations bill. Is there funding for Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma? And if so, what are the details? Will there be funding for the prevention of a possible avian flu pandemic? Are there campaign finance reform provisions included in any of these bills? And if so, who approved them?

And then there is the Defense authorization bill, which has been held up for much time because the White House did not want language in it that banned torture. This is the United States of America, Mr. Speaker. If we stand for anything, it is out loud and foursquare for human rights. And torture is something that we, as a civilized society and as a decent people, should reject.

Now, the President, from news reports, has apparently now accepted the language by Senator McCain which would ban torture, which is a good thing. But some suspect that it is only because the Justice Department has assured him that he can get around the language banning torture, and that is a bad thing. But despite the apparent capitulation of the White House on the issue of torture, we still do not have a Defense authorization bill, and nobody can tell us why.

We are also told a budget reconciliation bill will come up today. Does anyone have a clue what will be in that bill? This is a bill that will impact all of our citizens and could potentially have an adverse impact on the most vulnerable of our citizens.

Mr. Speaker, whether you are a liberal, a conservative, or whether you want more government or less, I think most of us would agree that whatever government we have must be competent and responsive to the people. Now, the Republicans control all of government. They control the House of Representatives, they control the Senate, and they control the White House. It is clear that they are unable to be effective stewards of our government.

Now, putting aside the corruption scandals that hang like a dark cloud over the Congress and the White House, what we see is an inability to govern. When Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf coast, the Federal Government responded miserably. The President put a political appointee in charge of FEMA who was incompetent. The President took responsibility, but ultimately the incompetence and cronyism of his administration led to a disaster that included the loss of many lives.

On the war in Iraq: no weapons of mass destruction, no ties between the Iraqi government and al Qaeda, and no imminent threat to the security of the United States of America; yet we rushed into war. Whether the intelligence was manipulated or not, clearly this government did not do its job. It failed, and over 2,100 Americans are now dead.

But now we are in Iraq, Mr. Speaker. We were there with no post- invasion plan, we are there with no-bid contracts that have led to massive corruption and fraud, our soldiers lack the most basic protective equipment, and

with a chain of command that resulted in grave abuses of human rights by some of our own uniformed men and women and some of our Iraqi allies. Ultimately, the President again took responsibility. But, Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, I am tired of the speeches. I, like so many others, want genuine reform and change. I want accountability.

This all brings me to this Congress. There is a reason why this Congress has only a 25 percent approval rating. It is because you are doing a lousy job. You are trashing the rules and regular order. The selling of legislation to the highest bidder, the hard-ball tactics against your own Members to win votes, your lack of oversight and demand for accountability from this administration, all that and more is catching up to you. People are watching. People do care. They believe that you cannot competently run this government, and they want the government back.

The mess that we have before us cannot be blamed on Democrats. After all, as I have said, Republicans control everything. You cannot blame this on Bill Clinton, even though some of you try, because he has been gone now for a full 5 years. This is your fault. The battles going on behind closed doors are between your right wing and your far right wing. For those of us in the minority, and many on your side who want good government, this is a frustrating period.

Mr. Speaker, nobody denies that leadership of Congress is a hard task, but either you live up to the responsibilities or you acknowledge it is time for a change. After this sorry year, it is time for a change.

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

Mr. Speaker, before I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), I just want to say a couple of things.

First of all, we are here 3 weeks after the Republican majority said we were to adjourn, in part because they have not done a very good job of getting our business done.

Secondly, we can argue about priorities and we can argue about policies, and that is all fine and good; but one of the issues that I raised is the issue of competence. When we have disasters in this country, like Hurricane Katrina, the response of the Federal Government was miserable. It demonstrated a stunning incompetence that I am not sure has been fixed yet. People are still not getting response from the Federal Government in the Gulf States that they, quite frankly, deserve.

Thirdly, in terms of debate and how legislation is brought to the floor, I think that is another failure of this Congress. We do have debates in the Rules Committee, sometimes at weird hours, where not a lot of people get to hear them. But routinely, on major pieces of legislation, they are brought to the floor with very little advanced notice. Oftentimes, people do not have a chance to review what is in the legislation.

That is going to happen today with the Defense appropriations bill. No one will have an opportunity to review it. We will find out in a week or 2 weeks from now, because some Washington Post reporter or New York Times reporter or L.A. Times reporter will dig into it and find all these little goodies that none of us have a chance to know about in advance. That is not the way things should be done.

The Rules Committee, for example, routinely shuts us out of offering amendments to important pieces of legislation. We had a controversial resolution on Iraq that was on the floor the other day, and yet an alternative that was proposed by the ranking member of the International Relations Committee was deemed out of order. We had a pension reform bill that some of us had issues with, and we were denied a substitute.

On major bills that matter, we are shut out; and we are oftentimes not allowed the opportunity to try to get our points of view across on the House floor. And I would say that I think the American people are starting to catch on to that, and they do not like that form of government. This is supposed to be a deliberative body where important issues get debated.

Again, I have no problem with the suspensions that are being brought up here today. But in comparison to some of the issues that are facing this country, from poverty to the war in Iraq, to health insurance and the high price of gas, what we are talking about now is killing time with some relatively trivial matters. There are more important issues before us.

The deficit. You have accumulated the biggest deficit in the history of the United States of America as a result of your policies. That is not a success story, in my opinion. Again, we can differ on policies, but let us approach this legislation in a responsible way, and that means giving all sides, including people on your side, who have differences of opinion the opportunity to be able to debate these things fully on the House floor.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. Speaker, let me end as I began here with a plea that we strive for a better process. This is not the way we should be running our government, bringing bills to the floor at the last minute without having given people the opportunity to read what is in them. We should have learned last year. When the Republican majority brought a bill to the floor, we had to meet again and fix it because someone snuck a provision in there that would allow certain Members of the Congress and their staffs to be able to review people's IRS records. We went back and quickly fixed that after it became public that it was in the bill.

We can do so much better than what we see going on right here at this present time. I think this more than anything else is one of the reasons why I think we need a change of leadership in the Congress. I think there needs to be checks and balances. There aren't checks and balances right now. There needs to be oversight, there needs to be accountability.

We need to do the people's business in a more deliberative way. We have to move away from this pattern of locking people out of opportunities to be able to participate in debates and offer their amendments.

Mr. Speaker, having said all of that, we have no objection to this rule that will allow for filler between now and the time that some of these important conference reports come to the floor.

I will close with this. I think every one of our colleagues needs to know that you are not going to know what is in any of these bills that are coming to the floor. You will find out in the newspapers. That is not the way this government should run.

Having said that, we have no problem with the rule.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning to address a particular provision included in Title VI of S. 1932, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. This provision, Section 6055, is very important to my district, to my constituency, and to the Members of this body who represent one of the U.S. territories. Over the past two years, since arriving in Congress, I have worked to address the serious concern relating to the application of the Medicaid program to Guam and the other U.S. territories vis-a-vis the application to the 50 States.

In the 50 States, Medicaid is an individual entitlement. There are no limits on the Federal payments for Medicaid in the 50 States as long as the state is able to contribute its share of matching funds. However, annual Federal Medicaid payments in Guam and in the other U.S. territories are subject to different rules and may not exceed a certain amount specified in law. These limitations are set under Section 1108 of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1308(g)).

The reality is that Medicaid claims and expenditures in Guam and in the other U.S. territories exceed the limited amounts or ceilings set in U.S. law. Even if the Government of Guam is financially prepared, able and willing to meet its share of the matching requirement, U.S. law will not allow for Federal Medicaid payments to be made beyond the specified limit. Fortunately, to account for inflation, the law was previously amended to provide for increases beginning in 1999 to the ceilings based on the annual percentage change in the medical care component of the Consumer Price Index. Indexing the ceilings for inflation was a needed and important improvement in the Medicaid program for the U.S. territories. However, even with the inflation indexing, the ceilings provided for in current law fall far short of meeting actual Medicaid-eligible claims in the territories.

Apart from the fundamental and more inherent issues associated with the disparate treatment of the territories in this entitlement program, are the practical and public health problems caused by the seemingly arbitrary and budget-driven federal funding limitations placed on the territories. Medicaid is an important Federal safety net and it is essential that the program be operated efficiently and to the fullest extent needed in the territories.

I am pleased that the Senate receded to the House position and accepted Section 3141 of H.R. 4241, the House version of this budget reconciliation legislation, in the conference committee. This provision will provide for adjustments to the Medicaid payments for the U.S. territories under Section 1108 of the Social Security Act. These Medicaid adjustments address critical health care needs in the territories.

Specifically, Section 6055, as included in the conference report, will provide annual increases for Fiscal Years 2006 and 2007 in the ceilings placed on Federal funding for the Medicaid program in Guam, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Puerto Rico. The total adjustment for all territories in Fiscal Year 2006 is $20 million and in Fiscal Year 2007 the adjustment is $28 million. For Fiscal Year 2008 and subsequent fiscal years, the funding for the Medicaid program in the territories will be calculated by increasing the Fiscal Year 2007 amount by the percentage change in the medical care component of the Consumer Price Index, in the same manner as currently provided in law. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that these adjustments will amount to additional $140 million in Medicaid payments for the territories over the next five years, and $323 million over the next ten years.

This provision has been included in this conference report as a result of bipartisan negotiations. On September 8 and 9, 2004, in the 108th Congress, I offered an amendment to H.R. 5006, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2005 that would have provided an additional $8 million in Medicaid funding that year for Guam, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. A point of order was raised and sustained on the amendment the first time it was offered. However, a modified and second amendment filed to the bill for the same purpose, was debated the following day. This amendment led to a serious and direct discussion for the first time on the House floor on the issue of Medicaid payments to the territories. Ultimately, I withdrew the amendment at the request of the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Barton, who pledged to work with me, my colleagues from the territories, and the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Burton, on this issue. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Barton, the Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, kept his word. The gentleman and his professional staff and counsel have worked patiently and diligently with us to address this issue.

The language included in Section 6055 of S. 1932 is a result of this close collaboration and cooperation. I want to thank the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Barton, the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Burton, who has been an ally and leader on this issue, and the leadership of the budget committees, for their work on this provision.

In the case of Guam, the adjustment made to the ceiling by this bill will bring the Federal Government, closer to meeting the actual amount of recent annual Medicaid costs. This is especially the case when factoring in Federal grants received under mandatory appropriations made for annual Compact-impact assistance. Guam currently receives $14.2 million every year from the Department of the Interior to defray costs incurred as a result of increased demands placed on health and social services due to the residence in Guam of citizens of the Freely Associated States. This funding was authorized by the Compact of Free Association Amendments Act of 2003 (Public Law 108-188).

However, despite the adjustments made to the ceilings set under Section 1108 of the Social Security Act by this bill, a significant and outstanding issue remains with respect to the application of the Medicaid program in Guam and the other U.S. territories. The Federal Medicaid matching rate, which determines the share of Medicaid expenditures paid for by the Federal Government, is statutorily set at 50 percent for the territories (42 U.S.C. 1396d(b)(2)). However, a formula is used to determine the matching rate for the States. If qualified for the formula the territories would receive rates as high as 77 percent. I hope that at some point in the future the rate for the territories could be set by the same formula as used for the states or at minimum adjusted to be on par with the rate statutorily set for the District of Columbia.

With the increase in Medicaid payment authorization provided by this legislation, the territories can more effectively address health care needs within the fiscal constraints of the Medicaid program. As has been stated, the Medicaid program in the territories is significantly different from the program in the states, and these differences present unique challenges to the territorial governments.

I thank the conferees for their attention to and acceptance of this important provision for the territories. This adjustment to Federal funding for Medicaid in the territories will have a significant impact in helping to address health care disparities between the states and the territories. I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues from the territories, and the leadership of both chambers, to effectively address and eliminate disparities in federal health care financing between the states and the territories.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Chairman for yielding time, and I rise in strong support of the Deposit Insurance Reform legislation included in the conference report to S. 1932, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.

I want to begin by thanking Financial Services Committee Chairman Oxley for his relentless efforts on moving this deposit insurance reform legislation. He has shown tremendous leadership in steering this complex bill through the legislative process, and I am deeply grateful that he gave me the opportunity to work on this landmark piece of legislation. I also want to thank the Ranking Member of the Committee, Mr. Frank for his support. This was truly a bipartisan effort, and I

believe we have a better legislative product because of that. Senator Shelby and the other Senators on his committee are also to be commended for their fine work.

Deposit insurance reform has been thoroughly discussed and debated over several years. During both the 107th (H.R. 3717) and 108th (H.R. 522) Congress, I introduced comprehensive deposit insurance reform legislation. The legislation was a byproduct of recommendations made by the FDIC in early 2001, a series of hearings held in my Subcommittee on proposed reforms to the Federal deposit insurance system, and broad- based bipartisan cooperation. H.R. 3717 passed the House in the 107th Congress by a vote of 408-18, and H.R. 522 passed the House in the 108th Congress by a vote of 411-11. During this Congress, Congresswoman Hooley and I introduced this same legislation--H.R. 1185--with Chairman Oxley and Ranking Member Frank. On May 4, 2005, H.R. 1185 passed the House by a vote of 413 to 10. The legislation is supported by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) as well as all of the banking a credit union trade associations.

Federal deposit insurance has been a hallmark of our Nation's banking system for more than 70 years. The reforms made by this legislation will ensure that this system that has served America's savers and depositors so well for so long will continue to do so for future generations.

What does the legislation do? First, it merges the separate insurance funds that currently apply to deposits held by banks on the one hand and savings associations on the other, creating a stronger and more stable fund that will benefit banks and thrifts alike.

Second, the bill makes a number of changes designed to address the ``pro-cyclical'' bias of the current system, which results in sharply higher premiums being assessed at ``down'' points in the business cycle, when banks can least afford to pay them and when funds are most needed for lending to jumpstart economic growth. By giving the FDIC greater discretion to manage the insurance funds based on industry conditions and economic trends, the legislation will ease volatility in the banking system and facilitate recovery from economic downturns.

Third, the legislation makes monumental changes to law with regard to deposit insurance coverage levels. The system has gone 25 years without such an adjustment--the longest period in its history--and the increases provided for in the legislation are critical if deposit insurance is to maintain its relevance. The conference report establishes a permanent indexation system to ensure that coverage levels keep pace with inflation by indexing coverage from its current level of $100,000 every five years. The indexation, which begins in 2010, applies to all accounts, including retirement and municipal accounts. Without these changes, deposit insurance will wither on the vine, which is an unacceptable outcome for the millions of Americans who depend upon it to protect their savings.

The legislation also immediately increases deposit insurance coverage available to retirement accounts, including IRAs and 401ks, from its current level of $100,000 to $250,000. Particularly in light of volatility on Wall Street and other developments that have shaken confidence in the markets in recent years, senior citizens and those planning for retirement need a convenient, conservative, and secure place for their retirement savings. With the higher coverage levels provided for in this bill, the American banking system will give seniors that safe haven. That is why the AARP has enthusiastically endorsed the coverage increases in this bill.

All of us have heard from community bankers in our districts about the challenges they face in competing for deposits with large money- center banks that are perceived by the market--rightly or wrongly--as being ``too big to fail.'' By strengthening the deposit insurance system, the conference report will help small, neighborhood-based financial institutions across the country, particularly in rural America, continue to play an important role in financing economic development. The deposits that community banks are able to attract through the Federal deposit insurance guarantee are cycled back into local communities in the form of consumer and small business loans, community development projects, and home mortgages. If this source of funding dries up, it will have devastating consequences for the economic vitality of small-town America.

I want to again commend Chairman Oxley for the tremendous leadership he has shown in steering this complex bill through the legislative process. I also want to thank Ranking Member Frank and Congresswoman Hooley for all of their work on this legislation.

Let me also take this opportunity to thank the staff members on the House Financial Services Committee who worked on this legislation. Both Chairman Oxley and Ranking Member Frank are to be commended for assembling such a talented group of staff to work on Deposit Insurance Reform legislation. On the majority side, I would like to thank Bob Foster, Carter McDowell, Peggy Peterson, Tom Duncan, Peter Barrett and Dina Ellis who serves as my designee on the Committee. I want to give a special thanks to Jim Clinger who recently left the Committee to work at the Department of Justice. Without Jim's hard work, dedication and knowledge we would not be here today, and I am grateful for all of his efforts. I would also like to thank Larry Lavender, Warren Tryon and Kim Olive of my staff for their work on this issue. On the minority staff, I would like to thank the following staff members: Jeanne Roslanowick, Jaime Lizarraga, Erika Jeffers, Ken Swab and Matt Schumaker of Congresswoman Hooley's staff.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, let me just say that this legislation will promote the stability and soundness of the banking system. It is also provide assurance to working families, retirees, and others who place their hard-earned savings in U.S. banks, thrifts, and credit unions that their FDIC-insured deposits are safe and secure.