Providing for consideration of the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 68) making continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2006, and for other purposes; for consideration of motions to suspend the rules; and addressing a motion to proceed under section 2908 of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Act of 1990.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I cannot support a closed rule, although I do understand the need for prompt action on the continuing resolution. As my good friend from Florida has pointed out, the Senate's slowness in acting on appropriations bills means that the continuing resolution that we are discussing here today is necessary.

However, as we prepare to provide the funds to keep the government running, I think we need to consider the larger budgetary picture. It is essential for us to respond to the devastation brought by hurricanes Katrina and Rita but, as we do, we should consider and respond to the fiscal and economic risks we have been running.

I think there is an urgent need for both the administration and the Congress to face hard reality and not continue with budget policies based on laws that defy the laws of fiscal gravity. For too long, there has been a dearth of both presidential leadership and accountability in this area.

That is why later today, along with the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot), the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake), and perhaps the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Putnam), I will introduce a bill that I think could promote both. The bill is called the Stimulating Leadership in Cutting Expenditures Act, or the SLICE Act for short. It would do two things: First, it would authorize the President to identify specific items in Federal spending that he thinks should be cut; and second, require Congress to vote on each of those items.

The bill would apply both to appropriations and to spending items in the recently signed transportation bill. It would set deadlines for the President to propose cuts and for Congress to act on them.

Under the bill, Congress would have to vote on each proposed cut. We could not ignore those proposals, as can be done under current law, and if a majority approved the cut, it would take effect.

The President has said we should pay for responding to Katrina and Rita through spending cuts alone, but the President's own party and the majority in this House are divided on what to cut.

We may disagree on budget and tax priorities, Mr. Speaker, but one thing is certain. It is past time for a serious debate about specific proposals for ways to dig ourselves out of the deficit hole. This bill is intended to jump-start that debate.

I hope all of our colleagues will join us in this crucial effort to restore fiscal sanity to our Nation's Capital.

Mr. Speaker, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita not only brought death and destruction across a wide swath of the Gulf coast. They also delivered a blow to the Federal budget and sounded a wakeup call about the fiscal and economic risks we have been running.

A full response to these natural disasters must include more than emergency repairs, humanitarian relief, and community rebuilding. We also need to consider serious questions about the limits of government, the wisdom of wartime tax cuts, and our national capacity to look beyond short-term political priorities.

If anything good can come from these terrible storms, maybe it will be recognition by both the Bush administration and Congress that now we need to face hard reality and not continue with budget policies based on defying the laws of fiscal gravity. It's about time.

Even if Katrina and Rita had taken less destructive paths and the New Orleans levees had held, the problems would have been serious because the Federal budget was already on a dangerous course marked by tidal waves of red ink and towering piles of debt. Since 2001, the budget surplus that President Clinton and a Republican Congress bequeathed President Bush has been erased and our country is now in debt to the tune of $8 trillion, or $25,000 for every American man, woman and child.

This was the result of several factors, of course, but the size and scope of the Bush tax cuts must bear a large part of the blame.

Several parts of those tax cuts--for example, eliminating the marriage penalty, fixing the 10 percent bracket and extending child care tax credits--were good. They gave a reasonable boost for the economy and increased the fairness of the tax laws. But having campaigned on giving back most of the budget surplus in tax cuts, President Bush insisted on much more, and Congress went along.

Many of us warned against reducing the surplus so recklessly, and urged the administration and Congress to remember the need to be ready for future emergencies. Our pleas for restraint were ignored. And then came the attacks of 9/11 and with them the need for increased spending on homeland security, a military response in Afghanistan, and a war in Iraq. The budget nosedived from surplus into deep deficit.

Even in the face of national emergency, neither the President nor Congress has seen fit to call on Americans for any sacrifice, and instead of temporarily scaling back tax cuts, the President has insisted on making them permanent even as Federal spending has skyrocketed.

So now we are putting the costs of war and everything else the government does on the national credit card--but the debt is owed not just to ourselves (as in the past), but to China, Japan and India.

Why have we allowed things to get so far out of hand?

Part of the answer is that budget and tax policy in Washington has been so captive to very partisan and extreme ideological voices that it has been hard to find common ground and moderate consensus.

Even in this time of war, extremists in the Republican Party view tax cuts as almost a religious calling, while some in my party reject any spending cuts except in defense. And the Vice President dismisses complaints by saying ``deficits don't matter.''

So, it not surprising that the appropriations process has not been marked by fiscal discipline. Unless the President or Congressional leaders proclaim a need for restraint, let alone sacrifice, why would Members of Congress not work to meet the transportation and infrastructure needs of their districts and seek funding for other valued purposes?

But all this cannot go on forever. Sooner or later, something has to give. And, if the result is a new sense of responsibility, sooner is better--because there is an urgent need to rethink and revise our budget policies, including both taxes and spending.

It could be that, just as they revealed the problem, Katrina and Rita can provide a catalyst to beginning that overdue job.

The President has said the Federal Government will undertake to help rebuild the communities left devastated by the storms--and has said that spending for other purposes should be reduced to offset the costs.

I have serious doubts about the adequacy of that approach, about the desirability of whatever spending cuts the President may propose, and about the readiness of Congress to seriously consider any cuts at all.

But I am hopeful that maybe at last the time has come for a serious debate about specific proposals for ways to dig ourselves out of the deficit hole.

To help begin such a serious debate, earlier this year I introduced legislation that would give the President authority to require Congress to vote, up or down, on specific appropriations items the President deemed unworthy of funding--a workable and Constitutional

alternative to the line item-veto legislation that the Supreme Court struck down in 1998.

Now, I am introducing an updated version of this bill that focuses directly on the President's suggestion that disaster response costs be offset with spending cuts.

The bill is called the Stimulating Leadership In Cutting Expenditures or, ``SLICE'' Act.

That name fits because the bill would promote Presidential leadership and Congressional accountability on proposals to reduce other spending in order to offset the costs of responding to the recent natural disasters.

Toward that end, it would authorize the President to identify specific items of Federal spending that he thinks should be cut and would require Congress to vote on each of those items.

The bill would apply not only to regular appropriations, but also to the transportation bill that was passed and signed into law earlier this year.

The bill would establish a two-phase process: the President would have until November 1st to tell Congress which, if any, of the spending in the transportation bill should be cancelled. And he would have until the end of this year to identify any items in fiscal year 2006 appropriations bills we wants to eliminate.

In each case, if the President proposes a cut, Congress would have to vote on it--we could not ignore the proposal, as can be done under current law--and if a majority approved the cut, it would take effect.

Mr. Speaker, as our budget situation has grown worse, there has been a lot of talk about ``earmarks,'' meaning funding allocations initially proposed by Members of Congress rather than by the Administration.

Some people are opposed to all earmarks. I am not one of them. I think Members of Congress know the needs of their communities, and that Congress as a whole can and should exercise its judgment on how tax dollars are to be spent. So, I have sought earmarks for various items that have benefited Colorado and I will continue to do so.

At the same time, I know--everyone knows--that sometimes a large bill includes some earmarked items that might not be approved if they were considered separately, because they would be seen as unnecessary, inappropriate, or excessive.

Dealing with that problem requires leadership and accountability. My bill would promote both.

Presidents are elected to lead, and only they represent the entire Nation. The bill recognizes this by giving the President the leadership role of identifying just which other spending he thinks should be cut in order to offset some of the amounts the Federal Government will be spending in response to recent natural disasters.

And, under the Constitution, it is the Congress that is primarily accountable to the American people for how their tax dollars will be spent. The bill respects and emphasizes that Congressional role by requiring a vote on each spending cut proposed by the President.

I do not know exactly which spending the President might propose to cut, so I do not know whether I would support some, all, or any of those proposals.

But I do know that we should stop wasting time in theoretical debates about whether we should make spending cuts and start debating specific proposals.

My bill is intended to get that debate started now.

For the benefit of our colleagues, here is an outline of the bill:

Stimulating Leadership in Cutting Expenditures (SLICE) Act

The purpose of the bill is to facilitate Presidential

leadership and Congressional accountability regarding

reduction of other spending to offset the costs of responding

to recent natural disasters.

The bill would amend the Budget Act to provide as follows:

The President could propose rescission of any budget

authority provided in the recently passed transportation bill

or an appropriations Act through special messages including

draft bills to make those rescissions.

The President would have until November 1, 2005 to propose

canceling spending items in the new Transportation Act and

until January 1, 2006 to propose rescissions from FY 06

appropriations bills.

The House's majority leader or minority leader would be

required to introduce a bill proposed by the President within

two legislative days. If neither did so, any Member could

then introduce the bill.

The relevant Committee would be required to report the bill

within seven days after introduction. The report could be

made with or without recommendation regarding its passage. If

the Committee did not meet that deadline, it would be

discharged and the bill would go to the House floor.

The House would debate and vote on each proposed rescission

within 10 legislative days after the bill's introduction.

Debate would be limited to no more than four hours and no

amendment, motion to recommit, or motion to reconsider would

be allowed.

If passed by the House, the bill would go promptly to the

Senate, which would have no more than 10 more days to

consider and vote on it. Debate in the Senate would be

limited to 10 hours and no amendment or motion to recommit

would be allowed.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 13 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I do not know quite what to say about this continuing resolution. I have a lot of notes here, most of which I will not use, but let me simply note that this is another case of the failure to effectively govern by the Republican President and the Republican majority in this Congress. We are here facing an end of the fiscal year situation 3 days from now. We have failed in the basic test of governing, and I think it is important to understand why.

Throughout the year, we on the Democratic side of the aisle, in the minority, have worked with the majority on every possible procedural issue and cooperated with them procedurally at every juncture so that we could enable this House to pass the 10 appropriation bills that are necessary to pass, even though we disagreed in most instances with the content of those bills.

When I was asked by numerous Members of my caucus and a number of members of the press why we were cooperating procedurally when we opposed the substance of many of the bills, I made it clear. I said we were cooperating because I wanted the record to show at the end of the year, when the Republican majority failed to pass its appropriation bills by the end of the year, I wanted the record to show clearly why.

Now we are here and in spite of our procedural cooperation, the Republican majority has managed to pass only two of the 10 appropriation bills under our responsibility. Why? In my view it is because the majority caucus has such a fundamental disrespect for the basic functions of government that it has sacrificed and squeezed so many education and health and veterans and other programs in order to pay for huge, supersize tax cuts for the most wealthy among us, that, in the end, they have not been able to convince their Senate colleagues to go along and go on record and endorse those cuts. So now we are faced with a stopgap funding bill which is brought to the House floor by the gentleman from California.

Normally, if Congress fails to pass its appropriation bills, then it continues funding at the existing rate until Congress can get its act together. Instead, this bill does something quite different. It says that for the time period under the continuing resolution, we will be spending at the lower of either last year or the House-passed bill or the Senate-passed bill. That results in a number of, I think, extremely inequitable realities. It, for instance, means that we are effectively cutting $800 million below last year and $400 million below the President in the field of education. It means that we are cutting essential job training programs below last year and cutting job training formula grants by $138 million.

In health care, it means that we are cutting maternal and child health care, and we are cutting rural health outreach programs. It means that we are cutting the Community Service Block Grant, a program which deals with the needs of the poorest people in this society by 50 percent. It means that we are eliminating the 10 percent increase that this House had planned for veterans health care. It means that we are cutting the FBI by $616 million below the House-passed bill. It means that we are freezing low-income heating assistance at a time when the cost of home heating for low-income Americans is going to rise by 40 to 50 percent. But it leaves intact, it leaves intact the huge, supersize tax cuts for the top 1 percent of earners in this society, people who make more than $400,000 a year.

And it leaves in place the President's edict, his unilateral edict in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, that the workers in the afflicted area who are trying to put that area back together are not even going to be allowed to get a decent prevailing wage that they would otherwise be guaranteed under Davis-Bacon. And yet while it is chiseling on the wages of those workers, it is saying to the persons who make over $400,000 a year, on average you are going to get a $32,000 tax cut.

Mr. Speaker, $32,000 is a lot more than a lot of people in this country make in a year. A huge percentage of my district makes less than that $32,000.

But we are going to give an average $32,000 tax cut to the people in this society who need it least. The bill also assures the death of one part of the farm bill that was passed 3 years ago. It makes sure that the only major farm bill that is going to expire is the program that is given some financial support to the smallest farmers in this country, the MILC program.

Now, the question is being asked in this town, ``How are we going to pay for Hurricane Katrina?'' In my judgment, Mr. Speaker, that is the wrong question. Katrina, no matter what the eventual cost is and it is going to be large. It is going to be somewhere between $100 billion and $200 billion, I expect. Let us say it is $100 billion. That is a huge amount of money. But this economy is large enough to handle that because it is essentially a one-time bubble. Even though it will be spent out over the next 3 or 4 years, it is a one-time event, and this economy is always big enough to handle that.

But the right question to be asking is not how are we going to pay for Katrina? The right question is: ``How are we going to be able to pay for the decisions already made by the Republican majority of this Congress and the White House to give away to the wealthiest people in this society, the top 1 percent, over $1 trillion in tax cuts over the next decade?'' We are going to give away, in tax cuts to the top 1 percent, ten times as much as Katrina is being estimated to cost. So the right question to ask is: ``What are we going to do so that we can afford to pay for the Katrinas that come along and the Iraqi War, where we have a war of choice driven by a President who misled us into that war by giving us false and misleading information?''

So if the Members vote for this continuing resolution today, they are voting to keep those giant tax cuts in place. They are voting to do not one blessed thing to deal with the long-term fiscal impact that they have on the country and, yes, will be chiseling on some of the programs that I just mentioned.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to offer a motion to recommit, which does a number of things. I am going to offer a motion to recommit, which, number one, would provide that the funding levels in this bill be at the current rate rather than the three-headed rate spelled out by the gentleman, so that we do not, even for a month, cut back on what we are doing on job training or community service block grants or low-income heating assistance or other programs like that. Second, it will ask that we treat all farm programs the same. Third, it will restore Davis- Bacon prevailing wages. It will countermand the President's unilateral edict. And that is basically what I will be asking the House to do.

Under the rules of the House, as they have been jury-rigged, under the rule of the House, if a Member of the House lodges a point of order, this motion to recommit will not be allowed to obtain a vote. But if persons on the majority side of the aisle refrain from lodging a point of order, then the House would be allowed to vote on a measure which restores equity to the farm programs, on a measure which restores equity to

funding levels for all programs, and it would restore Davis-Bacon protections for workers as well. And it would also, I should add, instruct the Congress to come back with a change in the Tax Code so that we limit the size of the tax cuts for people who make over $400,000 to the size received by persons in the top 5 percent of the economy. That means they still get at least a $9,000 tax cut on average. That is not bad.

To those in the majority side of the aisle who say that we should not be doing that, I would say that does not surprise me because that represents the economic philosophy of the majority party. To those on the Democratic side of the aisle who might find it a little nerve- racking to vote to scale back tax cuts even for those well-off folks, my suggestion is if they cannot even stand up and do that, they might as well go and cross the aisle.

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

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.

I most certainly am, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, very briefly, section 1 of the motion to recommit would simply provide that we fund the programs covered under the continuing resolution at the current rate rather than at the lower of either the current rate of the House-passed or the Senate-passed bill. I have already explained the impact of that on program. Section 2 would simply repeal the President's edict that workers in the Katrina- affected region would not be subject to the protections of Davis-Bacon wage protections. Section 3 would simply guarantee that the MILC program remains in force for the same length of time as other titles of the farm bill. And section 4 would require a reduction in the size of the tax cuts for taxpayers with incomes of over $400,000, as I just described in my previous remarks.

Point Of Order

Yes, I do, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, if the rules required equity in legislation we brought to the floor, this amendment would be in order. Unfortunately, they do not; so I must reluctantly concede the point of order.

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

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 469 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Matsui), 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.

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

Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 469 is a rule that provides for consideration of House Joint Resolution 68, making continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2006. This rule provides for 1 hour of debate in the House, equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations. The rule waives all points of order against consideration of the joint resolution. The rule provides one motion to recommit the joint resolution.

Additionally, the resolution provides that suspensions will be in order at any time on the legislative day of Thursday, October 6, 2005, and the Speaker or his designee shall consult the Minority Leader or her designee on any suspension considered under the rule.

Lastly, the rule provides that a motion to proceed pursuant to section 2908 of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Act of 1990 shall be in order only if offered by the majority leader or his designee.

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the gentleman from California (Chairman Lewis) and the entire House Committee on Appropriations on both sides of the aisle for sticking to the timetable they laid out at the start of this legislative session. In an impressive display of bipartisanship and just sheer hard work, the House passed all 11 appropriations bills prior to the July 4 District Work Period. Since July, the Senate has returned to us only the interior and legislative branch appropriations bills, which have each been signed into law by the President. Additionally, the Senate has passed six of its remaining 10 appropriations bills. These six are awaiting closure in conference. We are now just anticipating action from the Senate on those last four appropriations bills so we can move forward, finish the appropriations process, and avoid a cumbersome omnibus funding bill.

Unfortunately, the appropriations process within the two bodies has not been completed prior to the start of the new fiscal year which, of course, begins this October 1. We must institute a continuing resolution in order to allow the government to function through November 18, 2005, while we complete consideration of the remaining appropriations bills, waiting on the Senate to complete their final actions, and for the conference committees to do their work. This rule allows consideration of the imperative funding measure.

I am most impressed with the work of the Committee on Appropriations on this continuing resolution. Throughout the appropriations process, the committee has shown its commitment to the budget resolution and to fiscal responsibility. The committee has funded programs and activities at the lowest level of the House-passed level, the Senate-passed level, or the fiscal year 2005 current rate. For agencies for which the Senate has not passed a bill by the start of a new fiscal year, the funding rate is at the lower of the House-passed level, or the fiscal year 2005 current rate.

The legislation includes language prohibiting agencies from initiating or resuming programs or procurements not funded in the fiscal year 2005, and prohibits agencies from awarding new grants and certain other forms of assistance during the period of the CR, which, of course, is through November 18 of this year.

I again congratulate the gentleman from California (Chairman Lewis) and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Ranking Member Obey) and the entire committee for their hard work this year. I urge Members to support this rule and the underlying CR so that we can finish the appropriations process, move down the road to responsible funding for the needs of this Nation, and avoid a cumbersome omnibus funding bill.

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

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

I thank the gentlewoman for her comments. I certainly agree that this debate about the budget and the appropriations process is always a debate about our future, and it is a debate about priorities. Clearly, we have had a shift in priorities since that budget resolution passed. As a State that was hit by four hurricanes last year and had the beginnings of Katrina come across our State this year, our hearts go out to our brothers and sisters on the gulf coast, and we recognize that this government has a commitment to help lift up those citizens on the gulf coast and, where appropriate, we have a Federal responsibility in the rebuilding and reconstruction process in Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama, and a lot of other places.

So I think that that reinforces the need for us to move ahead with this

continuing resolution and allow our appropriations process to work, instead of positioning ourselves to a situation where we end up with an omnibus bill that I do not think either one of us thinks is the appropriate way to go.

There is an opportunity here for us to reprioritize, using regular order, using the strength and talent that sits on our committees, and bringing about a measured approach to doing that. It is going to require offsets. The numbers that are coming out of there fluctuate wildly, and it is important that we have a handle on what those needs truly are. It is important that we recognize that had we not taken some of the steps that we have taken in the past, we would not have eliminated $100 billion off of the deficit in the last year. We would not have been in a position where revenues to the government would have actually been higher than they were as a result of the lower taxes and the growth in the economy that has come about as a result of that.

But that is a debate for another day. This is a debate about the continuing resolution and the need for us to make sure that the government does not shut down.

The House has done its work. I think we can all be very proud of our appropriators finishing their schedule before July 4, and now we are in a position, unfortunately, of being in a bit of a holding pattern, waiting on the Senate and our conference committees to do their work. But it is important for us to pass this rule and allow the CR to move ahead.

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

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

I applaud the gentleman's bipartisan effort to find ways to pay for these unanticipated expenses that we have come across, and I wish him the best in that effort. I think it is important that we all recognize on both sides of the aisle that offsets are going to be necessary and that we do have to reprioritize.

As the gentleman knows, the President submitted a list through the regular budget process of 150 programs to cut or eliminate earlier this year, and some of them received some attention and others received more attention than others. It is certainly a difficult proposition in this town to eliminate any program, but the President led early this year with that thought in mind and he had mixed success.

Again, recognizing the importance of your bipartisan effort and recognizing the facts that we are going to have to have these offsets, this bill, this rule that we are here to consider essentially keeps the government from shutting down while we have that debate. It appears that there is genuine broad support for the CR and for the rule, and I appreciate that.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Matsui) for her work on the Rules Committee and what is essentially a broad commitment that we have to have this CR through November 18. Frankly, it is not for lack of effort on the House side. Both parties have a lot of reasons to be proud of the efforts of our appropriators and the entire House. We had a Herculean effort this summer to move these bills on schedule, move them out before July 4th, and because of Supreme Court nominations and everything else obviously the Senate has had other issues on their agenda, and we are in a holding pattern on the appropriations. Nobody wants to see the government shut down after Saturday, so it is important that we move this rule, move the underlying CR, and allow the regular order, the talent and skills that exist within this House, to work their magic as we deal with these unanticipated effects from two gulf storms, and we are not even finished with hurricane season yet.

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

The previous question was ordered.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 469, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 68) making continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2006, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I hope I do not consume very much.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to bring to the House the continuing resolution for fiscal year 2006. The CR will run through November 18. It is a clean CR without exception. Several Members are pushing the extension of dairy programs, adding emergency spending for the Corps of Engineers, and a whole host of other ideas. We have rejected them all. These items can be addressed in the next supplemental, regular fiscal year 2006 bills, or in reconciliation. The CR will fund agencies at the lower of three levels: the House-passed level, the Senate-passed level, or fiscal year 2005 current rates.

Agencies funded in the Labor-HHS, Treasury, Transportation and Defense bills will be funded at the lower of the House-passed or current rates since the Senate will not pass these bills by October 1. The House and Senate have not passed a CR under the current framework since 1994. By returning to a traditional CR that funds the government operations at the lowest possible level, it will provide a strong motivation for this Congress to complete its work in regular order and produce individual appropriations bills and conference reports.

I want the body to know the Committee on Appropriations is strongly committed to bringing back to this floor individual conference reports for each and every bill. The committee does not support an omnibus or minibus in any form and will do everything in its power to ensure that that does not happen.

I remain committed to moving these bills individually and within the framework of the budget resolution. In order

to help the Senate with the difficult process of passing the Treasury, Transportation and Labor-HHS bills, we will continue to push the lower rate, long-term continuing resolution prospect. I am convinced that this is the only way for us to get back to regular order. The House and Senate committees on appropriations are both committed to this goal.

With regard to the regular order appropriations bills, the Interior and Legislative branch conference reports have been signed into law. The Homeland Security conference concluded just this morning, and we expect to file a conference report today.

The Senate has now passed eight appropriations bills, and the ninth is expected to be completed by early next week. We have begun giving notional allocations to Energy and Water, Foreign Operations, Science, Justice, State and Commerce and Agriculture subcommittees so they can begin negotiating. We are making very good progress.

This continuing resolution is an important step toward achieving our goal of restoring regular order to the congressional appropriations process.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I reserve a point of order on the gentleman's motion.

Mr. Speaker, I make a point of order under clause 7 of rule XVI. The instructions proposed in the motion to recommit range far beyond the subject matter of the joint resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding me this time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

(Ms. MATSUI asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, this rule will allow us to debate H.J. Res. 68, a continuing resolution that will fund the Federal Government past September 30. While this is an essential procedural measure, it also represents an opportunity. Between now and November 18, when the resolution expires, Congress has a responsibility to step back and consider its priorities. The facts on the ground have changed, and our agenda here in the House must change accordingly.

I am confident that we will do right by those affected by the hurricanes, but we still need to ask ourselves where our financial and legislative duties are in response to Katrina construction, continued funding for Iraq and Afghanistan, and increasing fiscal deficit. Are we looking at the big picture? Are our priorities in line with our financial obligations? We know that because of Katrina, the victims, those displaced from their homes, are more likely to rely on medicaid. With that known expense, can we honestly reduce the funding for this responsibility and still extend tax cuts?

Mr. Speaker, we need to take care of our fellow citizens, but what we do now should not mean we pass on an unsustainable debt to future generations, especially when we know there is a way we can offset these costs. For the costs of this year's installments of the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003, $225 billion this year alone, we could pay for the gulf States' recovery from Katrina. We know that we need some of these cuts, such as AMT relief, but let us at least be reasonable and put them on the table.

We must have an honest discussion about our fiscal situation. I urge my colleagues to step back and take a hard look at how we will move forward, not just this fall, but next year and the decades after that.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure that all of my colleagues have heard me talk about my granddaughter Anna, and we all have someone like her, someone we see as our future, someone that means the world to us. I believe that she will grow up to a better future. But, to do right by them, we must all step up to the plate, not as Members of one party or another, but as leaders and statesmen willing to accept the reality of our fiscal situation and make the difficult decisions.

Our priorities in the coming months should not waver from the ultimate goal.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Udall).

(Mr. UDALL of Colorado asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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