Further Additional Continuing Appropriations Amendments, 2011

I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina, my friend, Dr. Foxx, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this closed rule and to the misguided underlying legislation.

Mr. Speaker, enough is enough. Enough political posturing. Enough governing by press conference. Enough finger-pointing press releases, Facebook updates, and Tweets.

Democrats have already agreed, reluctantly, to tens of billions of dollars in cuts. Many of these cuts are from programs that are very near and dear to us. We have come more than halfway.

I am pleased that Speaker Boehner agreed to attend a negotiating session with President Obama and Senator Reid last night. The truth, Mr. Speaker, is that it shouldn't be this hard to come up with a budget to finish this year. President Obama and Senator Reid are trying to work with Speaker Boehner to come up with a bipartisan agreement that moves this country forward.

But that's what we see coming from the Republican Party in the House. Unfortunately, as of right now, the Republican leadership is continuing with their ``my way or the highway'' obstructionism.

Let's be clear about what's really going on here. Let's at least be straight with the American people. This impasse is not because of disputes between Democrats and Republicans; it's because of an intraparty feud between sensible, pragmatic Republican legislators and angry, take-no-prisoner Republican activists.

Now, I know that many of my friends on the other side of the aisle would like to accept the billions and billions of dollars in cuts that the Democrats have offered and declare a victory.

Unfortunately, their Republican Party has been hijacked by people who relish a shutdown of the Federal Government, people who refuse to take ``yes'' for an answer. They are more interested in making a point than in making law. And unless and until the Republican leadership in this House is willing to stand up to that radical element and stop moving the goalposts, we will not be able to move forward.

My friends on the other side of the aisle talk a good game about wanting to come up with a compromise. Unfortunately, this bill before us today does nothing to achieve that goal. In fact, it is a step backwards. This bill, like H.R. 1 before it, isn't going anywhere. The Senate leadership and the White House have already made it very clear that yet another short-term continuing resolution is not acceptable.

Further, this bill continues the misguided priorities that we have seen from the Republican leadership of the House for the last several months. It cuts vital domestic programs that families, communities, and States rely on during these difficult economic times.

Let me just give you a few examples of the cuts to programs that will directly affect the people in Massachusetts that I am honored to represent.

H.R. 1363 would cut the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which helps preserve open space, by another $71.5 million. It cuts $700 million from the Clean Water and Drinking Water Revolving Funds. I don't know of a community in this country that doesn't have infrastructure needs, and the State revolving fund is one of the few areas where they can get money to help repair sewers and deal with storm water and a bunch of other issues, but they cut it by $700 million more.

Most egregiously of all, it cuts $390 million from the LIHEAP contingency fund. That's fuel assistance for poor people, mostly elderly, who need it as fuel prices continue to rise.

So there it is, Mr. Speaker. There is the clear difference of priorities between the two parties. The Republicans would rather shut down the government than provide heating assistance to some of the most vulnerable people in this country. I should also note that this bill would provide funding for the Department of Defense for the rest of the year, but nothing else.

Every Member of this House believes that making sure our troops get their paychecks is a top priority. The men and women who serve this country in uniform deserve our support.

But, Mr. Speaker, so do the seniors of this country. So do the children of this country. So do the poor and the hungry of this country. So do the people who can't afford hot-shot lobbyists and multimillion dollar ad campaigns. We are supposed to represent them too.

A couple of days ago we saw where the Republican priorities are. They made them crystal clear in their budget proposal. Eliminate Medicare as we know it. Eviscerate Medicaid. Cut funding for education. Cut funding for medical research, health care, environmental protection, and infrastructure in order to make sure that the wealthiest individuals and companies can keep their special interest tax breaks.

Oil companies continue to get their taxpayer subsidies. Why they need them, I don't know, but they continue to get them. And they are protected. Donald Trump continues to get his tax cut under their proposal, but they go after programs that impact working people and people who are the most vulnerable. That may fly on Wall Street, but it sure isn't going to fly on Main Street.

So, again, Mr. Speaker, I say that enough is enough. It is time for serious people to do some serious legislating. The bill before us is a million miles away from that.

I would urge my colleagues to reject this closed rule and to reject the underlying legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I have no disagreement with the gentlelady from North Carolina in terms of trying to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in government. I think we're all for a leaner government. But what we're not for is a meaner government. And that is what the Republican policies are all about--a meaner government.

There's a story that I will submit to the Record here. It's talking about the Republican budget. It says the Budget Office claims the GOP Medicare plan could lead to rationing, making it more difficult for our senior citizens to get health care.

By basically obliterating Medicare, you may save a few bucks in the short term, but you're going to deny them care in the long term. I don't see how that is right.

Secondly, I didn't talk about the past in my opening statement; the gentlelady did. I just want the record to be clear about the past and how we got into this mess.

When Bill Clinton left office, we eliminated the deficit and we were paying down the debt. We had all-time high job growth. George Bush comes to office. His reckless tax cuts are not paid for and hundreds of billions of dollars are added to our debt. A Medicare prescription drug bill was not paid for--wasn't paid for--and was more expensive than the Republicans advertised. Add that on to our debt, plus two wars that weren't paid for.

When the first President George Bush went to war against Saddam Hussein when Iraq invaded Kuwait, he went around and he got member nations in the area to actually pitch in to help pay for the war so that the burden wasn't only on the United States. George Bush II comes into office--two wars, we don't pay for them. There's no tax on anybody. It gets onto our credit card. That is just not right.

Men and women in uniform are sacrificing, their families are sacrificing, and the rest of us have been asked to do nothing. They just put it on the credit card. That is not right.

So, Mr. Speaker, I have a disagreement with the gentlelady not over the issue of whether we need to reduce waste and abuse in government. I have an issue with her over the way they're doing it. They protect tax breaks for big oil companies, tax breaks for Donald Trump and subsidies for corn ethanol, a big waste of money. All that's protected. And the way they balance the budget is not by going after that. They go after programs that help poor people, LIHEAP, WIC--the Women, Infant and Children's program of all things--and Pell Grants. We all know that in order to have a strong economy in the 21st century, we need a well- educated workforce, and they cut Pell Grants. They just slash them. That's where they're cutting, cutting programs that help average people, regular people and people who are vulnerable.

What government should be about is making sure that those people are taken care of and not forgotten. Instead, their budget and their priorities are protecting those who have a lot of wealth who don't need government. And I think what they're doing is misguided.

Let me just read one final thing here. This is a story that just appeared on Politico, breaking news. President Obama is calling House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid back to the White House to negotiate on the budget at 1 p.m. Just before the announcement from the White House, Senator Reid said on the Senate floor that the numbers are basically there, but that the only thing holding up an agreement is ideology. He said he was not nearly as optimistic about reaching a deal as he was last night.

So, in other words, Mr. Speaker, this is no longer about numbers. And I regret that so much has had to be cut in order to satisfy my friends on the other side of the aisle.

But now this is about ideology. They have all these riders on these bills, riders that deal with abortion, National Public Radio, and riders that undercut EPA's ability to ensure there is safe drinking water and clean air. They are insisting on all of these ideological riders to be attached to whatever budget deal before they sign it. It is not about the numbers anymore; it is about a rigid, right-wing ideology.

So enough is enough, Mr. Speaker. I urge my Republican colleagues to go back to the negotiating table and negotiate in good faith, let's get a deal, and let's move on to next year's business.

[From NPR, Apr. 5, 2011]

Budget Office: GOP Medicare Plan Could Lead to Rationing

(By Julie Rovner)

Excerpts:

Buried deep in the analysis of the proposal offered Tuesday

by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the CBO

suggested that moving Medicare beneficiaries from

public to private insurance could actually end up slowing the

introduction of new and potentially life-saving medical

technology . . .

The key problem, according to CBO, is that private

insurance is, well, likely to be more expensive than

insurance that's run by the government, competition

notwithstanding. ``Under the proposal, most elderly people

would pay more for their health care than they would pay

under the current Medicare system,'' the CBO said.

And because those seniors would be paying more, those

private plans would be looking for ways to bring health

spending down . . .

The CBO acknowledges that private health insurance plans

would have cost-reduction tools available that government-run

Medicare does not--things like limiting benefits, changing

co-payment amounts, managing how patients use services, and

controlling which doctors and hospitals are in their

networks.

``(S)uch steps could serve as alternatives to limiting

payments to providers in restraining health care costs and

insurance premiums,'' the report says.

But at the same time, it warns, the higher payments could

affect care. Beneficiaries might be less likely to use ``new,

costly, but possibly beneficial, technologies and

techniques'' than they do under current law.

In other words, exactly the sort of rationing that so

frightened Republicans when they were fighting the health

law--the health law that Ryan's proposal would repeal, by the

way.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Will the gentlelady yield?

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, just two points. One, on the issue of abortion. The law of the land under the Hyde language is that no Federal funds can be used to finance abortion. Introducing abortion into this budget debate is divisive and doesn't belong there. But it is all about ideology, and I get it. So don't say it is about numbers anymore. It is about this kind of right-wing ideology, going after National Public Radio, trying to undercut the EPA. You know, I get it. There is a time and place to do that; this is not it.

The other thing I would say, when I listen to my colleague from North Carolina, the question I was going to ask, if Republicans are responsible for deficit reduction under Bill Clinton, then who is responsible for the increase in deficit when they were in charge of the Presidency, the House and the Senate, when they had all three branches of government? At some point you have to take some responsibility, and at some point you have to live up to the fact that some of the policies that my colleagues pursued when they were in charge here drove this economy into a ditch and added significantly to our deficit.

At this time, Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

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

I want to thank the gentleman from California, the chairman of the Rules Committee, for giving us his itinerary for the day. I'm glad he's meeting with the leaders of Mongolia, because this is a budget only the people of Mongolia would love because it is a tough budget on the people of the United States of America.

He talks about their commitment to helping the poor in this country. I don't know how you do that when you cut WIC, when you go after Pell Grants, when you go after LIHEAP.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

Reclaiming my time, I will just remind my friend, as I did last night, right now there are 30,000 people in this country that are fasting in protest of the cuts that adversely impact the poor. A former colleague, Tony Hall from Ohio, Jim Wallis from Sojourners, David Beckmann from Bread for the World are highlighting the fact that the cuts in this budget are going to be devastating to the most vulnerable people in this country.

What I said in the Rules Committee last night is that sometimes we forget to understand that there are real people behind these cuts, and people are going to be hurt. And, unfortunately, the people who are sacrificing are the people who can least afford to sacrifice. You're not asking Donald Trump to sacrifice. You're not asking big oil companies to sacrifice or those big agri-businesses that receive corn ethanol subsidies. No. It's all focused on working people and poor people.

I don't know when, in the minds of the Republicans, that average working people and people who are vulnerable became the bad guys. It was reckless Wall Street behavior that created this financial crisis, and they get everything, and everyday people get nothing except the bill. That's wrong.

At this point, Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the words of the Speaker of the House, but I would remind my colleagues that when we talk about national security, it needs to include, as well, the health and well- being of our senior citizens here in the United States. It needs to include the health and well-being of our children here in the United States.

It needs to include our infrastructure, our education, the quality of our environment. All those things are part of our national security. We all support funding our troops. What we don't support are reckless policies that are aimed at undercutting programs like Medicare and putting our senior citizens at a disadvantage where they will pay more and get less.

I mean this is an ideological battle that we are, unfortunately, engaged in where my Republican friends believe that Medicare should be ended as we know it. Medicare as we know it they want to end. It is clear. If anyone doubts that, I will tell my colleagues to read the bill, to read the stuff that is coming out of the Budget Committee. Read the bill. For anybody who doubts that Republicans are targeting Medicare, look at what the Budget Committee is doing. It will be there in black and white when it's published, and it will state unequivocally that Medicare, as we know it, will be ended. Senior citizens, according to the CBO, will pay more and get less. That is not what, I think, the American people want. I will just remind my colleagues of a new poll that came out: 66 percent of seniors reject the plan to end Medicare as we know it.

So, if you interpreted the results of the last election as going after Medicare and seniors' health care, I think you misread the results of the last election. The last election was about jobs. We all need to come together and talk about how we protect jobs and help encourage the creation of more jobs in this country. If you want to end the deficit, put people back to work. Here we are in April, and you have yet to bring one single bill to this floor that deals with jobs, that helps create jobs and that helps protect jobs.

My friends on the other side of the aisle need to kind of reevaluate their priorities here. Let's get back to what the American people want--a strong economy and good jobs.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I am not. I have a couple of more speakers.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks).

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

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

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

I am the final speaker on our side.

Well, here we go again--another closed rule, but this rule is different from others. It also includes martial law authority. This means that the Republican leadership can bring any spending bill to the floor at any time they want.

So much for ``read the bill.''

This is not how the House Republicans said they were going to run the House. Open rules? Read the bill? Markups? Hearings? Their record, Mr. Speaker, is abysmal, and this bill is a perfect example of how they are doing things they said they wouldn't do--a closed rule with Martial law authority. I can't say I'm surprised. It's their way or the highway.

Yesterday, a group of tea partiers was protesting on the steps of the Capitol. It's a wonderful thing to be able to protest in the open without any threat of government violence or censorship. It's a very American thing to do. Yet, while they're entitled to their opinion, it's important to point out that they were protesting against keeping the government open.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, they want to shut the government down. Just look at the front page of CQ today. It's of a tea party member on the steps of the Capitol with a sign that says, ``Shut 'er down''; and Republicans in the House are doing their bidding.

Enough is enough. It is time to act like adults and negotiate in good faith. It is time to come to a deal that keeps the government open--a deal without partisan, ideological riders that prevent health groups from providing important women's health information and health screenings, riders that prevent the EPA from keeping our air and water safe, riders that prevent independent, nonpartisan news agencies from reporting in places like Afghanistan, Egypt and Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, it's time that the Republican Party does the right thing for its country and not just for the extremist wing of its party.

At the end of this debate, I will oppose the previous question. If the previous question is defeated, I will offer an amendment to provide a clean CR for 1 week. No harmful cuts or ideological riders like those that are included in the Republican bill. The government stays open while President Obama, Speaker Boehner and Senator Reid continue to negotiate. Now that they're at the table, it's time to let them do their jobs and come to a deal without a continual moving of the legislative goalposts that's going on under the Republican bill.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the Record along with extraneous material immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question and to defeat this closed rule.

My friends on the other side of the aisle need to get serious about negotiating an end to this impasse, and need to stop the ideological riders that are attached to this bill. Let's get serious, and let's get this passed so we can begin to deal with next year's budget.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 206 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.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

House Resolution 206 provides for a closed rule providing for consideration of H.R. 1363, which is a bill providing 1 week of continuing appropriations, a full year of funding for the Department of Defense, and cuts $12 billion in wasteful Federal spending.

Mr. Speaker, it's unfortunate that we are at this juncture nearly 7 months into fiscal year 2011, considering the bill that this House will soon consider. We are seeing a stunning lack of leadership on behalf of Washington Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Reid and President Obama, who have refused to do the work that Americans sent them here to do. They have exhibited willful disregard for our troops and their families, who are uncertain about their paychecks with a government shutdown looming.

The bill we will debate and pass funds the Department of Defense for the remainder of the year, while cutting another $12 billion in wasteful Washington spending. Lest we forget, the reason this problem exists at all is because the liberal Democrat elites were so incapable of governing in the last Congress that they couldn't even pass a budget for the first time since modern congressional budgets were first created over 30 years ago.

They didn't do that because of their lack of leadership then and their apparent realization that the American people had tired of big spending, big government policies streaming out of Washington, which is why the Republicans now control the House of Representatives.

Today with real leadership in the House we have real solutions to these real problems. House Republicans have passed H.R. 1, which is a continuing resolution that takes us to the end of the fiscal year.

The Democrat response? In another display of their lack of leadership, Senator Reid sits on his hands while Senator Schumer tinkers in his game of manipulating the liberal political message in a phone call with reporters.

House Republicans then took the lead in crafting two short-term continuing resolutions, H.J. Res. 44 and H.J. Res. 48, providing for an additional 5 weeks of funding authority while cutting $10 billion in wasteful Federal spending along the way.

Realizing that the stubborn liberal elites in the Senate and White House are using the threat of a government shutdown to continue their failed wasteful spending policies, House Republicans last week passed H.R. 1255, the Government Shutdown Prevention Act, which provided for enactment of H.R. 1 in the event that the liberal malaise continues to stymie progress on fiscal 2011 appropriations.

After all of these gestures of good faith made by House Republicans, the time has now come for the hapless liberal Democrat elites in the Senate and the White House to make a decision. It's time to decide between acting responsibly, abandoning favored political alliances, or continuing their failed Big Government policies as a solution to all earthly problems.

These points aside, there is one truth upon which everyone could probably agree: that the new Republican House leadership has changed the discussion in Washington, D.C., and across the country.

Whereas the previous discussion in Washington revolved solely around how much more money we should spend, today the discussion is how much more money we should cut.

Americans can now rest easy knowing that their message was received by responsible adults here in the House, and we will work to reflect their support for a leaner Federal Government focused on finding solutions to problems, rather than political gamesmanship and perpetual misguided adventures in social engineering.

Speaker Boehner has told the President that the House will not be put in a box and forced to choose between two options that are bad for the country, like accepting a bad deal that fails to make real spending cuts or accepting a government shutdown due to Senate inaction, and that is why House Republicans, in lieu of an agreement in which the White House and Senate agree to real spending cuts, are offering this third option: another good-faith gesture that funds our troops through the

end of the fiscal year while cutting an additional $12 billion in wasteful government spending and keeps the government running for another week.

Real leadership is long overdue in this Congress, Mr. Speaker, and it's refreshing to see the new House Republican majority step in and fill the void left by such a devastating lack of leadership that has resulted from liberal Democrat domination of this city for far too long.

Let's start by voting for this rule and the underlying bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Massachusetts and I are actually, I think, getting fairly fond of each other, spending so much time in the Rules Committee as we do. However, I really have to call into question a couple of comments that he has made.

Is this bill really a step backwards when we're funding our troops for the rest of the year, taking away the uncertainty that they have just in case the government votes to shut down or the Senate doesn't act as it should and allows the government to shut down?

Do we really need to continue all the appropriations for LIHEAP, the funding for helping people pay their heating bills, when we are in April this year? This is money that goes until the end of September. I hardly think that we're going to have people freezing to death in this country between now and September 30.

Do we need to be looking after seniors and children? Obviously, we do. Republicans are not heartless people. But we have to look after them in a responsible way. Cutting spending is the way to be responsible to them.

And, Mr. Speaker, I have to remind my colleague again that we are here to fix a problem that they left for us last year: funding the Federal Government for the rest of this year.

Yesterday in the Rules Committee, one of our colleagues said, Let's stop talking about the past and talk about the future, when we brought this up. Well, Mr. Speaker, Republicans would like nothing more than to do that, but we're doing all that we can to avoid a government shutdown, and that is what this rule and bill are all about this morning.

Republicans understand that unless we change course, higher taxes, inflation, interest rates and unemployment will cripple our economy and rob our children of the opportunity to pursue the American Dream. Let's be clear. We don't have deficits because Americans are taxed too little. We have deficits because Washington spends too much. We've got to stop spending money we don't have. Right now, we're borrowing 43 cents for every dollar that we spend.

I want to talk a little bit about the long-term effects of what we're planning to do in this Congress this spring under Republican majority. The budget

resolution introduced by Budget Chairman Paul Ryan and passed out of the Budget Committee last evening will spur job creation, stops spending money we don't have, and lifts the crushing burden of debt. It's a plan that puts the budget on a path to fiscal stability and our country on a path to prosperity by cutting $6 trillion in Federal spending over 10 years and takes government spending below 20 percent of GDP.

Mr. Speaker, historically, our government spending has been between 18 and 20 percent of GDP. Once we go over that, we are endangering our country, and that's where our colleagues across the aisle have been for a long time. The White House predicts that their proposal will reduce the deficit by only $1.1 trillion over the same period of time.

According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, President Obama's budget would generate more than $9.5 trillion in additional deficits between fiscal years 2012 and 2021. I actually have a visual here, Mr. Speaker, that shows exactly what is going to happen under President Obama's budget.

In contrast, the Republican budget resolution provides us with a path to prosperity by limiting the Federal Government to its core constitutional roles, keeping America's promises to seniors, and unleashing the genius of America's workers, investors and entrepreneurs. The Republican budget has a projected real GDP growth of $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years.

With this budget resolution, we're taking direct aim at wasteful Washington spending as opposed to the Obama budget that spends more than $46 trillion over the next decade.

Since January of 2009, there has been a 24 percent increase in non- discretionary spending, a number that jumps to 84 percent when stimulus funds are included, Mr. Speaker. Democrats promised if we paid for their stimulus, unemployment would stay below 8 percent. Then it soared to 10 percent. One trillion dollars in debt later, Americans know they didn't get what they paid for.

The 2009 stimulus law has gotten the most attention with considerable focus on the billions of dollars it wasted on dubious government projects as well as the many promises it broke with respect to job creation and economic growth. The Republican budget resolution projects an unemployment rate of 4 percent by 2015, Mr. Speaker.

If we continue on the wrong path that we're on now, Americans will not be able to rely on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security in order to plan for retirement if we don't take action. Republicans want to serve as good stewards of the investment of millions of Americans paying into Social Security. Republicans will save $750 billion through Medicaid reform in the form of block grants to States, giving Governors greater and much needed flexibility in their budgets.

As it stands, the share of the budget that goes to these entitlement programs is growing rapidly, and demographics, economics and skewed political incentives are driving Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare into bankruptcy. Alice Rivlin, the former Clinton OMB Director, has called Medicare's current policy ``not sustainable.''

Cutting spending is about ending wasteful spending, making the government leaner and more efficient, showing respect to hardworking taxpayers, and making the tough choices today that save our children and grandchildren from even tougher choices tomorrow. For hardworking Americans, this isn't about politics. It's about their life and putting our economy and our Nation first.

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

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

My colleague from Massachusetts knows that every time he brags about what happened when Bill Clinton left office and we had a surplus, that he is going to get an answer to that because he knows full well that Republicans were in control of the Congress. Republicans came in control of the Congress in 1995, and they controlled the Congress the last 6 years of Bill Clinton's Presidency, and it is Republicans who created the surplus, not Bill Clinton. We have to remind them every time that they are trying to rewrite history.

And then they blame George Bush. It is so convenient to do that. In January of 2007, the month Democrats took control of the Congress again, the CBO projected the Federal Government would run a surplus of $800 billion over 10 years, covering the period 2008-2017. But they took the Congress that January and, guess what, the most recent CBO projections available project the Federal Government to run a deficit of $7.4 trillion over the same period. This is an $8.2 trillion deterioration of the budget outlook during Democrat control of Congress.

You can speak on your time, Mr. McGovern. I will let you do that.

My colleague on the other side of the aisle talks a lot about creating a nanny state, taking care of people from birth until death. That's not what the American people want. We see that over in Europe, and it has failed. What the Federal Government does and what school children should learn, if they learn the Preamble to the Constitution and if they read the Declaration of Independence, is that we are here to secure the blessings of liberty for the people. Creating a nanny state does not secure the blessings of liberty for the people.

He talks about how we are not now talking about numbers, but we are talking about ideology. I am happy to debate ideology with my colleague from Massachusetts any day. The American people do not want taxpayer- funded abortions. That's part of what we are talking about. That's part of our ideology. No, we should not be taking money from hardworking Americans and using that money to fund the killing of unborn babies. That is our ideology. Again, the majority of the American people agree with us, and we are going to stand on that ideology every day.

The American people have, Mr. Speaker, the right to a fact-based conversation on the budget. We demand an end to budget gimmicks and accounting tricks used every year to make budgets look responsible when in fact they add to the debt. That is part of our problem with what President Obama is recommending. He wants us to take mythical numbers that he projects instead of real numbers that we have been using.

Passing a short-term measure is a step in the right direction to cut spending while keeping the government open, but it is far from being enough. Excessive government spending has economic consequences for all Americans: higher cost-of-living, higher interest rates, higher taxes. But, Mr. Speaker, we didn't get into this overnight and we will not get out of it overnight. Investors in small businesses need confidence that Congress will use commonsense American principles to cut spending and ensure a secure economic future.

The Republican budget resolution can create 1 million private sector jobs over the next year. We are not going to create these high-paid government jobs that our colleagues have created. America's solution for job creation won't come by raising taxes to pay for even more wasteful Washington bureaucracy. Democrats tried that approach with the stimulus, and it failed.

Republicans, on the other hand, estimate that with the Path to Prosperity budget resolution introduced this week and passed out of the Budget Committee, wages will go up by $1.1 trillion over the next 10 years, yielding an average increase in income of $1,000 per year for each American family.

Mr. Speaker, we need to do in this House what the American people expect us to do: be reasonable stewards, responsible stewards of their money and adhere to the ideology which has made this the greatest country in the world.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), the chair of the Rules Committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to Speaker Boehner, the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the gentleman from Massachusetts if he is ready to close.

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

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

As our colleague across the aisle said, ``Here we go again.'' Here we go again with the Democrats misleading the American people about what this rule is about, what this bill is about, the underlying bill. Mr. Dicks said he wanted the rule as it is. Our colleagues across the aisle don't want us to be able to take up another bill in case there is an agreement with the President on a long-term CR.

There is only one rider on this bill, Mr. Speaker, and that is to not allow taxpayer funding for abortions in Washington, DC. My colleague across the aisle says national security should include paying for all of these government programs. The Federal Government is the only branch of government that can handle national security, and that means funding our troops. That's exactly what this underlying bill does.

Mr. Speaker, also our colleague says, ``It's time for people to read the bill.'' How interesting that when they were in control, they didn't want anybody to read the bills, and they said you wouldn't be able to know what was going to be in the bill until after it was passed.

I'm sorry, Mr. Speaker. There are words for that. I'm afraid I should not use those on the floor today for fear it might slow down our debate here.

But I want to say that I am particularly concerned that our colleagues have brought up the issue of values. I'm pleased they brought up the issue of values.

Our colleague from New Jersey says what this is, it's about the value of Medicare. Well, Mr. Speaker, it shows what they value are government programs. What we value are life and freedom. There is a distinct difference, Mr. Speaker, in the values of the two parties in this country--one wants more government funding, one wants government control of our lives; the other wants freedom for the American people and life for unborn children.

Mr. Speaker, they are misleading the American people. There's nothing about Medicare in this rule or in this underlying bill.

We've discussed at great length why America needs this rule and this bill. In the face of a government shutdown, our economy is struggling, people are looking for jobs, they demand accountability and belt- tightening in Washington, DC. They need the Federal Government to stop draining job-creating resources from the private sector to fund misguided adventures in social engineering. They demand action. They deserve answers.

It's for these reasons I urge my colleagues to vote for the rule and the underlying bill so we can begin to restore the trust Americans have in their Federal Government and restore this economy.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I understand our Democratic leader is meeting with the Republican Speaker of the House and the White House and working to try to establish the funding level we will have for the rest of this fiscal year that ends September 30.

Let me explain, briefly, how we got here. Our Democratic majority in the Senate failed to pass a spending level last year--failed to pass a single appropriations bill last year and, at the start of the fiscal year, voted a continuing resolution for 5 months. In the course of all that, there was a national election and the most driving force in that election was the American people's deep concern about reckless Washington spending and surging debt that they know is endangering the American economy, can reduce growth, cause a debt crisis and put us on an unsustainable path and burden our children and grandchildren with massive debt, the likes of which we have not seen before.

The continuing resolution that passed at the start of the fiscal year carried us 5 months of the 12-month fiscal year. I suppose, after the shellacking the big spenders took last fall--the biggest shellacking in 80 years--huge numbers of individuals got elected to the House and a large number to the Senate who are committed to containing spending-- there should have been no doubt that when we came to decide how much spending we would have the last 7 months of the fiscal year, that there would be proposals to reduce spending. The House responsibly came forward with H.R. 1, which calls for a reduction of spending by $61 billion over the last 7 months of the fiscal year, and it was sent to the Senate. The Senate has done nothing. We have a vote on the bill. Actually, more votes were obtained in the Democratic-controlled Senate for the Republican House bill than votes achieved for the Senate Democratic bill. Ten Democratic Senators were uneasy with the bill the Senate majority produced because it only reduced spending by $4.6 billion. Have they forgotten what happened in November? Have they forgotten that projections continue to grow throughout the year, and instead of a $1.3 trillion expected deficit this year, the numbers have grown to $1.4 trillion in debt added to our country this fiscal year ending September 30?

Did not the American people expect us to do something? One would have thought this $61 billion reduction is somehow the end of the world. We have been fighting ever since.

We have had a series of short-term continuing resolutions so the government does not shut down. Why should the government shut down? Because under our Constitution, if the Congress does not fund a government entity, the entity does not have a right to exist. It can't go out and operate as a government entity if it has not been funded by the Congress. So we have a serious problem. I hope our colleagues reach an agreement. I hope Senator Reid and Speaker Boehner can reach an agreement, but I am uneasy about it. Frankly, I am not happy about some of the things that have been occurring.

Let me read for my colleagues what Senator Reid, our Democratic leader, has been saying. You know we want to have a compromise, they say. Why don't you guys all get together and be nice to one another? Well, we should, and we do, even though we sometimes are pretty aggressive in our debates. But it is a bit much when Senator Reid says the tea party is trying to push through its extreme agenda--issues that have absolutely nothing to do with funding the government.

He goes on to say:

They have made a decision to shut down the government

because they want to make it harder, for example, for a woman

to get a cancer screening.

I have asked myself: What in the world could he be talking about there? My staff thinks the only thing he could be referring to is the proposal to reduce funding for Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in America.

He goes on to say:

Do they really want to shut the government down because the

tea party doesn't want scientists to make sure the air we

breathe is clean and pure?

Give me a break.

He goes on to say:

This is a time we don't have to fight over the tea party's

extreme social agenda.

They had a tape of my good friend, Senator Schumer, and he had to back

down from it, but everyone agreed to use the word ``extreme.'' So they called everybody ``extreme.'' They had a press conference and it got picked up. One of our fine Democratic colleagues was talking about the extreme Republicans, and then he said the extreme Republicans, ``my good friends.'' Good for him. Give me a break. There are other statements like that. The Democratic leader in the House, Nancy Pelosi, said:

The GOP Ryan budget is a path to poverty for America's

seniors and children and a road to riches for big oil.

One of the Congressmen said that the Ryan budget ``puts yet another brick in the wall between the haves and the have nots.''

Senator Conrad, chairman of the Budget Committee, of which I am the ranking member, called that budget ``unsustainable and unreasonable.''

Well, we have a problem in America. The debt in this country is dangerous. We are coming out of the recession, and we need to continue growth. We need to continue job creation. It is not as good as a lot of people say, but it is improving. It has been slower than most recessions for us to recover. But Alan Greenspan, Erskine Bowles, Bill Gross at PIMCO bond company, the largest in the world, who has stopped buying U.S. Treasury bonds and sold all his U.S. Treasury bonds, and Moody's have all warned us that we could be facing a crisis in short order. We need to make some changes.

Also, all of this is being conducted under an atmosphere that is affected by the budget for fiscal year 2012.

Chairman Ryan and his fabulous Budget Committee in the House have produced a very good budget. It is a courageous and long-term budget which deals with the unsustainable course of Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. He proposes solutions that save those programs and protect our seniors. They put us on the right trajectory. That is what has been hammered as some extreme document.

What has the Senate produced? Nothing. The Senate hasn't produced anything, nada. This is most troubling. But what has the other party, who is required to submit a budget--the Budget Act requires the Senate to produce a budget, and it requires the House to produce a budget, and it requires the President to submit a budget. The President, a week late, submitted a budget.

Mr. Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson tell us we are facing the most predictable economic crisis in our Nation's history as a result of the debt we are running up. We cannot continue this. It is unsustainable. Mr. Bernanke says we are on an unsustainable course.

What did the President do? What kind of budget did he propose? His budget increases spending every year. It increases discretionary spending every year. It increases taxes by $1.7 trillion. It doubles the debt in 5 years and triples it in 10 years. It is unsustainable. It is, in light of the circumstances we face today, unacceptable. He provides no suggestion whatsoever to save Social Security, which is moving into an unsustainable course, nothing whatsoever to fix or strengthen Medicare or Medicaid, all of which every expert in the country agrees are on dangerous paths that cannot be sustained. It is stunning.

Interest on our debt last year was $200 billion. We borrow the money we don't have. Interest last year was $200 billion. This year, we are going to spend $3.6 trillion and we are going to take in $2.2 trillion. Forty cents out of every dollar we spend is borrowed. This is the third straight year with a $1 trillion-plus deficit. These last 3 years, we are averaging $1.4 trillion in deficits per year. The highest we ever had before that was $450 billion.

The lowest budget deficit, projected by the President's own budget office, scored by the CBO, in 10 years would be $740 billion. Worse, it is going up in the outyears. In the tenth year, under President Obama's budget, the deficit would be $1.2 trillion. And the reason the numbers dropped was always there--based on the projection that our economy will continue to rebound, nothing that the President has done. His spending levels increased under the budget.

Therefore, I believe and I honestly think that the President's budget, in light of the warning and the danger this debt is posing to America, is the most irresponsible budget ever presented by a President of the United States. It is stunningly damaging. It is unacceptable. It accelerates the unsustainable path we are on. As Congressman Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, said, it makes it worse than the unsustainable baseline numbers we are operating under now. It makes it worse.

The Republican House has produced a good budget, the President has produced a budget that is unacceptable, and our Democratic colleagues in the Senate have produced nothing. They just want to complain. They want to make these kinds of attacks: punishing working families; another brick in the wall between the haves and the have-nots; denying women the right to have breast exams and cancer screening; extreme social agenda--extreme, extreme, extreme. Be sure to use that word, ``extreme.'' I don't believe the American people are going to buy this or that they are going to be taken in by the big spenders. They weren't last fall when 64 new House Members were elected who are committed to restrained spending, and I don't believe they will in the future.

Some think that Republicans will get blamed for shutting down the government if they don't have an agreement. Let's talk about that.

As a matter of compromise, the House has sent over another bill, H.R. 1363, that would extend funding for another week and allow the negotiations to continue for another week, and that will reduce spending by an additional $12 billion. That bill also funds the Defense Department through the end of this fiscal year so that they are not hung out there with CR after CR, and so that the Defense Department, the people who defend our country can have confidence in the funding level for the rest of the year. H.R. 1363 is here in the Senate. The House passed that legislation so the Senate can pass a permanent fix for the rest of the fiscal year or it can do 1 more week and we can continue to talk. It is hard for me to imagine how the Republican House, which has sent two good pieces of legislation over here, ought to be blamed when the Senate has passed nothing. They brought up nothing.

It is a bit odd to me also that the President said, ``I am going to veto it.'' I saw a commentator this morning say that the President wants to act like a good daddy and try to get the Senate and the House together and put his arm around them and be the person who brings them all together. Maybe that would be good if it would happen. It looks as if he has taken that hat off and is threatening to veto even a 1-week extension of spending that funds the Defense Department.

Why? One experienced Senator told me: I will tell you why. Senator Reid may not have the votes. He may not want to vote on the 1-week CR. A lot of his Members are getting tired of this. They know we have to reduce spending and we need to fund the Defense Department. If it came up on the floor, maybe a lot of Democratic Senators would vote for it and it would pass. Maybe they can work out some of these agreements if we have another week.

I am just saying that some people think all of this sound and fury is politics. I guess there is some politics in it; that is hard to deny. But this is not the normal political squabble between Republicans and Democrats. We really do face a debt crisis. We really have a responsibility.

President Obama's own debt commission pleaded with us to do something about the systemic threat we face from our surging debt that could knock down the growth and progress we are just beginning to feel a little bit here. It could kick us back. Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and as Erskine Bowles, a chairman of President Obama's debt commission and President Clinton's former chief of staff, have said that nothing could be more devastating to the country than if we had a debt crisis. They are warning us to do something now, not just a short-term spending level for the rest of this fiscal year but the budget for the next year. They tell us we have to deal with the entitlements, the long-term danger they present, as well as the short- term spending levels. I believe Congress knows that.

Some say the American people don't believe in cuts; they talk about cuts, but they don't believe in them. I don't

think so. I believe Mr. Christie is hanging in there in New Jersey, and Governor Cuomo in New York is proposing serious reductions in spending. His popularity is strong. In Alabama, my State, Dr. Bentley, our new Governor, just announced that the discretionary spending levels would be cut by 15 percent the rest of this fiscal year. Nothing we are proposing is close to those kinds of spending reductions they are talking about in Alabama. We are going to have to do some spending reductions. It is going to be meaningful, significant, and it will be difficult to deal with. We should do it carefully.

If we bring down this level of spending, it will have a transformative impact. For example, if you take the $61 billion and you did what the House said--reduce the spending level $61 billion--that reduces the baseline of Federal spending by $61 billion, and over 10 years we will save $860 billion. That is real money just from reducing baseline spending by $61 billion. We have to think in terms of 10-, 20- , 30-year budgets because, as it gets in the outyears, the dangers are even worse.

I believe we can do this, and I believe the American people are ready to face up to these challenges.

I salute my colleagues in the House for presenting a budget that is honest. If you want to know what kind of challenges we face, look at that House budget because it deals with them. The budget the President submitted is filled with gimmicks. When the CBO analyzed the President's budget, it found over $1 trillion in gimmicks. CBO found that his debt projections were off by over $1 trillion because of gimmicks.

I think Congressman Ryan's budget is honest. Not only that, it deals with the long-term threats to our economy and our finances. It is something we ought to consider. If my colleagues have different ways to achieve some of the things he achieves in his plan, let's hear them, let's talk about them. Let's make sure seniors are not going to get hammered and unfairly treated in any way. We can do that. We ought to have an open and fair debate.

The only people who have stepped up and have shown leadership so far have been the members of the House Budget Committee. The President's budget is irresponsible, and the Senate has done nothing. It is time for us to get together, get our act together, finish the funding for this fiscal year, reduce spending every dollar we can, and do a budget for next year that puts us on a path to a sound economy where growth can occur and jobs will be created.

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the rule, I call up the bill (H.R. 1363) making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2011, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 1363 and that I may include tabular material on the same.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to support H.R. 1363, the Department of Defense and Further Additional Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011.

I ask my colleagues, Madam Speaker, to support this bill so that we can avoid a government shutdown and provide the necessary time to finally complete negotiations on a final funding agreement for the rest of the 2011 fiscal year.

This bill funds government operations for 1 week while reducing spending by $12 billion. These cuts include funding rescissions, reductions, and program terminations from nearly all areas of the government. Virtually all of these cuts were also included in H.R. 1, and many were included in the President's budget requests, the Senate's alternative to H.R. 1, or the recent OMB CR proposal.

Most importantly, Madam Speaker, this bill supports our troops and our national security by providing funding for our national defense for the remainder of this fiscal year. Our troops and their families deserve to have the financial security we promised them while we continue to work towards a final budget agreement.

After months of uncertainty, it's high time we provide for our national security in a responsible way. This means commonsense funding that ensures the safety of our war fighters and the success of our missions abroad.

However, while this legislation points us in the right direction on security and spending cuts, what we all want right now is to wrap up these negotiations, complete the process for 2011, and move our many other important legislative items onto the table.

As I have said many times before, Madam Speaker, short-term measures like this are not the preferable way to fund the government. So while no one wants to fund the government in 1- or 2-week bursts, this short- term CR is what we must do to prevent a government shutdown and allow time to pass a smart and thoughtful bill for the rest of the year.

Madam Speaker, coming into this Congress, the Democrats left us with a financial mess: soaring deficits, unchecked spending, and no budget, not a single appropriations bill for 2011. And now that we're 6 months into the fiscal year, the Senate Democrats have yet to produce any plan to help clean up this mess.

Despite all the roadblocks we've faced throughout this process, we must continue down the path to fiscal solvency, and this CR both affords us the time required to complete negotiations as well as makes the spending cuts needed to continue to help balance our budgets. We are committed to making real spending cuts like these to reduce our deficits both now and in the future. We are determined to complete this work where Democrats failed to do so.

While answering our constituents' calls to reduce excessive government spending, this bill provides time to negotiate in an honest way to do what is only right for our constituents, our Nation, and our financial future. Let's pass this bill and finally get this leftover work from last year behind us once and for all.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

I would point out, Madam Speaker, that this bill would prevent a shutdown. This keeps the government operating. That's one aspect of it.

I yield 3 minutes to the very distinguished chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and former chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young).

Madam Speaker, insofar as the military is concerned, this is not a CR. This funds the Department for the balance of the year. The rest of the bill, of course, is the CR.

I yield 3 minutes to the very hardworking chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to a member of our committee, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter).

I yield 2 minutes to the chairman on our committee of the Subcommittee for Transportation and HUD, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Latham).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Madam Speaker, may I inquire of the time remaining on both sides?

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to one of my hardworking subcommittee chairmen on Appropriations, the chairman of the Interior Subcommittee, the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Simpson).

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

Chairman Simpson a moment ago referred and reminded us that we're in this mess that we're in because the other side, when they controlled the House last year, failed to pass a single appropriations bill and left the mess in our hands when we took over in January. And now they are complaining about the way we're trying to clean up their mess. It reminds me a bit of Abraham Lincoln back in Illinois when he was practicing law spoke of a man who was accused of killing his parents, and in court made a plea that he was an orphan.

I yield 2 minutes, Madam Speaker, to the chairman on the Financial Services Subcommittee on our full committee, the gentlelady from Missouri (Mrs. Emerson).

I yield the gentlelady an additional 30 seconds.

I yield 1 minute to a member of our committee, and a good one, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Dent).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to a brand- new member of our committee, and a hardworking one at that, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Austria).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to another new member of our committee and a new Member of Congress; but he is doing a great job, the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Nunnelee).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Brooks) a member of the Armed Services Committee.

I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence).

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

May I inquire of the time remaining?

Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close.

Madam Speaker, what the gentleman is asking is if we will continue the status quo. We do not and cannot accept the status quo.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Buerkle), a new Member of this body.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Griffin).

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Let's try to summarize here. The Democrats left us, when we took control of the House, in a mess. You hadn't passed a single appropriations bill. You passed a CR until March 4. We prepared and put into play and passed in the House a continuing resolution that would have funded the government entirely for the balance of the year, including the military, and sent it to the other body. And they have said nothing, and that was 2 months ago.

When that time ran out in March, this body passed a second CR for 2 weeks. Sent that to the Senate. We haven't heard from them since. That time ran out. We passed a third CR. We passed it to the Senate, not a peep. Nothing.

And now a fourth time, now a fourth CR where we are going to give the Senate another chance to come forward with what they propose in a CR. They have yet to pass anything. And I have to say this, too: The White House has been late in coming to the aid of their party. The White House has been absent from the battle until the last few days.

And now you come to us and say, look, here's what we complain about on your cleaning up our mess. And I say to you, this bill takes care of our military, our young men and women fighting in three wars on the other side of the world. And the Commander in Chief of the military is saying I'm going to veto the bill that pays their salaries and supports their families back home. I find that inexplicable, inexplicable that the Commander in Chief would put an end to the pay of our soldiers.

The failure of the Senate to act and the failure of the White House to act when we pass this bill means a vote to shut down the government. Vote ``yes.''

Madam Speaker, pursuant to section 8120 of Division A of H.R. 1363 as passed the House on April 7, 2011, Chairman Rogers submits the following explanatory statement:

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

Madam Speaker, I wish to speak on the point of order.

Madam Speaker, the amendment, or motion, proposes a net increase in budget authority in the bill. The amendment is not in order under section 3(j)(3) of House Resolution 5, 112th Congress, which states:

``It shall not be in order to consider an amendment to a general appropriations bill proposing a net increase in budget authority in the bill unless considered en bloc with another amendment or amendments proposing an equal or greater decrease in such budget authority pursuant to clause 2(f) of rule XXI.''

The amendment proposes a net increase in budget authority in the bill in violation of such section.

I ask for a ruling from the Chair.

Madam Speaker, I move to table the motion.

Madam Speaker, I withdraw my reservation on the point of order.

I rise in opposition to the motion.

Madam Speaker, this procedural motion is nothing more than a dilatory tactic which comes at a time when we can least afford those types of things. Now is the time to act, not partake in political games.

Our debate should be not about procedure. It should be about doing our job. It should be about funding our troops, about keeping our government running, and saving the taxpayer money.

The measure before us provides the essential funds for our men and women who are in harm's way on three battlefields around the world. Those who sacrifice so much for us should not be held hostage by Washington's inaction while providing for our national defense. The measure also gives us one more week for the Senate and the White House to come to a resolution on funding the activities of the government, and it cuts $12 billion in wasteful spending.

The American people expect us to stop the partisan bickering and get our work done. The time for idle talk is over. Enough is enough.

This motion is purely a political gesture and should be defeated. I think all Members should know, Madam Speaker, this bill is not a political tactic. The real fact is that if you vote against this bill, you are voting against the troops who are engaged in three wars.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. How I miss my magic minute.

I want to say to the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, how often he and I have said, you know, when we have these impasses, we need a clean CR. This CR is unclean. This CR will not get us to where you say you want to get, Mr. Chairman, and that's not shutting down the government, because you know and I know the President will not sign this bill. Why? Because you put in poison pills that you know are unacceptable to him. Why? So you can get the votes on your side of the aisle to vote for your bill to keep the government open. Why is that difficult? Because so many of your folks, unless they get 100 percent, are prepared to shut down the government. You and I both know that, Mr. Chairman.

I have great respect for you. Very frankly, I think you and I could go in a room and solve this in the next 30 seconds, but you and I are not in that room. It is time, as the Speaker has said, to be adults.

Why is this viable piece of legislation on the floor? Because you think you can hold the government ransom for an additional $12 billion. I said that I would not support, after supporting the first two--which I thought were reasonable to try to give us an opportunity to solve the differences that exist between us--that I would not vote for a third one, and I'm not going to vote for this one. It won't matter because it's dead anyway, and you all know it's dead. But you're banking on the fact that you know we don't want to shut down government. What's the proof in the pudding? We did not shut it down when we had disagreements with George Bush because we believed that reasonable people elected by a diverse community in America who had differences of opinion were expected by our public to come together, reason together, and act productively together.

Now very frankly, I don't take a back seat to anybody on this floor in my support of defense or the men and women in uniform, and Mr. Young knows that, my dear friend, not a back seat to anyone. And yes, if we passed a unanimous consent request to fund at present levels, defense would continue. Should we have passed a defense bill last year? I think we should have. I'm sorry we didn't. I urged that we do it. But the Senate, as you might recall, would not allow any bills to come to the floor, any bills--that is, the Republicans in the United States Senate would not allow that to happen.

So now we are faced with not a let's-reason-together bill but an additional $12 billion in cuts, which means that week by week by week you think you will get to what you want, not a compromise, not an agreement, but what you want. And you will do it $5 billion a week, $2 billion a week--this one is $12 billion a week. And you have no expectation that that will pass or be signed by the President, but you do it to pretend you want to keep government in operations. Newt Gingrich has said don't worry about shutting down the government, as he shut it down in 1995--and over Christmas--for 3 weeks, in '95 and '96.

Ladies and gentlemen on my side of the aisle, we ought to reject this specious political act which pretends that we want to keep the government open.

We ought to do, Mr. Chairman, what you and I have done in the past as members of the Appropriations Committee: say we haven't reached an agreement, we will do a clean CR at present levels while we continue to negotiate on behalf of the American people to do what we all want to do.

Absolutely. And that would pass the Senate as well.

I urge my colleagues to reject this CR and adopt a clean CR that will keep the government in operation and allow us to come together and reason together and pass a reasonable piece of legislation.

Announcement By the Speaker Pro Tempore

Madam Speaker, I want to ask the chairman if he will yield to me for the purposes of making a unanimous consent request that we proceed with what we would call a clean CR, which would provide for the funding of the troops, provide for the funding of all other government agencies at the levels that we are currently at, which of course involve all the cuts that have been made to date in the last two CRs that we passed and for which I voted. I tell my friend, the reason I want to propound this unanimous consent, it will in fact provide for a document, an

act, to pass this House which I believe will in fact pass the Senate and will in fact be signed by the President.

As a result, we will protect our troops and we will protect all other services that government has available for the American people.

I ask my friend if he will yield to me for that purpose.

I think I have concluded, Madam Speaker, in asking the chairman whether he would yield to me for the purposes of making that unanimous consent so that we could have an act pass this House that we know will be signed by the President and will protect the troops and will keep the government open.

Will the chairman yield simply for me to clarify my request?

Madam Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

Yes, Madam Speaker, I am.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I want to thank the chairman as well. I understand he has given me the 5 minutes, and I appreciate that.

First of all, I want to say to my friend from Kentucky--and he is my friend and we've worked together for many, many years. He told the story about a gentleman who was in court and he was in court for killing his two parents, and he pled for the mercy of the Court because he was an orphan.

I tell my friend from Kentucky, particularly appropriate because he's from Kentucky, because the mess that we have was created because some folks from Kentucky would not give some votes to put appropriation bills on the floor. To that extent I think that analogy is apt. The gentleman complains of a mess that, frankly, was of the Republican Members in the United States Senate refusing to allow bills to come to the floor.

Madam Speaker, this motion to recommit, if adopted, A, will take care of the troops; B, will keep the government open; and, C, importantly, I would presume, from all of you who have protested how you want to protect the troops, it will pass the Senate and be signed by the President. So it will become law, and it can become law by tomorrow night before 12 midnight when the government's authorization ends. So it should commend itself to all Members of this House as a viable document to protect the troops, keep the government open, and get signed.

As the great legislator Henry Clay, who was elected Speaker the first day he served in this House--Henry Clay was from where, Mr. Chairman? From your great State. And Henry Clay said this: ``If you cannot compromise, you cannot govern.'' Henry Clay.

And let me repeat that to my friends on your side of the aisle: ``If you cannot compromise, you cannot govern.''

Too many of our Republican colleagues have refused to compromise. And now you bring to the floor a resolution and say, If you only do what we tell you to do, things will be fine. My, my, my, what a definition of ``compromise.'' Then you say, If the Senate will only do what we say, we'd be fine. The first time, the second time, the third time, and now here we are on the fourth time.

Now, I supported you, as you know, on the second time and third time because I thought it was reasonable to give that opportunity, and the cuts you were asking for, yes, I thought would be included at some point in time.

The Senate, by the way, passed those two resolutions, as we indicated they would. And the President signed them, as the gentleman is telling me.

I'm getting a little help over here from the ranking member, and I appreciate it.

But now we are on the brink of bringing the government to a halt. That makes no sense, and anybody here knows that to be the case. My friend Mr. Simpson, for whom I have a great deal of respect, knows that it makes no sense. In fact, many of your folks who have said to shut it down in the past are now saying, We don't want to shut it down, because they know the American people think that makes no sense.

Republicans showed their priorities when they passed a spending bill that cuts billions in scientific research, kicks 200,000 children out of Head Start, and cuts college aid for millions of middle class students.

Yes, we don't agree with those priorities. They're not our priorities. We think we need to invest in growing this economy and growing jobs. We think we need to invest in young people so that they can have the educational opportunities. Ronald Reagan said Head Start worked. George Bush I said it worked. George Bush II said it worked. We don't want to cut 200,000 children out of that program. We think it's important to make sure the future of our country is secured by educating those children.

You have shown your priorities when you threatened a government shutdown over divisive social policy riders. Governor Daniels, Governor of Indiana, and a candidate for President, I understand, said, Take the social issues and consider them on another bill; let's get the finances of our country in order first.

That's what you say you want to do. We want to help you do that. We will work with you on that. We have been working with you on it. That's why I voted for the last two CRs, and the Senate passed them and the President signed them.

But, Madam Speaker, this motion to recommit will allow for our troops to be taken care of, as they should be; and, by the way, they will be taken care of even if we have a shutdown because they are critical to our national security.

I urge the adoption of this motion to recommit that will be signed by the President of the United States.

Point of Order

I do, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, this motion to recommit speaks directly to the funding of government. The continuing resolution offered by the gentleman from Kentucky, he has repeatedly said its objective is to fund the government and keep the government open.

This is an alternative which argues for the fact that we want to pass a piece of legislation that the President of the United States says he will sign. It is simply for 1 week. It is simply a short period of time while we negotiate.

I urge the Speaker to find this motion to recommit consistent with the rules and consistent with the objectives of the legislation that is under consideration.

Madam Speaker, I appeal the ruling of the Chair.

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