A concurrent resolution honoring the service and sacrifice of members of the United States Armed Forces who are serving in, or have served in, Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation New Dawn.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

I thank the gentleman, and I thank the ranking member and, of course, the manager for the majority.

Mr. Chairman, I rise for a very important discussion as a member of the House Judiciary Committee and someone who truly believes that the COPS Program that has been initiated over a long tenure of time has truly brought down the crime statistics across America. Whether you are a rural hamlet or whether or not you happen to be a major city, the COPS Program has been an anchor for security for neighborhoods who cannot afford to pay for their own private police services.

This amendment restores the $600 million that is offered to be taken from the present funding, and it restores or would prevent the taking of 1,330 cops off the street, and as well it will provide the safety net that is necessary.

If I had had command of the floor earlier, I would have also added to this discussion the elimination of salaries that are eliminating the use of resources for the enforcement of the Voting Rights Act and the resources necessary to enforce the Voting Rights Act in the new redistricting plans that will be coming forward.

But it is certainly a shame to take in the middle of municipal budget years a sizable amount of dollars which they had been operating with and depended on. There are local communities in which the COPS Program provides one police officer, two police officers, 20 police officers, 30 police officers, and that is the very existence of that community. In cities around America, cops have been laid off, and that should be a decision of last resort.

When you talk about going forward, my question to my friends on the other side of the aisle is, is the purpose of this legislative initiative job creation, or job elimination? How can you do such damage to members of the municipal workforce that are on the front lines serving local communities?

The COPS Program has been an enormous success. It has survived several administrations, Republican and Democrat. And to suggest that the COPS Program would be obliterated or at least devastated in such an amount would, from my perspective, be the wrong direction to go. COPS academy classes have been put on hold. Mayors have eliminated classes. I have seen that in cities around America, and as members of the House Judiciary Committee, we have had several encounters of eliminating COPS funding.

This amendment simply strikes the elimination or the intent to eliminate a certain amount of funding for the COPS Program. As a member of the Homeland Security Committee, I would ask my colleagues to ask themselves the question, do the American people deserve safety and security in a time where we continue to face international and homeland security threats here in the United States? Domestic law enforcement is a key element in providing that kind of safety net.

Training, the opportunity for security, and the opportunity for ensuring that hamlets, towns, cities, and rural communities, counties, do not have to suffer through the crisis of the lack of security.

So I would ask my colleagues to consider a waiver so that we can address this question of the funding of a very important program. And I might add that I look forward to working with the Senate to restore those salaries to the Department of Justice so that we do not have to undermine the enforcement of an enormously important legislative initiative, one that Martin Luther King and our colleague, John Lewis, fought hard for and one that has withstood the test of time--and that is enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. How could we? And I look forward to working with the Senate for allowing that to go forward as well as to be able to enforce the values or the laws, the requirements of the Voting Rights Act, as relates to the 2011 redistricting that will take place in the coming months.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Point of Order

Mr. Chairman, as I indicated before, first of all, the gentleman was mishearing what I said. I indicated that I had an earlier amendment that I decided not to offer because I intend to work with the other body on it. But it would have diminished the ability to enforce the Voting Rights Act. That is not what we're speaking of today.

Mr. Chairman, I wanted to clarify that I was not speaking on this amendment. In this amendment I've simply asked for a waiver. Frankly, this is too important an issue to be addressed by the gentleman's point of order. I ask for a waiver. This is denying, if you will, huge amounts of money to many municipalities all across this Nation. And $600 million is absolutely ludicrous. It causes a loss of jobs and a loss of safety for the United States.

I ask for a waiver on the point of order.

I move to strike the last word.

I rise to support the amendment that Mr. Olson has offered, and I am delighted that we have the opportunity to work together collaboratively with the chairman and with Mr. Dicks on this very important issue.

I would like to say publicly that Democrats and Republicans in the State of Texas have worked enthusiastically together on supporting NASA and human space exploration. I'm sorry that I will not have the opportunity to support Mr. Olson's amendment or vote for it. He is absolutely right, human space flight is conducted in exactly one agency, NASA, and the general Houston area and Texas are impacted enormously. We have already lost 4,000 jobs. There will be a decrease of $1 billion going to NASA Johnson. That will impact the transition, if you will, in human space exploration. One very well known member of our community, Captain Mark Kelly, the husband of our dear and beloved Member, Congresswoman Giffords, will have the opportunity to be on one of the final shuttles.

But what most of us are not aware of, because our memory fades, is how much we gained from human space exploration. Research in HIV/AIDS and

stroke and heart disease and weather research, all improving the quality of life for Americans. So I stand solemnly behind continuing to fund human space exploration and join Mr. Olson in the leadership that he has given.

This is a tight budget, but the President talked about investing in competitiveness, creating jobs. NASA creates jobs. It creates jobs for small businesses. It creates jobs for large contractors. It creates thousands upon thousands of jobs. So I hope in this instance that we can speak in a bipartisan manner to speak to the administration on the value of continuing to support NASA. It is difficult when we have a CR that, in fact, is cutting millions from the NASA budget, and I would hope that there would be a recognition that it is important to put $517 million back into NASA, as was offered by this amendment.

I can't imagine a Nation without the ability for young people to aspire to the heights of those who have gone on before, those who have been astronauts, those who have explored the skies, those who have done enormously important research on the various trips that have been taken that have provided the research and as well the space station which has been an enormous asset that has brought international partners together and helped develop science that could not be developed before.

Having traveled to most of the centers that are under the NASA administration, each and every one that I have been to has had the quality of staff that have been doing their job in the name of progress for the American people. So I'm disappointed with this CR that has caused these enormous cuts, and I would hope that we have the opportunity to restore them.

Where are we if we quash the genius of America? Where are we if we extinguish the dreams of young students and scientists around America? Where are we if we quash the jobs that can be created by science? NASA is an asset and a jewel. And I hope together in this Congress, and of course working together with the administration, we can realize it once and for all. Why we have to battle so hard for something that has done so much for the American people baffles me. I look forward to the reinvestment in science and competitiveness. I thank the gentleman for his leadership, and I hope we'll be able to work in a bipartisan manner.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I had intended to offer an amendment similar to the gentleman from Tennessee's that strikes the elimination of $75 million. Rather than do that, I am going to join in support of the gentleman from Tennessee's amendment. Mine was striking the full $75 million that was being taken from the Legal Services Corporation.

Earlier today I was on the floor explaining what a continuing resolution is, because I know more than my colleagues are listening. What would actually happen if this cut was to go through is, frankly, that the services to the poor, meaning cases who are now in court, cases that are proceeding, would be suspended in air. Frankly, you would deny justice to those who have begun to get some relief. This cut will impact 136 nonprofit Legal Services offices. It will frankly cut 300 Legal Aid attorneys; 136 offices across America.

This $75 million will stop Mr. and Mrs. Jones in the middle of representation to save their home. This cut will stop Mrs. Smith from being able to get relief from a domestic violence situation, because her lawyer, or that family's lawyer, will be fired. This cut will stop someone who has been defrauded. Some senior citizen who paid a contractor to fix their leaking roof in midstream will lose their lawyer. This is a denial of justice. Having had the privilege today of visiting the construction site of the Martin Luther King Memorial, it was interesting that I read these words: ``Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.'' And for us to cut the very framework of the Constitution that calls for justice, I believe, is something that should halt us on the very floor of this House and we should immediately accept the amendment without the point of order and allow these individuals to have the ability to be served. Frankly, this is beyond the imagination of any of us. The board chairman, John G. Levi, of the Legal Services board said, ``Justice is a hollow promise without the Legal Services Corporation.'' He is absolutely right.

And as I indicated, I, too, wanted to strike the elimination of $75 million from the Legal Services Corporation, but the greater insult is the fact that work that is proceeding as we speak would be eliminated: 300 lawyers, 136 nonprofit offices and how many hundreds upon hundreds and maybe thousands of clients who would not have the opportunity to be served.

So I would ask my colleagues to consider what we do here in this place and to consider what a continuing resolution will do midstream similar to the point I made earlier about resources that could be taken from the section of the Department of Justice that would enforce the Voting Rights Act. It means that you would stop cases dealing with the enforcement of the right to vote. Let us not deny justice tonight. I would ask my colleagues to support the adding back of the $70 million to the Legal Services Corporation.

Point of Order

I respect the chairman and I know that he has, as the gentleman from New York said, has his own commitment.

I consider this an emergency and would only make the point that whether or not a point of order could be waived, in light of the fact that cases that are now in litigation would be in essence left without representation either for the client or for the case. I consider it a legal emergency, an emergency dealing with justice questions, and I would ask that the point of order be waived.

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

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the fact that the gentleman from Virginia has opposed this; but I just wonder whether or not there's any shame when it comes to literally gutting the Legal Services Corporation some $324 million and practically eliminating any opportunity for justice. I just want to repeat some of the words that were offered: slush fund for special interests, lobbying, and political activities.

We spent some time in the 1990s on the Judiciary Committee looking closely at the Legal Services Corporation and, frankly, gave generous oversight on some of the issues that might have suggested that there were other activities going on. When the Legal Services Corporation non-profits come from around the Nation, you are seeing members of the bar who are from major law firms, major leaders in the community who are on the boards of these particular services, local offices, and they have the highest standard of legal excellence that they try to portray and therefore try to encourage as relates to the representation of poor people. My brother-in-law, to his death, was a legal services lawyer in New York. Not one time did I see him or hear of him doing anything other than attempting to do justice for people who could not achieve such.

I, frankly, believe when you talk about a continuing resolution, make it very clear: it is stopping programs in the middle of operation. It is closing 136 offices in midstream. It is laying off 300 lawyers in the middle of litigation that they are pursuing to keep Mrs. Jones in her home and to keep an elderly person who's been defrauded by an unscrupulous contractor simply trying to fix an old home. She has no other options sometimes than a legal services lawyer. So I hope that we will see less of this.

Might I just say it's interesting that we have a difference of opinion. Frankly, I don't think the President has walked away from any Financial Commission report. The majority in this House has every opportunity to present their cuts to entitlement and to begin the discussion. The President has not indicated he is not interested. But while we recognize that this House is a revenue-generating House and, therefore, with the responsibility now in the hands of Republicans, it is appropriate for the chairman of the Budget Committee and others to present their proposal for such.

The President's budget cuts the debt. The President's budget has strength in going forward; but it has a purpose: competitiveness; morality; and, of course, to rebuild America. I'm waiting on the Republicans to present their proposal, and I'm sure that we will look closely and be able to work in a bipartisan manner. But I would vigorously oppose any cuts of this measure at all to the Legal Services Corporation, which is a mark for justice in this country.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I fully support the effort to restore funding to the COPS Hiring Program.

We should absolutely look for savings and reduce costs in the Federal budget, but we should not be withdrawing support for law enforcement while cities and towns across the country are struggling to maintain their police forces.

A good example is Camden, New Jersey, which was forced by budget shortfalls to lay off 168 police officers last month. The city recently raised property taxes enough to restore about 20 percent of those positions, but law enforcement in the city is still woefully understaffed.

The CR cuts COPS programs by $501 million, including a reduction of $298 million that specifically zeros out the COPS Hiring Program. The elimination of COPS Hiring would result in 1,330 fewer cops hired or rehired in FY11 compared to FY10, or 3,000 fewer cops hired or rehired in FY11 compared to the FY11 request of $600 million.

Camden and many other cities and towns across the country still need Federal assistance to help them get through this difficult economic period, and that is exactly what this amendment is designed to do.

By restoring funding for COPS Hiring grants, Camden and other municipalities across the country could get grants to cover the 3-year cost of rehiring officers they were forced to lay off or of hiring new officers they need but have been unable to afford. After 3 years, when the economy is expected to be in much better shape, these municipalities would be required to take on the costs of these officers.

While I support the gentleman's amendment and strongly believe we should restore funding for the COPS Hiring Program, I am deeply concerned about the offset the amendment relies upon.

NASA's Cross-Agency Support account funds many of the vital efforts of the NASA centers across the country. Currently, there is a backlog of deferred maintenance needs at NASA facilities, and this backlog has been growing at the rate of about 9 percent a year. Cutting funding for this account will only make NASA's maintenance backlog worse and will impede NASA's mission.

We need to fund both NASA's Cross-Agency Support and COPS Hiring at adequate levels, and I hope, by the end of this process, we can find a way to do that.

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

I will be very brief since the gentleman withdrew the amendment.

I am a big fan and supporter of our manned spaceflight program, which I think has just an extraordinary record of achievement and is enormously important to our position in the world in terms of our leadership in science. It is also very important to many of the space centers around the country in terms of the important jobs that it provides.

But I don't want to see us rob Peter to pay Paul within the sciences, to go after the earth sciences budget, which is also critically important to the Nation's future. When we look at some of the breathtaking and disastrous weather patterns that we have seen around the world, whether it was the incredible and tragic flooding in Australia or that in South America, the ability to understand better the nature of our climate and climate change is not only extraordinarily important in terms of saving lives but in terms of understanding what is happening to our planet.

We also derive a lot of commercial benefits from our investment not only in earth science but space science as well. These investments pay enormous dividends in technologies that have become a part of all of our homes now. So this is investment that I think we want to continue to make and make strongly.

And while I, again, am a fervent supporter of our manned spaceflight program, I don't think any one portion of our space budget or science budget ought to be cannibalizing the other. We do have to make sacrifices, and we're going to have to scrutinize every program that is not working well or not efficient, eliminate any waste, eliminate even programs that are working but not working well enough.

But in terms of our investment in the future, in terms of our investment in understanding our planet, it would be, I think, very shortsighted for us to be cutting those budgets and cutting that vital research.

I thank the gentleman for withdrawing the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I want to speak in support of what my colleague from Tennessee has said. In the United States, access to justice shouldn't be available only for those who can afford it.

I think most Americans recognize that we have an out-of-control deficit and debt, that we need tough action to deal with that, and I think Americans, irrespective of party, are ready to make sacrifices. The President's budget I think indicates that there are going to be some tough days ahead, and there are going to be some of the efforts we have supported in the past that we can't afford to support anymore.

But at the same time, I think the American people recognize that there is a lot of waste in government that can be eliminated without harming people; that a lot of inefficiencies can and must be eliminated; but they also don't want in these difficult economic times for our first steps to be to take away vital resources from those who are most in need or from middle-income families that are trying to stay in their homes.

One of the reasons why legal services has been so busy in the last several years is because of the foreclosure crisis, where many who are being forced out of their homes who can't afford counsel have nowhere to turn and have increasingly turned to legal services for help in trying to get them to stay in their home.

Imagine what we are telling those families that are struggling to stay in their homes that we are now going to defund the lawyer that's been helping them. I don't think that's where we need to go in order to balance our budget.

Legal Services Corporation is the largest funder of legal services for low-income Americans and for the growing population of Americans who have no income because they can't find work. Legal Services helps ensure representation before courts and is available to all Americans no matter what their income, their station in life, or what their circumstances happen to be.

LSC-funded programs help single women trying to keep their families together, victims of domestic violence, elderly Americans trying to avoid foreclosure, and an increasing number of veterans arriving home from service in Iraq and Afghanistan who are unable to find jobs.

Federal funding for LSC makes up only 40 percent of the operating income of those programs. The rest comes from State funding, support from the private bar, and funds from lawyer trust accounts; but the economy that is sending more people to the door of legal aid offices than at any time in history has also sapped those other sources of funding. The CR cuts legal services to the poor by $70 million. That's a 17 percent cut compared to the current level.

Again, there is no question we need to find savings in the budget, and we are and we will, and we stand ready to work with our colleagues across the aisle to fund cuts that make sense. But to make a drastic cut to a program at a time that it is keeping people in their homes and where people are struggling most is not the most propitious place to find savings.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this amendment and move to strike the last word.

We can have reasonable debates about the deficit situation and the actions that should be taken, but I don't think the hyperbole that we are hearing is adding to the quality of the debate. When the Legal Services Corporation is described as a ``trial lawyer bailout,'' I think it shows a total misapprehension of what Legal Services does.

For many Americans, tens of thousands of Americans who are at risk of having their house foreclosed out from under them, seeking assistance from Legal Services to stay in your home, that is not a trial lawyer bailout. I don't think people who go to Legal Services because they can't afford an attorney and desperately want to stay in their home feel like they are giving some sort of bailout to trial lawyers when they go to the neighborhood Legal Services and ask for help to stay in their home.

It also has been described as some kind of a bastion for left-wing causes. I don't think it is a left-wing cause to want to help people stay in their house. I don't think it is a left-wing cause when you have veterans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan who need mental health services and need the advice of counsel and need the help of counsel to get services they are entitled to. I don't think that is a left-wing cause.

I don't think it is a right-wing cause to want to foreclose on someone, and I don't think it is a left-wing cause to want to keep them in their home. I think, frankly, this ought to be all of our cause, that people through no fault of their own who are hardworking but have lost their job as a result of the economy or lost part of their income as a result of the economy and need help to stay in their home, and this is the only place they can get it, the only place they can afford a lawyer, and anyone who has tried to hire a lawyer knows how expensive that is, I don't think that is a left-wing cause, and I just don't think it sheds much light on the debate.

Are there things that can be cut? Yes. Is the President's budget cutting them? Yes. Are there more cuts we are going to have to find? Yes. But let's speak frankly about what this organization does and what it doesn't do. And if my colleagues have issues to take with a particular Legal Services branch in a particular city, then we should take that cause in our committee, the Commerce, Justice, Science Committee, with our chairman, Mr. Wolf, and do oversight to make sure that LSC funds aren't being used to lobby Congress, to make sure that only for permissible purposes are funds being used in LSCs around the country.

The LSCs I think over the last several years have done extraordinarily well under that oversight, and that oversight needs to continue. And where LSCs can operate more efficiently, they are going to have to, because it is not just a problem in terms of the Federal budget, but all the States are cutting back as well.

But I don't think we can really get to the heart of where we can afford to make cuts, where the cuts will inflict the least pain, if we are going to pejoratize the service of a lot of hardworking lawyers out there who work for Legal Services, many of whom offer their services pro bono, who get no compensation whatsoever for the work they provide, and try to demean them by saying this is a trial lawyer bailout.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

I appreciate your yielding, Mr. Chairman, and I agree with you.

First of all, I appreciate your opposition to the amendment. The big entitlement programs are going to have to be addressed, and what we are doing here in dealing with this small piece of the Federal budget pie, that is, domestic discretionary spending, there is no way we can find enough savings to make a real dent in the magnitude of our deficit and debt. That has to be done. I can understand your frustration about it. It is a frustration I think we all share.

I think the difficulty, frankly, that the administration is having is probably the same difficulty that the majority is having, and that is whoever puts the proposal on the table first gets their head taken off. I think probably the only way to get to ``yes''--and there is no way we are going to be able to reform the entitlement programs in a partisan way; it has to be done in a bipartisan way--is frankly if both parties can come together and put something on the table together. I think that is what is going to have to happen.

But you are right, there is no way we are going to make even a small dent in things until we have that bigger, more important conversation.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

This account has been hit very, very hard already. Each reduction in the bill was carefully determined. The funding level provided for NIST construction in the bill is $89 million below FY 2010.

NIST has played a key role in enabling innovative ideas with regard to strengthening infrastructure for advance manufacturing, service and science.

NIST works with the private sector, other government agencies and universities to develop and apply the technology, measurements and standards needed for new and improved products.

We have already reduced the funding in this account quite dramatically, and this would really, I think, hurt the jobs effort and hurt manufacturing.

I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Reclaiming my time, again, we want science, jobs, math, science, physics, chemistry, biology to create opportunities for manufacturing.

I urge a ``no'' vote on the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment.

The Appropriations Committee will be requiring the Department of Justice to come back to the committee with a spending plan outlining how it intends to use the funds provided for State and local law enforcement. We accept the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order against the gentlewoman's amendment.

Mr. Chairman, the amendment proposed a net increase in budget authority. Before I comment on it; one, this does not cut the Voting Rights Act. So that's not accurate. This does not, this does not, this does not cut the Voting Rights Act.

Mr. Chairman, the amendment is not in order under section 3(j)(3) of House Resolution 5 of the 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 would tell the gentleman that the President of the United States failed to do what he was elected to do--that was to lead this country--by rejecting the Simpson-Bowles commission recommendation.

Mr. Chairman, President Obama supported and appointed the people to the Simpson-Bowles commission. Then we saw in the State of the Union message that none of the cuts that are being done tonight would have had to have been done had the President done what he should have done with regard to the Simpson-Bowles commission.

If I had been appointed to the Simpson-Bowles commission, I would have been supportive of it. If Tom Coburn and Dick Durbin can be in support of it, hopefully we can come together in a bipartisan manner; but all of the opposition would not even have had to take place if the President had not failed to provide the leadership that he failed to provide.

This bill makes deliberate choices within NASA to strike an appropriate balance between achieving budget savings, procurement support for NASA's $16 billion in annual contracts, and safety and mission assurance to prevent spaceflight accidents. To do this, you would almost guarantee that something could potentially happen.

I teach security to prevent the Chinese from having cyber attacks. We had hearings the other day, and we learned that the Chinese have had cyber attacks against NASA's computers. This amendment would say that it's okay, that we can have the cyber attacks. We're going to put it somewhere else.

In addition--and I see the gentlelady from Houston is here--this amendment will cost NASA's civil servants and contractors between 1,500 and 2,000 jobs.

Had President Obama done what he should have done by appointing that commission, we wouldn't even have had any cuts here. We would have been doing what we had to do. Since we're talking about crime, Willie Sutton said he robbed banks. The reason he robbed banks is that that's where the money is. The money is in entitlements. Had we dealt with the Obama commission of Simpson-Bowles, we would not be where we are today.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman.

It's my understanding that the gentleman is withdrawing the amendment. I want to thank the gentleman for raising some critically important points about the value of NASA's human exploration program and the need to fully support it. And no one is a stronger supporter of NASA than the gentleman from Texas, except maybe Mr. Culberson who is equally supportive.

I share his concern with ensuring exploration is adequately funded and that NASA remains on a clear path to achieve the human space flight goals laid out in last year's authorization. I will be happy to work together as closely as we possibly can to finish FY 2011 and move forward into FY 2012 to maintain a robust human space flight program at NASA, just as Mr. Olson would like it to be.

In doing so, I agree that it will be necessary to identify and eliminate duplicative, wasteful, or lower-priority activities in NASA's science programs or any other NASA account, for that matter, so that we can remain on a sustainable overall budget path. I look forward to working with the gentleman and our colleagues who support NASA and thank him for his continuing efforts in this area.

Will the gentleman yield?

I appreciate the gentleman's concern. He makes a very, very powerful point. I completely agree with him. These are important programs, as are many others in the bill, and we will ensure that as we review the FY 2011 spend plan that all NOAA's important activities are sufficiently funded.

I also, I might say, have a large weather service presence in my district and appreciate their hard work, and it's one of the more important things that NOAA does with regard to the weather.

I thank the gentleman for withdrawing his amendment, and I look forward and promise to work with him on these issues to resolve it, that we protect the issues that the gentleman's raising.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the gentleman's amendment.

I continue to reserve my point of order.

I do, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I must insist on my point of order.

I wanted to just say, I appreciate the comments of the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano) and the Members on the other side of the aisle. I share many of his concerns. However, as the gentleman knows, there is not an offset to this bill and the amendment 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 the budget authority in the bill. Therefore, it is in violation of such section.

I ask for a ruling of the Chair.

I won't go into great length about it. The very fact that the President has failed to address the issue of entitlements, has walked away from his own commission, the Bowles-Simpson Commission that had the support of Senator Coburn and Senator Durbin, leads you to activity like this. Many times Members are frustrated to deal with this issue.

We have $14 trillion of debt, and in the statement I gave on the floor several weeks ago, I said had I been a member of the commission, I would have voted for it. I think it was a missed opportunity. I also said that failure to address the issue of dealing with Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security will unfortunately result in many times the poor being hurt. In the Bible it says in Proverbs when you give to the poor, you loan to God, and I am sensitive to that. But the very fact that the administration, the President appoints the commission, comes out at a big press conference, and then walks away from it, leads you to some activity like this.

This would wipe out Legal Services, so I strongly urge Members to oppose the amendment, and I urge Members to contact the White House and ask them to support entitlement reform in the Simpson-Bowles package.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

Reclaiming my time, I believe that if President Reagan were President of the United States today, he would provide the leadership, because he did in saving Social Security. It was the Greenspan Commission, and he worked with them in a bipartisan way. I think if we had a President like Ronald Reagan, we would be resolving these issues.

With that, I urge opposition to the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Only inside the Washington, D.C. beltway could we be having this debate.

The taxpayers are demanding that we tighten our belts and save money. The Pentagon says, let's go ahead with the single engine procurement, which resulted from a competition, which is a quality engine.

Now, if that engine has problems, someone at the Pentagon should be fired. If there was problems with the original competition, a lot of people at the Pentagon should be fired. And maybe we ought to look at overhauling the procurement process.

But to say now, well, we've got a good engine. They want a competition. But we've got another company that really wishes it had won the competition but didn't win the competition, and now they still want to build an engine and the taxpayers should subsidize it, Which is what this is all about. It only costs $2.9 billion for them to develop an alternative engine. Only $2.9 billion. Inside the Washington, D.C. beltway that's not real money.

I guess the joke is, inside the Washington, D.C. beltway, how many jet engines does it take to fly a single engine fighter? Now, most Americans would think, well, that's probably not a joke, and it would be one. Right? No. It's two.

Now, if we need two on the ground, maybe we need two in the air. Maybe we ought to redesign the plane and put two engines in the tail, one from one company and one from the other. In case one flames out, we've got one left at least to bring the plane back. I mean, if we're so worried about reliability, maybe we just ought to start all over again. Come on, guys. Let's not be ridiculous here.

Two supply chains. Two sets of mechanics. Two sets of spare parts. Oh, wait a minute. This plane broke down over here and the mechanic there and the spare parts are for the other one. Oh, we've got to keep them sorted out by which engine they've got, where they are, where they'll fly in the world, what mission they'll go on, which mechanics we send, which supply chain we send for it.

No, this is not going to save money. This is not going to save money. If you did a crappy procurement, then fix it; but don't say let's do another procurement in the way the Pentagon always does things, which will inevitably be another cost overrun procurement.

So it won't only cost $2.9 billion to develop the alternative engine. We'll hear 6 months from now, a year from now, Oh, well, we thought we could develop an alternative for 2.9, but it will be 10. But don't worry. It will still bring down the overall cost.

Support this amendment. Support common sense. Stand up for the taxpayers, and stand up for the military which says we don't need a second engine for this plane. They are the guys who fly them.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

At this point, Mr. Chair, I would like to bring to the attention of the Congress that we're about to eliminate a program which is incredibly cost effective, which truly supports a growing proportion of profitable small family farms in America, which is to help with research and transition to organic production.

In the most recent statistics, the organic sector of the agriculture production in this country was nearly $27 billion. That's up from $4 billion in 1997. There are over 14,500 family farms engaged in organic agriculture, and they have been experiencing dramatic increases. Now you might say, well, why would we want to continue to research and help them. Well, we're spending a tremendous amount of money in research and subsidies on other crops which are obviously totally developed and do not need assistance.

In this case, we're talking about many people who own struggling family farms who want to convert. They're interested in moving to organics because they know there is potential for higher profitability with those products with dramatically increasing demand. In fact, the USDA says that the average for small--these are truly small farms, not what some people consider small farms--organic farms was $46,000 last year and for all farms, small farms, was $26,000.

So there are many people who are engaged in truly small farming activities who want to stay on the land, don't want to parcel it up, don't want to sell to the developers. They want to continue to live there, raise their kids there, but they're having trouble making ends meet. And this is an opportunity for many folks, an opportunity both for consumers who are demanding organically produced produce and for producers, and I think it would be very shortsighted to zero out this program at this point in time.

So I'm asking that we take a very small percentage of the APHIS budget, well less than 1 percent, and at least on a temporary measure restore the cuts to the transitional and organic research portion of the budget in the hope that we can reach agreement on a sustainable way to fund this program in the future and look at more equitable distribution of funds, both for research and subsidies and other things that go on in the Department of Agriculture.

The amount of money we're asking for here at $5 million is a tiny fraction of 1 percent of the amount of money that we're spending on subsidies for five crops in eight States to pay people not to grow things. Now, I think to actually help people to grow things, to grow healthy produce, to supply the American people, to be able to live on their farms, support their families and pass on the farms to the next generation, that this would be a very, very wise investment, and I wish that this had not been chosen for a cut. I'm hopeful that my colleagues will see the wisdom in restoring this cut and then looking in the next farm bill or in the next appropriation to an equitable division of these funds.

When I was first elected to office, I served with a very conservative Republican, and he used to say that government is about roads and rope.

He was talking about the basis for our system here in America--the basics. He was talking about transportation, the Boston Post Road, the original roads of America that tied a young Nation together on rope. He was talking about law enforcement here on Earth, law enforcement protecting American citizens from criminals.

Now, somehow the Cross-Agency Support account, which is an unbelievable catchall slush fund at NASA which has grown in the last 2 years from $550 million to $3 billion and which will actually be increased in this continuing resolution by $36 million, is more important than defending the American people from criminals, from lawbreakers, which is the most basic requirement of the Government of the United States.

Now, this isn't even like real stuff at NASA. It's not the fantasy about going to Mars or any of the other things they're engaged in for many billions of dollars.

This is a cross-agency support budget which has gone up six times, 600 percent in 2 years, and it's going to go up again here today, and we're going to slash the heck out of the COPS program. Now, go home and explain that to your constituents. You can't even say, Look up there, because it's not a satellite. It's not headed to the Moon or to Mars. You have to say, Hey, it's the cross-agency support budget at NASA, and when the criminal is breaking down your door, call NASA. That probably isn't going to work too well.

This not only supports police on the streets in overstretched agencies, it supports--and we've had a lot of talk about urban America--sheriffs in our rural areas which are woefully unpoliced, and in my district we've got money out of this account which you're cutting by 65 percent to go after methamphetamine manufacturing and Mexican cartels moving methamphetamine up the West Coast of the United States. We're going to cut that 65 percent because it's more important that we fund the cross-agency support budget of NASA and we increase it by 600 percent in 2 years and we decrease funding for COPS and sheriffs and drug reduction in our communities, in our schools, in our rural areas by 65 percent.

Well, you go on home and campaign on that, and I will be campaigning on my issues.

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

Willie Sutton would love it if the cops weren't trying to protect the banks--that would be great--but the cops are important.

Mr. Chairman, my first job out of law school was as an attorney for the Memphis Police Department. One of the first things I learned is that the best deterrent to crime is patrol, and patrol is policemen on the beat. That is the most effective way to reduce crime. When you have high unemployment, when you have a great recession like we've experienced with high unemployment, crime naturally does go up. When you have crime go up, you need more cops to protect property and individuals and lives.

This COPS program has been successful. It was successful in the 1990s, and we saw a tremendous decrease in crime. As Mr. Weiner pointed out--and I praise him for being a champion of this for so many years-- this has been an effective program that has saved lives and property, that has kept insurance rates down, and that has kept order and liberty in our country.

Willie Sutton would not be for this amendment. He'd like to see the cops off the streets, away from the banks, away from the widows, away from the children, away from everybody who is in the arms of a potential crime, in the way of a potential crime, and that's something we shouldn't have in this country.

The cost to get rid of this program would be tremendous. The fact is the COPS program saves money, and this amendment zeros out the COPS program. It isn't a simple change in eliminating some of the moneys. It eliminates the program, and that's a mistake.

Local police are struggling with shrinking budgets. Tax rates are down as people have spent less money, so we don't have the money to support our police and to keep our law enforcement at the levels they should be. To cut police and law enforcement is a mistake, a serious mistake that's going to cost the American people.

You can't put it down in dollars and cents. Lives will be lost. Property will be lost. Insurance rates will go up. This is one place among others, but particularly here, they're the first line of defense. Of the police powers of the State, the first one is safety.

There are other areas where you could save money. If you want to keep the budget and cut it, there are a lot of defense programs that could be cut. There are defense programs that are not effectively keeping us safe from foreign problems or from foreign adversaries, but our streets in every city in this Nation and every hamlet has the need for police. To cut this COPS program is simply irresponsible, and it disregards the American public's regard and need for safety on the streets and for safety in their communities. We should support our police and make our streets safer.

I would ask that we support this amendment. I would ask that the people on the other side understand that law enforcement is a primary concern of government and that a reduction of this program or the elimination of this program will cost the American public dearly, and lives will be lost.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

I'm pleased to offer this amendment, of which many members of the Judiciary Committee have worked on behalf of legal services in the past. Many members of the Judiciary Committee have championed legal services over the years, none greater than Bobby Scott, who's been a member of the committee for some time, and the current ranking member, Mr. Conyers, Mr. Nadler, Ms. Jackson Lee and others.

Legal services is so important to giving people representation, and this amendment will restore $70 million that's being cut from the Legal Services Corporation. That's 17\1/2\ percent of the money legal services got in the past. Legal services is already woefully underfunded. If you look at the funding they've gotten over the last 30 years and prorate it, they've been behind in funds for a long time, and we've tried to make that up in the past years. Right now they turn away half of all eligible clients who seek assistance. Slashing these funds would make it even worse. And the fact is, in these dire economic times, some of the worst we've seen, although they're getting better, more and more people need legal services.

The housing crisis is not over with, and one of the major areas they work with is people who are having problems with foreclosures because of unscrupulous loans that they've been given, and there will be more and more people losing their homes or potentially losing their homes needing legal services. And if they don't have legal representation and they lose those homes, neighborhoods are hurt, individuals are hurt, and that is a major cost on the economy.

The executive director of Memphis Area Legal Services, Harrison McIver, said the cuts would be devastating to Memphis Area Legal Services, and it would be devastating to their capacity to remain an effective advocate and resource for low-income individuals with all the civil legal problems that they may have. It would require laying off at least five attorneys and taking 725 fewer cases.

Memphis Area Legal Services, as other legal service clinics, help victims of domestic violence, as well as with protective orders from abusive partners, as well as assisting folks with foreclosures and elderly people who have been victimized by predatory lenders. Think about how many victims of domestic abuse will be in danger without access to the courts, how many families will become homeless without this foreclosure assistance, and how many seniors would fall prey

to predatory loans without legal help. How many of our vulnerable citizens will have the courthouse door closed in their face?

The fact is, Mr. Chairman, that legal services is more needed in dire economic times than at any other time. And I understand the majority's positions about saying they were elected to make cuts. They weren't elected to make cruel cuts that hurt the most vulnerable people in situations that aren't of their own making, and who fall prey to predatory lenders or abusive spouses or people who prey on seniors in abusive ways. This is targeting the most vulnerable people in our society.

I realize that there isn't an offset on this, and I realize the reason Mr. Wolf has made his point. I understand, too, somewhat, and feel a little bit of kinship with the Roman gladiators who, when they went into the field of combat, told the emperor that, We who are about to die salute you. And knowing kind of what the situation is, I also understand that ave imperartor moriture te salutant.

I yield back the balance of my time.