Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, we are being asked why we are raising the issue of the minimum wage on this legislation. The answer to that is very simple: The way this House works, absolutely nothing can be brought to the floor for a House vote unless we have the permission of the majority party leadership to do so. And the fact is that for the

last month they have been absolutely stonewalling every single effort to bring an increase in the minimum wage to this floor. So that is why we are raising this question on this rule.

This President and this Congress, this year, are going to provide $50 billion in tax cuts for people who make more than $1 million a year. This year, the Congress has virtually voted to repeal the inheritance tax on the wealthiest 1 percent of people in this society. This year, the Congress has also voted to make further cuts in capital gains, a huge portion of which go to the wealthiest 10 percent of the people in this country. This year, the Congress is apparently willing to allow the cost-of-living increase to go through for Members of Congress, but for those stuck at the bottom of our economy on the minimum wage, they are being told, ``sorry, suckers, you have got to wait for the ninth year in a row without an adjustment in your wages.''

That is not right, it is not fair, and it is not moral.

The value of the minimum wage is at a 51-year low. The gap between the wealthiest 1 percent of people in this society and everybody else has never been broader than it is today. It is far worse than it is in merry olde England with its monarchy and its House of Lords and its House of Commons.

This economy is working fabulously well for the Shaquille O'Neals of this society or the CEOs of our Fortune 500 corporations. They are making at least 200 times as much as the average workers do in this country. Under Jack Kennedy, that ratio was about 16 times as much. That shows you what has happened over the past generation.

A minimum-wage increase can help make this economy work for everybody, not just those at the top of the ladder. It can help lift all boats, not just the yachts.

This Congress has had time to name dozens of post offices, it has found time to tell Terry Schiavo's family in Florida how to handle their own private business, but somehow the Republican leadership of this House can't find the time to respond to the needs of people on life's underside.

It is about time we have a change in direction on that score in this country. It is about time we have a change of heart in this place. It is about time that we do something about the wage needs of the poorest people in this society. And that is why I would urge people to vote against the previous question in protest to the Republican leadership's stonewalling of this issue.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise now because of the reference to China in the previous amendment. I had intended to give a 1-minute speech this morning on this issue, before I was cut off by a motion, but let me simply make an observation about China.

I am one of those Members of the House who wants the administration to track bank records and financial transactions of terrorist groups or individuals who are suspected of belonging to terrorist groups. That is why, while I had great misgivings about the original PATRIOT Act, I voted for it because I wanted to see a tightening up of our ability to go after those records. But I wanted it to be done in a legal fashion, in a way which guarantees the privacy and civil liberties of people who do not fall into that category.

I note the fact that there is a very strong similarity between the Communist Chinese Government and our own administration in one respect. I have two headlines in my hand here. One says, ``GOP Measure Slams New York Times for Bank Story.'' The other says, ``China May Fine News Media to Limit Coverage.''

I would simply note that the Chinese Government appears to have something more in common with our administration in addition to their desire to undercut American wages through trade agreements with slave and cheap labor coming out of China. I would note that both the Chinese Communist Government and our own administration appears to be interested in doing almost anything in order to prevent legitimate news organizations from reporting activities of the people who govern each country.

Now, I do not know the details of The New York Times revelations with respect to banking transactions, but I do know that the administration and some of their supporters in Congress have been extremely interested in embarrassing The New York Times since The New York Times uncovered a number of other activities that were being conducted by the administration which, in my judgment, are illegal, and those have nothing to do with the banking transactions that we saw referenced the other day.

So I just thought it might be of interest to note the similarity between these two headlines, one an administration from supposedly a democratic country and another a government from a communist country, both of whom seem to be eager to clamp down as much as possible on their journalistic critics. I would hope that those similarities would decline in the future.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word, and I yield to the gentlewoman from California.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the distinguished gentlewoman from Oregon.

Mr. Chairman, I would simply like to thank the gentleman from Virginia for being willing to help draw attention to this serious problem.

I yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from California.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, it has been 9 years since this country has adjusted the minimum wage. During that time, the food prices have gone up almost 25 percent. Health care costs overall have gone up over 40 percent. Insurance has almost doubled. Gasoline prices have doubled. Energy prices have gone out of sight, and yet people are still struggling along on the same minimum wage that they were paid 9 years ago.

To try to do something about that, we offered an amendment to the Labor-Health-Education-Social Services bill in the full committee. Every Democrat voted for that amendment, and so did seven Republicans. But after that happened and the amendment had passed, the Labor-Health- Education appropriations bill was blocked from consideration by the leadership of this House and by the Rules Committee.

Therefore, when this bill came before the full committee, we attempted once again to adjust the minimum wage in three increments of 70 cents each, because we believe that no one who works 40 hours a week ought to go home in poverty. We, this time, did not receive the support of those same seven Republicans. Five of them voted against us. The other two missed the vote, and so that amendment was lost.

We, therefore, asked the Rules Committee to make in order an amendment on this bill which would adjust that minimum wage, and that is what I am trying to do today.

I recognize that if the point of order is lodged against this amendment, that we will once again be blocked from our effort to provide an increase in the minimum wage, but I just want to say to those who say this is not the proper vehicle and we should try to do it on some other bill, that for 9 years we have been waiting for the majority party to find the right vehicle to accomplish this. And for 9 years, nothing has happened.

The issue comes down to this: Whose side are you on? Are you willing to help adjust that minimum wage upward or are you not? This is one effort to find out.

For those who think this is just a political or an academic exercise, I told the House on the debate on the rule that I recall, after my parents were divorced and my mother was trying to get along on the minimum wage, and I remember how it was to run out of money before you ran out of days on the calendar each month. So she would find some household item that she could take down to Etzkin's Pawn Shop and pawn to get the family through the week.

The outrage is that today that minimum wage has far less purchasing power than it did when she was earning

it years ago. I think that is an absolute disgrace.

The wealthiest 1 percent of people in this country have 33 percent of the Nation's wealth. The poorest 40 percent of the people in this country are struggling to hang on to 3 percent of the Nation's wealth. That kind of gap is wrong.

This is one of the few things the Congress can do to directly impact the size of that gap. I think we have an economic obligation. I think we have a moral obligation to make this happen, and I am not interested in playing jurisdictional dunghill niceties about which committee is supposed to handle this bill. This bill ought to be out on the floor. This amendment ought to pass.

I would ask that the majority party not offer a point of order against the amendment so that we can finally bring some justice to people who are struggling in the shadows of life, who are struggling on life's underside. We can make their lives just a little bit more pleasant by passing this amendment, and I would think that, given the fact that the Congress has just in this House determined to accept a COLA for itself, I would think that we would have significantly less embarrassment if we would recognize that it takes 4 months for someone working at the minimum wage to make the same amount of money that Congress will gain by way of a COLA. It is outrageous to adjust congressional COLAs and not adjust the minimum wage. So I would urge that no one lodge a point of order against this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I understand that the rules of the House normally indicate that this legislation would be handled by the authorizing committee, but I would note that on the appropriation conference report just several months ago, the majority leader in the Senate added 40 pages of authorizing language to the Defense bill, language which protected the pharmaceutical industry in this country from suit.

And it would seem to me that if it is legitimate for the majority leader of the Senate to do that, in order to protect a privileged industry in this country, that we could find a way in the House rules to protect the interests of the lowest-income wage earners in the country, but I must reluctantly concede the point of order.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, let me be very clear. The Wisconsin Procurement Institute was indeed organized originally by Les Aspin when he was chairman of the Armed Services Committee in this House. It is an organization that helps many new companies who are new to the procurement process figure out how the Federal procurement process works.

Instead of providing money to individual companies, this money is used to create an institute to educate all kinds of companies so that they can compete for Federal business, especially in the procurement area and most especially in the defense area.

I would make one simple point: Right now, large corporations have the resources and they have the experience to seek Federal business, but many quality companies do not because they are unfamiliar with how the Federal procurement process works.

There are a number of organizations who rank States in terms of how much Federal money they get each year. Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan always rank near the bottom. Ninety percent of the difference between them and the number one State in the Union in terms of Federal money occurs because of a difference in the number of Federal employees and because of differences in defense contracts.

The gentleman comes from the State which is the number six State in the Union in terms of getting money out of procurement. You have large companies, such as Raytheon, which produce huge numbers of missiles, so that gives you a lot of Federal procurement dollars.

You also have many talented electronic companies like General Dynamics, a huge company that also gets a large amount of Federal dollars. You have large military installations such as Fort Hauchuca, which contains the Army intelligence operation.

In Federal procurement, unfortunately, the way it usually works is ``Them what has gets more!'' This initiative, the Wisconsin Procurement Institute, which I fully confess that I and the other Members of the Wisconsin Delegation support, this initiative is to help other corporations who are not experienced in the ins and outs of Federal procurement policy, so that we can end the insider advantage that the gentleman's constituents have.

What we are trying to do is to open up the process so that you can enable a large number of companies to come in and compete. I make no apology whatsoever for that. Wisconsin has a right to expect that its corporations should be able to compete, and so does every other State in the Union.

I would simply ask the gentleman, do not begrudge the efforts of Wisconsin to close the gap between our State and yours. Your State gets $7 billion more in Federal procurement than mine does.

This operation is a small operation to try to enhance the ability of companies in our State to close that gap somewhat. We have chosen not to provide money directly to companies but instead to provide an ability for companies to learn how the procurement process works.

We also, under this process, have created a Web site which will enable Federal agencies to review the talents and the qualities of many of the companies in Wisconsin so that if they are looking for particular projects or products they know where to go to find them.

I think that what that will do in the end is help enhance competition, and it will help save taxpayers money by cutting some new companies in on the deal that so many large companies in the gentleman's State enjoy.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word, and I rise in support of the amendment.

This is a Congress and this is a President which has decided we are going to blow $400 billion on the dumbest war since the War of 1812 in Iraq. This is the Congress that has decided that every other priority has to be scuttled so that we can provide $50 billion in tax cuts for millionaires this year. And yet there is no room in the Budget Inn for improving the health care of our people.

We are actually going to be funding fewer grants next year at the National Institutes of Health for medical research than we were 2 years ago. We are squeezing health professions training. We are providing an education budget that is $1.5 billion below last year in terms of No Child Left Behind education programs. We are cutting law enforcement grants by over $2 billion below the year 2001. We are providing a squeeze on Legal Services, despite the amendment that was adopted last night. Mr. Gilchrest from Maryland just made a compelling argument about the need to spend a lot more money to protect our oceans.

We don't have money for any of that, and yet, oh, we've got money to go to Mars. I am as excited as anybody else about the prospect of sending a man to Mars. I think that would be wonderful. But not if you have to do it on borrowed money and not if you are putting tax cuts for millionaires ahead of educating kids.

I get excited about the space program, but I get a lot more excited about the prospect of providing clean water for every community in this country. I get a lot more excited about cleaning up school districts and fixing up schools and training teachers so that every kid in America is trained by a competent teacher, rather than having a huge percentage of our kids trained by teachers who were never educated in the field that they are teaching. So I guess it depends on what you are most excited about.

It seems to me that the gentleman is pointing out that we ought to have a little common sense in deciding what ought to be put first in this country. I would prefer that we put Earth-based science ahead of sending somebody to Mars.

If you want to clean up the deficit, if you want to clean up the deficits we have in investments in education and investments in health care, if you want to take care of the fact that 44 million people in this country are without health insurance, you get that done, then, baby, I am all for you if you want to go to Mars.

Until then, I would like to send to Mars every politician that thinks that the existing priorities are the right ones. They are not. They are wacky. This amendment isn't even a close call. We ought to adopt it.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word, and I yield 1 minute to the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time.

Mr. Chairman, I congratulate the authors of this amendment. I simply want to say this: If I am terminally ill, it is not anybody's business on this floor how I handle the pain or the illness or the sickness associated with that illness.

With all due respect to all of you, butt out. I did not enter this world with the permission of the Justice Department, and I am certainly not going to depart it by seeking their permission or that of any other authority.

The Congress has no business telling people that they cannot manage their illness or their pain any way they need to. I would trust any doctor in the country before I trust some of the daffy ducks in this institution to decide what I am supposed to do if I am terminally ill.

The idea that somehow this is a gateway that we are creating for a drug like meth is a joke. I detest meth. I have seen what it does. It is a plague on my district. It is especially horrendous in the midwest, and it is getting worse every day. That has nothing whatsoever to do with the management of pain and misery for people who are sick and who are dying.

When is this Congress going to recognize that individuals in their private lives have a right to manage their problems as they see fit without the permission of the big guy in the White

House or the big guy in the Justice Department or any of the Lilliputians on this Congressional floor? Wake up.

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

Mr. Chairman, I would simply point out that if we were not immersed in this stupid war in Iraq, the money that we are spending in just 2 months would correct all of the problems we have in all of these appropriation bills and we would not be facing this tradeoff. We could, in fact, afford to do both the COPS program and the space program that others in this chamber would prefer to see us pursue.

But the fact is, our Republican friends have voted for a budget resolution which has imposed these kinds of tradeoffs, and given that fact, I worry a whole lot more about Chinese products wiping out American jobs than I worry about Chinese flags somewhere else in the world, although I do not like either.

Some people attack Members of Congress for having Potomac fever. I think some Members of this House have Mars fever. The fact is, if we are going to make a choice about where to put the best money, right now, I think a far better bet is law enforcement.

I yield to the gentleman from New York.

I yield to the gentleman from New York.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am not going to debate the Hinchey amendment, but I do want to make one observation: We have just been told by my good friend from Virginia that we should not overturn a Supreme Court decision. I don't disagree with that. But just a few minutes ago this House considered an amendment overturning another court decision or insisting that no money be allowed to enforce that decision, and a few weeks ago you had this House vote to deny funds to enforce another court decision on eminent domain.

Now, I happen to disagree with that court decision on eminent domain. Demagogues, when they attack me on that, will forget that fact. But I would just say it is interesting to me to see the selectivity with which we produce sudden concern about vacating court decisions.

I don't think this institution has any business trying to, by law, deny funds for the enforcement of any court decision, even if I disagree with those court decisions, because I respect the processes of law defined by the Constitution.

But if we are going to attack this amendment, then I would suggest we go back and take a look at the other amendments that this House has whooped through without a modicum of thought about what it means if politicians start arbitrarily refusing to support funding for any court decision. That crosses the line.

I attended a meeting at the Supreme Court, a luncheon called by the Supreme Court, where the previous majority leader, Mr. DeLay, informed Justice Scalia and Justice O'Connor, roughly this: You need to understand we are coming after you, and we are going, we are coming after you with your jurisdiction, and you need to listen to us because we are the only ones connected with public opinion. That is what Mr. DeLay said to Justice Scalia and Justice O'Connor.

So although I greatly respect the gentleman from Virginia, I don't think we need to hear any lectures suddenly expressing concern for this Congress trying to withhold support for court decisions. It is a little late, given the track record of the majority on that score.

I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I would point out that the Supreme Court said that the actions that were taken were wrong. That is what the Court said. They just suggested there were other remedies.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman.

Let me simply say, without getting into the merits of the Hinchey amendment, I would simply suggest that if arguments are going to be made on that side of the aisle, that they not be based on the question of whether we should be vacating court decisions, and the majority has already tried to do that on two separate occasions

Madam Speaker, I am urging every Member to vote ``no'' on the rule as a protest against the Rules Committee action in refusing to allow a minimum-wage increase amendment to be attached to this bill.

I know that there are some people that say it shouldn't be on this bill; but the fact is, Mr. Hoyer and I and several others tried to have it attached to the Labor-Health-Education appropriations bill, and after we won, with the help of seven Republicans and 1 Democrat, the House Republican leadership decided to prevent that bill from coming to the floor of the House. So now we are trying to attach it to this bill.

I make no apology for that. The majority leader of the Senate attached 40 pages of unrelated language to the defense bill last year, language which insulated the pharmaceutical industry from lawsuits.

This issue is not about committee jurisdiction. This issue is about whose side are you on. For more than 9 years, we have seen no increase in the minimum wage. I take that problem personally, because after my parents were divorced, my mother worked for the minimum wage, and I can tell you how it feels to see a woman work 40 hours and come home with less than $40 in the check. It doesn't feel very good.

I can tell you how it feels to see you run out of money before you run out of days of the month, so at the end of every month, you have to take a household item, a table or a lamp or a radio, down to Etzkins' Pawn Shop to get a little money to get through the month. And the outrageous fact is that today, the minimum wage buys less than it did when my mother was earning it a number of years ago.

This Congress has an obligation to do something about that, but it hasn't. In the meantime, food prices have gone up by 20 percent, housing costs have gone up by 25 percent, medical expenses have gone up by 40 percent, and gas prices have doubled.

Last week, this institution voted to take no action to block a cost- of-living increase for Members of Congress. It takes a woman working at the minimum wage 4 months to earn the equivalent of that congressional COLA. Four months. What is the matter with people in this institution if they can justify a COLA increase for Members of Congress at the same time that they have been blocking a minimum-wage increase for 9 years? I find it outrageous.

I don't want to hear this baloney about, ``Oh, President Clinton warned that he would veto the minimum wage a few years ago.'' President Clinton was a strong proponent of the minimum-wage increase. He was forced to warn the Congress that he would find a bill fiscally irresponsible if the Congress took the minimum wage and attached it to over $200 billion in tax giveaways and tax cuts that were paid for totally with borrowed money.

So let's not have any nonsense on this floor about how President Clinton, after all, resisted the minimum wage. What President Clinton did was to resist the taking of the minimum wage hostage to the tax writing, borrow-to-pay-for-tax-cut schemes of the majority party.

So, Madam Speaker, this, to me, is a matter of elemental decency. It is a matter of equity. A Congress that does nothing to stand in the way of a cost-of-living increase for itself is a Congress that certainly ought to have the decency to pass a minimum-wage increase for the people we are talking about.

Madam Speaker, the gentleman says that this is an inappropriate bill to which to attach the minimum wage. The majority party has routinely attached gigantic pieces of legislation to appropriation bills.

The Senate majority leader did that, as I just recited a few minutes ago, on an outrageous special interest provision insulating the drug companies from legal suit just a few months ago.

Let me tell you what is inappropriate. What is inappropriate is to have a bunch of guys wearing suits in this Chamber sit on their duffs for 9 years and not find a way to increase the minimum wage for the lowest paid workers in this country. That is what is inappropriate.

This is what is outrageous, and that is why the ranking of this Congress is less than 23 percent in the public opinion polls. I would like to find somebody in that 23 percent. I cannot believe there are 23 percent of the people who think this Congress has lived up to its obligations to middle-income workers and the middle class.

The fact is, you can either help raise the minimum wage or you can stand as an obstacle to it. So far, the Rules Committee has stood as an obstacle to it. The Republican leadership of this House has stood as an obstacle to it. When we did attach it to the most appropriate appropriations bill, your leadership blocked that bill from coming forward.

So give me a break. It is not that you do not think this is the appropriate vehicle. It says your party, by a 2-1 ratio, in this House is really against the minimum wage increase; and that is outrageous after you have just voted to give yourself a COLA.

Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Madam Speaker, I wish more Members would join him and me.

Madam Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?

Madam Speaker, I would simply like to point out small business employment between 1997 and 2003 grew at a faster rate in States with a higher minimum wage than it did in Federal minimum wage States, 9.4 percent versus 6.6 percent.

Mr. Chairman, first of all, I would like to alert Members to a practical fact associated with this bill. We have pending, once general debate is over, about 100 amendments. If we assume that each one of them will be debated for only 10 minutes, and that is a risky assumption, but it is nonetheless to be hoped for, but if we assume that we can get that kind of unanimous consent agreement, that means that, with slippage and the time it takes to transact business, we are talking about 25 hours of debate, not counting any time consumed by roll calls. So we could very easily hit 30 hours of activity on the House floor. I think Members need to understand that.

If they expect to get out of here at a reasonable time this week, I would suggest that perhaps some people might conclude that at least some of those amendments are duplicative, and that Members would choose not to offer them.

I don't mean that about all amendments. I think some amendments are deserving and need to be offered. But I would ask Members to look at this with a very dispassionate eye to see

whether or not an amendment needs to be offered and whether any useful message will be sent by its offering.

Secondly, I want to repeat or emphasize what the gentleman from West Virginia said about the gentleman from Virginia, the chairman of the subcommittee, Mr. Wolf. One of the things I most appreciate about him is that he is not one of those laid back, super cool people who so many people seem to think should dominate politics and government these days. He has passion, and I think that he often has passion about the right things. And I, for one, want to say that I respect greatly the job the gentleman has done as chairman of this subcommittee the last 6 years. I think that we are all proud to have been able to serve with him.

And thirdly, I would like to address this bill for just a moment, if I could, Mr. Chairman. I know that the chairman from Virginia has done his dead level best to produce a decent bill. I know the gentleman from West Virginia has done the same.

But I want to point out that as the gentleman from West Virginia says, there will be a good many amendments offered in the next 3 days. And I think it is clear, because of the number of amendments, that Members recognize that there are so many useful things, so many important things that this bill needs to do that it will not be able to accomplish because of the budget number assigned to it under the budget resolution.

Sometimes I hear people bemoaning the fact that the subcommittee doesn't have enough resources. And you would think that somehow this ceiling was imposed anonymously from on high. It was imposed from on high all right, but it wasn't anonymously. And in my view, every person who voted for the budget resolution has a responsibility for some of the important cuts in law enforcement, in Earth-based sciences, in legal services, and in other areas that this bill is forced to make because of that budget resolution. I want to point to just two.

With respect to law enforcement, what has been going on is a Kabuki dance between us and the White House over the past 5 years. The White House proposes draconian cuts; they slash deeply in law enforcement grants. The committee then restores about two-thirds of that funding. We all say, ``Oh, what good boys and girls are we.'' We pat ourselves on the back. But in the end, we haven't been able to salvage those programs, and we see that this bill is $2.1 billion below where law enforcement grants would have been in 2001.

Secondly, with respect to legal services, about which I will offer an amendment at a later point in the debate, that bill a decade ago was funded at $400 million. That program today is funded at slightly over $320 million, a slight increase over the President's request, but still a cut from last year, and a substantial reduction from where it was a decade ago.

Since that time, inflation has eaten up a significant portion of the purchasing power of that program. We should not be doing that to people in this society who, without this program, will have very little ability to take advantage of the court system when they feel that they have been abused, and they will be boxed out of our justice system simply because they have no money. I don't think that Congress ought to allow that to happen, and I regret that this bill contributes to this problem.

Having said that, I respect the work that both gentlemen have done.

Reserving the right to object, Mr. Speaker, I want to make the point again that if all of these amendments are offered, we could be here for as much as 25 hours.

So I would hope that Members would consider whether or not these amendments are duplicative and that some of them might not be offered, if we are going to finish this in a timely fashion.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment simply adds $25 million to the Legal Services Corporation, returning it to the 2003 level from which it has fallen since that time. We have a bipartisan letter to Chairman Wolf from Ranking Member Mollohan signed by 160 Members of this House led by Representatives Ramstad and Delahunt, calling on the committee to restore funding for this program.

This bill cuts LSC by $12.7 million below last year's level. LSC- funded programs are the Nation's primary source of legal assistance to women who are the victims of violence. Seventy-three percent of those seeking assistance under this program are women.

This budget has declined from $400 million in 1996, and we are not even restoring it to that level. We are simply asking to restore $25 million of the massive cut that has occurred since that time.

Because of the cuts already incurred by this program, 16 field offices have already been closed. I don't think we want to see any more of that.

The offsets are very simple. We are taking $6.7 million from the Department of Justice general administration funds. The account is below the request, but the mark funds an 18 percent rent increase for management.

We would secondly take the rest of the funding out of the Department of State Administration of Foreign Affairs, Diplomatic and Consular Programs. The account includes a $76.9 million increase over the current year. This cut leaves in place increases for Intelligence and Research, Public Diplomacy, Foreign Language Training, Reconstruction and Stabilization and Border Security.

Mr. Chairman, we stand on this floor every day, and we recite the pledge of allegiance to the flag. In the process of doing that, we pledge to support ``liberty and justice for all.''

You simply cannot have justice in this country if you do not have adequate access to its court system. It seems to me that this amendment is on its face self-evident. There is no reason

why we cannot, with all of the money we spend for so many other programs, there is no reason that we cannot provide such a small restoration of funding for people who have nowhere else to go to be able to participate in what is supposed to be a system that produces equal justice for all.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. Chairman, I don't know how often we have to watch Members pose for political holy pictures on these issues before we start to gag. Well, I am at that point.

You have Members coming to this floor creating a great commotion, trying to create the impression that they are oh so much a champion of this program or that program.

On this amendment, it is the Byrne grant. On some other amendments, it is another program. My question to you, sir, is how did you vote on the budget resolution? Because if you voted for that budget resolution, you put this committee and this House into a position in which they have no choice but to cut one of these programs or the other.

Now you can parade around as a wonderful conservative, but the fact is, don't come to this floor with crocodile tears crying about what is happening to the Byrne grants or any other program if you voted for that budget resolution.

At least half the amendments being offered in this House, tonight and tomorrow, are cover-your-tail amendments, Mr. Chairman. They are here because Members who voted for the budget resolution are now trying to escape their responsibility because they want to have a roll call in their pocket that they can go to their constituents saying I didn't mean to cut that program.

But when you cut programs, there is not a line item in the budget for waste, fraud and abuse. When you cut the money, as you did in the budget, you are willing to sacrifice everything in order to provide $50 billion this year in tax cuts to people who make $1 million a year.

That is the real action. And half this other stuff is phony as a $3 bill.

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

Mr. Chairman, I found the last comment from the gentleman from Indiana to be very interesting.

The fact is that the unanimous consent agreement was agreed to as a courtesy by the minority to the majority. It is, very frankly, not in the political interest of the minority party in this House to assist the majority party in moving its appropriation bills through the House. We have done so on every occasion as a matter of legislative courtesy to the majority.

Now, if members of the majority do not like that, then I guarantee you there will never be another unanimous consent request provided from the minority side of the aisle. If that is the way you want it, you are going to be here a long time struggling with every appropriation bill from here on out.

The minority accepted the unanimous consent request with this provision because there are many times when the majority party and the minority party have a different view of amendments. This is not one of those times, but that happens most of the time on these amendments. And so the unanimous consent request is not any conspiracy between members of the Appropriations Committee. It is simply an effort to move the House's vote along.

We have 100 amendments. Without this unanimous consent request, we would still be on number 2 or number 3. You would not get halfway through this bill before you go home for the July 4 recess. Now, if that is what you want, I am perfectly happy to give it to you.

Amendment Offered by Ms. Millender-McDonald

Mr. Speaker, in the end, there are only three essential powers that make the Congress the greatest legislative body in the history of the world. The first is the power to investigate; the second is the power to declare war; and the third is the power of the purse.

This Congress has already supinely given away most of its ability to declare war. It ceded that largely to the President.

This Congress has also engaged in a pitiful amount of oversight and investigation over the past 5 years.

The only remaining power that Congress has is the power of the purse. If Members of this body want to diminish that power and further weaken the ability of the legislative body to do its job, then, by all means, vote for this underlying bill. If you think it wouldn't be a good idea to do that, then you ought to vote against it.

Can you imagine what a President like LBJ would have done with these powers to someone like Gaylord Nelson, from my own State, one of the three people who cast a vote against the original appropriation for Vietnam? LBJ would have put his arm around Gaylord's shoulder and he would have said, Gaylord, if you can't see your way through to be with me on the war, you are going to lose an awful lot of things you care about in that budget. I will make your life miserable. I will send down rescissions again and again and again, on the wilderness, on you name it.

I believe that the most pernicious aspect of this proposal is that it will further gut the ability of Congress to review a President's foreign policy initiatives in an independent fashion. God knows we have already failed in our responsibilities with respect to keeping us out of the dumbest war since the War of 1812, in Iraq, and this ill-advised proposition will simply make those matters worse.

I would urge an ``aye'' vote for the Spratt substitute and a ``no'' vote on the underlying bill.

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

Mr. Chairman, I think the House needs to understand the history of this. Back in 1997, when the F-22 was first being contemplated, there was a controversy about whether it should be built, whether it was needed, given the capability of our other aircraft. We were told that we had to go ahead and construct the plane because we had given away so much technology by selling other high performance aircraft, F-15s, F- 16s, that we had to regain our technological edge.

So I said, well, if that is the case, if we are going to build the thing, at least let's make certain that we hang onto our technology edge this time. Hence, the language in section 8057.

Now, I must confess that times may have changed, but I don't know that we are yet at the point that would justify removing these limitations. My own preference, given my biases about arms sales around the world, my own preference would be to impose the same kind of limitations on new aircraft that we are developing, such as the F-35, as we impose now on the F-22. But I recognize that that is not in the cards, given the mindset of the Congress these days.

So given that fact, I would simply say that I have indicated on numerous occasions that I have an open mind and I would be willing to be persuaded, but I am not yet convinced that we are at the point where we ought to relinquish the controls on the export of this aircraft.

I recognize what the committee is about to do, but I am significantly uncomfortable with it, and I am certainly not convinced that we have reached the point where we ought to remove these restrictions. I would simply ask the chairman, I would hope that if the committee does intend to accept this amendment, that it will have an in-depth discussion with the Pentagon to make certain that we know exactly what we are doing in terms of the kind of technology that we might be letting loose, that it might not be in the interest of this country to do.

I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. Chairman, I would simply say that is useful, but I am still concerned about the fact that we will be allowing a very high- technology aircraft to wind up in the hands of people who may be allies today, but God knows what they are going to be tomorrow.

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

Mr. Chairman, I do not want to get into the specific debate on this amendment because I think there are equities on both sides. But I must comment on a statement that was just made by the gentleman from Illinois when he said that the reason this information can't be more broadly shared is because people in Congress like to talk.

When Mr. Negroponte was before the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, and I have been an ex oficio member of that committee now for over 12 years, but when I asked Mr. Negroponte, who, after all, is the Director of Intelligence, when I asked him whether or not he could cite a single instance in which any member of the Defense Appropriations Committee had ever leaked any classified information, he indicated he could not.

I also asked him, and I think this is an accurate recollection, I also asked him if he could tell me how many times stories had appeared in the Washington Times that his own agency thought had been leaked by the executive branch of government.

And I asked him how many times he thought those leaks had been provided by the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. And his response was, to the best of his knowledge, none.

And yet, I want to make clear, not all members of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee have been briefed. Now, I believe they should have, because taxpayers dollars go through the appropriations bill, and I think every member of that subcommittee needs to know what the facts are on this case.

But the fact is, let's not get into the belief that it is the Congress who routinely leaks. The White House routinely leaks more classified information than the Congress even has. And anybody who doesn't believe that doesn't know the score.

Yes, I would be happy to yield.

I am going to take back my time. I was prepared to entertain a serious question. That is not a serious question. I am not interested in what happened 200 years ago. I am interested in what is happening today and tomorrow.

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

Mr. Chairman, because I think that repetition is important, I want to make certain that Members understand what is expected for the rest of the day. My understanding is that the White House event that was scheduled to take place with Members of Congress tonight has been postponed until tomorrow. That means that we had originally not expected that we would be able to finish this bill today. It now appears that we can if we get the cooperation of all of the Members who had intended to offer amendments.

So I would simply urge Members, if they expect to be recognized, to offer their amendments under the unanimous consent agreement. It is important that they get to the floor and actually offer them so that we can get out at a reasonable time tonight and complete action on this bill because tomorrow is expected to be reserved for the Iraqi debate, and I do not think we want to get in the way of that one.

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

Mr. Chairman, with all due respect to the two previous gentlemen who just spoke, the issue is not whether we like Mr. Castro or not. I think Castro has an abominable human rights record. I think he has an idiotic economic record. The issue, rather, is whether or not we trust our fellow citizens.

I would also say that the issue to the question I would ask is why should the United States follow a policy which allows Castro to pretend that the United States and its embargo is one of the reasons for his economic and political failures. I think we make it easier for Castro to survive by our own silliness.

That is why I support the amendment of the gentleman from New York.

I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to explain to the House that at this point it appears that there are more than 70 amendments pending, and that if each and every one of them only takes 10 minutes, 5 minutes a side, we will be here through all of today, through all of Wednesday, through all of Friday and perhaps into next week. So I would ask Members to keep that in mind and, if possible, to relinquish their ability to offer conflicting or duplicative amendments. I think points can be made without beating a dead horse five times over.

Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I simply under the reservation would like to point out to the House that if this is strictly adhered to, there are 67 amendments that are provided for under this UC request. It will take approximately 11 hours just for the debate time, not allowing for slippage, not allowing for other Members yielding or the natural sliding that we have in the House. That means that it will take at least 13 to 14 hours to finish these amendments plus the time that is needed for voting.

Assuming that only one-third of these amendments are put to a record vote, we could have a total of around 16 to 17 hours before this bill is finished. That will certainly take us through tonight, all of tomorrow, and well into Friday and perhaps beyond. So I would ask Members to again think through whether or not they feel the need to offer every one of these amendments. If they are, we will be here for a long, long time with other competing business being squeezed to the end of the week.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. Speaker, this event is a sad day in the history of the House and the country. The fact that this bill is before us today indicates that the President's aim is about as faulty as the Vice- President's.

The fact is that on 9/11 we were attacked by al Qaeda. They were sheltered by the Taliban in Afghanistan. The President correctly responded to that by going after al Qaeda in Afghanistan. But then he slipped off the track and diverted his attention and the country's to an unnecessary war in Iraq against a government that had nothing whatsoever to do with the attack against the United States on 9/11.

We have now spent, in 18 separate actions, we will now have spent $450 billion on this adventure, when you take into account what will be provided in the defense appropriations bill which will be considered by the full Appropriations Committee tomorrow.

Now, my objection to the way this war is being funded is based primarily on my belief that the country and the Congress has a right to know what the cost of this war is and what we think future costs will be. But because, as the gentlewoman from New York has indicated, because the requests to finance this war have come in the form of supplementals outside the regular appropriation process, the actual cost of the war has effectively been hidden because the administration's plan was to reveal that cost to the American people on the installment plan.

So a little bit at a time they get to understand what the cost is going to be. $50 billion here. $50 billion there. As Senator Edward Dirksen said, ``Sooner or later that amounts to real money.'' This is a huge expenditure for a misguided war, in my view.

Mr. Speaker, I would make one other point. My second concern about this bill is not directed at what the bill does contain, but rather what this bill does not contain. The Senate adopted a separate amendment, the Byrd-Gregg amendment, which would have added $2.5 billion in additional funding for border security and port security.

Unfortunately, the conferees chose to eliminate that funding from the bill. That means that they did not provide the $1.9 billion that the Senate had asked us to provide to do things such as replace out-dated aircraft. The P-3 fleet, which serves as border security's primary air surveillance mechanism, is over 40 years old, 20 years beyond the average life of that type of plane. The entire fleet needs to be overhauled to extend the service life. This bill does not measure up to that.

We also have nearly 1,700 vehicles which are unusable due to wear and tear because of the environment, the extreme burden that that environment places on Border Patrol agents' equipment and vehicles. This bill does not provide funding for that.

This bill lacks sufficient patrol aircraft. It lacks sufficient funding for armed helicopters on the border. Also, in addition, I believe the Congress should have provided $648 million in additional port security improvements.

The Coast Guard has only 34 inspectors to review security plans at foreign ports. We should have provided $180 million more for customs and border protection, including $80 million for Border Patrol vehicle replacement, and $100 million more for border infrastructure and technology.

We should have provided $50 million more for an upgrade of law enforcement communications. We should have provided $80 million the Senate requested for Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicle replacement.

We should have provided the amount that the Senate requested, $227 million, for additional port security grants.

The Senate also asked us to provide $211 million in additional funds for rail and seaport inspection equipment. It asked us to provide $132 million more for radiation portal monitors to accelerate deployment to screen 100 percent of in-bound containers.

Alas, this bill contains none of those items. So I think it is grossly deficient in meeting the needs of border security and port security. I regret that. But unfortunately I cannot do much about it because the majority party was determined to exclude these items.

I was also stunned by the fact that the majority party refused to adopt, or refused to retain, the language that was adopted on the House floor which made clear that the United States had no intention of entering into permanent basing rights agreements in Iraq.

Certainly I recognize that some Members of this House do not want us to leave Iraq anytime soon, but somewhere between leaving immediately and staying forever, we ought to be able to find common ground.

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

Mr. Speaker, I regard the argument made by my good friend from Oklahoma to be essentially an ad hominem argument. The issue is not whether or not Saddam Hussein was a good guy or a bad guy. He is obviously a bad guy. And it is nice to see that he is gone.

We have other bad guys in the world. We have the guy running Iran right now. We have got the guy running North Korea. I do not see the United States engaging in military action against either of them.

Mr. Speaker, I would also point out, is it not strange that a man who was important enough to remove as head of Iraq by this administration was seen by this President's father and his administration, I am sorry, I got that wrong, was seen by the previous Reagan administration, for instance, as being someone we could do business with, and, in fact, was someone who the United States supported against Iran in a previous military engagement.

So the issue is not whether Saddam is a good man or a bad man. He is obviously a bad man, and it is good that he is gone. I will grant the gentleman that. But I would also say, it came at a hellacious price. We simply did not have to incur 18,000 American soldiers wounded in order to remove him. We did not need to incur more than almost 3,000 dead in order to remove him. Let's not kid ourselves. We were misled into this war on the basis of manipulated and bad intelligence. We were told by the Vice-president we would be welcomed with open arms. The President landed on that carrier and said ``Mission Accomplished.''

Well, not so. Unfortunately, not so. So we continue to pay the price, bogged down in the same kind of mess that we were stuck in in Vietnam. And let us face it, there is not anybody in this city from the President on down who has a clue about how to get the United States out of this mess. There isn't anybody in this town who has a clue.

And that is the sad fact we are faced with, as we are forced to continually appropriate more and more funds to support our troops. And then we go back home and say, ``Well, we know what we are doing.'' The fact is, this Congress did not know what it was doing when it gave the President the ability to go to war.

The President did not know what he was doing, the Vice-President did not know what he was doing, and Secretary Rumsfeld has demonstrated that he is both the most arrogant Secretary of Defense since Bob McNamara and the most incompetent Secretary of Defense in the post-Cold War period of this country.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from California, the distinguished chairman of the Rules Committee, has just described what he believes to be fiscally responsible actions taken by the Congress.

Let me simply say that the idea that it is fiscally responsible for this Congress to provide $40 billion or more in tax cuts to persons making $1 million a year, paid for with borrowed money, while at the same time refusing to provide $2.5 billion in essential funding to secure our borders and secure our ports, is, to me, strange logic indeed. I regard that set of priorities to be spectacularly irresponsible.