Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I know this seems a strange thing to say on a bill as small as the bill to fund the congressional budget, but I honestly believe, because of the attachment of the proposal for the continuity of Congress, that this bill is by far the worst bill to come to the floor in this session of Congress.

I believe that that continuity of representation provision attached to this bill is an assault on constitutional government. I believe it is an assault on checks and balances. It is an assault on the rule of law. It is an invitation to one-man rule and dictatorship. I think it is profoundly misguided, profoundly misgotten, and I think a profound disservice is done in not having months and months of hearings with constitutional scholars before such a drastic proposal is brought before the House.

I think there is a very good reason that the Senate has not taken it up. It is because it is a turkey of a proposal. It could leave us literally with 75 and 80 percent of the congressional districts in this country unrepresented in a time of crisis, at a time of terrorist attack, and unrepresented in the halls of Congress, and I think that is a bad way to do business.

What I would like to do now is to talk about another problem in this bill. That is the Congressional Visitors Center. I really believe that the Congressional Visitors Center has been mismanaged in such spectacular fashion that it is really sort of a metaphor for the way that the entire Federal budget deficit has been mismanaged, and let me explain what I mean.

This project originally started as a $95 million project to have a modest expansion of the Capitol, to give tourists an opportunity to come in and see a movie about what the Congress was all about before they visited the Capitol. But the security assault on this Capitol and 9/11 has, in my view, been used as an excuse to expand this operation. We have also had other efforts from the Library of Congress and other institutions to further expand this proposition; and so as a result, today, this project is a $500 million-plus project. It is more than a year behind schedule, and I think it is wasting taxpayers' money and wasting an opportunity that we had to provide much-needed usable space for the Congress at the same time.

What is happening out on the East Front is that over 2 acres of underground space is being added to the Capitol. Some of that is being added for purposes of a visitors center and some of the other space is being added for the purpose of expanding space under control of the Senate and the House to do their work.

We all know that this Congress needs more working space. In my view, the number one need of the Congress for working space is the need for additional rooms for conference committees between the Senate and the House because most of our hearings, especially on the Committee on Appropriations. When I came here, they were held behind closed doors. The press was not in, the public was not in. So there was plenty of room for a few people to get behind closed doors and work out deals and that is not the way government is supposed to work today.

Today, when we have a conference committee, the press has a right to be there. We need our staffs there, and the public has the right to be there, too. We have no real room in the Capitol for that kind of facility.

This is an opportunity to create that kind of room. Instead, what has happened? Instead, the only appreciable room of any quality in the new House space is what is called the House hearing room, but in plain language, that room is really a media center. That is going to be where the press focuses whenever there is a hearing in that room because it will have all of the creature comforts for the press. That room will have ample room for one hearing, one presentation, and whoever runs the Congress will be able to decide what subject it is that gets that attention. If you are trying to hold another public hearing on another subject in the Capitol, you are going to be stuck in tiny rooms that are worthless in terms of public access.

When I visited the visitors center, I asked the Architect why, with these vaulted ceilings that you have set aside for this hearing room, why could you not simply reduce the height of those rooms and at least provide two rooms of approximately the same size so that we had enough overflow room for the committees to do our work and to have conference committees? I have yet to get an answer from the Architect's office.

That is my problem. My problem is that with all of this space being created, much of it is not usable for the purpose that we need it used for.

Then we come to the other portion of the add-on, which is the portion devoted to the visitors center. Originally, that visitors center was supposed to have two media theaters so that the public could come in, see a short film about the Congress, and then be on its way.

Here is the problem. We have those two small orientation theaters, but in addition to that, we have this huge congressional auditorium, which is going to seat 450-plus people. I asked the Architect, and this is a vaulted theater, I asked why do we need another theater in the Capitol? What I was told by the Architect is, ``Well, you can bring in large constituency groups.'' I would like to know how many Members of the House have ever brought 500 people into the Capitol. I do not think there are going to be many people would raise their hands.

The second thing the Architect told me is that, ``Well, we need a place for where the House of Representatives can meet when the House Chamber is being remodeled.''

That I found a might strange, because we have just redecorated the Committee on Ways and Means room in the Longworth Building. That room was originally created to serve as an alternative meeting place for the House of Representatives when we had to repair this Chamber. So we have already got a spare room.

In addition, we have another spare room I cannot talk about because it is classified, but it is being built off campus somewhere. So in essence we will have three spare rooms. I do not know how much the off- campus room is costing the taxpayers or how much the Committee on Ways and Means room cost the taxpayers, but this room is going to cost a bundle.

I keep asking ``What is the real purpose for this room?'' You finally go back 10 years and look at the original plans, what do we find out. We find out that this was originally included in the plans at the request of the Library of Congress because they wanted another theater to show movies and give presentations. That might be nice for them to have, but this project is already 400 percent over original cost. I do not think it makes any sense. I think this is the last chance that we are going to have to reconfigure this center so we have some additional working space instead of the Taj Mahal show space we are going to have.

Another thing I do not like, we have been told we are likely to have three congressional seals in the new visitors center. Those seals, I have been told, will cost up to a million bucks. Does any Member really want to take the political heat when taxpayers find out that somebody is talking about spending $1 million on three congressional seals? Do Members remember the Cain that was raised when marble floors were put in four of our elevators in the Capitol? Does anybody have any memory? I would like to think so, but I guess not.

Mr. Chairman, I consider myself to be an institutional man. I usually support this piece of legislation; but out of frustration, I am not going to support it today because I think this Capitol Visitors Center, when it is finally built, is going to draw flies in terms of bad stories about waste of taxpayer money, misuse of space, and we are going to wind up not having enough room for the principal function of government. If this is, indeed, supposed to be a working Capitol, then we ought to be able to do better than this floor plan.

I really believe this package has been brought to us by staff who do not really understand how committees work and do not really understand the principal needs of this institution. This is the last time we are going to have a chance to repair this package and

make it more usable for the 100 years at least that it will be used. I urge Members to vote against this bill so we can start over.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

I want to simply say I congratulate the gentleman from California. I agree with the gentleman from California. I would be perfectly willing to vote for this proposition today if we had a constitutional amendment going at the same time, so that the solution in this bill would be only a temporary solution until we got a real one.

Without the Rohrabacher approach, or something similar, and I happen to prefer the one he introduced in the last Congress, but without something like that, we guarantee that we can have the President governing with literally a handful of people in the Congress. We could have hundreds of districts with no representation whatsoever. That is not continuity. That is chaos. That is martial law. That is one-man rule.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Baird).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 10 seconds to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Baird).

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

Mr. Chairman, with respect to the Congressional Visitors Center, we are not saying there should not be one; all we are saying is that the one that is being proposed is screwed up and spectacularly wasteful and needs to be changed.

With respect to the assertion of my friend from Illinois that we do not have to worry about not having a Congress for 45 days because there will not be anything for Members of Congress to do, all I can tell my colleague is, if that is the case, then I wonder why it is that the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Bill Young) and I negotiated a $20 billion supplemental appropriation just a few days after 9/11; and I wonder why it is we were sitting in the office of the gentleman from Illinois (Speaker Hastert) until 12:30 at night hammering out differences with people on the Senate side who did not agree with what we had done; and why it is that the President made a commitment of $10 billion to New York; and why we had to spend a lot of time backing him up.

I would also remind the gentleman we had a debate on the House floor when the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure tried to slip into that bill an extra $10 billion appropriation for the airlines.

There was plenty for us to do after 9/11; and thank God, in contrast to the proposition being set out today, thank God that then we had a Congress around to do it.

If you want to vote for a situation in which we can have no Congress whatsoever for 45 days, then by all means vote for this provision. If you do not, if you think we ought to have some kind of balance and check on the Presidency during that period by having somebody here to do the Nation's business, then my colleagues will reconsider and listen to what the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) and the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Baird) have to say.

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

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, just one point. We did that 3 days after 9/ 11, 3 days.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

If the gentleman will yield, could the gentleman share with us the names of these horses?

My understanding is that their names are Justice, Honor, Patriot, Freedom, and Tribute. Great names, but still not much of a purpose for their use.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I would simply say that passing this amendment will not eliminate the distribution of the Record. It will simply create a financial shortfall which will have to be dealt with in the future. I personally prefer to use the printed Record than I do the online Record.

I do my work in lots of places besides the office, and I do not

use a computer. I use a pencil. So I would just suggest that I think the amendment is outrageous and misbegotten; but if the gentleman wants to accept it, we can deal with it in conference. We will work it out.

Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman is willing to stop talking, I am willing to stop talking. I will vote for whichever side stops talking first.

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

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

As someone considerably more famous once said, The world will little note nor long remember what we either say or do here today on this matter.

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

Mr. Chairman, let me simply say that while I am opposed to this bill because I think it wastes too much money on the visitors center, I agree that an across-the-board cut is not a responsible way to approach budgeting. If all of this cut came out of the visitors center, I would vote for it in a flash.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.

I certainly am, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the motion to recommit be debatable for 4 minutes equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. Speaker, I will only take 1 minute.

This is a straight motion to recommit so that we can fix the out-of- control visitors center, which is as out of control as the Federal deficit. It is also the last chance we will be able to have to remove the assault on constitutional government by removing the nongermane continuity provision, and it also is the last chance to establish a Truman-like committee to investigate waste and fraud in Iraq.

I urge an aye vote. And I will ask for a roll call vote.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. Chairman, the language of the committee amendment does nothing whatsoever to discourage proselytizing. What it does is make clear that the Congress of the United States is opposed to coercive and abusive proselytizing. I think it would be good to go back and look at the history of this problem.

The LA Times broke the story about disrespectful treatment of cadets based on religious affiliation on April 20. On June 3, Lieutenant General John Rosa, who is the superintendent of the Academy, in a speech to the Anti-Defamation League, acknowledged that the Academy has a problem with religious intolerance. He called it insidious and said it could take 6 years to fix.

He described two Academy-wide e-mails that were sent out by another high-ranking officer, which he described as ``inappropriate.'' He described other later events that involved religious pressures and said, ``They were wrong.''

Academy officials have said that they have received 55 complaints from cadets on this problem. Academy spokesman John Whitaker said, ``There have been cases of maliciousness, mean-spiritedness and attacking or baiting someone over religion.''

No one is objecting to anyone trying to talk about religion. What they are objecting to is the malicious and mean-spirited attacking of other people for the religious views that they do or do not hold.

The Air Force officials said they got an inkling of the problem after reading the results of a student survey last May. Many cadets expressed concern over the lack of religious respect and tolerance. This comes on top of revelations 2 years ago of a scandal when dozens of female cadets said that their complaints about sexual assaults were ignored.

Mr. Whitaker, the spokesman for the Academy, forthrightly said that it was insensitivity and ignorance on the part of people who are, ``going into a diverse Air Force where they are going to have to deal with people of all faiths.''

Mickey Weinstein, a father of one of the cadets, who himself was a lawyer and an Academy graduate, described the harassment that his son had undergone and said, ``I love the Academy, but do you know how much courage it took for these cadets to come forward?''

Another person who did not want to be identified because of fear of retaliation said, ``Cadets are given the impression they must embrace the beliefs of their commanders in order to succeed at the Academy.''

Chaplain Melinda Morton described the problem as systemic, and she said that she had spoken up about the problem because, ``It is in the Constitution, it is not just a nice rule that you can follow or not follow.'' Then she said, ``I realize this is the end of my Air Force Academy career.''

My problem with the amendment that is being proposed by the gentleman is not what it says. My problem with the gentleman's amendment is what it takes out of the original committee language.

It removes the language that puts the Congress foresquare in the position of saying that coercive and abusive religious proselytizing at the Academy is

over the line and is inconsistent with professional standards required of those who serve at the Academy.

It eliminates the requirements for corrective action by the Academy in the Air Force.

Thirdly, it removes the requirement for a plan to develop an atmosphere that is free of religious coercion at the Academy.

Fourth, it removes the requirement in the committee language which asks for an investigation and a report by the Air Force on the circumstances surrounding the dismissal of Chaplain Melinda Morton, who is the person who blew the whistle on this in the first place.

I do not think the Congress wants to go on record as taking out all of that language, which is what the gentleman's amendment would do.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, what this perfecting amendment does is to restore with some minor changes the basic thrust of the committee language. Let me explain why I do this.

Two weeks ago, I appointed a young man to the Air Force Academy. One week later, he was killed by a drunken driver. Now, if that young man had been fortunate enough to live so that he could have gone to the Academy, I would want his parents, his family and his community, to know that the Academy that he was going to is one which will allow him to practice whatever religion he believed, without any kind of coercion, either from other cadets or from anyone in the chain of command at the Academy. I do not think that is too much to expect.

I understand the gentleman from California is unhappy because he considers this to be an authorizing issue. Well, the fact is the authorizing committee had an opportunity to deal with similar language, not identical but similar language, when they considered the authorization bill, and they declined to do so. That means that each and every one of us as individual members of this place has jurisdiction on this matter because we all appoint cadets to the Academy, and we have an obligation to those cadets to tell them, whether they are Catholic or Lutheran or any kind of Protestant denomination or Jewish or Muslim or even if they are of no religion, we have an obligation to assure them that they are going to be going to an Academy that is free from any kind of coercion, free from any kind of ridicule.

That is what this language does. This language in the committee bill which would be modified only slightly by the amendment I have just offered, this language maintains the integrity of the thrust of the language of the original committee action.

The purpose of this language is not to accuse any individual person. We do not in any way prejudge any individual action. All we do is to say that the activities which have already been described and admitted by the academy as having occurred, all we are saying is that conduct is inappropriate to the military. That conduct is not something that the Congress of the United States will stand for.

If Members believe in religious freedom, they have an obligation to stand foursquare for sending a message that we want this problem corrected. If Members turn down this language and adopt the Hunter language, you are removing the language which makes

clear that the Congress finds that kind of intimidation objectionable, and you are removing the kind of language which will require a report to us about the circumstances surrounding the courageous chaplain who sacrificed her military career to blow the whistle on this.

She said she knew when she blew the whistle on it she was ending her military career. This Congress has an obligation to see that does not happen.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, we do not just have newspaper stories. We have the direct statement from the director of the academy that that conduct has occurred and in his view is inappropriate. Do we want to take a position that is any less firm than he has?

Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman would continue to yield, let me simply say this language of the committee, which I am repeating almost word for word in the amendment, does not single out any individual or claim to know the facts on any individual case. What it does most definitely assert is that the conduct, through the official spokesman for the academy, did take place and was inappropriate. We are simply backing up that statement.

Mr. Whitaker, who is the official academy spokesman, said there were cases of maliciousness, mean-spiritedness, and attacking or baking someone over religion.

We do not have to withhold our judgment about the details of the case to know that that kind of action is across the line.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

That is exactly right.

She has been removed from her position.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I want to emphasize one thing. The gentleman from California said that his amendment will preserve the understanding that religious faiths are welcome at the academy. That is true. His amendment does. But I would point out, it simply repeats the first sentence of the committee language in the Obey amendment. We all agree. We all agree that the expression of personal religious faith is welcome. That is exactly why we are here standing pushing for this committee language today, because we want to make sure that the Pledge of Allegiance that we take every day says ``liberty and justice for all'', not just ``for almost everybody.''

The gentleman said that he did not want to see religion scrubbed out. I do not, either. But 55 cadets have said that there were efforts at the academy to scrub out their expression of religious belief. That is what we want to stop. I want to make sure that every single person who attends that academy feels free from intimidation and does not feel that they have to go along with the attitudes of those in the chain of command or their senior cadets in order to get along at the academy.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the gentleman's words be taken down.

Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, I think the House needs to understand why I objected to the language of the gentleman.

As I understand it, the language that the gentleman is saying he will withdraw is the following: ``Like moth to a flame, Democrats can't help themselves when it comes to denigrating and demonizing Christians.''

What I would have asked the gentleman, since he referred earlier in his remarks to me and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel), I would have asked him if he really believed that the gentleman from New York's (Mr. Israel) efforts to attach similar language in the Committee on Armed Services, the language that the gentleman referred to earlier in his discussion, whether he really thought that the gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel) was engaging in an anti-Christian act. I would have asked him whether he really thought that the language that I was trying to offer to protect people of all religions at the Air Force Academy, whether he really thought I was being anti-Christian. I would have asked him if he thought that the chaplain at the Air Force Academy who laid her career on the line in order to protect the religious freedom of those cadets who she felt were being intimidated, whether her actions were anti-Christian.

I would have asked whether he thinks that the kind of conduct which the superintendent of the Academy has already admitted occurred, which among other things had one cadet calling another a ``filthy Jew,'' or when they had cadets who did not subscribe to a specific kind of Christianity being told that they were going to, ``burn in hell,'' I would have asked him whether or not the Chaplain's objection to that kind of conduct was antiChristian?

I would have suggested that when Mr. Whitaker, the official spokesman for the Academy indicated that he thought the problem at the Academy was one of ``insensitivity and ignorance,'' I would have asked whether or not, unfortunately, we did not often see those same qualities displayed elsewhere, including on the floor of this House?

And I would have suggested that I think his outburst, and the specific language he used, is perhaps a perfect example of why we need to pass the language in my amendment, which states, ``coercive and abusive religious proselytizing at the United States Air Force Academy by officers assigned to duty at the Academy and others in the chain of command at the Academy, as has been reported, is inconsistent with the professionalism and standards required of those who serve at the Academy.

And I would add, also, of those who serve in this House and speak on this floor. So those are the questions I would have asked. If the gentleman is withdrawing those words, fine, I think it is constructive that he do so.

But, before I do that, I would, under my reservation, yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel).

Continuing my reservation, Mr. Chairman. I would simply say that perhaps the speech of my good friend from Florida (Mr. Young) urging that we stop talking on this amendment and get to the vote, perhaps his speech came 5 minutes too late. It is too bad, not too late, because if we had voted before the last speaker, the House would not have seen this unfortunate event present itself.

So, Mr. Chairman, I would simply say that I think perhaps the best thing to do in the interests of restoring a decent amount of civility and comity to the House this afternoon is for the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Hostettler) as he has suggested, to withdraw his words and for us to get onto a vote and pass this amendment to make quite clear that every Member of this House, save perhaps a few, recognize that we have an obligation to each and every cadet at the Air Force Academy, to see that they can practice their religion without fear of ridicule, without fear of condemnation, without fear of intimidation by anyone else, be they Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, or any other religion that anyone of us can think of.

This language in the committee bill, the language which we are restoring by my amendment, is an effort to protect all religions, all religions. I would ask for an aye vote when the amendment comes.

Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I do not want to take more than 30 seconds. I simply want to reiterate what the Obey amendment does before us, restores, almost word for word, the original language of the committee bill. What that language tries to do is to assure the full protection of, well let me put it another way, because this is a sense of the Congress language.

What we attempt to do is to put the Congress on record squarely, as saying that we want every cadet, regardless of religion, to be able to fully practice their religion without intimidation, without ridicule, without restraint.

That is what we are trying to do. I think it speaks for itself. If people do not believe the Congress should stand for that, then they can vote against the amendment. If they do, I would appreciate a yes vote.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, we have so far appropriated $277 billion for activities in Afghanistan and Iraq; $168 billion of that has been appropriated after the President declared an end to major conflict in the region. The budget resolution, which passed this House about a month ago, provided authority for an additional $50 billion to be spent this year for Iraq and Afghanistan. This bill spends $45 billion of that $50 billion.

The problem that we will face is that this bill is only enough to pay for that war for the first 6 months of the fiscal year. That means that when a new supplemental is submitted to the Congress to pay for the last half of the fiscal year, we will wind up having to appropriate at least another $40 billion. And when we do that, it will mean that the Congress will have, in effect, busted the budget by at least $40 billion.

So what this amendment says is that if and when that happens, and it will assuredly happen, if and when that happens, we are saying that the Committee on the Budget must then bring forth a new budget resolution which shows us how we can pay for that extra $40 billion without raising the deficit.

If we are not prepared to do that, then that means that we will simply slip in that extra $40 billion, without any notice by the public, without any attention being paid to the fact that what we are really doing is raising the deficit by another $40 billion.

Regardless of how any Member of this House feels on this war, Members ought to feel that if we pass a budget resolution, it ought to be a legitimate one, that it ought to be laying out honestly what we expect to spend.

Without this amendment, it will mean that we, sometime during the fiscal year, will spend $40 billion more, only we will not be admitting it on the budget resolution side. If we do not adopt this amendment, what we will really be saying is that the budget that was adopted just a month ago was a sham, that it was just a device to govern and to limit the amount of spending that we were going to be engaged in for education, for health care, for science, for agriculture, but that we intended to really bust the budget to the tune of least $40 billion when it came to the war in Iraq.

I do not think that many Members of the House would like to say that that was their position, but absent the acceptance or the adoption of this amendment, that is precisely what will happen. The administration will come up here with another budget in order to pay for the last 6 months of the fiscal year for the war, and we will have busted the budget to the tune of $40 billion and jacked up that deficit by the same amount.

The administration is fond of saying that they adopted a budget resolution which is going to cut the deficit in half. Without this amendment, not a prayer, not a prayer. So I would urge adoption of the amendment.

Point of Order

Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, as I indicated earlier, the purpose of this amendment is to see to it that the House stays within the deficit levels laid out by the budget resolution passed just a few weeks ago.

The Budget Committee routinely sends instructions to the Appropriations Committee about what it must do. I think this is an instance in which the Appropriations Committee ought to send a signal back that the Budget Committee ought to conform itself to reality and budgetary honesty.

As I understand it, the rule under which this bill is being debated provides that if no Member does lodge a point of order, than indeed this amendment could be passed by the House. Unfortunately, the rule did not protect this amendment from a point of order. And so if the gentleman persists in his point of order, I will have to reluctantly concede that point of order.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the time.

Mr. Speaker, I would strongly urge that this House vote ``no'' on the previous question for the reasons just laid out by the distinguished minority leader. I think there are some other reasons as well.

I happen to think that the Iraqi war is the dumbest war that we have engaged in since the War of 1812, but my opinion is not relevant on that point today. We are there, and the question is how do we best deal with the problem now that we are.

To me, it is irresponsible and mindless for us to be involved in a war unless we have some kind of idea how we will define success. How will we know when we have won; or conversely, how will we know if and when this effort becomes obviously counterproductive?

Right now we have no specific measuring stick. All we know is that we are in a morass, and we are likely to remain there for years. I would predict American troops are going to be there for a decade under existing policy. I do not think the American people will stand for that unless there is a clear policy and a clear set of goals and a clear set of tools to evaluate what it is we are doing. We need to know what standard of success will be held up for training Iraqi replacements. We need to know the answer to a wide variety of other questions.

But there is another reason why I think this is important. The bill we will debate today spends $45 billion in a ``bridge fund'' for Iraq. That means that we are bumping up against the ceiling in the budget resolution. The problem is that the $45 billion in the defense bill today only pays for 6 months of the war. How are we going to pay for the other 6 months? The answer is, we do not know. All we know is that the next time a supplemental comes up to pay for that war, we are going to have to find $40 billion or more.

I would suggest if we have to do that, there are only two ways that are responsible: one is to require the Budget Committee to come up with another resolution which spells out how we are going to pay for that additional $40 to $45 billion without raising the deficit.

The second way to do it would be to have reconciliation instructions to the Ways and Means Committee to actually find ways to raise enough revenue to pay for that next $40 or $45 billion so that we do not increase the deficit even further. If we do not do one of those two things, then this House engaged in an elaborate sham when it passed the last budget resolution, because everybody knows it only paid for half the cost of the war this year.

Therefore, I think that what the gentlewoman from California is trying to do is infinitely reasonable; it is certainly prudent and fiscally responsible, and it produces a product that every soldier fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan today has a right to see produced. They have a right to know that they are not in an open-ended mess. They have a right to know that we know what we are doing. They have a right to know that we will have some idea of how to gauge whether what we are doing is productive or counterproductive. Right now, we are simply flying blind.

I congratulate the gentleman from Virginia for offering the original language on the supplemental. This is a follow-up to that in a simplified version, but it aims at the same thing. It says, ``Mr. President, tell us how you are going to determine whether this policy is a success or not. Quit the bull gravy. Give us specifics, not generalized platitudes which the Congress has been getting on this subject for the last 2 years.''

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

Mr. Chairman, I have spent a lot of time not just this session, but in the two previous sessions of this Congress fighting for additional funding for law enforcement assistance grants. I take a back seat to no one in my interest in doing that. But I absolutely agree with virtually every word said by the subcommittee chairman the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), and by the ranking member the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan). I have spent over 30 years on the Labor- Health-Education subcommittee. One of our main concerns on that subcommittee is health research principally centered in the National Institutes of Health. Anyone from NIH will tell you that much of the progress that they have been able to make in the past 20 years has been rooted in the most basic of all scientific research, and a good deal of that research has been funded in the past by the National Science Foundation. If we cut back the National Science Foundation, we are eating our own seed corn, we are eroding the ability of this economy to grow, we are weakening the ability of this society to increase human knowledge, and we are weakening our efforts to improve health as well.

If you would take a look at our research budget today, at our basic research budget, we are spending a smaller percentage of our national income on basic research today than we have been spending at any time since those numbers have been kept. We do not want to weaken that even more.

I would also point out that in the area of health, if you take a look at the issue of three-dimensional imaging, that has been greatly enhanced by basic research done under contract with the National Science Foundation. Research into materials, into changing materials that you can use for joints, for heart valves, much of that has originated in research financed by the National Science Foundation. Eye surgery has been refined to a great extent by what we have learned under the auspices of the National Science Foundation.

I applaud the gentleman from New York in wanting to increase funding for the COPS program. I think it is outrageous that we have seen these long-term reductions. But if we do cut back on the National Science Foundation, we not only threaten the health of America's citizens, we threaten the health of America's economic system as well. I think this is one of those examples where this agency does not have a lot of political support, but it is absolutely imperative that we step in and see to it that we make the advances that are possible with decent levels of funding.

I yield to the gentleman from New York.

I understand. But the gentleman, among other things, is cutting into their education programs. This country is on the edge of being scientifically illiterate. We cannot afford to cut back science education in one classroom, in one university, in one corporation. We have got to have it all, and we need to have much more than we have right now.

If I can take back my time, I understand that. That is why I had an amendment yesterday to add $400 million to local law enforcement. The majority rejected that. I had another amendment adding $200 million to local law enforcement.

My position in favor of the COPS program is clear. My brother-in-law is a former district attorney who was shot. I have no less concern about law enforcement than the gentleman from New York. But the National Science Foundation and all of its ancillary programs, especially its education programs, are crucial to the future health

of this country. It would be mindless to pass this amendment.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to ask the gentleman from Georgia a question. In his opening statement, he indicated how many times, or how many waivers had been provided. In the gentleman's statement he indicated the number of waivers that this rule provided.

I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I thought I heard the gentleman say something like 40.

But the committee has provided a number of waivers?

I thank the gentleman.

Let me just say, then, Mr. Speaker, that is why I intend to oppose the previous question and the rule on this bill, because the Committee on Rules did some picking and choosing. They provided waivers to the rules when they wanted to, and they did not when they did not want to.

As a result, they have tried to block my ability to offer the amendment that was our number one priority on the minority side of the aisle, which is to restore the funding for the local law enforcement grants and to restore the cuts in EPA that were made by simply reducing the size of the tax cut that persons making $1 million a year or more will get in this country by $2,000.

That would mean instead of getting $140,000 tax cut this year, a millionaire would have to settle for $138,000. I know there are many Members on the majority side of the aisle who get irritated when I keep bringing up this trade-off, but the fact is that the wealthiest one- thousandth of 1 percent of our citizens have seen their share of the national income double since 1980. The bottom 90 percent of earners in this economy have seen their share of income fall. The 400 most well- off taxpayers in this country make at least $87 million a year. Those earning $10 million per year pay a smaller share of their income in taxes than those making $100,000 a year. Meanwhile, while the upper crust is having a high old time, the folks in the middle are struggling. They struggle to pay unexpected bills. It is harder for them to send their kids to college. It is harder for local communities to provide needed services. Law enforcement services are being cut back.

The previous speaker mentioned what is happening to our antimeth programs around the country. I think it is important for the House to understand that, for instance, this bill has a substantial increase, over a billion dollars, for deep space programs, and yet since fiscal year 2001, local law enforcement programs have been cut by a billion dollars, and Economic Development Administration programs which are principally targeted to help small communities such as those I represent, that program has been cut by 50 percent since 2001.

I do not think that reflects the priorities of the American people. It certainly does not reflect the priorities of most people on this side of the aisle. So I am going to be voting against the previous question on the rule and the rule itself if there is a rollcall to protest the fact while the Committee on Rules has been magnanimous in providing many waivers, it has not provided a waiver for the key amendment that would enable us to restore needed funding for local law enforcement.

I do not believe the priorities represented by this committee's judgment represent the priorities of the American people. When the time comes, I will be offering whatever amendments I am allowed to offer under the rules to try to change those priorities.

The subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), is a very able Member, but he cannot perform a miracle without resources, and the allocation he was given are totally inadequate to the task at hand. The quality of America's law enforcement at the local level will suffer because of it.

Mr. Chairman, I note the majority leader's reference to morality. It is really interesting indeed to be lectured on morality by the majority leader, almost makes me laugh. But let me simply say one thing. We are here today with a bill brought by a fine Member of Congress, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), who does his dead level best to provide a fair allocation of money within the amount assigned to his subcommittee.

The problem is that because the majority party has already made its basic budget decisions, and it has made as its number one priority providing tax cuts including $140,000-a-year tax cuts for people making more than a million bucks, because of that, there is very little left on the table for any of the domestic programs. And so the majority is now bringing to the floor bills which are inadequate for education, inadequate for science, inadequate for health, inadequate for law enforcement.

Now, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the distinguished majority leader, objects to the amendment that I intend to offer. Let me tell you how we got here. Last year, the gentleman was unhappy because the funding for NASA was scaled back by the VA HUD subcommittee in order to provide more room, in order to provide more money for housing, and to provide more money for veterans care. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) did not like that arrangement, so he abolished that subcommittee because the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) is from Houston and he wanted an exception to the rule that required everybody else to have their pet programs squeezed except him. So he abolished the subcommittee.

Instead, he rearranged the jurisdiction of the subcommittee. So now, NASA is in competition, not with housing, not with veterans health care. Now NASA is in competition with local law enforcement. So you have got a $500 million increase in this account for NASA, and it is paid for by a $400 million cut in local law enforcement.

My first choice was to go to the Rules Committee and ask them to allow me to offer an amendment to scale back the size of the tax cut for those making a million dollars or more a year by $2,000. That means those poor devils are going to have to get by with a $138,000 tax cut next year. The majority party denied that. They force me now to look for other sources within the bill. So what I have done is to look at the places where this bill has increased over last year, because local law enforcement, since 2001, has been cut by a billion dollars. And so what the amendment does, it says let us scale back our plans to go to Mars by 2030 and instead make as a higher priority providing better law enforcement for grandma and grandpa back home. That is what we are trying to do. I make no apology for it.

If the majority leader does not like the fact that we had to go to NASA to take the money out in order to fund local law enforcement, he has only himself to blame because he reorganized the subcommittees in the first place to create this jurisdictional trade-off. If the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) does not like the result, he ought to look in the mirror.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I believe the House is familiar with this amendment. I have offered similar amendments a number of times. It does go straight to the question of our national priorities.

Let me take a little broader view than just this year. If we look at some of the reductions in this bill, and just look at the 1-year reductions, such as we have here in EDA or such as we have in law enforcement, the 1-year reductions do not look too bad, but if we take a look at what happened to these programs since fiscal year 2001, we see that we still have a deep reduction in some of these activities. For example, the State and local law enforcement grants have been cut by $1 billion over that time. There is no way that we cannot have an effect on local law enforcement by having cuts of that magnitude over that period of time.

The same is true with EDA. There are many urban districts who do not care much about EDA, but my district, I do not have a city over 37,000. Small cities like that cannot hire a bunch of

fancy grant writers. They need all of the help they can get to compete for Federal money for job creation, and the Economic Development Administration, EDA, tries to provide that.

What this amendment would simply do is to try to restore the $410 million cut by the committee for local law enforcement grants and increase funding for EDA by $53 million, restoring that cut, and it would simply pay for that cut by reducing the size of the tax cut this House has previously approved for persons who make over $1 million. It would simply reduce that tax cut by $2,000. So instead of getting on average a $140,000 tax cut, they would get a $138,000 tax cut. It is hardly draconian, but it would help take care of a significant national priority.

I know that taxes are under the jurisdiction of the Committee on Ways and Means, but the fact is that because the Committee on Ways and Means jurisdiction was placed first in terms of a priority by the Committee on the Budget, that means every time we have a tax cut paid for with borrowed money, you wind up putting an additional squeeze on deserving appropriated programs, including local law enforcement.

This amendment tries to correct that imbalance to a very small degree. I would urge support for the amendment.

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

Point of Order

Mr. Chairman, as I understand the rules under which this bill is brought to the floor, this amendment would be in order if no Member of the House chooses to lodge a point of order against it.

My understanding of the rule that the committee reported is that it has waived the rules for numerous provisions that were placed in the bill by the majority party. It is hard for me to imagine that the House would feel comfortable in not providing that same courtesy to this amendment.

I would also suggest that what I am trying to do by this amendment is to do a favor for the majority leader, because he does not want us to have to cut into NASA in order to fund this restoration for law enforcement grants. If he allows this amendment to go forward, if no Member of the majority party lodges a point of order against this amendment, then we can restore the badly needed funds for local law enforcement without having to go after some of the increases in the majority leader's favorite program.

I would urge the House to do a favor for the majority leader by not lodging a point of order against this amendment. If they do that, we could proceed to restore badly needed funds.

I would concede, Mr. Chairman, that if any individual Member does lodge a point of order, I would have to concede the point of order, but I would hope that a point of order would not be offered, or if it has already been offered, I would hope that it would be withdrawn as a special favor to the majority leader.

Mr. Chairman, I concede the point of order.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I think my admiration for the subcommittee chairman is well known. I think he does a great job for his district and for this House, but we have been placed in a very tough position because of the priorities that were laid out by the budget resolution adopted by this House earlier this year.

Because of those priorities, we are faced today with the necessity for a trade-off. What has happened in this bill over the last 4 years is that State and local law enforcement grants have been cut by almost a billion dollars. They are cut from last year to this year by $410 million in this bill. I am simply trying by this amendment to restore half of that money, restore $200 million. Half would go into the COPS program, half into the Justice Assistance Grant program, and we would pay for that, in contrast to another amendment that I understand a Member may offer, which would pay for it by going after basic science programs in the National Science Foundation. This amendment would not do that. I think we need to put more money in science, not less.

What this amendment would do, and I offer it reluctantly because I would have preferred the first amendment, but the action of the majority party requires me to go to this option.

What this amendment does is to say we should scale back the $500 million increase in the account that contains the Moon and Mars mission by $200 million in order to pay for this law enforcement assistance. Of that $200 million, $160 million would be taken from Project Prometheus. NASA, the agency in charge, still has not been able to identify a relevant mission for the funds in that account. The planning is certainly not ripe, and so what we are saying in essence is since this is a pilot mission which would take place roughly around the year 2020 or 2030, what we are saying instead is for the moment we ought to put more money into law enforcement to help buttress law enforcement in our local communities, and we can on another day decide where we can get the money for Project Prometheus so that sometime 20 or 25 years from now, we can use nuclear-powered craft to go to Mars. I do not think it is even a close choice, and I would ask for an aye vote.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan).

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

Mr. Chairman, I think I am hearing a different amendment being debated. The fact is this amendment does not cut our core sciences. The President's budget is the one that squeezed those programs. This amendment does nothing of the kind. This amendment is very simple. This bill before us has increased the account that contains the Moon to Mars mission which is a mission that is going to occur 25 years in the future. This bill raises that account by half a billion dollars, $500 million. It is paid for by cutting $400 million out of local law enforcement. All I am suggesting is that we take $200 million of that back and give it to the local law enforcement agencies so we have a better balance between the two programs.

I do not like the fact that we have to cut these programs. I would have preferred to do it the other way. But the majority party blocked me from doing that. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) took the floor a while earlier crying about the fact that we were trying to cut the NASA budget. We are not trying to cut the NASA budget. The committee has cut the law enforcement budget. It has increased the NASA budget. We are simply trying to modify the increase to some degree in order to save local law enforcement.

If the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) does not like the trade-off, then he ought to look in the mirror because he is the fellow who required it.

Earlier we had a different jurisdiction of this subcommittee, but the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) did not like the fact that last year the subcommittee took money out of NASA in order to fund other programs including housing and veterans' health care. So he rearranged the jurisdiction of the committees; so now it means that NASA is in competition with local law enforcement. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) has given us no place to go.

So the choice is simple. If Members want to pay for a $500 million increase in a mission to Mars that is going to take place 25 years from now, if they want to pay for that by cutting back local law enforcement, then vote against the amendment. If they do not, then vote for it.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, and I do not intend to object, but under my reservation I want to simply take note of the fact that as I see the situation, counting the votes we have had today, if every amendment is offered tomorrow, there would have been 22 amendments offered and voted upon that originated from the minority side and 21 that originated from the majority side.

If you count the debate time just for the amendments that are going to be offered tomorrow, it appears that you have at least 7\1/2\ hours of debate time; and if you account for slippage and the time consumed in voting, I assume that that means it will take at least 10 hours to finish the bill. I think that makes it very difficult to finish tomorrow, if the schedule holds for tomorrow.

So I would simply note that to me that indicates that there is apparently as much discontent on the majority side with the consequences of the budget resolution on programs in this bill, including especially the squeeze on local law enforcement assistance, there is as much discontent on that side of the aisle as there is on this side of the aisle.

I would note that the membership on both sides of the aisle has been extremely cooperative in reaching time agreements, and yet we have a bill that could very possibly take fully 2 days and perhaps even a portion of the third day to finish. I think that ought to send a message with respect to the inadequacy of funding on the part of a number of these programs because of the budget resolution priorities.

Further reserving the right to object, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I would point out if that is the case, we are probably going to be here until 8 or 9 o'clock.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. Speaker, this Congress is owned lock, stock and barrel by the pharmaceutical industry. That was made obvious on passage of the so-called Medicare drug benefit last year when the majority party rammed through this place, after a 3-hour wait, a provision which prevented the Federal Government from negotiating with the drug industry to require lower drug prices under the Medicare program.

Another piece of evidence of the ownership of this Congress by that industry is the fact that this House will not be voting today on an amendment that would give the FDA the enhanced ability to change the label on drugs that have already been approved if later studies demonstrate that those labels need to be changed.

I had a member of my family who almost died because of Vioxx. She took that drug at the suggestion of a doctor, and it virtually ruined her liver. She does not drink alcohol, and yet when the doctor examined her he told her that she effectively had the liver of a 65-year-old chronic alcoholic because of what Vioxx had done to her.

It took 14 months for the FDA to be able to change Vioxx labeling.

Any Congress with any guts whatsoever would have had on this floor a long time ago legislation to give FDA that authority, but that is a big money lobby, and they sure pass it around. Last year, they had 500 lobbyists telling this Congress what to do on the Medicare prescription drug bill. They may as well have had a baby-sitter for every Member of Congress. That is how many lobbyists they had running around Capitol Hill.

On that bill on that issue, instead of being the greatest legislative body in the world, Capitol Hill was effectively a trash heap.

I intend to vote for this bill because I think the chairman has done a reasonable job with limited resources, but I do not intend to vote for this rule if there is a rollcall because I think this rule should have made the Hinchey amendment in order. It is about time that this institution and the President of the United States starts talking about and dealing with issues that the American people care about, rather

than issues that we care about in terms of our internal operations, such as the filibuster in the Senate or these other nonsense issues that are really inside baseball.

Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to get that off my chest so in case there is a rollcall on the rule, Members will know why I voted against it.

I also want to raise one other point. We are not starting on the bill itself until some time after 12. We had other filler on the floor here today before we got to this appropriations bill. There are 11 must-pass bills a session, all of them appropriation bills. We have been asked on the minority side of the aisle, even though we regard most of those bills as being inadequate, we have been asked to provide procedural cooperation in order to facilitate the ability of the majority to do the House's work, and we have provided that procedural cooperation. But I have to say I get very frustrated when we are told that the Committee on Appropriations has to be prepared to work until 10 or 11 tonight because you have certain Members of Congress off on a golfing tournament this morning and early this afternoon.

I resent the fact that there are not going to be any votes until after 2 so a few of our colleagues can go off and golf while we are here trying to slog through the 11 appropriation bills that have to pass before this Congress can adjourn. I do not raise that fact because I am a lousy golfer, although I am. I raise that fact simply because sooner or later it would be nice if this place puts the public's business first and puts appropriation bills first rather than dragging in other legislation that is put on the floor simply to delay the time before the Committee on Appropriations gets to the amendment stage of its bills.

So, with all due respect, I will vote for this bill, but I think the process by which we have gotten to this bill is a sorry one.

Mr. Chairman, as I indicated earlier, I intend to vote for this bill because I think the gentleman from Texas has done a reasonable job, given the limitations placed on him by the budget resolution.

Having said that, I do not want anyone to think that I am enthusiastic about the result. I am not. I think that after we pass this bill today the Food and Drug Administration will still be left with inadequate authority to protect the public health from dangerous drugs. The FDA will still have a terrible time trying to provide new labels for drugs which had been initially approved but which later had been found to be, in some cases, a threat to public health. This Congress has an obligation to fix that. It is being prevented from fixing that by the rule that passed earlier today.

Secondly, I want to say that I think the bill is inadequate in a number of areas. I think that with respect to having a full-fledged animal identification program to help protect the public health against problems like Mad Cow disease, I think that the funding for that is inadequate.

I certainly think that funding for rural sewer and water is grossly inadequate. There is probably more demand in my district for rural sewer and water grants than any other program in the Federal budget. When one lives in a community in which more than 50 percent of the households are headed either by someone over 65 or by a woman who has no long work history outside of the home, that means that that community has very little tax base and very little economic ability to meet environmental standards for water and sewer, and the Congress is doing precious little to help those communities.

I think we are also very negligent with respect to rural housing, and I think that this bill is totally inadequate with respect to International Food Aid.

There are a number of other concerns I have about it. But those are the main ones that I would focus on at this moment.

I will vote for the bill because I think the major fault for the inadequacies of the bill lies with the Committee on the Budget, not with the gentleman who produced the bill. But I think Members need to understand this bill is not adequate to meet the economic development needs of rural America. It is not adequate to meet the environmental needs of rural America. It is not adequate to meet the public health requirements of the American people. I wish it were. Maybe some day it will.

Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, I have no problem with the time limit, but I would not want a time limit that boxed the minority out of control of any time.

Mr. Chairman, could the gentleman split the time in opposition to the amendment in two?

Mr. Chairman, I have no objection.

Mr. Chairman, I simply want to rise in support of the gentleman's amendment. There is no earthly reason why consumers should not know where their food is coming from, and I would hope the House would pass the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to be heard on the point of order.

Mr. Chairman, it is hard for me to believe that the rules of this House do not help ensure that the people we represent can trust their government. It is hard for me to believe that the rules of the House would mean that this House can busy itself telling other people how they should deal with end-of-life issues for dear ones, telling independent courts that they should not be quite so independent, and yet would not allow the supposedly greatest legislative body in the world to deal with a direct obligation of government, which is to ensure the public safety of the American people.

This amendment would be in order if no Member objects to it. The Committee on Rules, as I understand, when they passed out the rule from the Committee on Rules, they did not protect this amendment under the rule. That does not mean that it cannot be considered by the House. The House can only avoid dealing with this issue if a Member chooses to block the House from acting on it.

Mr. Chairman, I would urge the gentleman from Texas to withdraw his point of order so that we can vote on this most crucial issue. But if the gentleman does not withdraw his motion, then I would, reluctantly, as I am sure would the sponsor of the amendment, have to concede the point of order.

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

Mr. Chairman, I simply want to express my pleasure with the gentleman raising the issue of animal identification. I would simply like to say that I, for one, believe that we are not moving ahead on this matter nearly fast enough. We need a national program. We need to get to 48- hour track-back as soon as possible, and we should be doing everything possible to move USDA forward.

We have a pilot project on this issue going on in Wisconsin which appears to be very successful, but I am afraid that there is much more foot-dragging than we can afford on this issue. I would simply say that I would hope that both the USDA and the Congress would become much more aggressive than it has been so far in establishing a truly effective national animal ID program, so that we can assure the consuming public that every bit of meat that is produced is in fact safe to eat. The sooner we do, the sooner we set up this kind of a system, the sooner every farmer, every rancher, and every consumer will be better off.

Sequential Votes Postponed in Committee of the Whole

Mr. Speaker, appropriation bills represent the legislation where we have a chance to put our money where our rhetoric is. On Veterans' Day, I would venture to say that virtually every Member of this House has gone home and spoken about how much we care for veterans, and I am sure on Memorial Day that many Members will be going home and they will put their hands over their hearts and say how much they respect veterans.

When wars start, we are very good at having the bands play. We are very good at having the crowds cheer. But all too often, when those veterans come home, they do not get the same treatment. They certainly did not during Vietnam. And I think the test of our concern for veterans is not the kind of speeches we give as we send them off to war. It is the kind of treatment we give them when they get home.

Now, we can brag all we want about the fact that this bill is a billion dollars above the President's for veterans health care. Fine. I am glad it is. But the fact is that still does not keep up with the cost of inflation. The fact is there are still waiting lists and waiting lines. The fact is that VA facilities are still badly in need of repair. The fact is we still do not do enough prosthesis research.

Next year, the VA expects to handle twice as many veterans as they did in 1995, and medical care inflation is twice the rate of inflation in the regular economy.

The reason this bill is so squeezed is because the budget resolution, which this House passed about a month ago, has imposed tight limits on this Congress's ability to fund veterans

health care and a number of other areas because the number one priority in that budget bill was tax cuts and we wound up guaranteeing to everybody who makes $1 million a year or more that they will take home a tax cut of $140,000 on average this year.

The amendment that I wanted the Committee on Rules to make in order was very simple. We simply wanted this House to reconsider that tax package and to shave that $140,000 average tax cut down to 129,000 bucks. I think every American would be very happy to settle for a $129,000 tax cut this year. If we simply shaved it down to 129,000 bucks for people making over 1 million bucks a year, we would be able to put $2.6 billion more into veterans health care.

In the past, this country has always thrived because it believed in the sense of shared sacrifice. How is the sacrifice being shared today? We are asking those who wear the uniform of the United States, whether they be regular forces or Guard or Reserves, we are asking them to bear the full burden of our effort in Iraq and Afghanistan. And what burden are we asking the folks to bear here at home? We are saying, ``Oh, they have got to sacrifice by taking a tax cut.'' What we are asking is that we adjust that sense of shared sacrifice so that we shave the benefits for people who are already the most blessed in this society, we shave their tax benefits by just a little bit in order to make just a little bit more room for veterans health care. And I make no a apology for trying to do that.

I believe that we need to remember Abraham Lincoln's admonition in the second inaugural address: ``To care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan.'' This Congress has taken some initiatives to do that this year. But it is not enough. I plead fully guilty to wanting to have health care for every single American. I think it is a mortal sin that there are 45 million Americans who do not have health care coverage, but at the very least, we ought to see to it that every person who wears the uniform of the United States has whatever health care they need whenever they need it.

We do not worry about how much a war is going to cost when we start one or when we get into one. We pay the cost. We should also not worry about how much it is going to cost to provide adequate health care for people who fight that war. Whatever they need is what we ought to provide, and there is not a Member in this House who can demonstrate that this bill is fully adequate. Is it better than the President's budget? Of course. Anything would be. But it is not enough, and we have tried to show a way for us to provide more funding for veterans without doing serious damage to anybody else's interests in this country.

And I would hope we would turn down the previous question so that we have a chance to offer that amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Melancon).

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I simply want to say that I congratulate the gentleman for offering this amendment. I would say that I greatly respect the chairman of the subcommittee, but I disagree with the implication of one thing that he said. He is evidently suggesting that because of a difference in outlay rates between these two accounts, that we would not get the full amount in the amendment, or that the full amount in the amendment would not be immediately made available for the purposes of the amendment.

I would simply point out that whether it is $79 million being redirected or $53 million being redirected, it is still better than nothing.

I would also say that BRAC is going to go on for a long, long time. We have no idea how much money we are going to need for BRAC, and this Congress will be adjusting what it provides for BRAC many times over, the next 7 or 8 or 9 years. But the fact is that the troops coming home now need these services now. I do not think that anyone believes that either the budget amount or the amount in the committee is fully sufficient, given the needs of the troops.

So I would urge a ``yes'' vote on the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, let me simply explain the amendment.

As I discussed earlier, under existing law given the tax cuts that the Congress has passed this year, persons making a million dollars or more will on average get a tax cuts of $140,000. Meanwhile, we have a significant squeeze on veterans funding.

Very briefly, my amendment would simply scale back the size of those tax cuts from $140,000 to $129,000. It would use the $2.6 billion saved by that action to add funding to a number of accounts for veterans health care. It would add $1.5 billion more for medical services for returning veterans. It would add $500 million more for increased medical administrative costs. It would add $300 million to keep the VA medical facilities up and running by refurbishing them. It would add $67 million for VA medical and prosthetic research; $201 million to build medical clinics and long-term care facilities; and $37 million for general administrative costs to assist veterans in receiving the prompt attention they deserve.

As has been indicated, the rule that was adopted precludes this amendment from being, or I should put it this way, the rule that is offered makes this amendment subject to a point of order. That means that it cannot be considered unless a point of order is not lodged against it.

I would hope that the majority would not lodge a point of order against it so that we might adjust so very slightly the tax cut for those who are already the most fortunate people in our society economically, and allow this money to be added for veterans health care.

I do not want to take any more of the House's time. I would simply urge an ``aye'' vote in the event that a point of order is not lodged against the amendment.

Point of Order

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, the purpose of the Budget Act, when it was passed several decades ago, was to force Congress to make trade-offs between different spending programs and between revenues and spending. The problem is that the way the Budget Act is being used these days, instead of forcing the Congress to face those trade-offs, the process is being segmented, thereby enabling the House to avoid facing those trade-offs.

I think that is unfortunate because it prevents the House from making value judgments that would put veterans' health care, for instance, higher in our value structure than a $140,000 tax cut for somebody making $1 million.

I cannot deny that under the rules of the House, as they are being pursued under the Budget Act, this amendment is not in order. And so, Mr. Chairman, I regretfully concede the point of order.

Mr. Chairman, as Members of this House know, when I have objections to the content of a bill, I am not shy in stating them. There are certainly portions of this bill with which I do not agree, but I want to say that it is very unusual and it is a very pleasant experience to see a piece of legislation brought to the floor which is not so much a product of politics as it is a product of legislative craftsmanship. I think that is the case with this bill.

I think that the gentleman from Ohio and the gentleman from Indiana working together in an absolutely bipartisan fashion have produced a bill which is obviously based on some intellectual decisions about how to approach problems rather than being based simply on political judgments, and that means that this place is performing as it should perform. It is not just being a political institution; it is also being a legislative institution. That is happening in no small measure because of the leadership of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hobson).

That does not mean that I do not think this bill does not fall short in some areas. I think that the budget resolution has made it impossible for this committee to do a number of things that it ought to be doing in the area of energy research. Lord knows, that is important these days with rising gas prices and all of the rest; but I just want to say in my view, despite those shortcomings, this bill demonstrates that good government is good politics.

The gentleman has brought to the floor a bill which is extremely responsible in terms of the way it deals with the nuclear weapons issues that were referenced by the gentleman from Indiana. It is an extremely bipartisan product. While I have feelings about nuclear power that are very different than some other Members in this Chamber, I want to say I think the gentleman has produced, with the assistance of the gentleman from Indiana, a very responsible bill; and I fully intend to support it.

I hope as the process goes along we will wind up having more resources to deal with some of the problems that are shortchanged. But with that exception, I do not think we can ask for a better legislative product; and as someone who appreciates the traditions of this House, I want to extend my personal gratitude to the gentleman from Ohio for his contribution in making this the fine product that it is.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, I will be voting against the previous question on the rule, and after the bill is considered, unless it is substantially changed, I will be intending to vote against the bill itself for a variety of reasons.

My main reason is this bill represents gross negligence of our responsibility to clean up the Nation's air and water pollution. This bill provides huge cuts, 40 percent cuts over a 2-year period in the clean water revolving fund. If there is any Member of this Chamber who has a district that does not have a community that needs more loans to fix their sewer and water problems, would you please raise your hand. I would like to see one Member who thinks that they have enough money.

I note no Member of the House present has raised his hand.

Mr. Speaker, I would say there is a great deal of hypocrisy surrounding the budget process. Every time that those of us on this side of the aisle point to the shortcomings in the budget that the Republican majority has just passed, we hear, ``Well, we can't do anything about these shortages in the appropriation bills because, after all, we have limited resources.''

The gentleman who just spoke, the gentleman from Utah, said the appropriations process, quote, ``should prioritize our needs.'' I fully agree.

That is what I wanted to be able to try to do by offering an amendment which this rule would preclude me from offering. Because what I wanted to do is to change the judgment, change the priority judgment that the majority party made when they decided it was more important to give a $140,000 tax cut to someone who makes a million bucks this year, they decided that was more important, that was a higher priority, than cleaning up our air or cleaning up our water. I do not think that represents the priority choice that the American people would make but it is the priority choice that the majority party has made.

The only way that we can change that priority judgment is by offering the amendment that I wanted to offer, which would have scaled back the size of those tax cuts for anybody making a million dollars a year or more. It would have scaled back those average tax cuts from $140,000 to $138,000. Imagine those poor souls having to get by with a tax cut of only $138,000. I remind you, those are people who make more than a million dollars.

I do not begrudge, I do not denigrate in any way people who have managed to strike it rich and who are managing to make a million dollars a year. I hope everybody in this country at some point in their lives can do that. But I do believe that people who are the most blessed in our society ought to pay their fair share and the budget resolution which was imposed on this committee by this House does not allow us to reach that kind of fair distribution of tax burden.

So if we object to that what I regard to be not just ill-advised but immoral allocation of resources, the only device that we have to try to change that is to try to make our point on each of these appropriation bills trying to get the majority party to understand that just as they reconsidered their unilateral actions on Ethics Committee changes a couple of weeks ago, we would also like them to reconsider their poor judgment on the budget resolution.

Because the Rules Committee would not allow that amendment, I am going to vote against the previous question, and I am going to vote against the bill because the bill is grossly negligent in dealing with the air and water pollution problems facing this country. I am also not at all thrilled by the fact that for the first time in all the years I have been in Congress there will not be a single dollar provided for land acquisition programs. The gentleman may not want it in his State, but there are key tracts of land that we want the government to acquire in my State, there are key tracts of land we want the government to acquire, for instance, at George Washington's birthplace before real estate developers destroy that beauty for all time.

I am an old real estate broker, so I have nothing against real estate developers but I do not think they ought to be able to get their gloms on the most pristine land in this country and turn it into a shopping mall when we have our population increase by one-third since I came to this body and when we have an increased need for resources that the average family can enjoy.

But most of all the biggest problem with this bill is that it walks away from our obligation to help State and local governments clean up some of the dirtiest rivers and dirtiest lakes in the country. It walks away from our responsibility to prevent communities like Milwaukee from dumping their surplus sewage into Lake Michigan every time there is a storm. That is an outrageous neglect of our stewardship responsibilities. I think this bill makes it even easier to ignore those responsibilities, and I think that is a disgraceful act.

Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Let me simply say that I think the chairman has produced a fair process. He has treated the minority fairly and I very much appreciate that, but I believe the bill fails this country in many fundamental ways, and that failure is a direct result of the Republican budget resolution which requires this committee to cut $11.7 billion below the amount needed to maintain current services for domestic discretionary programs.

As the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the majority leader, said 2 weeks ago, ``This is the budget that the American people voted for when they returned a Republican House, a Republican Senate and a Republican White House last November.'' I think that is true. This is exactly what it means.

The Republicans in this House voted by a vote of 218 to 212 to adopt that budget resolution. Not one single Democrat voted for that budget resolution, because we recognized the damage that would be done by it. Now, we are told by Members of the majority side we have limited resources. We absolutely agree with that.

That is why this House should never have voted to eliminate all taxes on estates of over $7 million. It should never have voted to give persons who make more than a million dollars $140,000 tax cuts next year and do it all with borrowed money because the result of that vote has been a $400 million cut in EPA programs to improve the quality of our air and our water.

The result has been a 40 percent cut in the clean water revolving fund. We have $388 billion worth of needs at the community level to fix sewer and water systems; and yet this program is cut by 40 percent in this bill.

The damage done by this bill cannot be fully understood unless we take a look at it in a broader context. This is a great and growing country. When I came to this Congress, there were 203 million people in this country. Today, there are 282 million. That is a 34 percent increase. We are going to have another 26 million increase between now and 2010.

When I came, there were 108 million cars in America. Today, there are 231 million cars. That means more pollution. It means more congestion. It means more pressure on our national parks. It means more pressure on the part of real estate developers. It means more pressure on our sewer and water programs.

In the face of that new pressure, what are we getting out of this bill? We are getting a 34 percent reduction in the funding for the main bill that will help us to clean up our sewer and water problem. I think that is an incredibly myopic decision.

In the teeth of all of that pressure, we are crippling EPA.

We talk about how happy we are to see a slight increase in the national parks budget; but in fact, there are still 720 positions in the National Park Service that continue to remain unfunded. We have 200 of the 544 wildlife refuges that have no staff whatsoever.

In the teeth of all that expanded pressure, what do we get? Despite this bill, we still have a $5 billion backlog in maintenance for the Park Service, a $13 billion backlog for our national forests.

I would like to see, for instance, this bill enable us to buy precious land at Pope's Creek on the property where George Washington was born before a real estate developer can grab it and turn it into condos; but we are not going to be able to do that because this bill, for the first time in the 36 years I have been a Member of this House, zero-funds land acquisition programs at both the State and the Federal level. We ought not to do that.

For two generations, we have had a bipartisan consensus behind certain minimal actions in the environmental area, especially in the area of clean water. This bill unravels that consensus because it means we can talk a good game in terms of cleaning up our water and our air, but we are not going to put our dollars where our mouth is.

So I think, as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) says, ``This is the budget that the American people voted for when they returned a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and a Republican White House last November.'' If you are satisfied with the results of this bill today, vote for it. I intend to vote against it. I think it is a disaster for the environmental consensus that we have built up with such hard work for so long.

Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Madam Chairman, I do not want to rain on anybody's parade, but in a sense I do. What we have just witnessed here is our annual Kabuki dance on the question of the arts.

In the first years that the Republicans were in control, they wound up making a very large cut in the arts program. I offered an amendment in the Appropriations Committee to restore a portion of that cut and that amendment was adopted. But the majority exercised its power in the Rules Committee and when this bill went to the Rules Committee, the Rules Committee arbitrarily, unilaterally eliminated my amendment which had been adopted by the full committee. But then they proceeded to make the exact same amendment in order with one difference: that amendment was to be offered by a Republican, because the majority party wanted to have the issue both ways. They wanted to be able to tell their right- wing supporters that they had cut the devil out of the arts, yet they wanted to tell what few remaining moderates were left in their caucus that they could go home with a rollcall in their pocket bragging about the fact that a Republican had partially restored some of that funding. That maneuver was enough to give insincerity and hypocrisy a bad name.

And now what we have seen here today is, I hope, not a repetition of what we saw last year. Because last year, as was pointed out, we had an arts funding level which was $49 million below where it was at its high water mark, $100 million in real terms after adjusting for inflation below where it had been just a few years earlier.

An amendment was offered, $10 million. Liberals and progressives argued for it. Conservatives argued against it. The amendment was passed, added $10 million, everybody got to put out their press releases; and, guess what, when we wound up in conference with the

Senate, 80 percent of the money was stripped out of the bill. So the bill was left with a token $2 million increase.

I just have one observation. I would hope that if the House wants to demonstrate the slightest bit of sincerity on this issue, that having adopted this amendment, it will stick to it in conference so that something other than a phony Kabuki dance has taken place on the floor this year. I know that is quite a bit to expect given the hypocrisy that often accompanies conferences and given the penchant for so many Members of either body to try to pose for political holy pictures on some of these issues; but nonetheless I would like to express the vain hope that on occasion some sincerity will be displayed on this issue and that if the House adopts an amendment, it really means it.