Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I commend to the members of the House the following remarks by our former colleague Lee Hamilton:

Remarks Honoring Committee Staff Directors, July 17, 2003

It is my pleasure to say a few words in honor of the vital

role that you play as committee majority and minority staff

directors in the House.

Let me thank Ron Sarasin for that kind introduction, and

Ron and Susie Dicks for their work in helping preserve and

enhance our understanding of this magnificent Capitol. I

often thought how fortunate I was to be able to work in this

magnificent Capitol complex.

Let me also thank them and many of you here tonight for

making this dinner possible with your support.

The contributions of staff directors to the work of the

Congress are immeasurable. I am reasonably confident that

every committee Chairman and Ranking Member would say they

simply could not do their work without your leadership. I

hope that gives each of you a full measure of satisfaction.

I want to talk for a few minutes about the role of the

Congress in this country, the importance of politicians, and

why your efforts are so important and worthwhile.

Public Attitudes Towards Congress

You are, of course, familiar with those who are cynical

about your work and the work of Congress. The brightest wits

in American life have had their fun at the expense of the

Congress.

H.L. Mencken said that, ``with the right pressure,

Congressmen would cheerfully be in favor of polygamy,

astrology or cannibalism.''

Mark Twain said, ``suppose you were an idiot, and suppose

you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.''

Will Rogers said that, ``Congress was a never-ending source

of amusement, amazement, and discouragement.'' Even so, we

honor him with that magnificent statue just off the House

floor.

We have all seen surveys like those showing that 66 percent

of Americans can name the hosts of various game shows, while

only 6 percent can name the Speaker of the House.

When I was a Member, I was never particularly disturbed by

such survey results. After all, Americans are busy people

with many demands on their time, and it is not easy to put in

a full day's work and then read an article about Congress or

turn on C-Span to watch the House or Senate in session.

Nor was I bothered by the barbs--after all, we have to

appreciate that the bashing of Congress is one of America's

all time favorite indoor sports.

What did bother me, though, was the extent to which people

do not understand or appreciate some of the basic concepts

that

underlie the workings of the Congress, and the role that

Congress plays in the life of our representative democracy.

Even if Americans don't know the name of their senators or

representative, they should know something about the

importance of what they do to make the country work. Even if

they don't know the players or the details of the legislative

process, they should know something about how they relate to

our system of government. If too many Americans get those

concepts wrong, it does matter to the health of our

democracy.

Role of the Congress and Committees

In my experience, far too few Americans really understand

the most important function of the Congress. It is not, in my

view, to pass any particular piece of legislation, or even a

budget--but its historic mission is to maintain freedom.

The great phrases ring through our history--``We the

people,'' ``consent of the governed,'' ``a more perfect

union.'' These aren't just technical terms of political

science. They are words that embody America's civic faith.

You and I, above all others, are expected to know them in our

bones, and to apply these grand concepts.

We rely on elected representatives to identify, sort out,

and solve the difficult issues of state. It did not have to

be this way. Our country would be vastly different if the

Founders had placed power in the hands of a single ruler, or

given much less voice to the American people.

In the Congress, Americans have a forum for debate and

deliberation in which they can feel a stake. Traditional

lawmaking is not just a nicety--it's a necessity if we're to

remain a democracy. The lawmaking process allows us to

resolve differences, and to live together peacefully,

productively and successfully.

Most Americans may be familiar with the diagram of how a

bill becomes a law. Whenever I see those charts I think to

myself how sterile they are. They do not convey the

dynamics--the frustration, the excitement, the complexity and

the necessity of the process.

Very few Americans understand that the details of this

process of deliberation guarantee that their voices are

heard, and freedom is protected.

I worry that astute legislators often bypass steps in the

lawmaking process, arguing--in effect--that the ends justify

the means. This ``unconventional lawmaking'' is increasingly

applied to important legislation. But in doing this we bypass

and put at risk the very democratic process that defines our

system.

My view is that important proposals should not bypass the

traditional process, including the committee review, because

that is one important place where deliberation takes place.

That's where Members and staff can ask the hard questions.

Committees provide expertise, and an opportunity to consider

the merits and smooth out the problems in proposals. This is

where we build consensus.

Some Americans feel that the legislative procedure is too

slow and deliberative--they are annoyed by what they perceive

as inside-the-Beltway scuffling, and wonder why Congress

can't get things done faster.

But do we really want a speedy system in which laws are

pushed through before alternatives are considered and

consensus developed? We misunderstand Congress' role if we

demand it be a model of efficiency and quick action.

Our Founders designed a system in which all new proposals

get careful scrutiny by going through many layers of review.

They were far less interested in moving good ideas

efficiently, than they were in preventing bad ideas from

becoming the law of the land in the heat of the moment.

People may sometimes complain about the process, but they

benefit from its legislative speed bumps when they want their

views heard, their interests protected, and their rights

safeguarded.

As former Speaker Sam Rayburn used to say: ``One of the

wisest things ever said was, `Wait a minute.' '' That--in a

phrase--is the essential role played by Congressional

committees.

Importance of Politicians

Democracy--after all--is a process, not a product. And what

our democracy really needs is more politicians.

That was one line I used to say that was sure to get a

reaction. Very few of my constituents agreed.

Showing skill as a politician has come to mean

demonstrating the ability to raise campaign funds, engaging

in the tit-for-tat of negative advertising, jockeying for

public support based on polls and focus groups, or skewering

an opponent with a one-liner during a televised debate.

People have come to view the word politician--particularly

with regard to the Congress--with disdain. Plenty of voters

feel that politicians sell-out their beliefs and promises.

``Stick to your guns,'' they urge.

But controversy and conflict are unavoidable in a nation as

large and diverse as ours--a diversity that is rightly

represented in the peoples' House. To avoid ripping apart at

the seams, our country needs people who know how to

accommodate different points of view and work for common

solutions--it needs politicians.

You are an essential part of this effort. By working behind

the scenes, knowing what Members want, proposing compromises,

addressing all the difficult details of legislation, and

dealing with all the worthy groups wanting contradictory

things, you--as well as your bosses--have to be politicians

in order to keep our democracy running.

Being a Good Politician

For the most part, people don't pay attention to how their

hopes, dreams and ambitions are turned into public policy

through the lawmaking process. Most citizens and journalists

take that very political process for granted. They shouldn't.

Constituents often asked my position on a substantive

issue. I don't think anyone inquired about my political

skills--and, in this world, political skills are essential to

get things done.

The key to being an effective legislator or staffer is

respecting that system and figuring out how to make it work.

So what political skills do you need? Does a Member need?

First, you know how to consult, particularly with your

colleagues--talking to them, listening to them, making sure

they feel they are in the loop. Support for ideas is largely

built one-on-one, but also in larger forums. Key

individuals--inside and outside of the Congress--have their

own ideas and valid concerns, and they expect to be able to

share them.

Lyndon Johnson had his own way of putting this with a sign

he had in his Senate office: ``You ain't learning nothing

when you're talking.''

Second, you calm--rather than inflame--discussions of

controversial issues. Things can get pretty heated in the

Congress, and disagreement is inevitable in a House as large

and diverse as ours. It is relatively easy to make a bad

situation worse. One thing that I'm certain of is that you

cannot produce good legislation in a bad atmosphere--you can

produce heat in such an environment, but not light.

Third, you know how to persuade. It takes an enormous

amount of persuasion to build a majority in support of an

idea. You all know how much persuasion is involved in getting

approval of even a modest piece of legislation. You have to

line up support and be in touch with sometimes hundreds of

individuals from both parties, in the Congress and outside

the Congress.

Fourth, you must be willing to share credit. I remember

former Speaker Tip O'Neill putting his arm around me and

giving me some advice as we walked down the hall. ``Neil,''

he said--he called me Neil for my first decade in Congress

because I reminded him of a Boston baseball player named Neil

Hamilton. ``Neil, you can accomplish anything in this town if

you're willing to let someone else take the credit.''

Finally, you know how to compromise. Compromise is

essential to producing law in our system. Good politicians--

legislators and staff--are able to find points of agreement

that will allow a consensus to emerge. They will look for

solutions that allow both sides to claim--if not victory--at

least some gains.

Your skills are crucial in finding acceptable solutions.

Compromise might involve altering some key words; phasing in

a change; inserting a new provision; requiring a study;

splitting differences in funding; delaying or postponing

implementation of a section. You have to seek these

accommodations among rival interests because you know that it

is necessary to make the Congress--and country--work.

From my perspective, the ability to build consensus is

probably the most important single skill needed in the

Congress--by Members and staff. Any fool can blow a meeting

or discussion apart--it takes real political skill to bring

people together. That is why we need more politicians of your

skill these days--not fewer.

Why is it Worthwhile

Well, is this demanding, tedious process of passing

legislation worthwhile? You and I know well the frustrations:

As a Member, I always felt it was hard to keep on the right

side of the voter. When I was in my District, I heard

complaints that I wasn't spending enough time in Washington;

when I was in Washington, people said I was ignoring the home

folks and only paid attention to them during elections.

When I drove an old car in my District, people said it

looked like something a farmer would use for hauling trash;

when I got a new car, they said the lobbyists had gotten to

me.

When I wore an old suit, people said I had no class; when I

wore a new one, I was accused of going high-hat.

When I missed church, people said I was an atheist; when I

attended church, I was a pious fraud, trolling for votes in

church.

When Congress passed a lot of laws, we were a meddlesome

Congress; when we weren't passing laws, we were an

incompetent, do-nothing Congress ignoring the needs of the

country.

When we supported the president, people said we were a

rubber-stamp; when we opposed the president, we were disloyal

and obstructionist.

You can never please everyone when you are working in

Congress, no matter how many hours you put in, no matter how

skillful you are.

You all know too well what I'm talking about as staff

directors when I talk about the frustrations, among them:

committee meetings go on without end; the work is tedious,

requiring that you go over legislation comma by comma; you

are constantly running from one meeting or appointment to

another; your daily schedule is always being interrupted,

revised, or simply scrapped; if you have a family, you're

going to miss many important family events; and you cannot

plan ahead, whether for an evening off or for a vacation,

because some event or emergency always demands that Congress

stay in session longer than planned.

All the political posturing, sniping and scrambles to claim

credit for good things--or avoid blame for bad--sometimes

becomes disheartening, as does the constant maneuvering for

partisan advantage. And for putting up with all of this, you

get paid less than you could make in the private sector,

while facing harsh and frequent criticism.

Yet despite it all, most members run for reelection and

remain in Congress as long as they can. Most of you worked

long and hard to become a committee staff director.

Is it all worthwhile? Yes, of course it is.

Why? Let's be frank--some of it satisfies the ego. Some

like the power and the trappings of power--when you speak,

people listen, and that is very satisfying. But most of you,

I think, are truly motivated by the belief that, as hard as

it is, you can make a difference and enhance the lives of

ordinary Americans.

Then, too, it is all pretty exciting--and interesting. The

sheer challenge of public policy issues attracts us. There is

a pervasive sense on Capitol Hill that it is where the issues

of greatest importance to the nation are being sorted out.

This is where the action is. Sometimes this is misplaced, but

often it is not.

You struggle over the issues that aroused the passions of

this country's founding generation. How much power should the

federal government be given? How should powers be separated

among the branches? How do we resolve the tension between

encouraging individual liberty and security? What role should

our country play in the world?

These great issues are subject to debate every time a new

federal budget comes to a vote, or a major presidential

initiative gets introduced on Capitol Hill. When you start

working in Congress, you get a chance to take part in this

ongoing debate--our great experiment with democracy.

Your public service gives you a stimulating, proud and

lively career.

Conclusion

So I salute each of you for the vital role that you play

within this institution, and in your service to your fellow

Americans.

You are contributing to the success and direction of this

country. I hope you feel that by working in the Congress you

are given the unique opportunity to make a difference in the

lives of people and the great affairs of this Nation.

I would wager that no matter where your career takes you

from Capitol Hill, that you will look back on your public

service as the most rewarding of your career.

The work is hard, the recognition rare, the monetary reward

modest. But your reward is a deeply fulfilling life in public

service and a key role in American democracy. What more could

you want?

Mr. Speaker, we have just been told that this rule is an open rule. That is an absolutely meaningless statement. What the majority has done once again is to waive the rules of the House for the majority product, but then refuse to waive those same rules for amendments that the minority wishes to offer. In my view, that is a gutless way to legislate. It is an unfair way to legislate. It does discredit to this House and discredit to those who impose those kinds of rules.

And to suggest that this is an open rule, implying, somehow implying that this is business as usual, if this is business as usual, I think the American public would hang their heads when they understand it.

I am against this bill. I am against the previous question on the rule. I am against the rule itself. This bill is inadequate in a large number of ways. It is a joke in terms of what it does to Amtrak. It does not provide sufficient funding to keep Amtrak funded. And whether some people like it or not, we need a national Amtrak system.

Secondly, it virtually guarantees that enhancement projects which were a key in moving forward the transportation authorization bill the last time it was on the floor have now been gutted. And that means that municipalities are not going to have the opportunity for many of the enhancements they have had in the past. I think that is a mistake.

You have a weird sense of priorities expressed in the EITC precertification provision in this bill. The majority says, ``Oh, we ought to spend $100 million on more IRS enforcement to go after the poorest taxpayers in this society who take advantage of the EITC'', when you could use that same $100 million and go after noncompliance by large corporations and bring many times more dollars into the Treasury than you ever will by the EITC provision.

This provision in this bill is not here to save the taxpayers money. It is here for ideological reasons. The Republican majority for years supported the earned income tax credit as an alternative to the minimum wage increase. And now that there is no ``threat'' from a Republican Congress on raising the minimum wage, now they go after the only tax provision in the law to help the poorest taxpayers who ought to get a minimum wage increase but do not get it.

We also have the issue of Cuba. I am very much in support of the effort that the gentleman from Massachusetts will make because in my view existing U.S. policy toward Cuba is stupid, capital letter stupid. It is mindless, capital letter mindless. It is ineffective. All it does is give that two-bit dictator Castro in Cuba an excuse to point to somebody else for his island's troubles. Now, I do not mind . . . well, I do mind because it is bad enough when we restrict the rights of individual American citizens to travel where they want to travel, if it is being done on behalf of a good policy; but I really do mind when it is being done on behalf of a stupid policy. This policy is out-moded. It has not worked. If it had worked, Castro would be long gone.

Again, what we have here is an ideologically driven policy. It is put together by people who think with their spleen instead of their head. It makes no sense whatsoever. The bill ought to be voted down. The rule ought to be voted down. The previous question ought to be voted down until this committee comes to its senses.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.

I did not say that that provision should be stricken. What I said is that if you want to make money for the taxpayers, you can haul in a lot more money to the Treasury by using that same hundred million dollars to go after people with real bucks in their pockets, the large size corporations in this country. What you will collect on this, if you do indeed have scarce dollars, it seems to me you ought to put them where you get the biggest bang for a buck.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the last vote.

Motion to Table Offered by Mr. Reynolds

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I move the Committee do now rise.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, under my reservation I would ask the gentleman if this agreement is entered into, what would be the schedule for the remainder of the day and tomorrow?

I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma.

And tomorrow?

So, to repeat, we would be finished with consideration of this bill until Tuesday after the votes on amendments are taken in approximately 1 hour?

And then tomorrow it is the gentleman's understanding that the District of Columbia appropriation bill would be considered?

I had thought that there would be one additional matter which would be before the House. My understanding is that we were going to have the naming of energy conferees tomorrow, as well as a motion to instruct.

I am corrected. I am told the energy conference debate would occur tonight.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. Speaker, everyone knows that there is a crisis in veterans health care in this country. All too often a veteran who has prostate cancer will be told that it is going to be 3 months before he can see a specialist. There are delays in seeing almost any specialist in the system. Veterans hospitals are in many ways inadequate for the demand that they face, and there is no question that if this bill passes as is, it will make that situation worse.

Now how can I say that? After all, the bill has a 6 percent increase. Here is how I can say it.

Inflation, first of all, will cost at least 3 percent more this year to serve the same population. In addition, the population which will be served, or will be eligible to be served I should say, will increase by 9 percent this year. So that means that this bill would need to be 12 percent above last year for veterans health care just to stay even.

This bill does about half of that. So if you pass this bill as is, veterans health care will get worse, not better, in this country, and I do not think that makes any sense.

Members from both sides of the aisle asked the Committee on Rules to allow amendments to be offered that could fix this situation, and they have been told, ``No, sorry, boys and girls, cannot do it.'' That, I think, means that if you want to do anything meaningful besides send out a political press release or a nice flowery letter, another one of those wonderful resolutions that passed this Congress 430 to nothing, if you want to do something to back up all those wonderful flowery words, if you want to send your veterans, as the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) says, if you want to send them something other than a get well card, you will vote against this rule, and give us the chance to boost veterans health care in a meaningful way.

We want to be able to offer the Edwards amendment which would raise the veterans health care budget by over $2 billion, and it would pay for it by reducing the size of the tax cut for people who make over $1 million a year from $88,000 to about $77,000. So we have a choice. What is more important to the country, an $88,000 tax cut for someone who makes 100,000 bucks a year or putting veterans where we promised we would put them, which is first in line immediately for the medical care they need?

Now, I know some people will say, ``You know, this is a bottomless pit.'' I have heard it said this is a bottomless pit. How much are we going to give the veterans? We did not ask how much the veterans were going to give us when they agreed to put everything on the line, and it just seems to me that our position ought to be that whatever it takes to provide people who wore the uniform of this country under any circumstances, whatever it takes to provide them with decent health care we are going to do.

To me, that is a whole lot more important than a number of the tax choices that have been made, and I think it is to a lot of people in this Chamber as well.

So I would strongly urge you to vote against this rule. If you are not willing to vote against this rule, do not go back home and tell your veterans, oh, man, we put you first, we really did. This committee has done a a credible job with the resources available, but the resources available are pitiful in comparison to need.

So I would hope Members would recognize that it is no criticism of the subcommittee itself to vote against this rule. It is a criticism of misplaced institutional priorities in this House, and we ask the House to take the only action you can take if you want to correct those misplaced priorities, and that is to turn down this rule.

Mr. Speaker, I simply want to say that before this year is done, we are going to need a lot more supplemental funding than we have before us in the bill that will be brought to the floor under this rule. There is no question we are going to need money for Iraq. I personally have doubts that the money being requested for FEMA is going to be sufficient, unless we get by with virtually a storm-free summer, and I would not expect that. And as the gentleman from Massachusetts has indicated, if we do not fund AmeriCorp, we are going to have thousands of people who have offered to give their services to their communities in various capacities who are going to get laid off. It is as simple as that.

So if we want to ignore that fact, as we earlier today ignored the problem of children from families who get the earned income tax credit, if we want to follow that example and again turn our backs on them, the House has the power to do that. But it should not do that. That is why we are asking the House to vote against the previous question on the rule, so that we could amend the rule to provide for consideration of funding for AmeriCorp, as well as FEMA.

Mr. Speaker, I would hope that that is what the House would do, but we shall see when the votes are counted.

Mr. Speaker, I would simply say to my friend that there are 42 Governors of both parties who have asked us to take this action, so I think they must feel that the investment is well worth the cost. I think that most mayors around the country receive the services these volunteers would also approve.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

Well, they are still volunteers. They have not been drafted.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, before I discuss this matter before us, I would like to alert Members of the House to the situation we face on the VA-HUD bill. There have been approximately 40 amendments offered to that bill. Perhaps 10 of them at this point will fall by the wayside, people deciding not to offer them. If the others simply take 5 minutes on each side and if about a third to a half of them have rollcalls, that will take us to probably 7 o'clock tonight. I am sorry. I said that wrong. If we have no rollcalls and if we just have 5 minutes of debate on each side, it will take us until about 7 o'clock tonight. If there are any rollcalls at all, then let us say there are rollcalls on about a third of the amendments, that means we would be here until about 9 o'clock tonight. And if you have one-third of those amendments where you take at least 10 minutes a side, then we are going to be here until about 11 o'clock.

I want Members to understand that now, because I know a lot of them are assuming that they are going to be able to catch 6 o'clock planes. Unless something happens, that is not going to be true. I would urge Members to think through whether they are serious in offering these amendments. If they are, obviously they have a right to offer them. But I think Members need to understand what the realistic time frame is as well and would urge Members to take that into consideration if in fact they are planning to get out of here on a plane this evening.

Mr. Speaker, having given that notice, let me simply say that we have already made quite clear that we think that this supplemental is deficient in a number of areas, especially in the areas of fire fighting and in the area of AmeriCorps, but in my view there is no sense chewing that cud twice. We have already talked about it on the rule.

I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. Speaker, I simply want to say that I agree with the gentleman's observation, but it is obvious we are going to be voting on the amendment so I think I will withhold my comments on it until we are actually at the amending stage.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to myself.

Mr. Speaker, I would simply say that, as I have indicated, we believe that there are a number of other items which should have been included in this supplemental. They were not. The majority determines that; so we have no objection to that which is included in the proposal, and I would certainly intend to vote for it.

I would say with respect to the comments of the distinguished chairman of the Committee on the Budget, it is my observation that in the world sometimes things change. Events occur, natural disasters occur, matters of a war here and there occur. Things change, except in the world of the Committee on the Budget. So I guess nothing that the Committee on Appropriations does will ever satisfy people who prefer a static world, but I quit worrying about that a long time ago.

I yield to the gentleman from Iowa.

I have not.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments.

Let me simply say I am familiar with the gentleman's history on disaster funding. I personally would prefer that there would be no federally financed disaster programs.

I have introduced legislation which would require every State in the Union to buy into a federally run insurance plan so that on an experience-rated basis States would, much as they do with Worker's Compensation, prepay for any expected disaster short of a gargantuan tragedy. We have not been able to get that considered by either party, so we are stuck with what is left.

I am much more concerned with whether this estimate is real than whether it fits within the niceties of the budget resolution, to be frank about it. I do not think that God gives us 2 weeks' notice before we have a hurricane; so we do not have time to send down a proper budget amendment. So I think we do the best we can.

I think the difference between the gentleman from Iowa and the gentleman from Florida is that the gentleman from Iowa is free to pull numbers out of the air on the Committee on the Budget and describe the world as he and as Committee on the Budget think it ought to exist. But then the Committee on Appropriations and other legislative committees in this place have to implement what happens, and I think it is a whole lot more difficult to implement than it is to pronounce.

So all I would say is, given the limited nature of the recommendations here, I think this is reasonable. I personally believe that this is not going to be enough money in the FEMA account. I think we should have done something on fire fighting. I think we should have done something to prevent 20,000 people from being fired in AmeriCorps, and I recognize we are going to have to continue to agree to disagree.

I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments.

I would simply say, Mr. Speaker, I invite any Member of this House on either side of the aisle who is disquieted about this to call my office and indicate their willingness to join me in sponsoring the legislation that I have described that would set up an experience-rated fund into which States would contribute, so that the Feds do not always get hit with the cost of these things.

But absent that kind of legislation being on the books, I think we have no choice but to provide enough money to meet what we know will be unscheduled, irregular natural disasters.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, one observation, and then one question.

I do not appreciate having to take lectures from the Committee on the Budget. Let me tell my colleague the sleight of hand that that committee played. They pretended that they provided additional money for veterans. They pretended that they provided additional money for education and for special education in order to get the votes of the moderate Republicans in here for the resolution.

And then, after they pretended, on an account-by-account basis, that they had provided the money, then that same Committee on the Budget provided $7.2 billion in undistributed reductions and assigned those reductions to our committee, without having the guts to spell out what those reductions should be.

And then they squawked when the gentleman from Florida tried to distribute those reductions. That is what is going on here.

The difference is that the gentleman from Florida has to run a real railroad train, it is not an Alice in Wonderland train.

Now, with respect to the amendment at hand, I simply want Members to know how they are going to vote. I mean, the Republicans are running this show, so it is immaterial to me which of your factions wins the argument on that side.

But if this amendment passes, you will be cutting $15 million from the FBI. You will forcing Israel to write a $12 million check back to us because they have already gotten their money. The Drug Enforcement Agency will have to cut $5 million. The Colombian drug initiative, which was just defended in this House this week, you will have to cut $1 million out of that. You will have to cut $15 million out of the Cancer Institute. And you will have to cut $600,000 out of Meals-on- Wheels.

Now, I am not going to debate whether you ought to do any of that stuff; I simply want Members to know what they will be voting on if they vote for the amendment.

I would also simply say that I hope, and I am confident, that this amendment has more to do with concerns about budget than it does a Pennsylvania Senate primary.

Reserving the right to object, Mr. Speaker, and I certainly will not object because we have been working on this for a long time, but I would still like to point out to the Members of the House that while I certainly welcome this time agreement for planning purposes, Members need to understand that if everyone included in this agreement exercises the full amount of time listed in this agreement, we will still be here about 9 o'clock this evening. So if people are trying to catch their airplanes and they have amendments, many of these amendments are subject to a point of order and many of these amendments are probably not going to get very many votes. So I think Members need to ask themselves how much time they want to take in situations like that.

The committee is doing everything it can to get Members out of here so they can catch their planes, but we will need the cooperation of the individual Members, or it is not going to happen.

I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Reclaiming my time, I would simply say it most certainly will not work if we do all of this. So people need to think about it.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. Chairman, I object.

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

Mr. Chairman, I had not wanted to speak any more on this, but in light of the comments of my friend from California, I feel compelled to. I want to read some words: ``The fiscal year 2004 VA-HUD appropriations bill as it pertains to funding levels for veterans health care is inadequate and represents a clear betrayal of the assurances promised to America's veterans by the House Republican leadership.'' I did not say that. Ray Sisk, Commander in Chief of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said it on July 17 of this year. I could insert four other quotes in the Record from veterans organization leaders as well.

The gentleman from California says that this is a good budget for veterans. Let me explain why it is not. This bill has a 6 percent nominal increase in funding for veterans health care, so it sounds good. But the fact is that inflation eats up 3 percent of that 6 percent and then you have a 9 percent growth in the veterans population eligible for these programs. So when you add 9 and 3, that means that you need a 12 percent increase in veterans health care programs just in order to stay even. This bill only meets half that. While the gentleman is shaking his head, it is simple mathematics. His daughter got a perfect 600 on the SATs. She would know that that statement was right.

Let me say, also, Mr. Chairman, that I totally agree with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) who has time and time again taken this floor to lead the effort to help veterans. The fact is that veterans are not going to be conned by someone who says, Oh, oh, I was a really good friend of veterans that day when that bill was up. I voted against final passage.

Mr. Chairman, the only practical chance that any Member of this House had to get more money for veterans was to beat the rule so you could go back and have made in order the amendment that the gentleman talked about. My friend from California can resent all he wants the fact that we talk about what the tax cut cost us in services, but the fact is the Republican leadership of this Congress put tax cuts before anybody else and the fact is that under those tax cuts if you make a million bucks next year, you are going to get an $88,000 tax cut. The fact is that what we are trying to do with his amendment is to reduce that by $11,000 so they will only get a $77,000 tax cut. We are trying to do that so that there is enough room to fund additional veterans health care benefits.

That is what we are trying to do. You may not like the fact that we bring it up, but the consequences of your providing $3 trillion in tax cuts the next 11 years, the consequences are that there will be no room in the inn for adequate education funding, adequate health care funding, or adequate help for veterans. That is a fact. You may not like the fact that we bring it up, but we are going to bring it up every day of the year because it is a hard, cold fact of budgeting. When you make choices, you have to be able to take the heat for those choices; and we are going to turn up the heat, baby, because you were wrong.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

I think Members need to understand if we are to facilitate the agreement that has been described and if we are going to get out of here at a reasonable time tomorrow, we do need to have all of the amendments that are going to be offered to the VA-HUD bill in tonight. So my understanding is on our side of the aisle, the leadership is sending out a bulletin to all Members that they need to have their amendments filed by 10:30 tonight because that is the only way we can work overnight to get an agreement on the universe of amendments and work out time agreements for all of them; otherwise, we will be here until midnight tomorrow.

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

Mr. Chairman, I have been following events in Colombia since 1957, and I would like to think that the money that we are spending there is well spent and will reach a useful conclusion. I wish I could say that, but after watching that government and that society, especially the economic elite of that society for a long time, I have reluctantly concluded that they simply do not have the will to do what is necessary to win their own battles. I think we have drifted little by little into a long-term sustained financial and political involvement with little expectation of real success.

Oh, I know, people say we have reduced this production here and reduced production there. Baloney. It is like a balloon. It just pops up somewhere else. I remember when one of the members of the Reagan administration's antidrug team came to me privately and told me in despairing terms what a tremendous waste he thought the money was that we were spending in our antidrug campaign in Latin America. And when he told me how little we actually intercepted at our borders, I was blown away, and that has not changed that much.

And so if I thought this money was going to accomplish any useful purpose, I would say, ``Fine, provide it.'' But when I see the economic elite of that country still not making the sacrifices that are required in order to achieve the ends that we say we have, then I think we ought to look for a more useful place to put that money.

But I have a second question. My understanding is that the leadership of the Republican Party from the highest levels on down cares very deeply about our efforts in Colombia. So my question is, if that is the case, why are so many Members of the majority party watching ``Seabiscuit'' tonight? Why was this House shut down for a couple of hours to avoid votes on the House floor so that Members of the Republican leadership structure could enjoy a summer movie?

It seems to me if this issue is important enough for us to provide our money, then it is important enough for the people who believe in it the most and the people who brought about our investment in the program in the first place to be here on the floor defending it. And if they think it is more important to watch ``Seabiscuit'' than to deal with this program, then I think that says volumes about how useful even they think this money is.

So with all due respect to the cries of alarm, I have heard about our antidrug efforts around the world for years and years, those efforts cannot be successful unless they are coupled with a determination on the part of the recipient country to do whatever is necessary to win the battle against drugs. And when that will is absent or when it is weak, then Uncle Sam is simply being taken for Uncle Sucker.

So I would suggest my colleagues pay attention to this amendment. At least that money will be put someplace where it will do some good. And perhaps if this amendment passes tonight, in the future we will not have Members of the majority party running off to

watch ``Seabiscuit'' when something that is supposedly important to the national security is on the floor of this House.

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

Mr. Chairman, I will not take the 5 minutes, but I do want to correct something that was just said by the gentleman from Vermont. The reason that amendment was not in order yesterday was not because there was some agreement between the two sides that prevented the amendment from being offered. The reason the amendment was not in order yesterday was that the amendment was drafted wrongly. That is why it was not in order. And I think it is important to understand that distinction if we are going to work with each other around here.

I yield to the gentleman from Vermont.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I do not have any objection to this amendment being accepted, but I do want it understood that yesterday was not because of some arrangement between the two political parties that this amendment was not in order. It was simply drafted wrongly, and that is not the responsibility of either the Republicans or the Democrats in this House.

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

Mr. Chairman, the Saudis drive me nuts. They drive me to absolute distraction. I think they have a spectacular record of being disingenuous. I think they have played both sides of so many issues that I run out fingers counting them through the years, and I think that they have been incredibly gutless and obsequious in dealing with the terrorist threat, and they have allowed these right wing fundamentalist schools to poison the minds of thousands and thousands of children against the West, in general, and certainly against Israel.

I have very little confidence in virtually anything that the Saudi Government says. I want to be very clear about that. I visited their country a number of times, but the issue tonight is not whether or not we like the Saudis. The issue is whether or not this amendment at this time will assist or hinder the administration in its efforts to seek peace in the Middle East and to pursue a tough war against terrorists.

I talked to Assistant Secretary Burns tonight, and I told him flatly, I said, look, if this is a minor inconvenience, I do not want you bugging us because this is a tough vote to explain, but if this is a real problem for you, then I want to know it and I want you to let us know it; and they sent a letter which says that it is a real problem.

I take them at their word, and I note that since May 12, when al Qaeda bombed Riyadh, that the Saudis have sort of gotten religion, so to speak, on the issue of al Qaeda, and they have been, the administration tells me, much tougher in arresting terrorists and even killing some of them. I welcome that.

I am perfectly willing to do my duty tonight and support the administration on this, provided that I am not going to be taken for a sucker in the process.

As I said, well, I did not say this yet, but I want to. I have told every President going back to President Nixon

that when it comes to the Middle East, I would back whatever play they made and I would do whatever was necessary to prevent their hands from being tied as they pursued peace in that very difficult region, and there are many times when I have done that to considerable consternation of some of my friends on the floor.

And as I say, I am willing to do my duty as a member of the loyal opposition; and as a member of the loyal opposition I think I am required to oppose the President when I think he is wrong and support him when I think he is right, and so since I have no reason to think that he is wrong on this issue, I intend to support him, but I cannot in good conscience ask other Members of my party to do the same unless both parties are in this tonight together, because I have seen in the past on foreign policy issues, where we have supported a Republican administration, only to turn around and have the Republican Party's own campaign organization run ads against us for doing so. And you know the old saying: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

I have no reason to believe that we are not going to be played straight with tonight by our Republican friends, and I am going to vote against this amendment because I do think all this amendment really does is cut off $105,000. That to the Saudis is nothing; but if it does, as Assistant Secretary Burns says, if it does severely undermine the administration's counterterrorism cooperation with Saudi Arabia, at precisely the moment when it is moving to a new level of effectiveness, and I am quoting from the letter, if it does that, then it is not worth it. I mean, $100,000 or so is not worth it if it puts the administration efforts at risk.

Mr. Chairman, so I intend to vote with the administration, but I intend to ask other members of my party to watch the board. If we have Republican votes go up there along with ours, then fine, I think we have an obligation to do our duty and support the administration in this request; but if we see a significant number of the President's own party running in the other direction, then my message to people on this side of the aisle is you do not owe the President of the United States any more support than people of his own party.

So tonight, let us find out if we are real. Let us deal with each other on a real basis. I have no reason to think that that will not be the case, and I do think we have an obligation, on both sides of the aisle, to listen to what the administration says when it says this will get in the way of the peace process.

But I have one message to the Saudi embassy: get your act together because there are very few people on this House floor who believe your words because of the weakness and the duplicity of your past actions. So this is a case, in my view, where we have to vote with our minds and not our spleens; and with that, I thank the House for the courtesy of the extra 2 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, let me simply say that I will be supporting this bill, and I appreciate the approach taken by the subcommittee chairman in putting the bill together. He has, I think, been most fair and balanced in dealing with all of the pressures that were on him, and he has certainly been fair with us.

Let me say, however, having said that, that I think the allocation provided to this subcommittee was totally inadequate. And as the House by now has come to understand, I have had a series of amendments trying to limit the size of the tax cut which will be going to people who make more than $1 million a year in order to free up some additional investments in programs such as education, health care and the like.

We tried to do the same thing on this bill, but again, the Committee on Rules refused to make that amendment in order. And so we will not be able to offer and have considered by the House the amendment that would have used a tiny portion of those revenue resources to folks who make over $1 million a year in order to fund a number of law enforcement activities that we thought were very important.

I do want to mention one provision which is in this bill, which was adopted on a bipartisan basis in the committee, which I am very pleased about. As I think most Members know, there is considerable controversy about just how much of the Nation's airwaves ought to be owned by the media giants of this country.

The existing regulations had provided that no single corporation could own television stations that reached more than 35 percent of the national audience. The FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, in my view ill-advisedly, changed that to increase the percentage of national viewership that could be reached by a single corporate entity in the broadcasting business to 45 percent.

There is a great deal of consternation about that across the country, and I think that consternation is rooted in the fact that the public is beginning to understand that five media conglomerates, Viacom, Disney, AOL Time Warner, Newscorp and General Electric now control a 70 percent share of homes that are watching during prime time.

There are 91 major cable networks, 80 percent of which are owned by the same media conglomerates. Cable news networks are all owned by AOL Time Warner (CNN), Newscorp (Fox News), and General Electric, which is MSNBC and CNBC. The top 20 Internet news sites are also largely owned by the same media giants.

So, in my view, that is a severe threat to democracy. I am pleased that the committee adopted on a 40 to 25 vote the amendment that would assure that we would return to the initial 35 percent limit, rather than expanding it to the 45 percent limit that the FCC tried to foist on the country.

I want to make clear, this amendment does not go beyond television ownership. It does not get into issues such as cross-ownership between newspapers and television. I personally wish it did, because I do not like any of it. But the fact is that we have to be disciplined in deciding how much we can choose to take on at the same time without losing the whole argument.

So we have chosen to confine ourselves to this, the most egregious portion of the FCC rules, in an effort to protect local values, in an effort to protect local diversity of media voices.

I am very pleased that the committee has taken this position, and I would hope very much that the House would

stand behind it as we move to conference with the Senate.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Anybody who knows me knows that I am not interested in promoting the Republican agenda. I think that is a safe assumption on both sides of the aisle. But I want to say that I want to defend the subcommittee chairman in this instance.

What happened today is that the schedule for these bills was changed suddenly, with the support of both sides of the aisle, and I appreciate the fact that the change was made. I think it was helpful. So this bill was brought up instead of the Foreign Operations bill. That meant that for us to proceed, we needed to have a unanimous consent agreement on the scope of amendments that would be considered by the House so that Members would have some idea of what the schedule would be.

So what happened is that our staff, understanding what we were trying to do, put together their understandings of what the amendments were, and that was included in the UC agreement.

The gentleman indicated that he had an amendment which is not in order under the rules and needed to be changed somewhat. My understanding is that he asked the gentleman from Virginia to agree to a unanimous consent request. The gentleman from Virginia, in essence, said I cannot do that for you without doing it for other people because then we unravel the whole UC agreement. I think the gentleman from Virginia, under the circumstances, was correct.

Now, I happen to support the content of the Sanders amendment, but I have stood on this floor and I have stood in the whip's meeting, and I have stood in the Democratic Caucus, and I have said to people time and time again, if you want us to protect your amendments, please at least give us adequate notice so that we can try to find ways to do that.

We cannot anticipate, Mr. Chairman. We cannot anticipate all of the amendments that Members want to offer if we have not been given enough lead time ourselves so we can work with those Members.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman continue to yield?

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman.

Even when we do get notice, sometimes we screw up, and we may have screwed up in a couple of instances today. But all I can say to each and every Member is, we try to cooperate

on both sides of the aisle in protecting Members.

We protected three amendments from this side of the aisle today, with which I fundamentally disagree, and there are a number of other amendments that I do not think should be here either; but we put them all in because that is what we thought the universe was.

With respect to the Sanders amendment, all I can say to the gentleman is, if the gentleman had come to the committee and given us enough time to work with him, we probably could have worked this out. But I fully understand why the gentleman from Virginia thinks that he had to object. He is trying to be fair to both sides, and I think the gentleman owes us notice if he expects us to try to protect his amendments.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Let me say, Mr. Chairman, that the gentleman from Vermont indicated that he turned on the television set and discovered the schedule had been changed. I discovered that the schedule had been changed in the middle of the rule vote just minutes before the change was made. The clock runs as fast for managers of the bill on both sides of the aisle as it runs for any other Member.

So what we tried to do was to take the specific amendments that we knew of and tried to protect them. I know of several other instances in which general amendments had been described to me, but about which I knew nothing in terms of specific content.

We cannot protect concepts; we have to know what the specific amendments are. And that is why I repeat, if Members want us to protect their rights, and we have an obligation to protect their rights, they owe us the consideration of talking to us enough ahead of time so that when the schedule changes, nobody gets trapped. We cannot help if we do not know in time to help.

There are concurrent responsibilities. I think the Committee on Appropriations on both sides of the aisle meets those responsibilities pretty doggone well. I think we try to protect the interests of Members pretty doggone well. We need more of your help than we are getting sometimes if we are going to do that. That is all I want to ask.

If you want an amendment protected, you cannot come up to us 5 minutes before the bill is going to come up on the floor and say, ``I have an amendment, how about it?'' It has to be checked out, it has to be staffed out, and it has to be checked with the Parliamentarian.

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

Mr. Chairman, I understand that shortly the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) will be offering yet another motion to have the committee rise. Before that happens, I just want to make one point.

I recall last week when the gentleman from Vermont was sitting here on the floor, and I was kidding him about how it is that the only Socialist in the House has been able to pass more amendments to appropriations bills the past 2 years than any other Member. And he told me if I wanted to have a similar success rate, I should listen more to him. And perhaps I should.

And I want to point out that last week I worked with him and the committee worked with him and we were able to restructure an amendment that he had on weatherization so that the committee wound up accepting the amendments adding, I believe, $15 million to that appropriation. That happened because there were no procedural surprises, and we had the time to work out that amendment.

The schedule that we worked on today has been sort of a surprise to everybody. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) did not know that his bill was going to come up before the Foreign Operations bill. I did not. Those decisions were made in a rather disorderly fashion because we are trying to accommodate each other in the last week of the session.

I regret the fact that the amendment that the gentleman wants to offer is out of order, but I would simply point out that I have a personal track record of trying to work with the gentleman in trying to facilitate his amendments.

I think the committee has tried, in general, to help Members, whether they agree with their amendments or not, to see that they have an opportunity to have them discussed before the House. But in this instance we have now had two votes and shortly, apparently, are going to have a third because the gentleman is upset because somehow either the House or the committee is seen as being to blame for the fact that the gentleman filed last night an amendment which he knew was out of order.

And I, for the life of me, do not understand why the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) or I or the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano) or anyone else on the committee should be held responsible for the fact that the gentleman filed an amendment which he knew to be out of order when he filed it.

I would like to accommodate the gentleman as often as we can, but I do not think the House ought to be held at bay because the gentleman made a mistake in drafting his amendment.

I yield to the gentleman from Vermont.

Mr. Chairman, if I can take back my time to correct that, on two occasions in the past 3 or 4 years, I myself have tried to correct amendments; and I have been denied that opportunity.

I would, but I want to make sure it is a correct point. Go ahead. I yield.

Mr. Chairman, I would simply say, with all due respect to the

gentleman, the content of his amendment is not in question. I support the amendment. I would like to see the House vote on it, but the gentleman from Virginia is in a position where if he makes an exception to a unanimous consent agreement entered into for one Member, then he has to do it for everyone else; and the fact is that the gentleman himself, if he wanted the amendment considered, had some obligation to the House to have the amendment printed in a form that he knew was in order. He knew that the amendment was not in order when he filed the amendment.

I am sorry, but everyone else knew it. I assume he knew it, too.

So, Mr. Chairman, we are obviously going to grind to a halt; and I am afraid that as a result of that, we will wind up going up to the Committee on Rules and adopting a far more limiting amendment which I do not believe we ought to do because I do not believe in shutting down the minority like that. But I do think you have to have some sense of responsibility on the part of all parties, including those who belong to no political party in this House, if we are going to make our way through this week; and with all due respect to the gentleman, who I regard as a friend and have a great deal of affection for, I do not believe that it is fair to hold the House hostage because the gentleman drew an amendment that was not in order.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.

I think I heard the gentleman say this, but I want it repeated again so it is clear. Is the gentleman saying that this amendment would not interfere in any way with any existing patents with respect to stem cells?

I appreciate the gentleman's clarification.

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

Mr. Chairman, I would like to explain to the House what is at stake this afternoon. The Federal Communications Commission has recommended a number of changes in ownership patterns for media across the country. One of the changes was to raise from 35 percent to 45 percent the percentage of the national TV audience that could be reached by any one media conglomerate. Another part of the FCC ruling would have expanded opportunities for cross-ownership of media outlets all around the country, so that newspapers could own even more television stations than is the case today.

I oppose everything the FCC did, but the problem is that you have to make an intelligent judgment about how much you can bite off and win. The fact is that the Committee on Appropriations adopted my amendment in committee by a 40 to 25 bipartisan vote, and that amendment essentially rolled back the Federal Communication Commission's decision with respect to the national cap on ownership.

It did not go the next step, and I hope we do not try to go the next step today in the form of the Hinchey amendment. I favor the substance of it very much, I am totally opposed to cross-ownership. I do not think a newspaper ought to be able to own a single TV station in the country, and vice versa. I believe in the widest possible diversity of opinion.

But the fact is that today, even in the committee approach, we are taking on the media giants of this country; and when you do that, you had doggone well better win, and we will not win if the Hinchey amendment is passed. The Hinchey amendment is not intended to be so, but it is a killer amendment. It will load up the camel, and it will break the camel's back.

What I think we ought to do is stick to the judgment the committee made and win that one and tie that one down first. We are in a terrible situation today, where five media conglomerates control a 70 percent share of homes that watch during prime time; 80 percent of the major cable owners are owned by the same media conglomerates; and we need to see to it that we do not allow that situation to get any worse.

The problem with this amendment is that if it passes, we will not be able to get enough votes on this bill to demonstrate to the White House that they should not veto the bill because of this provision; and I do not think the House wants to do that if it is interested in protecting local news values.

The reason I want to protect local news values is because I think that local owners are the only ones who are likely on occasion to preempt national network programming. And believe you me, if you want to see some examples of the kind of programming that I do not think we want in some of our communities, all you have to do is take a look at what happened in radio. In radio, the Congress totally deregulated a few years ago, and what do we have? We have total lack of the ability of local people to have control over news or to have any real say in their programming. No nationally owned television station has ever preempted a network TV program; only locally owned stations have sometimes done so.

I do not have anything against networks but I think we need diversity I think we need diversity of decision making, and that is why I sponsored the amendment that the committee adopted, with the support of the gentleman from Virginia and others.

If we adopt the Hinchey amendment, we will in essence ruin our ability to win what we have won so far, and I do not think that is a wise thing to do. I am not interested in symbolic statements here today. I want to win. I want to see to it that we roll back the FCC provision on national ownership. If the Hinchey amendment is adopted, we will not be in a position to do it, because this bill will get many fewer votes than it otherwise would have gotten, it will send the wrong message to the White House, and the net result will be that we will be crippled in conference in terms of trying to hold the provision in the committee bill. So I urge defeat of the Hinchey amendment.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Let me say, Mr. Chairman, that in substance I agree with virtually every word the gentleman just said. He is coming from exactly the right place.

Here is my tactical problem. I want this bill to get 290 votes, so that when the White House looks at it, it knows

that there are enough votes here to override the veto, if they are ill- advised enough to veto the bill over this provision. And it is my considered judgment that if the Hinchey amendment passes, that there will be significant additional numbers of people who will vote against this bill, and that means we will send exactly the reverse signal.

So all I want to say is, I agree with where the gentleman is coming from, we simply have a different tactical judgment about how to get there. I think we need a two-step process and the gentleman wants one.

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

Mr. Chairman, I want to congratulate the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) who just spoke. It is a cliche in this House that almost no speeches change people's minds, but I think this speech is one occasion when it has certainly changed mine, and I want to thank the gentleman for that.

Originally, when I first heard the amendment offered, I thought, well, this is not the right place for this, and it is not; and I thought there may be ramifications to this that we do not understand, and there probably are. But I have full confidence in the ability of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano) to see to it that that is fixed in conference if this amendment is adopted.

The reason I have changed my mind listening to the gentleman from Texas and the reason I intend to support this amendment is because of the history of the PATRIOT Act.

When the first act was brought to this House floor, I voted ``present'' because this House had no idea what was in it. We were asked to vote blind. And as a protest to doing that, even in the heat of 9-11, I voted ``present'' to signify that I did not feel that I knew enough about the contents of that bill to vote for it.

When it came back from conference, I very reluctantly voted ``yes,'' because I thought there were some things in it that, because of what I had learned in classified briefings, we needed to face. Things like being able to go after multiple telephones rather than just being able to target one telephone number of a suspected terrorist, for instance. So I assumed that given the unifying approach that the administration at that point had been taking after 9-11, I assumed the Justice Department would exercise those authorities with restraint. I was wrong.

I believe this Attorney General has far overreached legitimate boundaries. I often disagree with The Washington Post, but I have to congratulate their constant drumbeat of editorials in support of preserving the values of the Constitution that protect individual freedom and privacy. And when I see the Justice Department overreach, as it has, and when I see them assert the claim that they have a right to lock up anybody they want without any kind of court review whatsoever, I am appalled and chagrined and horrified.

So in my view, anything that can be done to push the Justice Department back a little bit closer to the Constitution, anything that can be done to reinforce Congress's determination to give PATRIOT II a far tougher scrutiny than it gave PATRIOT I, I am willing to do.

So I congratulate the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul), because my first reaction was that we did not know enough about the effect of this amendment to adopt the amendment. But upon reflection, after hearing the gentleman, I conclude that we know far too much about how PATRIOT I has been used not to adopt this amendment. As I say, the gentleman from Virginia is correct, that there may be problems with this; but I really think we have the capacity to fix those problems in conference if there are problems.

Mr. Chairman, I want the Justice Department to have to come to us and assure us that the way they are enforcing the law that we have given them the authority to enforce is the correct way. I do not want us to have to go hat in hand to the Justice Department asking them to defend the Constitution.

So I would at this point simply say I think the gentleman is right. We ought to adopt this amendment if for no other reason than to send a message to the Justice Department that we want respect for law demonstrated by the Justice Department as well as average citizens of this country.

I thank the gentleman for his speech, and I thank the gentleman for offering the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I would just like to reiterate what the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) said. Rather than taking a long time speaking against this amendment, I think Members should understand that the House has already turned this proposition down by a vote of 322 to 102.

We will have copies of that previous rollcall here at the desk if Members want to know how they voted on previous occasions.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I would simply say that all of us, regardless of how we voted on the original bill, have an obligation to determine whether or not this amendment will contribute to reduced effectiveness of law enforcement or enhanced effectiveness of law enforcement, and obviously 322 Members of the House the last time around recognized it would contribute to a lowered standard of law enforcement, which is what they ought to recognize on this amendment again tonight.

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

Mr. Chairman, this amendment is a classic. In the long history of this institution, there have been many amendments offered on the floor of this Chamber. Never has an amendment been offered that did less than this amendment does tonight. It does not matter how people vote. No matter what side one is on on the question of separation of church and State or the Ten Commandments or anything else, it does not matter how one votes, because this amendment does not do nothing to nobody.

All this amendment does is to say that the Justice Department cannot enforce the decision that the gentleman does not like. The only problem is the Justice Department does not enforce this decision anyway. The Justice Department has already made quite clear that this is a ``let us pretend'' amendment. It pretends that we are doing something to protect the Ten Commandments.

I would suggest that rather than offering amendments that pretend to do that, if we want to protect the Ten Commandments, we will simply start by following them in our own lives and in our own careers. That will do a whole lot more than pretending that we are preventing the Justice Department from enforcing a decision which they would not be enforcing anyway.

So I could not care less how one votes on the amendment because it does not have any effect whatsoever. If the gentleman wants to take the time of this body to offer do-nothing amendments, be my guest; but I hope Members are not under an illusion.

No, I will not. This is my time. The gentleman has had his time.

And I said no, and I do not intend to yield for the remainder of my time, okay?

Mr. Chairman, who has the floor?

Mr. Chairman, I suggest the gentleman from Indiana start following the Ten Commandments in terms of the way he treats people on this floor. This is my time. It is not funny.

Mr. Chairman, I would simply close by saying, vote however you want. This is a free vote. It is one of those votes that Members often offer in hopes that the public can be convinced we are actually doing something at 8:15 at night; but with all due respect on this amendment, we are not. So vote any way you want, just do not be under the illusion that when you do so, you are protecting the Ten Commandments. It does not. I could care less what the vote is.

Mr. Speaker, on July 15, 2003, during Rollcall 108-364 on the Paul Amendment, one of a series of rolled votes on amendments to H.R. 1950, I cast my vote in error. Had I voted as I intended, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.

Mr. Chairman, I want to take about 5 minutes to make note of a couple of things. As the House certainly knows, I have vigorously opposed a number of appropriations bills that have come to the floor this year. One is the labor-health-education bill, for instance; another will be the transportation bill, which has not yet come to the floor, but which has substantial problems. And there have been several others.

I have opposed them for two reasons. One reason is because the depth of the tax cuts passed by this House has meant that we have starved needed investment in areas like education, health, transportation, et cetera.

The second reason that I have opposed some of those bills has been because I think that they have been drafted as though an ideological agenda was the most important consideration in putting them together.

I support this bill enthusiastically, because I think it departs from the conditions that I have just described on those other bills in two ways.

First of all, I think that the allocation to this subcommittee, while it is certainly, in my view, skinny in several areas, the allocation does not do as much damage to the programs under the jurisdiction of this subcommittee as is done, for instance, when we starve education and health care and worker protection programs, as we did in the labor- health-education bill.

But, secondly, I support this bill because I appreciate the craftsmanship behind it. This bill, in my view, has been put together as a substantive, rather than a political, document. It is not driven, in my view, by ideology. I think the Chair and the ranking member have made decisions based on their individual independent judgments about policy, and that is what we are supposed to do here. We are supposed to be a legislative body, at least as much as we are a political body.

In many of the bills that have come before this House so far, we have had political products. This is a legislative product; and I simply want to congratulate the gentleman from Ohio for bringing it to the floor, because this is the way this House ought to function.

So I believe in strong criticism when criticism is warranted, and I believe in the opposite when the opposite is warranted; and I think this is one such occasion.

As I have said, I do not agree with every judgment in this bill. In fact, I strongly disagree with two. But that is all right, because I think those differences were arrived at honestly on the basis of a different view of policy. So we can have reasonable arguments about that. I do not think the allocation has been crippling to the programs under the jurisdiction of this committee, and I appreciate that it too.

So I, like the gentleman from Indiana, urge my colleagues to vote for the bill. There is one amendment that I may vote for, but that aside, regardless of the outcome of that amendment, I would urge Members to give this bill the support that it deserves.