Floor Statements

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

And I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania on this for his work on this alternative budget, and I offer it my full support. It is said that we simply cannot cut anymore and that the Nussle budget that we have, a lot of people are saying it cuts too deeply. This is simply wrong. When we look across the board and we look at what we have done as Republicans, frankly, over the past 8 years, since 1996, the first year of the first Republican budget, we have increased spending for all cabinet agencies substantially, much more so than inflation. Inflation has been about 21 percent since 1996. The Agriculture Department has gone up 27.5 percent; Commerce, 40.2 percent; Energy, 34.4; HHS, 94.7; HUD, 52.6; Interior, 45 percent since 1996. The State Department has gone up 68 percent; Labor Department, 23.8; Defense Department, 43.7. And how about education? It is always said we do not spend enough on education. Try a 131.9 percent increase since 1996.

And we say we cannot cut anything. We say we cannot find waste, fraud, and abuse, 1 percent of it. Come on. Let us get serious. We just passed an omnibus bill a couple of weeks ago that had items like $3.1 million for the Inventors Hall of Fame that I did not even know we had, or how about $750,000 for the Baseball Hall of Fame? The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame got $350,000. What are we doing? $800,000 to the Grammy Foundation. That now is part of the baseline. We are adding to that and we keep adding and adding and adding and adding. Where does it end? We have got to get some fiscal sanity, and that is what the Toomey budget does. This brings our budget back into balance faster than any other budget plan outlined, in 4 years.

We know that there is a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse out there. More than $8 billion has gone out in erroneous earned income tax credit payments. There is mismanagement of over $3 billion in the Bureau of Indian Affairs trust funds, over $2 billion in erroneous food stamp payments. Two years ago there was over $1 billion in unissued medical bills for Veterans Health Administration. The list goes on and on and on. We can cut more. We can actually give tax cuts and cut spending and come into balance much faster than the budget outlined by the Democrats and the Republicans in the majority. I urge support of the Toomey amendment, the Toomey plan.

Mr. Speaker, today I voted ``no'' on final passage of H.R. 5, the Help Efficient, Accessible, Low-cost, and Timely Healthcare (HEALTH) Act. My vote was a difficult one, but I am not convinced that the federal government should preempt state law in this area.

Those supporting this bill have made some compelling arguments as to why Congress should step in and institute these reforms. They cite the national nature of insurance plans, whereby a doctor in Arizona might have to pay more for malpractice insurance due to an over-the-top jury award in Texas. They also note that, as doctors close up shop or stop providing high-risk care in specialties such as emergency medicine and obstetrics and gynecology, patients are forced to cross state lines in order to seek out treatment. We have all watched with dismay as hospitals have been forced to shut their doors and doctors have opted to treat patients without malpractice insurance due to the high costs of premiums. Certainly, the trial attorneys who line their pockets with egregious fees aren't suffering as a result of the mess they've made with unscrupulous lawsuits. These arguments only underscore an already evident need for the states to pursue medical malpractice reforms. However, as one who believes firmly in federalism, I am unwilling to support legislation that would, in effect, preempt the constitution of the state of Arizona,which prohibits caps on damages.

The natural evolution of health care delivery suggests that a federal solution such as H.R. 5 may one day be necessary. Even today, we need tort reform badly. It's up to the states to begin that process, and I plan to be part of those efforts. The states should follow California's example, which has been an undeniable success over the past 25 years.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the bill today. The bill and conference report beside me, I would lift it but it is tough. It is about a foot and a half tall. We were given this document around noon today, if we could get a hard copy. That indeed was difficult as it was. So we have that amount of time to go through this.

I disagree that if one flips through this bill a person can find a few things wrong. It is tough to find much right about this bill. I object to the process as well as the product.

We had a House rule which says that we ought to have 3 days to review any omnibus bill like this. We are given a couple of hours. We waived that provision. We should not have.

I would say that this bill in many ways is a work of art. It is kind of a Hall of Fame bill, because if my colleagues look at it, I will just name a couple of the provisions in it. These are elements in the bill. We usually find the more objectionable earmarks or pork in the conference report, but we have not had time to leaf through that.

In the bill we will find, if one is a baseball fan, we will find $750,000 earmarked for the Baseball Hall of Fame. If we look a little further, if one is not a baseball fan, we can find $350,000 for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Why we have that as an omnibus bill from the Federal Government I do not know. If one still is not a rock and roll fan or baseball fan, we can look further in the bill and find an earmark for $90,000 for the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame. I did not even know there is a Cowgirl Hall of Fame. Perhaps there is not, but now there will be. Who knows what else is in this bill and report. We will be discovering it for months.

We should not do business like this. It should not be done.

I would have thought, given the hall of fame element, that I ought to nominate some of my colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans, for the hall of fame for pork, but I am afraid that they would fund it.

I urge my colleagues to reject this bill. Let us start over.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman name what that is?

Sure.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

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

I just wanted to point out that it was not noted by the gentleman who spoke before me that all 11 items that I requested have a ``DEF'' right next to them. That means defense.

I think all of us recognize that the proper role and function of the Federal Government is to fund our armed services, and I am proud of that. But we do not see anything else there. None at all. There is a difference between the National Cowgirls Hall of Fame and funding aviator night vision imaging systems for our helicopters.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the Salt River Project, an institution that is celebrating its Centennial of Service to the people of Arizona, including a majority of constituents in my own Sixth Congressional District.

When the Salt River Project, or SRP, was formed on February 7, 1903 under the name of the Salt River Valley Water Users Association, it represented a new and courageous experiment in public-private partnership.

The Association's purpose was to provide a means of pooling the assets of central Arizona's pioneering farm communities as collateral for a federal loan to construct Roosevelt Dam on the Salt River east of Phoenix.

The dam, made possible by passage of the National Reclamation Act of 1902, was conceived as a way to bring a reliable supply of water to the region now encompassing the Phoenix metro area. Nobody could be sure that the experiment would work or that the government would be paid back for construction of the dam and canal systems that would bring water to central Arizona's desert valleys.

But vision, courage and persistence paid off.

Completion of Roosevelt Dam in 1911 and subsequent construction of other dams on rivers east and north of Phoenix provided a water and early hydropower system that led to a flourishing economy.

Following World War II, local farms gave way to housing and industry as veterans flocked to Arizona to raise their families and launch business careers. The loan that had financed Roosevelt Dam was paid back in full to the federal treasury. And SRP, which had formed a power district during the Depression years, continued to expand its water- power services to meet the needs of central Arizona's booming economy.

Today, SRP stands as central Arizona's largest water supplier and as the nation's third largest public power utility with more than 780,000 customers. It has won a reputation as a solidly-run company with a strong commitment to the environment, human services, schools and the communities it serves.

Through a partnership between SRP, the federal government, and the state and local communities, central Arizona has grown into one of the most productive metropolitan regions in the nation with a population of more than 3 million and growing.

Mr. Speaker, as SRP embarks on its second century of service, it deserves special recognition for the historic and invaluable contributions it has made to the people of my native state.