Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I commend the chairman and the ranking member for the work they have done here, and I take small exception here because you have cut back the $250 million the President requested. I think that is a good move, but this would simply level out the funding so that next year will have as much funding as this year.

If you go to the Savannah River Site in my State, you will see the K Reactor, on which we have spent close to $2 billion, it never was operated again; the NPR, on which we spent $40 million on the environmental impact statement; the MOX fuel facility, which is being abandoned today after millions were spent; and Agnes, where we trod down this road once before toward nuclear reprocessing and realized it was not the way to go.

And today more than ever, when we do not want to open up new nuclear processes which give rise to more fissile material, there are really legitimate doubts about this path.

I respect the course that the committee has taken, but slow it down. Let us take a closer look at this before we plunge headlong into something that could cost $20 billion, $30 billion, maybe $40 billion before it comes to full fruition.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Markey amendment, which would cut $40 million from the so-called GNEP, the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.

GNEP is an exceedingly ambitious set of proposals. It runs the gamut, from expanding the use of nuclear power, to closing the loophole in the nuclear fuel cycle, to developing a new generation of advanced ``fast'' nuclear reactors. Among other things, it calls for restarting nuclear reprocessing, a risky venture abandoned by the Carter Administration in the 1970s out of cost and proliferation concerns. It moves us ahead before we know the long term costs or international implications. On issues of this consequence, we should tread lightly.

I have concerns over GNEP on several fronts. First, I am concerned about reprocessing of nuclear spent fuel, because it lends itself to the production of fissile material. On its face, the idea of reusing spent nuclear fuel sounds appealing. Proponents point out that we only use 3-5 percent of nuclear fuel in the first reaction. They claim that reprocessing will allow us to recycle spent fuel and captured the untapped tap energy potential. But recycling nuclear fuel is not so easy, and there is a limit to the number of times you can put a fuel rod through reprocessing before fission by-products make additional recycling impractical. So, the amount of reusable energy that the process yields is questionable. As explained to me by DoE, reprocessing is really more about reducing the heat from spent nuclear fuel, to facilitate storage, than it is about generating more usable fuel.

Questionable energy yields are only one problem with reprocessing. The other problem is that re-running nuclear fuel multiple times is one means of converting commercial nuclear fuel rods into weapons-grade plutonium. The Department of Energy has told us that the new reprocessing technology they hope to use (UREX+) is ``proliferation resistant'' since the radioactive emissions will still be lethal to unprotected handlers. But there is no such thing as being completely proliferation-resistance. A suicidal terrorist could find a way to steal, handle, and transport any nuclear material, and increasing the neutron flux simply brings them one step closer to using this material for a nuclear weapon.

On another front, I am greatly concerned about the potential cost of the GNEP proposal. Though the President's budget request called for only $250 million this year, estimates have ranged up to $40 billion over the next 10 years. This is huge price-tag for an amorphous program.

As an example, the Department of Energy has indicated that, as part of GNEP, they would like to build a scaled-down facility to demonstrate UREX+ reprocessing technology. But when pressed for details, DoE has said that this facility could range in scale from 1 ton throughput per year to 200 tons and on up to 500 tons per year. This is almost as large as commercial scale reprocessing operations overseas, and is hardly a demonstration project. Moreover, the Department of Energy does not know where the demonstration facility will be sited, what the environmental or engineering costs will be for the facility, or what the ultimate cost will be to construct it. Even further, they do not know how many of these facilities will be needed if we ever move to a commercial scale.

We are running a budget deficit of $300-350 billion this year alone. The Department of Energy itself is has more major acquisition projects on its plate than it can carry to fruition. I am wary of adding another $40 billion liability with GNEP before we know fully what we are getting ourselves into.

The Markey amendment before us today takes a pragmatic approach to this problem. It does not eliminate funding for the program; rather, it reduces the $120 million remaining for the program by $40 million, effectively freezing GNEP funding at this year's funding level.

Before we rush headlong toward the latest acronym, GNEP, we should make the Department come to us with concrete proposals, more definitive costs and benefits, so that this far-reaching project can be measured against other priorities.

I urge my colleagues to support the Markey amendment.

Mr. Speaker, it is fair to ask, why are we resorting to this extraordinary procedure, where we override all the rules of the House, on a matter of this magnitude including a rule that requires that a bill of this kind, a budget resolution, lay overnight for our examination before we bring it to the floor? The martial law rule mows down all exceptions, all of those procedural guards and guidelines, and makes something immediately subject to consideration by the House.

We have no idea what is going to be in that resolution when it comes, yet we are put to a vote here on a martial law resolution. It simply isn't good procedure, a good way to run the House.

I think that the reason we are playing this game of ``hide the ball'' is that the Republicans cannot muster the vote in their own ranks, still not yet, to pass their own resolution. Democrats aren't going to vote for it, because we haven't found it to be worthy of our support. But the reasons for their reluctance are they can't close the deal on their side either, plainly because it is a bad deal.

I want to show you just a few highlights, Mr. Speaker, of this particular bill to understand exactly why it is not a good piece of legislation and why we should adopt the Democratic substitute, a far superior approach to the problem at hand.

First of all, let's go back to what Mr. McGovern just said. When this Congress passed President Bush's first budget, we were assured by the Office of Management and Budget, that even with their tax cuts, $1.7 to $1.8 trillion, even with their tax cuts, they would not be back to us to ask for an increase in the debt ceiling, the limit to which we can legally borrow, for at least another six or seven years. 2008 was the year they indicated.

But the next year, hat in hand, June of 2002, they came back and said, we erred a bit and we will need to increase the debt ceiling by $450 billion. This Congress, with Republican support, voted for that debt ceiling increase.

The next year, May of 2003, they were back again, and this time they wanted a phenomenal sum of money, $984 billion, the biggest single increase ever in the debt ceiling of the United States. You would have thought that would have taken us for some period of time. But under the budgets of this administration, in order to accommodate those budgets, the debt ceiling had to be raised again in November of 2004, within 15 months after this huge increase of $984 billion, by another $800 billion.

Two months ago, just 2 months ago in March, this Congress raised the debt ceiling of the United States by $781 billion. That was 2 months ago, last March.

Now, in this resolution, when you vote for this, and I will show you an excerpt from the budget resolution right now, when you vote for this, everyone should read and be aware of page 121 of this resolution because it effectively says in voting for this, you are voting to increase the legal debt ceiling of the United States by $653 billion. Don't take it from me, look at the hard copy, the black and white print shown here on this poster, reproduced from page 121 of the budget resolution.

This resolution will increase the debt ceiling of the United States by $653 billion, or at least it will be the action of the House must take. The Senate would have to follow through. This will be the vote in the House, raising the ceiling by $653 billion.

When you add those increases, $450, $984, $800, $781 and finally $653, all of which have been necessary to make room for the budgets of the Bush administration with their enormous deficits, when you add all these together, you get $3.668 trillion, $3.7 trillion since June of 2002. In 5 years, 5 years, we have had to raise virtually by 50 percent the debt ceiling of the United States, by $3.7 trillion. That is why we have got a martial law rule now. This budget won't stand scrutiny. These numbers simply are indefensible.

Let me show you, for example, what has happened to the deficits since the Bush administration took office. Over the last 5 years, with this budget we will experience the five largest deficits in nominal terms in the history of the United States.

Once again, this is why, not only on our side are we not supporting it, but on their side, too, the votes are not

there to pass this resolution, because it will not bear scrutiny.

Now, one of the things the administration and also the Budget Committee is attempting to do in order to begin squeezing this budget back into balance is they are coming down hard on one particular sector of the budget known as domestic discretionary spending.

Domestic discretionary spending includes education, it includes highways, it includes the government basically as we know it, including the operation of the government. It does not include defense, it does not include foreign affairs, it does not include entitlement programs; it includes the money we appropriate every year in 10 appropriation bills.

That is the one sector of the budget which constitutes less than 15 percent of the budget which they are bearing down on, and here is what is happening to those different functions in that particular part of the budget.

Over the next 5 years, the purchasing power, the real value of the amount of money that we appropriate for education, for health care, for research, for scientific endeavors, for the operation of the government, the park system, the court system, you name it, will decrease in value by $167 billion cumulative over that period of time.

This will begin to hurt. Let me illustrate how. Education. Surely this is a time in our national history when we should be unstinting in what we spend on education, because our survival in the global economy depends critically upon it. Education will be cut $45.294 billion below current services, $45 billion over the next 5 years.

This budget will lay the basis for what the President has proposed, namely to eliminate 42 programs in education, and, for the second time in a row, to cut what we appropriate for education below the level of the previous year.

Veterans. If there is ever a time when we should appreciate what our veterans do for us, it is now. There were 17,000 grievously wounded in the Persian Gulf. Surely, surely we should be providing amply for veterans health care. But this budget is $6 billion below what we call current services, maintaining what we provide now over the next 5 years. It cuts veterans.

Health. Now, that is a broad category, a big category, because it includes the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control. It includes a number of rural health care initiatives, a whole host of health care programs. This budget cuts those programs $18 billion.

Just 5 years ago, when we had a surplus, a $236 billion surplus in the year 2000, we resolved, Democrats and Republicans, House and Senate, that we would double the budget of the NIH, but we are now reneging on that commitment. We achieved that goal; we are now backing back down the slope, and each year NIH is going to take a hit under this budget because it is $18 billion short of current services for health.

And then finally the environment. The Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Water Drinking Act, the Corps of Engineers, which has extraordinary demands on it because of Katrina, the National Park Service, this budget imposes a cut of $25 billion below current services over the next 5 years.

Why are we here? Why are we seeking a martial law rule? Why? Because this budget will not stand scrutiny. Thank you.

I have great respect for the distinguished majority leader, but I have to take exception when he says if we hold the line on spending and let revenues continue, we will balance the budget in 5 years. The deficit this year without offsetting Social Security per this resolution for next year will be $545 billion. In 5 years, according to this resolution, it will be $428 billion.

During that same period of time between 2002 and 2011, the debt of the United States will grow to $11.3 trillion. That is twice its level when President Bush came to office. I don't think we are making the progress that we must make if we are really to get this problem under control.

Mr. Speaker, for the sake of clarification, there is no assumption in our budget resolution about a tax gap, realizing a tax gap. We did use that concept as an offset in the budget markup, but it is not in the budget resolution. There is no assumption to that effect at all.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that during consideration of House Concurrent Resolution 376, pursuant to House Resolution 817, the amendment that I have placed at the desk may be in order in lieu of amendment No. 3 printed in part B of House Report 109- 468.

This amendment modifies the amendment I submitted to the Rules Committee last month to increase the emergency spending for natural disasters from $4.348 billion to $6.45 billion. The House has just passed a rule increasing the base bill by that amount, and my amendment, the amendment at the desk, raises the level in my substitute to the chairman's new level. It simply puts the two of them on parity with respect to this particular number.

If the gentleman will yield, the chairman is correct. First, unlike your bill, the base bill, we do not create a reserve fund within the budget resolution. Instead, we rely on the powers granted to the chairman under section 314 of the Congressional Budget Act. Second, we do not establish emergency criteria. And, thirdly, we do not create a procedure that further involves the Budget Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the minority whip, Mr. Hoyer.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

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

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

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

Mr. Chairman, this budget already cuts, the base bill on the floor, education by $45 billion over the next 5 years; wipes out 42 programs; eliminates the Perkins plan for vocational education. Public health, the cuts come to $18 billion. That is the NIH, Center for Disease Control, Graduate Medical Education For Children's Hospitals, rural health care programs, on and on and on, cut $18 billion. Veterans, who should have a greater claim to our sympathy and support now than at any time, you see the sacrifices they are making, 18,000 grievously wounded, veterans health care will be funded at $6 billion below current services if this budget passes. To go deeper, to cut more is just unconscionable. I simply cannot imagine it.

In truth, what you have got here are $162 billion cumulative cuts in programs on which people depend over 5 years. You have already gone beyond the reasons of limit. Going even further would be truly unconscionable.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, we offer a budget substitute which offers a difference, because, you see, our budget will return the budget to balance by the year 2012. In the interim, it will run smaller deficits and rack up less debt.

Our resolution will hold non-defense discretionary spending to the level of current services over the next 5 years, showing that we can exercise discipline and control without making devastating cuts in the essential services. The Republican budget, the base bill, never reaches balance, and, in my opinion, presents no plan or prospect of wiping out the debt or reducing the deficit.

I just outlined a few minutes ago some of the draconian cuts that are made over time. They may not seem that to start with, but they are relentless over a 5-year period of time. Education, for example, will be cut $45 billion; the environment will be cut substantially; and so will health, public health. NIH, Center for Disease Control, Graduate Medical Education for Children's Hospitals, on and on and on, rural health care programs that people depend upon.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen), to discuss the health implications of the base bill and the difference between our substitute and the base bill when it comes to public health.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps).

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

Mr. Chairman, let me respond to the gentlemen before yielding to Mr. Hoyer. What we have provided here is that there will be $150 billion of tax cuts before the PAYGO rule applies.

Otherwise, we just would take the PAYGO rule, which worked so well for us in the 1990s, which on three occasions, the gentleman heard him, Alan Greenspan said we should reinstate, double edge, applicable to tax cuts as well as to entitlement increases.

And what we are saying is, applying the PAYGO rule, go through the Code, as we did in 1986, $2\1/2\ trillion, surely the deductions and credits and exemptions and preferences there that can help you offset the taxes that will come up for renewable in 2010. That is what we are proposing.

You have got $228 billion in this budget resolution alone calls for tax cuts of that amount. It does not have a dime of them covered. And that is why, one of the reasons, that the deficit next year will be $545 billion on budget, before applying Social Security surplus. And 5 years from now it will be $428 billion. That is assuming no fix of the AMT and no additional costs after 2007 for Iraq.

That is why they do not get anywhere. It is a tread-water budget. So what we have proposed simply is that there would be additional tax cuts, of course, up to $150 billion without having to apply the PAYGO rule. But after that they would have to be offset so we can get about the business of working off these enormous deficits, which everybody knows are not sustainable into the future.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlemen from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the minority whip.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentleman from Maryland 1 additional minute.

Mr. Chairman, before yielding to the gentleman from Texas, let me say that there are certain promises that we are bound to keep in government, and I think one of the most important are promises we have made to our veterans, because they were purchased for a dear price and usually therefore services are sorely needed, particularly veterans health care.

I yield now 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas to talk about the difference between our budget substitute and the base bill when it comes to this vitally important thing called veterans health services.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) for a unanimous consent request.

(Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds.

Let me just point out to the gentleman that amongst those who support the idea of closing the tax gap, using it in the budget, is the President himself. In his 2006 budget, he requested $446 million in extra funding for tax enforcement. The Senate side has bought into the idea. They have provided in the 2007 budget resolution $500 million, unanimously approved in the Senate for the same purpose. So it is not just a pipe dream by any means. It is something we should be about.

What we are simply proposing in PAYGO is what Mr. Greenspan asked on three occasions before our committee strongly recommended, that we reinstate the rules.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the remaining time to close to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), our distinguished minority leader.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. Chairman, let me say something first on a personal note. For 6 years now, Jim Nussle and I have sat side by side on the Budget Committee and collaborated and worked together in the spirit of cooperation and comity. We have had our vigorous disagreements from time to time; but there was always, always, the civility and friendship born of mutual respect between the two of us. We never had the pleasure of converging and collaborating on a budget itself, and I am sorry for that, Jim; but we always had I think the same goals in mind, the good of the country.

We are going to miss you here. I am going to be the first to come to the well and salute you for your service to the House and to the country and for the work you have done in particular on the Budget Committee.

Mr. Chairman, with all the jargon and all the numbers and all the rhetoric, it is hard to find your way around this budget maze, so let me start with just the basics, so basic that let's do something revolutionary, read the resolution before you.

Read this resolution and you will see that right here, page 1, the public debt of the United States will be $11.3 trillion in the year 2011, 5 years from now. At the end of 2001, 5 years ago, the day President Bush took office, the public debt was $5.7 trillion. That means that between 2002 and 2011, under the policies of this administration and this budget resolution, the public debt of the United States is going to double. In a 10-year period of time, we are going to double the debt from $5.7 trillion to $11.3 trillion. It is right here in your own resolution.

Keep on reading and you will see that the on-budget deficit for next year, the year 2007, is $545 billion. Now, on-budget, that means before you offset that against the surplus in Social Security. But there is a reason it is listed as an on-budget surplus or an on-budget deficit in this resolution. The law requires it, just as the law requires that Social Security be taken off budget.

Off budget, when it is treated that way, the deficit is $545 billion in the year 2007. In the year 2011, the on-budget deficit will be $428 billion. But that doesn't include anything for fixing the AMT. We all know that has to be done. It will have a significant effect on revenues when it is. Nor does it include anything after 2007 for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. So when you make adjustments for those two factors, you are really back up to $550 billion.

For 5 years we will tread water, go nowhere. It is right here, the numbers in this resolution, the first two pages of this resolution. That is why I say this budget resolution presents no plan and no prospect of ever balancing the budget.

Indeed, our calculations show, from the staff of the Budget Committee, our calculations shows that this budget will actually make the deficit $400 billion worse over 5 years than if we just stood still and had a current services budget.

We actually lose ground if we pass this budget tonight, and we certainly do not move into a future that any of us thinks is fiscally sound.

Mr. Chairman, I want to show you one other chart which we used several times today so that you all will be aware of something when you vote on this budget. Buried in this budget on page 121 is a provision that is written in legalese, but it says that the joint resolution, if enacted to raise the debt, the debt will be increased, the debt ceiling of the United States will be increased by $653 billion.

Tonight if you vote for this budget resolution, you are, in effect, according to this language on page 121 of the budget resolution, voting to raise the debt ceiling of the United States by $653 billion.

Now, let me put that in context. Let me put it on the back of an envelope for you. This simple chart right here shows you the increases in the debt ceiling of the United States, the legal limit to which the United States Government can borrow that have been passed by this Congress over the last 5 years.

June 2002, those of you on the Budget Committee will recall that the Bush administration came to us selling their budget. They told us, look, pass this budget with $1.7 to $1.8 trillion in tax cuts, and we still will not be back until

2008 to ask for an increase in the debt ceiling. That is how much spare capacity we have got.

They missed it by a mile. A year later they were back, hat in hand, and they said, we need an increase in the debt ceiling of $450 billion. That was 1 year.

The next year they came back with a phenomenal increase. May 24, 2004, the increase was $984 billion. That lasted 15 months. Following the 15-month period there was another increase, $800 billion. Just 2 months ago, in March, there was a $781 billion increase. And now tonight, if you vote for this resolution, you can add $653- to that. Those will be the 5 increases over 5 years in the debt ceiling of the United States in order to accommodate the budgets that this Congress has passed during that period of time, all together $3.7 trillion in 5 years.

On the back of an envelope that is as dire as I can present it to you. In this budget, as I said, look at the numbers on the first page, $545 billion in 2007, $428 billion in 2011, does not take us anywhere. It does not present a plan or a solution or anything. At best it treads water.

Now, let me show you one other thing that is a problematic feature of this budget. The cuts in this budget are not, at least do not seem to be, Draconian, at least not at the outset, but they are relentless. And they take a toll over time, and they come down on one small segment of the budget, something we call nondefense discretionary spending. Nondefense discretionary spending.

Now, it is odd that this would be the object of all of the deficit reduction effort, because, number one, this is not the source of the problem. This is not where spending has been growing by any means. And, number two, it is less than 15 percent of the budget. You will never get a $400 or $500 billion deficit resolved out of an account or series that do not come to more than $380 billion all together.

But that is what you have chosen to do in this resolution. That is why for another reason it will not work over time, but it will hurt. It will hurt people who depend on programs that are essential, such as transitional Medicaid assistance, such as education. This budget takes a $45 billion hit on education.

What you see is that over time, as you freeze, this is what our Republican colleagues call this budget on its effects on discretionary spending, a freeze, if you simply hold it in place and do not allow it to increase, actually cut it a bit below inflation over a 5-year period of time, the total effect of spending is $162 billion. That is coming out of NIH, that is coming out of CDC, that is coming out of education, that is coming out of veterans health care. The list goes on and on and on.

And there are some things in there that are real anomalies. I was out here on the floor for much of the debate on the immigration reform bill. You remember that, I am sure. And often the question came up about stiffer sanctions and tougher rules. Obviously the issue was raised, how do you enforce them? And frequently the answer was, we go to State and local government; we are going to use them in addition to the immigration service and the Customs Service and the Border Patrol. We want to enlist, engage our sheriffs and our deputy sheriffs and our city policemen to get involved in immigration enforcement, too. Well, guess what is cut out in this budget? State criminal assistance programs, $400 million.

This is not the budget that will take us to the future that we all want. The best thing that we can do tonight is to take this budget, take this budget, reject it, send the budgeteers back to the drawing board, and come up with something different.

That is not going to happen. I know it will not happen. So we will just kick the can down the road one more time. But I warn you, you know as well as I, this problem will only get tougher with time, only get harder to resolve with time. But sooner or later the day of reckoning is coming. In the meantime, what we have got with this budget is more deficits, more debt and more denial.

Vote against this budget resolution.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, on the whole this is a good bill. I commend the ranking member and the chairman for the excellent work they have put into it, and I intend to support it.

This bill gives strong support to our troops in the field by continuing to give them the equipment they need and the compensation they deserve. In particular, due to an amendment that I offered, it provides for the waiver of premiums for those soldiers in combat, Iraq or Afghanistan, on $400,000 of Servicemen's Group Life Insurance, the maximum amount available to our troops, so that all of our troops in combat can take full advantage of what is available without being concerned about the cost. We put them there. The least we can do for them and their families is give them the security of more life insurance. This bill, I am happy to say, does just that.

On an issue closer to my domain, this bill adds $30 million to the cost of cleaning up some of the most radioactive waste in the country precariously stored in 51 steel tanks at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. It also contains provisions that will allow work to begin on a facility to fabricate 34 tons of weapons grade plutonium into mixed oxide fuel.

In 2002, as a result of agreements with Russia, South Carolina agreed to accept 34 metric tons of plutonium at Savannah River Site to be fabricated into MOX fuel and burned in light water reactors. Russia agreed likewise to dispose of 34 tons of plutonium with a similar MOX fuel plant.

For 4 or 5 years, this agreement to move in parallel tracks was awaiting the outcome of disagreements and discussions of the liability for the plant. These were finally resolved last year only to find out that these were not Russia's only concerns, and now they have indicated a reluctance to pursue the parallel track of building a MOX fuel plant.

So this bill provides that South Carolina can proceed on its own on a separate track, subject to DOE's agreement of course, and subject to several conditions which have been imposed by the bill. One is that DOE certifies to us that they are still convinced that this is the best way to dispose of weapons grade plutonium. Secondly, DOE will have to indicate to us in a report that they have made adjustments and addressed the criticisms of this particular project, particularly its cost escalation, that were mentioned by the IG the last time they took a look at the project. Thirdly, we ask for a report on the disposition of off-spec plutonium, plutonium that cannot be processed into MOX fuel.

These provisions are important for South Carolina, but they also are important for our national security and nonproliferation and for the workers that will build and operate the MOX fuel plant.

Mr. Speaker, the Department of Energy has an important program called Megaports, which is to help foreign countries install radiation detection equipment so that we can interdict radioactive material in cargoes headed for the U.S. before they reach our shores. For some reason, the administration this year cut the program by $33 million. Many of us have argued for some time that we need to do a lot more to protect our ports.

This bill recognizes the gravity of that problem by authorizing an additional $15 million for the purchase of radiation detectors. By helping foreign countries bolster port and border detection, we help ourselves.

The bill contains one other notable provision on nuclear nonproliferation.

The Global Threat Reduction Initiative is a comprehensive initiative to secure and remove high risk nuclear materials, many times in insecure places, from around the world, typically in research reactors. By working with the committee, we have been able to increase the GTRI budget by $20 million over the President's budget and allow the Department of Energy an additional $30 million of previously appropriated but as yet unobligated funds. This amounts to an almost 50 percent increase in funds available for this important program.

Lastly, Mr. Chairman, this bill contains important language which restricts spending on space-based missile defense interceptors. We now have five ballistic missile interceptor systems in various phases of development. I think it is important that we stick to our plan, that we keep focusing this system and that we bring further along these five systems before we start up another, particularly one with the complications that the space-based interceptor will entail.

All things considered, it is a good bill. I intend to support it. I commend those who have crafted it and helped bring it to the floor.

Mr. Chairman, the administration has devoted a lot of energy to touting the successes of the economy, particularly with respect to the job statistics, as justification for the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. But let's look at the record.

When President Clinton took office in January 1993, there were 109.7 million jobs in the national economy in the work force. When he left office in January of 2001, there were 132.5 million jobs. That means that during the 8 years of the Clinton administration, there was a gain of 22.8 million jobs. These were the jobs created during the Clinton administration at a time when we brought the budget to balance, making the bottom line of the budget every year better and better and better to the point where we had a surplus in 1998.

Now, compare that job gain, 22.8 billion to what has happened during the Bush administration. When President Bush took office in January 2001 there were 132.5 million jobs in the economy, according to the BLS. By January of 2006, 2 months ago, the economy had a total of 134.6 million jobs. That is an increase of 2.1 million jobs, versus 22 million jobs created during the Clinton administration. No comparison. Stark contrast.

What is even worse is the fact that the Bush administration has seen most of its job gains of more than 50 percent occur in the public sector, not in the private sector. The tax cuts that have led to the deficit did not generate the jobs that were proposed or projected in the private sector. Far from it. Growth has come in the public sector.

And this is worst of all. Job growth in the manufacturing sector under President Clinton grew by 315,000. Not impressive, but at least not a loss. Under President Bush the manufacturing sector has lost 2.9 million jobs. 2.9 million jobs over the last 5 years, an average of 48,000 jobs a month.

Now, when we say that the economic gains that appear from this GDP growth and other things that look positive, stock market, the Dow Jones are all doing well and are healthy vital signs, we are glad to see them. But they are not translating into the lives of the ordinary working Americans. This is why the loss of manufacturing jobs, the best paying jobs in our economy, particularly for blue collar Americans, this is why it has happened, because this is why the family median income in real terms adjusted for inflation has gone down almost every month since 2001.

So beneath the glitter and generalizations are some stark facts that don't really appear to support the claims the Bush administration has made. Namely, they have created just over 2 million jobs, whereas the Clinton administration created 22.8 million jobs during his time in office. And they have presided over a devastation in the number of manufacturing jobs, a loss of 2.9 million manufacturing jobs in our economy.

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

Mr. Chairman, in describing the difference between Republicans and Democrats, between them and us, when it comes to the budget resolution for 2007, let me go straight to the bottom line: We have got a manifestly better bottom line.

The Democratic substitute returns the budget to balance in the year 2012. Building on our reputation for fiscal responsibility which we established in the 1990s during the Clinton administration, every year the bottom line of the budget got better and better and better until the year 1998 when we had a surplus and the year 2000 an unprecedented surplus of $236 billion. That was the year before the budget was handed over to President Bush, and it has gone downhill ever since.

So what is the difference between us on the bottom line? The Democratic budget resolution returns the budget to balance by the year 2012.

In the interim, our budget runs smaller deficits and racks up less debt. Not by a huge amount, but by a significant difference. The Democratic resolution also holds nondefense domestic discretionary spending to the level of current services over 5 years, showing that we can exercise spending control without devastating vital services and programs that people dearly depend upon.

The Republican resolution, as I said, never reaches balance and presents no plan or prospect of ever wiping out the deficit or reducing the debt.

The Republican budget resolution in fact would make the deficit worse by $410 billion over 5 years than would just a basic, current services treadwater budget.

OMB projects a deficit for this year, 2006, of $423 billion. House Republicans project a smaller deficit of $372 billion, and they project this deficit to decline to $348 billion in 2007, showing a bit of improvement. But these projections still mean that on the watch of President George Bush the five largest deficits in our country's history will occur. The five largest deficits in our country's history will occur on the watch and administration of President Bush.

To make room for the Bush administration's budget, four times Republicans in the House and Senate have raised the debt ceiling of the United States by $3.015 trillion. They have raised the debt ceiling by over $3 trillion between June of 2002 and March of 2006.

Under the Republican budget resolution, the statutory debt ceiling will increase by an additional $2.3 trillion by 2011. This means that debt ceiling increases from 2002 to 2011 will equal $6 trillion, and the statutory debt will stand at $11.3 trillion, more than doubled over the 10-year period 2002 to 2011, from $5.3 trillion when President Bush took office to 2011.

We can talk about budget in terms of fiscal policy, we can talk about it in terms of budget policy or just plain accounting issues, should we have accrual budgeting or cash budgeting, but here is the bottom line. This budget is a moral document, and the choices it makes, for whom it helps and whom it hurts, but, more importantly, in the debt it accumulates which we hand over to our children.

Are we going to be the only generation in recent American history which bequeaths to our children this dreadful legacy of debt, mountainous debt, $11.3 trillion by 2011? Today we will make the decision once again as to whether or not that is going to be the legacy we leave our children and grandchildren.

To discuss this further, I now yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper) and request when his time comes, he can use this time and allot it to the other Members of the House.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes.

I said earlier that this is an excellent opportunity to show the difference between Democrats and Republicans. This document does that; but with respect to national defense, function 050, there is no difference, because to the dollar we have provided the same amount of funding as the Republican resolution. There is no difference.

On the other hand, with respect to education, there is an enormous difference because the Republican budget resolution cuts education by $45 billion over 5 years below what we call the level of current service, staying where we are. Last year, for the first time in 17 years, the President requested less for education in 2006 than was appropriated in 2005; and this year, he asked for an even larger reduction, $2.2 billion less in 2007 than appropriated for 2006, and these cuts come on top of big cuts, crippling cuts in federally guaranteed student loans.

To discuss further the impact and consequences of these enormous cuts in education, which our resolution does not provide for--we fully restore education to current services, fully restore the cuts they would make--is Ron Kind of Wisconsin, a member of the Education Committee, and I yield him 6 minutes for that purpose.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, with respect to veterans' health care there is also a big difference. The President's budget funds veterans' health care at $12.5 billion below the Democratic Alternative over 5 years, and on top of that the President calls for veterans to be assessed a $250 fee to enroll for care at a VA Hospital.

In the markup in our committee, House Republicans raised funding for 2007 by $2.6 billion above current services. But from 2008 through 2011, the Republican budget resolution cuts veterans' health care by $8.6 billion less than what CBO estimates is needed to maintain current services. By contrast our resolution, the Democratic resolution, maintains funding every year at the CBO level of current services from 2008 through 2011.

Here to discuss further the impact of the two budgets upon veterans' health care is a Member who knows all about this. He is the ranking member of the appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction on this matter.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

The gentleman has 2 minutes remaining on his original allocation of time?

Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentleman from Texas back his 2 remaining minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

I would say to the chairman of the Transportation Committee, we do better by transportation than your colleagues on that side of the aisle.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas to respond.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) to respond further to the gentleman from Iowa.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, in the area of health care, there is a major difference between us. Some 6 or 7 years ago we got together on a bipartisan basis and agreed that every year we would try to increase the budget of the NIH such that over 5 years it would be doubled.

We achieved that goal, and now every year the Bush administration is marching us right back down the hill. This year in their budget submission over 5 years they have proposed short-funding public health and medical research programs at a level of $18 billion below current services. The programs at risk range from the National Institutes of Health to the Centers for Disease Control to graduate medical education at children's hospitals to rural health. The Democratic budget resolution, by contrast, spares these programs from deep cuts and restores them, fully funding them to the level of current services.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 8 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the dean of the House and the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, to discuss further the impact of these cuts and ask that he be allowed to yield the time that is granted him.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, budgets are moral documents, and one measure of a budget is how it treats the least among us. The House Republican budget resolution severely weakens the safety net for the least among us, cutting income security programs by some $14.9 billion over 5 years below the level of current services.

Among the programs cut, actually totally eliminated, would be the Commodities Supplemental Food Program, which provides nutritious food to 420,000 elderly people every month and to 50,000 mothers. HOPE VI would be eliminated for repairing and refurbishing public housing. Supportive housing for the disabled would be slashed by 50 percent, housing for the elderly cut by 26 percent, and, in addition, $4 billion in reconciled spending cuts that are directed to the Ways and Means committee, implying cuts in the Earned Income Tax Credit, TANF, SSI, unemployment insurance, these programs within their jurisdiction.

Here to discuss further the implications and consequences for families and communities is the senior member from New York (Mr. Rangel), the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, to whom I yield 8 minutes.

(Mr. RANGEL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, the President sent us a budget that was woefully deficient when it came to homeland security, which is a pressing concern for all of us. The Republican budget, I will give them credit, to some extent corrects that woeful deficiency by $11 billion. But over 5 years that funding level for homeland security, a pressing, critical domestic need, is still $6 billion below current services.

We restore homeland security at least to the level of current services. Thus we would be funding programs that are critically needed to deal with what most of this House recognizes is a tremendous deficiency, namely, seaport security, which pales in comparison to what we have done for airport security; and it is one of the reasons for the outcry over the Dubai ports deal.

Mr. Chairman, I now yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), the ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee, to discuss the consequences and the differences between our budget and theirs when it comes to homeland security.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, the Democratic budget resolution, I want to emphasize again; is exactly the same when it comes to dollar funding for national defense-national security, function 050. We are at the very same level, exactly the same as the House Republican resolution. That includes the $50 billion they provide toward the cost of operations in 2007 in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Our resolution also funds foreign affairs, function 150, a bit above the House Republicans, but below the Senate and below the President's request.

Though the funding levels are the same, the Democratic budget resolution calls for a better distribution of the defense budget. The Democratic budget resolution calls for, among other things, forgoing higher TRICARE fees on retirees under the age of 65, as the President and Pentagon have requested; not granting that request; increasing pay and reenlistment bonuses, badly needed to ensure recruitment and retention; increasing family support center funding, badly needed for troops who are deploying now, some for their third tour of duty, leaving their families behind; funding cooperative threat reduction and nonproliferation at higher levels; funding the Army National Guard at 350,000 troops, not 17,000 less than that; ensuring $115,000 in death gratuities, funded retroactively to May 5, 2005; funding free life insurance in combat zones at $400,000.

Then, to pay for these things, funding missile defense at a substantial, but lower, level, among other things; de-emphasizing space-based interceptors; funding transformational, next-generation satellite development, being pushed along a fast track, at a substantial, but lower, level; and, finally, implementing the financial management recommendations that the General Accounting Office has made in order to make the Pentagon and the Department of Defense more efficient, particularly in the acquisitions.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the ranking and long-time member of the House Armed Services Committee, here to discuss the budget for national defense.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews) to respond.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price).

(Mr. PRICE of North Carolina asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, in this budget the function for natural resources and the environment is not as large as defense, or some of the other functions, but it is important for the future of our country. In the function it funds, the natural resources and the environment, our Republican colleagues again match their President dollar for dollar.

For 2007 the Republican budget provides $28 billion in discretionary funding for a range of programs. That is $2 billion less than this year's level, $3 billion less than current services. Here are some of the cuts: Corps of Engineers cut $596 million, Environmental Protection Agency cut $304 million, Clean Water State Revolving Fund cut by $199 million, Land and Water Conservation Fund cut $42 million down to $86 million, the National Parks Service cut $102 million, State and private forestry cut $35 million to $244 million.

Our resolution, the Democratic resolution, restores all of those cuts and brings the budget for natural resources and the environment back to current services.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 8 minutes to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall) to discuss the consequences of the cuts that the Republican resolution would make.

The gentleman is absolutely wrong. I have sat here and listened to his misconstruction of my budget for as long as I am going to take it. He is absolutely, dead-set wrong. He doesn't know what he is talking about.

I am not even going to deign to respond to that. You got my responses so wrong, I don't know where to start. We provide exactly the same amount of money for defense. We just had that debate out here. You weren't on the floor. But I am turning to other topics worthy of debate.

Mr. Chairman, I now yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis).

Mr. Chairman, I would simply inform the lady that we voted for the full budget act that put the budget in balance in 1998 for the first time in 30 years and then again in the year 2000, put it in surplus by $236 billion.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn), chairman of the Democratic Caucus.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished lady from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Rothman).

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

Mr. Chairman, I will use those to say one thing that I haven't said, and that is, in reading this entire resolution which we offer, you will find four separate reserve funds for the improvement of health care. For example, we provide a reserve fund to cover an increase in Medicare payments to physicians to avoid a cut, a sustainable growth rate cut of 4.6 percent. We say that if you can bargain down the price of prescription drugs, you can put the savings in a reserve fund and use it to improve coverage under Medicare for prescription drugs, closing the donut hole, for example. So I would commend that to everybody's attention. There is a real difference between our budget resolution and theirs, and I ask support for ours.

Madam Speaker, the opening prayer was given by the Reverend Clyde Pickney Thomas, Jr. Reverend Thomas has served in the ministry of the Southern Baptist Church since 1974 and is now the pastor of Cherokee Avenue Baptist Church in Gaffney, South Carolina, a pulpit that he has filled with distinction since 1979.

Reverend Thomas is not only a prominent preacher of the gospel, but a pastor who has developed courses of study for adults, youth, and children, conducted an extensive sports ministry, and taken at least 10 mission trips to places as far away as the Amazon. He is married to Joanne Cash Thomas, and they have two sons, Clyde Preston Thomas and James Grady Thomas.

I have had the privilege of attending Sunday services at Cherokee Avenue and, afterwards, having lunch in the fellowship hall. I can attest to the fact that the preaching and the cooking were both first rate.

I want to thank Reverend Thomas and thank also the Speaker and Father Coughlin for allowing Reverend Thomas to open today's session with prayer. Thank you very much.

Mr. Speaker, I am honored to recognize the 150th anniversary of Newberry College, which is in my 5th Congressional District of South Carolina.

In celebrating this milestone, I am pleased to join the State of South Carolina, the City of Newberry, Newberry College, and the Newberry College Alumni Association. I want to pay special tribute to the Association's international symposium, planned for April 2006, which recognizes the life and work of the college's founder, the Rev. Dr. John Bachman, by presenting the following joint proclamation to the U.S. House of Representatives.

A Joint Proclamation for John Bachman Month

Whereas, at an early age in New York State the future Dr.

Bachman showed strong interest in studies of natural history

and religion, particularly the works of Martin Luther; and

Whereas, the esteemed Dr. Bachman traveled south in January

1815 from his birthplace to Charleston, South Carolina to

become pastor of St. John's Lutheran Church; and

Whereas, Dr. Bachman served St. John's faithfully and

honorably as her beloved pastor for an amazing and productive

fifty-six years, during which time he became a true pillar of

the Charleston community; and

Whereas, contrary to civil statutes and community standards

of the time, Dr. Bachman educated Charleston slaves and

freemen of African descent and baptized hundreds, perhaps

thousands, into membership at St. John's during his tenure;

and

Whereas, Dr. Bachman helped form and served twice as

President of the South Carolina Lutheran Synod, from 1824 to

1833 and again from 1839 to 1840; and

Whereas, Dr. Bachman, as Synod President, took action that

led to establishment in 1831 of a school to train Lutheran

ministers, now known as the Lutheran Theological Southern

Seminary of Columbia, South Carolina; and

Whereas, Dr. Bachman had a keen interest in natural history

of the South Carolina Low Country and discovered or described

many birds and mammals previously unknown to science; and

Whereas, Dr. Bachman was a seminal and active member of the

``Circle of Naturalists,'' whose work in various natural

history fields made antebellum Charleston a scientific center

equal in importance to such cities as Philadelphia, Boston,

and New York; and,

Whereas, Dr. Bachman frequently published letters and short

articles about his natural history observations in local and

regional publications (including the South Carolina Medical

Journal), and gave public lectures on these topics to

audiences of both learned and lay people; and

Whereas, Dr. Bachman hosted John James Audubon in 1831 when

the famous bird artist visited Charleston, thereby beginning

a lifelong friendship and professional collaboration; and

Whereas, Dr. Bachman was instrumental in founding the South

Carolina State Horticultural Society in 1833; and

Whereas, various scientists have seen fit to recognize Dr.

Bachman's natural history contributions by naming three North

American birds, two mammals, and one butterfly in his honor,

including Bachman's Warbler (Vermivora bachmanii), Bachman's

Sparrow (Aimophila aestivalis bachmani), Bachman's (now

Black) Oystercatcher (Haematopus bachmani), Bachman's Brush

Rabbit (Sylvilagus bachmanii), Bachman's Fox squirrel

(Sciurus niger bachmani), and the Snout Butterfly (Libytheana

bachmanii); and

Whereas, Dr. Bachman encouraged African-American members of

St. John's Lutheran Church to enter the ministry, nurturing

nationally known clergymen such as Jehu Jones (first African-

American Lutheran minister ordained in North America), Boston

Jenkins Drayton (missionary to Liberia and eventual Chief

Justice of the Liberian Supreme Court), and Daniel Alexander

Payne (sixth bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal

Church); and

Whereas, Dr. Bachman served on the Board of Trustees of the

College of Charleston from 1834 until 1848; and

Whereas, Dr. Bachman in 1838 sailed for England and Europe,

where he was greeted as a scientist of renown and awarded an

honorary doctorate from the University of Berlin; and

Whereas, in 1840 Dr. Bachman and John James Audubon began

work on The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, an

illustrated folio on mammals equal in importance, quality,

and artistic grandeur to Audubon's earlier Birds of North

America; and

Whereas, Dr. Bachman wrote the entire descriptive text of

the Quadrupeds and, in collaboration with Audubon's sons,

brought the work to publication in folio and quarto formats

beginning in 1845; and

Whereas, Dr. Bachman through his marriage to Harriett

Martin, produced many sons and daughters (two of the latter

eventually marrying two sons of John James Audubon), and

creating a lineage that continues through many accomplished

American families; and

Whereas, Dr. Bachman was elected to a three-year term as

Vice President of the Charleston Library Society in 1845; and

Whereas, in 1848 Dr. Bachman began a five-year teaching

position as Professor of Natural History at the College of

Charleston; and

Whereas, Dr. Bachman published numerous important natural

history papers including Two Letters on Hybridity (1850),

Notice of the Types of Mankind by Nott and Gliddon (1854),

and Examination of Professor Agassiz's Sketch of the Natural

Provinces of the Animal World (1855); and

Whereas, in 1851 Dr. Bachman journeyed to the National

Capital in Washington, meeting with President Millard

Fillmore to lobby for federal action that in a time of

political unrest would mollify the Southern states and

preserve the Union; and

Whereas, in 1853 Dr. Bachman published A Defense of Luther

and the Reformation in which he countered on-going

Charleston-area attacks on Protestantism; and

Whereas, Dr. Bachman was instrumental in founding in

December 1856 the Lutheran-based Newberry College, an extant

liberal arts institution at Newberry, South Carolina; and

Whereas, Dr. Bachman served as first president of the

Newberry College Board of Trustees beginning in January 1857,

and during his tenure took many actions at the College to

assure the high quality of secular and religious education

that has continued for 150 years; and

Whereas, Dr. Bachman became co-editor of Southern Lutheran

magazine in 1860; and

Whereas, Dr. Bachman, although a Unionist, led the opening

prayer for guidance at Institute Hall in Charleston as the

State of South Carolina met on 20 December 1860 to discuss

whether to vote for secession, after which he withdrew from

political activities and devoted his energies to ministering

the sick and needy; and

Whereas, Dr. Bachman survived and continued his good work

and scholarship despite a beating by Union soldiers that

permanently paralyzed his arm; and

Whereas, in 1864 Dr. Bachman published Characteristics of

Genera and Species, as Applicable to the Doctrine of Unity in

the Human Race, in which he argued from a scientific

perspective that all humans (including slave and master) were

the same species--a radical, controversial, visionary, and

correct pronouncement that took great courage on his part,

particularly amid the turmoil of the Civil War; and

Whereas, Dr. Bachman was a true renaissance man devoted to

his church and to his God, to science and natural history, to

his community and country, and to secular and

religious education--particularly of African Americans in

antebellum and post-war Charleston; and

Whereas, Dr. Bachman's legacy is alive and well at Newberry

College, which--led by its Alumni Association--will begin its

Sesquicentennial Celebration on 20 April 2006 with a major

four-day symposium entitled ``Nature, God, and Social Reform

in the Old South: The Life and Work of the Rev. John

Bachman''; and

Whereas, esteemed international authorities on Bachman will

make keynote presentations during the College's John Bachman

Symposium; and

Whereas, the public is invited to attend and participate in

this auspicious event in the life of Newberry College by

registering through the Symposium Web site at

www.johnbachman.org; and

Whereas, as noted by the many diverse accomplishments

listed above, Dr. Bachman had lasting and wide-ranging impact

on science, education, religion, and social progress in South

Carolina, the United States, and beyond; and

Whereas, the month of February is significant because Dr.

Bachman was born on February 4, 1790, and died eighty-four

years and twenty days later on February 24, 1874;

Now, therefore, the State of South Carolina, the City of

Newberry, Newberry College, and the Newberry College Alumni

Association do hereby proclaim through the powers vested in

Governor Mark Sanford, Mayor T. Edward Kyzer, President

Mitchell M. Zais, and Symposium Chair William J. Hilton Jr.

that April 2006 shall be designated as ``John Bachman Month''

throughout the State of South Carolina, and urge all citizens

to recognize this observance and to attend the John Bachman

Symposium at Newberry College.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot rise to the heights of Charlie Rangel, but I rise in tribute to the Tuskegee Airmen. For years, it seems we have considered bills honoring the contributions of these heroic airmen. It is about time this one passed and passed with huge support.

Their achievements in support of our efforts in World War II have inspired books and movies. They have earned decorations and awards for valor that are too numerous to cite. As Mr. Rangel noted, 992 graduated from pilot training at Tuskegee; 450 went overseas to North Africa and Italy; some 150 died either in training or in combat missions. And yet, though they were shot down, not a single bomber, as Mr. Rangel noted, among the many they escorted was ever shot down.

While their accomplishments have been recognized by the military, the military in truth cannot adequately honor all of their accomplishments because these men fought and won other battles that were not military in nature. They defied those who thought they lacked the intelligence, the skills, the courage, even the patriotism to fly and fight. Their courage in the air is legendary, but their courage on the ground and in our society made their achievements in the air all the more meaningful and remarkable.

Today, the impact of the Tuskegee Airmen reaches far beyond the skies of Italy and North Africa. Their service led to social changes in our country that include the integration of our Armed Forces. In 1948, Harry Truman

signed Executive Order 9981, directing equality of treatment and opportunity in all of the armed services. President Truman's order ended racial segregation in the military and was a major step towards ending racial segregation in the United States of America.

Today, we recognize the Tuskegee Airmen for valor in battle, but also for accomplishments that succeeded, that transcended the battlefield like Executive Order 9981. The Tuskegee Airmen, the 99th Fighter Squadron and the 332d Fighter Group, not only deserve the Congressional Gold Medal, they will add luster to it.

I salute the Tuskegee Airmen and I urge all of my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, it is easy to criticize the contents of this reconciliation bill because it hurts children, single-parent families, students struggling to finance their college education, and many others who are the most vulnerable among us. But I rise today to criticize the process because this a process known as reconciliation; and the purpose of reconciliation is that as you come to the end of a budget season, we use this to change mandatory spending and change revenues so that you reconcile the actual budget to what otherwise would occur.

Ordinarily in the past, reconciliation has led to deficit reduction. That is the purpose. That is the reason it is a priority process in the budget process. In the budget summit agreement of 1990, we saved $482 billion in budget reconciliation; in 1993, we saved $433 billion in reconciliation; in the balanced budget agreement of 1997, we saved $118 billion.

So what do we save today when you put together this spending-cut bill, $39 billion in reconciled spending cuts, with the tax bill that will follow it, the reconciliation tax bill? You add $17 billion to the deficit over that period of time. There is no deficit reduction.

Worse still, if you look back at all of the taxes we passed in this budget cycle this previous year leading up to fiscal year 2006, starting with the transportation bill and including the energy bill and including a 1-year patch, $31 billion, in the Alternative Minimum Tax, the total tax reduction comes to $122 billion. But let me remind you, I just included and we have just included, they just included in this tax bill, $31 billion, a 1-year fix in the AMT. If all of these taxes are reflected

on a 5-year basis, there is an additional $167 billion to add to that.

Here is the bottom line. Here is what you are voting for today if you vote for this bill. If you look at it over a true 5-year time period and add up all of the taxes in addition to the reconciliation tax cuts that have been passed in this budget cycle, the addition to the deficit is $380 billion after deducting the $40 billion included in this reconciliation bill. That is the net effect on the deficit.

So anybody coming here to the well of the House or going to the voting machine to register his or vote thinking that this is going to reduce the deficit has another thought coming. This bill will increase the deficit, considering the tax cuts that have been passed this past year. It will leave us with a deficit increase of $280 billion over the next 5 years. That is why the process is a sham and that is reason enough to vote against the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, we have handled, the conference has handled, leadership has handled, and the staff, a record number of amendments in a record period of time. And while I have some problems with the process, I commend them for the end result. It is a good piece of work.

There are many good features to it. We retained intact the McCain language which prohibits the United States from engaging in torture of prisoners. There are a number of very fine personnel improvements here which our service personnel dearly deserve.

We have given the impetus to start up something called a caps reliable replacement warhead program but at the same time put it within reasonable and restrictive bounds, which I think is smart. And I could go on and on. There are some good features to this bill.

I am not criticizing anyone in particular when I say that I find fault with the process, but I have been on this committee for 23 years, all the time I have served here. And, unfortunately, given the time restraints, which were largely the result of the fact that the Senate put us on abbreviated schedule, they were late getting their bill done, we have had to do this with much too much haste.

Here is the bill right here that we are about to consider, and we only saw it really in final form on Friday afternoon. We were appointed at one hour, and at the very next hour we were meeting for our first and only formal meeting. I hope this will not become a precedent for the process in the future, and that is why I express this concern now. The bill itself I support.

I am also very concerned about what is happening to the defense appropriations bill, and I do not want to see it happen to our defense authorization bill. We do not want our bill to become a must-pass piece of legislation to which other bills, other wholly unrelated legislation, gets attached because ours is must-pass legislation, a moving vehicle. That could have happened to this very bill, and it is the reason we are standing here at 12:30 at night instead of dealing with it yesterday afternoon with much more leisure than we are giving to the bill right now because it was almost hijacked by something totally extraneous. And I would say to the chairman I am glad that this did not happen, glad that we have got a clean bill, and glad that we can vote on it without having these extraneous matters to consider and weigh.

Once again, congratulations on a job well done.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. We have before us a conference report that everybody should understand there has really been no conference in which House and Senate Democrats have had any meaningful role.

Our objection to this bill begins with its title: The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. Let us be honest, this bill does not reduce the deficit. When this reconciliation bill with spending cuts is paired with its counterpart, the reconciliation bill with tax cuts, the deficit is actually increased, not decreased; and the increase in the deficit gets worse when you add, as I think you should, the $50 bill in other tax cuts passed by the House over the last few months.

At the outset, the proponents of this bill called it necessary in order to help pay for hurricanes Katrina and Rita. That has proven to be a false claim, too. This bill has nothing to do with paying for Katrina. It has everything to do with facilitating further tax cuts. This bill comes out of a budget resolution that calls for a total of $106 billion in new and additional tax cuts, $70 billion reconciled, $36 billion unreconciled.

So the spending cuts in this bill are really just the first step in a three-step process. Step two will come when the tax cuts reconciliation bill emerges from conference. When these two bills are paired, the result will be a deficit bigger by about $60 billion over 5 years.

Then there is a third step. There is an increase in the national debt pending, an increase in the national debt ceiling of $781 billion necessary to accommodate budgets like the 2006 budget being passed here tonight. This increase was deemed approved when the Republican budget resolution passed the House several months ago.

Over the last 4 fiscal years, to make room for budgets of the Bush administration and budgets that have been passed by the majority in this House, we have had to raise the legal debt ceiling of the United States by $3.15 trillion to accommodate those budgets.

Once upon a time, the purpose of reconciliation was to rein in the deficit; but as you can see from the charts I am about to put up, and I knew this was just what you wanted me to serve you for breakfast this morning, more numbers and more charts, so I did not disappoint.

First of all, when you put this chart up, you can see what the debt increases have been over the last 4 or 5 fiscal years: $3.15 trillion. As Casey Stengel said, ``If you don't believe it, you can look it up.'' $3.15 trillion.

Next, let me show you what reconciliation in past years has accomplished as opposed to what reconciliation this year will accomplish in terms of reducing the deficit. In past years, for example the Bush budget summit in 1990, the deficit reduction due to reconciliation was $482 billion. In the Clinton budget in 1993, the deficit reduction due to reconciliation was $433 billion. In the balanced budget agreement of 1997, reconciliation produced savings of $118 billion over 5 years. This bill saves nothing. It aggravates and worsens the deficit.

Now, it is fair to ask: Why have the Republicans, those who put this budget together, why have they put spending cuts in one bill and tax cuts in another bill? Why did they not just combine the two so we could keep tabs on everything with one reconciliation bill? Which is typically what we have done in the past.

Well, there is a reason for this hiatus between spending cuts and tax cuts. The spending cuts made by this bill will hit the young, the old, the sick, and the poor, and hit them rather hard. The savings realized from these spending cuts will help offset tax cuts for top-bracket taxpayers. Our Republican colleagues want to avoid that connection, so they have produced two separate bills, one for tax cuts, and then a little later on, one for spending cuts.

Who bears the brunt of these bills? Single mothers still do. Despite some moderation in the effect of the cuts that were proposed originally, single mothers still take about a $2 billion hit. Students struggling to pay for their college education. The hit on student loans is $12.7 billion. The sick and the poor, whose only access to medical care is Medicaid. Medicaid still suffers a hit of $7 billion.

So these cuts have been moderated in the conference with the Senate, but

some of the worst of the House bill provisions are still there. A bit less significant, but still hurtful to the people who are the victims of these particular cuts.

And bear this in mind. Bear this in mind. This bill still increases, for all of the cuts it makes, still increases the deficit, still uses spending cuts to offset tax cuts, and still cuts services for the least among us, the most vulnerable and poorest Americans.

In short, there are many reasons this bill does not live up to its title, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. It makes deep and painful cuts still, only to pave the way for new and additional tax cuts and never mind the deficit. The result is a larger deficit. So in this respect, today's legislation is like the budget resolution that set it in motion. This is one of a series of fiscal actions that will cause the debt ceiling of the United States at the end of this year to be move to $3.15 trillion.

Bear in mind that when the Bush administration came to office, it inherited a surplus and predicted that this surplus would endure even if its trillion dollar tax cuts were adopted. Well, the Bush budget was adopted, and in fiscal 2005 the bottom line was not a surplus of $269 billion, as once projected, but a deficit of $319 billion.

Realistic estimates from CBO show that if you take the Bush budget of 2006 as last proposed in July, and they are updated, if you take that budget and run it out 10 years with all the assumptions made in the Bush budget, these are the results. The deficit of last year, which was $320 billion, this is CBO, will go to $640 billion, if you follow the trajectory shown here, the curve shown here. The deficit goes from $320 billion to $640 billion. It doubles.

Debt service on the debt goes from $182 billion last year to $458 billion in 10 years, and the national debt doubles. That is the course we are embarked upon as we do one more part of a long series of fiscal actions that are leading us deeper and deeper into debt, and nobody should be fooled by what is happening here on the House floor tonight. Once the pieces are all put together, and you can see the whole puzzle, this means a deeper deficit and no resolution to the problem before us.

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

Mr. Speaker, it may be 5:15 in the morning, but that is not our fault. We would liked to have done this in the light of day with a little more time to look at this package. Here is what we have got just 1 hour ago.

When we unpacked the package to see what was in it, we had the Speaker's press release, which told us earlier in the evening that, by golly, you would come up with $41.6 billion in total spending reductions. We got this package, and, finally, looking through 700 pages, we finally got a summary of the action taken, and they came to $39.7 billion. It was $1.9 billion less than the Speaker had claimed earlier. Even for government work, that is not very close.

Here is the Speaker's press release. We discern that this difference came from the fact that between the Speaker's press release and the release of this voluminous document here called the budget resolution, or the budget reconciliation bill, there was a deal made with the medical equipment manufacturers and suppliers with respect to Medicare reimbursement, a deal that costs your total package $1.9 billion.

If I am not right, I would like to be corrected, which leads us to ask, if you could adjust for them to the tune of $1.9 billion, couldn't we have gone back and looked at student loans and moderated the cuts being inflicted on them? Couldn't we have gone back and looked at children with delinquent dads and moderated what we were doing with respect to the cuts in child support enforcement, foster care, and the other things that are still in this bill? If you could do that for the medical equipment manufacturers, couldn't you do it for the least of these?

Mr. Speaker, it may be 5:20 in the morning, but Mr. Dingell is still up and ready for a good fight. I yield to the gentleman for 4 minutes.

(Mr. DINGELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the Democratic whip.

I yield to the gentleman from Maryland 3\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).

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

Mr. Speaker, lest anyone think that we are about to launch a bill here that

will lead us to a balanced budget, let me disabuse you of that illusion.

First of all, let us look at some of the specific items in this particular package to see whether or not they are real in the way of budget reduction.

For example, this bill calls for the abolition of mandatory spending to administer the student loan program. Now, how do you administer the student loan program if you do not provide the funding for it? If you do not provide the mandatory funding for it, it has to come out of discretionary funding. That means we will be underfunding No Child Left Behind and other discretionary educational programs by $2 billion a year more, because that is where the money for administration of the student loan programs will have to come from if you bar its coming from mandatory spending. It is a phony cut.

Secondly, $3.6 billion is scored as a revenue to offset these spending increases, $3.6 billion in PBGC premiums. Now why is that not allowable? In my good accounting book, if you book all of the liabilities that PBGC is faced with over the foreseeable future, there is no net balance in that account, even after you add this $3.6 billion. That money is entrusted. It is encumbered and it cannot fairly be said to be available in the general fund to offset other spending. In truth, it will be spent much, much too soon anyway, and we will have to replenish it.

Third, child support enforcement. You have moderated that. You have brought it down from $4.9 billion, which was absurd, to $1.5 billion, which still hurts. You either shift that expense to the States that are responsible for child support enforcement, or parents who are looking to delinquent parents to pay their child support will have less assistance, and they will collect less in the way of child support. It is a false economy.

You say there are no tax increases in your bill. But the PBGC premium increase is certainly equivalent to the same thing. It will come out of paychecks. And the Medicare part B under your provisions is certainly going up. It will come out of Social Security checks. It is offset.

And then there is another thing about your bill that is myopic that gives us real problems with it. In looking for places to cut, you wholly ignore any kind of revenue effects connected with your tax cut agenda. And the way you are able to do this, and avoid responsibility for it, is you break the tax cuts into so many small pieces that you clutter the audit trail and make it hard for anybody, Members and otherwise, to follow just how big the tax tab, the tax cut tab is adding up to.

So let me take two charts here and try to reconstruct the path, the audit trail of tax cuts that has been implemented since the budget resolution for 2006 was passed just a few minutes ago, a few months ago, and what it means for the bottom line, that is, the deficit.

Let us start with the highway bill passed earlier this year. This revenue impact is about $500 million over 5 years. Next comes the energy policy act. Revenue loss over 5 years is $7.9 billion. Then there is the Katrina tax relief act of 2005, which we adopted a few weeks ago. It has a revenue head of $6 billion.

The biggest tax cuts come from that bill that is waiting in the wings for this bill to be passed; and it will come along a little bit later, the Tax Extension Reconciliation Act of 2006, 20005. It entails tax cuts for $56 billion over 5 years passed by this House, $80 billion over 10 years. Then there is the so-called Stealth Tax Relief Act, patching the alternative minimum tax for this year so that it affects no more taxpayers than it affected last year. The cost for 1 year: $31.2 billion. Covers only 1 year.

The Tax Revision Act of 2005 is just a sundry assortment of tax measures; but it has a revenue cost too, $153 million over 5 years. And finally there is the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005, revenue impact: $7 billion.

Now, add all of these together and you will see that the total revenue impact entailed by these tax policies comes to $110 billion. So this reconciliation bill offsets about $40 billion of that amount, leaving an additional debt of around $80 billion. That is the net effect of this reconciliation bill. That is why we say it does not decrease the deficit when you pair it up with this other reconciliation bill, the tax cuts. It increases the deficit. But that is not all. That is not the worst of it.

As we have shown, in patching up the AMT last year and again this year, it has to be fixed or it is going to raise the taxes of middle- income taxpayers for whom it was never intended. If we do basically in future years what we have done this year, the revenue impact of patching the AMT is shown right here, $167 billion. That makes the revenue impact of all seven tax cuts $307 billion. Offset your 40 billion against that, you have still got $267 billion in tax reduction over the next 5 years. That is why I say it is myopic. You are looking for solutions to this problem and overlooking one of the bases of the problem, ignoring the fact that if we are going to tackle a deficit worth 320 and rising, we have got to have action on the spending side of the ledger and on the tax side of the ledger as well.

That is the problem here, and that is why I say if you leave here thinking, after voting for this bill, that you have begun a series of fiscal actions that will bring the budget to heel, that you will finally reduce the deficit of $320 million, you are badly, badly disillusioned. Once again, let me show you a chart the CBO did for us last September when we asked them to take the budget that they had just portrayed out over a 10-year period of time and apply to it the President's budget policy as enunciated in his July mid-term review.

This is what happened. They said, you are going to follow this path right here that takes you to 640 billion total deficit, a doubling of the deficit over 10 years. You are going to increase the debt service in the United States from $182 billion to $458 billion 10 years from now, and you are going to double the national debt. That is the path we are on, and this bill tonight will not divert us 1 inch. Indeed, it will aggravate that path and that is the plea that I am making to you. That is why you should vote against this bill. Reject it now. Come back next year. Let us do something realistic about deficit reduction.

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

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

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

And I would like to turn to a matter of some significant concern to me and to the gentleman because, as he said, we both serve on the House Armed Services Committee. We both have worked diligently to see a good Defense authorization bill put together this year and finally, we thought, put to bed last week. But here is what is happening, to everybody's dismay, on this side of the line.

On Thursday afternoon, the House appointed conferees on the Defense authorization bill to go to conference with the Senate. Thursday afternoon. Within hours, the conference committee met for the first and only time. We made a cursory review, which is all we had time for, of the conference report which staff and mainly the Republican Members had worked up and put together over the last several weeks. We reviewed it. We reviewed the salient points. We made some objections. And finally, we approved it.

This summary procedure is not my idea or I think the Framers' idea of how we would make law, particularly law that authorizes the expenditure of $440 billion for something as important as the defense of this Nation. This kind of summary procedure should not be repeated. This year, we were late getting started. The Senate was even later getting started. So we had to do it in record time. And I am glad we got it done, but it is not the best procedure.

As bad as that procedure is, the worst was yet to come. After the conference report had been signed, signed by the Democratic conferees, signed by the Republican conferees, signed by the Senate, signed by the House, after it had been signed, the Republican leadership decided it needed a must-pass moving vehicle, some kind of bill to which they could attach legislation that otherwise could not be passed, maybe would not stand the light of day. Reputedly, it dealt with section 527, political advocacy corporations and campaign limits. We suspected it also dealt with a bill known as Pence-Wynn. We do not know yet because we have not seen the conference report that they have tried to amend.

In any event, we know this: These bills are about campaign finance reform. They have absolutely nothing to do with the defense of the United States. This is not a technical change they are trying to make. It is not even about defense. Far from it.

Worse still, it is fundamentally serious major legislation. It is not something minor that you bobtail on or piggyback on another bill. Pence-Wynn, if that is the legislation they are trying to append to this conference report, is a major fundamental revamping of the campaign finance laws of this country, lifting the limits enormously on all kinds of corporations from PACs and individuals, creating virtual carte blanche for the wealthy of this country to contribute to political campaigns.

Our ranking member, Mr. Skelton of Missouri, heard what was happened, to the extent that he could find out anything. He protested and pulled our names on the grounds, the House Democratic names, from the conference report on the grounds that they were amending or seeking to amend that the conference agreement that had been signed and sealed and all but delivered to the House floor for action, amending it after the fact, Members who were not even parties to the agreement trying to change the bill in a significant way without any kind of collegiality, any kind of comity, any kind of consultation with our side. He pulled our names.

In the Senate, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Republican, the very distinguished Senator Warner, was so outraged to see this gross violation of the processes of the House, the procedures of the House and the Congress, of fundamental fair play, that he said, if the Republican leadership in the House tried to unilaterally change this agreement after it had been signed, he would vigorously object and pull out the signatories at least on the Republican side. And Mr. Levin, the gentleman from Michigan who is the Democratic Senator who is the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the very same thing.

Now, we ask tonight, what is the status of this bill that has taken months to produce, that addresses our troops deployed all over the world, that contains important personnel provisions that probably will not be overlapped in the appropriations bill? Where is the bill that we have worked and produced, that we signed and had ready to go?

Where is the bill? Where is the Defense authorization bill? Where is it left if we do not take action on it?

It is left in limbo. It is left hanging. It is left unauthorized, unpassed. A hard effort coming to no worthy conclusion.

Representative Pryce, who chairs the Republican conference, is quoted as saying in the CQ Daily that Congress may not even consider this bill before Christmas. Why not? It is ready to go. All we need is 1 hour on the floor. It is written. The conference report is ready to come to the floor. Why would we not consider it before Christmas? And, more importantly, what are the consequences if we do not consider it before Christmas?

Well, let me tell my colleagues just a few of the things that will not be enacted that otherwise might be a nice package to send to our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and the ramparts around the world where they are standing up for freedom. Let me just mention a few things that are not covered in the appropriation bill and may never come to pass if we do not pass this bill: There is a 3.1 percent pay increase. Not a big increase, but I am sure that every troop will be glad to get it. There is an end-strength increase. We think the ground forces are undersized, so we have called for a couple of years for an increase in the size of the ground forces, Army and Marines, 30,000 in the Army, 4,000 in the Marines, in fiscal year 2006. That will not be done.

There is a death gratuity. The conference report increases the death gratuity for all active and activated servicemembers up to $100,000 retroactive to October 7, 2001. For the 2,100-odd troops who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, in Iraq in particular, I am sure this would be welcomed by their families as some token of appreciation for the ultimate sacrifice they had to pay.

TRICARE: For the first time ever, reservists who agree to continue service in the Selected Reserves will have an opportunity, depending on their status, to buy into the government-subsidized TRICARE standard health program for themselves and their families.

Recruiting: Enlistment bonuses will expire unless we reauthorize it. There is a whole list of things like this.

Life insurance: It was previously increased for servicemen, life insurance, SGLI, to $400,000 in amount. We said in this bill, if they are in Iraq, if they are in Afghanistan, if they are putting their lives on the line in a hazardous duty zone, by golly, as a part of their hazardous duty pay, we will pay that first $150,000. I wanted to pay more of it. But that will be a nice addendum, a nice Christmas present for the troops who are in the field and for their families back home who worry, if our servicemember does not come home, who will provide for us? The least we can do is increase the life insurance.

I could go down the list with other personnel changes. They are numerous. Let me give you just one. This conference report would extend TRICARE coverage also for children of servicemembers killed in the line of duty until they reached the age of 21. This is just a sampling of what will not be done if, for petty, high-handed partisan reasons, the conference report, already finished on the Defense authorization bill, is not brought to the floor.

This is an outrage. It is an outrage. It is sort of inside baseball to some people, hard to explain to the American people because, in the parliamentary sense, it is so complicated. But it is an outrage, and it should not be allowed to happen. This is the one bill we should pass before we go home.

I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.

I have been on the conference committee every year for at least 20 years, and I never seen this happen before. I have never seen the leadership of either party come forth and say, you may have signed it, you may have closed it, you may have signed and sealed and delivered it; but we can still change it and add to it things that are totally out of the scope, out of scope because they are not in the jurisdiction of our committee, and out of scope because they have never been considered by either committee in either House, hearings, markup, on the floor, in the committee, anywhere. Totally out of the blue to come at the 11th hour.

And to impose this on the bill in deference to wealthy contributors who do not want to be encumbered with limits on what they can contribute is outrageous. There is no nicer word for it.

I will guarantee you the people do not know what is going on. Until I got back this afternoon, I had to go home and make a speech and started reading some of these dailies that we get over our fax machines and got some phone calls from others who had found out, pieced it together. I did not know about it, so I am sure the American people do not know about it.

Let me just take a second, if I can, maybe a minute or two, and read from the memo that was given to us as conferees just as to what the personnel provisions of this bill are. For the most part, these will not be backstopped by overlapping provisions in the appropriations bill. It simply will not be done unless and until this bill for 2006 is enacted.

I already mentioned a pay raise of 3.1 percent to all servicemembers. I mentioned the increase in end strength needed for our stretched-out ground forces. The death gratuity is raised substantially to $100,000, but, even more important, provided for retroactively to October 7, 2001. And we remove, and only we can do this, we remove the combat- related requirement for the death gratuity.

TRICARE, I mentioned the changes there. In addition, there are some other changes for TRICARE Reserve Select. It enhances that coverage, not as much as we wanted; but it is better than what we have got.

Enlistment bonuses, the authority for those is increased substantially. We have got recruitment problems. We have retention problems. We need this authority to help our recruiters if they are to keep end strength in.

The enlistment age. There are some folks out there that would like to get back into the service, age 42, still in good physical condition. This would allow persons who have previously served who would like to enlist again to be considered up to the age of 42.

Here is something that everybody has noted, given the condition of many soldiers who are coming back from the Iraqi and Afghanistan theater: the establishment of a mental health task force that will look at how the Department and services can treat better, identify better, and support better mental health needs, particularly including post- traumatic stress disorder.

It enhances programs and policies to improve the transition of servicemembers who are severely wounded or injured back into civilian life.

It provides temporary authority to the Army to set up four innovative recruitment tests to see if it can improve its recruitment.

It increases hardship duty pay to $750.

It allows the establishment of a pilot program that would match enlisted members' contributions to the Thrift Savings Plan.

It provides foreign language pay, which we badly need, given the shortage of Arab-speaking servicemembers, up to $12,000.

It extends TRICARE, as I said earlier, for children of servicemembers killed in the line of duty until they reach 21 years of age, or 23 if they are a full-time student.

These are just the personnel changes, but every one has a particular appeal to them. They were carefully considered in our committee and the Senate committee and put into the conference bill. Much of this will not be done if this bill does not get passed, and it certainly will not be done until it is finally enacted.

As the gentleman knows, we get the budget the second week in February. Our hearings start almost immediately in the authorization committee because we have got all four services, we have procurement, personnel, research and development, all kinds of issues that have to be thrashed out every year.

We do not mark up and bring a bill to the floor typically until May, sometimes until June. Then we wait on the Senate to get their work done; and usually, if we are lucky, they get theirs

done in July. If we are not lucky, theirs gets done in September or October, and we find ourselves playing catch-up, which is what we are doing in the extreme this year.

Nevertheless, it is a year-long process. We carefully sift through all these issues. We go back to what we did the previous year and see if it worked. If it did not, we make adjustments. It is an ongoing, continual process. An immense amount of work goes into this.

You can say the appropriators do the same thing; but their committee is much, much smaller than ours. Therefore, they do not get into all of these elements nearly as deeply as we do. That is why this authorization is so critically important as part of the process.

That is a very good example of something you can spend a lot of time on, but it is important to troops. They are over there fighting for our freedom. We need to make it possible for them to have the fundamental right to vote and make sure their vote will count, make sure it will not be held up somewhere and not get transmitted to be counted. That is not as easy as it seems in some cases. So we have to give a lot of consideration to it.

That is one of the reasons this bill is done annually, every year, because we have to come back and look at what we did last year and see if it is working. If it is not, we make further adjustments and also find out what new problems have cropped up in the past year.