Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that if a message transmitting a Presidential veto is laid before the House on Monday, November 5, 2007, then after the message is read and the objections of the President are spread at large upon the Journal, further consideration of the veto message and the bill shall be postponed until the following day, Tuesday, November 6, 2007.

Will my friend yield?

I thank the gentleman for yielding. I know that Mr. Terry has spoken for all of us, and Mr. Engel, Mr. Pomeroy.

For those of us who had the opportunity to serve for an extended period of time with Peter Hoagland, for those of us who knew Peter after he left the Congress of the United States, this is a sad day. It is an appropriate day, however, to remember, as Mr. Engel said, a gentleman who had nothing bad to say about any of our Members on either side of the aisle; a Member who was positive in his approach; a Member who was gracious to all; a Member who cared deeply about his country, about his State, and about his service in this institution.

Peter Hoagland was a good and decent man who served his country well, and will be sorely missed by us all.

Mr. Speaker, today, the House is considering-three critically important resolutions related to the world's worst ongoing humanitarian disaster--the genocide in Darfur, Sudan.

The first is H. Res. 573, which recognizes and commends the efforts of U.S. advocacy groups to raise awareness about and help end the worsening crisis in Darfur. These groups remind us daily, through their media campaigns and grassroots efforts, that the international community has a responsibility to unite and stop crimes against humanity--and that we must learn from past failures to do so--in Rwanda, Bosnia, and elsewhere.

The second is H. Res. 740, which condemns the brutal attack on African Union peacekeepers that occurred in Haskanita, Darfur, 1 month ago today. This violent act, carried out by rebels, took the lives of 10 peacekeepers--seven Nigerians and three other soldiers from Mali, Senegal, and Botswana. It reminds us that there are many guilty parties in the violence in Darfur, and that we must reinforce our support for the courageous African Union soldiers--who indeed fight not for their own countries, but for humanity.

Finally, the House will vote today on H. Res. 726, a resolution calling on the President and the international community to take immediate steps to respond to and prevent acts of rape and sexual violence against the most innocent of Darfur's victims--young girls and women. I was asked to cosponsor this important resolution by my friend and colleague Brad Miller, who traveled with me to Darfur in April. There we saw things we will never forget--children orphaned by genocide and women who had experienced unspeakable personal traumas. We learned that the heartbreaking reality of life in Darfur today means women risk being raped when doing things as simple as collecting firewood. This resolution addresses this horrific reality by authorizing grants to help the women and girls of Darfur and calling for prosecution of those who have carried out such hideously inhumane acts.

I am proud that the U.S. House of Representatives is putting itself on record with these resolutions--as an institution that will not stand idly by while the world's worst humanitarian disaster continues to unfold. While these resolutions are not a panacea to the heart-rending conflict in Darfur, we know from experience that continual pressure on those who take part in such violent, inhumane actions brings us closer to a solution.

That solution must be multi-faceted. It includes not only full and speedy implementation of the United Nations/African Union hybrid peacekeeping force, but also international support for a single, unified peacemaking process. I am extremely disappointed to learn that multiple rebel leaders have chosen violence over peace and declined to participate in the current talks in Libya, but I am hopeful that the representatives that are there--including the representatives of the Government of Sudan--will make progress toward a ceasefire and a viable political solution for this ravaged land. Finally, and equally important, a solution in Darfur must include a sustained and secure role for the courageous humanitarian workers, who risk their lives daily because they are so committed to alleviating the suffering of their fellow human beings.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support these three resolutions.

Mr. Speaker, it is Thursday and it is a getaway day. I know everybody is concerned, because you talk to me from both sides of the aisle all the time about it, so I am well aware that people want to get out.

I will be asking, and that is why I want to say this now, I will be asking the presiding officers to keep our votes to no more than 2 minutes after the votes are to close, whether it is a 15-minute vote or a 5-minute vote. I think that will facilitate, hopefully, getting our work done.

The reason I say it now, I want everybody to be on notice that we intend to do that so we don't catch you. What the pattern has been increasingly is that when we get to ``zero,'' there are almost invariably 175 Members who have not voted. I do it and I am sure everybody else does it. You look at the screen and you see 170 Members haven't voted, and you have plenty of time. I understand that. I understand it because that is what I do.

The only way for us to overcome that is that 2 minutes after the vote, 17 minutes, we will close the vote. That will mean some of you may miss the votes and you will be angry with me. I want you to know ahead of time that I understand you will be angry with me, but at least I am telling you that is what our intention is to do.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Yes, I am aware of that.

Scheduling the House, as my good friend, Roy Blunt, and I have discussed, is very difficult. It is very difficult because we have 435 Members. Obviously, all of us have responsibilities. We have families and we have issues that happen within our districts that require us from time to time to be in our districts.

All of the California Members who talked to me, and some on the Republican side talked to me and some on the Democratic side talked to me, I urged them to be in California. That's where I would be. If I had a wildfire, a flood or a tornado in my district, I would be in my district.

Today's vote on SCHIP, which is the only vote we will have when we get to it, is not in my opinion in doubt and would not be affected by the absences we may have.

On this vote there were 55 people not voting. Obviously, there are not 55 people in California. We have a number of the Californians here. There are representations on your side of the aisle that there are five or six Californians who might be there, and there are some on our side from Southern California who will also be there. Now, on the average day, we have 10 Members who are not here, give or take. Some for illness reasons and others for good reasons where they have determined they need to be someplace else. It is obvious we cannot cancel votes on those days.

I will tell my friend that everybody knows we are not here tomorrow, and we are going to be hopefully through relatively early today. I don't know that there is something happening today that won't be true tomorrow. I do know that there is concern about proceeding on the SCHIP bill. I have made it clear, in August I made it clear that we have an agenda to accomplish. If we were meeting Friday, that might be a different story, but we are not meeting Friday. So tomorrow is available, Saturday is available, Sunday, Monday is available. I believe that Members ought to be with their constituents.

I don't believe they're going out there to fight the fire. They're going out to be with their constituents. That is appropriate. My point I think is clear. My point is clear.

The objectives of the Members who are not here are understandable and appropriate, but what is not appropriate is for me to be put in the position or anybody who schedules on either side of the aisle to be put in the position of having our legislative process stopped when we essentially have only a few hours left to go and important legislation to consider.

I yield to the gentlewoman from New Mexico.

I yield to the gentleman from Mississippi.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

I want everybody to know that we're coming back on Monday. I don't want anybody to be confused that we're coming back on Monday at 6:30; and we will not be here, I will be announcing later today, the next Friday, a week from tomorrow.

Let me say to my friend that, as I said, I discussed with your leadership the difficulty of scheduling, not this particular item, although this was discussed, and the request was made.

Every Member of this body knows that 435 people, as I said, everybody has very important things they have to do from time to time and that are appropriate to do on behalf of their constituents on behalf of fulfilling their duties. We missed unavoidably 2 legislative days as a result of the tragic deaths of two of our Members, which was inevitable, and we obviously appropriately canceled sessions on those days.

This bill that we are considering is a very important bill. It needs to pass the House. It needs to pass the Senate. It needs to go to the President, and it needs to come back here. We have 3 weeks left to go between now and the 16th of November, to which the gentleman referred.

The gentleman is well aware, I know my Republican colleagues in leadership are well aware, of how long it takes to get things through the Senate, for reasons that we all understand in terms of their necessity to get the appropriate votes.

As a result, the time left to us is very short, and to not proceed today and to push this off till next week then pushes off to the week following when the Senate can consider this legislation, which then pushes it off to the last week that we'll be here for Presidential action. All of that is a constraint on the flexibility of scheduling.

And again I will say that I understand absolutely the desire of the Californians to be where they are. I think it's appropriate to be where they are. My only point is that we're not meeting all week. There is some flexibility. They chose to go today. I do not criticize that decision on either side of the aisle. I simply say that it was not in consideration of, obviously, the business that we have to get done.

And again I reiterate, in a collegial body, if I thought that the absence of your Members or our Members would make a difference on the outcome, but this bill had an overwhelming vote when it initially passed, an overwhelming vote, not the two-thirds, but an overwhelming vote. So I do not believe the absences of either party's Members will impact on the outcome of this vote. So I don't think we're prejudicing the outcome of the vote in any way.

I yield to the gentleman from Washington State.

Reclaiming my time, there are 13 Californians as I understand it who are not here, and that's a significant number, so I do not diminish the number; but I don't want anybody to belabor the 55 to which I referred who did not vote. I don't know where the other 35 Members were or are. I know there's a very important hearing going on, I haven't looked at the list expansively, a very important hearing going on that people don't want to have go on. I understand that.

But if we delay the vote, then we might as well delay the bill because we will not get it moving towards the Senate and allow the Senate to act in a timely fashion. That's the problem.

I appreciate that, and we will take it under consideration. I know the spirit in which it's meant. I talked to the gentleman about trying to facilitate scheduling, and I think the gentleman is going to be pleased with what we're going to try to do next year to facilitate Members' ability to get back to their districts.

I thank my friend for yielding.

This is a good day. This is a good day because we have another opportunity to extend to children, 4 million of whom are not covered by health insurance, coverage.

I don't know how many families that is, but it's obviously millions of families who will have the confidence that if their child gets sick, they will have insurance. They can access health care. They can try to make their children well.

I want to refer briefly to my friend Mr. Boehner's comments because I agree with him that the American public expected us to come here and work together. But let us review this legislative process.

First of all, we had committee hearings. I want to tell my friend from Texas, those committee hearings were difficult. We didn't really get to the committee hearings and committee markups that we wanted to have. I think that's unfortunate. That was not our fault, I suggest to you.

Secondly, let me say that we passed a major bill through this House, approximately $90 billion. It dealt with a number of subjects, including doctor reimbursements so that they would continue to serve those who are poor under Medicaid and, indeed, under Medicare, so the reimbursement levels under Medicare would be appropriate.

We dealt with rural hospitals so that they would be reimbursed at levels that allowed them to continue to serve our rural communities. We dealt with some other issues. And, yes, we dealt with children's health insurance.

That bill went to the Senate. And there were a lot of Members of your party who didn't like the expansive bill. But before it got there, you offered a motion to recommit on our bill. You cut our spending cuts, you did not agree with those, but you adopted the revenues from the tax increase in cigarettes in your motion to recommit. Most of you, perhaps not all, but most of you voted for that motion to recommit. So this funding source is one that we have agreed to and everybody has voted for.

When it got to the Senate, we made a tremendous compromise. And we went from a $90 billion bill covering rural hospitals and doctors' reimbursement and poor people who would have been marginalized, perhaps, by the cuts to Medicare Advantage. And we made a compromise, mainly with Republicans in the Senate who felt that they wanted a more restricted bill. So that bill that is confronting us now is now a $35 billion bill, a very substantial compromise, I will suggest to you.

That bill then passed the Senate, went to the President, he vetoed it, it came back here, and you made a determination, some of you, not to vote to override the President's veto. So those 4 million children don't yet have a health insurance bill.

Then 38 of you wrote to the Speaker and said that you wanted to see certain changes. We addressed that. We addressed it very substantively, we addressed it very carefully, and we addressed it in a bipartisan way. And because this bill has to go through the Senate, we then engaged Senator Hatch and Senator Grassley so that it would not be simply Democrats saying, well, we'll take this and not that. And it was a very considered judgment applied, and almost all of the points raised in that letter were addressed.

Now, I had the opportunity this morning to meet with, not all 38, but the majority of those 38. Obviously they were correct that there was not more time to discuss this. I think that was a fair analysis. But the fact of the matter is that careful attention and compromise was taken.

Mr. Boehner is correct, I met with Mr. Boehner and Mr. Blunt. We have a good relationship; we have the ability to talk. But I will tell you that one of the indications I had was that those changes would not affect at least one of those votes because, philosophically, that leader is not for this bill. I understand that, that's a fair position to take. We're for this bill. We want to see this bill go forward.

But I will say to my friends on this side of the aisle, on the Republican side of the aisle, I want to continue to work with those who really want to see, as that letter of 38 said, reauthorization effected because that's what we want to see. And we will continue to work

with you. This bill will go to the Senate; it will be considered there in the Senate.

We have significant, concrete changes to the legislation vetoed by President Bush, changes that are designed to address the concerns expressed by the President and by a number of Republican Members. We listened carefully to the criticisms of the vetoed bill. We reviewed the letter, as I've said, that the 38 Republicans sent to the President, as well as other letters that were distributed. I misspoke, I said it was sent to the Speaker. I observe only that apparently you wanted to negotiate with the President.

We also worked closely with Senators Grassley and Hatch, who met extensively with House Republicans. The bottom line is this: we have taken a bipartisan compromise that was strongly supported by the American people and by the overwhelming Members of both Houses of the Congress of the United States and worked to make it an even stronger bipartisan compromise.

Specifically, this legislation clarifies that it targets low-income children. That was one of the concerns. The compromises we have reached in the legislative language appended to the legislation today do, in fact, accomplish that objective. Prohibiting CHIP coverage above 300 percent of the Federal poverty level that the President talked a lot about, talked about the 83,000, we have prevented that. We said that is not going to happen.

It clarifies that illegal immigrants are not eligible for coverage under CHIP. I have not reviewed the prescription drug bill that you passed, but the legislation, I think, in this bill is stronger on that issue.

It clarifies that this bill is focused on children. That was a legitimate objection raised on your side of the aisle. We took that into consideration because we believed it was something we should respond to because that was our intent, to focus on children. As a result, we have phased out coverage for childless adults over 1 year, not 2. Some said that this is just tweaking. To have the time of phaseout, it seems to me, is a very significant change.

And, it clarifies that this bill seeks to minimize the number of children moving from private insurance to CHIP, ``crowd-out,'' requiring all States to develop plans and implement recommended best practices for minimizing so-called ``crowd-out.''

We think we tried to respond, and we did respond, we believe, to the concerns you raised. These are significant, concrete changes, changes that neither affect nor undermine our principal objective and commitment: to ensure that 10 million American children from low-income working families who are eligible for coverage under CHIP guidelines today can participate in this successful program.

I, again, remind my colleagues that this indeed was the stated objective of the President of the United States, when, at the Republican National Convention in 2004, he promised, in seeking reelection by the American public, he promised this: ``In a new term, we will lead an aggressive effort to enroll millions,'' with an S, ``millions of children who are eligible but not signed up for government health insurance programs.'' He went on to say this: ``We will not allow a lack of attention, or information, to stand between these children and the health care they need.''

Unfortunately, what stands between the children and the health care they need is the President's veto. We continue to try to achieve the President's expressed objective. I urge my colleagues, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Mr. Boehner is correct. This is not a partisan issue. There is not a Member on your side of the aisle that doesn't care about our children. There is not a Member on our side of the aisle that doesn't care about our children. We have an opportunity to add 4 million children to the health coverage of our country, just as the President said he wanted to do.

I urge you to stand with the bipartisan majorities in Congress, including 45 House Republicans and 18 Senate Republicans who voted for the first CHIP bill. This bill, in some ways, in my opinion, is a better bill for the suggestions made from your side of the aisle.

Stand with the States' Governors, the American Medical Association, the Association of Health Insurance Plans, the pharmaceutical companies, nurses, children's advocates and others who support this bill. Stand with the American people, 81 percent of whom support this legislation. Stand with the 10 million American children who will receive the health coverage they need and deserve under this legislation.

This bipartisan compromise addresses your concerns.

Let us give ``yes'' for an answer to America's children. Vote for this bill. It is good for America. It is good for our children.

I thank my friend for yielding.

On Monday, the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning-hour business and 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes rolled until 6:30 p.m. We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. A list of those bills will be announced by the end of business tomorrow.

On Tuesday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for morning-hour business and 10 a.m. for legislative business. On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for legislative business. We expect to consider H.R. 3867, the Small Business Contracting Improvements Act; H.R. 2262, the Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act; and H.R. 3920, the Trade and Globalization Assistance Act. On Friday, there will be no votes, as I announced earlier today.

I thank the gentleman for the question, and I will tell him that both of those bills are under consideration for addition to the calendar. They have not been added at this point in time, but they are both possibilities.

We passed the Military Construction bill here handily through the House. It has passed the Senate. We want to get a conference finished. We know the staff is working on that. We hope to go to conference very soon. We certainly want to pass that bill in the near term, and other appropriations bills are being preconferenced as well as getting ready to go to conference.

I say to the gentleman, as you know, we passed bills here in a relatively timely fashion, all by August, and I want to see those bills moved and sent to the President. We hope to do that as soon as we can. We are working on it.

We want to pass that bill. The bill that passed out of the House is the best bill that's passed out of the House for veterans since 77 years ago when the Veterans' Administration was formed. We are very proud of that bill. It had overwhelming bipartisan support. We think it is an excellent bill. We want to see it signed by the President.

I will observe, though, Mr. Blunt, that I can't remember a time that I have served here over the last 26 years where a President said, if you are not exactly at my number, I will veto all of your bills. That has put a real crimp in the appropriations process of trying to figure out how to get this process done on bills that, for the most part, have been very strongly supported.

In the Senate, there hasn't been under, I think, 71 votes or 72 votes for any of the appropriations bills they have passed. We have had an average of 285 votes for the bills we have passed, some less, some more, so that the Congress has passed its bills and with relative ease that it's considered on the floor, but the President continues to say he is going to veto bills if we go anything over what he has told us to do.

Very frankly, we think under article I of the Constitution, it's our prerogative to fund the priorities that we believe are important for our country. We have done that, and we are hopeful. I have had discussions with the White House about the possibility of compromise. Mr. Obey has had conversations, and we do not have compromise yet on that position. So I tell my friend that that has made it somewhat more difficult for us to do.

If it's unprecedented that we haven't passed one before October, I tell the gentleman, without having checked the records, I can't remember a President, certainly not this President, ever saying that to previous Congresses, which, by the way, as you know, for at least 4 years cut defense spending below what the President asked for and increased domestic spending above what he asked for. We have not done that. As a matter of fact, we have enhanced the President's request on the Defense appropriation bill, as you know, for MRAPs and for Afghanistan and for other items that we thought were necessary. So we are over the President's number.

But we're working on it. We hope to get those to the President as soon as possible, and we're certainly hopeful that he will sign the bills that we send him.

Thank you for yielding.

It is my hope and expectation that we will schedule Peru for the week of the 5th, the vote on the Peru Trade Agreement the week of the 5th, which would be not next week, but the week after.

Yes.

I don't know the paper to which you refer. However, I know what I've told the chairmen so I would be glad to relate it to our Members for their planning purposes.

The Senate decided to be out the last 2 weeks of November, obviously the last week being Thanksgiving or I guess it's the next to last week being Thanksgiving, and we will be out that week because the Senate won't be in. And frankly, after the 16th, what I've told the committee chairmen is that the only business that I will schedule time for will be the finishing of business that we've already initiated and that we are getting back from the Senate, whether it's appropriations bills or other conference reports on authorization bills, Energy being one. We might be able to do that prior to the 16th. But if not, Energy would certainly be one of those bills. There would be others that would fall in that category, but there would be no initiated legislation out of the House after the 16th of November.

I have then told Members, as you refer to, and the chairman has referred to, that it will be my intention in December to schedule us the first Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, that's the 4th, 5th and 6th of December. And then, if necessary, Members ought to keep their calendars flexible for the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of the next week.

Now, the Speaker and I both have talked to the leader in the Senate, hopeful that by the 6th of December we can finish our business. But, as you well know, and I'm more empathetic with your pain every day that you experienced, we need to make plans for contingencies because we meet contingencies on a regular basis. So that's the second week.

But the point, for planning, is that I do not intend to schedule Mondays or Fridays in December.

The gentleman is correct. Obviously, there are contingencies on which, particularly I think a Friday, not so much on a Monday, on a Friday. We have not yet decided when, for instance, if we need a CR, as is quite likely, when that CR will end. And, obviously, we're not going to, we have no intention, and I know I talked to the President, the President has no intention of shutting down the government. So we need some flexibility for those days for that contingency. We have no intention of being certainly at home and having the government shut down. We need to reach accommodation on that.

But, generally speaking, those would be the six days that I want to have us try to be available. The first three I'm sure we're going to be here. The second three I hope we're not here, but I don't want Members to schedule themselves.

I might make one additional announcement that might be helpful to Members. We have decided that we will be coming back after the Christmas/New Year's break on the 15th of January; that's a Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. on the 15th.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Monday next for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the business in order under the Calendar Wednesday rule be dispensed with on Wednesday next.

Madam Speaker, the moment of truth has arrived. And now, our Republican friends have a very clear choice that they must make. They can stand with 10 million American kids who need, deserve and currently are eligible for health insurance under the CHIP program.

They can stand with the bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate who supported compromise legislation to reauthorize CHIP, including 18 Republican Senators and 45 House Republicans.

They can stand with the States' Governors, the American Medical Association, the Association of Health Insurance Plans, pharmaceutical companies, nurses, children's advocates. And most important, they can stand with the American people, 81 percent of whom support expanding the CHIP program to cover more low-income children, according to a just-released CBS News poll.

This poll, of course, was taken long after the American people knew exactly what the terms of this bill are all about. Eighty-one percent, including a large, over two-thirds majority of independents and including over 60 percent of the Republicans polled, believe that we ought to move forward on this bill.

Or, Madam Speaker, House Republicans can choose today to stand with President Bush, who earlier this month broke his own campaign promise to extend insurance coverage under CHIP to millions of additional low- income American children, low-income American children.

They can choose to stand with President Bush, who continues to make inaccurate and misleading claims about the bipartisan bill that he has vetoed; claims that have been repudiated by Senators Hatch, Grassley, Roberts and many other Republicans.

Let me remind my Republican colleagues, who I believe want to help children, as the gentleman who preceded me said, here is what President Bush told the American people 3 years ago when he was seeking their votes for re-election at the Republican National Convention, the President of the United States, 2004, seeking re-election, promising what he would do: ``In a new term, we will lead an aggressive effort to enroll millions of children who are eligible but not signed up for government health insurance programs. We will not allow a lack of attention or information to stand between these children and the health care they need.''

That is what President Bush said in 2004 when he was seeking the votes of the American people for re-election. Yet, the President's own proposal that he has made this year would force nearly 1 million children from low-income families who are participating in CHIP to be dropped from the present CHIP program. So his proposal not only does not add the millions that he promised to add in 2004, but it drops over 830,000 children.

In sharp contrast, Madam Speaker, through this bipartisan compromise this Congress has done exactly what the President said he would do if re-elected.

The American people have heard both sides of this issue, and they have disagreed with the President. They stand with America's children, and so must this Congress.

I urge my Republican colleagues, and the reason I say I urge my Republican colleagues, because we believe that there are very few, if any, Democrats who will not vote with the children this day.

Look at the facts. Look into your hearts. Look beyond partisanship and politics. Look at the pictures of your loved ones back in your office and ask, what if they were the ones today who needed health insurance?

Luckily, our children are covered. Our children are covered.

But think of the millions of children to whom President Bush referred to in 2004 that he promised to add to this critical program.

This, I suggest to all of us, is a defining moment for the Congress of the United States. Will we, as the Founding Fathers contemplated, exercise the policymaking authority, or will we once again crumble, complicit in the President's failure to respond to the views of the American public and to our children?

My friends on both sides of the aisle, let us come together. Let us come together and do the right thing for our children and for our Nation. Let's override the President's unjustified veto of this compromise, bipartisan legislation. Let us ensure that 10 million low- income children have the health care coverage they need and deserve. This will not be a partisan victory if we override this veto. It will be a victory for our children and for the President's promise.

Vote to override this veto. Vote for our children.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding.

First, let me respond to a point Mr. Brady has made a number of times. The point I am referring to is if we did not spend any money on private collection, we would not collect $1 billion. We can accept that as accurate. But the assumption is that we wouldn't spend any money in the public sector to collect that money. But I will read figures that say if we did that, we would geometrically collect more than a billion dollars by a factor of two or three or four or five. I will read that figure, Mr. Brady. But you keep reading the figure, the assumption of which is we are simply going to drop collection. We are not going to drop collection.

Today, through this important legislation, the Tax Collection Responsibility Act, this House will reiterate that the collection of taxes is a core governmental function that should not be contracted out to private companies.

But no one, no one should be mistaken. Our objection to the private collection of taxes is not simply philosophical; it is practical, as well.

First, there simply is no evidence that private tax collectors are more efficient. In fact, the opposite is true.

IRS Commissioners of both parties repeatedly have testified before Congress that IRS employees could do this work more efficiently. In fact, according to the IRS, the return on investment for IRS employees doing work similar to private collection agencies is 13:1. The private collection agency return is about 4:1, or approximately one-third as effective in the private sector as it is in the public sector. That is what the IRS Commissioners say.

Secondly, with Americans legitimately concerned about the privacy of their personal information and identity theft, I don't believe, and I hope this House does not believe, that it is good policy to turn over Social Security identification numbers and tax information to private collection companies.

Third, the National Taxpayer Advocate has raised concerns about the tactics used by private collection agencies, including intimidation and harassment. The fact is that private tax collectors are keeping 21 to 24 percent of what they collect, and are allowed to keep up to 25 percent under the law. Thus, with the compensation of private collection agencies directly tied to what they collect, they are incentivized to use aggressive tactics. Ironically, however, and let me go back to that figure, they are less effective in collecting, 13-to-1 versus 4-to-1, than the public sector.

Finally, let me say too many of my Republican friends want it both ways. On the one hand, Republican-controlled Congresses have cut the IRS workforce by 20,000 people since 1995. In fact, just this year they offered an amendment to the Financial Services Appropriations bill that would cut IRS funding by 8.9 percent; yet they come to the floor and say we are not aggressively collecting sufficient funds so we have to privatize it, contract it out. That expense, of course, is an additional expense, which, by the way, escalates more rapidly than does the public sector expense.

As I said, they complain that we must allow the government to hire private collection agencies because the IRS does not have the resources to recover all income tax that is owed. So

on the one hand, cut their resources, and then come to the floor and say they don't have sufficient resources to do the job so we will contract it out, which will require, of course, contract resources while eliminating salary resources.

I think we all know the most effective solution: We need to provide the IRS with the resources it needs to ensure that all taxpayers pay their fair share under the law, so that no taxpayer has to pay more than their fair share or have rates greater than they need to be, which would be the case if everybody paid their fair share.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation is an important step in that effort. I urge all of my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, to vote for this important bill.

I thank the distinguished Republican whip for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning- hour business and 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes rolled until 6:30 p.m. We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. A list of those bills will be announced by the close of business on Friday.

On Tuesday next, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for morning-hour business and 10 a.m. for legislative business.

On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for legislative business. We expect to consider the President's veto of the Children's Health Program; Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act legislation; a resolution regarding the withholding of information related to corruption in Iraq; H.R. 2095, the Federal Railroad Safety Improvement Act; and H.R. 2102, the Free Flow of Information Act.

On Friday, there will be no votes in the House.

Thursday, the 18th.

I thank the gentleman. I don't know exactly what time. I would hope sometime around the middle of the day, noon or thereabouts we would consider the veto, maybe closer to 1 o'clock, but certainly in the middle of the day.

Of course our expectation is that so many of your Members will determine that this policy is absolutely one that ought to be adopted that we will override the veto and that 4 million additional children will be covered. That's certainly our hope. I know that's not your expectation.

So in the event that that does not happen, I think the answer to your question is, I would certainly be prepared to discuss the matter with you. No one has any intention of, frankly, seeing children dropped from the Children's Health Insurance Program.

As you know, the President's proposal, if we adopted the President's proposal, would result in a net reduction of 840,000 children from the current program. We think that's not appropriate and, therefore, we want to move legislation forward, appropriate funding levels, and we would certainly be available to discuss that.

We do anticipate, however, and are very hopeful that the Congress will work its will on this legislation.

Will my friend yield?

I would love to work with you on this issue just a little before we have the veto override, if perhaps we could convince you to be helpful at that point in time.

But if not, as we have in the past, I want to say something; my friends on my side of the aisle know this. I have always found the gentleman from Missouri, the Republican whip, to be open to discussion and reasonable discussion to see if we can move forward.

I don't know what exactly was said on the other side, but I would reiterate that nobody, I think, in this House, as I said in the debate, closing the debate on the CHIP bill when we passed it through this House very handily, that I believe every Member of this House wants to ensure that children have access to health care. And we need to work on how that can be accomplished. We think the bill we passed does that. But we certainly will be available to make sure that happens however we can get it done.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

We are desirous, of course, of passing all 12 appropriation bills out of conference, through both floors, and to the President. We want to do that. We are working towards that end.

I will tell my friend I have talked to Chairman Obey. There are discussions going on between the House and Senate. He is correct, there hasn't been a conference yet. There are still some

issues that need to be resolved. But we are hopeful, in answer to your question, that appropriation bills will be on the floor and will be passed and will be sent to the President prior to the 16th of November. And as I have told my friend before, we have no intention of getting to a place where the government is shut down. The best way to do that is passing our 12 appropriation bills and having the President sign them. We hope we can reach that objective, but obviously at this point in time, much work remains to be done. But we hope to be doing it.

The Senate, as you know, was not in session this week and we are here in an abbreviated session because of the untimely and sad death of our colleague Jo Ann Davis. But we hope to move appropriation bills and we hope to have them on the floor, as the gentleman asked, prior to November 16.

If the gentleman will yield.

I don't want that read as saying I believe that we can get all 12 appropriation bills before November 16 because the Senate has only passed, as you point out, four of the 12 at this point in time. We are hopeful that they will have bills on the floor next week and can get through those bills in a relatively short period of time so that we can move ahead. But I didn't want to leave the impression I thought that all 12 would possibly be moved through by the 16th of November.

Thank you.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

And I say to him that we had discussions on that today with Chairman Rangel and we are going to try to move Trade Assistance Adjustment to provide for any dislocations that might occur that Members are concerned about. And I'm hopeful that we can move as well the Peru FTA hopefully by the end of the month, but in no event later than November 16. So it is very much my hope between now and then. But we will certainly pass at least the Peru FTA along with the Trade Assistance Adjustment.

I will say to my friend that Panama is another bill that I think might be possible; however, the gentleman knows there is a problem that has arisen unrelated to the provisions of the trade bill but which are of great concern to many Members on both sides of the aisle.

I thank my friend for yielding, and I want to join him in commending Jo Ann Davis and sending our sympathies from this side of the aisle to her family.

I had the opportunity of working with her on a number of Federal employee issues. She and I both represented large numbers of Federal employees. She was very conscientious, hard working, focused, obviously very concerned about our national security, represented very substantial defense establishments, Navy establishments in her district. Her district was across the Potomac River from mine, as the gentleman probably knows, and we will miss her. I know that her constituents will miss her. And we were certainly pleased to have the opportunity to make sure that any and all Members who could go and wanted to go would be able to attend the services that will be held for her tomorrow at 1 p.m.

I thank the gentleman for his observations and join him in my commendations to her.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the business in order under the Calendar Wednesday rule be dispensed with on Wednesday next.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 11 a.m. on Friday, October 12, and further, when the House adjourns on that day, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Monday, October 15, for morning-hour debate.

I thank my friend for yielding.

It is Thursday, 3:15 p.m., and we have finished our business. A lot of people have talked to me about that, and I just thought I would note it.

On Monday next, the House will not be in session in observance of the Columbus Day holiday. On Tuesday, the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning-hour business and 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes rolled until 6:30 p.m. next Tuesday. We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. A list of those bills will be announced by the close of business tomorrow.

On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for legislative business. We expect to consider H.R. 2895, the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund Act; H.R. 2095, the Federal Railroad Safety Improvement Act; and H.R. 3056, Tax Collection Responsibility Act.

On Friday, there will be no votes in the House.

That is a change in the schedule so everybody will want to note that. That means we expect to have no votes on any Friday for the balance of the month.

If the gentleman will continue to yield, I thank my friend for asking that question.

The expectation for November is that we will be in until November 16. I don't mean straight through, but we will come in usually Monday nights and we will see about the Fridays because we don't know what the Senate is doing. Obviously we need to do the appropriations process and fund government. The CR runs through the 16th of November.

I want to tell all Members and the distinguished whip, my friend, that the Speaker and I would both like to conclude the business of the first session of this Congress by November 16. I don't want to represent that I think that is probable at this point in time, but that would be our desire and that is what over the next 5 weeks we are going to try to work towards.

We will not be in session either of the last 2 weeks of November, which would mean that Thanksgiving week, which is the week following the 16th, the week of the 19th, and the week following that, we would not be in session. Obviously, it would be my hope we would have concluded our business and would not, therefore, need to come back in December. I don't want to make that representation, however. The gentleman is well familiar with the fact it is too far out and the appropriations process is still not as sure as I would like it to be at this point in time. But the last 2 weeks of November we will not be here.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Obey and the leadership have met. It is our hope we will be able to go to conference on a number of these bills, and there has even been some discussion on some of the bills that have not yet passed. We passed all 12 of our bills, of course. It is our desire to go to conference on these. I can't say when exactly that will be, but I can tell you that I am in the process of discussing

this with the chairman of the committee to see how quickly we can get that accomplished.

Would the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

We obviously want to have all 12 of the appropriation bills signed. They all passed with an average of 285 votes in this House. There has not been less than 81 votes for any one of the Senate-passed appropriation bills to date. These bills have enjoyed broad bipartisan support.

Very frankly, the MILCON Quality of Life bill is $4 billion over what the President requested. We believe, and obviously the vote reflected, that it is at an appropriate level to ensure that our veterans and our active-duty military have the medical care that was promised to them. So we were pleased that that passed overwhelmingly, notwithstanding the fact that is over what the President has asked for, and he indicated he was going to veto bills if it was over what he asked for. What he really meant, apparently, was if they were over what he wanted.

These bills passed very substantially in both Houses. We would hope the President would come to the table. Mr. Obey and Mr. Nussle have had some discussions. I will tell you, those discussions have not indicated any movement at this point in time. They hope that will not be the case.

We want to see the MILCON bill signed. Frankly, we want to see the Labor-Health bill signed, which provides for a billion dollars more in basic biomedical health research on cancer, heart, lung, blood, diabetes and other diseases that inflict our citizens, and Pell Grant increases.

I appreciate the gentleman's observation regarding the MILCON bill, and I share his view. But I hope he also shares our view. Not all of the bills have passed with as big a margin, but an average of 285, indicating pretty good bipartisan support on all of these bills. And the case has been in the Senate, the ones that they have passed, that the President would discuss with us how we can get this process completed at levels that we can agree on and not be told to do.

I appreciate the observation and I appreciate the gentleman's assertion that the veto will be sustained in this House. In the other body, as you know, they have more than sufficient votes to override the veto. There are senior leaders in the Senate, very senior leaders in the Senate in the gentleman's party who believe that the President has based his veto on incorrect information and incorrect premises. Senator Hatch and Senator Grassley, both of whom are conservative Republicans, leaders in your party, who believe this bill does, in fact, accomplish what the President said that he wanted to do, at your convention in 2004, that he wanted to add millions of children.

We are hopeful that we can convince some of your ranks not to vote as Republicans or Democrats but to vote in a way that does reflect, I think, what all of our priorities are on the health care of our children. So we understand what your representation is and your confidence level is, but in this case, we hope you are in error.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

With respect to your latter question, sustaining our troops in the field, under the continuing resolution, we think that the authority to do that exists, and we've been advised that.

With respect to if we pass the Defense appropriations bill, it's our advice as we understand it from the Pentagon that they will have sufficient funds through the beginning of next year to fund their needs. Mr. Obey, I'm sure, will be discussing with us and others on the status of the supplemental.

I note that he's left now, but the chairman of the Appropriations Committee was on the floor. He has indicated he thinks that they will have sufficient funds if the Defense appropriations bill passes and is signed by the President. That passed, as you know, in an overwhelming vote here as well. We hope to see that bill get to the President. I don't know exactly what's going to happen to it in the Senate, we'll have to see that, but I hope that will pass.

With respect to the first question, there's no intention of bringing a surcharge to this floor. What Mr. Obey was saying is that this war was projected to cost $60 billion by the White House when it started. We're going to be at $1 trillion before too long. That bill is going to be paid by somebody. We talked about our children and grandchildren will be paying this bill. And what Mr. Obey's point was is that the people who are being asked to sacrifice are those going into Iraq, those families who send people to Iraq, and that the rest of us really aren't paying much of a price, but our grandchildren and children will pay that price. I think that was his point.

But in answer to the gentleman's question, we have no intention of bringing such a bill to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 3 p.m. tomorrow, and further, when the House adjourns on that day, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, October 9, for morning-hour debate.