Waiving Requirement of Clause 6(a) Rule XIII with Repsect to Consideration of Certain Resolutions

Floor Speech

WAIVING REQUIREMENT OF CLAUSE 6(a) OF RULE XIII WITH RESPECT TO CONSIDERATION OF CERTAIN RESOLUTIONS -- (House of Representatives - December 17, 2007)

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GENERAL LEAVE

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members be given 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 873.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Massachusetts?

There was no objection.

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, H. Res. 873 waives clause 6(a) of rule XIII, which requires a two-thirds vote to consider a rule on the same day it is reported from the Rules Committee. This waiver would apply to any rule reported on December 17 that provides for consideration of the omnibus appropriations bill or the Senate-amended energy bill. Madam Speaker, the Rules Committee has reported a separate rule for the energy bill, but the House is not expected to take up the Senate-amended energy bill tonight.

With passage of this rule, the House will move one step closer to passing the omnibus appropriations bill that will fund the government outside of the Department of Defense, which we have already funded. It's an important bill, and although it is not everything I wanted, I believe it deserves to be approved in its current form.

Madam Speaker, Democrats took over the majority in the House and the Senate with a promise of a new direction for America. The House moved an aggressive and positive agenda forward, including the timely consideration and passage of the fiscal year 2008 appropriations bills. Unfortunately, the President and the Republican leadership of the House and the Senate are still stuck in the past. Instead of working with Democrats in moving towards a new direction, the Republican leaders in the House and Senate did everything they possibly could to delay and obstruct the process until we had no option but to bring an omnibus appropriations bill to the floor.

In fact, the Senate minority leader, Senator McConnell, actively blocked consideration of these appropriations bills. Why would the Republican leadership block these bills from even being considered in the Senate? The answer, Madam Speaker, is that they were playing politics. Instead of allowing important funding for our roads and bridges, funding for the sick and the hungry, funding to protect our food system and funding for homeland security, the Republican leadership decided to block these funds to try to score political points.

So when my friends on the other side of the aisle complain that we are not considering these bills individually, remember that they were the ones that prevented us from doing just that. That's unfortunate but it's reality. The reality is that because of Senate rules, it takes 60 votes to order pizza, let alone to consider and vote on important pieces of legislation.

All told, the Democratic majority wanted to pass appropriations bills that were fully paid for and that increased spending by $22 billion over the President's request. The President and his allies here in Congress said, No, no, that's too much. That's too much for education, too much for health care, too much for medical research, too much for veterans. The irony, of course, is that the President continues to ask for hundreds of billions of dollars for the war in Iraq, none of it paid for. Billions to patch the alternative minimum tax, none of it paid for.

Some of my Republican friends, as I read in the press, are now proclaiming a great ``victory'' because the omnibus bill meets the President's top-line number. Let's take a look at that.

Because of the Republicans, there will be fewer medical research grants at NIH than Democrats would have liked. ``Congratulations,'' I guess.

Because of Republicans, there will be fewer cops on the beat than Democrats would have liked. ``Job well done,'' I suppose.

Because of the Republicans, there is less funding for important education programs that Democrats would have liked. ``Mission accomplished,'' my Republican friends.

The fact is that this Republican so-called ``victory'' is hollow at best. And I've been wracking my brain all day, but I just can't remember the Republican campaign commercial from last fall that said, ``Vote for me and I'll follow the President off the cliff and spend billions more in Iraq while I cut domestic priorities.'' Maybe that commercial did exist and it just didn't run in Massachusetts.

Despite all of that and despite the Republican obstruction, Chairman Obey has put together a bill that makes important new investments in our national priorities. More money than the President wanted for medical research and rural health. More money than the President wanted for K-12 education. More money than the President wanted for renewable energy and energy efficiency. More money than the President wanted for homeland security, for local law enforcement, for our crumbling infrastructure. And perhaps most importantly, more money than the President wanted and requested for our veterans. All of that changed, all of that progress because of this new Democratic majority.

Madam Speaker, unlike last year, we are getting our work done. We are completing our appropriations bills, not kicking the can down the road with another continuing resolution, which is what the Republicans did last year when they controlled both Houses of Congress and the White House, I should add. And the same-day rule before us takes us one step closer to making that happen.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I would just like to respond to the gentleman.

He talks about process. Let's compare where we are this year compared to where we were last year, when the Republicans had the majority in this Congress. What they did is they avoided doing their work and, instead, they passed a continuing resolution that took us into the following year, and they ran out of town. They left Washington before they had finished their job for the year. That is the process that they had.

What we are doing right now is trying to bring up the omnibus bill today, and we would have liked to have done it differently, but unfortunately there are Republicans in the House and there are Republicans especially in the Senate who chose to be obstructionists rather than to be partners in trying to get something done. And so here we are.

And so I would say that we're not leaving here until we get our job done. And that's very, very different from the way they conducted business.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, the gentleman from Florida has a flair for the dramatic and held up the omnibus appropriations bill that is before us and says he doesn't know what is in it. Let me just highlight a few of the things that are in it that I think people need to know. In that bill there is more money than the President and the Republicans wanted for medical research and for rural health care. And I am grateful for that. And the American people are grateful for that.

In that bill, there is more money than the President and the Republicans wanted for K-12 education. All throughout this country, we hear from teachers, principals and superintendents about how No Child Left Behind is not funded. We hear about the need for more funding for special education. There is more money in this bill for K-12 education than the Republicans and the President of the United States wanted, and I am grateful for that.

There is more money than the President and Republicans wanted for renewable energy and energy efficiency. We need to get serious about dealing with global warming. We need to get serious about energy independence, but to do so requires that we fund it. For years, we have heard the Republicans talk the talk but not walk the walk. There is more money in this bill than the Republicans and the President wanted.

There is more money in this bill than the Republicans and the President wanted for homeland security, for local law enforcement. I mean, if the Republicans had their way, they would be cutting the COPS programs. The fact of the matter is, homeland security also means homeland security, and it means making sure that our cities and our towns have the law enforcement necessary to protect the people who live there.

There is more money in this bill than the President wanted and the Republicans wanted for our crumbling infrastructure. Our roads and our bridges are falling apart all across the country. I come from Massachusetts. We have bridges that are older than some of the other States in this country. Our aging infrastructure is in deep need of repair, and it requires funding to repair that infrastructure. There is more money than the Republicans and the President wanted for our infrastructure.

There is more money than the President wanted for our veterans. In fact, there is the largest increase in veterans health benefits in the history of the Veterans Administration in this bill. My friends say, Whoa, that's a bipartisan issue, the Republicans wanted it too. Where have you been for 12 years when you were in the majority? It has taken a Democratic majority to pass a bill that provides the largest single-year increase in veterans health benefits in the 77-year history of the VA.

There is more money here to help deal with the fact that so many of our people in our country are food insecure, are hungry. Higher food costs mean we need to help those who need help. There is more money for the supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children, the WIC program. More money than the Republicans and the President wanted. There is more money for the commodities supplemental food program which is important to improving nutrition, more money than the President and the Republicans wanted.

Madam Speaker, let me also say, let me remind people why we are where we are at. This House did all of what was required of it to do. We passed all of our appropriations bills.

The problem is that we had to fight tooth and nail to pass them in the House here because of Republican obstructionism in the House. But Republican obstructionism in the Senate reached a new level where they actually blocked not only bringing appropriations bills to the floor, but actually moving to conference on a number of occasions. So here we are not content to do what the Republicans did last year, which is to do nothing, to kick the ball down the court, dump all their problems on another Congress and go home. We are going to finish this year's business. And we are going to do so in a way that maybe is not everything that I would have liked to have seen done, but nonetheless represents a dramatic departure from the priorities of the previous Congress.

Madam Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question and on the rule.

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