Providing for Consideration of Senate Amendments to H.R. 4899, Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2010
Floor Speech
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.
Mr. Speaker, the rule provides for consideration of the Senate amendments to H.R. 4899 and makes in order a motion by the chair of the Appropriations Committee to concur in the Senate amendments with the five amendments printed in the Rules Committee report.
The rule waives all points of order against the motion except those arising under clause 10 of rule 21.
The rule provides that the motion shall be debatable for 1 hour and 30 minutes as follows: 30 minutes equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Appropriations Committee; then 30 minutes equally divided and controlled by Representative Lee of California and an opponent; and then 30 minutes equally divided and controlled by Representative McGovern of Massachusetts and an opponent. The rule provides that the previous question shall be considered as ordered on the motion to final adoption without intervening motion or demand for division of the question except that the question of adoption of the motion shall be divided among the five House amendments, with the first portion of the divided question considered as adopted. If the remaining portions of the divided question fail of adoption, then the House shall be considered to have made no disposition of the Senate amendment to the text.
The chair of the Appropriations Committee may insert in the Congressional Record not later than July 3, 2010, such material as he may deem explanatory of the Senate amendments and the motion specified in the first section of this resolution. The rule provides that House Resolution 1493 is hereby adopted.
Finally, the rule amends the time periods in clause 10 of rule XXI to align with the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010.
At this time, Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished majority leader, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, let me say when the Democrats were in the minority, we as a party submitted a budget every single year. The Republicans, to my knowledge, have not done that. Mr. Ryan, my colleague and friend on the Budget Committee, did submit a budget under his name, and perhaps if he wants to make that budget in order, I am sure our leadership would love to have a debate on a budget that turns Medicare and Social Security into a voucher system.
But the budget document that the Democrats have put forward would cap discretionary spending at $1.2 trillion, which is $7 trillion less than what President Obama proposed.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 1/2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis), a member of the Rules Committee.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, since the distinguished minority leader raised the issue of our commitment to our troops, I should point out for the record that when we debated and voted on the defense authorization bill only a few weeks ago, only nine Republicans voted for that bill. Because they thought the issue of gays in the military was more important than supporting our troops and their families.
At this point I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I actually agree with the gen tle lady in my disappointment that the President has decided to submit a supplemental bill to fund this war in Afghanistan. But I think it is not--it is a little bit, well, unfair for her to criticize President Obama when President Bush did this routinely. And we have spent over $1 trillion, $1 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And the vast majority of that money is not paid for. It's all borrowed. We're not paying for it. Our kids will pay for it and our grandkids and our great grandkids.
And, you know, so I find it also a little bit puzzling that we're having this, we had this debate earlier today over the extension of unemployment benefits for the millions of people who are unemployed in this country due to this terrible economy. And my friends on the other side of the aisle said, well, we can't afford it. We can't afford to pay for it so we're going to deny these citizens who have fallen on hard times the ability to get unemployment compensation.
Yet, when it comes to funneling money to the corrupt Karzai regime, we're a bottomless pit. So I think all of us, Republicans and Democrats, need to come together and figure out how to get this right.
And I hope that the gen tle lady will join with me and my colleague, DAVE OBEY, in supporting our amendment asking for the President to develop a plan consistent with his statement that we will begin the withdrawal of our forces in July of 2011.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi).
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I remind my colleagues here that my friends on the Republican side of the aisle, with the exception of only nine, voted against the Defense authorization bill just a few weeks ago, a bill that provided a great deal of support for our troops and their families. Why did they vote against it? They voted against it because they were preoccupied with the social issue of gay marriage. Where were they then when it came to supporting our troops and supporting their families?
My friend talks about all of the great crises that we're facing, but much of the crises that we're facing are as a result of some of the actions that my friends on the other side of the aisle took: two wars on borrowed money; on top of that, tax cuts for the rich on borrowed money.
And now we have an economy that the President has inherited that we're trying to dig ourselves out of, and we're going to do that. But I think it's important to keep some of this in perspective.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in very, very strong support of this rule, and I urge all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this rule. In particular, Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased that this rule makes in order an amendment offered by myself, Mr. Obey and Mr. Jones of North Carolina to require a meaningful exit strategy from Afghanistan.
As we are being asked to consider tens of billions of dollars in supplemental funding for the war, I believe that now is the time for us to ask tough questions and demand straight answers. Of all the problems that President Obama inherited from the Bush administration, Afghanistan is the one that keeps getting more and more complicated.
In just the past few weeks, two brave young soldiers from Fall River, Massachusetts, in my district, lost their lives in Afghanistan. So this is a big deal, and we need to get it right.
Last December, President Obama told the American people that we would begin to withdraw our forces next July. The American people deserve to know if that plan is still in place and how we're going to get there.
Much has been made about General Stanley McChrystal's comments in Rolling Stone magazine about the Nation's civilian leadership. But there are other parts of that article that I find to be much more disturbing. General McChrystal's chief of operations said that Afghanistan, and I quote, ``is not going to look like a win, smell like a win, or taste like a win. This is going to end in an argument.''
A senior adviser to General McChrystal said, and I quote again, ``If Americans pulled back and started paying attention to this war, it would become even less popular.'' A senior military official said this, and I quote again, ``There's a possibility we could ask for another surge of U.S. forces next summer if we see success here.''
Mr. Speaker, I voted in 2001 to go to war in Afghanistan, to hunt down al Qaeda, and to eliminate their threat. And I would cast that same vote today in a heartbeat. But what we are doing in Afghanistan today is far beyond that original authorization. We are engaged in extensive, expensive nation building in Afghanistan. And frankly, given the level of unemployment and the severe economic situation we face in the United States, I would rather do a little bit more nation building here at home.
Some in this body have refused to support extending unemployment benefits for out-of-work Americans because they say we cannot afford it. We are told we can't afford to help States avoid laying off teachers. We're told we can't afford to improve our roads and our bridges or help more families afford a college education. We are told we can't afford to prevent foreclosures or to improve child nutrition, and now we are being asked to borrow another $33 billion for nation building in Afghanistan?
We don't have the money to help American working families. But when it comes to supporting a corrupt and incompetent Karzai government, we are supposed to be a bottomless pit. You know, we talk a lot about the deficit around here. We have borrowed $350 billion, added to the debt, not paid for, for the war in Afghanistan. How are we supposed to address the deficit if we don't know how many more billions of dollars we are going to be spending in Afghanistan?
My colleagues, we all have a responsibility here. It's not just the President's war. It's our war, too, like it or not. We voted to send our sons and daughters to war. We voted repeatedly to send money to support this war. We have a responsibility to ask the tough questions and to do the right thing. So I urge all my colleagues to think long and hard today about this critical issue. It is time for Congress to step up to the plate and do its duty.
I hope my colleagues will support the Lee amendment. I hope they will support the McGovern-Obey-Jones amendment. And I hope they will support this rule.
Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question and on the rule.
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