Departments of Labor, Health and HUman Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2005

DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2005 -- (House of Representatives - September 08, 2004)

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 754 and rule XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 5006.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the distinguished ranking member for yielding me this time.

I start by reiterating the observation that the ranking member, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), has made. It is very nice to get up and say with a chart, this is what we have spent. Those figures are undoubtedly accurate. What is not accurate, as the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) so correctly pointed out, was that those were not the figures that the Republican House budget proposed in years past. In point of fact, when they talk about the 10-year period of time, the fight almost every year between the Clinton administration and the Republican House and sometimes Senate was that we had not put in sufficient funds to meet our obligations as it relates to education, Title I and other educational objectives. Invariably, the President got his way. So, yes, the figures are higher, but they are not higher because the Republican Committee on the Budget proposed them as such.

Mr. Chairman, this bill, in my opinion, fails to meet the crucial priorities that the citizens of this great Nation expect and deserve in education, in health care, in medical research, and in many other areas, including the promotion of the quality and safety of work in America.

But as I have said before, this is not the fault, and I reiterate, not the fault of the subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula). The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) neither sits on the Budget Committee, nor, in my opinion, was he very enthusiastic about the Committee on the Budget's product. And it is certainly not the fault of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young). As a matter of fact, earlier this year the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) made the correct observation that the budget was not real, and the numbers projected in the budget were insufficient to meet the obligations of the Committee on Appropriations to provide for the needs of the American people. That was the chairman of our committee speaking.

Instead, this bill's deficiencies have been caused by the Republican majority's irresponsible and unrealistic budget resolution for fiscal year 2005. This is not an unusual budget resolution. It is a political document, not a fiscal document. It was made for the purposes of making political points, not for investing in our people. It abandons fiscal discipline and makes crucial investments in the American people virtually impossible.

One would think that, because the Republicans have been in charge and they have proposed not spending appropriate funds even though they say they are going to, that we would have saved a lot of dollars. But in point of fact, as the whole country knows, we have been going deeply into debt over the last 40 months. In fact, the President's acceptance speech in New York says he wants fiscal restraint, but he has led this country, along with the Republican majority in this House and this Senate, from a $5.6 trillion surplus to a $3 trillion to $4 trillion deficit in 40 months. That is almost a $10 trillion turnaround from fiscal responsibility to fiscal irresponsibility in less than 4 years.

Despite the rhetoric coming from the other side of the aisle, the inescapable fact is that this bill underfunds the bipartisan No Child Left Behind Act by at least $9.5 billion this year. That is in the authorization bill, they imposed a mandate on the States. I supported that bill. We want accountability, we want performance, we want quality education for every one of our children. We said we are going to require you to do certain things, States, but we are going to give you resources to help you accomplish those objectives. We are $9.5 billion short in that promise, and $25 billion short over the last 3 years, short from what the President, in signing the authorization bill, said we were going to do.

Unfortunately, we are falling behind in other areas as well. At a time when this Congress and this administration proudly tout the doubling of National Institutes of Health just a few years ago, NIH today only gets the President's request level. This represents the smallest increase in NIH funding in 19 years. As all of our citizens know, NIH is charged with the responsibility of finding a cure for cancer, making heart disease less fatal, finding a cure for diabetes, seeing if we can find how to prevent Alzheimer's disease, and responding to the AIDS crisis in this country and around the world.

We are short-funding those critical efforts that afflict and threaten our people. Moreover, it is simply not enough to keep up with the medical inflation and will force NIH to lose momentum on the scientific progress they gained from the doubling that Republicans and Democrats all so proudly talked about.

In addition, Head Start, a program that Ronald Reagan said was a success, George Bush I said it was a success, and Bill Clinton clearly said it was a success, is cut by $45 million below the President's request. Thousands of children will have no seat in Head Start, notwithstanding the fact that we think it works. Ryan White HIV/AIDS programs are largely frozen. The maximum Pell grant is frozen. And the Department of Labor is slated for an overall cut of $98 million.

My friends, this bill is insufficient. It may well be better than a continuing resolution, but it is insufficient to meet our obligations and responsibilities. How sad it is that we pass the people's bill with insufficient resources to meet the people's needs.