Providing for Consideration of H.R. 2216, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2014; and Approving for Consideration of H.R. 2217, Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2014
Floor Speech
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank my friend, Mr. Hastings.
I've been listening to Mr. Webster. And if I were Mr. Webster, I'd be doing exactly what he's doing, which is focusing on the underlying bills: the spending bill to support our veterans, to support military construction, and homeland security.
But as others have pointed out, the vote before us is not on those underlying bills. It's on the rule. And everybody needs to understand that what's at play here is a scheme to use the rules to affect not just the veterans budget, but to affect other parts of our budget.
In fact, Mr. Speaker, I find it especially cynical that our colleagues would use the spending bills on veterans and military construction as the vehicle to pass their budget levels which will result in dramatic cuts to the parts of the budget that fund our kids' education and that fund the investments in science and research to find cures and treatments to things like cancer, because we know the Appropriations Committee has already set out what the levels for those categories to the budget will be. And do you know what they are? A $30 billion cut below the sequester level to the parts of the budget that fund our kids' education and that fund that scientific research.
So, yes, this is the rule for two particular bills. They are good bills. The veterans bill is a good bill. But the rule, ladies and gentlemen, has embedded in it the Republican budget levels for the overall budget process. And that's going to hurt education for the kids of those veterans and the family members of those veterans who have diseases whose funding for research is going to be dramatically cut. A 20 percent cut below the sequester level, that's what you're adopting in this rule, a 20 percent cut for the category of the budget on education.
Now, why are we here? We're supposed to have a budget process. The House passed a budget. I don't like the budget, but it passed a budget. The Senate passed a budget. Under the rules of the Congress, in fact, as a matter of law, the House and Senate are supposed to have completed a conference committee by April 15. That was quite a while ago. In fact, it's been over 70 days since the Senate passed a budget and the House passed a budget.
Now, we don't have a House-Senate conference committee report. Why might that be? Well, it turns out that the Speaker of the House has refused to appoint conferrees to work with the Senate to come up with a budget. Now, our Republican colleagues beat up for years on the Senate for not having a budget. I can understand that complaint. But the Senate has a budget now, and yet our Republican colleagues refuse to go to conference.
You made a big deal about ``no budget, no pay.'' Guess what? We don't have a budget. We have a House budget and we have a Senate budget, but we don't have a Federal budget, and yet everybody is getting paid. What happened to that?
Now, why would we not want to go to conference? Mr. Speaker, just today in the United States Senate, Patty Murray, the chairwoman for the Budget Committee, for the 11th time tried to get consent to go to conference to work these differences out in a transparent way, blocked by a Republican Senator.
Here is what Senator McCain has had to say about the whole process, because I would urge our colleagues to listen to him. This is a quote from Senator McCain:
I think it's insane for Republicans who complained for 4 years about Harry Reid not having a budget and now we're not going to agree to conference? That is beyond comprehension for me.
And I think it's beyond comprehension for the American people. Why are you sitting on the budget?
So what are we doing in this rule? This rule says let's pretend. Let's make believe that the House and Senate went to conference, and let's pretend that they agree, except let's pretend that they agreed on the House budget numbers, the numbers that would cut the part of the budget that deals with our kids' education by over 20 percent. Let's pretend that because we don't want to go through the normal process. That's what this rule does. It's a total fake. And it's a fake because of the refusal to work these issues out in a transparent manner for the American people.
So, the previous question is a very simple statement. It just says let's comply with the law which says a conference committee was supposed to have met and completed action by April 15; let's at least start down the process of complying with the law. It says that it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the Speaker should follow regular House procedure and immediately request a conference and appoint conferees to negotiate a fiscal year 2014 budget resolution so we can have a real Federal budget, not a fake budget, which is what you're calling for in this rule under the guise of saying let's just fund our veterans.
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. As I said, Mr. Speaker, I find it especially cynical that we would use a good bill to provide spending and support to our veterans as the vehicle to impose this scheme on the Congress which will have terrible, negative effects on other parts of the budget.
Do you know that while this Congress was away, I don't know if people saw it, but down in Fort Bragg, the home of the 82nd Airborne, they just said that teachers who were going to teach the kids of our servicemen and -women are going to be furloughed for 5 days this fall--for 5 days this fall. So we want to replace the sequester. Let's go to conference and get it done.
I urge my colleagues who said they want a transparent process to vote for our measure.
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. My colleague, what I know are the facts, which is just today, as I said on the floor, the chairwoman of the Senate Budget Committee, for the 11th time, said to Mr. Ryan, Let's go to conference so we can work out these differences in a public way. And she was blocked over here just like we've been blocked over here.
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I'm not questioning the integrity of the chairman of the Budget Committee.
This is not just about process. As I indicated, you adopt this rule and you're essentially applying a 20 percent cut below sequester to the part of the budget that deals with our kids' education and science and research. So this is way beyond process.
So this is way beyond process.
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. That is the case. The gentleman should go read the Appropriations Committee 302(b) allocations.
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Will the gentleman yield, because we don't agree on cutting the kids' education budget?
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I just want to know why you're afraid to go to conference. Why is that? That's what this is about.
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I just have a simple question, which is: How is it that we are going to get agreement from the House and the Senate in a conference committee if the Speaker of the House continues to refuse to go to conference? How are we going to get that agreement?
The reason we don't have a conference committee budget report and you have to use this device is that there is no conference, and the reason there is no conference is that our Republican colleagues in the House refuse to appoint conferees, which is why we want to pass this amendment and let the Members vote on whether or not we go to conference.
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