David Skaggs

Let us not do this fast, maybe wrong, and with ill consideration in the context of an appropriations bill. The gentleman has indicated that if we defeat his amendment, and presumably later on defeat the Murtha language, this will be a…

It is my personal privilege and honor to welcome this morning to the House of Representatives my pastor from Boulder, CO, the Reverend Bruce Mackenzie who just delivered the opening prayer. He is the senior minister at the First…

If I can reclaim enough time to respond, I believe, as the gentleman knows, that funding is for looking at past classified information, things that have been sitting in the archives that need additional staffing in order to be able to be…

The gentleman again invokes the panel's report. The panel was commissioned to find out whether anybody saw the signal. They then went beyond that commission to come up with this completely uncharged idea of going to UHF. I am sure the…

Amendment offered by Mr. Skaggs: Page 97, line 1, insert ``(A) Authorization of appropriations'' before ``For''. Page 97, after line 3, insert the following: (B) Limitation.--Of the amounts authorized to be appropriated under subparagraph…

I hope that is good evidence of things sort of taking seed, anyway. I know we have a great deal of work to do to make good on the beginnings that occurred at the retreat at Hershey, PA. Before getting into a little bit of that, I just want…

Finally, Mr. Chairman, the report further says that ``Construction of the first stage of the project may proceed without adversely affecting any other water users on the San Juan system.'' Again, I would ask if I am correct in…

If I may follow on further, Mr. Chairman, the project as the gentleman knows has been the subject of some litigation concerning the applicability of various environmental laws, NEPA, endangered species, and so forth. The report also refers…

Again, as I understand it, just looking at Russia, the funds from the Nunn-Lugar program have involved removal of over 3,000 nuclear warheads in Russia.

I suspect the ultimate irony of this is that in a year or two from now, if this becomes law, that we will have Members arguing that we need to increase defense spending because the nuclear threat from Russia has not been reduced, and the…

In other words, if we do not do what the gentleman wants to do in these categories, we are going to shoot ourselves, is the practical effect of this.

The point is that Senator Rudman said no illegality, no covert action. What is left, as he put it in his words, is a matter of politics.

I would simply ask the distinguished Chairman of the Rules Committee, would it not have been proper and better procedure for this proposal to have at least had a hearing in the Committee on the Judiciary, so that the implications of these…

The gentleman is well aware that the then sitting Congresses were sharply divided and we could barely muster a majority vote to start the preparations that were ultimately necessary for this great Nation to fulfill its international…

As the gentleman knows, if we put this in the Constitution, it is likely to be there for all time.

So if I understand this phrase correctly, if we were facing again that kind of dire threat to the national security but one that, God willing, does not get to the point of a shooting war, but nonetheless demanded the preparation of our…

So it would not apply to the circumstance that the country endured for the better part of 40 years, namely, the cold war?

Let me, if I may, pose another question to the gentleman about his language in this proposed amendment, and the gentleman from Virginia was touching on this. It provides that a majority could raise revenue either if there is a declared…

If I can reclaim my time, if the gentleman meant raising income taxes by more than a de minimis amount, why did the gentleman not use that term in the constitutional amendment rather than the term internal revenue, which has a much broader…

I submit that this is a very artful redefinition on the fly of these terms in a proposed amendment to the fundamental charter of the country, and we do not know what we mean.

So we are going to decide what we have done after we have already passed it. That is a terrific standing of things on their heads.

Here again, would the gentleman agree, this is the kind of discussion and debate that ought to have occurred in the Committee on the Judiciary, so we could have had appropriate refinements made to clear up what is a fundamental area of…

Reclaiming my time, I beg to differ with the gentleman. The gentleman's proposed constitutional amendment talks about any increase in the internal revenues--it does not talk about Internal Revenue Code--the internal revenues by more than a…

That this language never existed on paper until the Thursday before this 2-week break and has never been the subject of a hearing in any committee of the Congress, much less being marked up by the committee of jurisdiction, the Committee…

As someone who studied Latin for 4 years, I do not find de minimis offensive, I just find it vague and confusing as something to put into the U.S. Constitution. Now would it not have been preferable for this to go through the committee…