Timothy Roemer: “I rise to salute my good friends, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Stokes) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis)…”

“I rise to salute my good friends, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Stokes) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis), who I have the utmost respect for, but I also rise to oppose this rule and to plead with my colleagues for a fairer and more just allocation of the resources in this bill. Now we came to a historic bipartisan balanced budget agreement last year, and that makes many of our decisions in this Congress even more difficult, because while we have a balanced budget, now it is our obligation to fairly and justly spend the money within the budget. And I argue with my colleagues that spending on a space station, not the space program which I strongly support, the $13 billion, but a space station, is not just, right and fair to the rest of America. The space station started in 1984. It was going to be completed in 1992 with a crew size of eight for a total cost of $8 billion. Today our international space station is going to be completed maybe in 2006 with a crew size of maybe 6 to 8 people for a total cost of $98 billion; from 8 billion to 98 billion plus. Now at the same time, and we will get into this debate when I offer an amendment, at the same time we look at this bill, AmeriCorps for our working people to go, with responsibility to go earn their money for school, is zero funded; $428 million is gone. The community development block grants for poor inner-city people, 80 million less than 1998. Veterans facility, major construction, cut by 20 percent.”