John Spratt

That is indeed the consequence of this and other legislation, no question about it. Slipping this bill through under suspension makes it appear to be uncontroversial or inconsequential. The point I am trying to make is that H.R. 2644 will…

First of all, at a time when our trade deficit is reaching record highs, this bill, H.R. 2644, is totally one-sided. It lowers tariffs, it lifts quotas on apparel and six or seven different kinds of imports from 26 countries in the…

as we close this debate, I think it is well to remember that deficits have come down. The promises we made in 1993 have been kept. We adopted that budget in a year when the deficit the prior year had been $290 billion. The Bush…

We bring this motion to instruct conferees because we are in the minority. This is a way we have, one of the few devices we have to register our views on things that are important. There is no question about it. Medicare age eligibility is…

I cannot pass up the opportunity to observe, as I have before, why it is we are here at this moment. Five years ago, the date I always pick as January 13, 1993, just before George Bush left office, his Economic Report of the President came…

This is not foreign aid. This is an investment in our own national security. Here is what is left on the agenda. These are Nunn-Lugar projects on the agenda. Dismantle 130 SS-19 heavy throw-weight ICBM's, dismantle 54 SS-24 mobile ICBM's…

These are the accumulated work orders for the Nunn-Lugar program ready to be executed if the gentleman does not stop the funds with this ill-considered amendment. For somewhere between $300 and $400 million a year we can destroy nuclear…

let me raise, since no one else is, some concerns about this bill. There are some breathtaking changes here. This bill would cut management personnel in the Department of Defense by 25 percent; it would cut people classified as acquisition…

I want to address in the time allotted to me a common misperception now out in the public and a misstatement that is likely to be made a number of times before this debate is over, and that is that the reason this budget is stretched so…

Mr. Speaker, this budget resolution in order to balance the budget in 5 years caps discretionary spending and issues reconciliation directives to a number of House and Senate committees. These directives simply set forth targets that each…

with respect to expanding health insurance coverage for uninsured children, I would like to note the following: First, the budget agreement specifies the $16 billion provided as outlay increases and refers to it as funding. Neither term…

the Committee on the Budget leadership, the congressional leadership, and the White House have negotiated in earnest over the past 4 months. Our negotiations culminated in a document called the Bipartisan Budget Agreement of 1997, which is…

The budget agreement and the budget resolution both include funds for five Presidential initiatives, $16 billion for children's health care coverage, to which we were just referring, $9.7 billion over 5 years to restore SSI and Medicaid…

I would also like to ask about targets for spending and tax cuts. The budget agreement and budget resolution call for $85 billion in net tax cuts over the 5-year period 1998 to 2002 to be enacted in the second reconciliation bill. The…

Mr. Speaker, this is the last lap in a long race. I came here in 1983, and we were just beginning to recognize and struggle with the long-term implications of the deficit then. There was Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, there was a budget summit in…

I yield myself 2 minutes to explain the purpose of the motion. As I said at the outset when the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich], the chairman, introduced his motion to go to conference, our purpose here is to see that what comes out of…

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, today we have an opportunity to do something which I cannot see any reason why anybody would not do. And that is to make sure that the tax breaks that are put into this bill do not explode in the outyears. The…

I think we all need to bear in mind that basically what we are doing in this budget resolution for the next 5 years is borrowing more money so that we can fund the cost of tax cuts. Bear that in mind. Second, what we are trying to do in…

What we do in this budget resolution really pushes the envelope of what we can accomplish in a budget resolution. We have basically incorporated by reference a hard wrought, hard negotiated, bipartisan budget agreement of 1997, achieved…

Mr. Chairman, when I opened this argument I noted to the House that the budget resolution before us is a product of nearly 3 months of negotiation. This is a hard wrought agreement, and I speak to my colleagues, in particular on this side…

I would like to spend more, too. But in this agreement we have provided $8.5 billion in outlays for transportation over and above what the President's request was for fiscal year 1998, $8.15 billion over 5 years. That means that in fiscal…

as both sides explained at the outset of this debate, what we have before us tonight in the base bill, House Concurrent Resolution 84, is a compromise, hard fought, hard wrought, carefully balanced compromise. I explained in my earlier…

Starting in 1999, if that were to become the will of the House, if that substitute were to carry, it would cut discretionary spending government wide on a pro rata basis and reduce the tax cuts to increase transportation funding by $19…

The reason that we are doing what we are doing today is that we are about some diversion, distraction. We are trying to keep the American people from understanding that Congress is not doing its job, the majority is not doing its job. We…

I think the gentleman makes my case. All of that is the handiwork of the Budget Committee. We have done it in years past. All this resolution calls for is that we do it again this year, all of that effort there.