Motion to Go to Conference on H.R. 3010, Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2006

MOTION TO GO TO CONFERENCE ON H.R. 3010, DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2006 -- (House of Representatives - November 08, 2005)

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Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I will not take more than 3. I simply would like to, as a courtesy to the House, explain the motion.

For the last 2 weeks, the attention of the House has been focused on the efforts of the majority party to pass its reconciliation bill, which includes significant cuts in food stamps, in child support enforcement, in disability payments in order to pay for the tax cuts which this Congress has already largely passed. The problem that we have with that is that this bill, in effect, hits those same poor people a second time with cuts in education, health, worker protection programs that are in the bill.

The Senate appeared to give the persons interested in this bill some hope that those cuts could be avoided by adding a $3 billion financing gimmick to their proposal. But it is clear now that that provision is being discarded, and that means that the new caps that the Appropriations Committee adopted last week will eliminate the ability of the Senate to provide that extra $3 billion. That means that the only way that we can avoid that hit is to reduce the size of the tax cuts being provided to make room in the budget for some of these crucial items.

So this motion simply attempts to instruct the conferees to accept the Harkin amendment which would add $8 billion in order to pay fully for the flu pandemic work that needs to be done. It would instruct the conferees to add $3 billion to the low-income heating assistance program to take into account the huge increase in home energy prices that consumers will face this year, especially low-income consumers.

It would provide an additional $1.5 billion in programs that are meant to discourage abortion, programs such as a maternal and child health block grant, Head Start, domestic violence and numerous others, one-half billion dollars to restore health professions training, and $3 billion to put title I on a 5-year track to full funding under No Child Left Behind; $1.6 billion in additional funding for disabled and handicapped children trying to put that program on the same 5-year glide path; and one-half billion dollars in restoration for worker training and job training programs.

It would ask the conferees to support a provision which would reduce the size of the tax cuts for millionaires from an average of $140,000 to $36,000. That is still a pretty hefty cut.

Mr. Speaker, in essence, that is what the motion to instruct would provide. We are offering it because this is the last chance that this body has to reach a different set of judgments concerning budget priorities that affect the poorest and most defenseless people in this society.

POINT OF ORDER

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Does the gentleman from Ohio continue to reserve his point of order?

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I make a point of order against the motion because it violates clause 9 of rule XXII by proposing to direct the conferees to exceed the scope of matters committed to the conference. And I ask for a ruling from the Chair.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Does any Member wish to speak on the point of order?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, if one looks at the Budget Act, the purpose of the Budget Act was to force a Congress to get away from runaway spending and runaway deficits by forcing the Congress to confront trade-offs between spending and revenues. In fact, the Congress is being prevented from doing that and the Congress is being shielded from facing those explicit trade-offs unless amendments such as this are offered and debated fully in the House.

We recognize that funding for these programs under the budget resolution is being cut back in order to make room in that same budget resolution for the tax cuts that have been provided and to make room for further tax cuts which the majority party is talking about offering this week. If we cannot offer this kind of an amendment, then it would seem to me that the entire budget process has been intellectually corrupted and turned into a mere enforcement mechanism for majority party will rather than being used as a device to work out an explicit and forthright set of trade-offs.

I would urge the Chair to reject the point of order.

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Simmons). The Chair is prepared to rule on the point of order.

The Chair finds that the proposed instructions dwell their operative focus on matters not within the scope of the differences committed to conference by the two Houses.

On these premises, the Chair holds that the instructions do exceed the scope of conference.

The point of order is sustained.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, most reluctantly, I do appeal the ruling of the Chair, not because I have any fault with the Chair, but because this is the only opportunity this institution will have to make a different set of priority choices.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is, shall the decision of the Chair stand as the judgment of the House.

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