Waiving Points of Order Against Further Conference Report on H.R. 3010, Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education...
WAIVING POINTS OF ORDER AGAINST FURTHER CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 3010, DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2006 -- (House of Representatives - December 14, 2005)
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Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for the time.
Let me simply make a couple of comments in response to assertions made by the gentlewoman from West Virginia. She caught my attention when she said, and made much of the fact, that since the Republicans have taken control of the House, education funding has essentially doubled. Let me put that in perspective and challenge that statement. This bill is part of a three-part strategy which over the next 5 years will cut funding for education, for social services, for health care, for the people targeted by this bill by $48 billion over a 5-year period.
With respect to education, this bill is the first time in 10 years that the Congress will actually have cut education. With the across-the-board cut which is going to be attached to this bill before the week is over, we will wind up cutting education by over $600 million below last year.
Now, the Republicans say, ``Oh, that is okay because we added so much money over the last 10 years.'' With all due respect, that is rewriting history. The Republican majority in this House had to be dragged kicking and screaming into supporting education at all. They came to power with the demand to abolish the Department of Education. Their very first action rescinded billions of dollars including education funding. They tried three out of the next 4 years to make deep cuts in education. Each time they were blocked by the Democratic minority and by some assistance that we got from the Republican majority in the Senate and from the White House then occupied by Bill Clinton.
Today the fact is that over the past 10 years we have had $18 billion more in education than would have been there if we had passed the Republican House education and labor appropriation bill. So for the Republicans to claim that they have added money to education is a joke.
It reminds me of the orphan who kills his parents and then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan. The fact is, if the Republican majority in this House had their way, education would have been funded $18 billion less than it has been funded over the previous decade.
With respect to some of the other claims that have been made this morning, with respect to title I, we are going to have an actual reduction in title I by the time the across-the-board cut actually passes. No Child Left Behind programs have been cut by $779 million.
The gentlewoman mentioned NIH. The fact is that with the across-the-board cut that is going to be attached to this bill, NIH funding will decline by $129 million, there will be fewer research grants provided there than we had 2 years ago.
She mentioned community health centers. The fact is that this bill contains $238 million less than the amount requested by the Bush administration, and this bill totally terminates the entire community-access program to provide health care to people who do not have insurance.
So all I would say is, if you vote for this bill, if you vote for the across-the-board cut, and if you voted for the Republican reconciliation action last week, you will have cut support for people who are helped by this bill by $48 billion over the next 5 years, and you will have used 50 percent of that money to put in the pockets of the richest 1 percent of the people by way of tax cuts. It is an outrageous piece of legislation.
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