i have to dance to set the motion to recommit be considered as read in print in the record as objection that objection so ordered we have a gentleman from virginia is recognized for five minutes that we have order please speak or i offered this motion to recommit with instructions forthwith this motion to recommit would require all agency inspector generals to report annually to congress and to the president whether the i g believes in abolishment reorganization consolidation or transfer of existing federal programs and agencies is necessary to reduce federal expenditures increase efficiency of government operations eliminate overlap and duplication in federal programs and offices abolish agencies or programs which no longer serve an important governmental purpose or identify reduction in amount gentleman or snaring budget authority for the gentleman suspend the gentleman from florida is correct and the house will come to order placed to call conversations off the house floor the gentleman from virginia would continue to suspend until we have order on the house f it's savings that they can find discretionary budget authority or direct spending which can be dedicated to federal deficit reduction the i g f would be required to accompany those reports with proposed legislation in order to encourage congress to act on th recommendations this legislation is born out of frustration how many more times are we going to hear about redundancy in federal programs without doing anything about it we have the i g s we have made them more independent as a result of this let's utilize that expertise for suggestions and how we can reduce waste fraud and abuse in government how many more times are we going to have to hear about the seventy programs located throughout thirteen federal agencies providing substance abuse prevention services for our youth the over ninety early childhood programs scattered among eleven federal agencies and twenty offices the forty different programs in the federal government having job training is their main purpose the eighty six teacher training programs and nine federal agencies the fifty different federal homeless assistance programs administered by eight different agencies the more than seventeen federal agencies monitoring and forcing over four hundred u s trade agreements the seventeen federal departments and agencies operating a total of five hundred fifteen federal research and development laboratories or the eight different federal agencies administering seventeen different programs just in the area rural water and waste water systems each with its else come to order a gentleman from virginia thank you after all the primary reason all these federal programs exist in the first place has become this congress has this bad habit of haphazardly establishing new programs to achieve short term solutions whenever a problem arises in fact paul volcker donna shalala frank carlucci all testified before our committee in two thousand thousand and three about a national commission on public service report that they had recently released the report concluded that over the years the ad hoc layering of agency departments and programs greatly complicated management expanded the influence of powerful interests and diminished coherent policy direction the federal government today is a layered jumble of organizations with muddled public missions congress is as much to blame for this problem as anyone else admitting we have a problem is the first step in recovery i'm here to help our colleagues understand we have a problem the extent of overlap and duplicat s government is an issue the committee on government reform has spent years investigating our hearings have focused on a range of federal program areas from child welfare programs to intelligence operations to federal food safety oversight this motion to report forthwith so it doesn't kill the bill it reports right back would provide a tool which going to sis the congress and the president and identifying ways to streamline government operations and make them as efficient and effective as possible the motion to recommit should appeal to all members who believe there inefficiencies in the federal government requiring attention after all congress never has and never will be a management body we need the assistance and this legislation does it independent outside observers to tell us what programs we created years ago are not inefficient or effective use of taxpayer funds we have given the i g s we have given the i g f expanded authority here gentlemen would suspend the house is not an order please take all conversations only have in the or after generals hear authority and independence to call the balls and strikes and to make government more efficient let's utilize that let's help us make government more efficient let's support the motion to recommit gentleman yield back the balance of the sun gentleman yield back the balance of his time for what purpose does the gentleman from california arise mr speaker i rise in opposition to the motion to recommit gentleman is recognized for five minutes i share the goals expressed by my friend and colleague mr davis gentleman from virginia but i oppose it as a motion to recommit because this bill is about inspectors general and their job is to wait to wait to weed out waste fraud and abuse but this motion to recommit would identify that their primary job if this motion passes would be to identify programs that aren't working and then to recommend recommend changes in them well that's a worthwhile thing for them to do but that shouldn't be and has not their primary job the principle duty of the i g has to do the the work of an independent watchdog to work to find out if there's waste fraud and abuse this would turn it into their principal duty to do  prime job then i would urge members to vote no but i want to indicate to my colleagues that whether this motion to recommit passes or is defeated i want to work with the sponsor of this motion to recommit to achieve our shared objectives oftentimes we have waste fraud and abuse because the objectives of the agency need to be changed and we want those dogs democrats and republicans coming together on this important good government calls we've been working on it for four years now and now it's about to pass we're about to send it to the senate hopefully with a huge vote because members on both sides of the alcan agree that we need to cut out waste fraud and abuse in government and there's no better group to do it than our inspectors general that's what this bill and does empower inspectors general so no thank you chairman mr waxman for his outstanding work with our ranking member done a great job of moving this and other important legislation for our congress thank you i thank the gentleman for his comments i urge all members to support the bill and to vote against the motion to recommit yield back the balance of my time without objection the previous question is ordered the question is not of rule twenty the chair will reduce to five minutes the minimum time for any electronic vote on the question of passage this will be a fifteen minute vote that has been debating a bill that expands the independence of the inspectors general and establishes a council of inspectors general on integrity and efficiency this is the most and to recommit with instructions representative tom davis  virginia the ranking republican on the oversight committee calling for language to assist congress and the white house to streamline government process is a fifteen minute vote on this motion to recommit another bill coming up  today in just a short while as a matter of fact will deal with strengthening overseas government contracting accountability we had the chance a short while ago to catch up with a reporter get a preview of what that debate will be about john donnell congressional quarterly's on the phone with his wife the house taking up a bill today that addresses crimes committed by private contractors well there's been a lot of controversy lately about crimes allegedly committed by contractors in particular by se of private individuals to supplement the armed forces over there and what we're talking about for the most part are people to provide security details and the problem is that  yesterday ahead of today's debate what came out of that that hearing particular the testimony of the company's c e o well you know a lot of the of the concerns that i just touched upon and this that the chairman  that the house is taking up today which is by david price of north carolina which would make it clear that u s law covers contractors mr prince that blackwater executive doesn't have a problem with that and so he basically defended defended his company's actions and said they're you know they're basically in a hot combat situation and they've done a very good job of protecting u s military action yet u s personnel and general state state department people mostly how much is a support is there for representative prices bill today well i think it's going to pass simply because democrats have the numbers in the house but it's it's encounter some investigate and what to investigate and could put some burdens on the defense department but the white house also indicated it's not it's willing to talk about this and that it sees that you know that there can make tweaks in this in this  legislative language and fully approve it in ways that the white house could support it the white house did not threaten to veto the bill so long story short i think it'll pass over some republican opposition and does the senate have any plans to take up the issue democratic senator from illinois who is a presidential candidate intends to file legislation that would be a companion to mr price bill it would be the issue of iraq continues to come up in so many different ways and pieces of legislation any other defense related matter matters that you're falling in particular over here in the in the house basically the the issue in congress is that republicans have been able to bottle up most iraqi legislation in the senate and so the house is now trying to pass some pieces of legislation that they think might be able to get through the senate there not as much as most time work critics would right but they at least take some steps in terms of addressing problems rack for example yesterday the house passing a bill that would require the administration to report to congress on the status of its plans for withdrawing redeploying forces there kind of  inspectors general bill earlier today president bush vetoed the children's health insurance bill we take you now live to the senate gallery for the majority leader harry reid joined by senators baucus grassley and rockefeller live coverage here on c span and ranking member hatch worked so hard on this and i am want to give a special pat on the back by senator grass no i said in a meeting all the chairman's mean we have today talking about s chip i said without for qualification no one has been more helpful in this legislation no one and charles grassley he has just been outstanding and i appreciate all that he's done i'm also grateful not only for his work on this issue but all he does to help me and democratic congress and the country max   this is as guilty one the president is wrong the congress is right if that clear that simple the prez is wrong to veto health coverage for ten million low income american children who otherwise would be uninsured and the congress is right to fight like hell to override this veto that's just what we will do so i say the simple truth my colleagues in the house in the senate the children's health insurance program works to get health care to low income uninsured american children would otherwise go without thousands of children in my home state of montana are healthy today because of children's health insurance program millions more kids across america are healthy today because of job so any member of congress believes that kids ought to be able to see doctors when they're sick if a member of congress believes that kids ought to get checkups they need to stay well in the first place then those members have every it targets coverage toward the lowest income children not just higher income it keeps the program for children we move childless adults and parents out and there are strong strong mechanisms to make sure that the children's health insurance program reaches uninsured kids not kids who already have coverage i frankly can't tell you why the president of this bill he didn't do it on accurate for factual grounds i don't know if he's just punishing kids healthy just pushing an illogical agenda on health care reform or it just never got the real facts about what our bill does god knows we try to tell or whatever the reason for this is the wrong choice for america's children here in the congress we're going to right the wrong the president done to america's kids today we're going to get the job accomplished we're going to all we can to persuade  thank you senator reid for your kind remarks for senator baucus and me we appreciate it very much i'm going to be making some of those phone calls to the house of representatives to help of fine votes to override the rest of the stuff i'm going to say today you didn't come here to expect to hear anything new out of me i've spoken more hours on this on the floor and there's not a whole lot to say but you can't say it too often in this instance it's disappointing to me that the president vetoed this bipartisan bill without this legislation reform and we knew of the children's health insurance program without that we're stuck with the status quo thanks to avers granted by this administration that's a program that's not focused on kids congress bridged a d by and put together legislation that meets a challenge set by who the president himself the president so often has said about getting health insurance to more kids through the s chip program the veto puts us th in a worse position now with all the faults have been found about this bail set about this not about the bill about the present program of the last ten years we're we're going to have adults remaining on the program there's also no disincentive for states to cover parents states aren't encouraged to cover low income kids before high income kids under the present legislation are the status quo the funding formula is still broken and states like mine of iowa will be challenged by shortfalls and in the process nothing has been done to cover kids that are out there without health insurance the president's five billion dollars plan doesn't work it doesn't accomplish what he says he wants to do it won't even cover kids on the program today much less reach out to cover more kids since january the administration has been chopping more ambitious proposals for the uninsured but no one was buying at least they weren't buying on the vehicle that we call s chip along the way in trying to work with the white house i met repeatedly with white house officials starting early this year my staff did even more of that every effort was made to bring the administration into a process but it decided to veto the bill i think before was even written the administration's position in my way from their position it was either my way or the highway well that's not how the legislative process works now we've got to do what we can to try to override choices is improved substantially in the last several days and so there's great help this great hope that we can override their does have it done with in the event that we don't do that then one is left to search one's soul or some part of oneself to figure out why he would do something like this why would a president nine states faced with over forty million uninsured people take a chance to take the most vulnerable about twenty three or twenty four percent of all uninsured people in the united states of america and say no to that why would he say that they couldn't have early childhood screening so that case they were headed towards autism or had other kinds of problems that wouldn't be discovered early through your early screening program immunization teeth i we've discussed it before mental health mental health is involved with children children grow up in families that are tremendously dysfunctional what happens with veterans they come back from the near east we're all over it with billions of dollars as we should be wired children so different they don't start wars then we'll get the nation in trouble so just kids but they need to have health and then have education for everything they need to have health under our bill passed by both houses potentially with an override of the veto coming they would have that without that they were not sure we'll keep coming back we'll keep coming back and we'll keep coming back until we get it it is now rages now rages act on the part of the forest i never really believed although part of me said it was inevitable that it would happen they would actually vote the top but he has i search for his motivation but that that that's not constructive or does is make me angry discouraged i think it's you know it's going to have a  wide effect around the country not politically so much as just a sense of what on earth are they doing there and so there are no explanations but there's a lot of trauma and there are a lot of i understand the president i know that deep down he knows this is a good program he's always indorsed his concern and so we've spent too much money but this started out as one hundred billion dollars  and thanks to good work on behalf of both democrats and republicans we've got it down to where we feel it will work at the thirty five billion dollars level and frankly i don't understand how we can say it's a great program that covering the kids that really deserve to be covered and for those who argue that that it's out of control ninety two percent no more no less than ninety one percent but really ninety two percent of all the kids who will be covered by this bill will be in families under two hundred percent of the poverty level now is there crowded out of course there is there's no way you can avoid it when you do a program like this but we have done a lot in this bill to start to solve the crowd problem is anybody families  getting eighty three thousand dollars a year going to get benefits and a list well not unless  the applications were made and they refused to grant the waiver this bill does not really call for that high level of of expenditure but even if it did it would only be for a small percentage of the eight percent about the ninety two percent so that's not a good argument if you add if you look at what we relied on around here at the congressional budget office the crash and congressional budget office says this is how much money we would need to take care of the kids who are eligible for this program ninety two percent of them are under two hundred percent of poverty now to call this a march towards one size fits all government mandated health care is just political in my opinion because this is a block grant to the states with the states having tremendous power over this bill not total power but power it is not an entitlement which some even even those who are the most partisan of at the drop that accusation what about the rule the rule that the that famous came up with yes we modified it to make it work but frankly we have much of that rule in effect in other words with made the original chip bill much better and i happen to know the difference between the two as do these other colleagues here we made it better we made it more in line with what this administration really wanted the only apparent conflict is over the thirty five billion dollars on top of the twenty five billion dollars but if you look at that and if we're sincere and if we really want to take care of children that high gosh c b l says it's going to take that much money to take care of the kids who are eligible for this program truly compassionate it seems to me we'd want to would want to endorse this program and i could go on and on but let me just say this this is a classic compromise between the house and the senate between democrats and republicans i think all of whom have acted in good faith have tried to do the best they possibly could in the interest of these children who are who have been left out of the programs in the past and i really have a difficult time saying  having the same as the top now i believe that we can we can get the people in the house who wants vanished and all these things will cross over and and vote to override the veto and i think we need to do that and i don't think the president is somebody who doesn't want his kids to become hurt i think he's been given some pretty bad advice by some who's all sincere are sincerely wrong thank you very for what purpose does the gentleman from new york ri five minute vote here on h r nine twenty eight final passage of billick spending the independence of inspectors general and establishing a council of inspectors general on integrity and efficiency while this that continues we'll take you back to the senate gallery in our live coverage of senator reid and others reacting to the president's veto children's health insurance legislation district what it does to the state in which they either totally wrong or intellectually this argument intellectually dishonest arguments that were used against that knowledge give you a couple one this eighty two thousand dollars keeps coming up this bill prevents that from from happening or if it was going to happen the administration could do that right now under existing law another one there was something that i'm not sure that i understand exactly what the argument was about but about illegal aliens getting some help  this has just gone the other direction to protect to make sure things like that don't happen and things of that nature so it's just a case of answering questions and trying to bring out what the facts are most importantly i think we ought to understand what the president says he wants to do what five million dollars will do and what it won't do and it's gone and it's not going to cover all the kids that are now covered the president said he wanted to bring more kids under  republicans in the house want to do that i never had a single republican senator tell me that this should not that this program should not be continued now we had a lot of argument about whether or not private health insurance ought to be involved  we had a lot of arguments about including adults or not in the program as it is now whether waivers are right or wrong all of the excuses that republicans in the senate brought up to me about this bill that was wrong with the president program we have a perec that in addition to the fact if you want the program to go and you want to do what the president wants to do cover more kids you can't do it for five million dollars i don't know whether republicans in the house understood that and that's what i'm going to try to explain to thank you all very much senators from the gallery live coverage from the radio and t v gallery of senators reacting to the president's veto of the children's health insurance legislation when to stand after the completion of this series of votes that the majority leader hoyer will make a motion to postpone consideration of the president's veto until october the eighteenth and that's coming up we'll have live coverage here of course on c span another bill they will debate this afternoon deals with contractors and strengthening overseas government contracting accountability that's still to come on the house floor the senate meanwhile continues work on perhaps up work on the defense spending bill frisk fiscal year two thousand and eight they did approve an amendment earlier today a three billion dollar amendment opposed by senator graham that would add three billion dollars for border security including border fencing leader reid has said he expects hopes to finish finish up work on that by this afternoon and you can follow that senate debate on c span to be authorized to make technical corrections and then grossman of h r nine to a to include corrections in spelling punctuation section numbering and cross references and the insertion of appropriate heading to come to order members and staff or move their conversations on the floor six the children's health insurance program reauthorization act of two thousand and seven because us legislation would move health care in this country in the wrong direction they originally purpose of the state children's health insurance program s chip was to help children whose families cannot afford private health insurance but do not qualify for medicaid to get the coverage they need my administration strongly supports reauthorization of this chip that is why i proposed last february a twenty percent increase in funding for the program over five years this bill would show s chip away from its original purpose and turn it into a program that would cover children from some families of four owning almost eighty three thousand dollars a year in addition under this bill government coverage would displace private health insurance for many children if this bill were in acted one out of every three children moving into government coverage would be moving from private coverage the bill also does not fully fund all this new spending obscuring the true cost of the bill's expansion of s chip and it raises taxes on working americans because the congress has chosen to cindy a bill that moves our health care system in the wrong direction i must be to it i hope we can now work together to produce a bill that puts four children first that moves adults out of a program meant for children and that does not abandon the bipartisan tradition that more see an accident of s chip our goal should be to move children who have no health insurance to private coverage not to move children who already have private health insurance to government coverage signed george w bush the white house october third two thousand and seven the objections of the veto message and to be on h r nine seventy six be postponed until october eighteenth two thousand and seven the gentleman from maryland mr hoyer is recognized for a one hour on the motion thank you madam speaker amount of speaker for the purposes speaker earlier today the president the united states in defiance of bipartisan majorities in the house and senate and in defiance of the will of the great majority of americans vetoed fiscally responsible legislation that would ensure that ten million children in our nation receive health insurance coverage that's approximately four million more children than are covered under the highly successful children's health insurance program today i remind the members of the house that that program was adopted in one thousand nine hundred seven by a republican controlled congress with strong democratic support a bipartisan program let us be clear this is a defining moment for this congress and for a president who has labeled himself a compassionate conservative the president's veto my colleagues must not stand the president wrongly claims that this bipartisan legislation is fiscally irresponsible but the truth is the children's health insurance program legislation forged by members on both sides of this aisle is paid for it does not add to the deficit or to the debt moreover president bush whose policies over the last six years have instigated record budget deficits and spiraling debt should not be lecturing anyone on the issue of fiscal discipline this is ministration i suggest all of us has pursued and enacted the most fiscally irresponsible policies perhaps in american history in fact even as the president vetoed this chip legislation all of it paid for he has asked congress to approve another one hundred and ninety billion dollars to protect baghdad and its environs mr president we need to protect the children of blue he of new york of peoria in fact even as the president vetoed as i said this legislation he sent to us one hundred ninety billion dollar request for more money for the war in iraq the civil war in iraq a place where very frankly it is far past time where the people of iraq took the responsibility to defend and secure their country this legislation that the president has be towed is about securing the health of america's children with this veto the president is playing politics pure and simple after running up record deficits and debt is now trying to establish his fiscal bona fide ease with his conservative political base by denying health services to children mr president it won't work mr president it shouldn't work mr president i not compassionate nor is it common sense senator hatch no one's idea of a liberal or of a democratic spin meisters said on the senate floor last week and i quote it is unfortunate that the czech president has chosen to be on what to me is clearly the wrong side of the issue that was senator hatch i hope all of us in this body republican and democrat decide when this vote comes up to determine whether or not the congress should make policy or whether we will be subservient to the president's veto in protecting children i hope all of us republican and democrat liberal and moderate and conservative will join together to respond to the children of this country and their families who agonize about not having the health insurance they need so their children can be kept healthy senator roberts of kansas remarked another leader in the republican party i quote i am but bluntly put said senator roberts from kansas who served in this body the assertions of the president he said are wrong technique he said that  the premises were inaccurate mr speaker this legislation is no