Date: 2005-11-09
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

I want to elaborate on what my colleague is saying. because some people might think that this is unusual and that it is a rare occurrence that they would close a bill and not allow us to offer any amendments. This is just my first year. but I wanted to just check on what the Republican leaderships track record is in terms of all6wing us the input that they say they so desperately want us to provide.. There have been about 85 bills. as of last Thursday. which was November 3. 85 bills that we have considered on this floor that were amendable.. There are lots of bills we consider that are under what is called the suspension calendar. and we vote those up or down. Those are the noncontroversial bills. But 85 bills. Of the 85 bills that were potentially amendable. 38 of them were given restrictive rules where there were severe limitations on the amendments that were allowed to be offered. Severe. Fifteen of those bills were closed. like the one that we are considering tomorrow. meaning no additional amendments were allowed. No amendments at all were allowed. Plus three additional closed rules that were included in another bill. Now. there have been. of the 85. 12 open rules. meaning anyone can offer an amendment. but 11 of those were appropriations bills. spending bills. whicl we always are allowed to offer amendments to. So what it boils down to. and 10 were conference reports and 10 were procedural. But what that boils down to is that since I was elected and have served in Congress 11 months. we have had one bill. one substantive bill. that had an open rule. one where we could offer any idea we wanted. Now. my colleague from Florida talked earlier about how we all put our pant legs on one at a time. And I wear pants and sometimes I wear skirts. and sometimes I wear pajamas. I might be bringing those tomorrow because we are not sure how long we are going to be here and how long they are going to hold that vote open until they get their way. But we were also all elected by the same number. of people. or we certainly represent the same number of people. the same 633.000 people. But we are not all treated equally in this Chamber.. because on our side of the aisle we are not allowed to provide the input that they say they want us to provide. I actually just want to. if you do not mind. tell a little story. because we should demonstrate what is going on here in this bill tomorrow. Gene Sperling. who was at one time President Clintons top economic adviser. he compared this budget and the cutting in the budget to cutting only peanut butter. I will share this story with you. Imagine the following: The father of a financially stretched family.decides to live it up. He leases three fully loaded Hummer Hls for the bargain price of $9.750 a month. almost $10.000. As the familys financial situation deteriorates. the father calls the family together for a belttightening discussion. He holds up a- jar of Whole Foods. chunky peanut butter and says. Do you realize we are spending $4.49 on this? We could be saving $2.04 if we bought Skippy Peanut Butter for only .$2.45. His teenage son responds. like. Dad. man. why are you busting on us about two bucks on peanut butter when you are spending like almost $10.000 a -month on cars? Then the father responds. Do. not change the subject. We are talking about peanut butter. Well. that is essentially what the leadership is saying by giving tax cuts to millionaires and the greedy. their cronies. and cutting- programs for veterans. children. and the poor who are the needy. They are basically saying. We need to talk about the peanut butter. that is all that matters to us. In some of the time we have left. we should let people know just exactly what the ddnscience vote is tomorrow. so that people know when we all go to sleep tonight just who is going to be able to wake up and look at themselves in the mirror and hold their head up high.- We are being asked tomorrow to vote to cut $844 million from food stamps. They say there is fraud. in the food stamp program and that we need to reduce waste. " Well. I held up this picture earlier tonight. and I will hold it up again. because I think it is very descriptive. There is the picture of the 25.000 people who lined up in Broward County today to apply for food stamps after getting hit by Hurricane Wilma. They started lining up at 3 a.m.. They did not line up for emergency funding.