Date: 2002-05-23
Speaker: DAN MILLER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Florida

Mr. Chairman. I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman. I find this an interesting political debate we are having now. And for my colleagues on the other side who are in the minority and the policies of tax and spend when they had 40 years of control. and so now they start going off on this filibustertype debate on issues that are not really the critical issues of vote today. Today we are talking about a war supplemental. I got elected in 1992. And I served my first 2 years in the minority in this institution. I was never in politics before I came to Congress. and I found it disappointing. actually. how partisan this institution was. And in 1993 the budget was basically a partisan issue. They had the largest tax increase in history in 1993 and every Republican voted against it. But as a minority. when John Kasich was chairman of the Committee on the Budget. we presented a budget in 1993 and 1994. We had an alternative budget. But now all the minority wants to do is complain. There is no alternative budget. All they would do is offer some amendments to our budget. The other body. to get a conference report on the budget. which is really the crux of the whole problem .we are facing right now. the other body has not produced a budget. The Senate has not produced a budget yet. And so we are in this position where we have to move forward with our appropriations bills. but without a budget we just have to go through this process that we are doing now with the deeming of the resolution and doing this on the supplemental. Now that we are in the majority. I remember when I came into the majority in 1995. I had to vote for things that I did not want to vote for. I remember as a minority member I did not have to vote for a lot of the appropriations bills. I voted against the District of Columbia appropriations back in 1993 and 1994. Marion Barry was mayor. You all had to vote in favor of that. It was a tough vote as a member of the majority. It was a tough vote for me in 1995. And I think I did vote for the D.C. appropriation bill back then because we had the responsibility to govern. And so now that we are in the majority party to have to face some of these tough issues and increasing the debt limit is one. Every year the Democrats were in the majority. they had to provide for increases in the debt limit. Either we had a vote or my understanding is they used the Gephardt rule and was part of the budget conference report that automatically had the increase in the debt ceiling. So it was passed continually for the years when the Democrats were in control and we have had to do it every year to provide for it that way. too. because if we do not increase the debt ceiling. we are not going to send out Social Security checks. We are not going to the hospitals or the doctors for Medicare. We are not going to take care of our veterans. It is something that has to be done because it is the only way we can keep the government running. We are talking about why we are into this fiscal crisis. I came in as a fiscal conservative. I was upset with the fiscal irresponsibility in Washington. and so a key part of our Contract with America back in 1994 was balance the budget. The big fight we had in 1995 was balancing the budget over 7 years. and we did it in less than that. and the key is getting to a balanced budget. I am disappointed we are not going to have a balanced budget now. but there are certain things that have come up. as the President talked about. that are causing this. One is a recession. Our revenues are down an estimated $200 billion. and so we need to stimulate the economy and grow ourselves back out of it. That is how we got into a surplus. a large reason was. we grew ourselves out of it by the booming economy. So first of all. we have a recession. Then the September 11 events. we are in a war. We had a $40 billion emergency supplemental last year which I * voted for. We are going to have another $29 .billion here today or tomorrow. So we have got another $70 billion of emergency spending to take care of the war issue. So what are our choices? We need to take care of our homeland security. we need to address the war. and we need to continue the priorities of biomedical research. of education. of the veterans and other issues we have to address here. . My solution to the whole problem today is we need a closed rule. This idea of a totally open rule is just going on and on and on: So I would encourage our leaders on our side of the aisle to go back to the Committee on Rules. come back with a closed rule. and say let us have all of the appropriate amendments. set up a time. we do this all the time on the Committee on Rules. and say let us go ahead and have a regular debate and regular order and not continue talking and talking and talking about basically the same thing because the other said. oh. we are fiscally irresponsible when after their 40 years of control is what got us into all the debt problem. and now we have a war and a recession. combined with a national emergency. and we are doing the responsible thing. They did not vote for the rule. I am not sure what they are going to do with the final bill. I think we should take it to the Committee on Rules. come up with a new rule and end this filibuster.