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Mr. OBEY. I see. If the gentleman would yield, when you want to raise IDEA it is okay; but when we want to add money to special education, then it is not okay. Is that it?

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   Mr. HAYWORTH. If my friend would yield the time, this is precisely the point.

   Mr. OBEY. I see.

   Mr. HAYWORTH. This is precisely the point. I think my friend misunderstands the historical context because my friend had margins of votes in excess of 100 and could have, during the days when he controlled the purse, could have fully funded IDEA had he chosen to with other

   Members of the majority party then. That was then. This is now.

   I think it is profound, Mr. Speaker, that we have moved to fund the program, and I champion the fact that my friend sat down to negotiate.

   Mr. KINGSTON. Let me claim some time here because I really think this is a good dialogue; and I would say amongst those who are on the floor tonight, as long as we are talking we can move the ball further down the road and we can get somewhere with it.

   I want to shift just slightly the focus, though. As I see the President's proposal to federalize school construction, one of the things that is disturbing to me, and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. STENHOLM) somewhat agreed the other night, and I will let him restate whatever his position is, is the President's insistence, apparently a union payoff, to have Davis-Bacon part of local school construction, which means the cost of local school construction will be up 25 percent. And that item is on the table, as I understand it. And that is something disturbing to me because when I go back to Glynn County, Brantley County, Wayne County, Georgia, they do not want to know, hey, the good news is the Federal Government is going to have more money for school construction; the bad news is it is going to cost you 25 percent more, and you probably should have just done it without the Federal Government's help.

   Could the gentleman from Wisconsin enlighten us where that is in the negotiation?

   Mr. OBEY. I would be happy to, if the gentleman would let me respond, and I thank the gentleman for the time.

   As the gentleman knows, there are two pieces to the school construction and school modernization proposals. In the bipartisan agreement, which your leadership blew up, in that bipartisan agreement, the construction modernization program was included in the bipartisan agreement.

   The school construction item was not. The school construction item under that agreement was moved to the tax bill, and the argument was left to the tax bill and to whatever fate the tax bill would experience.

   So in the package that your negotiators and I, representing the Democrats, agreed to, we have the school modernization program that was funded at a level of, I believe, $1.3 billion, and then 25 percent of the overall amount that originally had been aimed at school modernization was, at the insistence of the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. GOODLING) and Republicans, provided for other programs. It could have been used for either technology or it could have been used for special education. That was a bipartisan agreement which we agreed upon, and your leadership then blew up.

   Mr. KINGSTON. Let me say this: As I understand it, the reason why there was agreement on it is it was in exchange for other concessions which the White House was offering, and when the White House reneged on their part of the bargain then our House leadership said, okay, if that is the case then we are going to go back to square one.

   Mr. OBEY. That is a totally false statement.

   Mr. KINGSTON. That is what we understand from our leadership, and they have said that so far.

   Mr. GUTKNECHT. If the gentleman would yield.

   Mr. OBEY. As is often the case, the gentleman's understanding is faulty.

   Mr. GUTKNECHT. Let me just come back. I am trying to keep a running total here, and you said all we needed was an extra $300 million for IDEA above and beyond what we already spent.

   Mr. OBEY. No, I believe we need $4 billion additional in IDEA .

   Mr. GUTKNECHT. If I could just finish here, then you said but we also want another $1.3 billion for school construction. Is that all we are talking about?

   Mr. OBEY. No.

   Mr. GUTKNECHT. Because I understood that we were about $8 billion apart. Now back in Minnesota and Wisconsin, $8 billion is a lot of money. There must have been more money somewhere else.

   Mr. OBEY. I would be happy to give the gentleman the rest of the list if you would yield.

   Mr. GUTKNECHT. If you could just give us the numbers. How far apart are we in the numbers?

   Mr. OBEY. We were not apart on any number. Every number in the bill had been agreed to by the negotiators. There was no disagreements left on the numbers.

   Mr. GUTKNECHT. They may have been agreed to by the negotiators, but ultimately you have to get 218 votes around this place. Some of us are a little upset about how much we have spent already, as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. STENHOLM) indicated already.

   Mr. OBEY. You do not want to hear the answer, do you?

   Mr. KINGSTON. Let me reclaim the time here. One of the problems that we are having here is that it does appear often that when questions are answered they go on into speeches, and if we could just answer the questions it would probably be a lot faster.

   The gentleman from Minnesota.

   Mr. GUTKNECHT. I think we, Members of the House, members of the general public, need to understand how much is enough? I mean, at what point do you see, yeah, that is all we want to spend. Is it $645 billion? Is it $660 billion? Is it $700 billion? We never get a clear answer to that question.

   Mr. OBEY. Would the gentleman yield so I can respond?

   Mr. GUTKNECHT. Yes.

   Mr. KINGSTON. Yes.

   Mr. OBEY. I repeat, there was not a single difference remaining on numbers.

   Mr. GUTKNECHT. But I did not hear a number.

   Mr. OBEY. We had an agreement.

   Mr. GUTKNECHT. What is the number? How much?

   Mr. OBEY. Of what? The number of what?

   Mr. GUTKNECHT. How much you want to spend? That is the question we have been asking all week. How much is enough?

   Mr. OBEY. I will be happy to answer.

   Mr. GUTKNECHT. Is it $670 billion? Is it $700 billion?

   Mr. OBEY. You asked what the differences were on the table, and I told you there were no dollar differences.

   Mr. GUTKNECHT. How long do we have to wait? Lord, Lord, how long will it be? When will they tell us how much is enough? We have already gone over the spending caps.

   Mr. OBEY. The gentleman is debating himself.

[Time: 20:45]

   Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I think this is indicative of the process. I appreciate the good-faith efforts of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. OBEY), the ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations, who has served with distinction for going on 3 decades in this Chamber, but here is the quintessential difference. My friend from Minnesota is asking, what is the bottom line? My friend from Wisconsin wants to revisit a process which he knows full well also entails sitting down and achieving consensus, not only with those at the table, but also with those in the White House who earlier tonight he said could negotiate for the President, in lieu of the President, the same way it works here, where your side has a point of view, our side has a point of view, and we attempt to reach a consensus.

   So I would again be interested to hear if there was, in fact, a number, rather than a process. What is the number? Mr. Speaker, my colleagues, how much is enough?

   Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to answer that, if the gentleman will yield. The gentleman asked me two different questions. I answered the first and the gentleman would not let me answer the second. Would the gentleman let me answer the second?

   If the gentleman wanted to know what we were asking for on education, what we were asking is that we add $4.2 billion above the conference bill for education. That is what we were asking for. We were asking for additional

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   Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, what was the issue?

   Mr. OBEY. The gentleman knows very well what the issue was.

   Mr. HAYWORTH. No, we do not.

   Mr. OBEY. The issue was whether or not the Congress should be allowed to block the President's effort to institute protection for workers against repetitive motion injuries.

   Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman from Georgia will yield, because that is something very different. The President of the United States came out and said that it was the special interests who stopped this, not a legitimate question of policy. I am glad my friend from Wisconsin brought up the fact, and we affirm tonight, that there was a legitimate difference in terms of protecting small business people, and employers, and claiming that somehow people are captive of the special interests. I yield back to my friend from Georgia.

   Mr. OBEY. No, no.

   Mr. KINGSTON. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. GUTKNECHT).

   Mr. GUTKNECHT. Again, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Wisconsin is talking a policy issue, and we are trying to solve the appropriation bills.

   Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues on the other side are not trying to solve anything tonight.

   Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, whether it is illegal aliens or ergonomics, they are policy questions which I am not certain would pass.

   Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, as I understand it, the House level of the Labor, Health and Human Services bill was about $106 billion, and the gentleman wants to add $4.2 billion.

   Mr. OBEY. No, that is not correct.

   Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, can the gentleman tell me what the number was?

   Mr. OBEY. The number is $608.2, the House number.

   Mr. KINGSTON. Okay. Plus, then it would be $108. But then what we are arguing about are the riders that the President wants to put on there.

   Mr. OBEY. No, no, it was a Republican item. That was a Republican rider which the gentleman voted for.

   Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield.

   Mr. OBEY. The President was opposing your rider.

   Mr. KINGSTON. It is a rider, and the President is wanting to put the rider on the bill.

   Mr. OBEY. And your leadership voted to blow it up.

   Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Texas has been standing here politely, and I yield to him.

   Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. If we can kind of get back to the basic thesis of the whole 1-hour tonight that the gentleman from Georgia has started. On the question of how much is enough that my colleagues keep asking, but they are not listening to what is being said by someone who is on the Committee on Appropriations. The $645 billion has been set as a cap. Any additional fussing about additional money is going to have to be resolved under the House rules, which I assume you all will support; I certainly will.

   Now, when we start talking about ergonomics, let the record show, that was a rider added by your side of the aisle, which I supported. And let the record show that on school construction, I do agree that Davis-Bacon should not be applicable to local bond issues. But that was a rider that your side put on, not our side, but I happen to agree.

   Immigration, we have already talked about that one. I think we can find a middle ground that will treat people of our country who are doing tremendous service to our country fairly by finding an agreement, and I think the gentleman from Arizona and I would agree on that. But the $4 million is an erroneous number and should not be coming out on the House floor.

   The one area that I really disagree with the majority party on is in the area of hospitals, home health, nursing homes and other health care providers, the BBA fix. I happen to totally disagree with what your side has put together regarding how we are going to deal with a very serious problem facing our rural hospitals, which is my district, nursing homes; and I suspect we all agree to that. But you put together a package, your side put together a package, which you allowed no one on my side of the aisle to have any input into, and no one in the administration to have any input into, and you said, take it or leave it. Some of us said we think we can do better.

   If there is one reservation that I have about us going home before completing this, it is in this area, because it is giving a tremendous amount of uncertainty; but we are not going to finish that, because the Senate has gone home. But that is one area in which, again, I think, I think that reasonable people on both sides, once we get away from this rhetoric, the blame game, and I am not here defending the President, or defending my leadership, or defending anybody else, except when I think they are right, and in this case, I think they are right.

   Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, let me reclaim the time, because we are going down to the wire and the gentleman has made his point.

   I want to point out that that bill was endorsed by the Rural Hospital Association and the American Hospital Association, and I believe the American Cancer Society. There was a whole list of associations who endorsed that.

   Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, there is another important point. I appreciate my friend from Texas and his version of events, and I understand how he perceives this, but if I am not mistaken, the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Ways and Means offered that, and we can go back and check the vote, but I believe it was unanimous.

   Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, it was the Committee on Commerce.

   Mr. HAYWORTH. There actually is joint jurisdiction.

   Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, it was the Committee on Commerce, it was not the Committee on Ways and Means.

   Mr. HAYWORTH. I stand corrected.

   Well, then, the Commerce section of the jurisdiction was cosponsored in bipartisan fashion by the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. WILSON), and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. LUTHER), and there was bipartisan consensus bringing that out and bringing it to the floor.

   Now, good people can disagree. My vantage point is, also representing rural hospitals, I took a look at that $31 billion package, realizing that the bulk of the funding goes to the hospitals; some $11 billion, Mr. Speaker, and my colleagues, that is not hay, that is real money, going to help people. My friend has a different point of view, but I do not see how we can turn our backs on that.

   Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.

   Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I just want to come back. Apparently we are very close to an agreement on how much is enough: $645 billion, is that right? The gentleman from Wisconsin, is that the final number, $645 billion?

   Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman totally misses the point. The issue is not how much was going to be spent, it was where it was going to be spent and what the priorities were going to be. There was no disagreement on the total amount of funding .

   Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I do understand that, that there are differences in priorities. I understand that. I come from a different district than the gentleman from Wisconsin, and we all have different priorities, but we still have never gotten to the point as far as I am concerned of how much do we want to spend? What is the total number? Because then ultimately, reasonable people, and it happens in every State legislature, once they agree on how big the pie is, they can all sit down and decide how much is going to go to these various different programs.

   Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, but the problem is, my Republican colleagues passed a budget resolution which pretended that they were going to spend $40 billion less than they knew they were going to spend.

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   Mr. GUTKNECHT. I guess we are not going to get an answer.

   Mr. OBEY. That is the problem.

   Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

   Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, how much is enough? $645 is the number. We can fuss about how we spend it, but $645 billion is the number. So let me remind everyone now when we are talking about numbers, when we started this year, the Republican budget said 627 was enough. The President said 637 was enough. The Republicans said that was too much. The Blue Dogs came in at 633 and said that is a reasonable compromise.

   Well, where would we be tonight had the Republicans accepted our version and we would have been standing here tonight, and I suspect the gentleman from Wisconsin would have been agreeing with us on the 633, just like we are saying on the 645.

   Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if I can claim some time, having come from the State legislative ranks and now serving on the Committee on Appropriations, one of my big disappointments is that it seems that regardless of who is in charge, the budget is ignored; and I think we have to all hold the line on spending. I do not know why we ignore it year after year.

   Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, again, I thank my friend from Texas for bringing up a point and for his unending advocacy of the position of the Blue Dog Democrats. We look forward to working at a conservative governing coalition with my friend, provided that those who decide who comes back to this institution see fit to return to us, and we look forward to that.

   Yes, I think it begs a larger question of budget reform; but it still does not change the dynamic, which is even if we were to agree on a number, is there any guarantee that our President would likewise agree? And therein lies the problem: a continual moving target.

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