[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 191 (Tuesday, December 13, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H8745-H8759]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 3630, MIDDLE CLASS TAX RELIEF AND 
                        JOB CREATION ACT OF 2011

  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I 
call up House Resolution 491 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 491

       Resolved, That upon the adoption of this resolution it 
     shall be in order to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 
     3630) to provide incentives for the creation of jobs, and for 
     other purposes. All points of order against consideration of 
     the bill are waived. The amendment printed in the report of 
     the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution shall be 
     considered as adopted. The bill, as amended, shall be 
     considered as read. All points of order against provisions in 
     the bill, as amended, are waived. The previous question shall 
     be considered as ordered on the bill, as amended, to final 
     passage without intervening motion except: (1) 90 minutes of 
     debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and 
     ranking minority member of the Committee on Ways and Means; 
     and (2) one motion to recommit with or without instructions.

                             Point of Order

  Ms. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, I raise a point of order against H. Res. 491 
because the resolution violates Section 426(a) of the Congressional 
Budget Act.
  The resolution contains a waiver of all points of order against 
consideration of the bill, which includes a waiver of section 425 of 
the Congressional Budget Act, which causes a violation of section 
426(a).
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman from Wisconsin makes a point 
of order that the resolution violates section 426(a) of the 
Congressional Budget Act of 1974.
  The gentlewoman has met the threshold burden under the rule, and the 
gentlewoman from Wisconsin and a Member opposed each will control 10 
minutes of debate on the question of

[[Page H8746]]

consideration. Following debate, the Chair will put the question of 
consideration as the statutory means of disposing of the point of 
order.
  The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Wisconsin.
  Ms. MOORE. I thank you so much, Mr. Speaker.
  Sadly, we're here once again with my Republican colleagues who are 
trying to ram through this fat-cat tax extenders legislation, providing 
mere crumbs from the master's table for working people that will 
neither help the American people weather this economic malaise nor 
create a single job.

                              {time}  1240

  To add insult to injury, the Rules Committee has rejected all 
attempts to allow any amendments to this horrible piece of legislation. 
I proposed four amendments, which were not considered, and in fact, the 
Republican majority rejected a Democratic substitute.
  There is a song by the group Cameo--and I know Mr. Dreier will 
appreciate this--called ``Talkin' Out the Side of Your Neck.'' The 
lyrics are:

       So you can see we're back into this same old mess.
       Seems like every time we get out of one situation we're 
     back into it all over again.
       All you people that watch you talk, you better get it 
     together or we won't get it done.
       We sit down while you cuss and fuss. But guess who's 
     suffering. Nobody but us.

  That's exactly what the Republicans are doing--talking out of both 
sides of their necks. They talk and talk and talk, making false claims 
to the middle class, false promises, when they're really trying to 
protect the interests of the 1 percent; and like the song suggests, 
those in the middle class are the ones who are suffering.
  Once again, through this sham piece of legislation, the Republicans 
claim to be creating jobs when the cruel thing is that, when 160 
million workers are given a small payroll tax holiday, the cost is they 
are held hostage with the tax breaks for the fat cats. Additionally, 
the Congressional Budget Office reports that this legislation adds over 
$25 billion to our Nation's deficit.
  But those grinches don't stop there, Mr. Speaker. They're trying to 
steal the holiday spirit from hardworking Americans. How? With this 
legislation.
  Our overall unemployment rate did drop recently from 9.1 percent to 
8.6 percent, and I am happy to be joined this afternoon by some of my 
colleagues from the Congressional Black Caucus who will talk to you a 
little bit more about how this pertains to black unemployment.
  Briefly, though, while unemployment dropped for white men from 7.9 to 
7.3 percent, black men endured a spike from 16.2 percent unemployment 
to a disturbing 16.5 percent. Of course, according to the Bureau of 
Labor Statistics, unemployment declined for every demographic group 
within the white community but increased for every demographic group 
within the African American community. Further, Mr. Speaker, this bill 
cuts the Federal unemployment program by more than half in 2012, 
eliminating 40 weeks of benefits, cutting benefits so drastically for 
those workers and communities that have been most hurt by this 
recession.
  One of the most egregious aspects of this bill is that it promotes 
State drug testing for workers in order for them to qualify for 
unemployment benefits. Mr. Speaker, did the authors of this provision 
know about the Constitution of the United States? This bill also 
imposes new limits on unemployment compensation by restricting the 
benefits that employees have paid for.
  This is just outrageous. It is time to stop the doublespeak and to 
give them real talk, and I urge all of my colleagues to vote against 
this legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, at this time I want to yield to one of my good friends 
from the Congressional Black Caucus, the gentlelady from Ohio, Ms. 
Marcia Fudge.
  (Ms. FUDGE asked and was given permission to revise and extend her 
remarks.)
  Ms. FUDGE. I thank the gentlelady for yielding.
  I rise today in strong opposition to this rule and the underlying 
bill.
  How in good conscience can we allow States to fund re-employment 
programs with money that would otherwise be in the pockets of the 
unemployed?
  My amendment mandates transparency and accountability. It requires 
States to make public the amount of money taken from the checks of 
unemployed Americans. It's not that I am against re-employment, Mr. 
Speaker, but I am against decreasing the amount of money that 
beneficiaries get every month. I mentioned Karen from Cleveland on the 
floor last week. Karen was laid off in March. Her unemployment check is 
allowing her to keep her home and to pay for expensive prescriptions. 
She relies on every single dollar.
  Let's cut the partisan posturing, and let's extend unemployment 
insurance without unnecessary riders.
  Ms. MOORE. At this time, Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 2 minutes 
to my colleague from the Virgin Islands, Dr. Donna Christensen.
  Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. I thank the gentlelady for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this point of order on H. Res. 491.
  Here we go again with another misnamed bill that is designed not for 
middle class tax relief or for job creation but to hold a ``must pass'' 
vehicle hostage through some misguided Republican pet projects and 
policy initiatives that harm the environment and threaten public 
health. It is also a bill that is wasting time, time that could really 
be used to create jobs and help the middle class because, with these 
poison pills, it is going nowhere. Unfortunately, the good things in 
the bill are threatened because of these other provisions.
  The payroll tax deduction, the 2-year SGR fix, as well as one or two 
other health care provisions are good parts of the bill that are needed 
by our Nation's families, our doctors and Medicare beneficiaries, but 
they should not be weighed down by the provisions that allow the 
Keystone pipeline to bypass regulations, that allow industrial boilers 
and incinerators to pollute, and that cut billions of dollars and, 
therefore, important services that are in the Affordable Care Act. With 
millions of our fellow Americans out of work, it also fails to provide 
the full extension of unemployment that is needed in this time of 
improved but still slow job creation--something the Republican 
leadership has talked a lot about but has done nothing to help.
  This bill is pure politics. And what is it that my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle do not understand about drug addiction being an 
illness?
  One of the Republican Governors tried a similar proposal for food 
stamps in Florida. Not only was it bad policy, it yielded nothing. It 
unfairly targeted and branded poor people, and it wasted taxpayer 
dollars. All of this is designed to deny unemployment benefits that 
they have resisted and are still not fully funding. I hear a lot about 
class warfare, but real class warfare is protecting everything for the 
rich and punishing the poor, the middle class, the elderly, and the 
unemployed. It has got to stop.
  I urge my colleagues to support this point of order and to vote 
against the rule and the bill. We need a clean extension of the payroll 
tax, 99 weeks of unemployment, and a 2-year SGR fix. Yet it should not 
be paid for by taking funds from programs that are needed to protect 
public health and safety.
  Ms. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, I would inquire of the remaining time on this 
side.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman has 3 minutes remaining.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Ms. MOORE. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I would just like to say that I am going to 
be claiming time in opposition to the point of order that my friend has 
raised, and I'm not going to consume the entire amount of time. So, 
when I do that, I would like to yield 1 minute to my friend in the 
spirit of the season and in the spirit of bipartisanship.
  I would just like to state that for the record.
  Ms. MOORE. That is very kind of you, Mr. Dreier.
  I would now yield 1 minute to my good friend from Oakland, 
California, Representative Barbara Lee.
  Ms. LEE of California. I want to thank the gentlelady for yielding 
time and for her leadership on an issue so critical to extending a 
safety net to those who are desperately looking for jobs and who need 
this bridge over troubled waters at this point.

[[Page H8747]]

  Mr. Speaker, the Republican bill would gut unemployment benefits to 
the millions of Americans who are looking for work when there are, 
roughly, four people for every one job. It would reduce unemployment 
benefits down to 59 weeks from 99 weeks at a time when we are facing a 
serious crisis among our long-term unemployed. It makes no economic 
sense, and quite frankly, it is heartless.
  The Lee-Scott amendment would have replaced these Republican 
Christmastime cuts with real extensions of unemployment benefits, and 
it would have added an additional 14 weeks of unemployment insurance 
for the millions of Americans who have already exhausted their 
benefits, but the Republicans did not make any amendments in order--no 
fixes allowed to the heartless and senseless cuts that this contains.
  This bill is really a sham. It's a shame, and it's a disgrace. It 
will cost our Nation jobs, and it is a slap in the face to job seekers. 
We should really be about the work of reigniting the American Dream, 
not making it more of a nightmare for people as this bill would do.
  Ms. MOORE. I would now yield 1 minute to my good friend from Illinois 
(Mr. Davis).
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. I want to thank the gentlewoman from Wisconsin 
for yielding.
  I rise in strong support of her opposition to this amendment. I rise 
in strong support of the passage of the underlying bill.
  This resolution fails to recognize that there are disproportionate 
opportunities and a lack of opportunities for members of some groups, 
such as minority groups who are African American and who are Hispanics. 
There is no consideration given to these facts. Therefore, I must be in 
opposition to the rule and to the bill.

                              {time}  1250

  Ms. MOORE. How much time do I have remaining, Mr. Speaker?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman from Wisconsin has 1\1/2\ 
minutes remaining.
  Ms. MOORE. I would yield 1 minute to my good friend from Texas, 
Sheila Jackson Lee.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentlewoman will yield, I will just 
remind her that when I claim my time, I will be yielding an additional 
minute to my friend. So she certainly can feel free to yield any of 
that time once I do that.
  Ms. MOORE. That is quite generous of the gentleman. And so I will 
yield a minute and a half to my very eloquent colleague, the gentlelady 
from Texas, Representative Sheila Jackson Lee.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I join with my colleague from 
Wisconsin in thanking the gentleman from California for his generosity, 
but I also thank my colleague from Wisconsin for her astute assessment 
that causes me to pause.
  Her point of order is whether or not this is what we call ``an 
unfunded mandate,'' this bill that we will be discussing on the floor 
of the House. And even though the rule says that the points of order or 
the issues of being an unfunded mandate have been waived, please 
understand that that is an action that can be taken. It doesn't mean 
that it eliminates the truth.
  And I raise a question, whether this humongous bill that we are going 
to discuss, that does not answer the crisis of what we are facing--
which is 6 million people without unemployment insurance who will not 
able to pay mortgage, rent, food, to be able to have a quality of life, 
to create income, to create some 700,000 jobs on the unemployment end, 
and to pull 3.2 million people out of poverty--is now going by the 
wayside. And the payroll tax cut now is shackled with unwanted baggage.
  So I rise to argue the point of order as to unfunded mandates and 
argue to support the position of Mr. Levin from the Ways and Means 
Committee, which is to declare the unemployment issue an emergency, to 
do the payroll tax and a surtax on 1 percent of the American population 
for 10 years starting in 2013, and adopt a fix, used and paid for with 
Medicare savings. This is an unfunded mandate. This is not a bill that 
should pass, and we should support the unemployed and those who need a 
payroll tax cut.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman from Wisconsin 
has expired.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to claim time in opposition to the 
point of order and in support of proceeding with the resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from California is recognized 
for 10 minutes.
  Mr. DREIER. With that, as I said, in the spirit of bipartisanship, 
which is the basis of the underlying legislation and the spirit of the 
Christmas season, I am happy to yield not just a minute, Mr. Speaker, 
but I would like to yield a minute and a half to my good friend from 
Milwaukee, with whom I share an affection for our great, fine music.
  Ms. MOORE. Again, I want to thank the gentleman for allowing our side 
to have some voice in this matter. He yielded me time in the name of 
the season; so I will frame my remaining remarks in that frame.
  The season is the reason;
  'Tis almost treason to extend full benefits to corporations, who are 
people,
  And leave those who are unemployed feeble.
  The season is the reason to extend full benefits to the unemployed. 
It is almost a ploy to provide tax breaks to corporations and to leave 
the people with no resources.
  I ask my colleagues to support my point of order. It would be 
egregious if we were to move forward on this bill, on this resolution, 
without considering the plight that we would put the unemployed in.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time, as I 
have said, to speak in opposition to the point of order and in support 
of our moving ahead with the resolution.
  My friend is a very, very thoughtful poet herself, and I've been the 
beneficiary of much of her fine work. She and I share an affection for 
R&B music. She quoted Cameo and ``Talkin' Out The Side Of Your Neck.'' 
I don't really know that song, I have to admit, Mr. Speaker; but I'll 
have to check it out.
  But what I would like to do is, since we've heard of the eloquence of 
Cameo and the eloquence of Gwen Moore, the great poet, I would like to 
quote William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare said, ``In such 
business, action is eloquence.''
  Now we have before us a measure that is designed to do one thing and 
one thing only, and that is to focus on getting our economy growing and 
generating job opportunities for the American people. The American 
people are hurting. We know that. There are people across this country 
hurting. And as my friends have just outlined, there are individuals 
who have suffered greatly. It is absolutely imperative that we do 
everything that we can to ensure that they have job opportunities and 
that those who are unable to find job opportunities have the assistance 
that they and their families need to proceed, especially during this 
time of year. Any action that my colleagues are proposing on the other 
side will simply delay our effort that will ensure that we extend the 
payroll tax holiday for an additional year, and it will prevent us from 
providing those benefits to people who are unable to find work today.
  So I will be discussing the underlying legislation when we proceed 
with consideration of this rule, but I urge my colleagues to oppose 
this point of order and allow us to proceed with consideration of the 
resolution so that we can put into place a legislative package that 
will get the American people back to work and ensure opportunity for 
all.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time for debate has expired.
  The question is, Will the House now consider the resolution?
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Ms. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 227, 
nays 174, not voting 32, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 917]

                               YEAS--227

     Adams
     Aderholt
     Akin
     Alexander
     Amash
     Amodei
     Austria
     Bachus
     Barletta
     Bartlett
     Barton (TX)
     Bass (NH)
     Benishek
     Berg
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Black
     Blackburn
     Bonner
     Boren

[[Page H8748]]


     Boustany
     Brady (TX)
     Brooks
     Broun (GA)
     Buchanan
     Bucshon
     Buerkle
     Burgess
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Canseco
     Cantor
     Capito
     Carson (IN)
     Carter
     Cassidy
     Chabot
     Chaffetz
     Coffman (CO)
     Cole
     Conaway
     Cravaack
     Crawford
     Crenshaw
     Culberson
     Davis (KY)
     Denham
     Dent
     DesJarlais
     Diaz-Balart
     Dold
     Dreier
     Duncan (SC)
     Duncan (TN)
     Ellmers
     Emerson
     Farenthold
     Fincher
     Fitzpatrick
     Flake
     Fleischmann
     Fleming
     Flores
     Forbes
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Gardner
     Garrett
     Gerlach
     Gibbs
     Gibson
     Gingrey (GA)
     Gohmert
     Goodlatte
     Gosar
     Gowdy
     Granger
     Graves (GA)
     Graves (MO)
     Griffin (AR)
     Griffith (VA)
     Grimm
     Guinta
     Guthrie
     Hall
     Hanna
     Harper
     Harris
     Hartzler
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Heck
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Herrera Beutler
     Huelskamp
     Huizenga (MI)
     Hultgren
     Hunter
     Hurt
     Issa
     Jenkins
     Johnson (OH)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Jordan
     Kelly
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kinzinger (IL)
     Kline
     Labrador
     Lamborn
     Lance
     Landry
     Lankford
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Latta
     Lewis (CA)
     LoBiondo
     Long
     Lucas
     Luetkemeyer
     Lummis
     Lungren, Daniel E.
     Manzullo
     Marchant
     Marino
     McCarthy (CA)
     McCaul
     McClintock
     McCotter
     McHenry
     McKeon
     McKinley
     McMorris Rodgers
     Meehan
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Mulvaney
     Murphy (PA)
     Neugebauer
     Noem
     Nugent
     Nunes
     Nunnelee
     Palazzo
     Paulsen
     Pearce
     Pence
     Petri
     Pitts
     Platts
     Poe (TX)
     Pompeo
     Posey
     Price (GA)
     Quayle
     Reed
     Rehberg
     Reichert
     Renacci
     Ribble
     Rigell
     Roby
     Roe (TN)
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rohrabacher
     Rokita
     Rooney
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roskam
     Ross (FL)
     Royce
     Runyan
     Ryan (WI)
     Scalise
     Schilling
     Schmidt
     Schweikert
     Scott, Austin
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Southerland
     Stearns
     Stivers
     Stutzman
     Sullivan
     Terry
     Thompson (PA)
     Thornberry
     Tiberi
     Tipton
     Turner (NY)
     Turner (OH)
     Upton
     Walberg
     Walden
     Walsh (IL)
     Webster
     West
     Westmoreland
     Whitfield
     Wilson (SC)
     Wittman
     Wolf
     Womack
     Woodall
     Yoder
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Young (IN)

                               NAYS--174

     Ackerman
     Altmire
     Andrews
     Baca
     Baldwin
     Barrow
     Bass (CA)
     Becerra
     Berkley
     Berman
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Boswell
     Brady (PA)
     Braley (IA)
     Brown (FL)
     Butterfield
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardoza
     Carney
     Chandler
     Chu
     Cicilline
     Clarke (MI)
     Clarke (NY)
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Cohen
     Connolly (VA)
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Costa
     Costello
     Courtney
     Critz
     Crowley
     Cuellar
     Cummings
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     DeLauro
     Deutch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Donnelly (IN)
     Doyle
     Edwards
     Ellison
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Farr
     Fattah
     Frank (MA)
     Fudge
     Garamendi
     Gonzalez
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Hahn
     Hanabusa
     Hastings (FL)
     Heinrich
     Higgins
     Himes
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hochul
     Holden
     Holt
     Honda
     Hoyer
     Inslee
     Israel
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson Lee (TX)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Kaptur
     Keating
     Kildee
     Kind
     Kissell
     Kucinich
     Langevin
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee (CA)
     Levin
     Lipinski
     Lofgren, Zoe
     Lowey
     Lujan
     Lynch
     Maloney
     Markey
     Matsui
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McIntyre
     McNerney
     Meeks
     Michaud
     Miller (NC)
     Miller, George
     Moore
     Moran
     Murphy (CT)
     Nadler
     Neal
     Olver
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Perlmutter
     Peters
     Peterson
     Pingree (ME)
     Polis
     Price (NC)
     Quigley
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Richardson
     Richmond
     Ross (AR)
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sarbanes
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schrader
     Schwartz
     Scott (VA)
     Scott, David
     Serrano
     Sewell
     Sherman
     Sires
     Slaughter
     Speier
     Stark
     Sutton
     Thompson (CA)
     Tierney
     Tonko
     Towns
     Tsongas
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Walz (MN)
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters
     Watt
     Waxman
     Welch
     Wilson (FL)
     Woolsey
     Yarmuth

                             NOT VOTING--32

     Bachmann
     Bishop (UT)
     Bono Mack
     Burton (IN)
     Carnahan
     Castor (FL)
     Coble
     Duffy
     Filner
     Fortenberry
     Giffords
     Gutierrez
     Hirono
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson (IL)
     Lewis (GA)
     Loebsack
     Mack
     Matheson
     Myrick
     Napolitano
     Olson
     Pastor (AZ)
     Paul
     Rivera
     Rogers (MI)
     Rothman (NJ)
     Schock
     Scott (SC)
     Shuler
     Smith (WA)
     Thompson (MS)

                              {time}  1322

  Messrs. CARNEY, GRIJALVA, BERMAN, RICHMOND, Ms. RICHARDSON, and Mrs. 
McCARTHY of New York changed their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Mr. WALDEN changed his vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
  So the question of consideration was decided in the affirmative.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
  Stated for:
  Mr. RIVERA. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 917 I was unavoidably 
delayed. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''
  Stated against:
  Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall 917, I was away from the Capitol 
due to prior commitments to my constituents. Had I been present, I 
would have voted ``nay.''
  Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, December 13, 2011, I was 
absent during rollcall vote No. 917. Had I been present, I would have 
voted ``nay'' on the question of consideration of the resolution, H. 
Res. 491, providing for consideration of H.R. 3630, to provide 
incentives for the creation of jobs, and for other purposes.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Dold). The gentleman from California is 
recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the 
customary 30 minutes to my good friend from Worcester, Mr. McGovern, 
pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During 
consideration of this resolution, all time will be yielded for debate 
purposes only.


                             General Leave

  Mr. DREIER. I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 
legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  House Resolution 491 is a closed rule, which, as we all know, is 
customary under both Democrats and Republicans for a measure that has 
emerged from the Ways and Means Committee. But we have chosen in this 
rule to expand the debate time so that both Democrats and Republicans 
will have an opportunity to be heard. So we have expanded the debate 
from 60 to 90 minutes, a 50 percent increase in the amount of time, 
because of the gravity of this measure, because there are Members who 
want to be heard. We will have this hour debate on the rule itself, 
which clearly will get at the substance of the legislation, and then we 
will have an additional hour and a half, so a total of 2\1/2\ hours.
  Mr. Speaker, we all know what our job is here. Right now our job is 
jobs. Our job is jobs. We have a responsibility to put into place 
policies which will encourage job creation and economic growth, and 
that's exactly what this legislation is designed to do.
  Our fellow Americans across this country are hurting. Part of the 
area that I represent in southern California has a 14 percent 
unemployment rate, substantially larger than the national average. We 
have people in my State of California and across this Nation who have 
lost their jobs, who have lost their homes, who have lost their 
businesses.
  We, today, are dealing, very sadly, with a chronic unemployment rate. 
It has been sustained for a longer period of time than has been the 
case since the Great Depression. And it seems to me that, as we look at 
where we're going on this, we have to recognize what it is that gave us 
this positive number of a reduced unemployment rate from 9 percent to 
8.6 percent. It was because, very sadly, hundreds of thousands of 
Americans decided to give up looking for work, and that's what allowed 
the unemployment rate to drop. But we know that it is not acceptable; 
and especially as we go into this holiday season, Mr. Speaker, to have 
so many Americans who are suffering is not acceptable.
  And that's why we are here today, to take steps to ensure that we, 
first and foremost, put into place job opportunities and, second, 
address the needs of middle-income working Americans and those who are 
struggling to make ends meet and don't have jobs. And that's why we 
have chosen to not only extend unemployment benefits--and we're doing 
so, I'm happy to say, with very important reforms, very important 
reforms that deal with things ranging

[[Page H8749]]

from drug testing to encouraging people to qualify for their GEDs. It 
doesn't mandate it. It gives States an opportunity to in fact waive it 
if they choose, but it encourages people to move in the direction of 
seeking opportunities. Our goal, as we extend unemployment benefits, is 
to encourage reemployment of our fellow Americans who are having a 
difficult time trying to make ends meet.
  This measure also, as we know, Mr. Speaker, puts into place a policy 
that will allow for the extension of the so-called holiday for the 
payroll tax. Now, I will admit that I am a supply-side, growth-oriented 
guy. I came here over three decades ago with Ronald Reagan, believing 
very strongly that we need to put into place pro-growth economic 
policies. The extension of the payroll tax holiday, based on analyses 
from economists from both the left and the right, is that it's not 
necessarily a pro-growth measure. But, Mr. Speaker, as we look at where 
we're headed today, during difficult times, it's important for us to 
realize that anyone who opposes what we are doing here today is 
standing in the way and preventing us from moving ahead with providing 
that payroll tax holiday for our fellow Americans.

                              {time}  1330

  I know that there are a lot of people who will say--and as I look at 
my friend from Worcester, I recall last night in the Rules Committee 
when he said we've been doing everything under the sun here except for 
focusing on job creation and economic growth.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, as I think everyone knows, Democrats and 
Republicans alike, our fellow Americans know, there are 27 pieces of 
legislation that have passed the House of Representatives, which 
happens to be for the Republican majority. And at this moment, all 27 
of those measures sit in the United States Senate, and they have not 
passed. And the Senate, of course, has a Democratic majority.
  Bipartisanship is what we want. That's what the American people want, 
and I'm happy to say that this measure is a bipartisan bill. One of the 
things that makes it a bipartisan measure, beyond extending 
unemployment benefits, beyond extending the payroll tax holiday, is 
this thrust towards creating jobs by proceeding with the Keystone XL 
pipeline.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, we know that there has been some controversy around 
this earlier, but while we look at the imperative of expanding the 
payroll tax holiday and ensuring that the American people, who are 
struggling, have the benefits that they desperately need, we need to 
get at the root cause of the problem. And the root cause of the problem 
is that we have not put into place policies, we've not been able to 
pass out of both houses of Congress and get to the President's desk 
policies that can immediately jump-start and get our economy growing.
  I'm looking at my friend from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews) over here. He 
and I have talked on numerous occasions over the past several years 
about our shared goal of putting into place tax reform, reducing the 
top rate on job creators from 35 to 25 percent, while closing 
loopholes.
  I know my friend from Worcester regularly talks about subsidies and 
loopholes that exist for the oil industry and a wide range of other 
areas. We want to do this in the context of overall tax reform, and I 
hope very much that we can get to the point where, in a bipartisan way, 
we can do that. That's a policy that both President Obama and former 
President Clinton have talked about, this dealing, as Mr. Andrews and I 
have discussed in the past, with this tax issue. These are the kinds of 
policies that can enjoy bipartisan support, Democrats and Republicans 
working together to ensure that we can get this economy growing.
  And I will say that this Keystone XL pipeline is one of those items, 
as we all know, that enjoys bipartisan support. It would immediately 
create jobs based on the projection of that construction. And while we 
look at our quest, I don't think we're going to gain total energy self-
sufficiency in this global economy, but we would have greater energy 
self-sufficiency working very closely with one of our closest allies, 
our ally to the north, Canada, in ensuring that we can proceed with 
this. We know that the question mark over whether or not we're going to 
proceed with the pipeline has raised an understandable quest of the 
Canadians to deal with the Chinese.
  And so, Mr. Speaker, as we look at these challenges, this is a 
bipartisan measure. Let anyone stand up and start pointing the finger 
of blame at Republicans. But I will tell you that we have--90 percent 
of the items in this measure have enjoyed bipartisan support. Many of 
these are proposals that President Obama has made within his jobs 
package. So that's why we've got an opportunity to do this. I believe, 
Mr. Speaker, that we can do it.
  Unfortunately, we can't simply legislate full employment in the 
United States. Legislating full employment is not an option. I know 
that some of my friends on the other side of the aisle might like to 
figure that we could legislate full employment. If we could do that, we 
wouldn't be faced with the difficulty that we have today.
  What we can do is we can encourage America's innovators and 
entrepreneurs with pro-growth policies, and that's what we have 
repeatedly sent to the Senate. I hope that our colleagues in the other 
body will report those out.
  And so, Mr. Speaker, I'm going to encourage my colleagues to support 
this very, very important, bipartisan legislation, get it to the other 
body so that our Senate colleagues can consider this, and get it to the 
President's desk so that the American people, who want to have a degree 
of confidence that they're not going to see a tax increase take place, 
and that they're going to, in fact, if they're struggling and don't 
have a job opportunity, have their benefits continue, and to ensure 
that we get at the root cause of the problem by putting into place 
opportunities for private sector jobs to be created. I urge an ``aye'' 
vote.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I have a parliamentary 
inquiry.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state his inquiry.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, can you tell us how many Democrats have 
cosponsored H.R. 3630?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman has not stated a parliamentary 
inquiry but may engage that point in debate.
  Mr. McGOVERN. I raised the issue, Mr. Speaker, because the gentleman 
said this was a bipartisan bill and I don't know of any Democrats that 
are cosponsors of the bill.
  First of all, let me thank the distinguished chairman of the Rules 
Committee, my good friend, Mr. Dreier, for yielding me the customary 30 
minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  (Mr. McGOVERN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this closed 
rule and to the underlying bill. This bill and this process is so 
lousy, I barely know where to begin today.
  Let's start with the process. The bill, the way this bill was 
conceived, drafted and brought up may be the worst yet under this 
Republican-controlled Congress. Simply, this process is shameful. It's 
an embarrassment. This 369-page monstrosity was presented on Friday 
afternoon.
  The gentleman says that this was reported by the Ways and Means 
Committee. It was presented by the chairman of the Ways and Means 
Committee. It was not reported out of that committee. I use the word 
presented because it was introduced on a day when no committees met and 
we had no votes in the House.
  It was referred to 12 committees, 12 different committees. That's 
more than half the committees in the House of Representatives. But not 
a single committee held a hearing or a markup on this bill. It never 
saw the light of day in any of these committees.
  There are 348 Members who sit on the committees that have 
jurisdiction over this bill. That's 348 Members of the House who should 
have had an opportunity to offer amendments and question witnesses 
about this bill in committee hearings or markups. Not one of these 
Members had an opportunity.
  And last night in the Rules Committee, Members came up, 12 amendments 
were offered. Every single one of them was rejected.

[[Page H8750]]

  Mr. Levin, the ranking member on the Ways and Means Committee, asked 
for a Democratic substitute to be made in order. That was rejected too.
  The gentleman from California says that it's traditional, when Ways 
and Means bills are presented, that they be done so under a closed 
rule. That's when it's a tax bill. This is a tax bill plus 1,000 other 
things that have nothing to do with tax issues.
  And this lousy process, I will say to my colleagues, leads to bad 
legislating. Just look at this bill. It's long, and it's sloppy. The 
Republicans who rushed to put this bill together have already found an 
error which we're trying to correct in the rule. Who knows how many 
other errors there are?
  Last year Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor, Whip McCarthy 
and other members of the Republican leadership rolled out their Pledge 
to America, their campaign pledge to run this House in a more open way. 
Yet all year long they have been chipping away at their pledge, and now 
we have this bill that flat out breaks their pledge.
  In their pledge, the House Republicans promised to, and I quote, 
``end the practice of packaging unpopular bills with 'must-pass' 
legislation to circumvent the will of the American people. Instead, we 
will advance major legislation one issue at a time.'' That's what they 
said.
  Yet we have three provisions--extension of the payroll tax cut, 
extension of unemployment insurance, and SGR, or doc fix--that are must 
pass by the end of this year. And do we have a clean bill that is free 
from unrelated provisions? Of course not. That would be logical and 
make too much sense.
  No, Mr. Speaker, the bill we have before us is loaded up with goodies 
to mollify the extreme right wing that is in charge of this House. 
Along with the extension of the payroll tax cut and doc fix, this bill 
includes the following: Requires the approval of the controversial 
Keystone pipeline; requires millions of seniors to pay more for health 
care; increases taxes on working families by forcing large, end-of-the-
year health care payments; slashes prevention funding that actually 
reduces Medicare and Medicaid costs; undermines air quality, 
endangering the health of children and families by blocking mercury 
pollution reduction; cuts retirement programs for Federal workers; and 
extends the pay freeze for Federal workers.
  Each of these provisions are different. They have nothing to do with 
one another. Why are they all bunched together in this one bill?
  And these policies are bad for America. They are bad for the American 
people. Yet the Republican leadership continues to push these extreme 
and harmful policies.
  And even though the unemployment insurance program needs to be 
extended, this bill actually erodes the support program by cutting 
unemployment insurance benefits for 1 million Americans who lost their 
jobs through no fault of their own. And it imposes new limits on 
unemployment compensation by restricting benefits employees have paid 
for.

                              {time}  1340

  Why is it so difficult for this Republican-controlled House to help 
the middle class and those struggling to get into the middle class? Why 
do they throw roadblock after roadblock in front of middle class 
Americans who are trying to make their lives better? Why do they 
continue to make it virtually impossible for us to help average people, 
while at the same time they do everything in their power to protect 
subsidies for big oil companies and tax cuts for the Donald Trumps of 
the world?
  Extension of the payroll tax cut, extension of the unemployment 
insurance program, and the doc fix should not be controversial. And 
these extensions should have been done a long, long time ago.
  My friends on the other side of the aisle are playing a very risky 
game. We know this failure to extend the payroll tax cut will mean a 
$1,500 tax increase on middle class Americans. We know that 160 million 
Americans will see their taxes go up if we don't act before the end of 
the year. So why are Republicans bringing a bill to the floor that we 
know will not pass the Senate?
  We know, by the way, the President will not sign it. I have a 
Statement of Administration Policy, which I would like to place in the 
Record, which basically makes it very clear that the President would 
veto this bill.
         Executive Office of the President Office of Management, 
           and Budget,
                                Washington, DC, December 13, 2011.

                   Statement of Administration Policy


              H.R. 3630--Middle Class Tax Cut Act of 2011

                 (Rep. Camp, R-Michigan, and 5 others)

       The Administration strongly opposes H.R. 3630. With only 
     days left before taxes go up for 160 million hardworking 
     Americans, H.R. 3630 plays politics at the expense of middle-
     class families. H.R. 3630 breaks the bipartisan agreement on 
     spending cuts that was reached just a few months ago and 
     would inevitably lead to pressure to cut investments in areas 
     like education and clean energy. Furthermore, H.R. 3630 seeks 
     to put the burden of paying for the bill on working families, 
     while giving a free pass to the wealthiest and to big 
     corporations by protecting their loopholes and subsidies.
       Instead of working together to find a balanced approach 
     that will actually pass both Houses of the Congress, H.R. 
     3630 instead represents a choice to refight old political 
     battles over health care and introduce ideological issues 
     into what should be a simple debate about cutting taxes for 
     the middle class.
       This debate should not be about scoring political points. 
     This debate should be about cutting taxes for the middle 
     class.
       If the President were presented with H.R. 3630, he would 
     veto the bill.

  So why are we wasting precious time?
  The Republican leadership insists on playing chicken with the 
American people just to score cheap political points. This is not a 
time for political theater. This is the time for responsible 
leadership. It's time to do the right thing for the American people and 
drop these controversial provisions from this bill.
  This is not the time to increase taxes on middle class Americans. 
It's time to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance and 
the doc fix.
  Mr. Speaker, this House needs to get back to doing the people's 
business, and the people's business is jobs. It would be nice if my 
Republican friends would allow the President's jobs bill to come to the 
floor for a vote rather than bills that reaffirm our national motto or 
make it easier for unsafe people to carry concealed weapons from one 
State to another.
  I say to my Republican friends, the American people are outraged. 
They're outraged at Republican indifference to the middle class. 
They're outraged by Republicans' callous attitude to the most 
vulnerable in this country. They're outraged that Republicans are 
playing politics with their lives.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my Republican colleagues to do the right thing, 
to pass a clean extension of the payroll tax cut, properly extend 
unemployment insurance and the doc fix. Do the right thing, and do it 
the right way. That's all the American people are asking for.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to say to my 
colleague that he has performed just as I had expected, pointing the 
finger of blame when we're trying to work in a bipartisan way to make 
sure that we get this done. We want the doc fix. We want to ensure that 
people who can't make ends meet and are looking for work have access to 
those benefits. We want to extend the payroll tax holiday.
  We also feel it imperative that we get at the root cause of exactly 
what my friend just said, Mr. Speaker, and that is creating jobs. And 
everyone knows, Democrat and Republican alike, many leaders in 
organized labor focus on the fact that the Keystone XL pipeline is a 
job creator and can go a long way towards doing exactly what my friend 
and I share in common as a goal.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 2 minutes to a 
hardworking new member of your class, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from 
Lawrence, South Carolina (Mr. Duncan).
  Mr. DUNCAN of South Carolina. There are but two points I want to 
bring up in support of the bill before us today.
  Thomas Jefferson said this: ``A wise and frugal Government, which 
shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them 
otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and 
improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it 
has earned. This is the sum of good government.''
  I believe that America works better when hardworking Americans keep

[[Page H8751]]

more of the money that they earn, keep more of their paycheck. That's 
why I support the payroll tax cut provision in this bill.
  The second point, Mr. Speaker, is this: the administration can be for 
jobs, or the administration can support a radical environmentalist 
policy. Mr. Speaker, I believe that they are mutually exclusive and you 
cannot support both.
  The Keystone pipeline is a segue to job creation in this Nation. You 
remember the jobs created in the 1970s with the Alaskan pipeline? I do. 
The Keystone pipeline will create both construction jobs and long-term 
jobs as our Nation refines the hydrocarbons into energy products here 
in American refineries. Failure not to do this means the possibility 
that this Canadian oil will be refined in and used by China.
  Today, we can pursue North American energy independence by partnering 
with our closest ally and largest trading partner, Canada. Or we can 
continue the same failed policies of this administration which lead to 
higher prices at the pump for Americans and the continuation of sending 
dollars overseas for Middle Eastern oil.
  This bill cuts taxes, it reduces spending, it ends the regulatory 
quagmire for American businesses and provides a path forward for 
American energy security.
  I support its passage, and I ask that God will continue to bless 
America.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, at this time I am very proud to yield 1 
minute to the gentlewoman from California, the Democratic leader, Ms. 
Pelosi.
  Ms. PELOSI. I thank the gentleman for yielding and appreciate his 
presentation on why we are here today and why the rule that is being 
brought to the floor is not the right one, because it does not allow 
for us to have options for the American people to be considered.
  One of those options I want to talk about has been described by the 
President.
  President Obama last week in Kansas made a glorious speech harking 
back to President Roosevelt's speech about the middle class and its 
importance to America's democracy, how it is the backbone of our 
democracy. President Obama said last week we are greater together when 
everyone engages in fair play, where everyone gets a fair shot and 
everyone does their fair share. This isn't about one percentage and 
another percentage. It's about all Americans working together.
  President Obama put those words into legislative action with his 
proposal for a payroll tax cut for middle income families, as well as 
unemployment insurance for those who have lost their jobs through no 
fault of their own.
  Democrats have a proposal today which we cannot take up on the floor 
because the Republican rule is perhaps afraid of the vote we might get 
because it does so much for America's working families.
  I want to remind our colleagues that for a long time the Republican 
leadership did not support a payroll tax cut at all. Rhetoric coming 
from the Republicans was, We don't believe in extending the payroll tax 
cut; however, we do want to make permanent the tax cut for the 
wealthiest people in America--those making over $1 million a year.
  So the President taking this to the public and the reinforcement of 
that message by our Democratic colleagues in the House and in the 
Senate has made the payroll tax cut an issue too hot for the 
Republicans to handle.
  So they're bringing a bill to the floor today which says they're for 
a payroll tax cut, but has within it the seeds of its own destruction 
because it has poison pills, which they know are not acceptable to the 
President and do not do the best effort for the American people.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Ms. PELOSI. You have plenty of time, Mr. Chairman. You're the 
chairman of the committee; I'm not.
  Mr. DREIER. I just wanted to ask a question.
  Ms. PELOSI. I'm not going to yield to you because you make your 
points all day. I'm making mine now.
  And one of the points I would like to make is about the Democratic 
substitute which the chairman of the committee said we could not bring 
to the floor. But it's important for the American people to know that 
it mirrors what the President has proposed.
  The bill would cut taxes by $1,500 for the typical American family. 
It would secure a critical lifeline for those who have lost their jobs 
through no fault of their own. It would ensure that seniors still get 
to see the doctor of their choice with a permanent doc fix that is 
contained in the bill. Our proposal would protect and extend the tax 
cut for 160 million Americans while asking 300,000 people, those making 
over a million dollars a year, to pay their fair share.

                              {time}  1350

  The Republicans not only said no to the bill; they said, no, your 
substitute cannot even be considered on the floor.
  The President has said--and the Democrats in Congress agree with 
him--that we cannot go home unless we pass a tax cut for the middle 
class, that we cannot go home unless we pass the unemployment benefits 
for America's working families.
  Across the country, families are sitting at their tables. Christmas 
is coming. I say it over and over that Christmas is coming. For some, 
the goose is getting fat, and for others, it's very slim pickings. 
Families are sitting around their tables, having to make difficult 
choices: Can we put gas in the car and still afford to put food on the 
table? As the holiday season comes upon us, can we buy toys for our 
children during the holidays and be able to pay the bills when they 
come due in January?
  As families gather around those tables, making those decisions, 
Democrats have put our ideas on the table. We are willing and ready to 
reach across the aisle in order to complete our work and give 160 
million Americans the gift of greater opportunity and security, of hope 
and optimism during the holiday season and the New Year. You cannot do 
this by saying, We're going to put something in the bill that the 
President says he will not sign.
  It's hard to understand how you can say you're for something except 
you're going to put up obstacles to its passage. The macroeconomic 
advisers have said that the proposal the President has put forward will 
make a difference of 600,000 jobs to our economy. If we fail to do 
this, we are, again, risking those jobs and we're missing the 
opportunity. As the previous speaker said, let's put the money in the 
pockets of America's workers.
  Welcome to the payroll tax cut, I say to our Republican colleagues--
what you have long resisted but what the President has demonstrated 
there is public support for.
  Let's reject this rule so that we can have a fair debate on the 
President's proposal, which is fair to America's workers and stronger 
in terms of the macroeconomic impact it will have to inject demand into 
the economy, which will create more jobs and make the holiday season a 
brighter one for many more Americans.
  Let us put the Republican proposal on the table and the President's 
proposal on the table, which has the full support of Democrats and 
Republicans in the House and Senate, as opposed to the Republican 
proposal they put forth in the Senate, which didn't even win the 
support of a majority of the Republicans. Let's come together; let's 
find our common ground; let's get the job done; but let's understand 
that we cannot leave Congress--that we cannot go home--until we meet 
the needs of the American people.
  I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question and to 
fully support the best possible payroll tax cut for the middle class, 
unemployment benefits for our workers, as well as for our seniors to 
have the ability to have the doctors of their choice.
  I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin) for his leadership on 
this important legislation.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.
  I'd be happy to yield to my dear California colleague, Ms. Pelosi, if 
she would want to respond to anything I'm about to say here as I was 
looking forward to getting to debate.
  First of all, my colleague from California began by saying that there 
was no opportunity for Democrats to have a proposal that is considered. 
Members of the minority, the Democrats, are entitled to a motion to 
recommit. That is provided in this measure, although we often were 
denied that when we were in the minority.

[[Page H8752]]

  Second, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) did, in fact, 
propose that we have a substitute made in order; but, Mr. Speaker, 
since last Friday, when this bill was made available, the gentleman 
from Michigan (Mr. Levin), the ranking member of the committee, never 
came forward with a substitute for us in the Rules Committee. We only 
received one just a few minutes ago.
  Then to the important point about the so-called ``poison pills'' that 
my California colleague mentioned, the distinguished minority leader: 
The idea of saying that we want to encourage those who are unemployed 
to move towards GED qualification does not seem to me to be a poison 
pill.
  Mr. Speaker, the idea of saying that we should have drug testing--and 
that's, again, optional drug testing--so that people who are receiving 
these unemployment benefits are not using those resources to purchase 
drugs is obviously not a poison pill. Then the idea of having 
millionaires benefit from the program, which we eliminate in this 
proposal, should not be a poison pill.
  So, Mr. Speaker, with that, I am very happy to yield 2\1/2\ minutes 
to another hardworking member of the freshman class, the gentleman from 
Bryan, Texas (Mr. Flores).
  Mr. FLORES. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about options for 
American middle class jobs and American energy security. In this 
regard, I want to talk about two real-world examples that highlight the 
differences between President Obama's plan and the GOP plan for 
America's job creators.
  Option A is Obama's plan. Option B is the GOP plan. Here are the 
examples: Under option A, Solyndra. Under option B, the Keystone XL 
pipeline.
  How many part-time jobs were created under option A? One thousand. 
They have come and gone. Under the Keystone XL pipeline, there were 
over 20,000.
  How many full-time jobs from Solyndra? None. They're gone. How many 
full-time jobs from option B, the Keystone XL pipeline? Thousands.
  What did option A do for America's improved energy security? Nothing. 
How about for option B? Yes, we get improved American energy security.
  In reducing the demand for Middle Eastern oil, Solyndra provided 
none. The Keystone XL pipeline will offset Middle Eastern demand by 
700,000 barrels per day.
  The cost to American taxpayers for Solyndra? Over $1.5 billion 
wasted. For the Keystone XL pipeline? Nothing. Nada.
  What was the taxpayer return on Solyndra? There was none. What is the 
taxpayer return on the Keystone XL pipeline? It's infinite.
  Who benefited from Solyndra? The President's political contributors. 
Who benefits from the Keystone XL pipeline? The American middle class.
  How do you get more information? Go to jobs.GOP.gov for more 
information about the GOP plan for America's job creators.
  Mr. Speaker, we can't wait for more middle class, Main Street jobs, 
so I urge my colleagues to vote for both the rule and the underlying 
bill. H.R. 3630, the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 
2011, is just the answer that we need at this critical time.
  I also wish all Americans a very Merry Christmas.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield 2 minutes to the 
gentlewoman from New York, the ranking member of the Rules Committee, 
Ms. Slaughter.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
  Mr. Speaker, there are no Democrats on this bill. I don't know what 
all this bipartisan talk is about. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Levin) didn't even see it. None of us knew.
  Mr. DREIER. Will the gentlelady yield?
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. No. If you don't mind, I'd like to get through my 
speech. We've heard this all day.
  I understand that there is great hope for a number of Democrat 
votes--and I don't know how that will turn out--but, frankly, I don't 
think that this bill will ever see the light of day anyway. There is 
not much support for it in the Senate, and the President said he won't 
sign it. So what I am hopeful for is that, when we really get down to 
business here, we can have a bipartisan bill. It is possible to do 
that. Just invite the Democrats to take part in it.
  Let me make it clear that you cannot call anything ``bipartisan'' 
when there is not a single Democrat on it. Also, a motion to recommit 
is nowhere near a substitute bill, which we were not allowed to do.
  Instead of extending tax cuts to the middle class and giving 
assistance to the unemployed, this majority is holding the middle class 
hostage in order to extract concessions for their friends in Big Oil. 
Furthermore, instead of asking those with the most to help those with 
the least, which is what we are supposed to do, today's bill asks 
millions of seniors to pay more for health care. In exchange, the 
majority will graciously continue the Federal unemployment insurance 
programs, although they are grievously cut; and 10 States will get 
waivers not to have to pay unemployment insurance at all. So that's a 
sort of Russian roulette idea.
  They cut the maximum number of weeks as Christmas approaches, which 
is the time of goodwill toward men, women, and children who are out of 
work through no fault of their own. In a country where there are four 
persons applying for each and every available job, that gives us some 
idea of how dire it is to face this Christmas and the rest of this year 
without jobs.

                              {time}  1400

  Why can't the Grand Old Party help the middle class without demanding 
a quid pro quo?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
  Mr. McGOVERN. I yield the gentlelady 1 additional minute.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Why can't they serve the middle class without playing 
Secret Santa for special interests like the Keystone XL?
  In addition to the misguided brinksmanship of the majority, today's 
bill flies in the face of regular order and makes a mockery of the 
majority's CutGo rules for all bills. We've seen in the Rules Committee 
the fact that it has been waived many times today. It is waived yet 
again. And it says to the Office of Management and Budget and the 
Congressional Budget Office that they count the savings in this bill 
but not the cost. If only middle class families could use that kind of 
accounting.
  This is hardly the deliberate and thoughtful legislative process that 
the majority promised us when they assumed office almost 12 months ago. 
So because of the rushed process and the legislative acrobatics used to 
mask the true cost of the bill, I strongly oppose today's rule and the 
underlying legislation and urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''
  Mr. DREIER. I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Andrews).
  (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. ANDREWS. I thank my friend for yielding.
  Ninety-eight days ago, the President of the United States came to 
this Chamber and proposed to create jobs by cutting taxes for middle 
class families by about $1,500 per year. For 98 days, the majority 
refused to take up legislation that would enact that jobs plan. So 
finally today we have their version of it, which unfortunately does not 
cut taxes for middle class people the way we proposed but at least 
avoids a tax increase on those families which is looming on January 1.
  But I can't support this bill because of how it pays for that middle 
class tax relief. First let me say this: I agree as a general rule when 
we cut taxes here on anyone, we ought to pay for it, not increase the 
deficit. But the majority has never subscribed to that principle until 
today.
  So when the wealthiest people in America got an enormous tax 
reduction in their tax rates in 2001 and again in 2003, there was no 
requirement that we offset that in order to pay for it. But now that 
middle class families are getting some relief, all of a sudden, there 
has to be.
  Let's talk about what that offset is. One major portion of it 
essentially reduces unemployment benefits for Americans down the line. 
And as I understand this, there are some reforms that really ought to 
take place. When I hear about GEDs and drug testing, I think that is 
fairly sensible. But it

[[Page H8753]]

isn't sensible to say to someone, If you've been looking for work day 
after day and week after week and trying your best to find your next 
job, it's your fault if you didn't find it. But that is essentially 
what this bill says. If you are unemployed, look in the mirror. It's 
your fault.
  I don't think the authors of this bill know many unemployed people. I 
know they don't know that for every four unemployed people in America 
today, there is one job. For every one job that's listed as being open, 
there are four unemployed people for that job. I don't think they 
understand that even though there is a law against age discrimination 
in this country, age discrimination in this country is an everyday 
painful fact of life for a lot of people over about 40 years old in 
this country.
  So I would say to all those who are about to vote to extend middle 
class tax relief by blaming the unemployed for their own plight that 
they ought to walk for just a day or a week or a month in the shoes of 
a 50-year-old man or woman who has been out of work for a year and a 
half, who has circled every want ad, gone to every Web site, taken 
every job interview he or she could get, and still cannot find a job. 
We should vote against this bill.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my 
time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. At this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Michigan, the ranking member of the Ways and Means 
Committee who was denied his right to have a substitute when he was at 
the Rules Committee, Mr. Levin.
  (Mr. LEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. LEVIN. You know, when there is an issue as serious as this, you 
would think that the majority would let us introduce a substitute. 
Instead, the answer is a stone wall. So I am going to explain what is 
in my substitute. I want the American public to know what would be in 
it.
  A 1-year extension and expansion of the employee payroll tax cut to 
3.1 percent, as the President proposed; a 1-year extension on the bonus 
depreciation; and a 1-year extension on unemployment insurance is in 
the bill that Mr. Doggett and a lot of us introduced, H.R. 3346--and a 
10-year SGR fix.
  I want the American public to understand what's at stake here and how 
we pay for it. This chart shows very vividly what the Republicans 
essentially are doing. I want everybody to look at it. Under their 
proposal, seniors sacrifice $31 billion. Under their proposal, Federal 
employees sacrifice $40 billion. Under their proposal, unemployed 
Americans--unemployed, looking for work--sacrifice $11 billion. And 
under their proposal, essentially people earning over $1 million 
sacrifice nothing, nothing. They don't pay for this bill, while seniors 
and everybody else indicated here, Federal workers and the unemployed, 
do.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaTourette). The time of the gentleman 
has expired.
  Mr. McGOVERN. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.
  Mr. LEVIN. I will just say to the majority, get in the shoes of the 
unemployed. If you don't, I think those who deny it deserve their 
unemployment.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 3 minutes to my 
distinguished colleague from the Committee on Financial Services, the 
gentleman from Fullerton, California (Mr. Royce).
  Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule. This is a 
question, as it relates to this Keystone pipeline project, of whether 
we're serious about an economic recovery in this country. And frankly, 
it's a question about whether or not we're serious about our national 
security.
  Now, we have a shovel-ready project here, the Keystone pipeline, that 
will create tens of thousands of jobs. By the Chamber's estimate and by 
the estimate of the unions involved in supporting this, it's actually 
hundreds of thousands in terms of the consequences of developing this 
resource and bringing it down from Alberta, Canada. These are good 
jobs, good jobs for men and women in this country that are involved in 
manufacturing pipe and earth movers.
  And frankly, when you think about it, why, why do we keep delaying 
this at a time when unemployment is as high as it is? Because I can 
tell you, the Canadians aren't waiting. The Chinese are not waiting. 
Make no mistake about it, the Canadians will develop and export the oil 
they're developing in western Canada. The Prime Minister met with Hu 
Jintao of China, and the deal that they're talking about striking is 
one that accrues to the benefit of China at the expense of the United 
States. If this energy does not transit the United States and go to 
refineries here, it will go to China, and it will fuel their 
manufacturing sector.

                              {time}  1410

  That is what we are concerned about. We are concerned about throwing 
away this opportunity. I don't know about you, but it sure bothers me 
to see China playing in our hemisphere and the administration does not 
seem to care.
  Americans have been told about the importance of energy independence. 
We have been on the hook, my friends, to Middle East producers for 
decades now; and we're sending billions every year to that cartel. And 
these countries in that cartel are unstable. They all collude to 
control prices, and we have a chance instead to get this oil from our 
allies, and we're being told by this administration and by the other 
side of the aisle that despite the jobs that this would create, that 
this is going to be stopped.
  Well, today we have a chance to develop an energy resource in the 
Americas, working with our Canadian allies, creating good jobs, 
creating access to cheaper energy here. Energy in China is 20 percent 
higher than energy here in the United States. Why would we want to 
inverse that? Why don't we want the cheaper source of energy here? Yet 
the administration stalls and gives the advantage to China.
  I just want to tell you, colleagues, support this rule, support the 
underlying legislation. Take a stand for jobs. Take a stand for 
American security and consider the fact that China has already 
advantaged itself in Africa and Latin America and elsewhere at our 
expense.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from New York (Mr. Engel).
  Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
  I rise today in strong opposition to this act and in opposition to 
the rule. It's a shame that the majority is playing legislative chicken 
with middle class tax cuts on a bill that will never be signed into 
law.
  I'm open-minded on the Keystone pipeline, but it has no place in this 
bill. It's mixing apples with oranges. It's a poison pill. It's 
designed to kill it. The President has already said that he won't sign 
a bill like this. So what do my Republican colleagues do? They give us 
more so they can score some political points with their base.
  The American people want us to meet in the middle. The American 
people want us to approve things to move the country forward. We need 
to pass a simple extension of middle class tax relief. We need to pass 
a simple extension of unemployment insurance. This is what we should 
do. This is what the American people want us to do. Unemployment is 
hovering around 9 percent. People need help, and we're not helping 
them.
  This bill also forces millions of seniors to pay more for health care 
while giving the 300,000 wealthiest Americans another free pass. That's 
not right. This is unacceptable. We cannot solve our debt problem on 
the backs of working families.
  Mr. Speaker, I have always prided myself as a moderate and someone 
who wants to work across the aisle. The chairman knows that. We have 
spoken many, many times. I plead with my colleagues on the other side 
of the aisle, I think the American people want us to do some good work 
in the closing days of this session. We need unemployment extension. We 
need a middle class tax cut extension. Let's not mix apples with 
oranges. Let's pass a clean bill and go home and say we did something 
good for the country.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute, and I would be 
happy to engage my friend if he'd like to. Let me make a couple of 
comments.
  First, I think that as we look at the issue of the Keystone XL 
pipeline, the notion of saying that somehow we're trying to appeal to 
our base when we

[[Page H8754]]

know the most outspoken and enthusiastic supporters of the Keystone XL 
pipeline happen to be the labor unions, organized labor in this 
country. We know because they want to create jobs, and they are 
supportive of this so that we can create jobs.
  People throw around terms like ``poison pill,'' why are we using this 
issue. Because as we extend unemployment benefits to people who are 
unable to find jobs, and as we extend the payroll tax holiday, we feel 
that it's absolutely essential that we get at the root cause of the 
problem. We have protracted unemployment in this country. Very, very 
sadly. We know it has gone on for an extended period of time--the end 
of the last administration into this administration. We all know that 
we were promised that if we passed the stimulus bill that the 
unemployment rate would not exceed 8 percent. Now it's at 8.6 percent. 
I'm gratified that it went from 9 percent to 8.6 percent. But why did 
it do that?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. DREIER. I yield myself an additional 30 seconds, Mr. Speaker.
  Because hundreds of thousands of Americans have chosen to give up 
even looking for work. And so we're saying, yes, we will agree to 
extend unemployment benefits; yes, we will agree to extending for 
another year the payroll tax holiday. But let's get at the root cause 
of the problem. So that's why we see these as being very closely 
intertwined.
  It's true the President did say that he would reject this; but I 
believe if we can pass it through this House with bipartisan support, 
pass it through the United States Senate and get it to the President's 
desk, that extending unemployment benefits at this time of year 
especially, and that payroll tax holiday, with a measure that the 
President has indicated support for, dealing with the XL pipeline, that 
the President will, in fact, sign it.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to insert in the Record a 
letter from William Samuel, the director of the government affairs 
department at the AFL-CIO, in strong opposition to H.R. 3630.

         American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial 
           Organizations,
                                Washington, DC, December 13, 2011.
       Dear Representative: On behalf of the AFL-CIO, I am writing 
     to urge you to oppose the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job 
     Creation Act of 2011 (H.R. 3630), which would replace a 
     modest surtax on income over $1 million with drastic benefit 
     reductions for jobless workers, pay cuts for public 
     employees, reduced premium assistance for low- and middle-
     income individuals buying health insurance, cutbacks in 
     preventive health services, and higher premiums for many 
     Medicare beneficiaries.
       H.R. 3630 would cut the federal unemployment insurance (UI) 
     program by more than half in 2012, reducing benefit 
     eligibility by 14 weeks in every state and by 40 weeks in 
     states with the highest unemployment rates. These benefit 
     cuts would reduce economic activity by $22 billion and cost 
     140,000 jobs.
       Even more troubling, H.R. 3630 would fundamentally change 
     the nature of unemployment insurance and erode the 
     unemployment safety net for the future. Unemployment 
     insurance (UI) is a social insurance program, to which 
     workers make contributions in the form of reduced wages. H.R. 
     3630 would change the nature of UI by allowing states to 
     require jobless workers to ``work off'' their benefits, in 
     effect allowing UI to be transformed into a workfare program. 
     H.R. 3630 would further undermine social insurance by 
     introducing means testing, which would surely be used to 
     restrict UI eligibility to fewer and fewer workers over time.
       The authors of this legislation do not seem to understand 
     that America faces a continuing jobs crisis, and they seem to 
     think that jobless workers--rather than Wall Street--are to 
     blame for high unemployment and the lack of jobs. In addition 
     to cutting unemployment benefits, H.R. 3630 would allow drug 
     testing of all workers before they can receive benefits; 
     require workers without a high school degree to be enrolled 
     in classes before they can receive benefits; and make jobless 
     workers pay out of their own pockets for reemployment 
     services offered by the government.
       In order to spare millionaires from having to pay one more 
     penny in taxes, H.R. 3630 would also require federal 
     employees to sacrifice even more than they have already. Not 
     only would H.R. 3630 extend the current pay freeze for 
     federal employees, but it would also raise $37 billion in 
     revenues by increasing federal employee pension contributions 
     and reducing their retirement income.
       H.R. 3630 would also have a substantial negative impact on 
     the health care of working families. It would impose daunting 
     subsidy repayment requirements on families whose economic 
     circumstances improve, which would deter 170,000 people from 
     accepting premium assistance under the Affordable Care Act, 
     according to the Joint Tax Committee. As a result, thousands 
     of middle- and lower-income families would be unable to 
     afford health insurance. In addition, H.R. 3630 would 
     increase Medicare premiums for at least 25 percent of all 
     beneficiaries, requiring many in the middle class to pay 
     substantially more, and would reduce federal support for new 
     preventive services.
       H.R. 3630 would protect the most privileged one percent of 
     all Americans from having to pay one more penny in taxes, and 
     it would do so by demanding still more sacrifice and pain 
     from jobless workers, federal employees, and low- and middle-
     income families. The authors of H.R. 3630 obviously have more 
     sympathy for millionaires than for the victims of the 
     economic crisis caused by Wall Street. We urge you to vote 
     against this cruel and selfish piece of legislation.
           Sincerely,
                                                   William Samuel,
                          Director, Government Affairs Department.

  At this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Connolly).
  Mr. CONNOLLY of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, unrelated, partisan riders 
often have received scorn in the past. In 2008, for example, now-
Speaker Boehner mentioned his strong distaste, stating: ``Attaching 
these riders is the sort of stunt that has made Americans extremely 
cynical about Washington.'' But when finally agreeing to vote on a 
payroll tax cut for 160 million Americans, this bill is riddled with 
riders.
  Preventative health care, for example, improves wellness and lowers 
costs. When provided the opportunity for free preventative services, 70 
percent of Medicare recipients enrolled. But this bill cuts that care. 
Why? It's a rider.
  What do payroll tax cuts and shipping more gasoline to China have in 
common? Republican Senator Lindsey Graham acknowledged this political 
gamesmanship saying: ``I think we should debate the Keystone pipeline, 
and we should debate tax policy separately.'' Sadly, it's another rider 
in this bill.
  Finally, Republicans included a poison pill with actual poison--
mercury, arsenic, and other toxins. What does gutting the Clean Air Act 
have to do with payroll tax cuts? Nothing. It's a rider.
  I strongly support extending the payroll tax cut to help 160 million 
Americans; but first we need to cut the partisan riders.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my 
time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Davis).
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for 
yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the rule and to the 
underlying bill. This rule rejected all attempts to amend the bill, 
limits the general debate time, and contains egregious provisions which 
allow States to apply measures such as drug testing; you've got to have 
a high school diploma or be enrolled in a GED program. Well, I can tell 
you, Mr. Speaker, that people who are addicted to drugs don't need 
testing. What they need is treatment. People who are sick need health 
care. People who are unemployed need a job and the opportunity to work, 
or they need benefits until such time as they can receive it.
  This bill goes in the wrong direction. I strongly oppose it.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 2 minutes to my very 
good friend from Omaha, Nebraska (Mr. Terry).
  Mr. TERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
  I think coupling--putting the unemployment extension, the tax 
holiday, the doc fix, and a real jobs bill together--which is what the 
American people have been telling Congress for the entire year, that 
they want to see tangible job creation. There's no better job creator 
in the pipeline--pun intended--than Keystone XL.

                              {time}  1420

  It's a 1,700-mile, $7 billion, shovel-ready project--not the fake 
shovel-ready in the stimulus, but real, ready, earnestly ready to start 
digging right now. The only holdup for Keystone pipeline's permit is 
the politics of the 2012 election. The process sits in the State 
Department.

[[Page H8755]]

  So what we say is in this bill, State Department, use the information 
that has been sitting on your desk collecting dust. You said you would 
make a decision by December 31. We just want you to make it 60 days 
after the permit's again requested, with the carve-out for the Nebraska 
exemption.
  Why is it so important? Well, it really does displace 700,000 barrels 
of imported oil, almost the entire amount from Venezuela or about half 
from Saudi Arabia. It creates 20,000 jobs nearly instantaneously, 
20,000 new jobs.
  It seems to me that as we're talking about putting food on the table 
and Christmastime that this is meat and potatoes. The potatoes will 
sustain you like the unemployment insurance, but what people really 
want is the red meat of good, high-paying jobs, labor that they can go 
to. And I bet you that the AFL-CIO wants this Keystone pipeline built.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, again, the AFL-CIO still opposes this 
bill.
  At this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).
  Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts. I 
don't think anyone disagrees with my good friend who discussed the 
Keystone pipeline that it would create jobs. There's nothing that has 
been said that would suggest that at the appropriate time of review 
that that project would not go forward.
  But what we're talking about today is a crisis in the American public 
dealing with two major issues: continuing a tax relief and tax cut for 
working and middle class Americans, number one; and, number two, to 
keep 6 million Americans from rolling into the street and falling on 
their own spear for lack of unemployment insurance being extended, 
disallowing them to pay their mortgage, disallowing them to pay their 
rent, and, in essence, saying to them there is no light at the end.
  It is also about Republicans and their commitment to the American 
people. In their pledge to America, the GOP leadership indicated in 
September that they would end the practice of packaging unpopular bills 
with must-pass legislation. This is must-pass legislation. And look 
what they're doing besides the pipeline provision that has been 
supported in a bipartisan manner yet this in the wrong process; they 
have got broadband spectrum; they are ending jobless benefits to the 
extent that they are requiring burdensome drug testing on college 
persons who can't find a job; they are suggesting that if you can't 
find a job, it's your own fault; changes to Medicare that are burdening 
senior citizens; and, on top of that, we've got an appropriations bill 
to deal with.
  My friends, there is a simple way of doing this. The Payroll tax can 
be increased by the surtax on just the 300,000 top 1% of America for 10 
years, allowing 160 million Americans to get payroll tax relief.
  How do we help the 6 million persons who need unemployment insurance? 
We call it an emergency. It is an emergency.
  How do we fix Medicare reimbursement for our doctors? We use the 
savings from the ending of the Iraq war. It's a simple, clean process, 
a simple vote to help Americans.
  How can they violate their pledge, Mr. Speaker, of not putting 
everything under the Christmas tree on a bill that must pass on behalf 
of the American people? That's the challenge today.
  I'm against the rule and the underlying bill.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of my friend how many speakers 
he has on his side?
  Mr. McGOVERN. I have at least two more speakers.
  Mr. DREIER. In light of that, Mr. Speaker, I will reserve the balance 
of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 1 minute to the 
gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).
  Mrs. MALONEY. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  The President has announced that we cannot leave Congress without 
passing an extension of the middle class tax cut and an extension of 
unemployment benefits.
  Now, originally, the ``no new taxes'' folks in the GOP Republican 
Senate said that they couldn't do that, that they were going to let the 
middle class tax increase expire, they were going to let the taxes 
increase on the middle class, but they were going to refuse to raise 
taxes on the superrich. Now, if you were not superrich, this was bad 
news for 99 percent of all Americans; and they spoke out, and they said 
they would like this tax cut.
  Now the Republicans have come back with all types of riders that the 
President does not support. We need a clean bill.
  The payroll tax cut that the Democrats are supporting would mean that 
a typical middle class family would have 1,000 extra dollars to spend.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
  Mr. McGOVERN. I yield the gentlelady an additional 30 seconds.
  Mrs. MALONEY. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that 
the payroll tax cut is one of the most powerful tools that we could use 
to increase the number of full-time jobs. The other policy option that 
they supported for stimulating the economy was extending the 
unemployment benefits.
  So it's time for our colleagues across the aisle to get with the 
spirit of this season. Pass the tax cut without the harmful riders; 
pass the extension of unemployment benefits; and--excuse my Dickens--
stop with all the humbug and let's get forward with helping the economy 
and helping the American people.
  Mr. DREIER. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 1\1/2\ 
minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah).
  Mr. FATTAH. I thank the gentleman and I thank the House.
  There is a time, a place, and a season for everything. I would argue 
to the House that this is not the time for us to be playing around with 
the financial fortunes of 160 million Americans that are enjoying a tax 
cut today that we'd like to extend and the President would like to 
extend going forward over the next year.
  Now we've had some 21 consecutive months of private sector job growth 
in this country. Now, I know that the President has almost had to lift 
this economy single-handedly since the GOP has decided they don't want 
to do anything to help move the American economy forward; but the idea 
that you would actually stand in the way of, at a minimum, keeping this 
tax cut in place, and to do it in the holiday season--as we prepare our 
Christmas tree at home and my wife and daughters have been decorating 
it--we all need to understand that in this Christmas season that it is 
wrong for us to approach the holidays and to create this uncertainty.
  We've got so much concern about uncertainty in the business community 
but no concern about uncertainty in the homes of 160 million Americans.
  Now, if we want to pass any bill on any day, you have a majority, you 
can do it. You don't have to merge the pipeline with this tax cut. You 
don't have to tie the fortunes of 160 million Americans' economic 
fortune together with the pipeline.
  We could move this today. The President is prepared to sign it. I 
would urge my colleagues, let's do this in the appropriate way.
  Mr. McGOVERN. I advise the gentleman from California that I am the 
last speaker.
  Mr. DREIER. Then, Mr. Speaker, I will close after the gentleman does.
  Mr. McGOVERN. I yield myself the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Massachusetts is 
recognized for 4\1/2\ minutes.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to place in the Record an 
article from Politico entitled, ``GOP takes packaging path,'' talking 
about how my Republican friends have broken their Pledge to America.

                     [From Politico, Dec. 11, 2011]

                        GOP Takes Packaging Path

                           (By Jake Sherman)

       The year-end rush to extend the payroll tax holiday has 
     House Republicans struggling to keep up with a key promise 
     from last year's election as they bundle together a 
     hodgepodge of issues before skipping town for Christmas.
       In the Pledge to America, released by GOP leadership under 
     much fanfare in September 2010, Republicans said they would 
     ``end the practice of packaging unpopular bills with `must-
     pass' legislation to circumvent the will of the American 
     people. Instead, we will

[[Page H8756]]

     advance major legislation one issue at a time,'' they said.
       They'll be doing the exact opposite this week.
       The year-end legislative package centered on extending the 
     payroll tax has turned into a holiday tree filled with 
     legislative ornaments ranging from the Keystone XL oil 
     pipeline, the sale of broadband spectrum, an extension of 
     jobless benefits, changes to Medicare and easing of certain 
     environmental standards. On top of that, the House will also 
     try to clear a nearly $1 trillion catch-all year-end spending 
     bill--the type of appropriations package that Speaker John 
     Boehner (R-Ohio) himself has decried as inadequate.
       Republicans bristle at the comparison, insisting they're in 
     full compliance with their election-season promises, but the 
     manner with which they're passing the legislation underscores 
     larger issues Congress has to contend with as a winter chill 
     settles on Washington: Republicans want to score political 
     points from Democrats; the Senate is split; President Barack 
     Obama is in reelection mode; and tax provisions are slated to 
     expire as the Christmas recess looms.
       A GOP leadership aide said the comparison is ``a half-assed 
     attempt at a `gotcha' story--and it's weak even for POLITICO 
     on a quiet Friday afternoon.''
       Michael Steel, a spokesman for Boehner, said the extension 
     bill ``does not fit the definition of `must-pass' 
     legislation--which generally refers to funding bills, or an 
     increase in the debt limit--nor does it contain any 
     `unpopular' provisions. Therefore, it is entirely consistent 
     with the Pledge to America.''
       Any number of Republicans, though, have said that the tax 
     holiday must be extended, saying its expiration would amount 
     a tax increase when it's least needed.
       Whether it's a ``must pass'' or not, the package of bills 
     is seen as critical for both parties: If Congress doesn't 
     act, taxes will go up on more than 100 million families, 
     jobless benefits will expire and doctors who treat Medicare 
     patients will have their fees slashed.
       Over the past week, the narrative has shifted 
     significantly. Both Republicans and Democrats now say they 
     want to extend the provisions, recognizing both the political 
     and economic peril that would come from allowing the measures 
     to run out.
       The argument is now over how the government will pay for it 
     and what will ride alongside it for Republicans to say they 
     tried to create jobs.
       It's all pretty familiar to Capitol Hill onlookers and 
     could help explain Congress's 9 percent approval rating. The 
     year-end dash--Boehner says he wants the House to be done by 
     Friday--mirrors Congress's work during the previous 10 
     months. There's political posturing on both sides and 
     panicked legislating, all set against the backdrop of a 
     looming holiday deadline.
       Here's where things stand: Top GOP aides say the 
     Republicans' Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act 
     represents their last offer. The legislation extends the 
     payroll tax holiday, jobless benefits and the ``doc fix,'' in 
     addition to other sweeteners. To blunt conservative angst 
     about the bill and to offset its cost, GOP leaders tacked on 
     language to force President Barack Obama to restart the 
     Keystone XL pipeline project, in addition to easing 
     environmental standards on boilers and slashing money from 
     the Democrats' health care law.
       It will hit the House floor this week. Senate Republican 
     leaders say it has enough steam to sail through the upper 
     chamber. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said 
     on ``Fox News Sunday'' that Democrats such as Sens. Barbara 
     Milkulski of Maryland and Ron Wyden of Oregon support rolling 
     back the boiler regulation. Some Democrats, including 
     lawmakers from labor-friendly districts, support the pipeline 
     construction.
       But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said flatly 
     that the House bill with the pipeline won't pass--and 
     Democrats are weighing what bill to put on the floor this 
     week.
       ``It's the highest priority of the president and the 
     Democrats in Congress,'' Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of 
     Illinois said of the payroll tax extension on NBC's ``Meet 
     the Press.''
       But there's still blowback on the pipeline issue.
       Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), also appearing on NBC, said 
     flatly that the ``pipeline is probably not gonna sell.''
       ``At the end of the day, the payroll tax will get extended 
     as it is now,'' Graham said. ``It won't get expanded; it'll 
     get extended. And we'll find a way to pay for it in a 
     bipartisan fashion.''
       Senate Democrats say that's what they're trying to do. 
     Democratic sources suggest the party might abandon its plan 
     to institute a surtax on millionaires, eyeing instead a 
     package with more palatable spending cuts to attract 
     Republican support.
       There are a few question marks on the House side. When the 
     package was rolled out, the conference rallied behind 
     Boehner. But should it fray, so might its support. Boehner 
     told members in a closed meeting he wants all 242 House 
     Republicans to support the bill.
       If the Republican support does not stay intact, House 
     Democrats will again be necessary for passage. It's an open 
     question what they would support to offset the cost of the 
     bill.
       On Friday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) 
     was cool on changes to Medicare--including means testing for 
     millionaires--and cutting unemployment benefits from 99 to 59 
     weeks.
       ``Some things [that] might be acceptable in terms of a big, 
     bold and balanced plan are unacceptable if we're not only not 
     going to the place where President Obama wants to go on the 
     payroll tax cut, have a more modest proposal and on top of 
     that, have consumers of Medicare pay the price,'' Pelosi 
     said.
       She minced no words when talking about the Keystone 
     pipeline.
       ``This is not about the Keystone pipeline,'' she said. 
     ``The Keystone pipeline is a completely separate issue. 
     People on both sides of the issue agree that this shouldn't 
     be on this package. It's just not polite; it's a poison pill 
     designed to sink the payroll tax cut.''

  Mr. Speaker, the House Republicans have designed a bill to fail, and 
it contains poison pills which will result in tax hikes for 160 million 
workers and the loss of hundreds of thousands of existing jobs. They 
say they're for extending the payroll tax cut for middle class 
Americans, they say they want to help the unemployed, but yet they 
demand a ransom in order for us to get this passed. And the ransom that 
they are demanding is quite high.
  You've heard from Members on our side of all the poison pills that 
are in this bill. I have introduced into the Record the statement from 
the administration saying that they would veto this bill, because it is 
so awful, if it comes to the desk of the President. We know that the 
United States Senate will not move on this bill.
  So why are we wasting our time with precious few days left in the 
session? Why aren't we doing what most Americans want us to do, and 
that is to extend the payroll tax cut for middle class Americans and 
extend unemployment insurance for the millions of people who are out of 
work, through no fault of their own, because it's the right thing to 
do?
  My friends on the other side of the aisle have no problem with 
bailing out big banks on Wall Street, but when it comes to helping 
middle class families and working people, they squawk.

                              {time}  1430

  You've heard over and over that this is the Christmas season; we're 
supposed to be generous in our hearts. I don't feel the generosity on 
the other side. I don't feel the compassion. I'm not sure if my 
colleagues understand how Americans are struggling, what it feels like 
to be out of work. People who are in their 50s and 60s who have lost 
their job and can't find another job, and my colleagues are trying to 
make it more difficult for them to be able to get benefits so they can 
keep their homes and put food on the table.
  My friend from California talks about, well, Mr. Levin, the ranking 
member of the Ways and Means Committee, didn't submit a substitute, he 
only asked for one. Well, this bill, I will again remind everybody, was 
presented to us on Friday when Members were home. And we had an 
emergency Rules Committee--which bypasses the normal procedures and the 
normal time given for Members to be able to offer amendments. So, I 
mean, everything was stacked against anybody offering an amendment in 
advance.
  Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an 
amendment to the rule to make in order Mr. Levin's amendment in the 
nature of a substitute, which extends middle class tax relief, 
unemployment benefits, and the doc fix the right way.
  I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the 
Record along with extraneous material immediately prior to the vote on 
the previous question.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Massachusetts?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I will just close again by urging my 
colleagues to stand with working people in this country, to stand with 
those who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. I mean, 
it's so easy for the other side to stand with big oil companies and 
protect tax breaks for the wealthiest in this country. Let's have a 
little justice in our tax system, a little fairness.
  I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question 
so we can amend this bill and make it actually address these urgent 
issues in a thoughtful and reasonable way, I urge a ``no'' vote on the 
rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

[[Page H8757]]

  Mr. DREIER. I yield myself the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from California is recognized 
for 8\1/2\ minutes.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the rule and the 
underlying legislation.
  There is a way to ensure that President Obama will sign this 
legislation. There is a way to ensure that he will sign this 
legislation, and that way is if we have Democrats join with Republicans 
in an overwhelming bipartisan vote.
  Now, the message that we've gotten is that they're poison pills--
``hostage'' is the term that both the President and my colleague have 
just used in trying to move forward the important provisions of 
expanding the payroll tax so that working Americans can keep more of 
their own money, and the doc fix to ensure that doctors are reimbursed 
and that Medicare beneficiaries are able to have access to the health 
care that they need. And of course for those at this time of year who 
are struggling and need their unemployment benefits expanded, there is 
a way to get that done. Our goal is to get at the root cause of the 
problem.
  As I said in the opening, Mr. Speaker, right now our job is jobs. Our 
job is jobs. And that's exactly what we're trying to do. Tragically, 
tragically we are dealing with a protracted unemployment problem in 
this country. You know it's been going on for an extended period of 
time. The only reason that we saw the unemployment rate drop from 9 
percent to 8.6 percent is that hundreds of thousands of Americans have 
given up looking for work.
  Now, as we listen to people say that at this time of year we need to 
make sure that we create jobs, we have to make sure that there are 
opportunities out there. My friend from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews) was 
talking about the fact that there are four people looking for one job. 
Let's put into place the kinds of policies that will allow us to see 
the private sector create jobs. We cannot legislate full employment. We 
cannot legislate full employment, but what we can do is we can pass 
legislation that will lay the groundwork for America's entrepreneurs, 
for America's innovators to have success by creating job opportunities.
  There are 27 pieces of legislation that we have passed from this 
House that is in the Republican majority that are now sitting in the 
Democratic-controlled Senate. Those measures--increasing access to 
capital for small business men and women to create opportunities, 
making sure that we decrease the regulatory burden, which we all know 
has undermined job creation and economic growth in this country--these 
are the kinds of measures that are out there that we hope very much 
will be considered in the Senate.
  Now, as we look at the issue of so-called ``poison pills,'' which my 
California colleague, Ms. Pelosi, the distinguished minority leader, 
talked about--and I tried to engage in a discussion with her on the 
House floor. I yielded to her and she chose to walk off the floor 
rather than engaging in a discussion. I guess the reason is that it's 
sort of hard to claim that encouraging an individual to move towards 
GED qualification is a poison pill. Isn't it kind of hard to claim that 
saying that we should allow States to engage in drug testing for people 
who are on unemployment is a poison pill? Making sure we reimburse for 
overpayments to recapture those hard-earned tax dollars, how can that 
be a poison pill? These are commonsense proposals to deal with the fact 
that we have a $15 trillion national debt.
  And the American people know that Big Government is a problem. Just 
this morning I read the Gallup poll which shows that we are at near-
record levels with Democrats, Republicans, and Independents being 
suspicious of Big Government. What we need to do is we need to unleash 
this potential that is out there, and this measure will do that.
  Now, we keep hearing that politics is being played with this. Well, 
Mr. Speaker, we've gotten the word today that the majority leader of 
the United States Senate, Mr. Reid, has chosen to prevent Members from 
signing the conference report for the absolutely essential spending 
bill that is out there, the minibus spending bill, because of this 
issue that's before us right now. If that isn't playing politics, I 
don't know what is.
  Right now we're faced with the threat of a government shutdown on 
Friday. If the Democrats don't sign that appropriations conference 
report--which has been negotiated in good faith again between both 
Democrats and Republicans with the House and the Senate--we're going to 
be faced with a government shutdown that Leader Reid will in fact have 
created by preventing Members from signing that conference report.
  We need to come together and do that, sign that conference report, 
get that work done. This measure, this measure, once again, Mr. 
Speaker, will get at the core problem that we face, and that is the 
lack of jobs that exist.
  The Keystone XL pipeline will create, as has been said, 20,000 to 
25,000 jobs, if not more, immediately--immediately--and it will allow 
us to decrease our dependence on overseas oil. And it will allow us to 
work closely, as my friend Mr. Royce said, with our close ally to the 
north, Canada, rather than see them--understandably--engage in a 
stronger relationship with China.
  There are so many benefits to this, so many benefits all the way 
across the board that I believe that, since roughly 80 to 90 percent of 
the provisions in here have been proposed by President Obama--many of 
which were discussed in his jobs bill that 98 days ago he proposed here 
in his address to the Joint Session of Congress. We are bringing these 
items up. We keep being told, bring up the jobs bill, bring up the jobs 
bill. This measure does just that.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my Democratic colleagues to join with Republican 
colleagues so that we can do what the American people want us to do, 
especially at this time of year. As we go into the holiday season 
dealing with these issues, it would be a very important message to send 
around the United States of America and throughout the world.
  I began, as we were debating the point of order, by raising the 
famous quote of William Shakespeare, and I'll close with that, Mr. 
Speaker: ``In such business, action is eloquence.''
  The material previously referred to by Mr. McGovern is as follows:


  An amendment to H. Res. 491 offered by Mr. McGovern of Massachusetts

       (1) Strike ``The previous question shall be considered as 
     ordered on the bill, as amended, to final passage without 
     intervening motion except:'' and insert the following:
       The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the 
     bill, as amended, and on any amendment thereto, to final 
     passage without intervening motion except:
       (2) Strike ``and (2)'' and insert the following:
       (2) the amendment in the nature of a substitute printed in 
     the Congressional Record pursuant to clause 8 of rule XVIII 
     and numbered 1, if offered by Representative Levin of 
     Michigan or his designee, which shall be in order without 
     intervention of any point of order, shall be considered as 
     read, and which shall be separately debatable for 30 minutes 
     equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an 
     opponent; and (3)
       (The information contained herein was provided by the 
     Republican Minority on multiple occasions throughout the 
     110th and 111th Congresses.)


        THE VOTE ON THE PREVIOUS QUESTION: WHAT IT REALLY MEANS

       This vote, the vote on whether to order the previous 
     question on a special rule, is not merely a procedural vote. 
     A vote against ordering the previous question is a vote 
     against the Republican majority agenda and a vote to allow 
     the opposition, at least for the moment, to offer an 
     alternative plan. It is a vote about what the House should be 
     debating.
       Mr. Clarence Cannon's Precedents of the House of 
     Representatives (VI, 308-311), describes the vote on the 
     previous question on the rule as ``a motion to direct or 
     control the consideration of the subject before the House 
     being made by the Member in charge.'' To defeat the previous 
     question is to give the opposition a chance to decide the 
     subject before the House. Cannon cites the Speaker's ruling 
     of January 13, 1920, to the effect that ``the refusal of the 
     House to sustain the demand for the previous question passes 
     the control of the resolution to the opposition'' in order to 
     offer an amendment. On March 15, 1909, a member of the 
     majority party offered a rule resolution. The House defeated 
     the previous question and a member of the opposition rose to 
     a parliamentary inquiry, asking who was entitled to 
     recognition. Speaker Joseph G. Cannon (R-Illinois) said: 
     ``The previous question having been refused, the gentleman 
     from New York, Mr. Fitzgerald, who had asked the gentleman to 
     yield to him for an amendment, is entitled to the first 
     recognition.''
       Because the vote today may look bad for the Republican 
     majority they will say ``the

[[Page H8758]]

     vote on the previous question is simply a vote on whether to 
     proceed to an immediate vote on adopting the resolution . . . 
     [and] has no substantive legislative or policy implications 
     whatsoever.'' But that is not what they have always said. 
     Listen to the Republican Leadership Manual on the Legislative 
     Process in the United States House of Representatives, (6th 
     edition, page 135). Here's how the Republicans describe the 
     previous question vote in their own manual: ``Although it is 
     generally not possible to amend the rule because the majority 
     Member controlling the time will not yield for the purpose of 
     offering an amendment, the same result may be achieved by 
     voting down the previous question on the rule. . . . When the 
     motion for the previous question is defeated, control of the 
     time passes to the Member who led the opposition to ordering 
     the previous question. That Member, because he then controls 
     the time, may offer an amendment to the rule, or yield for 
     the purpose of amendment.''
       In Deschler's Procedure in the U.S. House of 
     Representatives, the subchapter titled ``Amending Special 
     Rules'' states: ``a refusal to order the previous question on 
     such a rule [a special rule reported from the Committee on 
     Rules] opens the resolution to amendment and further 
     debate.'' (Chapter 21, section 21.2) Section 21.3 continues: 
     ``Upon rejection of the motion for the previous question on a 
     resolution reported from the Committee on Rules, control 
     shifts to the Member leading the opposition to the previous 
     question, who may offer a proper amendment or motion and who 
     controls the time for debate thereon.''
       Clearly, the vote on the previous question on a rule does 
     have substantive policy implications. It is one of the only 
     available tools for those who oppose the Republican 
     majority's agenda and allows those with alternative views the 
     opportunity to offer an alternative plan.

  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I 
move the previous question on the resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on ordering the previous 
question.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 and clause 9 of rule 
XX, this 15-minute vote on ordering the previous question will be 
followed by 5-minute votes on adoption of House Resolution 491, if 
ordered; and motions to suspend the rules with regard to H.R. 3246, if 
ordered, and S. 384, if ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 236, 
nays 182, not voting 15, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 918]

                               YEAS--236

     Adams
     Aderholt
     Akin
     Alexander
     Amash
     Amodei
     Austria
     Bachus
     Barletta
     Bartlett
     Barton (TX)
     Bass (NH)
     Benishek
     Berg
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (UT)
     Black
     Blackburn
     Bonner
     Bono Mack
     Boren
     Boustany
     Brooks
     Broun (GA)
     Buchanan
     Bucshon
     Buerkle
     Burgess
     Burton (IN)
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Canseco
     Cantor
     Capito
     Carter
     Cassidy
     Chabot
     Chaffetz
     Coffman (CO)
     Cole
     Conaway
     Cravaack
     Crawford
     Crenshaw
     Culberson
     Davis (KY)
     Denham
     Dent
     DesJarlais
     Diaz-Balart
     Dold
     Dreier
     Duncan (SC)
     Duncan (TN)
     Ellmers
     Emerson
     Farenthold
     Fincher
     Fitzpatrick
     Flake
     Fleischmann
     Fleming
     Flores
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Gardner
     Garrett
     Gerlach
     Gibbs
     Gibson
     Gingrey (GA)
     Gohmert
     Goodlatte
     Gosar
     Gowdy
     Granger
     Graves (GA)
     Graves (MO)
     Griffin (AR)
     Griffith (VA)
     Grimm
     Guinta
     Guthrie
     Hall
     Harper
     Harris
     Hartzler
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Heck
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Herrera Beutler
     Huelskamp
     Huizenga (MI)
     Hultgren
     Hunter
     Hurt
     Issa
     Jenkins
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson (OH)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Jordan
     Kelly
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kinzinger (IL)
     Kline
     Labrador
     Lamborn
     Lance
     Landry
     Lankford
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Latta
     Lewis (CA)
     LoBiondo
     Long
     Lucas
     Luetkemeyer
     Lummis
     Lungren, Daniel E.
     Manzullo
     Marchant
     Marino
     Matheson
     McCarthy (CA)
     McCaul
     McClintock
     McCotter
     McHenry
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     McKinley
     McMorris Rodgers
     Meehan
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Mulvaney
     Murphy (PA)
     Neugebauer
     Noem
     Nugent
     Nunes
     Nunnelee
     Olson
     Palazzo
     Paulsen
     Pearce
     Pence
     Petri
     Pitts
     Platts
     Poe (TX)
     Pompeo
     Posey
     Price (GA)
     Quayle
     Reed
     Rehberg
     Reichert
     Renacci
     Ribble
     Rigell
     Rivera
     Roby
     Roe (TN)
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Rokita
     Rooney
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roskam
     Ross (FL)
     Royce
     Runyan
     Ryan (WI)
     Scalise
     Schilling
     Schmidt
     Schock
     Schweikert
     Scott (SC)
     Scott, Austin
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Southerland
     Stearns
     Stivers
     Stutzman
     Sullivan
     Terry
     Thompson (PA)
     Thornberry
     Tiberi
     Tipton
     Turner (NY)
     Turner (OH)
     Upton
     Walberg
     Walden
     Walsh (IL)
     Webster
     West
     Westmoreland
     Whitfield
     Wilson (SC)
     Wittman
     Wolf
     Womack
     Woodall
     Yoder
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Young (IN)

                               NAYS--182

     Ackerman
     Altmire
     Andrews
     Baca
     Baldwin
     Barrow
     Bass (CA)
     Becerra
     Berkley
     Berman
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Boswell
     Brady (PA)
     Braley (IA)
     Brown (FL)
     Butterfield
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardoza
     Carnahan
     Carney
     Carson (IN)
     Castor (FL)
     Chandler
     Chu
     Cicilline
     Clarke (MI)
     Clarke (NY)
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Cohen
     Connolly (VA)
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Costa
     Costello
     Courtney
     Critz
     Crowley
     Cuellar
     Cummings
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     DeLauro
     Deutch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Donnelly (IN)
     Doyle
     Edwards
     Ellison
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Farr
     Fattah
     Frank (MA)
     Fudge
     Garamendi
     Gonzalez
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Hahn
     Hanabusa
     Hastings (FL)
     Heinrich
     Higgins
     Himes
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hirono
     Hochul
     Holden
     Holt
     Honda
     Hoyer
     Inslee
     Israel
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson Lee (TX)
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Kaptur
     Keating
     Kildee
     Kind
     Kissell
     Kucinich
     Langevin
     Larsen (WA)
     Lee (CA)
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Loebsack
     Lofgren, Zoe
     Lowey
     Lujan
     Lynch
     Maloney
     Markey
     Matsui
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McNerney
     Meeks
     Michaud
     Miller (NC)
     Miller, George
     Moore
     Moran
     Murphy (CT)
     Nadler
     Neal
     Olver
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pelosi
     Perlmutter
     Peters
     Peterson
     Pingree (ME)
     Polis
     Price (NC)
     Quigley
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Richardson
     Richmond
     Ross (AR)
     Rothman (NJ)
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sarbanes
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schrader
     Schwartz
     Scott (VA)
     Scott, David
     Serrano
     Sewell
     Sherman
     Shuler
     Sires
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Speier
     Stark
     Sutton
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Tonko
     Towns
     Tsongas
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Walz (MN)
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters
     Watt
     Waxman
     Welch
     Wilson (FL)
     Woolsey
     Yarmuth

                             NOT VOTING--15

     Bachmann
     Brady (TX)
     Coble
     Duffy
     Filner
     Giffords
     Gutierrez
     Hanna
     Larson (CT)
     Mack
     Myrick
     Napolitano
     Pastor (AZ)
     Paul
     Payne

                              {time}  1504

  Mr. LUJAN, Ms. RICHARDSON, Mr. BERMAN, Ms. CLARKE of New York, and 
Mr. BECERRA changed their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Mr. ROGERS of Alabama changed his vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
  So the previous question was ordered.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  Stated against:
  Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall 918, I was away from the Capitol 
due to prior commitments to my constituents. Had I been present, I 
would have voted ``nay.''
  Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, December 13, 2011, I was 
absent during rollcall vote No. 918. Had I been present, I would have 
voted ``nay'' on ordering the previous question of the rule, H. Res. 
491, providing for consideration of H.R. 3630, to provide incentives 
for the creation of jobs, and for other purposes.
  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, December 13, 
2011, I missed rollcall 918. Had I present, I would have voted ``no.''
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.


                             Recorded Vote

  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. This will be a 5-minute vote.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 236, 
noes 180, not voting 17, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 919]

                               AYES--236

     Adams
     Aderholt
     Akin
     Alexander
     Amash
     Amodei

[[Page H8759]]


     Austria
     Bachus
     Barletta
     Bartlett
     Barton (TX)
     Bass (NH)
     Benishek
     Berg
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (UT)
     Black
     Blackburn
     Bonner
     Bono Mack
     Boren
     Boustany
     Brady (TX)
     Brooks
     Broun (GA)
     Buchanan
     Bucshon
     Buerkle
     Burgess
     Burton (IN)
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Canseco
     Cantor
     Capito
     Carter
     Cassidy
     Chabot
     Chaffetz
     Coffman (CO)
     Cole
     Conaway
     Cravaack
     Crawford
     Crenshaw
     Culberson
     Davis (KY)
     Denham
     Dent
     DesJarlais
     Diaz-Balart
     Dold
     Dreier
     Duncan (SC)
     Duncan (TN)
     Ellmers
     Emerson
     Farenthold
     Fincher
     Fitzpatrick
     Flake
     Fleischmann
     Fleming
     Flores
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Gardner
     Garrett
     Gerlach
     Gibbs
     Gibson
     Gingrey (GA)
     Goodlatte
     Gosar
     Gowdy
     Granger
     Graves (GA)
     Graves (MO)
     Griffith (VA)
     Grimm
     Guinta
     Guthrie
     Hall
     Hanna
     Harper
     Harris
     Hartzler
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Heck
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Herrera Beutler
     Huelskamp
     Huizenga (MI)
     Hultgren
     Hunter
     Hurt
     Issa
     Jenkins
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson (OH)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Jordan
     Kelly
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kinzinger (IL)
     Kline
     Labrador
     Lamborn
     Lance
     Landry
     Lankford
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Latta
     Lewis (CA)
     LoBiondo
     Long
     Lucas
     Luetkemeyer
     Lummis
     Lungren, Daniel E.
     Manzullo
     Marchant
     Marino
     McCarthy (CA)
     McCaul
     McClintock
     McCotter
     McHenry
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     McKinley
     McMorris Rodgers
     Meehan
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Mulvaney
     Murphy (PA)
     Neugebauer
     Noem
     Nugent
     Nunes
     Nunnelee
     Olson
     Palazzo
     Paulsen
     Pearce
     Pence
     Petri
     Pitts
     Platts
     Poe (TX)
     Pompeo
     Posey
     Price (GA)
     Quayle
     Reed
     Rehberg
     Reichert
     Renacci
     Ribble
     Rigell
     Rivera
     Roby
     Roe (TN)
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Rokita
     Rooney
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roskam
     Ross (FL)
     Royce
     Runyan
     Ryan (WI)
     Scalise
     Schilling
     Schmidt
     Schock
     Schweikert
     Scott (SC)
     Scott, Austin
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shimkus
     Shuler
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Southerland
     Stearns
     Stivers
     Stutzman
     Sullivan
     Terry
     Thompson (PA)
     Thornberry
     Tiberi
     Tipton
     Turner (NY)
     Turner (OH)
     Upton
     Walberg
     Walden
     Walsh (IL)
     Webster
     West
     Westmoreland
     Whitfield
     Wilson (SC)
     Wittman
     Wolf
     Womack
     Woodall
     Yoder
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Young (IN)

                               NOES--180

     Ackerman
     Altmire
     Andrews
     Baca
     Baldwin
     Barrow
     Bass (CA)
     Becerra
     Berkley
     Berman
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Boswell
     Brady (PA)
     Braley (IA)
     Brown (FL)
     Butterfield
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardoza
     Carnahan
     Carney
     Carson (IN)
     Castor (FL)
     Chandler
     Chu
     Cicilline
     Clarke (MI)
     Clarke (NY)
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Cohen
     Connolly (VA)
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Costa
     Costello
     Courtney
     Critz
     Crowley
     Cuellar
     Cummings
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     DeLauro
     Deutch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Donnelly (IN)
     Doyle
     Edwards
     Ellison
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Farr
     Fattah
     Frank (MA)
     Fudge
     Garamendi
     Gonzalez
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Hahn
     Hanabusa
     Heinrich
     Higgins
     Himes
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hirono
     Hochul
     Holden
     Holt
     Honda
     Hoyer
     Inslee
     Israel
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson Lee (TX)
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Kaptur
     Keating
     Kildee
     Kind
     Kissell
     Kucinich
     Langevin
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee (CA)
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Loebsack
     Lofgren, Zoe
     Lowey
     Lujan
     Lynch
     Maloney
     Markey
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McNerney
     Meeks
     Michaud
     Miller (NC)
     Miller, George
     Moore
     Moran
     Murphy (CT)
     Nadler
     Neal
     Olver
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pelosi
     Perlmutter
     Peters
     Peterson
     Pingree (ME)
     Polis
     Price (NC)
     Quigley
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Richardson
     Richmond
     Ross (AR)
     Rothman (NJ)
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sarbanes
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schrader
     Schwartz
     Scott (VA)
     Serrano
     Sewell
     Sherman
     Sires
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Speier
     Stark
     Sutton
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Tonko
     Towns
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Walz (MN)
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters
     Watt
     Waxman
     Welch
     Wilson (FL)
     Woolsey
     Yarmuth

                             NOT VOTING--17

     Bachmann
     Coble
     Duffy
     Filner
     Giffords
     Gohmert
     Griffin (AR)
     Gutierrez
     Hastings (FL)
     Mack
     Myrick
     Napolitano
     Pastor (AZ)
     Paul
     Payne
     Scott, David
     Tsongas

                              {time}  1512

  So the resolution was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
  Stated for:
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 919, my battery 
went out on my beeper, and so it never went off. As a result, I missed 
the vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''
  Stated against:
  Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall 919, I was away from the Capitol 
due to prior commitments to my constituents. Had I been present, I 
would have vote ``no.''
  Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, December 13, 2011, I was 
absent during rollcall vote No. 919. Had I been present, I would have 
voted ``no'' on agreeing to the resolution, H. Res. 491, providing for 
consideration of H.R. 3630, to provide incentives for the creation of 
jobs, and for other purposes.

                          ____________________