[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 17 (Tuesday, February 5, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H354-H363]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 444, REQUIRE PRESIDENTIAL
LEADERSHIP AND NO DEFICIT ACT
Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I
call up House Resolution 48 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res. 48
Resolved, That at any time after the adoption of this
resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule
XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the
Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of
the bill (H.R. 444) to require that, if the President's
fiscal year 2014 budget does not achieve balance in a fiscal
year covered by such budget, the President shall submit a
supplemental unified budget by April 1, 2013, which
identifies a fiscal year in which balance is achieved, and
for other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be
dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of
the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the
bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided among and
controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the
Committee on the Budget or their respective designees. After
general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment
under the five-minute rule. The bill shall be considered as
read. All points of order against provisions in the bill are
waived. No amendment to the bill shall be in order except
those printed in the report of the Committee on Rules
accompanying this resolution. Each such amendment may be
offered only in the order printed in the report, may be
offered only by a Member designated in the report, shall be
considered as read, shall be debatable for the time specified
in the report equally divided and controlled by the proponent
and an opponent, shall not be subject to amendment, and shall
not be subject to a demand for division of the question in
the House or in the Committee of the Whole. All points of
order against such amendments are waived. At the conclusion
of consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee
shall rise and report the bill to the House with such
amendments as may have been adopted. The previous question
shall be considered as ordered on the bill and amendments
thereto to final passage without intervening motion except
one motion to recommit with or without instructions.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Georgia is recognized for
1 hour.
General Leave
Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Georgia?
There was no objection.
Mr. WOODALL. For the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30
minutes to my friend from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I
yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this
resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.
Mr. Speaker, we're here today, as you heard from the Clerk, on House
Resolution 48, which provides a structured rule for consideration of
H.R. 444, which is the Require a PLAN Act. This is a resolution that
will require that the President, if he doesn't submit a budget that
ultimately comes to balance, submit then a supplementary budget that
shows how he would bring the budget to balance.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, we've been grappling with serious budget
challenges throughout this President's administration. We go back to FY
2009, the very first year of the administration; the deficit tripled
the previous record-high deficit in this country to $1.4 trillion. It
was $1.3 trillion in FY 2010, $1.3 trillion in FY 2011, $1.2 trillion
in FY 2012. And, Mr. Speaker, there's no plan that the administration
has produced to get us from where we are--fiscal irresponsibility--to a
point in the future of fiscal responsibility.
Mr. Speaker, we've been doing our part here in the House. We've been
proud to work together across the aisle in order to pass budgets that
tackle
[[Page H355]]
those hard challenges that are ahead of us. If you read the President's
comments, Mr. Speaker, you will see that he recognizes the challenges
are hard. The question is: Are we going to deal with those or not?
I hold here, Mr. Speaker, a speech that the President made to the
Democratic National Convention on September 6, 2012, where he said
this:
I will use the money that we're no longer spending on war
to pay down our debt and put more people back to work.
And my notes here said that it was followed by extended cheers and
applause. I expect my friend from Massachusetts supports that spirit
wholeheartedly, that, ``I will use the money we're no longer spending
on war to pay down our debt and put more people back to work.''
But, Mr. Speaker, I also hold in my hand a transcript from the Budget
Committee, on which I have the pleasure of sitting, when we had the
President's Treasury Secretary come before the Budget Committee to
explain the budget, and I said this:
Can you tell me just in simple terms--in true or false
terms, this budget never, ever, ever reduces the debt, is
that right?
Treasury Secretary Geithner:
Uh, that is correct. It does not go far enough to bring
down the debt, not just as a share of the economy, but
overall. You're right.
I then said this:
It doesn't bring down the debt at all.
Mr. Speaker, that's the conflict that we face here as a people, as a
country. Not as Republicans, not as Democrats, but as a people. On the
one hand, what our politicians are saying is we're going to use the
money to pay down our debt. But what the reality is is that proposals
are coming out today that never, ever, ever pay down a penny of debt.
Now, Mr. Speaker, if you want to see that for yourself, you can look.
The President's budgets each year are posted online on the OMB Web
site. In fact, the very first one he submitted--I hold the cover page
here--it was called ``A New Era of Responsibility.'' ``A New Era of
Responsibility'' is the first budget that the President ever submitted.
But as I go through that budget, Mr. Speaker, what I see is projections
for 2020, for 2030, for 2040, for 2060, and for 2080.
Mr. Speaker, hear that. You have got young children--2020, 2030,
2040, 2060, and 2080--and in each one of those years, according to the
President's budget, not only does the budget never balance under his
plan, but it continues to get worse. 2020, 2030, 2040, 2050, 2060,
2080--the President's budget. And I think that comes as news to so many
of us, Mr. Speaker, I confess, because I've listened to the speeches,
just as my friend from Massachusetts has, where we talk about getting
the deficit under control, where we talk about paying down the debt.
Only when you get into the plan, do you see that we never pay down one
penny.
So this rule today, Mr. Speaker, would allow us to take up a bill
that would require the President for the very first time to submit a
balanced budget. It doesn't have to balance the way I would balance it.
It doesn't have to balance the way you would balance it. But to submit
a balanced budget. And as you know, Mr. Speaker, the statute actually
required the President submit his budget yesterday. He's going to miss
that deadline, but I'm expecting it soon and I'm looking forward to
reading it soon. It's so that we actually give the American people a
plan.
{time} 1310
I want to say--because we heard it in the Rules Committee last night,
and I believe my friend from Massachusetts brought it up and he was
absolutely right--the history of debt and deficits in this country, Mr.
Speaker, is not a mark of shame on the Democratic Party and it is not a
mark of shame on the Republican Party; it is a mark of shame on all of
us collectively.
Candidly, you and I here, Mr. Speaker, in the big freshman class of
2010, I'm less interested in finding out who to blame and I'm more
interested in finding out who has a solution to solve the problem. This
House passed a solution to solve the problem. I'd like to see the
Senate create a solution. I'd like to see the President create a
solution. I'd like to see us discuss that solution as the American
people, Mr. Speaker.
There were 14 amendments submitted to this piece of legislation, Mr.
Speaker. We heard testimony on that in the Rules Committee yesterday.
Unfortunately, six of those 14 amendments were nongermane; we were not
able to make those in order. But we did make in order three Republican
amendments, one Democratic amendment, and one bipartisan amendment. In
fact, all the Members who came to the Rules Committee yesterday to
testify on behalf of their amendments, we were able to make those
amendments in order.
Mr. Speaker, all this bill does, should it become law, is require
that if the President doesn't submit a balanced budget--it's certainly
my great hope that he will, but if he doesn't, he share with the
American people--again, not in 5 years, not in 10 years--whatever
number he believes is the right way to set priorities, tell the
American people what steps he will take to get us back on track.
Candidly, Mr. Speaker, it's unconscionable that we can look at
projections going out to 2080 and have folks never, ever, ever pay down
one penny of debt. Contrast that with what we did here in the House of
Representatives, where with a budget that passed this House, the
bipartisan vote that passed that budget, passed the only budget that
passed anywhere in this town, not only would we have balanced the
budget in that time frame, Mr. Speaker, we would have paid back every
penny of our $16.4 trillion Federal debt.
That's no small conversation. It's a conversation that's long overdue
on this House floor. It's a conversation that has been too long ignored
by both Democrats and Republicans, and I'm pleased to be here today to
take that up with my friend from Massachusetts, and then later on, the
underlying bill.
With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. I want to thank the gentleman from Georgia, my good
friend, 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 urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on
this restrictive rule and to vote ``no'' on the underlying bill.
The process here is awful. The bill before us was not even considered
by the Budget Committee. They didn't hold a single hearing, no markup,
and on a party-line vote last night the Rules Committee denied Mr. Van
Hollen, the ranking member of the Budget Committee, the opportunity to
offer a meaningful substitute. The Rules Committee also, on a party
line, voted against an open rule. To all of the Republican freshmen and
sophomores who campaigned on the need for openness and transparency, by
voting for this rule, you are officially part of the problem.
This bill before us isn't a meaningful attempt to address the budget;
it's a gimmick wrapped in talking points inside a press release.
Two weeks ago, this House passed the so-called ``No Budget, No Pay
Act,'' then they went on another recess. There wasn't a holiday, mind
you. I guess it was the Super Bowl recess. Now they're back with
today's bill. It calls on the President to tell Congress when his
budget will come into balance. If his budget doesn't say when it will
come into balance, then he must submit a supplemental statement telling
Congress when it will come into balance.
Why are we doing this? Because the President is late submitting his
budget for the next fiscal year. Okay, fine. The President should
submit a budget on time, and I support that. But lost in all of this
Republican budget Kabuki theater is the truth: the reason the
administration is late with their budget is because they just spent
months trying to avert the disaster that was the fiscal cliff.
As the Speaker was trying in vain to corral House Republicans into
doing the right thing, we had Plan B and Plan C and Plan--who knows
what. Finally, we reached a deal on January 1, technically after we
went over the cliff. In the meantime, back in the real world, we
are less than 24 calendar days away from the disastrous sequester
taking effect--less than 24 calendar days from massive, arbitrary, and
devastating cuts to defense and nondefense
[[Page H356]]
discretionary programs, cuts to jobs programs and medical research and
education, cuts to military personnel and law enforcement, cuts that
will cost jobs and do real harm to the American economy as it struggles
to recover.
And the reality is that we don't even have that much time. We only
have 9 legislative days left in February to address the issue, 9 days
to negotiate a trillion-dollar deal with the Senate and the President.
And instead of a meaningful plan to address the crisis that we need to
avert, we have this nonsense before us today. This is no way to govern.
The disturbing truth is that many Republicans seem downright giddy
when it comes to the sequester cuts. There is news story after news
story about how the Republicans are going to allow the sequester to
take effect. In the Rules Committee last night, the author of this
bill, the gentleman from Georgia, Dr. Price, couldn't support these
cuts fast enough. I was shocked.
Mr. Speaker, it was only last week that the economic numbers for the
fourth quarter of 2012 were released. Unexpectedly, we saw a
contraction in those numbers, a contraction fueled by a massive
reduction in defense spending. What do you know: huge cuts in
government spending during a fragile economic recovery damage economic
growth. The Republican response is to double down on this stupid.
These Republican games of Russian roulette with the American economy
must come to an end. It is time to replace short-term partisan
political interests with the greater good.
The President today is asking us to consider a thoughtful, balanced
plan to stop the sequester. I urge the Republican leadership to bring
that plan to the floor of the House for a vote as soon as possible.
That's what the American people want and that's what they deserve: a
real plan. The bill before us today isn't it, and I urge my colleagues
to reject it.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. WOODALL. I thank my friend from Massachusetts because he's
highlighting exactly what our challenges are and exactly why it's so
important that we pass both the rule and H.R. 444 today. He went
through item after item after item that have absolutely tied our
economy up in knots. Short-term problems and short-term solutions are
trumping the discussion of long-term problems and long-term solutions.
The sequester that he mentioned, Mr. Speaker, do you know that it was
the month of May last year that this House first passed a replacement
to the sequester? Now, as you know and as history has recorded, the
Senate never acted on any replacement of a sequester, and now we talk
about what happened on January 1 as if it was something that was
created by this House, as if that fiscal cliff was something that this
House invented. In fact, we have a very proud history, bipartisan
history, of looking further down the road to try to find the best
answers and the best solutions to very serious problems. But we can't
do it alone, Mr. Speaker.
One of the great successes we've had just early in this year--and by
``we,'' I mean this entire House, the people's House--is that we appear
to have persuaded the Senate to pass a budget for the first time in 4
years. All indication is that this year, unlike last year and the year
before that and the year before that, this year they're going to pass a
budget to lay out their plan.
But what does it say, Mr. Speaker, about this House, about this
process, about the future of this country that it's controversial
whether or not the President of the United States should introduce a
budget that balances ever? That's the debate today, Mr. Speaker. That's
how out of touch Washington has become. That's how confused the
speeches have been written. We're debating whether or not the President
should introduce a budget that ever balances. I'm advocating, yes, he
should. Others are advocating, no, that shouldn't be a requirement;
when you take the oath to fully execute the laws of the land, when you
take the oath to faithfully protect and defend the United States of
America, it shouldn't be a requirement that you balance budgets. In
fact, you should be free, not just for 10 years, not just for 20 years,
not just for 40 years, not just for 80 years, but forever to deficit
spend, to borrow from a generation of children and a generation of
grandchildren to pay for our wants today, taking away from their needs
tomorrow.
{time} 1320
This rule debate is going to come to a close in 40 minutes and we're
going to vote. Then if the rule passes, we're going to go into a vote
on the underlying bill. There are going to be ``no'' votes on the board
that say, no, the President should never have to explain to the
American people how we're going to make our fiscal tomorrow better than
our fiscal today.
I would like to change his mind, Mr. Speaker, but for now I'm going
to focus on changing the minds right here in this Chamber. Because if
there is anything that unites us in this body, rather than divides us,
it is a true love of this country. And I challenge anyone, Mr. Speaker,
to define their love of our freedoms and of our country in a way that
allows us to continue borrowing from the next generation forever.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I would like to submit for the Record a letter sent to the Honorable
Paul Ryan, the chairman of the Committee on the Budget, from the
Executive Office of the President in the Office of Management and
Budget which explains why the President's budget for this year is
delayed--because of the theatrics that my friends on the other side
forced us to go through to avoid going over a fiscal cliff. So I think
it's understandable why the budget may be a little late.
And I would say to the gentleman, submitting a budget is not
controversial. What is controversial to me is the fact that so many of
my friends on the other side want to go over this sequester cliff in
which millions of jobs will be lost. That to me is controversial. We
should be about protecting jobs and creating jobs.
My friends have budgetary plans that would throw people out of work,
and I find that unconscionable. I find that unconscionable. We should
be about lifting this country up, not trying to put people down.
And the plans that have been proposed by my friends on the other
side, including this kind of giddiness about the prospect of going over
the sequestration cliff, would cost millions of people in this country
jobs. It would hurt our economy.
That's not the way we want to govern. That's what is controversial on
our side. We don't want people to lose their jobs. We want people to
keep their jobs, and we want to create an economy that creates more
jobs.
Executive Office of the President, Office of Management
and Budget,
Washington, DC, January 11, 2013.
Hon. Paul Ryan,
Chairman, Committee on the Budget, U.S. House of
Representatives, Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Ryan: Thank you for your letter dated January
9, 2013, requesting information on when the Administration
will submit the President's fiscal year (FY) 2014 Budget.
For over a year and a half, the Administration has been
working with Congress to forge agreement on a plan that would
both grow our economy and significantly reduce the deficit.
The Administration continues to seek a balanced approach to
further deficit reduction that cuts spending in a responsible
way while also raising revenues.
As you know, the protracted ``fiscal cliff' negotiations
that led to enactment of H.R. 8, the American Taxpayer Relief
Act of 2012, created considerable uncertainty about revenue
and spending for 2013 and beyond. The Act resolved a
significant portion of this uncertainty by making permanent
the temporary rates on taxable income at or below $400,000
for individual filers and $450,000 for married individuals
filing jointly; permanently indexing the Alternative Minimum
Tax exemption to the Consumer Price Index; extending
emergency unemployment benefits and Federal finding for
extended benefits for unemployed workers for one year;
continuing current Medicare payment rates for physicians'
services through December 31, 2013; extending farm bill
policies and programs through September 30, 2013; and
providing a postponement of the Budget Control Act's
sequestration for two months. However, because these issues
were not resolved until the American Taxpayer Relief Act was
enacted on January 2, 2013, the Administration was forced to
delay some of its FY 2014 Budget preparations, which in turn
will delay the Budget's submission to Congress.
[[Page H357]]
The Administration is working diligently on our budget
request. We will submit it to Congress as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
Jeffrey D. Zients,
Deputy Director for Management.
Mr. Speaker, at this time, I would like to yield 3 minutes to the
gentlewoman from New York, the ranking member of the Rules Committee,
Ms. Slaughter.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I do love my country, and my country is
begging me, as I'm sure it is all other Members of Congress, to for
heaven's sake get some of this taken care of and have some certainty.
Talking with constituents just this morning, they were saying they
simply don't know what to do. And what we're doing here again is just
theater, as my colleague pointed out. This isn't a plan. It's a
gimmick, and it has wasted valuable time.
CBS News reported last year that it cost $24 million a week to
operate the House of Representatives. On behalf of the taxpayers who
pay those bills, we should be debating some serious legislation and
come up with serious answers to our Nation's problems.
And everybody has known from their grammar school days that the way
we pass a bill is that the House proposes a bill, the Senate proposes a
bill, they go through the committee processes, they are passed on
through the committee, the subcommittees, then the major committee,
then to the Rules Committee, in our case, and then we have a conference
and we send it to the President. We don't do that anymore.
The last two bills we dealt with on this floor just came directly to
the Rules Committee. There was no committee action whatsoever, there
was no discussion, there was no input.
And yesterday, what really I think grieves me most is that there was
a wonderful substitute put forward with great sincerity by the ranking
member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Van Hollen. I think he's respected
by all sides, and most of this country, for his wisdom and for his
acuity. But could they put his substitute in order? No. They said they
had to have a waiver. Well, that's what the Rules Committee is for.
That's what the Rules Committee does.
The Budget Committee itself has had at least 18 waivers in the last
term. It just defies imagination. But this is $24 million again this
week, where we're brought in from all of the corners of the United
States at an expense to stand here and do absolutely nothing.
If they want to know what the President wants to do, they should call
him up and ask him. We don't have to do a resolution or a bill on the
floor of the House to find that out if that's so important. What a
crazy thing that we could do in this time of communication to say this
is the way we're going to try to find out something--and find out what?
The drastic across-the-board spending cuts are going to take effect
on March 1. Now, the week after next we're taking another week off. We
work about two and a half days here. It's really unfortunate. I think I
can use that word without being called down, but I have much stronger
words in my head. But instead of solving that looming crisis, again,
they propose legislation that tries to change the subject. Try as they
might, they can't hide from the fact that they are failing to provide
help when American people need it most.
Mr. Speaker, we are days away from a serious self-inflicted wound.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
Mr. McGOVERN. I yield the gentlelady an additional 2 minutes.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Thank you.
If the pending sequester were to take effect, there will be such
drastic cuts to important programs, not only domestically, but as you
heard Leon Panetta, Secretary of Defense, say, it would ``hollow out''
the military and leave our military fighting with one hand tied behind
its back. Why would we do that? For no earthly reason why in the world
would we put the United States through that? Taken together, these
cuts, as was said before, would destroy jobs, reverse our economic
recovery, just reverse it, and destroy the middle class.
To get a glimpse of what drastic spending cuts would do to our
economy, just look back to the end of 2012. As leading economists of
the White House Council of Economic Advisers and President Obama have
all pointed out, the drastic spending cuts at the end of last year are
the leading causes--the leading causes--of our recent economic
stagnation. Should the sequester take effect, our economy would suffer
even more, and jobs would be lost as deeper and deeper spending cuts
take effect.
Is that the path the majority wants to walk down? Because if they
keep spending our time debating stupid legislation like this, we're
going to find ourselves on that path before too long.
I agree with Mr. McGovern that many of our colleagues seem to want to
go off that cliff for some kind of foolish exercise, knowing full well
what is going to happen, and that is really shameful.
Yesterday, our Democratic colleagues and I proposed legislation that
would stop the sequester with Mr. Van Hollen's substitute, but, no,
they would not do that. It was simply tossed aside.
The majority chose to move forward with this restrictive and partisan
process, closed rule again, that ignores the problems before us and
moves forward with a political gimmick.
As the clock continues to tick, I urge my colleagues to stop those
gimmicks and get back to work. Again, the people I spoke with just
today are saying over and over again some certainty has to be in this
government. People have to know what the economic situation is going to
be. We do not want to play Russian roulette in here with the American
economy day after day and week after week.
I urge my colleagues to stop wasting valuable time and let's provide
that certainty.
Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I just want to say to my friend from New York, for whom I do have
tremendous respect and value her counsel, to call this a stupid piece
of legislation I think really misses the point about what we're doing
here.
I would encourage you to ask your constituents in New York, and, Mr.
Speaker, I would encourage you to ask your constituents back home, do
folks realize, because I didn't, that in the four years that the
President has been President of the United States, the budgets that he
has introduced come to balance never?
My friends on the other side are making a persuasive case, Mr.
Speaker, for why it is they would support doing things with different
priorities than I would support doing things. And that's absolutely
going to be true. When we debate the budget resolution, we're going to
have different approaches for getting to balance. But the President's
budgets never get there. If we give him every spending cut he asks for,
if we give him every tax increase he asks for, if we do absolutely
everything that the budget that he is required by law to submit
requests, we will begin to pay down the first penny of debt never.
{time} 1330
In fact, if we do absolutely everything that the budget he is
required by law to submit to us asks, the debt will continue to grow
forever.
I agree with so much of what my friends on the other side are saying
about the sequester, about the fiscal cliff. That's why we acted in May
in this body. That's why we acted in August in this body on this tax
bill. That's why we passed another sequester replacement in August.
That's why we passed another one in December. I agree. But can't we
also agree that if you're going to be Commander in Chief of America, if
you're going to be the President of the United States, if you're going
to uphold and defend the Constitution--and we have our former Joint
Chief of Staff Chairman telling us that our greatest national security
threat is our growing debt--shouldn't it be fair to ask the President
to tell us when, if ever, he plans to begin paying back the first
penny?
Mr. Speaker, it's not a stupid piece of legislation that we're
dealing with today. What's almost laughably ridiculous is that it's
controversial.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. WOODALL. I believe the gentleman has much more time. I will be
happy to reserve the balance of my time, though, and allow my friend to
control.
[[Page H358]]
Mr. McGOVERN. I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from New York (Ms.
Slaughter).
Ms. SLAUGHTER. I see a number of my colleagues have come to speak, so
I'm going to be as brief as I can.
I know that the chair of the Budget Committee has said that he can
balance the budget in 10 years, which most economists and people say
would certainly throw us into the worst depression, worse than 1929.
I believe that what we are doing here--I can't prove it--but my
suspicions are that this is something intended to cover that. They're
trying to get the President into that trick box or something to try to
do the same thing.
Don't go, Mr. President. We can do better than that.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
The issue is not whether the President should submit a budget. He
should. And he would have submitted a budget by now, but because of the
theatrics that my friends on the other side put us through dealing with
the fiscal cliff, which was just solved on January 1, things are a
little bit delayed. The issue is why is the House wasting time on this
while the sword of the sequester hangs over the American people?
The President can submit any budget he wants. That's what the
President has the right to do, just like George Bush submitted whatever
budget he wanted to do.
We have a job here in this House, and that is to address this looming
fiscal crisis called the sequester. What we're doing here today is
doing nothing at all to move that ball forward.
In less than a month, arbitrary cuts are going to go into effect,
people are going to lose their jobs, and this economy is going to go
into a deeper slump. For the life of me, I can't understand why there's
not more urgency. We shouldn't be taking vacations. We actually should
be working here and trying to resolve this. This is stupid legislation
because it is not addressing the crisis. It is doing nothing to advance
the cause of trying to get to a solution. This is just a press release.
This is yet another gimmick.
I think the reason why Congress and especially the House of
Representatives is held in such low regard is because we spend so much
time on trivial matters debating passionately, and we skip over
debating the important things. We ought to be doing something important
here today. We ought to be trying to avert this sequestration. We ought
to be trying to keep people in their jobs. And we ought to be trying to
create an economy that will create more jobs, not this theater.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, there's a reason that we're spending so
much time talking about things other than the underlying bill, other
than the rule. The reason is because the rule is a good rule, and the
bill is a good bill. We can use this time for the political theater
that my friend from Massachusetts appears to disdain, but I would say
he's got a talent for it and he should not disdain it so rapidly.
Mr. Speaker, we handled the sequester in May. I hope whenever my
friend from Massachusetts refers to his friends on the other side, he
means the other side of the Chamber, not the other side of this House,
because we, you and I, acted, Mr. Speaker, to solve those issues.
Mr. McGOVERN. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. WOODALL. I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from
Massachusetts.
Mr. McGOVERN. This is the 113th Congress. We haven't done one thing
to solve this fiscal crisis that's looming on March 1st. This is the
113th.
Under the Constitution, when a new Congress begins, we have to start
all over again. Okay?
Mr. WOODALL. Reclaiming my time, my friend is exactly right. Of all
of the multiple efforts that we did last year that were all rejected by
the other side, we have not recreated those efforts again this year.
He's exactly right.
What we have done, however, is created a pathway that's going to
produce the first budget on the Senate side, the first opportunity for
the bodies to come together in conference.
My friend from New York tells us about, I'm just a bill and what
schoolchildren are learning all over America. Mr. Speaker, they're
going to have to learn on TV because they have not seen it in this
town. We can't. We can't go to conference on a budget unless the Senate
passes one. And this year, Mr. Speaker, as governed by the rule book,
the United States Constitution that I have right here in my hand, we're
going to be able to get that done. That's the kind of work this House
is doing. That's the groundwork that we're laying.
My friend from New York is exactly right, Mr. Speaker, when she says
that this body, led by Chairman Ryan on the Budget Committee, is going
to produce a budget so serious and so responsible, it's going to come
to balance, the balance the American people are demanding, faster than
any other budget we have seen in this President's administration.
All we're asking, Mr. Speaker: Doesn't it seem reasonable to let the
President submit any budget he wants to? We don't want to change the
budget he's submitting at all, but just to share with the American
people because they don't know when they come to balance.
Who knew, Mr. Speaker, when the budget was entitled a ``New Era of
Responsibility,'' that it wasn't going to come to balance in 80 years?
Who knew? I didn't. There are people in this Chamber, Mr. Speaker, who
did not know that in 4 years of his Presidency, this President has
never, ever--assuming a world where he gets everything that he wants--
crafted a plan that begins to pay back the very first penny of our
debt. That's dangerous, Mr. Speaker.
This bill can put a stop to that process. That is why I know it's
going to get support here in the House.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, this bill does nothing. It does absolutely
nothing. It's a press release.
Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an
amendment to the rule to ensure that the House votes on Mr. Van
Hollen's replacement for the sequester, which was blocked yesterday in
the Rules Committee.
My friend from Georgia talks about this being a good rule and a good
process. This bill was not even considered by the Budget Committee,
which is the committee of jurisdiction. It had no hearing. It had no
markup. It mysteriously appeared at the Rules Committee. We wanted an
open rule, and we were denied an open rule. Mr. Van Hollen actually had
a substantive amendment to replace the sequester. That was denied.
So I want to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland, the
ranking member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Van Hollen, to discuss his
amendment.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, Mr. McGovern, who
said it exactly right. This unfortunately is another political gimmick
we've seen from our Republican colleagues, and it is exactly why the
American people hate this Congress so much.
Rather than doing something to create jobs, rather than doing
something to help support the economy, this does absolutely nothing
other than point fingers at the President because his budget is a
little late and then tell the President that he has to submit a budget
that meets the Republican requirements rather than what we've done with
every other President, which gives them the ability to present the
budget they like.
With respect to the delay, our Republican colleagues know very well
what the cause of that delay was. The cause of the delay was we were
working very hard to try and avoid the fiscal cliff, which would have
hurt jobs and the economy.
I'm not surprised some of our Republican House colleagues have
forgotten about that because they overwhelmingly voted against the
fiscal cliff agreement, which by the way was supported by the
overwhelming majority of Senate Republicans. But here in the House,
Republicans in great numbers said that they would rather risk the
economy and risk jobs than ask the very wealthiest Americans to pay a
little bit more.
{time} 1340
That's why the fiscal cliff agreement took so long. We didn't get it
done until January 2. I would hope my colleagues on the Budget
Committee
[[Page H359]]
know, if you're putting together a budget, you need to know what you're
spending, but you also need to know what your revenues are. Until we
were able to get that agreement, the President didn't know what the
revenues were. Nonpartisan groups, like the Congressional Budget Office
and Joint Tax, were also delayed in their assessments. These are
nonpartisan groups.
Now, the shame of it is, instead of playing these political games, we
should do what my colleagues have said we should do in that we should
be focused on avoiding the sequester--the meat-ax, across-the-board
cuts. This House has taken no action in this Congress, in this 113th
Congress, to deal with that, so we on the Democratic side said, Hey,
let's give our Members an opportunity to vote on something to replace
the sequester and to do it in a balanced way so that we don't hurt the
economy and so that we don't put jobs at risk.
We brought a substitute amendment to the Rules Committee that would
have prevented those across-the-board cuts, that would have replaced
them with balanced and sensible alternatives like, for example,
eliminating direct payments in agricultural subsidies, like getting rid
of the taxpayer subsidies for big oil companies, that we would replace
the across-the-board, meat-ax cuts, which would do great harm to our
economy, with those sensible measures.
The response from our Republican colleagues: You don't get a vote.
You don't get a vote. They rushed to the floor a measure that hadn't
had a single hearing, that did not go through the regular order; and in
keeping with that philosophy, we don't even get a vote on something
that is important to the American people, which is to replace the
across-the-board sequester, which we know is going to hurt jobs because
we just heard from the last quarter economic report that even the fear
of those across-the-board cuts was having a damaging impact on the
economy, even the fear of it. Now, within less than a month, it's going
to happen, and here we're talking about a political gimmick bill
instead of something that does something real, and we are not even
allowed a chance to vote on a proposal to replace the sequester.
Vote against it if you want. Vote against it. That's the way the
democratic process works, but allow this House to work its will.
When this House worked its will, we were able to get a fiscal
agreement passed and were able to avoid going over the cliff and
hurting the economy. Let's do the same thing now. Let's just have a
vote, up or down, on the merits of a substitute proposal rather than
playing games with this very unfortunate proposal that does nothing but
play politics.
Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds just to say to my
friends that I haven't actually mentioned that the President's budget
was late. You're exactly right. He did miss the statutory deadline.
He's not going to make it on time. In fact, the story is that it's not
going to get here until March. In the years that I've had a voting
card, he has never submitted a budget on time. I'm not asking him to
get it here on time. I am only asking him, when it gets here, would he
tell us when it's going to balance.
With that, I would like to yield 4 minutes to a colleague on the
Rules Committee, the gentleman from Texas, Dr. Burgess.
Mr. BURGESS. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
This is an important discussion that we're having today, and I urge
my colleagues to vote for the rule and to vote for the underlying bill
that follows.
Look, the President is going to be here talking to us next week.
He'll deliver his State of the Union address. He will do so without a
plan on the table. There will be no budget. We will not know about the
proposals that are put forward as to whether or not they're reasonable
in the context of outlays and allocations. We just simply don't know.
The underlying bill that is being discussed today is that, when the
President does submit that plan, when the administration does submit
that plan, if that plan does not come into balance within a reasonable
period of time--10 years, I think, any American would say would be a
reasonable period of time--give us an idea as to when you think that
will happen. After all, when there was a campaign being run in 2008,
the Presidential candidate for the Democrats said that he'd cut the
deficit in half in 4 years, and we're still waiting. We would like to
see the plan that is going to achieve these goals.
We're also hearing a lot of talk today about the sequester. It's not
the purpose of this legislation to deal with the sequester. We did have
reconciliation bills on the floor of this House in May and then again
in December. We had a bill dealing with the expiration of the Tax Codes
right before the August recess. So there were opportunities to talk
about the fiscal cliff. I, for one, felt that the delay in the
sequester on January 1 was not in the country's best interest.
These were the cuts that the Congress promised to the American
people. When the debt limit was raised in August of 2011, this was the
promise that was made, and it was a promise that was made by the
President. It was proposed by people within the administration. The
bill was signed into law by the President. The President cannot now
come back and retroactively veto a bill that has already been signed.
This is settled law, and these are cuts on which the American people
are depending. They're depending on us to keep our word.
It's very difficult to cut spending. It's very difficult to cut the
budget. Every line in the Federal budget has a constituency. Every line
in every appropriations bill has a constituency somewhere that cares
deeply about that language being retained. So, when all else fails, an
across-the-board cut may be the only way that you can ever achieve that
spending restraint.
Now, I understand that the White House does not agree with the
Republican House that there is a spending problem. They think it's a
revenue problem. Well, great. Put that in writing. Put it in the
budget. Tell us when that revenue that you wish to achieve will bring
this budget into balance. I, for one, don't think it's possible, but I
would like to see the academic exercise of their at least trying to get
it to balance at some point in the future.
Then, finally, Mr. Speaker, may I just say--and I hate to give a
history lesson--when the Republicans were in the minority in this
House, there was a very large bill that was passed, and it was called
the Affordable Care Act. This was a bill that did not receive a hearing
in the House of Representatives. To be sure, H.R. 3200 had received a
markup in a hearing in the House, but H.R. 3590, although it had a
House bill number, was not a House bill. It was a housing bill that
passed the House of Representatives in July of 2009 and went over to
the Senate. It was completely changed in the Senate Finance Committee,
and this was the bill that came to the House of Representatives on
which we had to vote in a very short period of time. No amendments were
allowed. It was a very closed process. I was in the Rules Committee
that night. I remember the ranking member being there, and the good
ideas that I thought I brought forward were all excluded from
discussion.
So don't lecture me about the process that this bill was rushed and
didn't have a hearing. For heaven's sake, we have a bill that is now
signed law that will cost $2.6 trillion over the next 10 years that
never had a hearing in this House. That's the travesty, and that's why
we have to deal with spending.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Let me just respond to the gentleman from Texas by saying he's wrong.
He's on the Energy and Commerce Committee. The Affordable Care Act had
hearings in the Energy and Commerce Committee--and markups. There were
multiple hearings on that bill. I'm not sure what he's talking about.
Then to the gentleman from Georgia who says that he didn't mention
the fact that the President missed the deadline, I thought he did, but
the bill that he's touting here mentions it in these very political,
inspired findings. Read your own bill. It's three pages long. I know
that may be too much, but we're all told to read the bill.
Look, rather than being here and telling the President what to do--
he's going to submit a budget--we've got to do our job. Our job is to
avoid this sequestration because, if we don't, there are millions of
people in this country who will be without work. There are
[[Page H360]]
programs that will be arbitrarily cut, and this economy will be hurt.
Now, if you want sequestration, then you can continue to take your
recesses and do this kind of trivial stuff on the House floor, but we
ought to be finding a way to avoid going over this sequestration cliff.
At this point, Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).
Ms. JACKSON LEE. My friend from Massachusetts is absolutely right.
What most of America is waiting for is for us to address the very abyss
that we've put ourselves in, the cliff that we've put ourselves in--the
fact that we became hostage to this idea of a commission that was
necessary because we could not get Members on both sides of the aisle
to be able to work together on what should be cut. It was particularly
because my friends on the other side of the aisle had Members who did
not understand how government functioned. Republicans did not
understand that government, in fact, is a rainy-day umbrella, that we
are supposed to serve the American people.
So, while we are fiddling, one could say that Rome is burning, or
maybe they could say that the cities and towns of America are asking us
to finally answer the question. Under the laws that we adhere to, the
President has a right to submit his budget. That should be very clear.
No legislation here on the floor is going to dictate the President's
budget.
{time} 1350
There is a law that says it is supposed to be the first Monday in
February. We will admit that. But what President has ever had the
hostage-taking of the debt ceiling so that you can't write a budget if
there are individuals in the Congress that won't do the normal
business, which is to raise the debt ceiling so that the American
people can be taken care of?
As we speak, however, the President has introduced, today, a short-
term fix to avert the sequester. The Democrats have offered a way of
averting the sequester. We have nothing from the Republicans except a
resolution that says a request for a plan, the very plan that the
President knows by law he is going to submit as long as he knows what
the amount of money is we have to work on. And, of course, the
budgeting process is going through the House. The chairman of the
Budget, Mr. Ryan, the ranking member of the Budget, Mr. Van Hollen, we
all know the regular order, and we're going to do our work.
But putting us on the floor today and ignoring what we should be
doing, I'm saddened that my amendment that indicated that I wanted to
make sure that the most vulnerable in any budget process, 15.1 percent
of Americans living below the poverty line, which includes 21 percent
of our Nation's children, I wanted to have a sense of Congress that
whatever we did, we would not do anything to harm these vulnerable
children who, through no fault of their own that they may be suffering
from the kind of economy, or their parents are suffering so that they
live in poverty, whatever we do, we should not do anything more to make
their life more devastating.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
Mr. McGOVERN. I yield the gentlelady 10 seconds.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. My other amendment had to do with the estate tax to
raise revenue, and that would have been a reasonable debate to address
what we can do to make the lives of Americans better.
Request a plan; a plan is not action. The President does a budget; we
do a budget. Mr. Speaker, let's do our work and help the American
people and avoid the sequester.
Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to say to my
colleague that I share her great passion for America's children and
protecting America's children. And I would say to my friend that I
don't believe we can continue to operate under budgets that borrow from
those children, not just this year, not just next year, but forever,
and candidly say that we're protecting them. We're putting our most
vulnerable at risk with these deficits, and we have to make the tough
decisions.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. WOODALL. I'd be happy to yield.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Let me just say, I don't think anyone on this side of the aisle is
not prepared to work collaboratively on the question of the deficit, on
the question of growing America's economy and working with our
children. Can we find common ground that indicates that we must invest
in our children at the same time that we are likewise talking about
debt and deficit? And that's what the Democrats are talking about,
investing in our children, making their lives better.
Mr. WOODALL. I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
We all want to make sure that our children are protected, but
embracing a sequester that cuts things like Head Start, that's no way
to protect our children.
At this point, I'd like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Connecticut (Mr. Courtney).
Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, in 23 days, by law, an indiscriminate
chain saw is going to go through all quarters, all sectors of the
American Government.
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta on Sunday, along with General
Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, very bluntly warned
this country that if sequestration goes into effect, America's military
readiness is going to be damaged in a very critical way. The Navy has
told us specifically what this means: 23 ships whose repairs are
scheduled will be cancelled; 55 percent of flying hours on aircraft
carriers will be cancelled; 22 percent of steaming days for the rest of
the U.S. fleet will be cancelled; submarine deployments will be
cancelled.
Today, right now, we have the USS Stennis and the USS Eisenhower
stationed in the Middle East making sure that our allies, Israel,
Turkey, critical missions like protecting the Straits of Hormuz, they
have to have aircraft that can fly. They can't cancel 55 percent of
their flight time and expect to carry out their mission. Yet in 23
days, because of inaction by this Chamber, we are putting, again,
America's national security interests at risk.
The Bipartisan Policy Center, founded by Bob Dole and Tom Daschle,
has told us we will lose a million jobs if sequestration goes through.
So those shipyards that are planning to do that repair work, they're
basically going to get layoff slips.
And we are debating a bill today that has absolutely no connection to
those realities. This is a pure political stunt. It has no bearing in
terms of whether or not the military readiness of this country or the
economic recovery that's headed in the right direction right now is
going to be protected and preserved. That's our job. That's what we
should be focused on here today. And denying the Van Hollen amendment,
which would replace that sequestration, is why this rule must be
defeated.
I urge Members of this Chamber to vote ``no'' on this rule.
Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume
to read from the President's inaugural address. It took place just
outside our backdoor here. He said:
We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health
care and the size of our deficit.
He didn't say we should make the easy choices, because there aren't
any easy choices left to make. Every single one of them is hard. And I
have such great respect for Members of this body who have taken the
hard votes and made those hard decisions.
All this bill says is: Mr. President, put your budget where your
speeches are. Make the hard choices, any of the choices you want to
make to balance, anytime you want to balance, but we can't begin to pay
down the debt until we stop running up the debt. And we have yet to see
a budget from this President that puts us on that path.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Florida (Mr. Deutch).
Mr. DEUTCH. Mr. Speaker, I rise today disappointed that my amendment
to the Require a PLAN Act has been left out of this rule.
This bill is bad political theater. Not even the devastatingly
dangerous Ryan budget could achieve the balanced budget in 2014 this
bill demands of the President.
[[Page H361]]
Setting this silliness aside, my amendment would address a separate
issue: this bill's use of the phrase ``unified budget'' and the
inclusion of Social Security as part of that unified budget. This is a
blatant attempt to nullify Social Security's historic independence from
the Federal budget. Social Security is funded by the payroll tax. It
was created with its own revenue stream so these hard-earned benefits
would never fall victim to the political shenanigans of a Congress like
this one.
As President Franklin Roosevelt said:
With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever
scrap my Social Security.
Mr. Speaker, Social Security is not an item in the budget. It is
social insurance that protects all Americans against destitution due to
old age, a disability or illness, or the death of a breadwinner.
Workers have built up $2.7 trillion in the Social Security trust fund
which ensures that benefits will be paid in full at least until the
mid-2030s. I have called for small adjustments to strengthen Social
Security for the long term, and I'm ready to have that debate. But to
put Social Security on the general budget's ledger as America's largest
generation retires is simply beyond the pale.
This bill, Mr. Speaker, puts Social Security on the GOP chopping
block. This is a dangerous precedent. We cannot allow the accounting
tricks in this bad legislation to endanger the Social Security that
keeps so many Americans financially secure.
President Truman said:
Social Security is not a dole or a device for giving
everybody something for nothing. True Social Security must
consist of rights which are earned rights that are guaranteed
by the law of the land.
Today, Mr. Speaker, these earned rights of millions of Americans are
in jeopardy, as is that guarantee. We must vote down this rule and we
must vote down this bad bill.
Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 60 seconds to say to my
friend that I know his commitment to Social Security is heartfelt, and
it's one that I share. I hope it gives him comfort to know that there
is absolutely nothing in this legislation that changes any of those
commitments that he read there on the House floor. In fact, I would say
the opposite is true. As someone who's going to retire after Social
Security is projected to have gone bankrupt, I think it is critically
important that every budget we look at looks at how it is we're going
to pay back all of those government bonds that this Congress has
swapped the cash in the Social Security trust fund for. Without paying
back those bonds, there is no Social Security check to go out the door.
The reason we talk about balanced budgets is because numbers are
important. We talk about balanced budgets because commitments are
important. And we cannot, we cannot meet our Medicare commitments. We
cannot meet our Social Security commitments, and everyone in this body
knows it.
{time} 1400
Every budget the President produces shows it. But we can do better;
and working together, we will do better, Mr. Speaker.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of the gentleman from
Georgia how many more speakers he has.
Mr. WOODALL. I'd say to my friend, I'm prepared to close.
Mr. McGOVERN. I'm prepared to close as well, Mr. Speaker. I yield
myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, this is a very frustrating debate, in large part because
it's much ado about nothing. What we're doing here today is a press
release. It's doing nothing at all to avoid this prospect of
sequestration in which arbitrary cuts will go into play. This is just
more talk and talk and talk and talk.
Again, that's one of the reasons why the American people are so
frustrated with this place. They want less talk and more work. We
should be working. We should be coming to some sort of agreement to
avoid the catastrophe of sequestration; but, instead, we're doing this.
Mr. Speaker, I want to put some things in perspective. The Center for
American Progress reported that since the start of fiscal year 2011,
President Obama has signed into law approximately $2.4 trillion of
deficit reduction for the years 2013 through 2022. Nearly three-
quarters of that deficit reduction is in the form of spending cuts,
while the remaining one-quarter comes from revenue increases. Congress
and the President have cut about $1.5 trillion in programmatic
spending, raised about $630 billion in new revenue, and generated about
$300 billion in interest savings, for a combined total of more than
$2.4 trillion in deficit reduction. That's a quote from the Center for
American Progress.
So three-fourths of the deficit reduction we've achieved so far was
from spending cuts. But my friends on the other side have the nerve to
continue to claim that Democrats are ``loathe'' to agree to spending
cuts. I mean, give me a break, Mr. Speaker. Give me a break.
The CBO projects the Federal deficit to be about $845 billion, which
I think is very high; but it's the first time the nonpartisan office
forecast a deficit below $1 trillion. So we are going in the right
direction, and the President wants to continue to move in that right
direction in a fair and balanced way.
Now, here's the deal. My friends keep on referring to what they did
last year which, again, was last year. We have to get them to think
about this year because they have to act now; it's a new Congress.
But last year the proposals they came up with to try to bring our
budget into balance were all about lowering the quality of life for our
citizens. Their budget proposal ended Medicare as we know it. Ended
Medicare. It's gone.
My friend from Florida talked about Social Security. Their plan for
Social Security is to privatize it. And deep reductions and cuts that
provide support for people who are most vulnerable. That's their plan.
And now, we see, because we're not trying to address this latest
fiscal cliff, I think they really do want the sequestration to go into
effect. I think that is outrageous. I think it's going to be dangerous
to our economy. But their plan, by allowing sequestration to go into
effect, is basically to try to balance the budget by making more people
unemployed.
You know, we will lose jobs. In the defense sector that's already
happening. But then we're going to see losses in jobs in other areas.
There'll be cuts in education. Police grants are cut. Payments to
Medicare providers are cut. And The New York Times reports that even
the aid just approved for victims of Hurricane Sandy will fall under
the sequester's axe.
I mean, this is how we're going to solve our budgetary problems?
Yes, we do have a big debt. A lot of it has to do with these unpaid-
for wars, with these tax cuts that weren't paid for; and it's going to
take us a while to get out of it. But as we get out of it, we can't
destroy our country. We need a balanced approach. We need to cut where
we can cut, we need to raise revenues where we need to raise revenues,
but we also need to invest.
Cutting the National Institutes of Health, which will happen if
sequestration goes into effect, will not only cost jobs, but it will
prolong human suffering. If we could find a cure to Parkinson's disease
or Alzheimer's disease, not only will we prevent a lot of human
suffering, you would end up solving the budgetary challenges of
Medicare and Medicaid. There's a value in investing in these things,
not arbitrarily cutting them.
Now, last night in the Rules Committee, we tried to bring some
substance to this debate. Mr. Van Hollen had his amendment, which was
blocked. The one substantive thing that we could have done here today
to avoid sequestration was blocked.
So, Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an
amendment to the rule to ensure that the House votes on Mr. Van
Hollen's replacement for the sequester which was, again, blocked last
night in the Rules Committee.
I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the
Record, along with extraneous materials immediately prior to the vote
on the previous question.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Massachusetts?
[[Page H362]]
There was no objection.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, again, I would urge my colleagues to
reject this rule which, again, is illustrative of how closed this
process has become in this House. We ought to reject the rule because
it is not open. The Budget Committee never even considered this bill.
But we ought to also reject the underlying bill because this is
nonsense at a time when we should be doing something real to avoid a
real catastrophe in this country, to avoid something that will have an
adverse impact on our economy. Instead, you know, we're all fiddling
while Rome is burning.
This is outrageous. We can do so much better. We ought to work. You
know, you're passing resolutions asking the President to do X, Y, and
Z. We ought to pass a resolution to instruct us to do our job, and
that's what we ought to do. That's what the American people expect.
So, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the
previous question. I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time to
thank my friend from Massachusetts for being down here with me today to
get this rule to a place where we can vote on it. I always look to my
friend from Massachusetts to find those things that we agree on, and we
certainly agree that Congress has an awfully low approval rating.
I would disagree with my friend though, Mr. Speaker, and say it's a
low approval rating because we don't deal with important issues like
this. It's a low approval rating because folks will say Republicans
want to privatize Social Security, even though our budget did no such
thing.
It's a low approval rating because folks will say our budget destroys
Medicare forever, even though our budget did no such thing. It's a low
approval rating because folks say they want to grapple with the tough
challenges of the country, and yet they continue to borrow and spend as
they always have.
But I'm an optimist, Mr. Speaker. I really do believe that we've come
to a place--not just in this country, not just in this House--I think
we've come to a place in each individual in this country, where folks
are prepared to do those things that must be done to ensure that our
children's tomorrow is better than their today.
Mr. Speaker, when my colleagues on the other side of the aisle talk
about their deep love and affection for the next generation and how
they want to ensure that the most vulnerable are taken care of, they
mean it from the heart. They mean it from the heart.
But when the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff tells us
that our biggest national security concern is our growing debt and
deficits, how much love can you show to the next generation, Mr.
Speaker, when you continue to dig into their pockets instead of your
own?
It's not incumbent upon us to decide how our children set their
priorities. It's incumbent upon us to set our priorities so that they
don't have to make those tough decisions.
Mr. Speaker, if we went out in the street in front of this Capitol
and asked every man and woman who brought their family here to visit
the Nation's Capitol how many of them knew that in not one budget, and
for not 1 year does the President ever propose that we come to balance,
that would be shocking, shocking news. And yet it's the truth.
Mr. Speaker, title 31 lays out in intricate detail congressional
requirements for the President's budget. Congressional requirements for
the President's budget. H.R. 444 would incorporate those requirements
and add one more and, that is, that in this time of economic challenge,
you be honest with the American people about the tough choices that
we're all facing.
Mr. Speaker, if it was easy, they'd have done it before you and I got
here. It's hard, and it's getting worse every single day any one of us
fails to deal with it.
We can deal with it today, Mr. Speaker. I know our Budget Committee
is committed to dealing with it. I know this House is committed to deal
with it. Let's make the President a partner in that today.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I urge strong support for the resolution. I
urge strong support for the underlying bill.
The material previously referred to by Mr. McGovern is as follows:
An amendment to H. Res. 48 Offered by Mr. McGovern of Massachusetts
At the end of the resolution, add the following:
Sec. 2. Notwithstanding any other provision of this
resolution, the amendment in the nature of a substitute
received for printing in the Congressional Record pursuant to
clause 8 of rule XVIII and numbered 1 shall be in order as
though printed as the last amendment in the report of the
Committee on Rules if offered by Representative Van Hollen of
Maryland or a designee. That amendment shall be debatable for
one hour equally divided and controlled by the proponent and
an opponent.
____
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 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. WOODALL. 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 9 of rule XX, the Chair
will reduce to 5 minutes the minimum time for any electronic vote on
the question of adoption.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 229,
nays 188, not voting 14, as follows:
[[Page H363]]
[Roll No. 33]
YEAS--229
Aderholt
Alexander
Amash
Amodei
Bachmann
Bachus
Barletta
Barr
Barton
Benishek
Bentivolio
Bilirakis
Bishop (UT)
Blackburn
Bonner
Boustany
Brady (TX)
Bridenstine
Brooks (AL)
Brooks (IN)
Broun (GA)
Buchanan
Bucshon
Burgess
Calvert
Camp
Campbell
Cantor
Capito
Carter
Cassidy
Chabot
Chaffetz
Coble
Coffman
Cole
Collins (GA)
Collins (NY)
Conaway
Cook
Cotton
Cramer
Crenshaw
Cuellar
Culberson
Daines
Davis, Rodney
Denham
Dent
DeSantis
DesJarlais
Diaz-Balart
Duffy
Duncan (SC)
Duncan (TN)
Ellmers
Farenthold
Fincher
Fitzpatrick
Fleischmann
Fleming
Flores
Forbes
Fortenberry
Foxx
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Gallego
Gardner
Garrett
Gerlach
Gibbs
Gibson
Gingrey (GA)
Gohmert
Goodlatte
Gosar
Gowdy
Granger
Graves (GA)
Graves (MO)
Green, Gene
Griffin (AR)
Griffith (VA)
Grimm
Guthrie
Hall
Hanna
Harper
Harris
Hartzler
Hastings (WA)
Heck (NV)
Hensarling
Herrera Beutler
Holding
Hudson
Huelskamp
Huizenga (MI)
Hultgren
Hunter
Hurt
Issa
Jenkins
Johnson (OH)
Johnson, Sam
Jones
Jordan
Joyce
Kelly
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kinzinger (IL)
Kline
Labrador
LaMalfa
Lamborn
Lance
Lankford
Latham
Latta
LoBiondo
Long
Lucas
Luetkemeyer
Lummis
Marchant
Marino
Massie
Matheson
McCarthy (CA)
McCaul
McClintock
McHenry
McKeon
McKinley
McMorris Rodgers
Meadows
Meehan
Messer
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller, Gary
Mullin
Mulvaney
Murphy (PA)
Neugebauer
Noem
Nugent
Nunes
Nunnelee
Olson
Palazzo
Paulsen
Pearce
Perry
Petri
Pittenger
Pitts
Poe (TX)
Pompeo
Posey
Price (GA)
Radel
Reed
Reichert
Renacci
Ribble
Rice (SC)
Rigell
Roby
Roe (TN)
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Rokita
Rooney
Ros-Lehtinen
Roskam
Ross
Rothfus
Royce
Runyan
Ryan (WI)
Salmon
Scalise
Schock
Schweikert
Scott, Austin
Sessions
Shimkus
Shuster
Simpson
Smith (NE)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Southerland
Stewart
Stivers
Stockman
Stutzman
Terry
Thompson (PA)
Thornberry
Tiberi
Tipton
Turner
Upton
Valadao
Wagner
Walden
Walorski
Webster (FL)
Wenstrup
Westmoreland
Whitfield
Williams
Wilson (SC)
Wittman
Wolf
Womack
Woodall
Yoder
Yoho
Young (AK)
Young (IN)
NAYS--188
Andrews
Barber
Barrow (GA)
Bass
Beatty
Becerra
Bera (CA)
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Blumenauer
Bonamici
Brady (PA)
Braley (IA)
Brown (FL)
Brownley (CA)
Bustos
Butterfield
Capps
Capuano
Cardenas
Carney
Carson (IN)
Cartwright
Castor (FL)
Castro (TX)
Chu
Clarke
Clay
Cleaver
Clyburn
Cohen
Connolly
Cooper
Courtney
Crowley
Cummings
Davis (CA)
Davis, Danny
DeFazio
DeGette
Delaney
DelBene
Deutch
Dingell
Doggett
Doyle
Duckworth
Edwards
Ellison
Engel
Enyart
Eshoo
Esty
Fattah
Foster
Frankel (FL)
Fudge
Garamendi
Garcia
Grayson
Green, Al
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Hahn
Hanabusa
Hastings (FL)
Heck (WA)
Higgins
Himes
Hinojosa
Holt
Honda
Horsford
Hoyer
Huffman
Israel
Jackson Lee
Jeffries
Johnson (GA)
Johnson, E. B.
Kaptur
Keating
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilmer
Kind
Kirkpatrick
Kuster
Langevin
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Lee (CA)
Levin
Lewis
Lipinski
Loebsack
Lofgren
Lowenthal
Lowey
Lujan Grisham (NM)
Lujan, Ben Ray (NM)
Lynch
Maffei
Maloney, Carolyn
Maloney, Sean
Markey
Matsui
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum
McDermott
McGovern
McIntyre
Meeks
Meng
Michaud
Miller, George
Moore
Moran
Murphy (FL)
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal
Negrete McLeod
Nolan
O'Rourke
Owens
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor (AZ)
Payne
Pelosi
Perlmutter
Peters (CA)
Peters (MI)
Peterson
Pingree (ME)
Pocan
Polis
Price (NC)
Quigley
Rahall
Rangel
Richmond
Roybal-Allard
Ruiz
Ruppersberger
Rush
Ryan (OH)
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sarbanes
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schneider
Schrader
Schwartz
Scott (VA)
Serrano
Sewell (AL)
Shea-Porter
Sherman
Sinema
Sires
Slaughter
Smith (WA)
Speier
Swalwell (CA)
Takano
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tierney
Titus
Tonko
Tsongas
Van Hollen
Vargas
Veasey
Vela
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walz
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watt
Waxman
Welch
Wilson (FL)
Yarmuth
NOT VOTING--14
Black
Cicilline
Conyers
Costa
Crawford
DeLauro
Farr
Gabbard
McNerney
Scott, David
Sensenbrenner
Walberg
Weber (TX)
Young (FL)
{time} 1430
Mrs. KIRKPATRICK, Messrs. HONDA, PAYNE, POLIS, Mrs. CAPPS and Ms.
CASTOR of Florida changed their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
Mr. McHENRY changed his vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
So the previous question was agreed to.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________