[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 32 (Wednesday, March 6, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H987-H997]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 933, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, 
 MILITARY CONSTRUCTION AND VETERANS AFFAIRS, AND FULL-YEAR CONTINUING 
                        APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2013

  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call 
up House Resolution 99 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                               H. Res. 99

       Resolved, That upon the adoption of this resolution it 
     shall be in order to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 
     933) making appropriations for the Department of Defense, the 
     Department of Veterans Affairs, and other departments and 
     agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2013, 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, and on any 
     amendment thereto to final passage without intervening motion 
     except: (1) one hour of debate equally divided and controlled 
     by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on 
     Appropriations; and (2) one motion to recommit with or 
     without instructions.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hastings of Washington). The gentleman 
from Oklahoma is recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the 
customary 30 minutes to my good friend, the gentleman from Worcester, 
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.


                             General Leave

  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 
5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Oklahoma?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Rules Committee met and 
reported a rule for the consideration of H.R. 933, the Department of 
Defense, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Full-Year 
Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013.
  The rule is a closed rule, which provides for the consideration of 
fully conferenced Department of Defense and Military Construction and 
Veterans Affairs bills and a continuing resolution for other government 
programs at the FY 2012 levels. This rule provides for 1 hour of 
debate, equally divided between the chairman and the ranking member of 
the Committee on Appropriations. In addition, the rule incorporates a 
purely technical amendment to the bill by Chairman Rogers.

                              {time}  1020

  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 933 accomplishes several key objectives.
  First, it preserves military readiness and national security 
capability, while maintaining core commitments to our troops and our 
veterans.
  Second, it ends the current uncertainty of the fiscal year 2013 
budget. It seems that over the past year, we have moved from fiscal 
crisis to fiscal crisis. Thanks to the leadership of Chairman Rogers 
and Chairman Sessions, we are able to consider funding the Federal 
Government through the end of the fiscal year at this point, avoiding 
the threat of a government shutdown.
  Additionally, by considering full-year DOD and MilCon-VA bills, we 
are able to establish a stable baseline for the Department to act upon, 
as opposed to having them rely on fiscal year 2012 priorities. This 
bill realigns the appropriation accounts for Department of Defense and 
MilCon-VA to better reflect the fiscal year 2013 execution, rather than 
the fiscal year 2012 levels carried forward in a CR.
  Mr. Speaker, this legislation operates under the caps of the Budget 
Control Act of 2011 as modified by the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 
2012. There are across-the-board reductions in security and nonsecurity 
spending to reach the caps of $1.043 trillion. Additionally, there is a 
provision which ensures that the funding will be reduced to the post-
sequester level of $982 billion in total spending, a reduction of $85 
billion in overall Federal spending for fiscal year 2013.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, I want to spend a moment discussing the 
anomalies in this bill. Let me assure my colleagues on both sides of 
the aisle that none of the anomalies in this legislation, on net, do 
anything that raise the cost of the bill above the statutory Budget 
Control Act caps.
  Some of the anomalies in the bill are things like turning off the 
$100 million in convention funding for Charlotte and Tampa, and turning 
off $31 million in funding for the Eisenhower Commission, where funding 
has been delayed indefinitely and no funds have yet been expended.
  These anomalies are limited. There are only approximately 80 in the 
entire bill. For reference, in the last full-year continuing 
resolution, there were over 600 anomalies. The Appropriations Committee 
has been judicious in its use of anomalies, only providing them in 
cases where mission-critical operations might be impacted.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a good bill. I urge support for the rule and the 
underlying bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from 
Oklahoma, my friend, Mr. Cole, 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, we are here to consider the rule for H.R. 
933, the continuing resolution for the rest of fiscal year 2013. This 
is a disappointing bill, Mr. Speaker, and this is a disappointing 
process.
  This continuing resolution, quite frankly, is inadequate. It does not 
meet the needs of our people. And because it does not address 
sequestration, it actually will hurt many millions of our people. The 
Department of Defense and the VA are given some flexibility to deal 
with the devastating sequestration cuts, but no other agency is given 
that tool.
  This is clearly, in my opinion, a tacit statement by the majority 
that they are going to keep this harmful sequester, one of the 
stupidest things ever to come out of Congress.
  And that, Mr. Speaker, is the disappointing part of this entire 
process. The majority has had plenty of opportunity to address the 
sequester. Time after time after time after time, Democrats, through 
the efforts of the ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee, Mr. Van 
Hollen, have offered a sequester alternative. And time after time after 
time after time, the Republican majority has blocked this amendment 
from being debated and voted on the House floor.

[[Page H988]]

  Yet the Republicans in Congress have yet to put forth a sequester 
alternative. Of course they will say that they have passed two 
different proposals, but that was last Congress. As many of my friends 
on the other side of the aisle know so well, legislation dies at the 
end of each Congress. Every 2 years, Congress repopulates and every 
bill must start over. There is no carryover from one Congress to the 
next. We all learned that in the most basic political science class, 
Politics 101. So this claim that we did something last Congress is 
irrelevant to addressing the sequester that the Republicans let take 
effect last week.
  And let's remember the context of those two bills the House 
Republicans are so proud of. They were the result of, once again, the 
Republican leadership walking away from difficult bipartisan 
negotiations just at the moment when a deal seemed to be within reach. 
They both are completely partisan bills, and they both were dead on 
arrival in the Senate. So they were not genuine efforts to solve 
problems. They were all for show. They were simply political theater.
  On the other hand, at the end of the last Congress, the House 
Republican leadership had a bipartisan, bicameral negotiated omnibus 
appropriations bill that would have taken us through fiscal year 2013, 
the result of hundreds of hours of careful bipartisan negotiation. But 
the House Republicans would not let that bill come to the floor for 
approval, a bill that would have passed the Senate and gone straight to 
the President's desk for signature.
  Instead, they chose to waste the House's time on its two highly 
touted, highly partisan budget bills that went nowhere. But as I said, 
Mr. Speaker, that was the last Congress, and we must now start all over 
to address the sequester and provide funding for the remainder of this 
fiscal year.
  Frankly, I don't know what the Republicans in the House are scared 
of. Speaker Boehner seems to have moved past the Hastert rule, which is 
a silly notion that the bill must only pass if it has the majority of 
the majority, and he has replaced it with selective bipartisanship. 
That's right, Speaker Boehner clearly believes that the House should 
operate under a process of selective bipartisanship.
  This means he turns to Democrats when he needs the votes to pass 
important bills, like he did for VAWA, the fiscal cliff, and Hurricane 
Sandy relief, when only 49 Republicans, only 49 Republicans out of 232 
voted to help our fellow citizens on the east coast who were devastated 
by that storm. The Speaker should do the same thing with the sequester 
and allow the House to debate and to vote on the Van Hollen amendment.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, this is part of a broader Republican economic 
plan that is, to put it mildly, extremely disappointing.
  First, Republicans brought us to the brink of economic mayhem with 
the fiscal cliff. At the last minute, the Senate swooped in to save the 
day with leadership and help from the administration. Then House 
Republicans allowed the sequester to take effect, once again playing 
Russian roulette with our economy. Now we are going to consider this 
hybrid CR that just doesn't pass muster, despite the best efforts of 
the appropriators.
  No one--no one--wants a government shutdown, and we all know that 
some kind of bill funding the Federal Government through the end of the 
fiscal year will pass before March 27. The real fights are going to 
come in the next few weeks and months when the Republicans outline 
their budget priorities with the new Ryan budget and when the debt 
limit, once again, needs to be raised.
  What is clear is that the Republicans are hell-bent on cutting 
spending just for its own sake, no matter how mindless or senseless. We 
know that the economy is slowly rebounding, and we also know that these 
cuts in government spending--Federal, State, and local--are taking 
their toll on the economy. Fourth-quarter growth last year was reduced 
only because of reduced government spending--the cuts to cops, the cuts 
to firefighters, the cuts to teachers, and other workers--when that 
showed up in that economic report.
  Now we are going to see a Republican budget that supposedly 
eliminates the deficit in 10 years. Call it the Ryan budget on 
steroids. It is going to cut Medicare, food stamps, and nearly every 
nondefense discretionary program funded by the Federal Government; and 
during the debt ceiling debate, we will see another attempt to 
arbitrarily cut these programs.
  Mr. Speaker, this is not a responsible way to govern. The continuing 
resolution before us today is just one more example of how the House 
Republicans are leading with their heads in the sand. Instead of 
working to jump-start our economy, instead of engaging in true 
bipartisan negotiations, House Republicans continue to push on with 
misguided and ill-conceived budget cuts that do harm, but no good.
  Like I said, this is a disappointing bill and a disappointing effort. 
We should be considering an omnibus appropriations bill. We should work 
to replace the sequester. We should be thinking long-term about 
economic recovery. We should be putting country ahead of political 
party. Instead, once again, we are playing games with our economy. This 
is no way to run a government.
  I reserve the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1030

  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I 
just want to make a few quick comments in reference to my good friend's 
remarks. You referred to an interesting phrase, ``selective 
bipartisanship.'' I would suggest to my friend that we've probably 
practiced that more in 2 months than they did in 2 years when they were 
in the majority.
  These were major pieces of legislation that we did move in a 
bipartisan fashion. As my good friend knows, I helped on all three of 
those occasions, was happy to do so, and I'm sure the Speaker will 
continue to try and work across the aisle whenever he can.
  My friend also referred to the nature of the cuts. Let me assure him 
of this: these are cuts, and they are going to occur; but we've 
repeatedly told our friends and the President and the Senate that we 
would be more than happy to redistribute where the cuts are going to 
occur. We did that twice: in May of last year and in December of last 
year, after the election, in good faith. In neither case did the Senate 
pick that up or the White House respond with a serious offer. Now my 
friend is asking us to do it for a third time in the hopes it will be 
different.
  Perhaps this time you should go first. Perhaps the Senate should 
actually pass a plan or the President actually lay one out. I don't 
think we've really seen that. But again, if we see that, we'll be 
willing to work with our friends and try and redistribute the cuts.
  But don't have any illusion that we're going to eliminate them. We're 
not, any more than our friends eliminated the idea of tax cuts when the 
Bush tax cuts ran out. This is something we feel is a first step in 
getting our fiscal house in order.
  And let me remind my friend, as I know he knows, this bill, in 
itself, is an effort to work with the President and the administration. 
The President has said, and I think quite correctly, that we need to 
avoid a government shutdown. Mr. Rogers and the Appropriations 
Committee are acting early and acting, I think, in a very responsible 
manner to put a vehicle out there and begin to move it through the 
process.
  We are more than willing for the Senate to do the same thing, would 
expect that they will. They may well add other departments. Frankly, 
speaking only for myself, I would hope that they do. I would like to 
recapture a lot of the appropriations work that was done for the fiscal 
year 2013 and lost during the CR process, and we can have, I think, a 
good negotiation going back and forth between the two parties.
  So this is the beginning of a process. It's the beginning of a return 
to regular order, and it's an opportunity to work, I think, in a 
bipartisan fashion.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  And I have great respect for my colleague from Oklahoma, and I 
appreciate the efforts that he has made toward bipartisanship on a 
number of bills; but, quite frankly, the leadership of this House has 
not adhered to regular order. We haven't seen regular in order a long 
time.

[[Page H989]]

  And when he talks about trying to find an alternative to 
sequestration, I would remind my colleague that Mr. Van Hollen, who is 
about to speak, has tried on four occasions--on four occasions--to be 
able to come to the floor and offer his alternative to sequestration 
that the Democrats support--I think some Republicans would support it 
as well--to have a debate and to have an up-or-down vote to avoid these 
mindless, senseless, across-the-board, indiscriminate cuts that have 
now gone into place. He's been denied all four times.
  Now, by contrast, the Republicans have had zero alternatives. That's 
right, zero. They have brought nothing to the floor in this Congress to 
avoid sequestration. We're in March--January, February, March. We're in 
March, so we've had time to come up with alternatives. We've had an 
alternative that we have not allowed to be brought to the floor.
  And let me just say, the United States Senate did actually pass an 
alternative with 51 votes. That's a majority. Unfortunately, I think, 
partly due to the influence of some of the House leadership here, the 
Republicans said, no, you need 60 votes to get that thing through.
  So we have been trying. The White House has been trying. So the fact 
that we are here and that my Republican friends have allowed 
sequestration to go into effect, I think, is, quite frankly, 
unconscionable. We should not be in this mess.
  And sequestration took effect last week. We should have stayed in 
session all week and tried to figure this out. And my friends adjourned 
the House, recessed the House on Thursday--no urgency, no nothing. 
And research to education funding to funding for roads and bridges. It 
will impact, in a negative way, jobs. People will lose their jobs.

  This is not a good deal. This is not a good deal. And, quite frankly, 
we should be here today trying to find an alternative.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), the ranking member on the Budget Committee.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank my colleague, Mr. McGovern, and thank my 
colleague, Mr. Cole, for his efforts, but this bill falls short in a 
number of areas. But most of all, it falls short because it does 
nothing to prevent the loss of 750,000 American jobs that will result 
because of the sequester.
  ``Sequester'' is just a fancy Washington name for hundreds of 
thousands of American jobs lost. That's going to squeeze middle class 
families; it's going to squeeze small businesses.
  And that 750,000 jobs lost number, that's not the President's number, 
Mr. Speaker. That's not my number. That's the number from the 
nonpartisan, independent Congressional Budget Office, who have told us 
that if the sequester stays in place till the end of this calendar 
year, you'll have 750,000 less Americans working at a time when we have 
a very fragile recovery going on.
  Just last week, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve said that it 
would reduce economic growth this year by one-third. Why would we want 
to do that when we have an alternative?
  And, as Mr. McGovern said, we have now tried four times to have an 
up-or-down vote on the floor of this House on a plan that would replace 
the sequester in a balanced way. So it would achieve the same amount of 
deficit reduction as the across-the-board sequester, but without the 
massive job loss that comes with the sequester because we do it in a 
targeted way over a period of time.
  We reduce overpayments and subsidies to the agriculture area, which 
there's consensus on, but we also close some big tax loopholes. We say 
big oil companies no longer need big taxpayer subsidies, something that 
President Bush proposed. And yet our colleagues are so insistent on 
protecting those special interest tax breaks and not allowing those 
funds to be used to reduce the deficit, that they haven't even allowed 
a vote up or down here on the floor of the House.
  As my colleague, Mr. McGovern said, we have now tried four times. How 
many times have our Republican colleagues put forward a solution to 
replace the sequester this year? Zero. Zero when it counts.
  So this is a very simple question. As part of this bill, we should 
have an up-or-down vote in the people's House on a choice. We're not 
asking our colleagues to vote for it, but I think if you look at 
surveys from the American people, the overwhelming majority of the 
American people support this replacement approach, this balanced 
approach to avoiding the sequester, than the huge job losses that 
result as a result of the sequester.
  And people should not be misled when they look at the numbers in 
different funding categories in this bill, because it's not what it 
seems. They will be cut dramatically. That will mean fewer researchers 
looking for cures and treatments to diseases, fewer nurses taking care 
of veterans at our hospitals.
  So, Mr. Speaker, we just ask, in the interest of openness and 
transparency, give us a vote. Give the American people a vote on an 
alternative to the sequester so we don't lose hundreds of thousands of 
jobs.
  Mr. COLE. Just for the purpose of response, I yield myself such time 
as I may consume.
  I appreciate my good friend's offer on staying in session last week. 
It would have been nice if we'd have dealt with this 18 months ago. 
We've known it's been coming. We tried to do that twice.
  I'm not sure the President would have been around last week. Frankly, 
he spent the last 6 weeks crisscrossing the country, campaigning and 
bludgeoning people, as opposed to having a dialogue. He did not bother 
to invite the Speaker, the Majority Leader, or the leader of the Senate 
or the minority leader of this House to a meeting until the very last 
day--the very last day. Now, that suggests to us there wasn't a great 
deal of interest in serious negotiations.
  So, again, this process is going to allow that to occur. We're going 
to advance our bill through this Chamber. It's going to have 
incorporated some of the work in the appropriations process. It's going 
to help the Defense Department a great deal.
  We're waiting for our friends in the Senate to do the same thing. 
They're going to, undoubtedly, add some things. I think there will be a 
negotiation. I think we will end up in a good place. But we will 
preserve the spending reductions of the sequester in the final product 
of the bill.
  With all due respect to my friend, revenue's off the table. You had 
revenue about 6, 8 weeks ago with no cuts. This time I suspect you're 
going to get cuts and no revenue.
  With that, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from the great State of 
Texas (Mr. Burgess), my distinguished colleague, classmate, and a 
distinguished physician.

                              {time}  1040

  Mr. BURGESS. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  This is an important bill that we are considering today. It's not a 
perfect bill. It's not the bill that I would write if I had the power 
to write the bill. But it's an important bill. And as a conservative, 
I'm going to support the rule and I'm going to support the bill.
  Mr. Cole already referenced that the most important thing that's 
happening this morning is the savings that began last Friday are locked 
in in the continuing resolution. These are savings that have been 
anticipated for years, delayed for months, and finally arrived last 
Friday. The market responded yesterday with an all-time high. It's time 
to let those savings work their magic on the American economy.
  It does allow the Department of Defense the flexibility that they 
asked for to be able to manage their business with the reduced level of 
funding. And I think protecting our soldiers and protecting the pay of 
our soldiers is one of the highest constitutional functions of this 
body and one that we should take seriously. I believe this bill does 
that.
  This bill also protects funding for our veterans, which is also 
important.
  I know a lot of people on my side are concerned because the 
President's Affordable Care Act, the President's government takeover of 
health care, is not damaged in this exchange. In truth, some of the 
funding for implementation is reduced because it's kept at last year's 
levels and it is affected by the savings in the sequester. But to those 
on my side who would say it doesn't go far enough in restricting the 
Affordable Care Act, I would say that we are going

[[Page H990]]

to get opportunities to fight that fight--multiple opportunities--in 
the few short weeks ahead. Where will they come? They will come in our 
budget. They will come in the appropriations bill. The appropriations 
bills, in the House, at least, will be run in an open fashion. There 
will be open appropriations bills. And in Labor-HHS there will be ample 
opportunity to demand of the Federal agencies involved with 
implementation that they share with us the data about how this thing is 
supposed to start October 1, when they have really been very reticent 
to share anything.
  Speaking of reticent to share anything, how about the administration, 
which hid the ball before election day on all these rules that have now 
come forward since November 6? No wonder the Governors were reluctant 
to accept the exchanges. No wonder the Governors have held off in some 
States from accepting the Medicaid expansion. Because they weren't told 
what the deal would be until after the President's election was 
reassured. That's pretty disingenuous of the administration to run 
things that way, and I believe they should be held to account. And more 
importantly, in the 6 months between now and October 1, when every 
American who wants to buy in the exchange is supposed to be able to go 
to their computer and buy on the exchange, I don't believe they can 
actually build that system in the time required, regardless of how much 
money we give them.
  It is important to hold those agencies accountable. Our committee 
work will do that. As an oversight committee on the authorization side, 
we will continue to do that. And I think that's important work.
  So I ask conservatives to join me in that fight as we go forward. 
Let's fight this on the budget, let's fight it on our open rules in the 
appropriations process. Today, it's an important bill. Not a perfect 
bill, but it's an important bill. It protects our soldiers. It protects 
our veterans. And it locks in those savings for the long-suffering 
American taxpayer that they have waited for for so long.
  I urge support of the rule and support of the underlying bill.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Just so there is no confusion, I think it's important that I point 
out to my colleagues that we have had three rounds of cuts to one round 
of revenue increases. The cuts have overwhelmed the revenue increases. 
So the notion that somehow we've engaged in a balanced process I don't 
think is the case. And the notion that somehow closing these tax 
loopholes and corporate tax loopholes that even Mitt Romney and George 
Bush at one time supported in order that we don't cut medical research, 
research aimed at trying to find cures to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's 
and diabetes--if we found cures for those diseases, not only would we 
prevent a lot of human suffering, we'd save a lot of money.
  But we're cutting medical research and we're pushing farther off the 
date that we're going to find breakthroughs in order to protect 
taxpayer subsidies to big oil companies that are making zillions of 
dollars? They really need a handout from the United States taxpayer? 
And you're cutting medical research, you're cutting Head Start, you're 
cutting programs that help people get an education, that protect our 
communities, our law enforcement officials, environmental protection. 
We're cutting all those things mindlessly in order to protect these 
corporate tax loopholes.
  This is crazy. I really believe that outside of this little bubble 
here in Washington there is a bipartisan consensus that what we're 
doing here is crazy. This doesn't make any sense. This does not make 
any sense. Mindless, senseless, across-the-board cuts.
  No urgency. We're going to go home today. There's a little snow on 
the ground. National Airport is closed. We can't really go anywhere 
until it reopens. We ought to stay here and figure out an alternative 
to sequestration.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. 
Welch).
  Mr. WELCH. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, this is not a perfect bill. This is a disgraceful bill. 
And this process is not on the level.
  Yesterday, Wall Street celebrated its highest close in history. And 
today it's going higher. A few years ago, they came here, hat in hand, 
insisting on a bailout. They got a bailout. And it was paid for by Main 
Street, who didn't cause the problem but suffered the consequences, and 
it was paid for by the middle class, who didn't cause the problem but 
suffered the consequences. And now we have a budget that is doubling 
down, grinding down on the middle class.
  What economic philosophy is at work here? America has always been at 
its best when it has had budgets that promote economic growth and 
middle class opportunity. This budget has adopted a notion that 
austerity is a goal in and of itself. And how will we get to fiscal 
balance without economic growth and an expanding middle class? Our 
colleagues say in this budget it will be by putting the heel of 
austerity on the throat of middle class opportunity. That is wrong.
  Forty-four percent of the cuts are focused on 14 percent of the 
budget. That's kids going to college; it's little kids showing up in 
school hungry who can get a meal; it's TSA workers who are going to get 
furloughed and who pay their bills month to month. This is disgraceful, 
and it is also a repudiation of what has made America great--a 
confidence that we are all in it together. And if we have a budget 
where we share the pain and we share the opportunity, we'll be the 
better for it.
  Wall Street has a second reason to celebrate today because this 
budget is absolutely doubling down on promoting the well-being of the 
haves at the expense of the middle class in the great American 
tradition of middle class opportunity. Profits in this country are the 
highest they've been since 1950. Wages are the lowest they've been 
since 1966. We need to stand up for the middle class.
  Mr. COLE. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Listening to my colleagues, I'm reminded of that old saying that 
Washington, D.C., is 10 square miles surrounded by reality.
  Let's talk a little bit about the definitions we use for cuts. First 
of all, the Government will spend more money this year than it did last 
year, just as last year it spent more money than it did the year 
before. We're not cutting anything. We're slowing down the rate of 
growth. In parts of the budget there are real cuts. But in terms of 
overall spending, it's ever and ever higher.
  According to the much quoted, much loved Congressional Budget Office, 
this year we will have the highest level of income for the Federal 
Government in history. In the history of the United States, we will 
have more money to spend than we have ever spent before. And yet that 
same CBO estimates it will run a budget deficit if we keep sequester, 
if we allow the revenue that occurred in January of over $850 billion.
  Now at some point you have to reconcile the highest level of income 
and an $850 billion deficit. We don't have a revenue problem here; we 
have a spending problem of historic and massive proportions. This is 
one small step in the right direction to try and get that under 
control.
  We look forward to what our friends in the Senate do. We look forward 
to what the administration does. And we look forward to having a 
conversation over not just this bill but in the next several months 
we're going to have that opportunity when the Senate finally presents a 
budget. We'll present a budget. The administration for the fourth time 
in 5 years will be late but surely will at some point present a budget.

                              {time}  1050

  The American people can look at all of those.
  We're going to have an opportunity for a great debate, and I suspect 
we'll continue to try and adjust things as we move forward to get 
ourselves more in balance. But let's recognize the reality. We've had 
four trillion-dollar deficits in a row. We have, with these cuts and 
with additional revenue, an $850 billion deficit, at the minimum, in 
front of us. Maybe that ought to be the focus.
  I can assure my friends--we all talk a lot about polling and what the 
American people think. I can assure you, I've done a lot of polling in 
my lifetime. They think the Federal Government is too big; they think 
it spends too much; and they would like to see

[[Page H991]]

us take less of their money, not more. So if we get into a real debate 
here, I suspect the American people will say: Figure out a way to live 
within the highest level of income in American history as opposed to 
coming to us and asking us for more.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, last night, the FAA announced that 173 air 
traffic control towers will be closed by April 7. So I would say to my 
colleague, tell the communities whose economies will be devastated by 
the fact that they will no longer have air service that this is not a 
cut. I mean, they will be losing an essential service that is vital for 
businesses to thrive all across this country. That is a cut.
  At this point, I'd like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield).
  Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Let me thank the gentleman for yielding time this 
morning.
  Let me associate myself with the last comments made by Mr. McGovern. 
He is absolutely correct; the American people are beginning to feel the 
impacts of sequestration.
  My friends on the other side of the aisle are always talking about: 
We don't have a revenue problem; we don't have a revenue problem; we 
have a spending problem in this country. Well, Mr. Speaker, we have a 
deficit problem in this country.
  There are two ways, at least, where we can address the deficit. We 
can address it with more revenue, which is what I strongly recommend, 
and we can also address it with very important cuts. We have got to 
have a balanced approach to deficit reduction. So I've come to the 
floor today to strongly oppose this rule.
  Mr. Speaker, I don't like the way H.R. 933 evolved. We read about it 
in the news media this weekend. We returned to Washington on Monday 
afternoon and there it was, posted. We were told that the rule would be 
taken up today and we would be voting on it tomorrow. But then a 
snowstorm came into this Capital City, and now we are voting on the 
rule and the CR today and we are leaving town. That is not the way to 
do it.
  The Republican majority has instead elected to move with a bill that 
provides new funding levels and flexibility to just the Department of 
Defense and military construction and veterans, while keeping the 
antiquated funding levels for the remaining 10 appropriations bills. 
Mr. Speaker, I believe that if we got serious about this and rolled up 
our sleeves, we could make it happen.
  I cannot help but to remember the days when I was a trial judge back 
in North Carolina. From time to time, Mr. Speaker, we would have 
difficult cases. But we would send the jury in the room, we would lock 
the door, and we would make them deliberate; and more times than not, 
they would come out with a verdict. That's the way we need to engage in 
this business.
  This is too serious, Mr. Speaker, to have a political dimension to 
this debate. We've got to have common sense. We've got to make it 
happen.
  So I urge my colleagues to oppose this rule, and I urge its defeat. 
We must get to the real work of governing in this country and stop the 
political theater.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Just, again, to get back to the big picture for a moment, as my 
friends know, we're going to spend about $3.5 trillion this year in the 
Federal budget. These dreaded cuts, in terms of the total budget, 
amount to 2.4 percent of all spending--2.4 percent of $3.5 trillion. I 
suspect the American people think: You could find a better way to 
distribute those cuts than closing our towers.
  I agree, actually, with my friend, Mr. McGovern. One of those towers, 
by the way, is in my district, so I certainly understand it. I have 
20,000 Federal defense employees in my district, so I'm quite aware of 
the problems with the distribution of the cuts.
  Now, I'll leave it to my friends on the other side of the aisle and 
Mr. Woodward to argue whose idea this was and what purpose and how it 
was constructed, but it's hardly as if the President of the United 
States or our friends in the Senate were innocent bystanders in all of 
this.
  We tried twice last year to sit down and renegotiate. We moved 
something through. We've said repeatedly this year we're willing to sit 
down and renegotiate the cuts. To me, that's compromise.
  The President talks a lot about a balanced approach. Two months ago, 
he got a lot of revenue. That's his side of the equation. This time it 
should be cuts. That's an appropriate balance. We'll sit down and 
renegotiate where they should come from--we think we've got some great 
ideas on that--but they are going to occur. They're the first and 
appropriate step toward getting our fiscal house back in order.
  So when my friends want to work with us about the distribution, I 
know they'll find a willing negotiating partner in the Speaker. Until 
such time, we will follow the course that the President laid out, 
advocated for, and signed into law. If he wants to revisit that, we 
agree with him, let's revisit it and redistribute it, but the cuts are 
going to occur.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank the distinguished gentleman for his words. I 
associate myself with Mr. McGovern. But also, I do acknowledge Mr. 
Cole, my good friend. You have certainly joined us on bipartisan 
issues, as has already been stated, and I thank you for that. But I do 
want to, in essence, gently correct the gentleman on whether or not the 
President got his, it's now time for us to get ours.
  I think what we have missed is that this is an ongoing process, an 
ongoing process to find the right balance of revenue and the right 
balance of cuts. Let it also be on the record that we've cut over $1 
trillion already, and I can tell you that it has come out of the backs 
of poor people.
  Now, let me give you some resounding, exciting breaking news: the Dow 
hit the highest amount yesterday, 14,253.77, the highest in history. 
Wall Street is celebrating while the backs of poor people are being 
broken.
  This is not a rule that should pass today. We should remain snowed 
out. We shouldn't even be here. Snow us out until we can get the right 
kind of balance.
  This is the bill that we received in less than 24 hours, and they're 
asking us to vote on it. And while we're asked to vote on it, let me 
suggest to you that the long-term unemployed will be particularly 
impacted:
  $130 a month will come out of their unemployment. It will be brutal 
to government workers and job training programs, those that we slash 
and burn, but these are the men and women that work and do the business 
of government;
  For women who are caretakers, they will find that 50 percent of them 
are more likely to hold government jobs, they're going to be impacted;
  $725 million is going to come out of poor people's children's 
education;
  Those of us who support community health clinics, $120 million of 
Federal support for community health centers will just drop, and 
900,000 patients will not be served. 540,000 doses of vaccine will not 
be there.
  The point is that when it comes to the backs of those who will bear 
the brunt, it will be those who need clean energy, education, and 
research and development.
  I introduced H.R. 900, a simple bill to get rid of the sequester. My 
point would be that we need to go back to work and vote ``no'' on the 
rule. It is on the backs of poor people.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume for 
the purpose of response.
  First, I appreciate my good friend, whom I have worked with on a 
number of things, most recently the Violence Against Women Act, where 
she certainly ably represented the bill in the Rules Committee and on 
the floor, and I appreciate that very much. I'm going to gently correct 
in return.
  When we talk about cuts that were previously agreed to, with all due 
respect to my friends, most of those cuts still haven't even taken 
place. If you look at them, they are far in the future, in the 10-year 
window.
  These were not cuts, by the way, that the two sides found 
contentious. This was the easy stuff that they all agreed

[[Page H992]]

to right up front. It wasn't as if there was some concession.
  The real discussion was in the next round of cuts, where the 
supercommittee wasn't able to come to an agreement. Even there, there 
were $600 or $700 million in agreed-upon ``cuts'' that both sides 
acknowledge. There just wasn't agreement about revenue, and so the cuts 
didn't occur.
  Well, we're here today, and just as the tax increases were written 
into law effectively when the Bush tax cuts sunsetted in January, these 
cuts are also written into law.

                              {time}  1100

  Again, since they're written into law, they're going to occur. Now, 
we're willing, again, to sit down with our friends and redistribute 
where they come from. We think that would be the prudent thing to do. 
We tried to do it twice last year. It didn't work out. Nobody was 
interested in talking to us last year. The President wasn't interested 
in putting a proposal on until, if anything, recent days, and I really 
couldn't still tell you what it truly is.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. COLE. I will finish my point, and I will be happy to yield to my 
friend briefly.
  I think that the reality is we ought to recognize--just as I urge my 
friends on my side of the aisle to recognize--as we approach the end of 
the Bush tax cuts, that they're going to end. We ought to sit down and 
negotiate with our friends some better and more proper distribution, 
whether we like it or not. That's just the case. It's going to be that 
way. That's what's going to happen here.
  Now, we would rather renegotiate, minimize the harm and spread that 
2.4 percent over the entire $3.5 trillion budget. I suspect our friends 
would like to do that, too, over time, and hopefully we can arrive at 
that. So I look forward to continuing the dialogue, but the cuts are 
going to be secured. This legislation will move through the House, and 
then I'm sure something will move through the Senate and we'll sit down 
and negotiate in a bipartisan, bicameral manner.
  With that, I yield to my good friend from Texas.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me thank the gentleman's tone, and let it be 
known that all of us want to engage in that kind of civil discussion. I 
assume, if we all got locked up in a room, we'd be able to find the 
compromise.
  Let me just indicate that the revenues and cuts that you just spoke 
about are over a 10-year period, but they're still cuts. This bill not 
only adds to that, but then the sequester adds to that, as well.
  Our suggestion in my remarks is that this will have a heavy, heavy, 
heavy, heavy impact on vulnerable and innocent persons.
  The cuts are going forward, and so my question is: Why can't we 
continue the discussion on how we balance cuts and revenues? We must 
operate the government.
  Mr. COLE. Reclaiming my time, if I may, I think the gentlelady asked 
a good question, and I look forward to working with my friends on the 
other side of the aisle. I actually think today is the beginning of a 
process where that will happen. It's one of the reasons I really 
commend Chairman Rogers for moving early.
  We're not in a last-minute crisis atmosphere here, and we're not 
trying to jam our friends in the Senate. We want them to move as 
quickly and expeditiously as they can. We would like to move toward the 
discussion and talks with them, and I'm sure the administration will be 
involved in that.
  To me, that's a step back toward what I would like and what we all 
talk about around here, which is regular order. While that's going on, 
we can engage in the normal appropriations process for fiscal year 
2014.
  So, as difficult as this is--and we've been through a difficult time, 
I think, in recent months and over the last year plus, honestly--this 
may be the first step back in the right direction.
  Again, I respect that my friends have a different point of view on 
this, but I'm talking what I would view as political reality to them, 
just as I did to my friends on my own side of the aisle a few weeks 
ago. This is going to occur, so let's just be reasonable and rational 
about how it is. We're going to have a lower deficit because of that. I 
think that's one of the reasons that Wall Street is doing well. But who 
knows? It's always hard to predict what's going on there.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Connolly).
  Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding.
  It's really a shame we've come to this point where the dysfunction of 
this Congress is going to inflict harm on families, on the military, 
and on communities throughout America.
  I have great respect for my friend from Oklahoma. He has reached 
across the aisle, and he has tried to work with us to find common 
solutions, but he knows the truth. The truth is that discretionary 
domestic spending as a percentage of our GDP is at the lowest it's been 
since the Eisenhower administration. He knows that the Federal tax 
burden, the revenue side of the ledger, is the lowest since Harry 
Truman was in the White House. He knows that the gap between spending 
and revenue has grown since the last time we balanced the budget under 
Bill Clinton, when it was much closer.
  We have to get our arms around spending, but not in a mindless, meat-
ax way. It is going to hurt America. And to bake it into this 
continuing resolution, in my view, is a terrible mistake. If the 
Republican side of the aisle wants to embrace sequestration as its own 
with this fairy tale that ``it's just a haircut; it's not much, 
especially when you look at the overall size of Federal spending,'' 
that will come as news to communities, to travelers, to consumers, and 
to the American public who, in fact, will feel the brunt of the 
sequestration in this continuing resolution.

  The other aspect of this continuing resolution, and why I oppose this 
rule, Mr. Speaker, is that, once again, we treat the Federal employee 
like a punching bag. For the 3rd year in a row, we freeze their salary. 
They have already contributed, and they were the only group singled out 
to contribute to the Federal debt reduction to the tune of $100 billion 
in lost wages and benefit cutbacks. We use the freeze on Congress as a 
subterfuge to get at Federal employees.
  I urge my colleagues to vote against the rule and support my bill to 
freeze congressional salaries, H.R. 636. Seventy-three cosponsors have 
already decided to do so.
  It is a shame that House Republicans cannot find a way to put aside 
ideology to work with us to avert the devastating cuts of 
sequestration. The Continuing Resolution presents the perfect 
opportunity to stop this self-inflicted wound on our economy, our 
military, and our families.
  The consequences of Republican inaction will be particularly hard 
felt in my community, which is home to so many people who work for or 
partner with the federal government. That pain will spread across 
Virginia and the rest of the nation as no community will be spared from 
these meat-axe cuts as they ripple through the economy. Every community 
that receives direct federal assistance, has residents who work for the 
federal government or is home to an employer who does work with the 
federal government will be affected.
  The slowdon in government spending has been a drag on local and state 
economies across the entire country and the unemployment rate for the 
past two years. GDP growth in the 4th Quarter of 2012 slowed to 0.1% 
after growing at 3.1% in the 3rd Quarter based largely on a 22% 
reduction in defense spending.
  Now the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects economic 
growth for this year will be half of what it otherwise might be as a 
result of these new cuts. In addition, a study by George Mason 
University estimates sequestration will lead to loss of more than 2 
million jobs.
  Since last August, I have joined members of the regional delegation, 
as well as industry leaders and federal employee groups, in calling on 
Congress to find a balanced alternative to sequestration. I agree that 
we must take reasonable steps to address our debt. However, I cannot 
accept the House Republican philosophy that the only way to do this is 
through cuts alone.
  We cannot cut our way to prosperity. We must have a balanced approach 
that finds strategic cuts and savings while maintaining critical 
investments that ensure our competitiveness in the global economy.
  I urge my colleagues to vote against this rule so that we can bring 
up a balanced approach to replace sequestration along with my

[[Page H993]]

bill to protect federal employees from yet another pay freeze.
  My bill, H.R. 636, would freeze Member salaries for the duration of 
the 113th Congress. If anyone's salary should be frozen as a result of 
our nation's fiscal situation it is Members of Congress.
  Our dedicated Federal employees are on the front lines protecting and 
serving the public every day in our communities. Yet House Republicans 
have routinely used them as a punching bag. The men and women who have 
dedicated their careers to public service are still weathering a pay 
freeze that will have lasted more than two years, and they have made 
sacrifices in pay and benefits totaling more than $100 billion to help 
reduce our nation's debt.
  Now, because House Republicans refuse to work with us to avert 
sequestration, they are facing furloughs and the loss of up to 20% of 
their pay in some cases on top of having their pay frozen for a third 
consecutive year as part of this CR.
  Mr. Speaker, sequestration was put in place to force Congress to act, 
not to become law. I remain committed to preventing these harmful cuts, 
and I urge my colleagues to join me in voting against this rule so we 
can bring up a balanced approach that will do just that.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to agree with my good friend from Virginia on his 
point about discretionary spending. It's probably an area that he and I 
would find a considerable amount of common ground on. I certainly do 
think that far too much of this is coming out of the discretionary side 
of the budget, particularly in defense, but I would say across the 
board.
  I have Indian health facilities in my district that will be hit, and 
I have the National Severe Storms Laboratory in my district that will 
be hit. I understand my friend makes those points. He's making a very 
important point.
  Now, we've been willing to go where no man has gone before, the 
nondiscretionary side of the budget. The Ryan budget, which you may 
like or not like, or the Ryan plan on Medicare is a real attempt to 
deal with where we all in the room know the real problem is, and that's 
on the nondiscretionary side of the budget.
  I hope that our friends put their ideas out there. The President has 
put, and sometimes withdrawn, but has put a number of interesting ideas 
on the table at various points. We never seem to quite get there, 
whether it's change CPI or raising age over time gradually on some of 
our programs.
  Now, my friends on the other side, at least our distinguished 
minority leader, has refused to ever do that. Whether it's Social 
Security, Medicare, or Medicaid, it's been: We're going to defend this 
ground; we're not going to make any changes. At the end of the day, 
that's the kind of thing that we're going to have to deal with.
  As an appropriator, as somebody who, like my friend from Virginia, 
sees the impacts of these discretionary reductions and this squeezing 
down, I think that is the solution. I think that's at least a big part 
of the solution.
  I have no illusions we're going to settle all our deficit problems 
with this bill, but we are taking a step in the right direction. 
Hopefully our friends, and our side as well, will expand the dialogue 
to include the nondiscretionary side of the budget in the weeks and 
months ahead, and we can begin to arrive at common ground. But we can't 
simply allow Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and farm 
programs--I'll put some of our sacred cows on the table as well--to 
expand by a matter of law without any effort to look at them.
  We've offered to do that. We've actually written a budget that has 
done that. We've gone through the political fires. I can assure my 
friends you can do that and still survive as a majority. And we're 
anxious to do that going forward. If we can find willing partners in 
that, both on the other side of the aisle, the other side of the 
rotunda, and the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, I think we'll 
actually be on the road to doing something.
  So, with that, I reserve the balance of my time, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).
  (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. ANDREWS. At least, over time, 750,000 people will lose their jobs 
as a result of the sequester.
  Who are these Americans? They're Federal employees who inspect our 
food or who inspect toxic waste dumps or who work in the Federal court 
system or for the FBI. But they're also people in small businesses 
around the country and big businesses. It's the woman who owns a 
software company who has a contract with NOAA, the National Weather 
Service, that gets canceled or cut back. It is the caterer who serves 
an Air Force base or an Army base or a Coast Guard facility. It is the 
small businessperson who is a utility contractor on a transportation 
project to be funded by Federal dollars. These are real people who, 
over time, will be very badly affected by this.
  We have a plan that would save these jobs but continue to reduce the 
deficit. It's Mr. Van Hollen's plan. That plan says that we should save 
an equal amount the sequester would save by cutting back on corporate 
welfare to huge oil companies, by cutting back on corporate welfare for 
huge agribusinesses that own land and get payments from the Federal 
taxpayers through the Ag Department, and that anyone who makes more 
than $2 million a year should have to pay at least 30 percent of their 
income under the Tax Code and not exploit loopholes and deductions.

                              {time}  1110

  Today would be the right day to take a vote on that plan. My friends 
on the other side would probably oppose the plan. That's obviously 
within their right. But the House has not yet taken up any proposals to 
save these 750,000 jobs. That is wrong. You can disagree with our 
proposal, you can try to amend our proposal, you can try to do better 
than our proposal, but for the House not to take one vote on saving 
these 750,000 jobs is wrong.
  We will have an opportunity on the previous question vote to remedy 
that wrong.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. McGOVERN. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.
  Mr. ANDREWS. A ``no'' vote on the previous question would mean that 
this body could take an up-or-down vote on whether or not to save these 
750,000 jobs while still reducing the deficit in the ways that I just 
talked about.
  Look, the basic job that we have around here is to make decisions and 
take votes. If you vote with us, that's fine; if you vote against us, 
that's fine. That's democracy. We should celebrate it. But to fail to 
take a vote is to avoid that responsibility.
  Let's accept our responsibility to turn off this sequester, save 
those 750,000 jobs and vote ``no'' on the previous question.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, just very quickly I yield myself such time as 
I may consume.
  I want to thank my friend. I can assure you that we take this very 
serious, as well. I have lots of Federal employees, and the real job 
loss won't be theirs. They will certainly be hard-hit, they'll be 
furloughed, but the real job loss, as my friend suggests, really is in 
the private sector, and that's why we should sit down and have a 
serious discussion about entitlement costs.
  With all due respect to my friend, Mr. Van Hollen, my friends on the 
other side of the aisle, I don't think that proposal would pass. I 
certainly wouldn't vote for it. I want that very much in the Record.
  If our friends want to do something, they do have control of the 
United States Senate. That's a body that can do whatever it wants to 
do, and we'll see what happens going forward.
  Again, what I'm pleased with is, I think this is the beginning of a 
real discussion and the beginning of a real dialogue. We're going to do 
some good things in terms of giving flexibility to the Defense 
Department and our friends that deal with military construction and the 
VA. We're anxious to hear ideas on the other side. But we are going to 
reduce spending, and we're going to reduce it not by an extraordinary 
amount, but by 2.4 percent of the entire $3.5 trillion Federal budget, 
and we're willing to renegotiate where those cuts come from. I think 
that's a pretty reasonable position to have.
  Mr. ANDREWS. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. COLE. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

[[Page H994]]

  Mr. ANDREWS. I thank my friend for his graciousness and fairness in 
all respects.
  I'm not sure anyone has control over the United States Senate. But I 
am sure of this: last week a proposal very similar to the one that I 
just talked about that would save those three-quarters of a million 
jobs got 51 votes on the floor of the United States Senate, a majority. 
Of course, under their peculiar rules, it required 60 votes to go 
forward.
  So understand this: a majority of the United States Senate, in fact, 
adopted the plan that I talked about. We should be given the chance to 
do the same thing.
  Mr. COLE. Reclaiming my time, I'd be happy if the United States 
Senate decided to operate collectively instead of individually, but I 
didn't write their rules and neither did my friends. I'm sure if we got 
to write them--although we've both sent a lot of our friends over 
there, neither of them seem to be willing to sit down and change the 
rules to make them a more functional body.
  But I'm glad you've moved the discussion to where we both agree away 
from our adversarial discussion toward the real enemy, the United 
States Senate, which has a hard time acting.
  In this case, honestly I think they are going to act, and I say that 
with a great deal of respect to Senator Reid and to Senator McConnell. 
I think that they will produce a product to make sure that something 
doesn't happen that we all agree shouldn't happen. The President 
doesn't think the government should shut down. We don't think the 
government should shut down. I don't believe our friends in the Senate 
think it should shut down.
  This is actually a pretty good day. It may not be the perfect bill 
from my friends's standpoint. I certainly respect that. It's probably 
not the perfect bill from all of our Members' standpoint.
  Mr. ANDREWS. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. COLE. I will in a moment. Let me just finish my point.
  But we will move in the right direction. We will actually move to 
avoid a government shutdown. We'll leave open an avenue of negotiation 
with our friends in the Senate. I'm sure the President will be involved 
in discussion at some point too. So I take some heart from that.
  With that, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, my friend reflected on some criticism of 
the Senate, which I would generally agree with.
  I would say this, though: the Senate did something we've not done. 
They put a Republican plan on the Senate floor to end the sequester and 
save those 750,000 jobs and a Democratic plan on the floor to save 
those 750,000 jobs. I think we owe it to our constituents, to our 
country to do the same thing. This is the opportunity to do that.
  Mr. COLE. Reclaiming my time, we'll have an opportunity in the sense 
of the previous question. We'll see how the majority shakes out on that 
issue. I'm sure my friends will regard that as effectively a vote on 
their proposal.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, can I inquire of the gentleman whether he 
has any additional requests for speakers?
  Mr. COLE. I'm certainly prepared to close whenever my friend is.
  Mr. McGOVERN. We are prepared to close as well, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I would 
say to my friend, the gentleman from Oklahoma, that the time to act has 
long since passed. We are now in sequester.
  Budgets across the board and in a mindless and senseless way are 
being slashed. Air traffic control towers are being shut down. That 
will result in an adverse impact on local economies. We will lose jobs. 
You've heard over and over that we're told that we should expect a job 
loss of 750,000 people.
  What do they do? They lose their job, and they go on unemployment. 
Where is the future? Where is the savings that my friends are talking 
about when you throw people out of work?
  My friends talk about tough choices. Well, we ought to assume tough 
choices. You're going to have health clinics that are going to be 
reduced in their funding. You're going to have transportation projects 
reduced in their funding. You're going to have cuts in WIC; you're 
going to have cuts in Head Start; you're going to have cuts in programs 
that benefit the most vulnerable people in our communities.
  None of us in this Chamber has to absorb a tough choice. It's the 
people we represent. It's the people in this country who are getting 
shafted as a result of this sequestration.
  The time to act has long since passed. Mr. Van Hollen has time and 
time and time again--not once, not twice, not three times, but four 
times tried to bring an alternative to the House floor. All he's asked 
for is that we have an up-or-down vote on his proposal, and four times 
he has been rejected. By contrast, this year, my friends have brought 
up not a single alternative to avoid sequestration.
  All we're asking for is a little democracy here on the floor of the 
House of Representatives, a chance for us to debate and have an up-or-
down vote not on a procedural motion, but on the actual legislation, up 
or down. We've been denied that.
  My friends, if they have an alternative they want to bring, fine. 
Bring that up there too. We'll have two votes, and we can debate our 
priorities so the American people know where we stand.
  Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I'm going to offer 
an amendment to the rule to ensure that the House votes on Mr. Van 
Hollen's bill to replace the sequester and on Mr. Connolly's bill to 
freeze pay for Members of Congress for the next 2 years.
  Mr. Speaker, 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. I just want to again say to my friends that it is 
important for them to appreciate the devastation of these cuts.
  Head Start: the CR will allow sequestration to cut $400 million, 
resulting in a potential loss of 70,000 Head Start slots for 
comprehensive early learning and development services.
  Job training programs: the CR will allow sequester to cut $282 
million, resulting in hundreds of thousands of unemployed adults, 
dislocated workers, veterans, young adults and students losing access 
to employment services.
  Title I grants, education of the disadvantaged: the CR will allow 
sequestration to cut $730 million, which is the equivalent of cutting 
the extra instructional services for more than 2,500 schools serving 
more than 1 million disadvantaged children who are struggling 
academically.
  Special education grants: the CR will allow sequestration to cut more 
than $580 million, which is the rough equivalent of shifting the cost 
of educating nearly 300,000 students with special needs to State and 
local education agencies. This also may result in more than 700,000 
layoffs of teachers, aides and other staff serving students with 
disabilities.

                              {time}  1120

  Child care: the CR will allow sequestration to cut $115 million, 
which would cause, roughly, 30,000 children to lose access to child 
care, further exacerbating the fact that only one in six children 
eligible for Federal child care assistance receives it.
  Cancer screenings: the CR will allow sequestration to cut funding for 
cancer screenings, resulting in 25,000 fewer breast and cervical cancer 
screenings for low-income women.
  I can go on and on and on, but here is the choice: the choice is 
either this process, which my Republican colleagues have embraced, or 
the one that Mr. Van Hollen has outlined--one that would say we're not 
going to balance the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable, on the 
backs of the needy, on the backs of the middle class but that--do you 
know what?--we're going to get rid of some of these corporate loopholes 
that my friends on the other side used to be in favor of closing. We're 
not going to continue to have taxpayer subsidies for big oil companies. 
We're going to have some balance in our approach to dealing with our 
deficit. The problem with the approach my friends have outlined--the 
problem with the sequestration--is that it is

[[Page H995]]

not balanced. It is wrong-headed; it is mindless; it is senseless; and 
it is cruel.
  I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and to defeat the previous 
question, and I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. COLE. I yield myself the balance of my time.
  I want to begin by, frankly, agreeing with my friend. The time to act 
has long since passed. We tried to act a long time ago. We tried to act 
in May, but nobody in the Senate chose to pick up our bill. They sent 
us back something different, which was their right, but it didn't do 
anything at all. We tried to act in December, but nobody did anything 
in the Senate then.
  We offered to negotiate with the President for weeks. Instead, we saw 
a 6-week, an 8-week campaign all over the country. There was no time, 
evidently, in the President's busy schedule in city after city, at 
photo op after photo op to simply get on the phone, call the Speaker 
and say--How would you like to come down and talk?--until the very last 
day before the sequester, when it had become evident that this type of 
political bullying wouldn't work.
  So we believe the time has passed to act. That's why we're acting 
today. We are actually going to secure the cuts that are in the 
legislation that the President advocated for. He originated the idea--I 
accept the Woodward version of that, I suppose--and he signed it into 
law. He had 18 months to do something about it. We offered two 
opportunities in that timeframe to do something, and the Speaker has 
always been available to sit down with the President and do something.
  We are going to take a small step in the right direction. Now, let's 
not overestimate what we're doing. We could probably take more pride in 
this than is warranted. Our friends, I think, are shouting more alarm 
than is necessary. This is $85 billion in a $3.5 trillion deficit--2.4 
percent. We ought to be able to do that in our sleep. Quite frankly, we 
are willing to sit down and renegotiate with our friends from where 
they come. We are not willing to renegotiate the total amount of the 
money involved. Over time, it does add up to $1.2 trillion. That's a 
lot of money, but it's not anywhere near what it's going to take to get 
our budget in balance.
  I look forward to the debates we're going to have on that in the 
budget discussions ahead; but let's right now, while we have that 
debate and while we go through that process, take the responsible step 
that the President urges us to take and that we all agree on, which is 
simply to make sure that the government doesn't shut down while we have 
our discussion and sort out our differences.
  I applaud Chairman Rogers and Chairman Sessions for making that 
possible, particularly for bringing this bill in a timely fashion, 
giving us enough time when we're not going to be jammed. I know our 
friends in the Senate are going to try and do the same thing. They're 
going to produce, I have no doubt, a different product than we have. 
That's fine. We'll negotiate it out, and we'll avoid a government 
shutdown, but we will secure these savings for the taxpayers of the 
United States, and we will then take the next step in a longer 
discussion.
  I believe we've had a good debate on the rule. I believe the 
underlying bill provides the American people with the hope that we can 
do the basic functions that we were sent here to accomplish--funding 
the government. I would urge my colleagues to support this rule and the 
underlying legislation.
  Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Mr. Speaker, at the outset I would like to commend 
the Chairman of the full Appropriations Committee, Mr. Rogers, and the 
Chairman of the Defense Subcommittee, Mr. Young of Florida, for their 
determination and perseverance in bringing the completed Defense and 
Military Construction/VA bills to the floor for our consideration. 
Since before the end of the last fiscal year, they have been committed 
to completing our FY '13 bills and move them onto the President's desk 
for his signature.
  Why? Because they understood the damage that would be done to our 
national security if DoD was forced to operate under the funding levels 
and restrictions placed on them by our FY '12 bill.
  By passing this package today, we will be giving our military 
leadership additional flexibility to protect their mission and 
capabilities in this constrained fiscal environment.
  I would also add that passage of these measures today reinforces 
Congress' authority to set policy for the Department of Defense in 
important areas such as Air Force force structure, the retirement of 
Navy ships, increasing the pace of Navy shipbuilding, etc. and not cede 
it to the Executive Branch solely.
  I am also pleased that the package also allows additional funding for 
nuclear weapons modernization, to ensure the safety, security, and 
reliability of the nation's nuclear stockpile.
  The material previously referred to by Mr. McGovern is as follows:

  An Amendment to H. Res. 99 Offered by Mr. McGovern of Massachusetts

       At the end of the resolution, add the following new 
     sections:
       Sec. 2. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution the 
     Speaker shall, 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. 
     699) to amend the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit 
     Control Act of 1985 to repeal and replace the 2013 
     sequestration. 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 Ways and Means, the chair and ranking minority 
     member of the Committee on the Budget, and the chair and 
     ranking minority member of the Committee on Agriculture. 
     After general debate the bill shall be considered for 
     amendment under the five-minute rule. All points of order 
     against provisions in the bill 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. If the 
     Committee of the Whole rises and reports that it has come to 
     no resolution on the bill, then on the next legislative day 
     the House shall, immediately after the third daily order of 
     business under clause 1 of rule XIV, resolve into the 
     Committee of the Whole for further consideration of the bill.
       Sec. 3. Immediately after disposition of H.R. 699 the 
     Speaker shall, 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. 
     636) to prohibit Members of Congress from receiving any 
     automatic pay adjustments through the end of the One Hundred 
     Thirteenth Congress. 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 House Administration and the chair and ranking 
     minority member of the Committee on Oversight and Government 
     Reform. After general debate the bill shall be considered for 
     amendment under the five-minute rule. All points of order 
     against provisions in the bill 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. If the 
     Committee of the Whole rises and reports that it has come to 
     no resolution on the bill, then on the next legislative day 
     the House shall, immediately after the third daily order of 
     business under clause 1 of rule XIV, resolve into the 
     Committee of the Whole for further consideration of the bill.
       Sec. 4. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the 
     consideration of the bills specified in sections 2 or 3 of 
     this resolution.
                                  ____


        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 Democratic minority 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

[[Page H996]]

     yield to him for an amendment, is entitled to the first 
     recognition.''
       The Republican majority may 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. COLE. 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 227, 
nays 188, not voting 16, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 59]

                               YEAS--227

     Aderholt
     Alexander
     Amash
     Amodei
     Bachmann
     Bachus
     Barletta
     Barr
     Barton
     Benishek
     Bentivolio
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (UT)
     Black
     Blackburn
     Bonner
     Boustany
     Brady (TX)
     Bridenstine
     Brooks (AL)
     Brooks (IN)
     Broun (GA)
     Buchanan
     Bucshon
     Burgess
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Cantor
     Capito
     Carter
     Cassidy
     Chabot
     Chaffetz
     Coffman
     Cole
     Collins (GA)
     Collins (NY)
     Conaway
     Cook
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crawford
     Crenshaw
     Culberson
     Daines
     Davis, Rodney
     Denham
     Dent
     DeSantis
     DesJarlais
     Duffy
     Duncan (SC)
     Duncan (TN)
     Ellmers
     Farenthold
     Fincher
     Fitzpatrick
     Fleischmann
     Fleming
     Flores
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     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
     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
     Roskam
     Ross
     Rothfus
     Royce
     Runyan
     Ryan (WI)
     Salmon
     Scalise
     Schock
     Schweikert
     Scott, Austin
     Sensenbrenner
     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
     Walberg
     Walden
     Walorski
     Weber (TX)
     Webster (FL)
     Wenstrup
     Westmoreland
     Whitfield
     Williams
     Wilson (SC)
     Wittman
     Wolf
     Womack
     Woodall
     Yoder
     Yoho
     Young (FL)
     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
     Carney
     Carson (IN)
     Cartwright
     Castor (FL)
     Castro (TX)
     Chu
     Cicilline
     Clarke
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Cohen
     Connolly
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Costa
     Courtney
     Crowley
     Cuellar
     Cummings
     Davis (CA)
     Davis, Danny
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delaney
     DeLauro
     DelBene
     Deutch
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Duckworth
     Edwards
     Ellison
     Engel
     Enyart
     Eshoo
     Esty
     Farr
     Fattah
     Foster
     Frankel (FL)
     Fudge
     Gabbard
     Gallego
     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.
     Jones
     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)
     Maffei
     Maloney, Carolyn
     Maloney, Sean
     Markey
     Matsui
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McNerney
     Meng
     Michaud
     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
     Price (NC)
     Quigley
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Richmond
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruiz
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sarbanes
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schneider
     Schrader
     Schwartz
     Scott (VA)
     Scott, David
     Serrano
     Sewell (AL)
     Shea-Porter
     Sherman
     Sinema
     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
     Yarmuth

                             NOT VOTING--16

     Capuano
     Cardenas
     Coble
     Diaz-Balart
     Dingell
     Lynch
     McIntyre
     Meeks
     Miller, George
     Polis
     Rooney
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sires
     Wilson (FL)
     Young (AK)

                              {time}  1148

  Mr. BARBER, Ms. KUSTER, and Ms. MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM of New Mexico 
changed their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Messrs. GINGREY of Georgia and SOUTHERLAND changed their vote from 
``nay'' to ``yea.''
  So the previous question was ordered.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  Stated against:
  Mr. CARDENAS. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 59, had I been present, I 
would have voted ``nay.''
  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 is a 5-minute vote.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 212, 
noes 197, not voting 22, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 60]

                               AYES--212

     Aderholt
     Alexander
     Amodei
     Bachmann
     Bachus
     Barber
     Barletta
     Barr
     Barton
     Benishek
     Bentivolio
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (UT)
     Black
     Blackburn
     Bonner
     Boustany
     Brady (TX)
     Brooks (IN)
     Buchanan
     Bucshon
     Burgess
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Cantor
     Capito
     Carter
     Cassidy
     Chabot
     Chaffetz
     Coffman
     Cole
     Collins (GA)
     Collins (NY)
     Conaway
     Cook
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crawford
     Crenshaw
     Culberson
     Daines
     Davis, Rodney
     Denham
     Dent
     DeSantis
     DesJarlais
     Diaz-Balart
     Duffy
     Duncan (SC)
     Duncan (TN)
     Ellmers
     Farenthold
     Fincher
     Fitzpatrick
     Fleischmann
     Flores
     Forbes
     Fortenberry

[[Page H997]]


     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gardner
     Garrett
     Gerlach
     Gibbs
     Gibson
     Goodlatte
     Gosar
     Gowdy
     Granger
     Graves (GA)
     Graves (MO)
     Griffin (AR)
     Grimm
     Guthrie
     Hall
     Hanna
     Harper
     Harris
     Hartzler
     Hastings (WA)
     Heck (NV)
     Hensarling
     Herrera Beutler
     Holding
     Hudson
     Huizenga (MI)
     Hultgren
     Hunter
     Hurt
     Issa
     Jenkins
     Johnson (OH)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jordan
     Joyce
     Kelly
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kinzinger (IL)
     Kline
     Labrador
     LaMalfa
     Lamborn
     Lance
     Lankford
     Latham
     Latta
     LoBiondo
     Long
     Lucas
     Luetkemeyer
     Lummis
     Marchant
     Marino
     McCarthy (CA)
     McCaul
     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
     Owens
     Palazzo
     Paulsen
     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)
     Rokita
     Roskam
     Ross
     Rothfus
     Royce
     Runyan
     Ryan (WI)
     Scalise
     Schock
     Schweikert
     Scott, Austin
     Sensenbrenner
     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
     Walberg
     Walden
     Walorski
     Weber (TX)
     Webster (FL)
     Wenstrup
     Westmoreland
     Whitfield
     Williams
     Wilson (SC)
     Wittman
     Wolf
     Womack
     Woodall
     Yoder
     Young (FL)
     Young (IN)

                               NOES--197

     Amash
     Andrews
     Barrow (GA)
     Bass
     Beatty
     Becerra
     Bera (CA)
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Bonamici
     Brady (PA)
     Braley (IA)
     Bridenstine
     Brooks (AL)
     Broun (GA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brownley (CA)
     Bustos
     Butterfield
     Capps
     Cardenas
     Carney
     Carson (IN)
     Cartwright
     Castor (FL)
     Castro (TX)
     Chu
     Cicilline
     Clarke
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Cohen
     Connolly
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Costa
     Courtney
     Crowley
     Cuellar
     Cummings
     Davis (CA)
     Davis, Danny
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delaney
     DeLauro
     DelBene
     Deutch
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Duckworth
     Edwards
     Ellison
     Engel
     Enyart
     Eshoo
     Esty
     Fattah
     Fleming
     Foster
     Frankel (FL)
     Fudge
     Gabbard
     Gallego
     Garamendi
     Garcia
     Gingrey (GA)
     Gohmert
     Grayson
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Hahn
     Hanabusa
     Hastings (FL)
     Heck (WA)
     Higgins
     Himes
     Hinojosa
     Holt
     Honda
     Horsford
     Hoyer
     Huelskamp
     Huffman
     Israel
     Jackson Lee
     Jeffries
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones
     Kaptur
     Keating
     Kennedy
     Kildee
     Kilmer
     Kind
     Kingston
     Kirkpatrick
     Kuster
     Langevin
     Larson (CT)
     Lee (CA)
     Levin
     Lewis
     Lipinski
     Loebsack
     Lofgren
     Lowenthal
     Lowey
     Lujan, Ben Ray (NM)
     Maffei
     Maloney, Carolyn
     Maloney, Sean
     Markey
     Massie
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy (NY)
     McClintock
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McNerney
     Meng
     Michaud
     Moore
     Moran
     Murphy (FL)
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Negrete McLeod
     Nolan
     O'Rourke
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor (AZ)
     Payne
     Pearce
     Pelosi
     Perlmutter
     Peters (MI)
     Peterson
     Pingree (ME)
     Pocan
     Price (NC)
     Quigley
     Rahall
     Richmond
     Rohrabacher
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruiz
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Salmon
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sarbanes
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schneider
     Schrader
     Schwartz
     Scott (VA)
     Scott, David
     Serrano
     Sewell (AL)
     Sherman
     Sinema
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Speier
     Swalwell (CA)
     Takano
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Titus
     Tonko
     Tsongas
     Van Hollen
     Veasey
     Vela
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Walz
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters
     Watt
     Waxman
     Welch
     Yarmuth
     Yoho

                             NOT VOTING--22

     Capuano
     Coble
     Dingell
     Farr
     Griffith (VA)
     Larsen (WA)
     Lujan Grisham (NM)
     Lynch
     McIntyre
     Meeks
     Miller, George
     Peters (CA)
     Polis
     Rangel
     Rooney
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Shea-Porter
     Sires
     Vargas
     Wilson (FL)
     Young (AK)

                              {time}  1157

  Ms. KUSTER changed her vote from ``aye'' to ``no.''
  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 against:
  Mr. PETERS of California. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 60 I was 
unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''
  Ms. MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall 
No. 60 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have 
voted ``no.''
  Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 60, had I been present, 
I would have voted ``no.''

                          ____________________