[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 132 (Monday, September 30, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H6021-H6030]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF THE SENATE AMENDMENT TO H.J. RES. 59, 
CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS RESOLUTION, 2014, AND WAIVING REQUIREMENT OF 
   CLAUSE 6(a) OF RULE XIII WITH RESPECT TO CONSIDERATION OF CERTAIN 
                              RESOLUTIONS

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I 
call up House Resolution 367 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 367

       Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be 
     in order to take from the Speaker's table the joint 
     resolution (H.J. Res. 59) making continuing appropriations 
     for fiscal year 2014, and for other purposes, with the House 
     amendments to the Senate amendment thereto, and to consider 
     in the House, without intervention of any point of order, a 
     motion offered by the chair of the Committee on 
     Appropriations or his designee that the House recede from its 
     amendments and concur in the Senate amendment with the 
     amendment printed in the report of the Committee on Rules 
     accompanying this resolution. The Senate amendment and the 
     motion shall be considered as read. The motion shall be 
     debatable for 40 minutes equally divided and controlled by 
     the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on 
     Appropriations. The previous question shall be considered as 
     ordered on the motion to its adoption without intervening 
     motion or demand for division of the question.
       Sec. 2.  The requirement of clause 6(a) of rule XIII for a 
     two-thirds vote to consider a report from the Committee on 
     Rules on the same day it is presented to the House is waived 
     with respect to any resolution reported through the 
     legislative day of October 7, 2013.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Yoder). The gentleman from Texas is 
recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield 
the customary 30 minutes to my dear friend from New York (Ms. 
Slaughter), the ranking member of the Rules Committee, 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. SESSIONS. 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 Texas?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 367, of which we're here 
for today, provides for consideration of the Senate amendment to H.J. 
Res. 59, the Continuing Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2014.
  Mr. Speaker, at midnight tonight, just a few short hours from now, 
the Federal Government will shut down if Congress, that is both the 
House and the Senate, do not act to provide the necessary 
appropriations to run our government. The legislation before us today 
will ensure that a shutdown does not happen, and we will take important 
steps to ensure that ObamaCare, known as the Affordable Care Act, does 
not have the opportunity to hurt American jobs and continue to drag 
down our economy by delaying the individual mandate for 1 year. 
Additionally, this CR will ensure that Congress is not exempt from 
ObamaCare and that Members and their staffs do not receive a special 
taxpayer-funded health care subsidy.
  These are important issues, Mr. Speaker. They're being talked about 
all across America today. They were talked about on Sunday at tables 
all across America as families gathered together about the rightness of 
what we, as Republicans, are attempting to do, and that is we are 
attempting to save this country and the American people, the free 
enterprise system, and free people from having to have a government-run 
health care system.
  This government-run health care system has already been estimated to 
cost twice what it was expected to do, and since this health care law 
has come into play, for every one full-time job, there have been six 
part-time jobs created. We do not want a part-time working America, Mr. 
Speaker. Mr. Speaker, our country cannot be the greatest Nation in the 
world if we're a part-time working society.
  Mr. Speaker, the American people did not agree with this bill at the 
time it was passed. Despite that, the Democrats rammed this through the 
House and the Senate, and it was signed by the President in record time 
while millions of Americans were protesting all across America the same 
day it was passed in the House.

                              {time}  1730

  Mr. Speaker, this has been an issue that has harmed American 
businesses. Business leaders, businessmen, unions, and union leaders 
are all gathering together to say this is the wrong thing to do.
  The law takes advantage of those people who have health care today. 
It is a direct violation of what the President said it would do; and in 
my State of Texas, if you have a deceptive trade practice, if you sell 
something one way and the product is another, it is talked about in a 
way that it would be against the law.
  What we're trying to do is change the law. Republicans, over the last 
few years, have tried to delay it, defund it, get in the way of it, 
change it, talk about it, and to engage the President of the United 
States at the highest levels.
  We are now at a point where there is a must-pass piece of 
legislation. Republicans do not intend to shut down the government; but 
we are insistent, Mr. Speaker, that the legislation that we bring forth 
today will level the playing field on a terrible piece of legislation.
  The American people sense the unfairness, and they have seen it take 
place in their marketplace, in their workplace. And as we all become 
unemployed or move to part-time work, we will see that this devastating 
law of a ``one-size-fits-all for everybody'' health care plan, run by 
the government, is not a wise way to go. So that's why we're here on 
the floor today.
  Republicans are on the floor today. We were here earlier in the week. 
We were here last week. We've been here ever since the day it was 
passed. We are consistent in our behavior. Every single Republican 
believes this is a bad way to do things. I think business sees that 
too.
  The American people, in a poll of The New York Times and in a CBS 
poll just last week, 60 percent of those who responded to The New York 
Times and CBS said that they are not supportive of this bill.
  So will someone stand up for the American people? Dadgum right: it's 
called the Republican Party. Our great Speaker and our great leader, 
John Boehner and Eric Cantor, have asked us to come to the floor today 
to move a bill; and the Republican Conference is there. We're hoping 
that the United States Senate and the American people all get together 
on this, and then President Obama will see the wisdom behind learning 
from mistakes that have been made in the past.
  I have every reason to believe that what we're doing here will be 
good for the American people. We will listen to the voices, and we will 
move forth together. We're giving everybody a chance to be heard from 
today, and tonight will be an opportunity for the American people to 
know that it was

[[Page H6022]]

the Republican Party that stood up on their behalf.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Texas (Mr. 
Sessions) for yielding me the time, and I yield myself such time as I 
may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, my colleague is certainly right: we have been here time 
after time after time on this issue. But we are standing on the brink 
of the worst government shutdown in modern history. Unlike 1994, the 
pending government shutdown would reach across the entire Federal 
Government. In 1994, half of the congressional appropriations bills had 
been signed into law by the President; and as a result, those Federal 
agencies were able to operate through the shutdown.
  But this year, because of the draconian budget levels included in the 
misguided sequester, the majority was unable to pass a single 
appropriations bill into law. In fact, they ran out of money about 
halfway--well, certainly after we got through the Defense budget and, 
for the first time since I have been in Congress, were unable to pass 
the Transportation bill. And because of that, again, we find ourselves 
in this terrible position. Now as a result, should the government shut 
down, it is going to be more harmful and more widespread than the last 
one.
  Mr. Speaker, these are very real and very serious consequences that 
we face, and it is in the face of these consequences that the majority 
has chosen to continue what can only be described as dangerous partisan 
games. We have, indeed, been here before. The first time, the majority 
wanted to defund the Affordable Care Act, and second, they decided to 
just delay it. But then on that bill, they threw in a chance to do away 
with the medical device tax, which will create a trillion-dollar 
deficit increase over the next 10 years and will hit women's 
reproductive rights next time.
  Just today, we saw the first lady of Texas, Ms. Anita Perry, who said 
in an interview that abortion should be a woman's right and that she 
believed that women should have the right to choose; and we thank her 
for that and couldn't agree with her more.
  But now what are we coming up with today? Well, we are not going to 
back away from anything. We are just going to try to kill the health 
care bill, which we know we can't do. It's taking effect tomorrow 
morning.
  What we are going to do now, they say, is to delay the mandate, which 
is a large part of the funding for the bill; and in addition to that, 
they have decided that Members of Congress and our staff will not be 
able to get the government copay that most people get. In fact, most 
people who have health care in America get it from their employer. And 
we aren't going to be denied from being able to do that because the 
gentleman from Iowa, Senator Grassley, who claimed that he made a 
mistake, inserted that into the bill when he said just this week that 
he did not mean for us not to be a part of the government health care 
system, but that somebody had misinterpreted his idea and wrote it 
wrong. So that's where we are with that today.
  But the majority's proposal before us today is going to do that, and 
they are going to say to all these young people who come to Washington 
with such promise and such energy and such verve, really, to try to do 
something good for their country and who look forward so much to being 
able to have the great privilege of working in the Capitol of the 
United States that they're not going to have help with their health 
insurance, driving many of those, I think, to leave and to find other 
work and others to really not be able to get the health care that they 
need.

  So why did we do that? Heaven only knows. But, frankly, I would be 
embarrassed--and I have mentioned this in the Rules Committee--to look 
around the room at the staff that we praise all the time for their 
ingenuity, for their faithfulness, for their willingness to stay, as we 
did Sunday morning until 12:30, without ever making a complaint at all 
and punishing them through health care.
  As offensive as this proposal is, it's a fitting example of the 
vision for America that the majority has. It's a vision of an America 
where insurance companies are put back in charge of the health care 
system, where price-gauging and price discrimination go unchecked, 
where the most vulnerable among us, including cancer patients, the 
victims of domestic violence and children born with preexisting 
conditions, could be denied access to health care.
  The New York Times did some wonderful pieces on that in The Sunday 
Times yesterday, talking about people who have been burdened so much 
that they are literally bankrupt from the cost of health care. This 
bill takes every step to avoid that in the future.
  I'm not sure that people understand that what happens is that we have 
turned around what used to be the yearly cap that insurance companies 
would charge their clients and now say that if you are a single person 
with health insurance, that once you have paid out of pocket $6,400 for 
medical procedures and medicine, the insurance company then for the 
rest of the year will pay your costs. What's not to like about that? If 
you are a family, $12,000 is the cost.
  After seeing what we saw yesterday and reading in The Times that 
people with cancer many times were unable at all to try to even get the 
care and that we know--and I know from the work that we have done with 
cancer patients--that many of them go untreated. If there's anything 
worse than getting cancer, being diagnosed with cancer, it has to be 
being unable to pay for treatment.
  These are the things that the majority wants to do away with. I've 
never seen so much work in all my life to try to prevent 30 million 
Americans--our brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, everybody--from being 
able to have health insurance, many of them for the first time in their 
lives.
  I met a woman in the last campaign who told me that she was so 
excited because she had just signed up for Medicare. The woman was born 
with cerebral palsy; and under the present insurance laws, she was not 
at all insurable. So she went through her whole life, bringing up 
children, running a household, driving a car, all the things that could 
cause the kinds of accidents that leave you permanently impaired 
without a dime's worth of health insurance.
  She was not alone in that. Children who had head injuries or other 
members of the family could often use up their lifetime limit of about 
$1 million in less than a year, and they were never insurable again in 
the United States. We're not going to go back to that.
  So there's something we can do here today. What we can do is vote 
this down, go back to the Rules Committee, take up the Senate's clean 
bill, which is over here at the desk, pass that bill in the House and 
the Rules, bring it here, pass it in the House in a bipartisan way--by 
the way, that wouldn't hurt. And then lo and behold, that bill is ready 
to go to the President's desk, and we could get that signed. A shutdown 
would be averted. Health care would be available to people who 
desperately need it and desperately want it.
  We should not continue to be the only industrialized country on the 
face of the Earth that does not provide health care for its people. I 
strongly urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule and the 
underlying legislation and demand that we pass the Senate bill.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  The gentlewoman from New York, my dear friend, makes many, many 
important points about not only the law that was passed but about maybe 
some comments about what we're doing here.
  I have great sympathy, respect for men and women, people, children, 
seniors who are born with diseases that sometimes emanate during their 
lives, great respect for that. And I do agree with the gentlewoman that 
our government, in a public-private partnership--we are working with 
States--should, needs to, must create a better system to take care of 
those who are uninsured, or maybe had been ``uninsurable.''
  And this is where, for years, there had been a big debate in 
Washington about how to best do that. And the facts of the case are 
real simple: that every time we had an opportunity in the Republican 
Party to try to get that

[[Page H6023]]

done, it became a point of decisionmaking by the Senate, and they 
blink. The House many times passed all sorts of bills that would allow 
people to be insured across State lines, better ways to make larger 
team sizes for insurance so that risk pools would have a better 
opportunity to be managed.
  But instead of us taking care of some 23 million to 30 million people 
who were in this circumstance, the bill aimed at 230 million people. 
And it put rules and regulations and restrictions on business and 
hiring. And it was less about coverage and more about a hammer from 
Washington, D.C. There are lots of examples of this; but one of them 
might be the IPAB, the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which the 
Democrats wrote into the law that it could not receive any legislative 
or judicial updating. You could not challenge the law that they decided 
on of benefits and payments. That's just one part of this outrageously 
expensive and overbearing health care bill. We've talked about that. 
We've talked about how expensive it is and how it's causing business--
  Delta Air Lines, as an example. And Delta Air Lines has a very good 
plan. But they came to the administration in February this last year 
and said, it's going to cost Delta Air Lines $100 million more in just 
the first year.

                              {time}  1745

  Now, that's not helping people. That's highway robbery. That is 
harming business, harming the free enterprise system.
  Mr. Speaker, I'm for balance. I'm for reasonableness. I'm for 
opportunities, and so is my party. But we are not for diminishing the 
greatest economy in the world by arbitrarily doing it with a one-size-
fits-all ObamaCare that not one Republican voted for and that Democrats 
are still gleeful about.
  So we're here today; we've been here for quite some time, as the 
gentlewoman admitted, yes, day after day. We're kind of relentless 
about this because we're worried about what's happening. We've seen 
employment figures, higher taxes, more spending, more government. Oh, 
by the way, indecision along the way, where the administration really 
can't figure out what they're doing.
  So what we're saying is that we think everybody ought to be into the 
same bucket that employers are in, and that is we've already delayed 
it, so we should do the same for individuals.
  And we're going to shut down the government over that?
  That's the question. We're going to shut down the government, 
Republicans, because we want to put individuals on the same footing as 
what President Obama gave a pass to business?
  Now, Mr. Speaker, I'm from Texas, and I recognize that we like 
freedom and opportunity and less taxes and more opportunities. By 
golly, we employ a lot of people. But I think the whole country sees 
this, and what the whole country sees is the reasonableness that the 
Republican Party comes to the floor--and we're going to keep the battle 
going--to say we think everybody, at least the individual, ought to be 
treated the same as business. We think the President of the United 
States made a mistake, and we're politely, today, trying to say: Mr. 
President, can we please fix that mistake? Can we please give to the 
individuals of this country, men and women who pay their taxes and work 
hard, can we give them equal representation with what you gave to 
people who run businesses?
  Now, I'm a business guy, but I'm also an individual, and that's why 
the Republican Party is doing what we're doing, Mr. Speaker. We are not 
asking for anything that's unreasonable. As a matter of fact, we're 
going to--if I'd hurry up, we could get it quickly to the floor to 
where we could vote on this, but an explanation's necessary.
  Reasonableness, common sense, and doing the right thing, and that's 
what the Republican Party is here doing. That's what our great Speaker, 
John Boehner, is doing. That's what our awesome majority leader, Eric 
Cantor, is doing.
  We are going to bring to the floor--our Republican majority will be 
here--and we're going to pass this that says we believe the same thing 
that happens to business, where the Obama administration was not ready 
for them and so they gave them a pass for a year, we think the same 
thing is true for individuals.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to yield 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), a member of the Rules 
Committee.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, here we go again. As we look up at the 
clock, we see that there is only 6 hours and 10 minutes to a completely 
unnecessary and economically harmful government shutdown.
  Now, I don't see the junior Senator from Texas on the floor, but I 
presume that he has signed off on the latest feeble Republican strategy 
since he seems to be the one calling all the shots around here.
  So I say to my Republican friends: Enough. Enough of the 
gamesmanship; enough of the legislative ping-pong; enough of the high 
fives and cheers on the floor. It's time to put on your grown-up pants 
and do your jobs.
  It's a job, by the way, that should have been done months ago. The 
House passed a budget and the Senate passed a budget. But instead of 
going to a conference committee to hash out the numbers, the Republican 
leadership refused to appoint conferees; they refused to negotiate. 
And, as a result, we are here on the edge of the cliff.
  And here's the irony, Mr. Speaker: It's clear to me, at least, that 
there was a majority in this House, Republican and Democrat, for 
passing the clean CR sent to us by the Senate. Here's another irony: 
That clean CR contains the numbers of my Republican friends' beloved 
sequester, numbers that I believe are far too low.
  For the life of me, I don't understand why the Republicans don't 
declare victory and let us get on with the business of governing. Part 
of that governing is ensuring that the Affordable Care Act works as 
well as possible for all the American people. It's the law of the land. 
It's going to stay that way, and neither the Senate nor the President 
is going to accept any changes.
  Let me just say a word about the so-called Vitter amendment that is 
included this bill. Unlike what my Republican friends say, the Vitter 
amendment doesn't make the people who work for us live like everyone 
else. In fact, it singles them out for special punishment. It says to 
the people who help us draft legislation, who answer the phones in our 
offices, and who respond to constituent mail, who help a veteran get 
his benefits or a high school student apply to the military academies 
that, unlike every other Federal employee, their employer will not 
contribute a share toward their health insurance. It's a lousy, lousy 
thing to do.
  And I say to my colleagues, if you want to see an exodus of smart, 
dedicated people away from Congress, of both parties, if you want to 
see this place get even dumber, then, by all means, pass the Vitter 
amendment. Otherwise, we should treat it like the cynical talking point 
that it is and vote it down.
  Again, Mr. Speaker, it's time for my Republican friends to put on 
their grown-up pants and do the right thing. I urge my colleagues to 
reject the rule, reject the underlying bill, and pass a clean CR.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished 
gentleman from Knoxville, Tennessee (Mr. Duncan).

  Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule 
and the underlying continuing resolution to keep the government open, 
and I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me this time.
  This rule, and the bill it brings to the floor, also makes sure that 
people know that we, in the Congress, will not receive any type of 
exemption or special benefit under ObamaCare.
  For some reason, the national media has given the President a free 
pass by not calling on him to compromise, or even negotiate at all, to 
help keep the government open. The Republicans have compromised and 
have voted to fund the entire government except for only one bill--
ObamaCare. If a Republican President were refusing even to negotiate, 
he would be criticized to high heaven by the national media.
  We simply are trying to treat ordinary individuals the same way and 
give the same delay to individual Americans that was given to big 
business. I

[[Page H6024]]

think this is a very reasonable and moderate approach that Republicans 
in the House have taken.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to 
the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis), a member of the Committee on 
Rules.
  Mr. POLIS. I thank the gentlelady for the time.
  Mr. Speaker, here we are, T minus 6 hours and 7 minutes till a 
shutdown of our Federal Government, the greatest country on the face of 
the Earth with such a dysfunctional Congress that we can't even keep 
our own government open. We'll be voting on a bill tonight that will 
lead to a government shutdown.
  Now, look, why will it lead to a government shutdown? It's because we 
have a separation of powers in our Constitution. This House of 
Representatives does not unilaterally run the country. We have a House; 
we have a Senate; we have a President. It takes compromise and working 
together to move forward as a country. These kinds of positioning bills 
are fine a month or two before a crisis, but with 6 hours left, all 
this bill that we will be voting on tonight will do is cause a 
government shutdown.
  I encourage my colleagues to reject this rule so that we can get to a 
serious discussion about keeping the Federal Government open rather 
than forcing a shutdown of the Federal Government tonight, which is 
what will occur if the House of Representatives passes this bill.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the favorite son of 
Humble, Texas (Mr. Poe).
  Mr. POE of Texas. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, the House, again, will vote to fund the government, not 
shut it down. And when we fund the government, we're going to do two 
things that are in fairness, that do not discriminate against folks:
  One thing, we're going to let everybody get a postponement for a 
year. Why should big business be treated better than the individual 
citizen? It shouldn't, so let's postpone the whole plan for 1 year.
  And also, why should special folks in Washington get exemptions, like 
the White House, the White House staff, Members of Congress, Members of 
Congress' staff, leadership staff, committee staff? We should all be 
under the rules of the law that is passed.
  It's interesting, ObamaCare, and Obama is not under ObamaCare, 
neither is the White House, neither are the Cabinet Members, neither 
are the staff. Why not? Let's treat everybody alike, not discriminate.
  And that's just the way it is.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the 
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).
  (Ms. JACKSON LEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
her remarks.)
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, we are on the brink of a shutdown, a 
brink of sending this Nation over the cliff.
  Tonight, I speak to the American people and to my colleagues. We have 
a very simple task--a task of mercy and grace, a task of adulthood and 
recognition of our responsibility to keep this government open.
  I'd like to shun the party of Marie Antoinette and let them eat cake, 
or those who would say let's work and play while Rome is burning, or 
maybe even the former Republican Presidential candidate Bachmann, who 
says: We're smiling; we got just what we want, a shutdown of the 
government. I would like to shun that kind of attitude and ask my 
colleagues to join together in a simple task--to support the clean 
continuing resolution that would fund this government as we are 
obligated to do under the Constitution.
  We have the purse strings in the House, to make sure that the 
government works, to make sure that our women and children are served 
and our veterans are served, to make sure that our parks are open. So 
all we have to do is a simple task--to stop going over the top and be 
able to respond as Americans.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Lewisville, Texas (Mr. Burgess), a member of the Rules 
Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee.
  Mr. BURGESS. I thank the chairman for the recognition.
  Mr. Speaker, I felt obligated to come to the floor tonight to try to 
set a few things straight. All the words that have been spoken about 
the amendment from the Senator from Iowa that was in the original 
Affordable Care Act that was signed by the President in March of 2010, 
but like so many things that were in the bill that was signed by the 
President, there were errors. It really wasn't ready for prime time. It 
was hastily pushed through the Senate, never went through any sort of 
process in the House after that point, and then got signed into law.
  As a consequence--and Senator Grassley has been concerned about this, 
and he spoke just last week--he said that the original amendment 
required lawmakers and staffers to enter the ObamaCare exchanges, but 
he didn't intend for them to lose the employer subsidy. And he said 
it's frustrating. It's frustrating because if they had let those of us 
who knew anything about health care draft this amendment, we wouldn't 
have the controversy.
  The Senator said that the Democratic majority leader did not properly 
draft the statutory language for his amendment, omitting language that 
would have allowed the staff to keep their employer contributions while 
in the exchanges. He said repeatedly that the Office of Personnel 
Management rule was in line with the original intent of the amendment, 
despite the amendment not being his.
  And then Senator Grassley went on to say: You understand that when we 
adopt an amendment in the Senate Finance Committee, unlike other 
committees, it's not in legal language. We describe it, but then it 
went to the majority leader's office, and when they put the statutory 
language in, they screwed it up.
  He said: If you want to know the truth, they had people who didn't 
know what they were doing. I don't know what their intent was, the 
Senator continued. My goal, regardless of how the amendment was worded, 
was that we in Congress need to go into the exchange so we'd have to go 
through the same red tape as every other citizen.
  And that's really what we're doing here tonight, saying that that 
concept, that Members of Congress go through that same red tape as 
every other citizen in this country is required to do.
  Now, we can talk about things that have been delayed in this bill. 
Maybe we should spend a few minutes talking about that.
  Republicans have tried to short-circuit parts of the Affordable Care 
Act, but it's actually been the President himself who's been the 
delayer in chief. Many people forget that there was a Federal 
preexisting program set up under the Affordable Care Act, but that 
preexisting program closed its doors to new applicants the 1st of 
February of this year.

                              {time}  1800

  That means for 11 months people are frozen out of the Federal 
preexisting program. The press has never held the President to account 
for that.
  We heard comments as this debate started off about the caps on out-
of-pocket expenses. But, Mr. Speaker, did you realize that those caps 
on out-of-pocket expenses were in fact suspended by the administration 
earlier this year? There was very little press about that.
  So all of the heralding of good things in the Affordable Care Act, 
you don't know what it's going to contain when it finally kicks in 
because the President may stop any part of it, at his discretion.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), the distinguished ranking 
member of the Committee on the Budget.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, a simple question: Why is the Speaker of 
this House denying this House the opportunity to have an ``up-or-down'' 
vote on a clean continuing resolution to keep the Federal Government 
operating tomorrow and beyond? Why is he not allowing a vote? Why is he 
not allowing Democrats and Republicans together to have a vote on 
keeping the government open?
  Because, Mr. Speaker, if he had that vote, it would pass. It would 
pass on a bipartisan basis and the government would still be operating. 
So, apparently, the Speaker is afraid that we

[[Page H6025]]

would actually pass a bill to keep the government going.
  So why is he not allowing the people's House to do the people's 
business? Well, we've been seeing this playing out around the country 
in the last couple of weeks. You've got a far-right extreme Tea Party 
element in the Republican Party that is dictating what's happening here 
on the floor of this House. Senator Cruz is running the show on the 
floor of this House. Mr. Speaker, why don't you just quicken it up and 
pass Senator Cruz the gavel and let him run the House?
  Now why is it that this group of Members wants to shut down the 
government? Because tomorrow, millions of Americans are going to get 
access to affordable health care. Millions of Americans are already 
benefiting from the protections of the Affordable Care Act. But 
tomorrow, millions more will get access to affordable care.
  Republicans are so bent--at least this Tea Party faction--on blocking 
that from happening and preventing those millions of Americans from 
getting access to affordable care, they're prepared to shut down this 
government. That is a scandal.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mrs. SLAUGHTER. I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. The other thing that's really puzzling is while our 
Republican colleagues want to shut down the government to prevent the 
American people from getting access to the benefits of the Affordable 
Care Act and access to the exchange, where you have a marketplace of 
different plans being offered and a little help for those who are 
stretched thin and can't afford it, while our Republican colleagues 
want to shut down that part and other important parts of the Affordable 
Care Act, guess what the Republicans kept in their own budget? They 
kept the Medicare savings. I remember Mitt Romney and the Vice 
Presidential candidate saying how those were going to be the ruin of 
the country.
  Well, guess what? In the Republican-passed budget that virtually 
every Republican Member of this House voted for, they kept those 
savings. And guess what else they kept? They kept the same level of 
revenue that would be generated by ObamaCare. Just check the Heritage 
Foundation statement. Every penny of revenue from ObamaCare, that level 
of funding is assumed in the Republican budget.
  So here we have Republicans running around the country saying they've 
got a balanced budget, which is balanced because of ObamaCare, and now 
they're here saying they want to defund ObamaCare. You just can't have 
it both ways.
  Don't shut down the government. Let's pass the bill that came out of 
the Senate, send it to the President, and get it done tonight.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I appreciate my dear friend, the gentleman from Maryland, coming to 
the floor and speaking. But I want to say something real fast, if we 
can, Mr. Speaker. This is to fund the government.
  The second part. This is to say that the President of the United 
States gave a pass to business. The pass was because the President has 
not provided enough content and information to business to let them 
know how it's supposed to work. But we're not going to do the same for 
individuals.
  And that's what this legislation says. We're going to fund the 
government. We're not trying to stop having people from receiving 
things. We're trying to say, Give us the same opportunity. Because the 
individuals that it does help, I do have a sense of responsibility 
about them. But those times thousands of more who will be harmed by 
what we're doing is not a balance that Republicans can put up with--the 
overriding effect.
  So, in fact, we're here, and I can look myself straight in the 
mirror, Mr. Speaker. We're trying to do the right thing for the 
American people.
  At this time I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. 
Woodall), a distinguished member of the Rules Committee and a very 
bright young man.
  Mr. WOODALL. I thank my chairman for yielding me the time. I thank 
him for his leadership in the Rules Committee.
  Mr. Speaker, we've been here night after night after night, I say to 
my chairman, trying to keep the government open. And to my colleagues 
on the Democratic side of the aisle, we have an opportunity to work 
together.
  I'm a hardcore, right-wing Georgia Republican, and I'm here to tell 
you I want to keep the government open. And I don't think there's one 
of you over there who questions my word that I'm here today to keep the 
government open, not to bring the government to a halt.

  But there are also other concerns. And the biggest frustration I've 
had, Mr. Speaker, in my 2\1/2\ years here in the House is that the 
President doesn't want to talk with me and my 700,000 constituents 
about our priorities for America.
  I carry a copy of the Constitution in my pocket, Mr. Speaker, and it 
lays out clearly our bicameral system here in Congress: our article I, 
the Congress; our article II, the White House; and our article III, the 
courts.
  The President has been saying over and over and over again as we come 
upon this brink of a government shutdown, I will not negotiate. Over 
and over again, Mr. Speaker. I will not negotiate.
  So often it's so easy for my friends to characterize Republicans as 
being folks who are just looking for a fight. I've been down here with 
my Republican colleagues as they have passed a bill to fund the 
government and completely repeal ObamaCare. I've been down here with my 
Republican colleagues when they came back and they passed a bill to 
fund the government but just delay the most troublesome parts for a 
year. And now I'm back down here again with my Republican colleagues 
with a bill that will fund the government but simply prevent the 
individual mandate from compelling individuals to engage in behavior 
they didn't want to engage in and to ensure that all Americans have 
access to the same set of rules that are applying to Congress. I don't 
know how to be any more fair than that.
  Harry Reid said, We don't need to have any more conversations. Folks, 
we have more serious problems than keeping the government open if the 
rule book for how this place is to operate no longer means anything.
  Mr. Speaker, if the President just gets to decide how it's going to 
be and that's going to be the way America runs, we no longer have a 
constitutional Republic. We have something very, very different.
  We're here on the floor today to keep the government open. We're here 
on the floor today to continue to try to negotiate.
  I'm very proud of what my chairman has done in the Rules Committee in 
terms of bringing us together and trying to build a program that unites 
people rather than divides people. You have to be seeing the same 
headlines I'm seeing. Delta Air Lines is dropping employees, Home Depot 
is dropping employees, UPS is dropping, Kroger is dropping employees. 
You have to be seeing that. And it has to hurt you in the same way it 
hurts me.
  Let's come together and solve that problem. This is a step in that 
direction. There is much more negotiation to be done, and I hope we'll 
do it over the next few weeks.
  Support this rule, support this bill.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to yield 1 minute to the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Danny K. Davis).
  Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I have been told that 
when elephants fight, the grass is bruised. And when Democrats and 
Republicans fight beyond what is reasonable, people are hurt. And many 
of them will not survive.
  It's time for us to move beyond this debate.
  Somebody said the other day that justice delayed was justice denied. 
I can tell you that treatment for a stroke victim that's delayed, 
treatment for cancer, treatment for dialysis, and treatment for liver 
ailments that's delayed, all of those are trips to an early grave.
  It's time to vote in the Senate resolution, forget about shutting 
down the government, and breathe life into our process and life for the 
American people.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, some of my favorites in the Democratic 
Party

[[Page H6026]]

are taking their chances to come down tonight in this spirited debate 
and opportunity--the very best of the Democratic Party is here. I 
admire these men. I began serving with Mr. Davis some 17 years ago. 
He's one of the most honorable and respected Members of this body, and 
I'm delighted that Danny has come down.
  Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from the Sixth District of Florida (Mr. DeSantis).
  Mr. DeSANTIS. Mr. Speaker, one of the realities of ObamaCare is that 
millions of Americans are going to lose their employer-provided health 
insurance and be put into exchanges. And as you look through the 2,500-
pages, there's actually a provision that makes Congress eat its own 
cooking. It takes Congress--who voted on it in 2010, and it was signed 
by the President--out of the congressional and Federal plan and puts 
them into ObamaCare exchanges.
  Well, as we get close to the day of reckoning--October 1, and January 
1, when the exchanges fully take effect--a lot of people around here 
don't like that. And so as we were leaving for August recess, the 
administration issued a ruling through the bureaucracy granting 
subsidies to Members of Congress, essentially rewarding their political 
friends, without any basis in the statute, and indeed subsidies that 
Americans who get removed from their employer plan will not be allowed 
to get in the private sector.
  And so I think this rule allows Members to go on record. Does 
Congress deserve this bailout? The statute wasn't read and understood. 
They're looking for an easy escape. You need to go on record and say 
whether you want to get this bailout.
  Should Congress receive benefits for its Members that are not 
available to private sector employees who are in the same situation? I 
think the answer to that is ``no.'' And I'll cite James Madison in 
Federalist 57. Madison said that the beauty of a constitutional system 
is that the ruling class can make no law which does not have its full 
operation on them and their friends as on the great mass of society.
  Congress should not be treated differently. This rule allows Members 
of this body to go on record. So I'm glad that the chairman has written 
it.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to yield 1 minute to the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).
  Mr. DOGGETT. For well over a year, Republicans have forced our 
country to lurch from one politically manufactured crisis to another. 
Last year, they cost us over a billion dollars in a manufactured crisis 
over the debt limit. They began New Year's Day with a last-second 
pullback from a plunge over the fiscal cliff. And now they're up to 
their old shenanigans of shutting down the government--and that 
manufactured crisis is just a few days before the next one they've 
manufactured over the full faith and credit of the United States. This 
is no way to run a Congress, and it's no way to run a country.
  The only path out is the same path that allowed us to escape the 
disaster on New Year's Day, the same path that we took that finally got 
relief for the Hurricane Sandy victims and the only way we passed the 
Violence Against Women Act--and that's to let majority rule apply on 
the floor of this House. And until we do that, we will have a crisis.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Texas.
  Mr. DOGGETT. What we have to do is end the hammerlock of the 
``shutdown caucus'' in the Republican Party.

                              {time}  1815

  When the Speaker finally lets a majority of this House, a bipartisan 
majority of Republicans and Democrats, vote on continuing the necessary 
operations of our government, if they'll do that tonight, it will pass 
in 5 minutes. It's just a question of whenever they decide to stop 
letting the ``shutdown caucus'' control what happens to the future of 
this Congress. It's the way we got relief on New Year's Day. It's the 
way we addressed the concerns of the Hurricane Sandy victims. It's the 
way we passed the Violence Against Women Act. And it's the way this 
country must move forward.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to yield 1 minute to the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).
  (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, in the springtime, the Republican Party 
passed a budget in the House; and a few weeks later, the Senate passed 
a budget in the Senate. And there was an attempt to bring the two 
parties together in a conference to work out the differences so there 
could be a budget before the year begins tomorrow. Now, House 
Republicans refuse to start that negotiation.
  So when we came back after Labor Day, it became pretty obvious that 
we were going to reach this point on September 30 of a government 
shutdown unless something was done. The Republicans opened the bidding, 
as they always do, by saying, we want a lower level of spending, and we 
want to get rid of the health care bill. What's happened since then 
between the House and the Senate is the Senate has said, all right; 
we'll take the lower level of spending, but we'll keep the health care 
bill. You get one thing you want; you don't get both things you want. 
That's the compromise. Now, we could be voting on that compromise this 
evening and end the government shutdown because if it were on the 
floor, it would pass.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman.
  Mr. ANDREWS. I thank the gentlelady. We have a chance in a couple of 
minutes to make that happen.
  If the Members vote ``no'' on the question that is about to come up, 
it will have the practical effect of getting rid of this proposal and 
putting on the House floor the Senate bill that could pass and end the 
government shutdown.
  Let's vote on the compromise. Let's give everyone here the chance to 
let the people work their will and end this ridiculous government 
shutdown that looms over the country.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to 
the gentleman from New York (Mr. Jeffries).
  Mr. JEFFRIES. I thank the distinguished gentlelady from New York.
  Mr. Speaker, the House GOP has once again exposed its extremism for 
all of the American people to see. The resolution that underlies this 
rule is dead on arrival in the Senate and will not be signed into law 
by the President. And so what we have embarked on is a futile 
legislative joyride that will only end in a government shutdown, that 
will hurt children, hurt families, hurt the military, hurt senior 
citizens, and hurt our economy. This is an unnecessary Shakespearean 
tragedy.
  Why are we continuing to fight a battle that you have already lost? 
You lost it in 2010 legislatively when this Congress passed the 
Affordable Care Act. You lost it jurisprudentially in a court of law 
when the Supreme Court in 2012 declared the Affordable Care Act 
constitutional, and then you lost it politically last November when the 
President was reelected to a second term. Why are we continuing to 
litigate an issue that has already been resolved?
  It's time to confront reality. The Affordable Care Act is the law of 
the land. Let's move on and get back to doing the business of the 
American people.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to direct their remarks 
to the Chair.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the 
gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Nolan).
  (Mr. NOLAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker, the simple truth is--and everyone in this 
free world for that matter knows it--these amendments are intended for 
the soul purpose of shutting down the government. They're not going 
anywhere. Everybody knows it.
  To deny this House of Representatives an opportunity for an up-or-
down

[[Page H6027]]

vote is an affront to the American people, it's an affront to this 
institution, it's an affront to this democracy and every Member of this 
House.
  Mr. Speaker, Members of Congress, reject this rule so we can have a 
vote on a clean resolution and fund our government going forward.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my 
time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from 
New York (Mrs. Maloney).
  Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, this is a sad day 
for our Congress. Our colleagues across the aisle have chosen to pursue 
a pointless path of petty politics that will shut down the government 
of the most powerful Nation on the Earth and damage the world's largest 
economy.
  It is the height of irony that the extremists who have taken control 
of the Republican agenda speak of listening to the will of the people. 
The will of the people? The will of the people was to vote for the 
Presidential candidate who promised to preserve the Affordable Care Act 
and to reject the Presidential candidate who promised to repeal it on 
day one.
  The will of the people was to cast a million more votes for 
Democratic candidates for the House than for the Republican candidates, 
And the will of the people is to keep this government open and to vote 
on a clean CR that does not have a lot of stuff added to it unrelated 
to preserving our government and having our government function.
  Shutting down the government will raise borrowing costs, slow the 
recovery, and cause financial instability. Let's get a clean CR and 
vote for a clean CR.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 1 minute to the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Reed), the former mayor of Corning.
  Mr. REED. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, what we have before us is an opportunity to send a 
message across America that there will be no special treatment in 
Washington, D.C. for Members of Congress and Washington insiders.
  It is only fair that what we do is that we treat everyone equally 
under the law. That is what we're dealing with here today, Mr. Speaker. 
What we are talking about is if the President of the United States has 
said to Big Business, you get a pass for 1 year under ObamaCare, all 
we're saying is if it's good for Big Business, it's good for Americans 
and that every individual in America should be treated the same.
  I'm asking my colleagues to join me. Don't vote to protect your own 
self-interest and this special contribution under ObamaCare that 
Members of Congress get. Treat us equally. Treat us the same. It is 
only fair that we keep this government open and we keep the law of the 
land intact for everyone equally.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to yield 1 minute to the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the Democrat leader.
  Ms. PELOSI. I thank the gentlelady for yielding and for her 
leadership on this very important issue. And what is that issue? Do we, 
as Members of Congress, intend to honor our responsibilities to the 
American people by making tough choices to keep government open and 
working for the American people?
  Mr. Speaker, this weekend, in the dead of night, the Republican 
majority had a simple, but clear, choice to make: they could make a 
choice to accept Democrats saying ``yes'' to them on their budget 
number to proceed to the negotiating table to come up with a budget for 
our country, or they could choose in the dead of night to continue, 
like hounds baying at the Moon, once again--for like the 44th and 45th 
time--to try to overturn the Affordable Care Act. And what did they 
choose--and I say this with great apology to hounds because I love 
dogs--they chose to bay to the Moon. It was a sad thing because so much 
is at stake.
  We should all, as Members of Congress, have confidence in what we 
believe in and debate full throttle the issues that are important to 
our country and to our constituents. We shouldn't take hostages because 
of the weakness of our ideas. We should go confidently to the table of 
policymaking to debate them, but to say we're going to shut down 
government unless you overturn the law of the land--that has been 
upheld by the Supreme Court and validated by the last election--we are 
going to shut down the government.
  Now, the decision that they made the other night--baying night--
they're continuing today, attempting to put on the floor a resolution 
that has no possibility of becoming the law.
  We as Democrats say, you have put forth two really unpleasant 
proposals; one, to overturn the Affordable Care Act; and the other is 
hiding the terrible budget bill that they are putting forth, which even 
their own chairman says does not enable government to function, does 
not even enable us to do the job that we're here to do for the American 
people.
  Two ``noes'' do not make a ``yes.'' Two ``noes'' make matters worse. 
Democrats are absolutely, totally opposed and determined that we will 
not shut government down. We will not be party to shutting government 
down, and so we're willing to take your budget figure, with the 
accompanying 6-week opportunity to go to the negotiating table, and 
develop a bill that will get rid of sequestration and all the harm that 
that does to our national security and to our investments in the 
future. Take ``yes'' for an answer.
  This debate is about the budget. Keeping government open is about 
passing a bill, a continuing resolution to do that. Don't be insecure 
about your own ideas and say the only way we can prevail is if we 
threaten to shut government down if we don't have our own way--if we 
don't have our own way, we're going to shut government down. You and 
that attitude are a luxury this country cannot afford.
  So again I say, this is an explicit offer to the Republicans in the 
Congress to agree to your number in this legislation and take the next 
weeks ahead to come to the table and negotiate--something we should 
have done 6 months ago. In March, the Republicans said they wanted 
regular order. Regular order means you pass a bill in the House and a 
bill in the Senate, and you go to conference--at least that's what the 
book says. That's what regular order is. The Republicans wanted regular 
order. That's what they told the President of the United States in the 
Oval Office. How would you like to proceed, the President said. We want 
regular order, said Speaker Boehner and Leader McConnell.
  The House passed its budget bill. Republicans started saying things 
like ``no budget, no pay'' to the Senate, the taunt. The Senate had 
planned to--and did--pass its budget bill. That would be the regular 
order. Now we go to the table to reconcile our differences.
  The minute the Senate passed its bill, the Republicans abandoned any 
interest in the regular order. Why? Maybe they were afraid that people 
would see the contrast of what they want to do in their budget compared 
to the investment in the future, the statement of our national values 
that our Democratic proposal had under Chairwoman Patty Murray in the 
Senate and Chris Van Hollen in the House.
  Whatever the reason, for 6 months they have not wanted to negotiate, 
and for 6 months they were saying the President doesn't want to 
negotiate. But they are the ones who have the responsibility, under the 
regular order of the House, to come to the budget table to reconcile 
our differences.
  I salute the President for saying that the full faith and credit of 
the United States is not negotiable. We will not default on the debts 
that we have all incurred already.

                              {time}  1830

  That is over here. So when he says that's not negotiable, that 
doesn't mean that we won't negotiate on the budget which is in the form 
of a continuing resolution, a separate issue.
  You can only conclude that ``insecure'' because of the poverty of 
ideas or ``just determined to shut down government,'' maybe because 
they don't fully understand the consequences of it.
  The Republicans have once again come to the floor with a bill which 
they know will shut down government. 5\1/2\ hours from now--5\1/2\ 
hours from now--we either bay to the Moon again or we'll make the right 
decision to take ``yes'' for an answer, we agree to your number for the 
purpose of going to the negotiating table.
  Our number is what we agreed to with you in the Budget Control Act, a

[[Page H6028]]

bipartisan agreement--$1.58 trillion versus $986 billion. That's an $80 
billion comedown. That number was a comprise to begin with. That wasn't 
like plush with spending. It was a comprise to begin with. Now we are 
underfunding government; and that's not good enough for you, to 
underfund in meeting the needs of the American people. You want to shut 
down government.
  I would hope that all who think this is not a good idea will express 
themselves on the rule, because the rule does not allow us to have a 
vote, a clean vote, on your suggestion for a continuing resolution at 
$986 billion. Let's give the Republicans a vote on their number. Let's 
give the Republicans a vote on their proposal, and let's do it in a way 
that is clean and does not place in doubt whether government will be 
open in the morning to meet the needs of the American people.
  I hope that in the previous question enough people will reject what 
the Republicans are putting forth, and certainly on the rule we can do 
that. Otherwise, we'll go time and time again--46 times--to vote 
against undermining the Affordable Care Act. Instead, we could have 
passed an immigration bill. We could have passed a bill to make sure we 
had background checks for people who are legally able to purchase guns 
to make sure that they are. God willing, we could have passed 
legislation creating jobs, investing in the future for our country.
  But all of those things can be the legitimate--not all, but the stuff 
about the job initiatives and investing in the future are the 
legitimate debate of priorities that is the budget debate. That is what 
I hope the Republicans will allow: something they asked for--the 
regular order; something they asked for--$986 billion in the bill; 
something I think we all want--keeping government open.
  With that, I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentlewoman from 
California, not only for coming down, but for her kind words about many 
commonsense things. I think she also knows that this bill that's before 
us tonight is not to shut down the government.
  I come from a family that the former Speaker has known for a long, 
long time. She knows a lot about me. I'm a part of this bill. I was 
taught by my father, yes, but also others, that you stay at the table 
until you get something done. It may be a little bit late at night; it 
may take a little bit of hard work; it may take some creative thinking. 
And then the athlete in me says you run through the tape. As a track 
guy, I always ran through the tape. As a football guy, I ran until the 
clock went out.
  I think what the Republican Party is here trying to say is we are 
here at work. We are going to get our work done. We are challenging the 
United States Senate to do the same. We are going to pass this bill 
tonight because it's the right thing to do. We will stay open tonight 
and we'll receive their, in ping-pong terms, the ping and the pong back 
and forth, and we'll be ready.
  Mr. Speaker, I'm sure you'll stay on duty. You may drink a couple 
cups of coffee, but you're doing the right thing for the people of 
Johnson County, Kansas. I know where you are from and I know what kind 
of man you are.
  I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Duffy).
  Mr. DUFFY. Mr. Speaker, I've been in this institution for 2\1/2\ 
years. The minority leader from the other side of the aisle talked 
about hounds. I heard a lot of howling from the other side of the 
aisle--howling about fairness and howling about equality.
  Well, talk is cheap, because today you have an opportunity to live 
and vote ``fairness'' and ``equality.'' For months, big business has 
come to this town and they have asked for an employer exemption, an 
exemption from the employer mandate. All we are doing tonight is saying 
let's treat individuals in America the same way you are treating big 
business. They may not have as much money or as powerful lobbyists, but 
they have us fighting for them. Join us so we can treat individuals 
like the big businesses that you give an exemption.
  The President talks about how great ObamaCare is, but we have to note 
that he has excluded his administration. The Press Secretary, Mr. 
Carney, he gets up off and then talks about how great this bill is. If 
it is so great, what we do tonight is we allow the administration, like 
us in Congress, to come into ObamaCare and we remove the subsidy from 
us and from the administration. Let's treat Congress with the same 
equality and the administration with the same equality as the American 
people, and let's treat the American people the same way you are 
treating big businesses in America.
  This is easy. Walk the walk; don't just give us the talk.
  Let's vote for this rule and let's pass this bill tonight.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Farr), a member of the Committee on 
Appropriations.
  Mr. FARR. Mr. Speaker, bring us some leadership.
  There is only one issue before the United States Congress, and that's 
the issue to keep government open. The bill to do that is in this 
House. The bill to keep the government open is in this House. If it 
were on the floor, we would pass it in 1 minute. It would go to 
the President and he would have it signed before he went to bed. That's 
all we have to do.

  But this rule brings all kinds of other baggage and says, no, we 
don't want to keep government open; we want to get into other issues. 
Well, aren't all the other issues what we are about for all the other 
part of the year? This is the only day and the only moment when we can 
keep government open. It's the last chance.
  They say: Oh, do you know what? Well, you know, this is a partisan 
thing. I heard the chairman say: You know, it was a mistake to pass, 
the President made a mistake. That's what you said.
  Well, we thought President Bush made a mistake in invading Iraq. In 
fact, the majority of Democrats fought against it, argued against it, 
and voted against it. But when we went to Iraq, we didn't try to stop 
the whole Congress to block the budget. No. In fact, on the 
appropriations to pay for it, the Democrats voted for it. We admit it--
we lost.
  You lost on the ObamaCare, or whatever else you want to call it. It's 
the law. Some reports declared it. If you want to deal with other 
issues, put it in other bills, but don't attach it to this bill.
  Reject this rule that brings the baggage. Bring the clean bill. Let's 
pass it in the next hour and, Mr. President, have it signed by 
midnight, and let's keep this government open. It does so much damage 
otherwise. So many kids, so many women, so many poor people really get 
hurt.
  This is not leadership. This is meanness.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  I would like to advise the gentlewoman I have no further speakers, 
and I'll wait for her to run through her time and close, then I will do 
the same.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I have one further speaker. I yield 1 
minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman).
  Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, we are told that if we want the government 
to stay open for just another 45 or 75 days, we should torpedo the 
Affordable Care Act. Then what happens in November or December? Are we 
told that to keep the government open any further we have to strip-mine 
Yellowstone, we have to abolish Medicare?
  The fact is it is wrong to take hostages. It is wrong to say that the 
government will shut down if that is the only way that you can achieve 
your legislative objectives.
  What would the country think of us if we said we are going to shut 
down the government unless we get gay rights, gun control, cap-and-
trade, immigration reform? Or what would the country think of us if we 
said gay rights, but only for 1 year; keep the government open for 1 
year, get gay rights for 1 year.
  Taking hostages is wrong. Holding hostage the greatest country in the 
world is wrong.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Lynch).
  Mr. LYNCH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlelady for yielding.

[[Page H6029]]

  I had a chance earlier today--because we are not doing a whole lot 
other than arguing for the last few days--to run up The Mall and go for 
a little jog. I went by the Washington Monument, the World War II 
Memorial, ran all the way out to Arlington where the Iwo Jima Memorial 
is.
  I got to thinking about all the great people in this country who have 
built this government and invested so much, sacrificing their very 
lives to preserve this government and to elevate it to a point where it 
is respected around the world. I thought about the debate that's going 
on here today. We should not be disgracing their memory, all of those 
people from Jefferson to FDR and others, by dissolving this government, 
by defunding it and allowing it to fail. We owe the American people 
better than that. There's a solution here.
  Hey, look, I didn't vote for the Affordable Care Act either. I 
thought it was a flawed bill. But that's a different argument about how 
to make that work best for the American people. We are failing the 
American people by allowing this government to shut down. It's a 
terrible precedent to set. It's disgraceful, and the American people 
deserve better.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, if my colleague has no further requests 
for time, I am prepared to close.
  Mr. SESSIONS. That would be correct.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Today is a truly shameful day in the distinguished history of this 
House. Far from the noble mission that some from the other side may 
claim, what is before us is an extreme--and extremely cynical--attempt 
to extract a ransom from the American people. They have issued their 
demands knowing full well they will not be met. Yet they are taking 
another step towards a government shutdown in order to deny 30 million 
uninsured Americans health care.
  Time has run out. We are down to our last chance. I urge my 
colleagues to vote ``no'' on today's rule and the underlying 
legislation, and ask once more that we be given the opportunity to vote 
on the Senate bill, a clean bill, that can go directly to the 
President.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  In closing, we are here tonight because the Republican Party 
recognizes that men and women of this country are worried about their 
future, worried about economics, worried about taking care of their 
family. We've seen food prices double since the President has been our 
President. We've seen energy prices double. We've seen more rules and 
regulations. We've seen a war on coal. We've seen all sorts of things 
that have taken place.
  But taking over your health care is a pretty serious matter. We 
disagreed with it then, but we've tried to work with the President. 
We've had seven or eight bills that actually did work, but the 
President recognized that there were fraudulent parts of the bill that 
needed to be taken advantage of and we got rid of those.

                              {time}  1845

  Tonight, we are here to say ``fairness.'' You should not give one 
group of people one thing and not give to the others. Likewise, we 
believe the President of the United States and his administration 
should be in the exact same health care that Members of Congress are 
in. So I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule and ``yes'' on 
the underlying legislation.
  Best of all, 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.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 and clause 9 of rule 
XX, this 15-minute vote on ordering the previous question will be 
followed by 5-minute votes on adoption of House Resolution 367, if 
ordered; and motion to suspend the rules on S. 1348, if ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 229, 
nays 198, not voting 4, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 501]

                               YEAS--229

     Aderholt
     Amash
     Amodei
     Bachmann
     Bachus
     Barletta
     Barr
     Barton
     Benishek
     Bentivolio
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (UT)
     Black
     Blackburn
     Boustany
     Brady (TX)
     Bridenstine
     Brooks (AL)
     Brooks (IN)
     Broun (GA)
     Buchanan
     Bucshon
     Burgess
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Cantor
     Capito
     Carter
     Cassidy
     Chabot
     Chaffetz
     Coble
     Coffman
     Cole
     Collins (GA)
     Collins (NY)
     Conaway
     Cook
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crawford
     Crenshaw
     Culberson
     Daines
     Davis, Rodney
     Denham
     Dent
     DeSantis
     DesJarlais
     Diaz-Balart
     Duffy
     Duncan (SC)
     Duncan (TN)
     Ellmers
     Farenthold
     Fincher
     Fitzpatrick
     Fleischmann
     Fleming
     Flores
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gardner
     Garrett
     Gerlach
     Gibbs
     Gibson
     Gingrey (GA)
     Goodlatte
     Gosar
     Gowdy
     Granger
     Graves (GA)
     Graves (MO)
     Griffin (AR)
     Griffith (VA)
     Guthrie
     Hall
     Hanna
     Harper
     Harris
     Hartzler
     Hastings (WA)
     Heck (NV)
     Hensarling
     Herrera Beutler
     Holding
     Hudson
     Huelskamp
     Huizenga (MI)
     Hultgren
     Hunter
     Hurt
     Issa
     Jenkins
     Johnson (OH)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Jordan
     Joyce
     Kelly (PA)
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kinzinger (IL)
     Kline
     Labrador
     LaMalfa
     Lamborn
     Lance
     Lankford
     Latham
     Latta
     LoBiondo
     Long
     Lucas
     Luetkemeyer
     Lummis
     Marchant
     Marino
     Massie
     McCarthy (CA)
     McCaul
     McClintock
     McHenry
     McKeon
     McKinley
     McMorris Rodgers
     Meadows
     Meehan
     Messer
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Mullin
     Mulvaney
     Murphy (PA)
     Neugebauer
     Noem
     Nugent
     Nunes
     Nunnelee
     Olson
     Palazzo
     Paulsen
     Pearce
     Perry
     Petri
     Pittenger
     Pitts
     Poe (TX)
     Pompeo
     Posey
     Price (GA)
     Radel
     Reed
     Reichert
     Renacci
     Ribble
     Rice (SC)
     Rigell
     Roby
     Roe (TN)
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Rokita
     Rooney
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roskam
     Ross
     Rothfus
     Royce
     Runyan
     Ryan (WI)
     Salmon
     Sanford
     Scalise
     Schock
     Schweikert
     Scott, Austin
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Smith (MO)
     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 (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Young (IN)

                               NAYS--198

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

[[Page H6030]]


     Waters
     Watt
     Waxman
     Welch
     Wilson (FL)
     Yarmuth

                             NOT VOTING--4

     Clay
     Grimm
     McCarthy (NY)
     Rush

                              {time}  1908

  Mr. WEBER of Texas changed his vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
  So the previous question was ordered.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  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.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. This will be a 5-minute vote.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 225, 
nays 204, not voting 2, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 502]

                               YEAS--225

     Aderholt
     Amash
     Amodei
     Bachus
     Barletta
     Barr
     Barton
     Benishek
     Bentivolio
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (UT)
     Black
     Blackburn
     Boustany
     Brady (TX)
     Bridenstine
     Brooks (AL)
     Brooks (IN)
     Buchanan
     Bucshon
     Burgess
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Cantor
     Capito
     Carter
     Cassidy
     Chabot
     Chaffetz
     Coble
     Coffman
     Cole
     Collins (GA)
     Collins (NY)
     Conaway
     Cook
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crawford
     Crenshaw
     Culberson
     Daines
     Davis, Rodney
     Denham
     DeSantis
     DesJarlais
     Diaz-Balart
     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)
     Goodlatte
     Gosar
     Gowdy
     Granger
     Graves (GA)
     Graves (MO)
     Griffin (AR)
     Griffith (VA)
     Grimm
     Guthrie
     Hall
     Hanna
     Harper
     Harris
     Hartzler
     Hastings (WA)
     Heck (NV)
     Hensarling
     Herrera Beutler
     Holding
     Hudson
     Huelskamp
     Huizenga (MI)
     Hultgren
     Hunter
     Hurt
     Issa
     Jenkins
     Johnson (OH)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Jordan
     Joyce
     Kelly (PA)
     Kingston
     Kinzinger (IL)
     Kline
     Labrador
     LaMalfa
     Lamborn
     Lance
     Lankford
     Latham
     Latta
     LoBiondo
     Long
     Lucas
     Luetkemeyer
     Lummis
     Marchant
     Marino
     Massie
     McCarthy (CA)
     McCaul
     McClintock
     McHenry
     McKeon
     McKinley
     McMorris Rodgers
     Meadows
     Meehan
     Messer
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Mullin
     Mulvaney
     Murphy (PA)
     Neugebauer
     Noem
     Nugent
     Nunes
     Nunnelee
     Olson
     Palazzo
     Paulsen
     Pearce
     Perry
     Petri
     Pittenger
     Pitts
     Poe (TX)
     Pompeo
     Posey
     Price (GA)
     Radel
     Reed
     Reichert
     Renacci
     Ribble
     Rice (SC)
     Rigell
     Roby
     Roe (TN)
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Rokita
     Rooney
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roskam
     Ross
     Rothfus
     Royce
     Runyan
     Ryan (WI)
     Salmon
     Sanford
     Scalise
     Schock
     Schweikert
     Scott, Austin
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Smith (MO)
     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 (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Young (IN)

                               NAYS--204

     Andrews
     Bachmann
     Barber
     Barrow (GA)
     Bass
     Beatty
     Becerra
     Bera (CA)
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Bonamici
     Brady (PA)
     Braley (IA)
     Broun (GA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brownley (CA)
     Bustos
     Butterfield
     Capps
     Capuano
     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
     Dent
     Deutch
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Duckworth
     Edwards
     Ellison
     Engel
     Enyart
     Eshoo
     Esty
     Farr
     Fattah
     Foster
     Frankel (FL)
     Fudge
     Gabbard
     Gallego
     Garamendi
     Garcia
     Gohmert
     Grayson
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Hahn
     Hanabusa
     Hastings (FL)
     Heck (WA)
     Higgins
     Himes
     Hinojosa
     Holt
     Honda
     Horsford
     Hoyer
     Huffman
     Israel
     Jackson Lee
     Jeffries
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Kaptur
     Keating
     Kelly (IL)
     Kennedy
     Kildee
     Kilmer
     Kind
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kirkpatrick
     Kuster
     Langevin
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee (CA)
     Levin
     Lewis
     Lipinski
     Loebsack
     Lofgren
     Lowenthal
     Lowey
     Lujan Grisham (NM)
     Lujan, Ben Ray (NM)
     Lynch
     Maffei
     Maloney, Carolyn
     Maloney, Sean
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McIntyre
     McNerney
     Meeks
     Meng
     Michaud
     Miller, George
     Moore
     Moran
     Murphy (FL)
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Negrete McLeod
     Nolan
     O'Rourke
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor (AZ)
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Perlmutter
     Peters (CA)
     Peters (MI)
     Peterson
     Pingree (ME)
     Pocan
     Polis
     Price (NC)
     Quigley
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Richmond
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruiz
     Ruppersberger
     Ryan (OH)
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sarbanes
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schneider
     Schrader
     Schwartz
     Scott (VA)
     Scott, David
     Serrano
     Sewell (AL)
     Shea-Porter
     Sherman
     Sinema
     Sires
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Speier
     Swalwell (CA)
     Takano
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Titus
     Tonko
     Tsongas
     Van Hollen
     Vargas
     Veasey
     Vela
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Walz
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters
     Watt
     Waxman
     Welch
     Wilson (FL)
     Yarmuth

                             NOT VOTING--2

     McCarthy (NY)
     Rush

                              {time}  1915

  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.

                          ____________________