[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 155 (Thursday, October 22, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H7101-H7107]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 3762, RESTORING AMERICANS' 
HEALTHCARE FREEDOM RECONCILIATION ACT OF 2015; WAIVING A REQUIREMENT OF 
   CLAUSE 6(A) OF RULE XIII WITH RESPECT TO CONSIDERATION OF CERTAIN 
  RESOLUTIONS REPORTED FROM THE COMMITTEE ON RULES; AND PROVIDING FOR 
             CONSIDERATION OF MOTIONS TO SUSPEND THE RULES

  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I 
call up House Resolution 483 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 483

       Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be 
     in order to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 3762) to 
     provide for reconciliation pursuant to section 2002 of the 
     concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2016. 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 further amendment 
     thereto, to final passage without intervening motion except: 
     (1) two hours of debate equally divided and controlled by the 
     chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the 
     Budget or their respective designees; and (2) one motion to 
     recommit with or without instructions.
       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 23, 2015.
       Sec. 3.  It shall be in order at any time on the 
     legislative day of October 22, 2015, or October 23, 2015, for 
     the Speaker to entertain motions that the House suspend the 
     rules as though under clause 1 of rule XV. The Speaker or his 
     designee shall consult with the Minority Leader or her 
     designee on the designation of any matter for consideration 
     pursuant to this section.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Georgia is recognized for 
1 hour.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the 
customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), 
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. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Georgia?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I want to start with the end of what our 
Reading Clerk read before I get to the excitement in the beginning.
  At the end, what you heard was some blanket authority to consider 
what I will call housekeeping measures here in the House, and not 
because Republicans say so, not because Democrats say so, but because 
Republicans and Democrats come together, consult with one another, and 
try to find those issues on which we agree to bring forward.
  I sit on the Rules Committee, Mr. Speaker. The best thing that 
happens in this institution is when a bill comes through the Rules 
Committee, because my colleague Ms. Slaughter and I always make it 
better. We always make it better.
  But we include authority to avoid the Rules Committee for some of 
these issues that are going to come to the floor fast and furious. Here 
we are, at the end of a cycle. We are in a leadership change here in 
the House. You don't know what might happen. What the Rules Committee 
did last night was to create a pathway to allow the House to continue 
its business at a moment's notice, and I am glad that we included that 
provision in here. We also include same-day consideration authority.

[[Page H7102]]

  Mr. Speaker, one of the things that happened when the big freshman 
class that I was elected with in 2010 came is we said, for Pete's 
sakes, we need time to read the bills. We need to follow the rules and 
make sure that all Members have a chance to get deep into the 
information and legislation.
  That persists still today. We have a process today that allows 
Members to get involved in that legislation. But we still have those 
emergency times here in this Chamber where something has to happen in a 
hurry. Whether we are talking about borrowing authority, spending 
authority, whether we are talking about something for our troops, 
something for our veterans, things still happen on a moment's notice.
  What we have included in here is the ability to bring things more 
quickly to the floor here in the next short period of time. That is 
important from a housekeeping perspective, Mr. Speaker, but that is not 
what is important about this rule today.
  What is important about this rule today is that 4\1/2\ years ago, the 
people of the great State of Georgia, its Seventh District, sent me to 
Congress. I was placed on the Budget Committee in this Congress, the 
Budget Committee, the committee that writes the framework by which the 
entire $3.5 trillion Federal Government is funded. We got together and 
we worked hard here in the House, Mr. Speaker, and we produced a 
budget, but the Senate did nothing.
  I came back that second year, 2012. We worked hard here in the House. 
Together, we produced a budget, but the Senate did nothing. We came 
back again 2013, worked hard here in the House, produced a budget, but 
the Senate produced nothing.
  Mr. Speaker, what we are here today to do--what we are here today to 
do--is made possible for one reason, and one reason only. That is 
because, for the first time since 2001, Republicans and Democrats came 
together in the House; Republicans and Democrats came together in the 
Senate. We passed a budget; they passed a budget. We conferenced a 
budget, and America has a balanced budget which it lives under for the 
first time in 15 years--for the first time in 15 years.
  Now, what does that mean?
  It is not all that exciting to read the budget, Mr. Speaker. I 
recommend it to you if you haven't gotten into the details. I recommend 
it to anybody who hasn't gotten into the details.
  But that is not what is exciting. It is not the numbers in the budget 
that are exciting. What is exciting is that, because we came together, 
not because we had our ideas and they had their ideas, but because we 
came together, we have triggered a process called reconciliation.
  Now, I am saddened that reconciliation is now in the lexicon of the 
American people. It is not an important word that folks need to know 
except for the fact that it gives us access to do things on their 
behalf that we wouldn't have been able to do before.
  I am so pleased that the Secretary of the Senate sent that message 
over right before we got up to say that the Senate has just acted on 
two pieces of House legislation. One of those, enacted with no 
amendments, is going to be on its way to the President's desk. One, 
done with amendments, we are going to have to consider that again.
  So often we do such good work, the 435 of us together in this 
Chamber, and it does not get past a Senate filibuster. Mr. Speaker, the 
filibuster is designed to protect the rights of the minority. 
Republicans use it when they are in the minority; Democrats use it when 
they are in the minority; but it prevents the people's business from 
moving forward.
  Not so today. Not so today. Because we got together in the House with 
a budget and the Senate with a budget, because we brought a budget 
together, we are now in the process of reconciliation, which allows us 
to have the people's will be done. Fifty-one votes in the Senate now 
will move legislation forward, as it relates to balancing the budget.
  You remember, Admiral Mullen, he said, Mr. Speaker, the greatest 
threat to American national security wasn't a military threat. He said 
it was our Federal budget deficit.
  We have done such an amazing job collaboratively in this Chamber 
working on the one-third of the budget pie called discretionary 
spending. That is the spending that we have to work on here every year. 
What we have failed to do together is work on the two-thirds of the pie 
called mandatory spending, where the real growth in those budget 
programs occurs. But that failure ends today.
  With the passage of this rule, we will move to consider the first 
reconciliation package that has come to Congress in the 4\1/2\ years 
that I have been here, made possible by the first balanced budget 
agreement that Congress has come to since 2001.
  Mr. Speaker, this is why--this is why--I came to Congress, and we are 
doing it together here today.
  Let me tell you what is in this bill. I have seen it described in the 
press as a complete and total repeal of the President's healthcare 
bill. That is nonsense. I would support such an effort if we could 
bring such an effort to the floor, but that is not what this bill is 
today. What this bill is today is a group of commonsense, budget-
saving, spending-reprioritizing measures.
  I will give you an example. There is a medical excise tax that the 
President's healthcare law put into effect. It is 2.3 percent. It is an 
excise tax, a gross receipts tax on all medical innovation in this 
country as it relates to devices. We all know the power to tax is the 
power to destroy. There is not one Member in this Chamber who supports 
destroying medical innovation, not one--not one.
  But, back at the time when the Congressional Budget Office said the 
President's healthcare bill was going to cost $1 trillion, the 
President said: I am not going to spend a penny more than $1 trillion. 
I am going to make sure it is paid for.
  He was out there looking hard for money. Turns out, medical 
innovation was a place he could look. We all see now, in retrospect, 
that was a terrible idea, much like the other nine bills that we have 
passed here in this House, that they have passed in the Senate, that 
the President has signed into law to repeal various unworkable parts of 
the President's healthcare bill. This is just yet another.
  We can do this together here today, made possible by this first 
budget agreement that we have had since 2001.
  The Cadillac tax it is called, Mr. Speaker, another provision that 
this bill will repeal. It is a Cadillac tax, Mr. Speaker.
  As we all know, Cadillac is a fine American automobile. You get in a 
Cadillac, you feel good. We call it the Cadillac tax because it is on 
healthcare plans that are too good--too good. Turns out, Mr. Speaker, 
there are some labor unions in this country that are taking too good of 
care of their members. Turns out there are some businesses in this 
country that are looking after the healthcare needs of their employees 
too much. We want to keep that down. The last thing we want in this 
country, apparently, is folks having health care that is too good.
  I tell people all the time, Mr. Speaker, I can make everybody in this 
country poor; I just can't pass a law to make everybody rich. We are so 
good at dumbing down the system for everybody. Well, that is what this 
Cadillac tax was designed to do.
  The labor unions don't like it. Employers don't like it. We all know 
it is not the right thing to do, and in a bipartisan way we have 
introduced legislation to repeal it. This bill, this rule, gives us an 
opportunity to actually send that to the President's desk.
  Mr. Speaker, I won't go on and on about all the good things that are 
in this bill. I am sure my colleague from New York is going to 
highlight a lot of those herself, and I don't want to steal all the 
thunder.
  But we are here because 435 of us came together here, 100 came 
together there, and America is operating under a conferenced budget, 
and not just a budget, but a balanced budget for the first time since 
2001.
  A lot of disappointment has come out of Washington, D.C., Mr. 
Speaker, but we are here on the floor today talking about one of those 
things we get to celebrate, one of those successes on behalf of the 
families back home, that we have done together.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend for yielding me 
the time, and I yield myself such time

[[Page H7103]]

as I may consume. I really enjoy serving with him on the Rules 
Committee because he is always so cheerful and puts such a good face on 
everything, and heaven knows we can use that in the world.
  But the truth is, Mr. Speaker, and my colleague knows it, that by 
taking away the funding for the healthcare act, you are killing the 
healthcare act. That means that people would go back to not having 
preexisting conditions covered.
  That means that women in eight States and the District of Columbia 
would face the fact that their insurance companies consider domestic 
violence to be a preexisting condition, which translates out, if you 
are beaten up once, maybe they will cover you. The second time, it is 
obviously your fault. You have that propensity.
  We can't go back to the rising cost of health care with so many 
Americans using the most expensive kind of health care in the world, 
the emergency room. We are told that if this were to pass, 13 million 
Americans would lose their health care.
  But the fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, this is not going to 
pass, and we know that. As a matter of fact, I find myself saying over 
and over again the very same things. I remember saying this is the 35th 
vote, this is the 40th vote. This, Mr. Speaker, is the 61st vote, using 
tax money and wasting time, to take health care away from people.
  Now, I have asked many, many times in the Rules Committee: What is 
this great urge to prohibit people from having access to health care?

                              {time}  1245

  The best I can come up with is it is not particularly that they don't 
care about those people, but they want to do something to upset the 
President. There was a good deal of talk yesterday that, if we could 
add a few amendments on here, it would really cause him grief.
  It is not going to cause him any grief. If this should pass, if the 
Senate should pass it, which is in control of Republicans--and, you 
know, if you complain about not passing the bill, take it up with 
them--what we are going to be doing is, if it gets to the President, he 
is going to veto it, and you know very good and well that we don't have 
the votes here to override. So we are wasting time.
  We are just wasting time and wasting money. I don't know how many 
millions of dollars of tax money it has taken with these 61 bills, but 
then they throw in a little something else here.
  They say: Let's defund Planned Parenthood for 1 year. Why? I don't 
know. Three committees in the House of Representatives are studying 
Planned Parenthood, and we have got to look forward to one of those 
other new select committees which will go over the same thing over and 
over again and come up with the conclusion that Congressman Chaffetz 
came up with after they grilled the president of Planned Parenthood, 
Cecile Richards, for 5 hours, that there was nothing there, that they 
broke no law.
  I don't know why the American public is not outraged over the fact 
that none of their business is taken care of, but over and over and 
over again we talk about taking health care away from people.
  One in five American women and a lot of men have used Planned 
Parenthood and do today. And then you add to that the 13 million people 
that will lose their health care if this should become law, 3 million 
of them children.
  Now, what should we be doing? Well, how about the Export-Import Bank. 
It doesn't cost the taxpayers a dime, puts money back into the 
Treasury. It allows small companies in the United States to be able to 
afford to export their goods to other countries.
  The loss of that bank has already received from both General Electric 
and Boeing words that they are going to take jobs out of the United 
States because we don't have it. There is no earthly reason not to have 
it. As I said, it doesn't cost us anything. It makes us money. It is 
just that for some Members of Congress they just don't like it.
  Now, this is the same majority that has produced no highway bill. We 
really are on a road to nowhere. For the first time that I have been in 
Congress--a highway bill was always something everybody joined. It was 
always bipartisan.
  But we have got roads and bridges crumbling. We have no high-speed 
rail. Airports are overcrowded. Everybody needs help. But we are 
working here to do something about the healthcare bill that is already 
working and Planned Parenthood.
  Now, this is the same majority that brought us the 7 legislative days 
away from risking the full faith and credit of the United States. What 
that means is that we are refusing--the majority is--to bring up a bill 
here to pay the debt that they have already incurred. It is the 
Congress that spends the money, and now they decided they don't want to 
pay for it. So they are putting that off.
  We have heard talks that tomorrow we are supposed to have a bill, but 
we all know--because we all hear everything that is going on--that 
there are only 170 votes for that bill, which won't pass it. So we may 
not see it.
  So what we are going to do today is give everybody in the House of 
Representatives an opportunity to protect the full faith and credit of 
the United States and not risk another downgrade of our credit rating. 
To downgrade the credit rating of the United States was something that 
all previous Congresses felt was an impossible thing for them to allow.
  But while this is all festering out there and nothing is being done 
about it, we are hurling toward another shutdown in mid-December.
  So once again we find ourselves: Let's take away that health care. 
Let's shut down that thing over there. But let's not deal with the 
issues that we have been sent here, the things that we have been 
elected to do.
  And one of those has to be to protect the full faith and credit of 
the United States of America, which has always been done and was a 
responsibility of all previous Congresses.
  Now, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the 
reconciliation bill before us will take health care away from 16 
million people, 3 million children, and I might add most of them didn't 
have any health care at all before the ACA was passed. As I said, it 
would also defund Planned Parenthood and endanger the health of men and 
women across the country. If I haven't said it enough, again, this 
defunds Planned Parenthood.
  A scant 3 weeks ago we stood on the floor as the House majority 
threatened to shut down the government over the funding for Planned 
Parenthood. The American public gave a very resounding message to 
Congress: Don't do it. In fact, nearly seven in ten Americans oppose a 
government shutdown over Planned Parenthood funding, according to a 
Quinnipiac poll.
  With this 61st vote to dismantle the ACA--and make no mistake about 
it. It doesn't say in there we are going to kill this thing. We are 
just going to take the money away from it.
  And if you are smart enough to be a Member of Congress of the United 
States, you know that, if you take the money away from it, you have 
killed that bill. We all understand that. But as the majority continues 
to beat their head up against the brick wall of health care, the 
American people get the headache.
  This budget reconciliation bill before us does two things. One, it 
takes health care away from, as I said, 16 million Americans. Two, it 
attacks women's health by defunding Planned Parenthood.
  I believe that governing this body is a serious job with serious 
consequences. The brinkmanship that this majority continues to display 
is dangerous to our economy and unsettling to our Nation. The last time 
the majority shut down the government over the debt limit, it took $24 
billion out of this economy.
  The consequences of this kind of brinkmanship are real. They are not 
imagined. We have been through it once. Why in the world would we self-
inflict that wound on ourselves again?
  We should not be pushed to the edge over and over again. We should be 
planning what we need to do, follow regular order. My dear colleague 
Mr. Woodall talked about how wonderfully well Democrats and Republicans 
work together. I don't know where that is.
  I know that the chair of the Benghazi Committee kept talking about he 
had 7 members. There are actually 12 on there. But it just demonstrated 
again

[[Page H7104]]

that the 5 Democrats on there did not signify with them.
  We need to focus on the urgent needs of the Nation, not manufactured 
crises that we are insisting on creating.
  To address the real issues, we have got a plan to allow us to pay the 
bills that this Congress has incurred and to protect the full faith and 
credit of the United States. We always call for this on rules. We do 
something called the previous question, which everybody sort of glides 
over.

  This today, what we are doing--when the previous question on this 
rule vote is called, I hope that every Member who wants to do something 
about the debt limit and the full faith and credit of the United States 
will vote ``no'' so that our side can bring this up and give everybody 
an opportunity to go home for a weekend without worrying about whether 
this is going away.
  By the time we get back here next week, there will be even fewer 
legislative days to deal with it. But our troops, national security, 
the whole Federal Government, and most of the people in the United 
States are very much concerned with what will happen if it shuts down.
  Let's relieve us of that burden and vote today to deal with the debt 
limit. I invite all Members to vote for the Democrats' clean, simple 
bill. It doesn't do anything about taking away regulations from the 
government, nothing. It simply deals with the most important matter at 
hand at this point, and that is the full faith and credit of the United 
States.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I confess. I was sitting over here going through my papers. I was 
afraid I had come down here on the wrong bill here today, listening to 
my friend describe it. I tell you that, if you listen to that 
description and you believe it, you ought to vote ``no.'' But it is 
just not true. It is just not true.
  In fact, I will go line by line just a little bit. You will not find 
a CBO document over there that says House Resolution 483 is going to 
take health care away from 16 million Americans. We are not going to 
find it.
  In fact, you won't find a CBO document that says the underlying bill 
of H.R. 3762 is going to take health care away from anybody because 
such a document does not exist.
  CBO did say that the President's healthcare bill would provide health 
care for 16 million Americans. Yet, the President has joined with this 
House and that Senate nine times so far to repeal errant provisions of 
that healthcare bill, and that is what we are going to do here in this 
legislation today.
  You won't find any language that suggests that House Resolution 483 
is going to deal with preexisting conditions to set back preexisting 
conditions coverage in any way whatsoever, nor will you find any paper 
that suggests the underlying bill, H.R. 3672, is going to set back the 
conversation on preexisting conditions.
  Why? Because the President led on the issue of preexisting 
conditions, Mr. Speaker, much like a great Georgia speaker of this 
House, Newt Gingrich, and Bill Clinton got together and did in 1996. 
They got together and outlawed all preexisting conditions for federally 
regulated plans.
  What President Obama did in his healthcare bill has said: Well, as 
States haven't done it on their own, we are going to do it for all 
State-regulated plans, too.
  This bill doesn't dial that back one iota, not one bit. The 
President, I believe, won that debate in America. I don't think we are 
ever going to revisit that debate.
  I think that is a success story for families with preexisting 
conditions and, again, something else we ought to be celebrating here 
today, Mr. Speaker, not holding our heads low about.
  Mr. Speaker, when the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 
tells you that the greatest threat to America's national security is 
our budget deficit--and, at the time that I arrived here in Congress, 
Mr. Speaker, in 2010, America was running its largest budget deficit in 
American history, three times the size that they are today--I tell you 
a bill like this that goes after those deficit numbers is a critically 
important bill. It is the business that my constituents back home sent 
me to be about here in this institution.
  Now, of course, in the 4\1/2\ years that the folks in the Seventh 
District have lent me their voting card, Mr. Speaker, we have brought 
budget deficits down each and every year--each and every year--year 
after year after year after year. But that has been primarily on that 
discretionary one-third of the pie I talked about, Mr. Speaker.
  There is so much more work to be done, and reconciliation is the tool 
we use to get around the filibuster, to allow the people's will to be 
done with simple majorities on both sides of the Hill.
  Good news. If you don't believe what is in the underlying bill is 
good for America, you can vote ``no,'' and if 51 percent of your 
colleagues agree with you, this bill will not go forward. But that is 
not going to happen because this is good policy.
  And good news, Mr. Speaker. When it goes over to the Senate, if the 
Senate does not believe this is good policy for America and 51 Senators 
vote against it, this bill will not go to the President's desk.
  But that is not going to happen because there is good policy in the 
underlying bill. This will go to the President's desk.
  As the President sits today, Mr. Speaker, contemplating vetoing the 
National Defense Authorization Act--in fact, that may be happening even 
as we are standing here now, that bill that provides authorized funding 
for all of our troops--I can't possibly predict what he will do when 
this bill arrives on his desk.
  But what my friend from New York fails to mention every time she 
mentions that 61 times in this House we have dealt with trying to clean 
up the messes that the Affordable Care Act has created is that 9 of 
those times the President agreed with us.
  It is just so critically important, Mr. Speaker. We get wrapped 
around the partisan axle in this body in ways that are tremendously 
discouraging to me, as if it is always an us against them proposition. 
It is not. It is just a proposition about us--about us--320 million of 
us.
  And nine times so far, Mr. Speaker, just in the short time that I 
have been in Congress, the House, the Senate, and the President have 
gotten together and said the Affordable Care Act is broken and together 
we can begin to fix it.
  I believe this is going to be one of those opportunities as well, Mr. 
Speaker. It is going to be a tremendous vote, I hope, on passing this 
rule, which will allow us to begin debate. Pass that underlying 
resolution.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  I just say once again, no, they don't say: We are going to take away 
preexisting conditions. They just say: We are taking away the funding 
for the bill.
  When the funding is taken away, it dies. I think almost all Americans 
understand that.
  I am pleased now to yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), the distinguished ranking member 
of the Committee on the Judiciary.

                              {time}  1300

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman.
  Mr. Speaker, we are here today to discuss the rule for 
reconciliation, which I believe we are wasting on a doomed attempt to 
repeal ObamaCare for the 61st time. That we are doing this again for 
the 61st time is a problem. But that we are wasting our one shot at 
budget reconciliation on this is a tremendous shame. We should be using 
this opportunity to avoid the Senate filibuster to actually make law, 
not make a point to our bases. The way to do this is by focusing on a 
bipartisan issue: canceling the sequester.
  Mr. Speaker, the sequester is a unique problem in American public 
policy, a program that is intentionally designed to be a bad idea. It 
cripples the programs that made the 20th century one of unprecedented 
progress, and it weakens the bravest military in the world. It is bad 
for us at home, and it is bad for us overseas.
  Its blundering destructive approach to deficit reduction was supposed 
to push this Congress to compromise. Unfortunately, we have not gotten 
there

[[Page H7105]]

because a few intransigents refuse to give up this hostage. But it 
isn't this body that is paying the ransom for our inaction on the 
sequester; it is the American people of all walks of life. It is the 
millions of workers, businesses, public servants, and soldiers who are 
facing uncertainty and inadequate support.
  Mr. Speaker, I would encourage us to stand up and use this one shot 
on something that matters and can pass, and canceling the sequester is 
something that both sides could actually agree on. So I urge my 
colleagues, please, to bring this theater to a close and to return to 
something we can all support. Let's use reconciliation to cancel the 
sequester once and for all.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, if I could say to my friend from Michigan, I think there 
is a lot of wisdom in what he had to say. My friend has been here, Mr. 
Speaker, since 1965, I believe. I can't remember if he was elected in 
1964 and began service in 1965. He has seen a lot of failures and a lot 
of successes in this institution.
  Reconciliation exists for one reason and one reason only, and that is 
to do the really hard things that we can't get done in other times. I 
would say to my friend, Mr. Speaker, that the die has been cast on 
reconciliation for 2015. But as a member of the Budget Committee, I 
will commit to you that we are going to come back, and we are going to 
get a conferenced balanced budget next year as well. I hear that 
drumbeat beginning around this institution: What is it that we can get 
done together? I hope we get this done.
  Make no mistake, I believe this is good underlying legislation. But 
the past, well, three decades now since 1980, as I think of the big 
reconciliation measures that have gone through have been things that 
have changed America for the better forever, and I am grateful to the 
gentleman for reminding us all of the power of this tool.
  Mr. Speaker, 61 times we have had a vote on the President's 
healthcare bill, that is true. But it is because there are real 
problems there--again, nine times of which the President has agreed 
with us about those real problems.
  The folks who crafted the President's healthcare bill were smart. I 
don't have any concerns about the funding that my friend from New York 
has, Mr. Speaker, because the bill has funding buried in it in such a 
way we don't have any access to it from this institution. That is why 
we passed 4\1/2\ years' worth of legislation here without getting our 
arms around that funding.
  What we are talking about here, Mr. Speaker, are budget deficits. 
What we are talking about here is an opportunity to move the needle on 
mandatory spending. What we are talking about here is about $81 billion 
in static scored money, closer to 130 in dynamically scored money, 
moving the needle on the budget, as Admiral Mullen, then the Chair of 
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, encouraged us to do.
  I don't know where the vote is going to come out, Mr. Speaker. I feel 
pretty good about it. I feel pretty good about it because it is good 
underlying policy. I feel pretty good about it because we did this the 
right way. We started in the Budget Committee. We conferenced it with 
the Senate. We then sent those reconciliation instructions out to the 
Energy and Commerce Committee, the Education and Labor Committee, and 
the Ways and Means Committee. Each committee did its work, sent that 
work back to the Budget Committee, and we then brought all that 
legislation together. Mr. Speaker, if you want a textbook case of how 
it is supposed to work around here, this is it.
  Now, as a fellow who has been disappointed many times in 4\1/2\ years 
in this institution, I am just going to tell my colleagues that if any 
of my new colleagues believe they are going to have it their way every 
day of the week, the answer is no. I was disabused of that notion in 
week one.
  But what we can do is bring the collective wisdom of the body 
together, the collective wisdom of the body and the collective wisdom 
from our committee structures, and this bill does that. There is only 
one way to get to this bill, though, Mr. Speaker, and that is to pass 
this rule today, House Resolution 483, and I encourage my colleagues to 
do that.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney).
  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule and the 
underlying bill. I do so as somebody who comes from a State which, 
unlike maybe the gentleman from Georgia, actually embraced this law. 
The Governor set up an exchange right away, and we have had what Forbes 
Magazine has described as the highest functioning exchange in the 
country. Our uninsured rate went from 8 percent down to 4 percent. We 
have more insurers in the marketplace today than we did before the ACA 
was passed.
  On Labor Day, I was at a picnic with some friends, and there was a 
gentleman there who was the head of HR for the second largest employer 
in this community that I was at. It was about a 300-employee firm, a 
trash hauler, who was actually quite concerned about the ACA's 
definition of part-time and full-time in terms of raising his rates. 
For the last 2 years, his rates have gone down. He yelled from the pool 
where he was playing with his kids, splashing around in the water, 
saying: Tell President Obama thank you for the Affordable Care Act 
because our rates have gone down for the 275 people that worked there.
  So, Mr. Speaker, then the question is: What does this bill do? The 
fact of the matter is, by eliminating the individual mandate, by 
basically destroying the financing of tax subsidies, which is precisely 
the way that you broaden the insurance market so that you can implement 
an elimination of preexisting conditions, you, in fact, are totally 
capsizing the market.
  I know that because the State of Connecticut insurance department and 
the exchange have looked at what this bill is going to do to the 
individual mandate, and that is precisely what they said the outcome 
would be, that it would send rates through the roof and 
basically shatter the success that our State has accomplished.

  What is so ironic about this is that the design of this bill with an 
individual mandate and tax subsidies for insurance came from the 
Heritage Foundation. Stuart Butler was the mastermind of this back in 
the 1990s. I was chairman of the Public Health Committee back then, and 
I remember vividly that that was the Heritage Foundation, the 
conservative alternative to healthcare reform, to the Clinton 
healthcare plan. But, obviously, for political reasons, that is not 
mentioned very much by the majority as we again debate this ad nauseam.
  What is sad is that 2 weeks ago we passed a bill, H.R. 1624, 
sponsored by my good friend, Mr. Guthrie from Kentucky, which amended 
the Affordable Care Act. It changed the definition of ``small 
employer,'' and it was done on a bipartisan basis, completely 
unanimous. It sailed through the House, and President Obama signed it.
  Why did that work? Because they did it surgically, because Brett was 
smart enough to understand that if you want to get people to come 
together, you don't load it up with a bunch of poison pills, that you 
actually present an idea with focus and with logic behind it. Guess 
what will happen. You will actually get bipartisan support, the 
complete opposite of the bill that we have before us here today.
  Now, I want to point out, though, that there are some signs of 
intelligent life in this reconciliation bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Marchant). The time of the gentleman has 
expired.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. I yield the gentleman an additional 2 minutes.
  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, section 305 does, as the gentleman from 
Georgia points out, eliminate the excise tax on high-class plans.
  It is interesting to note that 5 years ago it was the House Members 
who pushed hard against that proposal with the administration, and we 
delayed that tax for 5 years. H.R. 2050, which I am the lead sponsor 
of, I am proud to say we have 166 bipartisan cosponsors. It is verbatim 
the language that was incorporated into the reconciliation bill.
  So I point that out because I do think that it, in fact, will 
basically sharply increase people's out-of-pocket

[[Page H7106]]

deductibles because that is what actuaries tell us is the only way you 
can respond to that kind of tax. It is true that 83 organizations, 
including organized labor, business groups, and small-business groups 
have said this is not a workable plan. I mention that here because 
there is an opportunity here to do what Congressman Guthrie did, which 
is to take an individual component, an idea, and not load it up with a 
lot of other baggage which is going to capsize the insurance market, 
which we know is going to happen if other provisions of the 
reconciliation bill are passed, that we can actually get it done.
  You are giving the White House a perfect excuse to veto this bill and 
robbing us of the ability to actually address this real problem, which 
section 305 does recognize, and H.R. 2050 is out there and is on 
standby for us to move forward on. So let's get rid of the blunt 
instruments, the baseball bats, and the butchering of this law, and 
let's focus on bipartisan surgical fixes to real problems.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I say to my friend from Connecticut that the point that 
he made was made very well by the gentleman from Oklahoma last night 
while we were in the Rules Committee. You only get to use this 
procedure once--actually, you can use it three times; but for a variety 
of different reasons, it is only going to come together for us once 
this year--and you have to choose how to do that.
  I am thrilled--thrilled--that the story that the gentleman from 
Connecticut tells is of success for his constituents back home in 
Connecticut. I think that is fabulous. I think that is fabulous.
  Mr. Speaker, I don't get to tell as many of those stories. I tell 
stories of folks who had plans that they liked, and those plans were 
outlawed by their government. I tell stories about folks who have 
doctors that they had had relationships with for decades, who were 
promised that if they liked their doctor they could keep their doctor, 
who lost access to their doctor because their government told them ``no 
more for you.''
  I tell stories of the small businesses in the district that were 
doing the right thing by providing health care for their employees who 
have now been priced out of that marketplace. They are not required by 
law to do it, but rates have gone up so much they can't do it 
themselves--not because of our efforts to provide health care to 
people, but because of our efforts to tell people what kind of health 
care is good for them and what kind isn't.
  Mr. Speaker, you may not know, the chairman of the Budget Committee 
is Georgia Congressman Dr. Tom Price. Dr. Tom Price, in H.R. 2300, has 
a replacement plan. Dr. Tom Price wants to see preexisting conditions 
out of the marketplace. Dr. Tom Price, in H.R. 2300, wants to see 
individuals able to move their policies from business to business, from 
place to place.
  Mr. Speaker, it is a doctor-patient relationship. It is not a Federal 
Government-patient relationship. It is not a Federal HHS, Health and 
Human Services-patient relationship, and it is not an insurance 
company-doctor relationship. It is about me and my physician, you and 
your physician, our families and our family physician, 320 million 
Americans at a time.
  We have it right here in this institution. We have replacement 
options right here.
  Do not let it be said that in the name of trying to bring sanity to 
our Federal spending, in the name of trying to fix the errors that were 
created in the Affordable Care Act, do not let it be said that any 
Member wants to trample on the healthcare opportunities that families 
have back home. Our goal is to expand those opportunities, not to 
contract them.
  I celebrate what has happened in Connecticut. I only wish that folks 
in Connecticut, New York, and elsewhere would support us in Georgia 
with the challenges that we are having and help us get back to that 
very personal doctor-patient relationship that we believe is the right 
of every American.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, the budget reconciliation bill avoids the real problems 
before us, including the debt limit, the Export-Import Bank, a highway 
bill, a looming shutdown, and more. Instead of addressing the urgent 
needs of the Nation, the bill doubles down on attacking women's health 
and marks the 61st time that the House majority has voted to repeal, to 
defund, or to undermine the Affordable Care Act.
  Mr. Speaker, let's try to salvage something from the money we have 
spent on this hour here at a time that we have literally wasted again, 
for the 61st time. Let's salvage something from it by voting ``no'' on 
the previous question. We can actually accomplish something then.
  If the previous question is defeated, we will be able to vote to take 
care of the issue of debt limit, the full faith and credit of the 
United States of America.

                              {time}  1315

  A simple vote ``no'' allows us to bring that up, vote for that, go 
home this weekend not having to be chewing everybody's nails and then 
everybody in the country wonders what in heck is going to be going on 
here.
  Why don't we for a change here on this day, on this Thursday, do 
something positive, do something that needs doing, do something we know 
sooner or later we will do. Do it today on a clean bill, no additions 
of any kind, just to do it. It is an opportunity that I certainly hope 
people will take advantage of. I urge them to do that.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my 
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 
gentlewoman from New York?
  There was no objection.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' so 
that we can vote ``yes'' on a vote to deal with the debt limit issue 
and a ``no'' vote on the rule.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I firmly believe there is more that unites us than that 
divides us not just in this Chamber, but in this Nation.
  As I have listened to my colleague from New York talk about some of 
the priorities that America has, I think she is spot on. I think she is 
spot on.
  I am missing votes in the Transportation Committee right now where we 
are moving that long-term transportation bill so that I can be down 
here on the floor moving this reconciliation bill.
  Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of rust in the gears around here. There 
is a lot of rust in the gears. It has been since the 1990s that 
Congress--House and Senate combined--have sent all the appropriations 
bills to the President before the end of the fiscal year. It has been 
since the 1990s.
  Newt Gingrich ran this institution the last time we did that. Bill 
Clinton was in the White House the last time we did that. There is a 
lot of rust in the gears that has accumulated under both Republican and 
Democratic leadership in this place.
  But this year we passed more appropriations bills earlier in the 
fiscal year than at any point since 1974. This year we are moving the 
first long-term highway bill that we have seen in almost a decade.
  This year we have conferenced a balanced budget for America for the 
first time in a decade and a half. That is not just a notch to put on 
the belt of America to say this is what we have done. This is an 
opportunity to move this budget reconciliation bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I do. I am saddened that reconciliation is a word that 
folks have to go and look up and learn, but it is the only way--the 
only way--in divided government that the people's voice can be heard.
  There is no other procedure in the United States Congress that allows 
51 percent of America to prevail. There is no other ability in the 
United States Congress for the majority of Americans who have lent 
their power to Washington to express their views and change the law of 
the land, save this one.
  Mr. Speaker, budget deficits have gone down each and every year since 
Speaker John Boehner stood right there where you are standing today

[[Page H7107]]

and Nancy Pelosi handed him the gavel--every year--from record high 
levels now to the lowest budget deficit in the Obama administration, 
and we have an opportunity today to do more.
  I have heard my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, Mr. 
Speaker, talk about those things that we can do together, and I agree. 
I agree.
  I have heard my colleagues on the other side talk about their 
priorities in terms of raising the debt limit and not seeing the 
government shut down. I halfway agree.
  I don't want to see the government shut down either. We avoided a 
government shutdown 2 weeks ago and got a little thank you note from a 
young lady who was in the office.
  She said: Dear Congressman, It was good to see you today. Thank you 
for not letting the American History museum close down while my family 
was in Washington.
  There are real impacts to that. But the fact is the reason we are 
having the conversation is not because anybody wants to shut the 
government down. It is because folks want to borrow more money. 
Mortgaging our children's future to the tune of $18 trillion apparently 
is not mortgaging it enough. We are going to be back and make it $19 
trillion or $19.5 trillion.
  Mr. Speaker, we are not talking about a debt limit that is coming 
around today. We are talking about one that came around in the spring. 
The government has just been borrowing and borrowing and borrowing even 
beyond that debt limit, and they are borrowing because we are spending 
too much.
  Mr. Speaker, look at the tax rolls right now. Do you realize, as we 
are standing here today, not only is America collecting more in 
constant dollars--not static dollars, but constant dollars adjusted for 
inflation--we are collecting more money than at any time in American 
history, any time.
  Per capita in this country, Americans are paying more in taxes than 
they have ever paid in the history of the Republic, not in inflated 
2015 dollars, but in constant dollars adjusted for inflation. The real 
impact on American families is greater today in taxes than ever before.
  Mr. Speaker, the problem is not that we don't raise enough money. The 
problem is that we spend too much money. I can't count the number of 
good pieces of legislation that have gone to the Senate and failed not 
on their merits, but because a Democratic filibuster would not even 
allow the bill to be debated.
  With this rule and with this underlying bill, we allow the people's 
voice to be heard, we allow the American majority's voice to be heard, 
and we have an opportunity to put a bill that will make a difference 
for American families on the President's desk for the very first time.
  I encourage all of my colleagues' strong support of the rule. Upon 
passage of that rule, Mr. Speaker, I encourage their strong support for 
the underlying reconciliation measure. We have an opportunity today 
together to make a difference.
  The material previously referred to by Ms. Slaughter is as follows:

    An Amendment to H. Res. 483 Offered by Ms. Slaughter of New York

       Strike all after the resolved clause and insert:
       That 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. 
     3737) to responsibly pay our Nation's bills on time by 
     temporarily extending the public debt limit, and for other 
     purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed 
     with. All points of order against consideration of the bill 
     are waived. General debate shall be confined to the bill and 
     shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by 
     the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on 
     Ways and Means. 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. 2. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the 
     consideration of H.R. 3737.
                                  ____


        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 
     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. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I 
move the previous question on the resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on ordering the previous 
question.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  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 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this question will be postponed.

                          ____________________