[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 201 (Thursday, December 20, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H10340-H10343]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF SENATE AMENDMENT TO H.R. 88, SHILOH 
  NATIONAL MILITARY PARK BOUNDARY ADJUSTMENT AND PARKER'S CROSSROADS 
   BATTLEFIELD DESIGNATION ACT; PROVIDING FOR PROCEEDINGS DURING THE 
         PERIOD FROM DECEMBER 24, 2018, THROUGH JANUARY 3, 2019

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I 
call up House Resolution 1180 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 1180

       Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be 
     in order to take from the

[[Page H10341]]

     Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 88) to modify the boundary of 
     the Shiloh National Military Park located in Tennessee and 
     Mississippi, to establish Parker's Crossroads Battlefield as 
     an affiliated area of the National Park System, and for other 
     purposes, with 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 Ways and 
     Means or his designee that the House concur in the Senate 
     amendment with an amendment consisting of the text of Rules 
     Committee Print 115-87. The Senate amendment and the motion 
     shall be considered as read. The motion shall be debatable 
     for one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and 
     ranking minority member of the Committee on Ways and Means. 
     The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the 
     motion to its adoption without intervening motion.
       Sec. 2.  On any legislative day of the second session of 
     the One Hundred Fifteenth Congress after December 23, 2018--
        (a) the Journal of the proceedings of the previous day 
     shall be considered as approved; and
       (b) the Chair may at any time declare the House adjourned 
     to meet at a date and time, within the limits of clause 4, 
     section 5, article I of the Constitution, to be announced by 
     the Chair in declaring the adjournment.
       Sec. 3.  The Speaker may appoint Members to perform the 
     duties of the Chair for the duration of the period addressed 
     by section 2 of this resolution as though under clause 8(a) 
     of rule I.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Yoder). The gentleman from Texas is 
recognized for 1 hour.

                              {time}  0915

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield 
the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. 
Torres), 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.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Texas?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, thank you and Merry Christmas. It is also 
Merry Christmastime to the American people, Mr. Speaker, as Congress 
moves to its final resolution for this term.
  Mr. Speaker, we can't forget that there is important work that is 
still to be done. The American people sent us here to do work and 
expect us to do that.
  Today I lay before the House the Rules Committee Print 115-87, the 
text of the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 88. Now, 
that may sound pretty pro forma, just like a normal bill, but, Mr. 
Speaker, what is in here is not a normal bill.
  In fact, it is a compilation of things which we do every year that 
are called tax extenders because we have been unable, necessarily, to 
agree on them for a longer term. So, one year to the next year to the 
next year, we gather together before we leave, and we normally come to 
an agreement. We have done this virtually every year I have been in 
Congress.
  We say on a bipartisan basis and a bicameral basis: Let's make sure 
that we take care of the things that have not been taken care of on a 
longer basis now.
  What might that mean, Mr. Speaker? Well, that means that we, as a 
body, need to be responsible and understand that during the year there 
have been a number of circumstances also that contributed to people 
needing tax help. Some of them are fires. Some of them are earthquakes.
  Some of them are the changing of the circumstances back home where we 
are trying to make sure that the Tax Code is updated in this tax year 
now so that if someone--for instance, if they are in a California 
wildfire--loses everything they have got, they know that Congress has 
passed laws that help them as they move forward to rebuild their home, 
to make decisions about their future.
  It could be, Mr. Speaker, that a lot of work that the gentlewoman 
from Kansas, who is a member of the Ways and Means Committee, one of 
your colleagues on that committee, had done to make sure that any 
whistleblower who saw something that was going wrong at work for tax-
related matters is protected.
  These are important issues. But they are also important because there 
are broader activities, and they deal with taxation that was put into 
the Affordable Care Act. It is called ObamaCare, but it is the 
Affordable Care Act from years back.
  What this Republican Congress has done is shielded, protected the 
American people from many of the devastating effects, notwithstanding 
that this Congress and the President, President Trump, signed the law 
that takes away the individual mandate--not the business mandate but 
the individual mandate.
  But, Mr. Speaker, there are still three hugely onerous provisions 
that still lag on from that piece of legislation. Embedded in that is 
something called the medical device tax. The medical device tax is a 
tax on the newest technology--not, Mr. Speaker, on the sale of that to 
where, okay, Uncle Sam wants a little bit more of that, but the onerous 
part is it is on the manufacture.
  And when you put a tax on the manufacturing piece, that means that 
that product is not produced in an effective, efficient way. That means 
that they are produced one at a time because, upon that manufacture, 
the tax has to be paid, not upon the sale.
  It is something we fought on, I thought on a bipartisan basis, but it 
seems like today it is simply partisan, simply only Republicans, 
really, when it comes down to it, who are for doing away with the 
medical device tax.
  There is something called the Cadillac tax. That is the Democratic 
Party's and President Obama's idea of you really shouldn't have better 
healthcare than somebody else, and if you do, we are going to tax that 
asset. It is at the heart of the Affordable Care Act.
  This Cadillac tax has been, every single year, deferred, stopped, 
agreed to. We are not going to apply that Cadillac tax, because it is 
on people, many of them who work for unions, people who have earned the 
right to have the healthcare that they have but the Democratic Party 
wants to tax it.
  Lastly, the healthcare tax. And that is a tax on every single person 
that has a healthcare policy. It is about $70. That means that every 
single American is going to pay an extra tax because they have 
healthcare.
  These are things that the Republican Party had worked on, and we 
thought we were, on a bipartisan basis, going to take care of these 
issues. We find out, really, today, that is not true.
  But I think we found out around election time the real effort for the 
Democratic Party. It is called H.R. 676, Medicare for All. Mr. Speaker, 
to those of us who have looked at the bill, section 102 lays out every 
single piece part of healthcare that you could think of, from an 
audiologist, to a dentist, to a person who may provide massage therapy.
  Section 104 in that bill outlaws all private health insurance in 
America if a piece part that was in section 102 is provided or paid for 
by a health insurer. It outlaws all private insurance. What does that 
also mean? That means employer-provided insurance under H.R. 676, 
section 104.
  So, Mr. Speaker, sometimes you have got to read to the end of the 
book or watch the end of the movie to see exactly what the plot and the 
theme is.
  Mr. Speaker, we have, for the last 8 years, been going down a pathway 
of thinking that what we were doing was really bipartisan, that our 
colleagues on the Democratic Party were really opposed to the Cadillac 
tax because they consented and agreed to it, voted for it, that the 
medical device tax was something that they understood would cause great 
harm and increase prices and deny people to get the best technology.

  We thought they were going along with this. We thought they 
understood how important it was not to tax medical devices, the latest 
technology that saves lives. And we thought that they understood that 
the healthcare tax of $70 on every single health insurance plan in this 
country was probably a bad idea after we already had the Affordable 
Care Act signed into law.
  I find out now I was wrong. I was wrong, and I think the American 
people were fooled. The medical device tax, the Cadillac tax, and the 
healthcare tax are in this package, along with the ability to help the 
people in California and on the West Coast and other people who were a 
part of natural disasters, people who are seeking help where they are 
finding an employer doing something wrong, to give them that needed 
opportunity to protect themselves, a safe harbor.
  So much is being done in here at the end of the year, but that is not 
the

[[Page H10342]]

story that was told at the Rules Committee. The story that was told is: 
Oh, this is just about the top 1 percent. This is just about a special 
deal.
  Mr. Speaker, that is a long way from, not just the facts of the case, 
but the truth. So I am here, as chairman of the Rules Committee, 
bringing to the floor an opportunity to, once again, do as we have done 
in the past to say the healthcare tax, the medical device tax, the 
Cadillac tax--we are asking my colleagues to join with us.
  It is a very genuine offer. It is an offer that has been extended and 
accepted for the past few years, since the Affordable Care Act passed. 
It is the right thing to do.
  So I will ask each of the Members of this body to pay attention, to 
see what is in there, help the people who have been a part of natural 
disasters this year. Let's get this package done. It is the right thing 
to do.
  And I can sincerely look at you, Mr. Speaker, and say thank you. 
Thank you for your years of service, but thank you for making sure that 
we were faithful to the end. Even though it is starting to look a lot 
like Christmas, we still have to do our work.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mrs. TORRES. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, 
and I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me the customary 30 
minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, this rule represents many of the failures of the 115th 
Congress. To put it succinctly, the legislation before us is a bill 
which has absolutely no chance of passing into law and a bill that will 
add billions--billions--of dollars to our national debt.
  I guess this is a Merry Christmas to those who hold our national 
debt, but this is not what our constituents sent us to do here. They 
sent us here to work together and find compromise in order to make our 
communities, their lives, better.
  This rule makes in order the Senate amendment to H.R. 88, Shiloh 
National Military Park Boundary Adjustment and Parker's Crossroads 
Battlefield Designation Act.
  But it is more accurate to say this is the GOP's second tax scam. 
Instead of taking this opportunity to use our remaining time here to 
actually accomplish something, our vote today on this rule will prove 
to be meaningless. The Senate is leaving town and has left us just a 
few items that we can accomplish, and this isn't one of them.
  However, one item that is ready for passage is Savanna's Act.
  Mr. Speaker, Native American women face a murder rate 10 times higher 
than the national average, with 84 percent experiencing some form of 
violence in their lifetime.
  The Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 and the Tribal 
Law and Order Act have helped bring attention to the high rates of 
violence against Native women. However, there is still no reliable way 
of knowing how many Native women go missing each year because the 
databases that hold statistics of these cases are extremely outdated 
and in need of reform.
  Congress hasn't paid attention to the lives of Native American women. 
That is why I joined Senator Heitkamp in introducing Savanna's Act 
earlier this year, named after Savanna Greywind, a pregnant, 22-year-
old North Dakota woman and member of the Spirit Lake Nation, who was 
murdered in 2017.
  Savanna's Act would require the Department of Justice to finally keep 
a nationwide database of missing and murdered Native women.
  This is common sense. It passed the Senate unanimously last month.

                              {time}  0930

  One Member--one Member of this body--has decided to prevent us from 
passing Savanna's Act, and the rest have capitulated, one Member 
standing in the way of finally doing the right thing for Native women, 
American women, women who are victims of crime. Shameful, and shame on 
this body for allowing this and not taking this last week of the 115th 
Congress to finally bring about some justice to these cases.
  Now, one thing that this body, the 115th Congress, has been really 
good for in the face of tragedy has been moments of silence, and that 
is why, today, I want to take some time that we have left to have a 
moment of silence. Mr. Speaker, I would like my colleagues to join me 
in a moment of silence for Savanna.
  Mr. Speaker, instead of taking action on Savanna's Act, we are asked 
to vote on this rule to pass a tax bill which has been crafted in 
secret and has no chance of becoming law, when we could be doing 
something for justice, for truth, for victims of crime.
  This is the 115th Congress. Good riddance.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.


                             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, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the argument that we are involved in today is whether we 
are going to, as this body, on a bipartisan, bicameral basis, 
understand that it is about hundreds of billions of dollars. It is 
about hundreds of billions of dollars that the American people have 
been spared from.
  Mr. Speaker, we are not undertaxed. We spend too much money. But that 
is not what this is about. What this is about is control. This is about 
the control that some in this body want over people's lives.
  This is not about whether we are going to arbitrarily cause the 
Federal Government to be in trouble over a Cadillac tax, a medical 
device tax, a healthcare tax and blame that on greedy people back home 
who, by virtue of them wanting to have healthcare and robust healthcare 
and better healthcare but somebody in Washington does not want them to 
have it and blames them on being greedy for what might be billions of 
dollars when you add up everybody across the country; this is about 
control. This is about controlling people's lives.
  And, Mr. Speaker, I will once again say it. I had thought, during 
these years, we came to an agreement that the Cadillac tax, the medical 
device tax, the healthcare tax, things that happened during the year, 
whether they be tornadoes, whether they be wildfires, whether they be 
other circumstances, would still be able to be reached on a bipartisan, 
bicameral basis.
  After all, President Obama signed these into law.
  After all, the American people understood that their gift for being 
gracious and working and doing the right thing shouldn't be an onerous 
tax.
  After all, many people who live, as an example, in Minnesota could 
look up and see where their two Democratic Senators fought hard to make 
sure this medical device tax that was the lynchpin for tens of 
thousands of jobs in medical innovation, that we could get together and 
work together.
  Now we find out, no, that is wrong. That is wrong. What we want is we 
want that $180 billion. We want that. You can't have that, and we are 
going to tax you because we can, because we can control your life and 
the outcome of your healthcare; because, actually, those who have great 
healthcare, yours is greedy, so we are going to tax it.
  So, Mr. Speaker, that is why the Republican Party in the House of 
Representatives is here today, as stalwarts of not just the middle 
class of this country but stalwarts of people who understand people get 
up and go to work--yes, the union worker, too.
  That union worker will find out, loud and clear, the party that was 
for taxing their healthcare, their working healthcare.
  The people in these States, where medical devices are robust and made 
America at the top of the world, they will understand.
  And the people, who are average families like those in Dallas, Texas, 
which I proudly represent, they will understand somebody was for taxing 
them further and somebody tried to continue what we have done now for 
years and not tax them on their healthcare.
  So it is about control, and I am sure we will find out, as the new 
year comes around, about H.R. 676, Medicare for All, that will outlaw 
all employer-provided private healthcare in this country. That is what 
the bill says. It is very plain. Section 104 gets right to it. That is 
what this is about.

[[Page H10343]]

  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mrs. TORRES. Mr. Speaker, does the gentleman from Texas have any more 
speakers?
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I do not.
  Mrs. TORRES. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, it is just about time to finish up here and return home 
for the holidays, time to see our loved ones and give them a hug. But 
for Savanna's family and the countless other Native American families 
destroyed because of this violence, there will be no return home for 
them, and we will have failed these families by not passing Savanna's 
Act today.
  Instead, we are here because of a wall--not the wall that you are 
assuming, not talking about our southern wall. I am talking about the 
wall of debt, a massive wall of debt that this Republican Congress has 
built, trillions--trillions--of dollars of debt towering over our 
children and grandchildren's future. This rule will build it even 
higher. That is why I urge my colleagues to oppose the previous 
question and the rule.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the distinguished gentlewoman from 
California, not only her comments and her ideas--I know they are well 
represented by the Democratic Party.
  I would say to her that the people who vote against this bill will 
turn their back on the people who had the wildfires in California, the 
tornadoes in Georgia, the opportunities to help provide proper 
instructive help on their taxes this year as they enter next year. 
After all, it did happen this year.
  But perhaps, more than that, Mr. Speaker, we recognize now more about 
shifting the blame for 8 years and $9 trillion worth of spending. They 
called it investment.
  This Republican Congress, 1 year ago, almost to the day, passed a tax 
bill that has created the greatest economy in the history of this 
country. More revenue is coming in today than has ever come in in the 
history of the country. More people are working today because of that 
tax bill done 1 year ago. More people, more African Americans, more 
women, more families have an opportunity to enjoy the benefits of a job 
and the creation therein that they come home at night a little bit more 
satisfied, and their children, in the next generation, see work as a 
positive attribute, and communities are turning the corner.
  Mr. Speaker, gas is $1.82 in Dallas, Texas. What a far cry from when 
it was almost $5 at the same time in President Obama's administration 
when the Democrats were running the place: the House, the Senate, and 
the Presidency. Oh, Mr. Speaker, we have not forgotten what a 
difference it makes, but the finger-pointing still continues.
  Mr. Speaker, let the Record reflect, itself, that we have more 
revenue than ever coming in, more people working than ever, more 
opportunity for people, and part of that success has been because 
Republicans chose not to have a healthcare tax, a medical device tax, a 
Cadillac tax, choose not to make in order H.R. 676, Medicare for All, 
that would outlaw all employer-provided healthcare in this country.
  Mr. Speaker, the differences between our ideas really find themselves 
at the center point of what we do today.
  Last night in the Rules Committee, the distinguished gentleman from 
Lewisville, Texas, Dr.  Michael Burgess, a retired physician who has 
delivered more than 3,000 babies, said that he had sat through, for 
years, these arguments at the Energy and Commerce Committee, and he 
lamented how the story really is not told about some 3 million people 
who now have jobs in this country, that a number of them that is 
undefined also got employer-provided healthcare; and that while there 
may be 1 million out of that 3 million who went to a larger company, it 
is their families that benefited because there was maybe a spouse 
behind that and a child or two who had previously been without 
employer-provided healthcare.
  Now we are going to find out that Grinch showed up at Christmas, this 
rush to get out the door where we failed to secure the door, where we 
were so eager to get home rather than do our work.
  Mr. Speaker, I can't imagine that somebody would just want to say, 
``It is okay; it is Christmastime; let's get home,'' and then stick 
coal in each of the stockings of the American people who have 
healthcare, stick coal in the stockings of the medical device employees 
and employers, stick coal into the stockings of the medical community 
for doctors who had been providing these leading-edge ideas in medical 
devices, stick coal in the stockings of the workers of America who 
might have great healthcare only to find out that somebody who had 
voted for it for years turned their back. So that is why we are here.
  Mr. Speaker, here is the bill right here, pretty easy to do. We have 
seen it a number of times. Nobody complained they didn't have time to 
read the bill. They actually know what is in it this time.

                              {time}  0945

  They actually know what they would not be supporting. They are going 
to put their vote and be on the line, and we are going to find out 
where people really are.
  So, Mr. Speaker, that is the debate, whether we are going to step up 
and do our job; whether we are willing to complete the task; whether we 
are willing to be consistent for the things that we have stood for; or 
whether we are willing to make excuses about, well, it is just 
Christmastime, and we have got to get home.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to say that my party believes that we should not 
have a white flag in our backpack, that we should not yield and just 
say, well, the timing was difficult. We should stand on our two feet, 
not beg on our knees.
  We should move forward and do our job for the American people, and 
that is what I am proud to say my party and myself and the Rules 
Committee stand for. We are men and women who can stay to get the job 
done, not want to get home and not have performed our duties.
  So that is the story. That is the story that we are going to tell. So 
I urge my colleagues to support this rule
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the 
previous question on the resolution.
  The previous question was ordered.
  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.
  Mr. SESSIONS. 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.

                          ____________________