[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5795-5803]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      BASELINE REFORM ACT OF 2013

  Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 539, I call 
up the bill (H.R. 1871) to amend the Balanced Budget and Emergency 
Deficit Control Act of 1985 to reform the budget baseline, and ask for 
its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Miller of Michigan). Pursuant to House 
Resolution 539, the amendment recommended by the Committee on the 
Budget, printed in the bill, is adopted. The bill, as amended, is 
considered read.
  The text of the bill, as amended, is as follows:

                               H.R. 1871

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Baseline Reform Act of 
     2013''.

     SEC. 2. THE BASELINE.

       Section 257 of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit 
     Control Act of 1985 is amended to read as follows:

     ``SEC. 257. THE BASELINE.

       ``(a) In General.--(1) For any fiscal year, the baseline 
     refers to a projection of current-year levels of new budget 
     authority, outlays, or receipts and the surplus or deficit 
     for the current year, the budget year, and the ensuing nine 
     outyears based on laws enacted through the applicable date.
       ``(2) The baselines referred to in paragraph (1) shall be 
     prepared annually.
       ``(b) Direct Spending and Receipts.--For the budget year 
     and each outyear, estimates for direct spending in the 
     baseline shall be calculated as follows:
       ``(1) In general.--Laws providing or creating direct 
     spending and receipts are assumed to operate in the manner 
     specified in those laws for each such year and funding for 
     entitlement authority is assumed to be adequate to make all 
     payments required by those laws.
       ``(2) Exceptions.--(A)(i) No program established by a law 
     enacted on or before the date of enactment of the Balanced 
     Budget Act of 1997 with estimated current year outlays 
     greater than $50,000,000 shall be assumed to expire in the 
     budget year or the outyears. The scoring of new programs with 
     estimated outlays greater than $50,000,000 a year shall be 
     based on scoring by the Committees on the Budget or OMB, as 
     applicable. OMB, CBO, and the Committees on the Budget shall 
     consult on the scoring of such programs where there are 
     differences between CBO and OMB.
       ``(ii) On the expiration of the suspension of a provision 
     of law that is suspended under section 171 of Public Law 104-
     127 and that authorizes a program with estimated fiscal year 
     outlays that are greater than $50,000,000, for purposes of 
     clause (i), the program shall be assumed to continue to 
     operate in the same manner as the program operated 
     immediately before the expiration of the suspension.
       ``(B) The increase for veterans' compensation for a fiscal 
     year is assumed to be the same as that required by law for 
     veterans' pensions unless otherwise provided by law enacted 
     in that session.
       ``(C) Excise taxes dedicated to a trust fund, if expiring, 
     are assumed to be extended at current rates.
       ``(D) If any law expires before the budget year or any 
     outyear, then any program with estimated current year outlays 
     greater than $50,000,000 that operates under that law shall 
     be assumed to continue to operate under that law as in effect 
     immediately before its expiration.
       ``(3) Hospital insurance trust fund.--Notwithstanding any 
     other provision of law, the receipts and disbursements of the 
     Hospital Insurance Trust Fund shall be included in all 
     calculations required by this Act.
       ``(c) Discretionary Spending.--For the budget year and each 
     of the nine ensuing outyears, the baseline shall be 
     calculated using the following assumptions regarding all 
     amounts other than those covered by subsection (b):
       ``(1) Estimated appropriations.--Budgetary resources other 
     than unobligated balances shall be at the level provided for 
     the budget year in full-year appropriation Acts. If for any 
     account a full-year appropriation has not yet been enacted, 
     budgetary resources other than unobligated balances shall be 
     at the level available in the current year.

[[Page 5796]]

       ``(2) Current-year appropriations.--If, for any account, a 
     continuing appropriation is in effect for less than the 
     entire current year, then the current-year amount shall be 
     assumed to equal the amount that would be available if that 
     continuing appropriation covered the entire fiscal year. If 
     law permits the transfer of budget authority among budget 
     accounts in the current year, the current-year level for an 
     account shall reflect transfers accomplished by the 
     submission of, or assumed for the current year in, the 
     President's original budget for the budget year.
       ``(d) Up-to-Date Concepts.--In calculating the baseline for 
     the budget year or each of the nine ensuing outyears, 
     current-year amounts shall be calculated using the concepts 
     and definitions that are required for that budget year.
       ``(e) Asset Sales.--Amounts realized from the sale of an 
     asset shall not be included in estimates under section 251, 
     251A, 252, or 253 of this part or section 5 of the Statutory 
     Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010 if that sale would result in a 
     financial cost to the Government as determined pursuant to 
     scorekeeping guidelines.
       ``(f) Long-Term Budget Outlook.--On or before July 1 of 
     each year, CBO shall submit to the Committees on the Budget 
     of the House of Representatives and the Senate the Long-Term 
     Budget Outlook for the fiscal year commencing on October 1 of 
     that year and at least the ensuing 40 fiscal years.''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall) and 
the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen) each will control 30 
minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall).


                             General Leave

  Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and 
include extraneous materials on H.R. 1871 in the Record.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Georgia?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.
  I am pleased to be down here with the ranking member of the Budget 
Committee, the gentleman from Maryland, the gentleman whose opinion and 
counsel I have respect for.
  What I love about the Budget Committee is that we have a chance to 
talk about issues that are defined by numbers in committee, but whose 
outcome is a difference in people's lives back home.
  After all, the reason the gentleman from Maryland is the highest 
ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee is not because he cares about 
math, it is because he cares about people. That is who the Budget 
Committee consists of, Madam Speaker.
  The bill that is before us today is a bill first conceived in this 
House by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert). I happen to be on the 
Budget Committee, I happen to have passion on this issue, so my name 
exists to carry this bill forward; but it has been an idea that has 
been around in this institution, and it says this.
  We have all seen it. We have all been in townhall meetings, Madam 
Speaker, where you say: this is what we have done to spending for next 
year.
  And somebody is going to raise their hand, and they are going to say: 
Rob, is that Washington math, or is that real math? Is this one of 
those things where you raise spending by $10, but you call it a cut 
because you predicted you would raise spending by $20 instead?
  How sad is that? How sad is that, that in a country run by the 
American people, that they have to ask their representatives: Is this 
real math, or is this Washington math?
  This bill, Madam Speaker, puts a stop to Washington math forever. It 
says this: don't assume you are going to spend more money next year 
than you spent last year unless the law requires it.
  Social Security is a good example of that. We raise Social Security 
each and every year. Why? Because the law of the land requires it, but 
not so in Federal budgeting rules.
  In the crazy world of Federal budgeting, Madam Speaker, you raise 
spending next year just because. The assumption is: well, of course, 
they are going to spend more money than they did last year. Are they 
getting more bang for their buck?
  I don't know. Is the crisis still there? Does it still need to be 
funded? I don't know, but we are going to assume more dollars go out 
the door.
  My bill asks one thing and one thing only, Madam Speaker, that is to 
justify the American people's tax dollars when they are spent. If you 
need more money next year, come to Congress and say so.
  If it is a priority for my constituents back home, I promise you, you 
will get my ``yes'' vote, but gone are the days of assuming Congress 
will always spend more, irrespective of the merits.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1345

  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  I appreciate my friend from Georgia (Mr. Woodall) for kicking off 
this debate.
  As he indicated earlier, as we debate the budgets, there will be 
differences of opinion and differences of philosophy, but when it comes 
to math, there is not a Republican math, and there is not a Democratic 
math. When you run a math equation, you get the same result whether you 
are a Republican or a Democrat.
  What this bill attempts to do is to legislate away inflation. Gee, 
that would be so nice if we could pass a law and inflation would go 
away. What is worse is this bill then says that we are going to put 
together budgets on the assumption that there is no inflation, on the 
assumption that the price of goods and services doesn't change over 
time, and if you do that, you will get very misleading results in your 
budget.
  Now, the gentleman talked about Washington math. Madam Speaker, I 
would just like to show you the change in the cost of a hamburger from 
the last 10-year period. We do our budgets in 10-year windows. The 
price of a hamburger in 2004 was $2.71. The price of that same 
hamburger 10 years later, in 2014, is $4.62. That is not Washington 
math. That is reality-based math.
  Here is what this Republican proposal would do.
  It wants to take that fantasy land math and apply it to our budgets. 
Here is the chart. If you applied that idea in the budgets that we had 
from 2004 to today, you would assume that the price of that hamburger 
or of any goods and services that we bought as the Federal Government 
would remain the same--no inflation, no change--but that is not the 
reality. The reality is, between 2004 and 2014, we had inflation, and 
the costs of goods and services went up. The good news is that we did 
not have this proposal in effect from 2004 to 2014, so we didn't have 
this detachment from reality. Yet what our Republican colleagues want 
to do is say, from now on--from 2014 on--when the Congressional Budget 
Office puts together its estimations of future budgets, it has got to 
assume away inflation. Presto. As you can see, over time, that would 
become further and further detached from reality, not Washington 
reality but economic reality.
  Here is what would happen if you budgeted that way.
  For $2.71 today, you don't get as big a hamburger, right? So apply 
that idea to an aircraft carrier. We have 10-year budgets. The 
gentleman's proposal is to pretend that, over the next 10 years, there 
will be no increase in the price of the inputs to making that aircraft 
carrier. Just assume it away. Inflation. Do you know what? If you plan 
that way, at the end of the day, you are going to have half an aircraft 
carrier in your budget just like you would have a half a hamburger in 
your budget.
  Imagine a business that was planning ahead for the next 10 years, 
trying to do a profit and loss statement, and it had to calculate what 
it was going to cost it to buy inputs to its manufacturing process--
energy inputs, oil and gas, other inputs of material it has to 
purchase. Then let's say that, today, it miraculously assumed there was 
no increase in the costs of those inputs. Boy, that would be nice, but 
do you know what? That private business would go under, and that 
business would be sued for malpractice by its shareholders.
  Why would we do something to the Federal Government that we would

[[Page 5797]]

never allow to happen in the private sector that would result in a 
private sector business's going belly up?
  I would just say, Madam Speaker, that the reason the Congressional 
Budget Office projects the budgets as they do today--the reason they 
include the estimated costs of inflation--is not that they do 
Washington math. It is that they can go out and go to McDonald's and 
find out that--do you know what?--the price of a Big Mac is not the 
same today as it was 10 years ago. It would be misleading to pretend, 
as we put together our next 10-year budgets, that the price of aircraft 
carriers and the price of education and the price of providing health 
care to our veterans will be the same. If you assume that, at the end 
of the day, you shortchange those veterans, you shortchange that 
defense policy, you shortchange our kids because, just like you can 
only buy a half a hamburger today for what you could have in 2004, you 
are not going to be able to buy the same education for kids and the 
same military 10 years from now.
  We are not talking about Washington math. This is a case of basic 
math. As I said, it shouldn't be a Republican math or a Democratic 
math. We would all love to repeal inflation. That is not the real 
world. Let's stick with real-world budgeting. If we get away from that, 
we are going to be in a world of trouble here in the United States 
Congress.
  Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to yield the control of the 
balance of my time to the gentleman from California (Mr. Huffman), a 
terrific new member of the Budget Committee.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Maryland?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 60 seconds.
  I think I have got one of the best chart teams on Capitol Hill. I 
will say to my friend from Maryland that that is a great Big Mac chart, 
and I think it drives home my point exactly, which is that Federal 
Government math assumes that, if you bought a Big Mac 10 years ago, you 
are still buying a Big Mac today. I just wonder if that is true. I have 
switched to the value menu. I get the McDouble from time to time for 99 
cents. The Spicy McChicken is now a part of what I do. I have to get 
into my wallet and justify the expense, and when prices double, 
sometimes we, as Americans, have to substitute.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WOODALL. I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from 
Maryland.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. As you know, the value meal on that McDonald's menu 
10 years ago cost more than the value meal today. This is just to get 
about math and budgeting in a transparent way.
  Mr. WOODALL. In reclaiming my time, absolutely, inflation is not 
going to go away, but we have to make tough choices, and this bill 
requires us to make those choices in a transparent way for the American 
people.
  At this time, Madam Speaker, I would like to yield 5 minutes to the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert), who first said that we must be 
transparent in this way, that we must be fair and honest in this way. 
He is the original author of the Baseline Reform Act.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I am immensely grateful to my friend Rob Woodall.
  Madam Speaker, it was back in the 1990s when I heard what apparently 
was a loveable, old fuzzball who turned out to be Rush Limbaugh. He was 
talking about the absurdity of the United States Government doing 
something that no person, no family, no business, no charity in all of 
America could do.
  With due respect to my friend who just spoke, Mr. Van Hollen says 
businesses would go out of business. I would challenge anybody in this 
room to show me a business, to show me a family, to show me an 
individual, to show me a charity that has an automatic increase in 
every year's budget, because America can't do that. I was shocked that 
this was going on. I mean, in the Army, I helped with the budget. In 
the private sector, I prepared budgets. As a district judge, I prepared 
a budget. It had to be approved. We never got an automatic increase. 
You had to justify any change in anything. If you needed an increase, 
you had to show why that was important.
  I got to Congress, never dreaming that that would not have been taken 
care of when Republicans took the majority, but in my freshman term in 
2005 and 2006, the Republican chair of the Budget Committee said we 
have to do the automatic increases. I said, Why? He said, Because it is 
the law. I was shocked. We make the law. We can change the law. Then, 
of course, our friends across the aisle took the majority, and for 4 
years, there was no chance of eliminating the automatic increase in 
every Federal department's budget, but then we got the majority back.
  For all of the disagreements I have had with the Speaker, Speaker 
Boehner agreed that if Paul Ryan passed a zero-baseline budget--ending 
the automatic increases--out of committee, then he would bring it to 
the floor. It meant we would have to have the right guy marshaling this 
bill. Some tweaking was done, and I will be forever grateful to my 
friend Rob Woodall, who is as brilliant as his predecessor, a dear 
friend, John Linder. He took this bill, and he marshaled it through. 
Paul Ryan kept his word, and I will be forever grateful for that. It 
came to the floor, and we voted it through, and the Senate wouldn't 
take it up.
  For those who want to talk about the children, I am not hearing a lot 
of that talk today because, when I talk to college students, high 
school students, junior high students, they are wondering why they are 
going to have to pay the debts that we were not responsible enough to 
pay ourselves. There is not a good answer. It is absolutely immoral and 
negligent--it is self-indulgent--to say that one generation like ours 
is so much more important that we have to spend future generations' 
money. Yes, if there is inflation, let's deal with it that year, but I 
have heard enough stories from people who are talking about, gee, this 
department is apparently out there, saying, Spend all your money. Don't 
leave any because, if you don't, you won't get as much next year. Of 
course, they get automatic increases every year, so they have got to 
spend their money. That is no way to run a country. It is not right.
  There are some issues I have with the budget, but I know the heart of 
the man who was behind that, and I know he wants future generations not 
to be burdened with our negligent handling of our money. So it is time 
that we end the automatic increases in every Federal budget. When my 
friend across the aisle was talking about, gee, you could end up with 
half an aircraft carrier--good grief--we have lost aircraft carriers 
because of those automatic increases every year for decades now. There 
are aircraft carriers that won't be there because we couldn't control 
ourselves as we had to automatically increase everything we spent.
  Madam Speaker, it is time we did the responsible thing and ended the 
automatic increase in every single Federal budget for next year, and I 
will be continuing in my gratitude to my friend Rob Woodall.
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  In response to the gentleman from Texas, I think it is important that 
we be careful in the rhetoric we use on these subjects. It is incorrect 
to say that, by law, there is an automatic increase in the Federal 
budget and that that applies to the discretionary budget. That is 
absolutely incorrect.
  What we are talking about here and what this bill concerns is the CBO 
baseline that is used. The CBO reflects inflation in that baseline as 
does every serious budgeting professional and forecaster and economist 
in the real world, but they don't do it because the law has told them 
they have to or because Democrats have told them they have to; they do 
it because that is what serious budget forecasters do. They know that 
inflation is a reality, and they believe that the baselines they

[[Page 5798]]

use and the projections and forecasts they use should reflect that 
reality. I think that is an important clarification. We choose to 
budget and to spend at the level that we choose to do so each and every 
year. What the CBO does as a matter of baseline projections is a 
different matter.
  At this time, Madam Speaker, I would like to yield 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Bishop), a distinguished member of the 
Education and the Workforce Committee.
  Mr. BISHOP of New York. I thank my colleague from California for 
yielding.
  Madam Speaker, the Baseline Reform Act does nothing to address the 
economic challenges facing American families. It does not create a 
single job. It does not renew expired unemployment compensation for the 
millions of workers and their families who are struggling right now. It 
does not raise the minimum wage to a living wage. What it would do is 
essentially impose sequestration on steroids in our budgetary baseline, 
and we all pretty much agree that sequestration was a terrible idea 
that was holding the country back.
  The bill in front of us today simply establishes an unrealistic and 
misleading benchmark against which to measure changes in government 
spending.

                              {time}  1400

  Requiring the CBO and the OMB to construct budget baselines without 
adjusting for inflation will serve only to weaken fiscal discipline and 
result in wildly inaccurate long-term spending projections.
  Madam Speaker, inflation is an accepted part of a growing economy. In 
fact, the United States has seen year-to-year increases in the prices 
of goods and services over every calendar year but one since 1956, the 
notable exception being 2009 when our economy was mired in the Great 
Recession. On average, inflation has hovered near 4 percent annually 
over that nearly six-decade window. It is simply inevitable that goods 
and services become more expensive over time and the purchasing power 
of the dollar will be weaker in 10 years than it is today.
  Although 2 to 3 percent annual inflation may not appear to be 
significant at first blush, rest assured that even such a modest 
inflationary rate will produce considerable price differences over the 
long term. Using the Federal Reserve's targeted 2 percent annual rate 
of inflation, an item that costs $100 today will cost $122 just 10 
years from now. At 3 percent annual inflation, that same $100 good will 
cost almost $135 10 years from now. In total, the price of goods and 
services in the United States have increased by more than 1000 percent 
since World War II.
  Under longstanding budget rules, CBO and OMB assume that future 
discretionary appropriations at the account level will be at the same 
dollar levels but adjusted for inflation. Why do they do this? They do 
it because it represents a more accurate analysis of our Nation's 
actual spending habits. The aggregate total of defense and nondefense 
appropriations are then adjusted down to the spending cap levels set in 
law, but even those spending caps are higher than the freeze mandated 
by this bill.
  The CBO's current projections for the next 10 years assume that 
discretionary spending will be at the caps imposed by the Budget 
Control Act through 2021, rather than the inflation-adjusted levels. 
But changing the definition of the budget baseline will have an 
outsized impact on future budget projections.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Madam Speaker, I yield the gentleman such additional 
time as he may consume.
  Mr. BISHOP of New York. Discretionary appropriations are responsible 
for many of the programs that Americans hold sacred, including 
education, veterans' benefits, defense, disease research and control, 
food safety, transportation projects, and the list goes on. By 
eliminating inflation adjustments and freezing discretionary spending 
over 10 years, the baseline would be a benchmark that builds in real--
and deep--cuts in Federal programs.
  The so-called ``reforms'' contained within this bill are nothing more 
than efforts at constraining future Federal spending through budget 
trickery. I urge a ``no'' vote.
  Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, at this time, it is my great pleasure to 
yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock), a 
champion for budget transparency and a member of the Budget Committee.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, our Constitution assigns the principal 
responsibility over the public purse to the House of Representatives. 
Under that constitutional doctrine, a dollar can't be spent by this 
government unless the House says it gets spent. Yet today, spending 
increasingly seems to be out of our hands, driven automatically by a 
variety of provisions and practices that thwart the very design of the 
Constitution. Roughly two-thirds of our spending is for entitlements, 
over which we have lost any direct control in the appropriations 
process. That is the big problem.
  But there are other reasons for this problem as well that this bill 
addresses. One of them is the current process by which we calculate the 
baseline from which we begin our annual budget negotiations. Any family 
would begin its budget process by asking, for example: What did we 
spend for groceries last year? Once it has that baseline, then it would 
begin to adjust for changing circumstances. The price of milk is going 
up. Should we cut back or look for substitutes? Or should we cut back 
on something else to afford that increase?
  That is the rational process known to every reasonably well-managed 
family. This process gives budgeters, whether they are a household or 
the House of Representatives, the ability to adjust for changing 
priorities, needs, and conditions. Yet the Federal budget process 
builds in a variety of spending increases above and beyond what we had 
previously agreed we could afford--before our budget deliberations even 
begin.
  That same family doesn't begin its budget process by building in 
assumptions of how it might change its spending in the future. For 
example, if it took vacations the last several years, it doesn't 
automatically budget for a vacation next year until it has met its 
other needs, that is, it doesn't budget for decisions that it has not 
yet made. But we do, quite routinely.
  Thus, we begin the budget process with a baseline that hides the many 
tough decisions that a budget requires: How do we cope with price 
increases? Should we continue to deviate from our spending plan next 
year just because we did last year?
  The current budget process denies us the perspective that any family 
has when prices go up or conditions change. It often prevents us from 
asking the questions that a family would ask under these circumstances. 
Instead, we sweep these issues under the rug--or, more precisely, we 
sweep them into the baseline.
  Does this bill make our job harder? Yes, because it requires us to 
figure out how to cope with changing conditions. Right now, we start 
our budget by assuming that we are hostages to our spending. This 
measure makes us the masters of that spending. That is a harder job, 
but that is our job.
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, at this time, I yield 5 minutes to the 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan), chairman of the Budget Committee.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding, and I want to thank Mr. Woodall for all of his hard work on 
this issue, as well as Mr. Gohmert, who was here a moment ago, for 
raising this issue, for keeping focus and attention on it, and for 
bringing this much-needed reform through the House Budget Committee and 
to the House floor.
  This bill basically fixes a real quirk in our budget process. Under 
the current law, the Congressional Budget Office assumes every 
discretionary spending account gets an increase every year to keep up 
with inflation.

[[Page 5799]]

  What does that mean? This means that this increase is built into the 
baseline, and the baseline is our starting point of spending. It is our 
starting point of budgeting. So every year, Congress moves the line 
forward. It assumes that there is always going to be an increase in 
every one of these programs, regardless of the facts on the ground. 
There is no consideration to whether a program is working or not or 
even whether it is still necessary.
  Under this bill, the baseline would just show the previous year's 
funding level. That is basically what we are saying. If we are spending 
X amount of dollars today, when we write next year's budget, we will 
start with X, and then we will make a decision here in Congress: Should 
it be more or less or the same?
  That is not how it works today. We spend X today, then there is an 
automatic increase, and then we decide how to budget after that 
automatic increase.
  We should write the Federal budget just like families write their own 
budgets. They don't get an automatic increase. They don't get to decide 
like that.
  We have got record deficits. We have got an unprecedented debt. Our 
job here in Congress is to make decisions. It is to set priorities. It 
is to look at the hardworking taxpayers that are working so hard to pay 
their taxes, to raise their families, and tell them we are going to 
watch their money more closely than just assuming automatically each 
and every year we can just take more from them and then decide how to 
spend more on top of that. It is no way to run a budget. It is no way 
to run a government budget or a family budget or a business budget.
  So that is all we are saying. This, I think, is an inflated baseline 
which is a smoke-and-mirror move. What we are saying is take away the 
smoke and the mirrors, start from scratch, and then make informed 
decisions from there. That is why I want to thank the gentleman from 
Georgia for all of his hard work on this. That is why I encourage all 
Members on both sides of the aisle to support this much-needed reform.
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Madam Speaker, I think this may be one of the more oversold bills we 
have heard in a while.
  We keep hearing references to autopilot spending in mandatory 
programs. This bill doesn't have anything to do with them.
  We keep hearing references to automatic annual increases in spending. 
We don't have such automatic annual increases.
  This is about the budget baseline that the CBO assumes for purposes 
of helping us make our decisions.
  We keep hearing about families and how they budget. I would submit, 
Madam Speaker, that any family that has reason to believe that some 
part of their budget is going to increase in the coming year had better 
reflect that in the reality of their budget or else they are not going 
to be able to meet their needs.
  If they have reason to believe their rent is going up, if they have 
reason to believe that their utilities are going to cost more, if they 
have reason to believe that anything that they spend money on is going 
to cost more, in the real world of America, families do include that in 
their budget. That is called reality, and that is what the CBO does.
  I would love to face a future in which Big Macs cost the same thing 
10 years from now as they do today. I wish I were still paying $2.71 
for a Big Mac, as Mr. Van Hollen's chart showed. But the truth is, in 
the real world, we know that is not how it works. We know that 
inflation is reality. If we were in a deflationary or a zero-inflation 
environment, then I suspect the CBO would create its baselines 
differently. But we are not, and no one is arguing that we are.
  They are just asking us to suspend disbelief and try to legislate 
away the reality of inflation. Why? So that the budget-cutting, 
government-reducing agendas that we hear in this House year after year 
might appear to be a little less draconian in the outyears. That is not 
a very compelling argument when you think about it.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I would say to my friend from California 
that I do not have any further speakers remaining. I am prepared to 
close.
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  This bill does not create any jobs. It doesn't save one dime. It 
doesn't reduce spending. It simply asks the CBO to pretend that the 
reality of inflation does not exist. It is not a serious proposal. It 
is a bill that was heard and passed largely on party lines in the last 
Congress. It didn't go anywhere. It is not going to go anywhere this 
time either. This is political theater at a time when we really need to 
be talking in this institution about the real needs of America.
  With that, I request a ``no'' vote on this bill, and I yield back the 
balance of my time.
  Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Madam Speaker, I brought down a chart that takes us from 2006 out to 
2044. For almost everyone here in the Chamber, that it going to get 
into the meaty part of our lifetime.
  What it shows with the green line, Madam Speaker, is what revenues 
have been in this country, historic revenues going backward and 
projected going forward, not in dollar values but as a percent of our 
economy. What it shows us is that revenues going forward will continue 
to be historically normal at just under 20 percent of GDP.
  But the red line, Madam Speaker, represents projected spending. This 
is the projected spending if we do nothing at all. We don't need to 
show up for work another day in this Chamber. We don't need to come 
down here and pass one new law, spend one more dollar. The spending on 
autopilot, Madam Speaker, is represented by the red line. You see it 
rising off the top of the graph.
  Spending is the problem. For decades, since 1974 and the passage of 
the Congressional Budget Act, there has been an assumption that 
spending was going to rise each and every year. My friends on the 
Democratic side of the aisle called it inflation. Inflation existed 
before the Congressional Budget Act was passed. It is going to exist 
after the Congressional Budget Act is modified or repealed. Inflation 
is an economic certainty, and that is not the topic of discussion 
today.
  The topic of discussion today is who makes decisions when it comes to 
America's budgeting. If spending is the problem, if it is spending that 
is rising faster than revenues, if it is spending that has changed over 
the past decade, who should make those determinations?
  Here is the thing, Madam Speaker. I will go back to that Washington 
math that I talked about coming from townhall meetings, because I know 
everyone here has been a part of that. I know everyone here has had 
that hand go up when we talk about cutting spending and they say: Is 
that a real cut or is that a Washington cut? When you say ``cutting 
spending,'' Rob, do you mean cutting spending or do you mean that you 
are only going to increase it by $10 and the projection was it is was 
going to go up by $20?
  Only here is increasing spending by $10 considered a cut. There is no 
family in America that considers that a cut.

                              {time}  1415

  Think about your budget back home, Madam Speaker, whatever that is. I 
remember buying milk for $1.99 a gallon. I am a big milk drinker. Skim 
is my favorite. But $1.99 I was comfortable paying. Today I am prepared 
to pay more--I am. There has been inflation. I am prepared to pay $4 a 
gallon for a gallon of milk.
  I didn't assume that I was going to drink the same amount of milk 
every day going forward. In fact, I confess, I found powdered milk, 
Madam Speaker. It was on the discount shelf at Giant. I got two gallons 
of powdered milk for $2.25 total. That is $1.12 a gallon for that 
powdered milk. I am not paying $4 a gallon. I am paying $1.12 because I 
have to make choices.
  American families don't get unlimited dollars to spend. Though, the 
Federal Government pretends like it does.

[[Page 5800]]

  We are borrowing from future generations every time we make a 
decision. So this bill says one thing and one thing only: Who makes 
decisions for America? Is it going to be the Congressional Budget 
Office? Is it going to be a statutory baseline, or is it going to be 
the men and women in this room who put themselves up for election every 
2 years?
  Madam Speaker, for me, the answer is clear. I have got a Constitution 
that lays it out fairly clearly here in my pocket. I don't think I need 
to read it to folks here to get them to understand because I think we 
all share that view.
  We share the view that difficult decisions are not supposed to be 
made by unelected bureaucrats in a back room. Difficult decisions are 
supposed to be made by us, right here in this Chamber.
  If you have a project back home in your district, if you see a 
national priority, and you want to spend a penny more than we spent 
last year, come to the floor of the House and make your case. Make your 
case. For Pete's sake, I am a huge supporter of Federal research. The 
work that goes on at the CDC down in Atlanta, the work that goes on in 
Maryland at NIH, it is amazing. Nobody else is going to do that if we 
don't come together and do it here in this body.
  I have got to tell you something. I don't need a baseline. I don't 
need a bureaucrat. I don't need any Washington math to come and make 
the case that we ought to spend more at NIH next year than we did last 
year. Why do I not need them? Because I believe it. Because my 
constituents elected me to stand up for Federal research. We came here 
to make these tough decisions.
  Back in the day, before the class of 2010, before the class of 2012--
back in the day, there is good reason to assume that Federal spending 
was going to go up every year because every year since the end of the 
Korean war that is exactly what happened. I watched it. Every year, we 
spent more than we did in the last.
  Something has changed in this town, Madam Speaker, and I think the 
thing that has changed in this town are the people that the folks back 
home are sending to this town. I think the town's actually the same. I 
think the folks back home are sending new folks, folks like the 
gentleman from California, folks like the gentleman from North 
Carolina. Sending people to town with the direction of not trading away 
their children's future because they are afraid to make tough decisions 
today.
  So, what does that mean? That means in the 4 years I have been in 
this institution, Madam Speaker, we have spent less money in these 
discretionary accounts that this bill would affect every single year 
than we did the one before. Think about that.
  In the absence of this legislation that I am proposing, we are going 
to go assume that spending goes up every year, but the reality that my 
friends on the other side of the aisle are talking about, the reality 
of inflation, the reality of congressional decisionmaking, the reality 
of our budget is that that spending has gone down, not just from 2010 
to 2011, though it did; not just again from 2011 to 2012, though it 
did; not just again from 2012 to 2013, though it did; and not just 
again from 2013 to 2014, but it did that too. Four years in a row we 
spent less the following year than we did the year before.
  When are we going to get back to that 2010 level of spending? Is it 
going to be next year? No, it is not. Is it going to be the year after 
that? No, not by the budgets that we will be passing on the floor here 
this week. What about the year after? No, not then either.
  So, the opponents of this legislation suggest that we should create a 
process in Federal law that assumes that spending goes up every single 
year, and yet the reality of this institution, as it exists today, not 
as it existed 10 years ago, not as it existed 20 years ago, not as it 
existed in 1974, when this legislation was first enacted, but as it 
exists today, is the responsible men and women in this Chamber who are 
prioritizing taxpayer dollars in such a way that for the entire 10-year 
window we won't spend a penny more than we did on day one. That is the 
reality.
  Could we spend more each and every year? Of course we could. Could we 
borrow more and more from our children and grandchildren and ask them 
to pay it back tomorrow with interest? Of course we could. Did our 
constituents elect us to come here and make difficult, difficult, 
difficult discussions? They did.
  I was in the Rules Committee last night, Madam Speaker. My colleague 
from Massachusetts said, Some of these decisions have real consequences 
for folks back home. I disagree. I think every decision has real 
consequences for folks back home. Every single one.
  This legislation simply asks that before we spend another penny from 
folks back home that we come to the floor of this House, to the 
committee chambers around this institution, and make the case for why 
it is worth doing. I challenge you to look in the eyes of young people 
whose future we are mortgaging and suggest that they deserve anything 
less.
  With that, Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, today we could be 
debating a jobs and infrastructure package. We could be working on a 
comprehensive effort to balance our budget and replace sequestration 
once and for all. But instead, we're wasting time debating this retread 
of an old Republican ploy to further decimate the nation's 
discretionary budget.
  Currently, the Congressional Budget Office rightfully assumes annual 
adjustments for inflation and population growth to reflect the cost of 
maintaining current services. For example, next year more children will 
attend schools on military bases. The CBO assumes a small increase in 
funding for these schools to ensure teachers and administrators have 
the resources they need. This idea that funding should keep pace with 
inflation and need makes sense. It reflects reality. It is an important 
concept in the business world, but the so-called reform before us today 
would freeze adjustments for inflation and population growth, 
undermining the usefulness of CBO's baselines and making it more 
difficult to measure the real-world impact of discretionary spending 
changes.
  While this bill may appeal to those who profit from demagoguing the 
budget, it would drastically hurt the nation in the long-term. Flat-
funding would mean a death by a thousand cuts to discretionary spending 
programs: every year inflation and population growth would chip away at 
the effectiveness of the investments we make in our future. At least 
the Republican budget is upfront about the obvious and drastic cuts it 
makes to education, food and nutrition assistance for women and 
infants, infrastructure, research and health care for seniors. This 
bill is about locking-in a years-long path to these deeply misguided 
goals under the guise of ``reform.''
  Ordering CBO to ignore the needs of our people and the real impacts 
of spending is the height of fiscal recklessness. Congress experimented 
with imaginary budget assumptions when it passed the Reagan tax cuts 
and again with the George W. Bush tax cuts. As a result, we now find 
ourselves in a very real amount of debt. We remain unable to pay for 
needed investments in our crumbling infrastructure, and unable to pay 
for the education and retraining required to maintain American 
competitiveness, thanks to the refusal of our Republican colleagues to 
consider raising revenue by closing egregious tax loopholes.
  So I'll vote ``no'' on this unwise and deceptive approach. And I ask 
colleagues to get down to the serious work of budgeting. Ranking Member 
Van Hollen suggested an alternative that would replace the sequester 
and reduce the deficit. His approach would not ax Head Start programs 
for our nation's children, would not cause the further deterioration of 
our national infrastructure, would not kick seniors and veterans out of 
federally-supported housing, and would not furlough schoolteachers at 
bases like Fort Bragg, where the kids of our servicemen and 
servicewomen are being forced to go without school for five days this 
fall. Let's stop the partisan showmanship and get to work. Find a way 
to rid our nation of sequestration and put our country on a fiscally 
sustainable path.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time for debate has expired.
  Pursuant to House Resolution 539, the previous question is ordered on 
the bill, as amended.
  The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the bill.
  The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was 
read the third time.

[[Page 5801]]




                           Motion to Recommit

  Mrs. BUSTOS. Madam Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentlewoman opposed to the bill?
  Mrs. BUSTOS. I am opposed to it in its current form.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion to 
recommit.
  The Clerk read as follows:

        Mrs. Bustos moves to recommit the bill H.R. 1871 to the 
     Committee on the Budget with instructions to report the same 
     back to the House forthwith with the following amendment:
       At the end of the bill, add the following new section:

     SEC. 3. PROHIBITING CUTS IN EDUCATION, HEALTH, AND SAFETY 
                   PROTECTIONS.

       The amendment made by section 2 shall not apply to the 
     following:
       (1) Student loans or available per-pupil expenditures for 
     the education of children with disabilities under the 
     Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (20 U.S.C. 1400 
     et seq.).
       (2) Benefits, payments, or funds to expedite unprocessed 
     claims for veterans who have pending disability compensation 
     or education claims.
       (3) Programs to protect the safety of patients in nursing 
     homes and other places of care to ensure compliance with the 
     law and best health care practices.
       (4) Air traffic safety control, food safety inspectors, or 
     law enforcement officers under the COPS program.

  Mr. WOODALL (during the reading). Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous 
consent to dispense with the reading.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Georgia?
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from 
Illinois is recognized for 5 minutes in support of her motion.
  Mrs. BUSTOS. Madam Speaker, this is the final amendment to the bill, 
and it will not delay or kill the bill or send it back to committee. If 
adopted, the bill will proceed immediately to final passage as amended.
  Madam Speaker, the bill before us today, the Baseline Reform Act, 
would politicize what is otherwise a simple, straightforward method of 
accurately measuring changes and spending policies. It is misguided.
  Here is why. It mandates that the Congressional Budget Office assume 
current discretionary spending is frozen indefinitely in its baseline 
projections rather than adjusted for inflation. This change would 
undermine the usefulness of the CBO's baselines.
  It would make it more difficult to measure the real-world impact of 
changes in discretionary spending at both the program and budget 
function levels. Were this bill to be enacted into law and inflation 
remained at current projections, the CBO's baseline projections by the 
end of the budget window, or 10 years out, would purchase about one-
fifth less than in the current year.
  My amendment would blunt the damage this bill could cause, and it 
would protect many of our hardworking and most vulnerable constituents. 
Specifically, my amendment would protect programs that help students 
and help families afford the skyrocketing costs of higher education. It 
would protect children with disabilities from being kicked out of the 
classroom. It would protect our brave veterans and the benefits they 
have earned and deserve through their valiant service to our Nation. It 
would protect vulnerable seniors in nursing homes. It would protect our 
air traffic controllers who keep us safe when we travel, our food 
safety inspectors who help protect us from disease, and first 
responders who help keep our communities safe.
  Madam Speaker, when I am home traveling in my district every weekend, 
I hear from people who this bill would harm: young people who are 
trying to better themselves through higher education but struggling to 
afford the rising cost of college; veterans who are caught in the VA 
backlog and trying to just get the care that they need; seniors who 
worked hard and played by the rules their entire lives, who deserve to 
live out their golden years in dignity; and law enforcement officers, 
like my husband, Gerry, a captain with the Rock Island County Sheriff's 
Department and commander of the Quad Cities Bomb Squad, who rely on 
programs like the COPS program to help keep our community safe.
  Madam Speaker, my amendment would help protect the smart investment 
we have made in the future of our country: in our seniors, in our 
veterans, and in those who fight to protect us and keep us safe.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to 
recommit.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Georgia is recognized for 
5 minutes.
  Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I hold in my hand a copy of the motion to 
recommit. I will read from line 1. It says: Section 3: Prohibiting cuts 
in education, health, and safety protections.
  I said something that generally speaking here on this floor we agree 
on, but it makes the case of why this bill is so necessary. Because 
this bill has nothing to do with cuts in any account, no cuts in 
education, no cuts in health, no cuts in safety protections.
  This bill does one thing and one thing only, and that is to say, 
let's spend next year what we spent this year, unless someone makes the 
case to do more.
  I thought the gentlewoman from Illinois made a powerful case for why 
it is important to pay close attention to these accounts and focus the 
dollars on those accounts that we can do the most good. But to solve 
this misunderstanding that there are cuts in baseline budgeting, to 
solve this misunderstanding that prevails across the conversations 
across America, let's support H.R. 1871. I reject this motion to 
recommit.
  I support the underlying bill, Madam Speaker, and I ask that we can 
bring fairness and transparency to the budget again for the first time 
since 1974.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is 
ordered on the motion to recommit.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to recommit.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.
  Mrs. BUSTOS. Madam 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 the motion to recommit will be followed by 
5-minute votes on passage of the bill, if ordered; ordering the 
previous question on House Resolution 544; and adoption of House 
Resolution 544, if ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 191, 
nays 221, not voting 19, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 167]

                               YEAS--191

     Barber
     Barrow (GA)
     Beatty
     Becerra
     Bera (CA)
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Bonamici
     Brady (PA)
     Braley (IA)
     Brownley (CA)
     Bustos
     Butterfield
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardenas
     Carney
     Carson (IN)
     Cartwright
     Castor (FL)
     Castro (TX)
     Chu
     Cicilline
     Clark (MA)
     Clarke (NY)
     Clay
     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
     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.
     Jones
     Kaptur
     Kelly (IL)
     Kennedy
     Kildee
     Kilmer
     Kind
     Kirkpatrick
     Kuster
     Langevin
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee (CA)
     Levin
     Lipinski
     Loebsack
     Lofgren
     Lowenthal
     Lowey
     Lujan Grisham (NM)
     Lujan, Ben Ray (NM)
     Lynch
     Maffei
     Maloney, Carolyn
     Maloney, Sean
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McIntyre
     McNerney
     Meeks
     Meng
     Michaud
     Miller, George
     Moore
     Murphy (FL)

[[Page 5802]]


     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Negrete McLeod
     Nolan
     O'Rourke
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor (AZ)
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Peters (CA)
     Peters (MI)
     Peterson
     Pingree (ME)
     Pocan
     Polis
     Price (NC)
     Quigley
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Richmond
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruiz
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sarbanes
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schneider
     Schrader
     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
     Walz
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters
     Waxman
     Welch
     Wilson (FL)
     Yarmuth

                               NAYS--221

     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
     Byrne
     Calvert
     Camp
     Cantor
     Capito
     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
     Fitzpatrick
     Fleischmann
     Fleming
     Flores
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Gardner
     Garrett
     Gerlach
     Gibbs
     Gibson
     Gingrey (GA)
     Gohmert
     Goodlatte
     Gosar
     Gowdy
     Granger
     Graves (GA)
     Graves (MO)
     Griffin (AR)
     Griffith (VA)
     Grimm
     Guthrie
     Hall
     Harper
     Harris
     Hartzler
     Hastings (WA)
     Heck (NV)
     Hensarling
     Herrera Beutler
     Holding
     Hudson
     Huelskamp
     Huizenga (MI)
     Hultgren
     Hunter
     Hurt
     Issa
     Jenkins
     Johnson (OH)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jolly
     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)
     Mullin
     Mulvaney
     Murphy (PA)
     Neugebauer
     Noem
     Nugent
     Nunes
     Nunnelee
     Olson
     Palazzo
     Paulsen
     Pearce
     Perry
     Petri
     Pittenger
     Pitts
     Poe (TX)
     Pompeo
     Posey
     Price (GA)
     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
     Ryan (WI)
     Salmon
     Sanford
     Scalise
     Schock
     Schweikert
     Scott, Austin
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Smith (MO)
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Southerland
     Stivers
     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 (IN)

                             NOT VOTING--19

     Bass
     Brown (FL)
     Campbell
     Carter
     Fincher
     Frelinghuysen
     Hanna
     Keating
     Lewis
     McAllister
     Miller, Gary
     Moran
     Neal
     Perlmutter
     Runyan
     Schwartz
     Stewart
     Stockman
     Visclosky

                              {time}  1456

  Messrs. SHIMKUS, GRIFFIN of Arkansas, and MICA changed their vote 
from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Messrs. COHEN, HASTINGS of Florida, GARAMENDI, and Ms. McCOLLUM 
changed their vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
  So the motion to recommit was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the passage of the bill.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.


                             Recorded Vote

  Mr. HUFFMAN: Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. This will be a 5-minute vote.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 230, 
noes 185, not voting 16, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 168]

                               AYES--230

     Aderholt
     Amash
     Amodei
     Bachmann
     Bachus
     Barber
     Barletta
     Barr
     Barrow (GA)
     Barton
     Benishek
     Bentivolio
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (UT)
     Black
     Blackburn
     Boustany
     Brady (TX)
     Bridenstine
     Brooks (AL)
     Brooks (IN)
     Broun (GA)
     Buchanan
     Bucshon
     Burgess
     Byrne
     Calvert
     Camp
     Cantor
     Capito
     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
     Fitzpatrick
     Fleischmann
     Fleming
     Flores
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gardner
     Garrett
     Gerlach
     Gibbs
     Gibson
     Gingrey (GA)
     Gohmert
     Goodlatte
     Gosar
     Gowdy
     Granger
     Graves (GA)
     Graves (MO)
     Griffin (AR)
     Griffith (VA)
     Grimm
     Guthrie
     Hall
     Harper
     Harris
     Hartzler
     Hastings (WA)
     Heck (NV)
     Hensarling
     Herrera Beutler
     Holding
     Hudson
     Huelskamp
     Huizenga (MI)
     Hultgren
     Hunter
     Hurt
     Issa
     Jenkins
     Johnson (OH)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jolly
     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
     Matheson
     McCarthy (CA)
     McCaul
     McClintock
     McHenry
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     McKinley
     McMorris Rodgers
     Meadows
     Meehan
     Messer
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Mullin
     Mulvaney
     Murphy (FL)
     Murphy (PA)
     Neugebauer
     Noem
     Nugent
     Nunes
     Nunnelee
     Olson
     Palazzo
     Paulsen
     Pearce
     Perry
     Peterson
     Petri
     Pittenger
     Pitts
     Poe (TX)
     Pompeo
     Posey
     Price (GA)
     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
     Ryan (WI)
     Salmon
     Sanford
     Scalise
     Schock
     Schweikert
     Scott, Austin
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Sinema
     Smith (MO)
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Southerland
     Stivers
     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 (IN)

                               NOES--185

     Beatty
     Becerra
     Bera (CA)
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Bonamici
     Brady (PA)
     Braley (IA)
     Brownley (CA)
     Bustos
     Butterfield
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardenas
     Carney
     Carson (IN)
     Cartwright
     Castor (FL)
     Castro (TX)
     Chu
     Cicilline
     Clark (MA)
     Clarke (NY)
     Clay
     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
     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
     Kelly (IL)
     Kennedy
     Kildee
     Kilmer
     Kind
     Kirkpatrick
     Kuster
     Langevin
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee (CA)
     Levin
     Lipinski
     Loebsack
     Lofgren
     Lowenthal
     Lowey
     Lujan Grisham (NM)
     Lujan, Ben Ray (NM)
     Lynch
     Maffei
     Maloney, Carolyn
     Maloney, Sean
     Matsui
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McNerney
     Meeks
     Meng
     Michaud
     Miller, George
     Moore
     Moran
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Negrete McLeod
     Nolan
     O'Rourke
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor (AZ)
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Peters (CA)
     Peters (MI)
     Pingree (ME)
     Pocan
     Polis
     Price (NC)
     Quigley
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Richmond
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruiz
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sarbanes
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schneider
     Schrader
     Scott (VA)
     Scott, David
     Serrano
     Sewell (AL)
     Shea-Porter
     Sherman
     Sires
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Speier
     Swalwell (CA)
     Takano
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Titus
     Tonko
     Tsongas
     Van Hollen
     Vargas
     Veasey
     Vela

[[Page 5803]]


     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Walz
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters
     Waxman
     Welch
     Wilson (FL)
     Yarmuth

                             NOT VOTING--16

     Bass
     Brown (FL)
     Campbell
     Carter
     Fincher
     Hanna
     Keating
     Lewis
     McAllister
     Miller, Gary
     Neal
     Perlmutter
     Runyan
     Schwartz
     Stewart
     Stockman

                              {time}  1503

  So the bill was passed.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________