To designate the City of Salem, Massachusetts, as the Birthplace of the National Guard of the United States.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 597 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my colleague 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.

Mr. Speaker, it's budget day. It's budget day, and we get to begin that in the Rules Committee.

Now, I have the great pleasure in this body, as a freshman, of serving on both the Rules Committee and the Budget Committee, so you can imagine the sincerity with which I bring my enthusiasm to the floor today.

Coming here as a freshman who believes in an open process, who believes that we ought to have the opportunity to bring all ideas before the American people and let the 435 Members of the people's House express their opinion, I'm proud to tell you that the rule that is before us today allows for not one budget to be debated, not two budgets to be debated, not three, not four, not five, and not six, Mr. Speaker; but the rule that we bring today allows for seven different visions of the United States budget to be brought before this institution and debated. That is every single budget that was introduced, offered yesterday, Mr. Speaker, in front of the Rules Committee.

Candidly, had more Members submitted budgets, had we had 11, had we had 12, we would have made those in order, too, because this debate that we will have over these next 2 days, Mr. Speaker, is a debate about the vision that we have in this body for this country. I am so proud of the vision that was voted, reported out of the Budget Committee, and that will be made in order by this rule.

The options we'll have before us, Mr. Speaker, as made in order by this rule, include the President's budget. You may remember last year, Mr. Speaker, the President submitted his budget to Congress and not a single Member of the House offered that budget on the floor. It was offered in the Senate. It didn't get any votes. It was defeated 97 0, but it was offered there. This year, we're going to be able to look at the President's budget and debate that here on the floor of the House for the first time in my term.

We're going to have a budget offered by the Congressional Black Caucus today that lays out a vision for America, that talks about taxation, that talks about revenues and spending and where we should prioritize. We have a bipartisan budget that's been introduced, Mr. Speaker, that will come before the floor of this House, again, to be debated in its entirety. We have the Progressive Caucus budget that's coming. We have the Republican Study Committee budget that is coming. And, Mr. Speaker, we have the Democratic Caucus substitute that is coming, all to compete with, in this grand arena of ideas, the budget that we reported out of the Budget Committee.

I see my colleague from Wisconsin, with whom I have the great pleasure of serving on the Budget Committee. We went through amendment after amendment after amendment--some 30 amendments offered and considered, debated, some with bipartisan support, some with bipartisan opposition--to create this one budget that will be the foundation for the budget debate, Mr. Speaker, if this rule is enacted.

I don't know how we could have done it any better in the Rules Committee. I hope that's what we'll hear from my friend from New York.

Again, every single budget that was offered--and that was the invitation put out by the Speaker, just to be clear. The openness and the invitation was, Mr. Speaker: Come one, come all. If you have a competing vision, send it to the Rules Committee. We'll make it in order on the floor so that we can have the kind of open debate that's going to make America proud.

This is the beginning of that, right here, Mr. Speaker, right now.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say that I think the gentlelady from New York is right on target. I mean, these budgets are moral documents. They talk about our priorities as a people.

I tell folks back home, Mr. Speaker, and we don't have any young people on the floor with us today, but for all those young folks who are entrepreneurs, Mr. Speaker, who want to go out, and they don't want to work for the Man, they want to go out and hang out their own shingle, run their own business; you know, if they lost, at their small business, beginning on the day Jesus Christ was born, $1 million a day, and they lost $1 million a day at that small business every single day from the day Jesus was born, 7 days a week, through today, Mr. Speaker, they would have to continue to lose $1 million a day every day, 7 days a week for another 700 years to lose their first trillion dollars. Their first trillion.

And the budgets that have been passed by this House and by the United States Senate and signed by Presidents of both parties have saddled our young people today in America with more than $15 trillion--not $1 trillion, Mr. Speaker--$15 trillion and climbing, soon to be 16.

So when we talk about the morality of our budgets, we've got to talk about the morality of continuing to run budgets that are unbalanced. We've got to talk about the morality of continuing to pay for our priorities today with IOUs from our children in the future. We've got to talk about the prosperity that we experience today that we're trading away the prosperity of the future to have.

Health care, Mr. Speaker. It's going on right across the street. The longest line in Washington, D.C., today is right out there at the Supreme Court, folks who want to get in and find out what's going to happen.

Well, the budget that makes up the foundation of this debate that we'll have assumes the President's health care bill is going to go away. It assumes the Supreme Court Justices will accurately conclude that this mandate is unconstitutional, that the whole house of cards unfolds beyond that, and we'll start again.

And you know what's interesting?

Again, I'm so proud to be a member of this Budget Committee that I do think is doing it better than we have done it in the past under both parties. You know, had the President's health care bill come to the floor of this House five pages at the time, 10 pages at the time, 20 pages at the time, I would wager that this House would have passed the majority of it. In fact, I would wager that the American people would have approved and been enthusiastic about the majority of it.

But what has happened in this House too often, Mr. Speaker, is that we take those policies that we can all agree on, and for some reason unbeknownst to me, we decide that it would be bad if we all agreed on good policy, and so we begin to stuff things in there that we know are going to create controversy.

We just manufacture an argument that we don't have to have, and that's what happened to the President's health care bill. There was this nugget of the individual mandate, that theft of freedom, a new definition about what it means to be an American. We knew that the body wouldn't support that so we began to add on sweetener after sweetener after sweetener. We could have just voted on those sweeteners.

This rule doesn't put up with that, Mr. Speaker. This rule says we're not going to try to buy anybody's vote on the floor, we're not going to try to hide the ball in these budgets. Every single Member of Congress who has a vision of America, who has a vision of the morality that my colleague from New York discussed, who has a vision of what we could be as a people if only we had the political will to implement it right here. Each and every Member of Congress was invited to put that vision forward.

There are at least two visions that we'll have today, Mr. Speaker, and tomorrow that I plan to support, visions that I think outline that correct vision of how we can retain America's economic prosperity, how we can continue to be a leader in the free world.

But I support bringing to the floor those budgets that I do not believe in because just because those folks in north metro Atlanta, Mr. Speaker, just because those folks in the Seventh District of Georgia that I represent don't approve of every budget doesn't mean that those budgets don't deserve a vote, and that is a fundamental difference between the leadership that this Speaker has brought to this Institution and the leadership that we have had from both parties in years past.

What we've said is every single idea is worthy of consideration--win or lose. Win or lose, bring those ideas to the floor for debate, and let's see where the votes fall.

Mr. Speaker, again, as a member of both the Budget Committee and the Rules Committee, I am strongly supportive of the underlying budget bill but particularly proud of this rule that makes every other budget option in order as well.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I appreciate the comments of my colleague from California, and I know her concern for America's seniors is heartfelt, and it's one that I share as well; and I hope that she will support this rule that allows for a series of votes on many different Medicare solutions. Some solutions are better than others; but even if she opposes the underlying budget, I do hope we'll have her support on the rule, because we do lay out the opportunity for folks to choose among seven different visions for solving the Medicare challenge.

I don't have the charts with me down here on the floor. I know my colleagues on the Budget Committee will bring them during the main debate; but I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, and I can picture the charts in my mind, if you charted Medicare spending going out from 2020 to 2050, that two-generation horizon heading out there, and you charted the President's commitment to spend dollars on Medicare, and you charted the Budget Committee's commitment to spend dollars on Medicare, you'd find that the dollar value commitment is about dollar-for-dollar going out over that 30-year window.

So the question then, Mr. Speaker, is not about how much money is this Congress committing, the question is to what priorities is this Congress committing that money.

Now, the President's budget, which we'll have an opportunity to debate and vote here on the floor of the House, turns those Medicare financing decisions, those decisions about how to save money in the system, over to what we've all come to know as IPAB, the Independent Payment Advisory Board, to make recommendations and suggestions about how to clamp down on costs.

Now, generally, that means clamping down on reimbursements to doctors.

What the Budget Committee budget does, Mr. Speaker, is give those dollars to individuals so the individuals can enter the marketplace-- not a free-for-all marketplace--but a regulated and guaranteed marketplace where policies are guaranteed to these seniors so that individuals can then control those dollars and make their own choices about health care decisions.

So just to be clear, we're not arguing about dollars and cents in Medicare. The President's vision and the Budget Committee's vision is virtually identical.

What we are talking about, though, is who controls those dollars. Are they controlled by a one-size-fits-all 1965 Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan, soon to be revised by the IPAB board, or are they controlled by my mother and my father and your mother and your father and our neighbors, our aunts and uncles, individuals, Americans who will make those health care decisions for themselves.

Again, for me that choice is clear. Individual freedom will always be my choice over government control.

But getting back to the actual rule, Mr. Speaker, that's what's so wonderful about the way this Rules Committee has operated and this resolution that we have before us today. You're not restricted to just voting on my vision of solutions for this country. We're offering six other visions as well. In fact, we're offering every single vision that has come out of this U.S. House of Representatives so that we can have a free, open, and honest debate and let the American people know what their true choices for freedom are.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would like to say to my friend from Connecticut, because I can see her passion--again, I know it comes from the heart--your mother will be in no way affected by the budget that we're voting on today, and I would like to make that clear if anybody else is concerned about their mothers. For folks who are aged 55 or older, there is not one word in the Republican budget plan that changes the commitment that we've made to folks over the past three or four decades. That commitment since 1965 remains as solid today and tomorrow under the Budget Committee budget as it has ever been.

The alternative, Mr. Speaker, is to take our 98-year-old mothers and turn them over to IPAB. Now, again, there are choices here. The Republican budget, which has become the House Budget Committee budget, allows everyone in the current Medicare system and those 55 years of age or older to experience no changes whatsoever to that program guaranteed from 1965. Because the dollars still have to be regulated and because we still have to protect this program from bankruptcy, which is a program important to so many of us, the alternative is to turn it over to this government board and to let them cut costs where they can.

Let me tell you a story, Mr. Speaker, if I can just take a moment of personal privilege.

I was talking with a physician from back home in Gwinnett County, my hometown. He is a neurologist, Mr. Speaker. He has been practicing neurology for 17 years, and he is the youngest neurologist in the county. This is one of the largest counties in

the State of Georgia, which is one of the largest States in the Nation, and we haven't had one new neurologist coming into our area in 17 years. This doc says he's thinking about getting out. He has got an uncle who is a primary care physician in south Georgia, a primary care physician who is the only one to accept Medicaid, Mr. Speaker, in a five-county radius.

Folks say that there is this guarantee of health care. Let me tell you, if you can't find a doctor who will take you, your insurance card isn't worth much.

What we have to do, Mr. Speaker, is to restore the promise of America's health care system. What is it about the American health care system that's driving our doctors into retirement? Is it that we're not clamping down enough and that if only we had the IPAB board clamp down even more that it's going to increase access to care? I tell you that it's not, Mr. Speaker.

There are lots of different ways to prepare budgets, and I didn't know what to expect when I got on the Budget Committee, Mr. Speaker. I'll be honest. It could easily degenerate into a political exercise. I've seen it happen. It could become all about the right talking points and about all the right focus group conversations and have nothing to do with how we should actually lead this country forward--but not so on the Chairman Paul Ryan Budget Committee. In meeting after meeting, in conversation after conversation, in argument after argument, this Budget Committee chairman said there is one way to do a budget, and that is to do a budget with honest numbers and honest priorities that lay out in plain vision, for all to see, our vision of America's future--and he did it. He did it. He did it with the help of a very competent Budget Committee.

Again, as I look to my friend from Wisconsin with whom I share the bottom dais there on the Budget Committee, he did it with lots of input and lots of conversation; but he did it in a way so that no one would say they're just gaming the numbers, so that no one would say this is all about politics, and so that everyone who comes to the floor of this House can vote for this House Budget Committee reported budget with the pride of knowing it was put together with integrity about a vision for a better future. Again, we are going to have six other competing visions, Mr. Speaker. I can only hope that those numbers, those charts, those graphs were put together with the same care and integrity that Chairman Ryan used in the Budget Committee.

For folks who are trying to make up their minds about where they're going to cast their votes today, again I urge the strong support of this open rule that allows for the complete debate over all of these alternatives; but I also encourage my colleagues to give a look at that work product that we created on the House Budget Committee, a work product that I believe, Mr. Speaker, is crafted in a way that can make every Member of this body proud.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume to say to my colleague from Wisconsin that her words are always among some of the most powerful that we have on the Budget Committee, and I don't believe I've ever heard her speak from a place that was not of conviction. I want to say I appreciate those words, and you have my support on the Rules Committee. If we can get that bill reported out of Judiciary, I would love to see that in the Rules Committee and would love to see us report that to the House floor for that same kind of free and open debate that we are having today on the Budget Committee, and I appreciate the words that you shared.

I must say, though, Mr. Speaker, I have a tough time connecting the Violence Against Women Act with these budgets. I will disagree with my colleague from Wisconsin and will encourage folks to support the previous question so that we can have this budget debate. Should we have the debate that my colleague is discussing? I believe we absolutely should. Again, I know the committees of jurisdiction are working on that, and my hope is that they will report that and send that to the Rules Committee.

But today, Mr. Speaker, we have an opportunity. It's not an unprecedented opportunity, but it's one of the rarest of opportunities that we have here in the House, which is to have a debate on the floor that includes every single idea that any of our 435 Members have offered as a vision of how to govern this land, of how to set our fiscal priorities, of this morality that is deciding how to spend taxpayer dollars. We must seize that opportunity today. It's one that comes but once a year, Mr. Speaker; an opportunity but once a year to set these priorities. And again, the Rules Committee has provided time not just today but tomorrow as well to make sure we can thoroughly flesh out each and every one of these ideas and make sure that no one's voice on the floor of this House is silenced.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I reserve the balance of my time, Mr. Speaker.

I will continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I appreciate the comments of my friend from New York. We serve together on the Rules Committee, Mr. Speaker, and we grapple with tough issues on the Rules Committee every single time we meet. There's no easy day on the Rules Committee. Every bill is a challenge because of the different ideas that folks have to make it better. But what I've learned in that time, Mr. Speaker, is that I'm not the smartest guy in the room, I'm not the smartest guy in this Congress, and I'm not the smartest guy in my district.

There's a reason we have regular order here in the U.S. House of Representatives, so that even a good idea we can make better.

I have some folks come to me in my district and they say, Rob, why is it that you put that hospital funding that we need in the transportation bill? Those things don't have anything to do with one another. Why do you combine those two things? If it's a good idea to pass the transportation bill, let's pass the transportation bill; and if it's a good idea to pass the hospital bill, let's pass the hospital bill. But why do you put these disconnected things together? Why do you try to fund a new military procurement program in the environmental and National Park funding? Why do you stick those things together, Rob? They don't have anything to do with one another.

I actually campaigned on that issue, Mr. Speaker, because I think they're right. I think that the American people deserve an up-or-down vote on one issue at a time. I think my colleague from New York, my colleague from Connecticut, my colleague from the District of Columbia, and my colleague from Wisconsin make extremely compelling cases for why we should see the Violence Against Women Act come through regular order.

But my understanding is--and I would be happy to be corrected if I'm mistaken--my understanding is the bill was just introduced yesterday, that it hasn't had an opportunity to go through those committees where folks know so much more about these issues than we do in the Rules Committee or in the Budget Committee; that it has not had an opportunity to be amended and improved, to have the opportunity for those Members for whom this is a heartfelt and compelling issue to put in their two cents to make it even better.

I think it should have that opportunity, Mr. Speaker. I encourage folks to vote ``yes'' on the previous question so that we can move forward to debate these budgets today, and then I urge my colleagues-- let me say it, Mr. Speaker, because I know folks are watching this on the screens back in their rooms--the bill number of the Violence Against Women Act is H.R. 4271, Mr. Speaker. There's no question-- because this is a House where folks believe in regular order--that the more cosponsors a bill accumulates and the faster it accumulates them, the more likely it is to end up on this floor in haste, rapidly, immediately in order to have a hearing.

I would encourage my colleagues to go and look at that bill again just dropped yesterday, but certainly something that I know this House and the Judiciary Committee and others are going to want to consider.

The opportunity we have today, though, Mr. Speaker, with this rule, is to define our national vision. I don't mean our vision for just the Nation, our land, Mr. Speaker. I mean a vision for us as a people. Who are we as a people, Mr. Speaker?

I heard one of the Presidential candidates speak the other day and he said, This year we don't need politicians that we can believe in; we need politicians who believe in us.

I thought that was pretty profound. I don't need somebody I can believe in. I need somebody who believes in me. That's true, Mr. Speaker.

We lay out all of these different competing budget visions here, the summaries of which I hold in my hand. My question to my colleagues is: Which of these visions do you believe believes in you? Which of these visions lays out that future of America that is best for you and your family, that is best for your constituents and their families, that is best for your State, that is best for our Nation?

The visions are starkly different, Mr. Speaker. Again, the base bill is the bill that we reported out of the Budget Committee. That is the base text. These are substitutes for that.

For example, we have a bipartisan substitute--Republican and Democratic Members of the House--that raises taxes by $2 trillion more. To be perfectly accurate, it's $1.8 trillion more than the Republican budget that the committee passed. It spends $3.1 trillion more. It focuses on different priorities. The debt increases by about $1.4 trillion. That's the cost of those priorities. Again, some priorities may be worth that cost. We'll have that debate on the floor.

The ranking member on the Budget Committee, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Maryland, his budget substitute also raises taxes by $1.8 trillion over the next 10 years more than the House Budget Committee budget does and spends $4.7 trillion more than the House Budget Committee budget does and thus adds $2.9 trillion more to the backs of our children.

As I said, Mr. Speaker, about $15.5 trillion today, soon to be $16 trillion, that we've borrowed and spent, that

we've impoverished our children with so that we can live today at the standard of living that we have, Mr. Speaker. The gentleman from Maryland's substitute increases that by $3 trillion more than does the House Budget Committee report.

Do the priorities that he spends on merit that kind of increase? Do the priorities that he focuses on merit that kind of debt increase? Perhaps they do. We're going to have that debate on the floor of the House, Mr. Speaker.

The Congressional Black Caucus substitute raises taxes by $6 trillion over 10 years, more than the House budget bill does, and it spends $5.3 trillion more, which means the Congressional Black Caucus substitute actually reduces the national debt more than the House Budget Committee does. Now, it does so by raising taxes $6 trillion, and it only reduces the debt by under $1 trillion, but that's one of those priorities that folks have had the courage to lay out here on the floor of the House that we're going to make in order.

My colleague from New York, the chairman from California, this Budget Committee of men and women, Mr. Speaker, has made every single option available.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus, Mr. Speaker, their proposal is to raise taxes by $6.8 trillion more than the Republican Budget Committee budget, the budget that was passed out of the entire Budget Committee. It increases spending by about $6.6 trillion, one of the highest spending of the bunch, again, focusing on priorities that all 435 Members of this House deserve an opportunity to hear and an opportunity to consider.

We have an opportunity in this House, Mr. Speaker, to do great things. We have an opportunity in this House to stand up for the priorities that are the priorities of our constituents back home. And we don't have to vote on 100 different ideas in one bill, Mr. Speaker. In the 15 months I've been here, Mr. Speaker, all but about five of the bills have been short enough for me to read; I don't have to staff it out, and I don't have to have a team of speed readers out there working through it. All but about five have been short enough for me to read.

That's a source of great pride for me on the Rules Committee, because I've told folks back home and folks believe it back home that we ought to have time to carefully deliberate each and every thing. Folks are tired of 1,500-page bills. Folks are tired of 2,500-page bills. Folks are tired of the defense bill being merged with the transportation bill which is merged with the health care bill which is merged with the national parks bill which also funds the White House. That's crazy, and it doesn't have to be that way. There's not one rule of this House that requires that nonsense to go on. In fact, the opposite is true. The rules of the House were actually created to prevent that from going on, and we have to work really hard to pervert the process in a way that makes that possible.

This Speaker has made an effort unlike any I've ever seen to try to have one idea at a time down here on the floor of the House, one idea at a time so that the American people's voice can be heard. If we bring a bill to the floor, Mr. Speaker, that supports dogcatchers on the one hand and hospital funding on the other and somebody votes ``no,'' what are they voting ``no'' on? Are they voting ``no'' on the dogcatchers or are they voting ``no'' on the hospital? You can't tell. And that's what happens. Have you seen that?

Have you ever wondered why it is, Mr. Speaker, that in our appropriations process the food stamp language and the agricultural subsidy language is in the same appropriations bill? I always wondered. I started thinking about it as I watched the votes going on the board, and what I figured out is that we don't have enough farmers in this country for everybody to vote to increase farm spending, and we don't have enough folks with high food stamp populations in their district to support having high food stamp spending, but when you combine those two groups together, guess what? You get 51 percent of this House and you can make things happen.

Well, I guess I support the ingenuity of folks who find ways to cobble a multitude of ideas together and find 51 percent, but I ask my colleagues, is that really what our constituents sent us here to do? Is cobbling together multiple ideas and just trying to game the system enough to find your 51 percent, Mr. Speaker, is that really what our Framers intended? Or, alternatively, should we commit ourselves to not just having an open process, Mr. Speaker, but an open process on a single idea?

Do you know what I found on the Rules Committee? And it was a surprise to me--and if you haven't had a chance to serve on the Rules Committee, it might not be intuitive to you--but when you bring a small bill to the Rules Committee, when you focus on one single idea, when you find one priority that you want to make the law of the land and you send that to the Rules Committee, Mr. Speaker, then the amendment process is only open to amendments that are germane to that underlying idea. If you bring a bill about hospital funding to the Rules Committee, well, then, the only germane amendments that will be considered are amendments that have to do with hospital funding.

So the shorter we make these bills and the more single-minded we make these bills, the more open we can have the process here on the House floor. Mr. Speaker, this freshman class is full of a bunch of CEOs from the private sector, folks who ran for Congress because they're worried about the direction of this country, and they said, Dadgumit, I've got to step up; I've got to run, and I've got to be a part of the solution. And they get here thinking that they were going to be able to do it all overnight. It turns out there are 435 of us, and we all have the same voting card. It's harder. Nobody is king of the world in here. It's one man, one woman, one vote, and there are 435 of us. You've got to find that agreement.

Well, it turns out there really is a lot of agreement, not just agreement on the Republican side of the aisle, not just agreement on the Democratic side of the aisle, but agreement across this whole House when we open up the process and allow the House to work its will.

Mr. Speaker, that is what we have here today. We have a rule that opens up the process, that flings open the doors of democracy and lets every single idea be considered.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage an affirmative vote on the rule.

I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

I thank the gentleman for his kindness yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the Rules Committee did fine. It was open, and it allowed all the budgets, as he said, to be brought to the floor. It's what we have to work with that is concerning to me because the budget's a reflection of our values and, through that prism, the Ryan budget that we're considering today is morally bankrupt.

The budget that the majority proposes today puts corporations and the wealthiest Americans above the needs of working and middle class families. It increases military spending while slashing the safety net for the middle class and protects tax loopholes for corporations that ship jobs overseas.

In short, this extreme, partisan proposal takes a hatchet to the notion of shared responsibility and places the financial burdens of a generation upon the shoulders of seniors, the poor, and the middle class.

Under this budget, the millionaires will receive multiple tax cuts totaling at least $300,000, and not a single corporate tax loophole will be closed.

Under this budget, we would see the end of Medicare as we know it. In its place, seniors would be offered the option of a fixed price voucher with which they may go into the market to find their own insurance, with no guarantee that the voucher you receive will come even close to covering the cost of the health care.

Meanwhile, the landmark Affordable Care Act, which is the first law to start addressing the soaring cost of health care, would be repealed. Repeal of the law would mean that children under 26 could no longer be insured by their parents, and millions of Americans suffering from chronic diseases could once again be denied care.

I don't think many Americans--certainly, I didn't know it-- understand--I learned this during the Clinton health care debate--that most policies have a yearly and a lifetime limit. As a matter of fact, at that time, when we were debating the Clinton health care plan, that limit was about $1 million, which means that an emergency like head trauma from a car accident, a bike accident, or just a workplace error on a construction site, could lead you to reaching your limit, and you would no longer be eligible for health insurance.

Let me say that in another way. Once you reach that limit with your preexisting condition, you would be uninsurable in the United States for the rest of your life. The health care bill that everybody's talking about now does away with that, both yearly limits and lifetime limits.

Right now, most individuals still face this danger, but thanks to the Affordable Care Act, lifetime and yearly limits will be phased out in 2014. That's a very important part of this bill.

People who want to repeal health care have said absolutely nothing about what they expect to replace it with. We would assume that people with preexisting conditions could no longer get coverage.

Under the Republican budget, those protections would be taken away, and the vulnerable Americans would be left to figure out how to survive on their own.

We talk about the mandate to buy insurance. Right now, under the present law, we are all paying for people who are uninsured. Those people who choose not to buy insurance, who have to go to the hospital for emergencies, or any other reason, are paid for, they are treated, by the law, but we pay the cost. It is estimated in some areas that we spend $1,000 a year more, those of us who are insured, simply to cover the uninsured.

Now, you can continue doing that and paying everybody else's health care costs, or we can keep this health care bill which is so important to us.

The Republican budget not only takes from the poor and gives to the rich, it even fails to fulfill the promise of a balanced budget.

Just this morning, Politico published an article entitled, ``Ryan plan puts GOP in long-term budget bind.'' In the article, the author writes:

It is a bold, even bellicose election-year challenge. But

the strict revenue limits could postpone for a generation the

conserve promise of a balanced budget.

Even the majority themselves admit this plan will add $3.11 trillion to our deficit between 2013 and 2022.

Under the majority's plan, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that all government spending, except for Social Security and paying down the debt, will have to be cut by one-third in order to balance the budget by 2040.

This draconian approach means that seniors and the poor will receive worse health care, our children will continue to learn in crumbling schools, and we will all travel, as usual, on a failing transportation network with bridges that are substandard and roads that are cracking, that is inefficient and totally out of date.

This vision does not reflect the ideals of a better America nor the hopes for a brighter future. It is neither a reflection of the values that I hold dear nor the values of the people that whom I represent.

I join many of my colleagues in supporting the Democrat alternative being offered by Mr. Van Hollen. The Democrat alternative budget supports the creation of jobs in the high-tech and construction fields. It invests in our future by prioritizing education, as we must, also prioritizing health and the economy, and reduces the deficit through responsible spending cuts, with revenue raised by having everyone pay their fair share and by closing corporate tax loopholes.

The Democrat alternative is a thoughtful, balanced approach, one that does not place the entire burden of sacrifice on the backs of seniors, the poor, and the middle class.

I urge my colleagues to oppose the misguided and dangerous proposal before us and, instead, consider one of the numerous alternatives that protect the middle class while reducing our deficit in a responsible way.

I reserve the balance of my time.

[From POLITICO.com, Mar. 27, 2012]

Ryan Plan Puts GOP in Long-Term Bind

(By David Rogers)

Call it the 19 percent solution.

As House debate begins Wednesday, that's the bottom line of

the new Republican budget blueprint, which breaks with the

August debt accords and substitutes a vision of capping

revenue at 19 percent of gross domestic product and scaling

back government to fit into that suit.

It's a bold, even bellicose election-year challenge. But

the strict revenue limits could postpone for a generation the

conservative promise of a balanced budget. At the same time,

deep cuts to health care and education most likely will make

it harder for GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney to appeal to

independents and women voters in the presidential campaign.

Indeed, it's a tight box that Republicans have put

themselves in and one that literally requires a

transformation of government to escape.

Just an upward adjustment of revenue to 20.25 percent of

GDP would bring Washington into balance by 2023 under the

same House plan. But the party's anti-tax stance precludes

that, and it is not until 17 years later that an extended

forecast by the Congressional Budget Office shows a modest

surplus in 2040.

By that date, all government spending--except Social

Security and payments on the debt--would have had to have

been cut by more than a third to reach this goal. Even in the

wake of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the budget tilts

heavily toward defense spending at the expense of domestic

appropriations.

In a show of unity, Romney endorsed the House plan last

week, but his campaign ducked questions from POLITICO this

week. If elected president, he would face almost immediate

pressure to cut nondefense appropriations by 20 percent in

his first budget, rolling back spending to a level that

predates George W. Bush's administration.

``It's not the budget I would have written,'' Rep. Mike

Simpson told POLITICO. And the Idaho Republican--and former

speaker of his state Legislature--represents an increasingly

restless element in the party going forward.

It was Simpson's vote that allowed Budget Committee

Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to get the resolution out of his

committee last week--and Simpson will stand again with the

leadership on the floor. But there's no hiding the fact that

he and many Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee

are furious with the course taken in

this budget and more willing to lend support to those who

feel revenue must also be part of the equation.

``This is going to be the most partisan debate of the year

and it will set up the election for the year,'' Simpson said.

``But I don't think it's the balanced plan to get us out of

the hole we are in. Ultimately, the only thing that is going

to solve this problem is not a Republican plan, not a

Democratic plan, but a bipartisan plan that has buy-in from

both sides. That's when we stop going out and shooting one

another.''

An early test in this week's floor debate could be the fate

of a new entry sponsored by Reps. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) and

Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio), also a member of the

Appropriations panel.

Their proposal would present an updated version of the 2010

presidential debt commission's recommendations, a combination

of entitlement savings and $1.2 trillion in revenue over 10

years. And having shied away in the past, Cooper told

POLITICO that he was now encouraged enough by the reception

to proceed--the first real time the ideas have been put to a

floor vote.

``My view is this is where they are going to wind up at the

end of the year anyway, so we might as well start talking

about it,'' LaTourette said. ``Anybody who thinks you are not

going to have to have a pot of revenue and pot of cuts is

thinking funny.''

Matched against this fragile center will be more

traditional warring alternatives on the right and left.

The Republican Study Committee Tuesday announced its menu

of still deeper appropriations cuts and Medicaid savings--all

in the hopes of reaching balance in five years. At the same

time, the Congressional Black Caucus weighed in with a

deficit-reduction package that also exceeds Ryan's plan but

is heavily dependent on what appears to be $3.9 trillion in

additional revenue--including a novel financial speculation

tax--not in the White House's own budget.

Republicans hope to embarrass President Barack Obama by

having one of their own call up the White House's February

budget submission--for certain defeat. And the House Rules

Committee late Tuesday made in order such a proposal to be

offered by Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), who already is

backing both Ryan and the more severe RSC alternative.

Democrats will have their own alternative claiming greater

war savings than Obama's--it would end all overseas

contingency operations funding after 2014, for example. But

the 10-year deficits are still almost double those in the

Ryan plan, and Republicans jumped on the fact that the

resolution cancels the $1.2 trillion sequester mechanism

under the Budget Control Act--without spelling out a clear

substitute.

By contrast, the Ryan resolution would also tamper with the

first round of automatic cuts due in January but seeks to

offset most of these reductions, about half of which would

come from defense appropriations.

Six House committees would be ordered to come up with

prescribed savings by the end of next month for floor action

in May. Armed Services is exempted, frustrating the design of

the Budget Control Act, and there is the risk of splitting

even traditionally bipartisan panels, like the House

Agriculture Committee.

Ryan's budget demands savings of more than $8 billion in

2013 from Agriculture--an effort to target food stamps. And

the challenge for Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) is to

navigate these waters without jeopardizing the partnership he

wants with the minority in writing a farm bill later this

year.

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from California (Mrs. Capps).

Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to provide that, immediately after the House adopts the rule, it will bring up H.R. 4271, a bill to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, or VAWA.

This is a vital law that I coauthored with Pat Schroeder in 1994 and of which I have been an original cosponsor each time it has been reauthorized. Since VAWA's enactment in 1994, the cases of domestic violence have fallen, and over 1 million women have used the justice system to obtain protective orders against their batterers.

To discuss this proposal, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to the sponsor of the bill, the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore).

Let me take about 30 seconds just to say that I appreciate what my colleague from Georgia is saying. However, we are not giving a choice whether we are going to do the budget or violence against women, but we're going to have an attempt to do both on the rule.

What we can do in the vote for the budget--when we vote for the rule, we would like to have the previous question be defeated so that we can add VAWA to it. That's all we are trying to do here today.

The bill is about to expire. It would be a dreadful thing to think that women and children and the other spouse would be growing up with violence because we have failed to provide the resources to stop that, after it has been so successful since 1994.

Now I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).

I was expecting one additional speaker, but I believe she is not here. So I am prepared to close.

Let me say, Mr. Woodall is a generous and kind man, and I know he understands what we are talking about here today.

My speaker is here, so let me yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. Speaker, Ms. DeLauro has just reminded me that when we began the debate on health care, that eight States in the United States and the District of Columbia considered violence against women to be a preexisting condition, and a woman who had been beaten to a pulp could not be insured because she would be apt to have that happen to her again. And we changed that in that bill.

I think all of us, too, are familiar with the phrase ``rule of thumb,'' but I'm not sure a lot of us understand what it means. The rule of thumb was the size of a man's thumb and the stick with which he could legally beat his wife. So every time you use that, I want you to remember what that means.

Since VAWA's enactment, we've all seen that domestic violence has fallen over half. Policemen have been trained and the courts have been trained to understand it better.

There was a time in the United States when it was simply considered a private manner and police would not always take away the offending partner, leaving a person again to be beaten one more time.

I don't think anybody in the House of Representatives wants this to expire. I'm sure they don't. Everybody has mothers, sisters, daughters, and nieces that they want to protect.

This is such a simple thing. It doesn't hurt the budget at all. We have tried our best to get this bill brought up in the House; and we're terrified, frankly, those of us who have spent a good bit of our time in Congress trying to deal with this act, that it will expire. As I've pointed out many times, I've been at this since 1994.

It's such a serious thing, that shelters for battered women are never revealed as to their location because of fear that the offending spouse will find them and make them come home or other things.

This past 5 or 6 years, we've seen a number of spouses being killed; and we always look at what goes on in those houses, and nobody ever realized before what was happening there. More women obviously need to know that there is someplace that they can go and someplace that they can get help.

Let me give you a figure because we're pretty much concerned here about the deficit, the budget, and costs.

In studies recently released, they have shown that just a 2-minute screening of domestic violence victims in a yearly checkup can save nearly $6 billion in chronic health care costs every year. The screenings are provided for in the Violence Against Women Act, which trains health care professionals to recognize and address the signs of domestic violence, because obviously most women who are trying to cover it up simply attempt to live with it and are not going to bring it up themselves.

Approximately 2 million women are physically or sexually assaulted or stalked by an intimate partner every single year; one out of every six women has experienced an attempted or completed rape at some point in her lifetime; one in four women in the U.S. will experience domestic violence in her lifetime. This is terrible.

The Congress has a responsibility to ensure that rape prevention programs are fully funded, that law enforcement has the resources, that battered women's shelters are open, and that victim advocates have the training to stop the violence against women.

With all this authorization expiring before this year's end, we're in danger of letting these responsibilities go unfulfilled.

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.

I urge my colleagues to please vote ``no'' on the previous question for all of those women who live in fear and for all those children who witness that violence. Violence against women changes people's lives forever, mentally and physically. They will never, ever be the same. For heaven's sake, let's reauthorize this bill. It does so much for them.

I urge everyone in the House to please vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question so we continue to provide support to the millions of women who are victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.

I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

I was just saying to the previous speaker that I have a 98-year-old mother. Let's hand her a voucher and say, Go figure it out. That's precisely what you want to do. Go figure it out on Medicare. Unbelievable. She could really figure it out.

Chairman Ryan and the House majority have put together a lopsided budget, tries to break the middle class, gouges deeply into our commonsense national priorities and ends the Medicare guarantee.

According to estimates, more than 4 million Americans would lose their jobs because of this budget, but they provide a $150,000 tax cut to the richest 1 percent of people in this Nation.

The Republican budget would slash the social safety net cutting the food stamp program by over 17 percent, or $133.5 billion. That's more than the amount of food stamp funds going to 29 States and territories. Over 8 million men, women, and children would go hungry. If their plan to turn food stamps into an underfunded block grant goes through, even more damage is done. Coming out of the deepest recession since the Great Depression, food stamps help to feed 46 million Americans, 21 million children. Seventy-five percent of the program participants are families with children.

This is Robin Hood in reverse. It takes from the middle class, gives to the rich. I urge my colleagues to oppose this disastrous budget.

I thank the gentlelady.

In 21st century America, three women die every day at the hands of their husbands, boyfriends, or former partners. Domestic violence causes 2 million injuries a year. Sadly, it is something that one out of every four women will experience in their lifetimes.

This is particularly a difficult problem for young women today. Women between the ages of 16 and 24 have the highest rates of relationship violence, and one in every five women will be sexually assaulted while they are in college. Even more worrisome, we know that when couples are experiencing economic difficulties, domestic violence is three times as likely to occur.

Victim service providers have seen an increase in demand since the recession began while also seeing their funding cut. More than 70 percent of shelters credited ``financial issues'' for increases in abuse that they have seen in communities across the country.

In 1994, our now-Vice President Joe Biden wrote and championed the Violence Against Women Act. In 17 years it has cut the rate of domestic violence in our country by over half. It is past time to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act again, and my colleague's amendment would allow us to act now. This bill reauthorizes the programs that have been proven to work to stem domestic violence and to help law enforcement and prosecutors do their jobs.

This reauthorization enjoys bipartisan support in the United States Senate, with 59 cosponsors. In addition, over 200 national organizations and 500 State and local organizations have urged us to pass this bill, including the National Association of Attorneys General, National District Attorneys Association, National Sheriffs' Association, and the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association. Why do they want us to do this? Because it helps to make their jobs easier, and it gives women the tools to be able to protect themselves.

Everyone, everyone in this Chamber wants to see an America where no woman ever has to endure the scourge of domestic violence. The Violence Against Women Act is helping us realize this vision. We must reauthorize the law so it can continue to help our constituents.

And I am also proud to tell you that the Affordable Care Act, the health care reform legislation, now says that if a woman is a victim of domestic violence, her insurance company can no longer say that that is a preexisting condition, and she can get the kind of health care coverage that she needs. That's the value of reauthorizing this legislation and the value of the Affordable Care Act.

I urge you to support this amendment so we can act now. Let's move forward. Reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act once again.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1339) to amend title 32, United States Code, the body of laws of the United States dealing with the National Guard, to recognize the City of Salem, Massachusetts, as the Birthplace of the National Guard of the United States, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 1339, recognizing the city of Salem, Massachusetts, as the Birthplace of the National Guard of the United States. I would like to thank my colleague from Massachusetts, the Honorable John Tierney, for bringing this measure before the House, and I'm honored to be a cosponsor of this legislation with him.

It was in 1629 that Captain John Endicott organized the first militia in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in Salem and that all males between the ages of 16 and 60 participated in the defense of that community. Each week, this first regiment diligently practiced drill and provided guard detail to protect the colony throughout each night. This militia, and those that followed, would come to play a significant role in the Revolutionary War and all conflicts that have followed.

Today, the National Guard continues its proud mission of providing units for the first line in defense of our great Nation at home and throughout the world. By designating the City of Salem, Massachusetts, as the Birthplace of the National Guard of the United States, we hope to see positive tourism and economic developments in the city, a city already recognized throughout the world as one of immense historical significance.

But most importantly, Mr. Speaker, this resolution will instill pride in both the local and State communities in their rich patriotic heritage and properly recognizes the critically important role that the National Guard has played in defense of our Nation and its citizens since the earliest days of our Nation.

As the oldest component of the Armed Forces of the United States, the services our National Guard has provided our country are innumerable and immense. I'm honored to be here today to be part of the history in the formal recognition of this, the National Guard's birthplace. I encourage my colleagues to join me in support of this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to add, again, my words of thanks and commendation to the gentleman from Massachusetts for sponsoring this resolution. Because, as was reflected, in honoring the birthplace of the National Guard, we honor all who have served throughout our Nation's history.

During my statehouse days, as well as now in Congress, I've had the remarkable privilege to interact with both my Air and Army National Guard in Pennsylvania, as well as National Guard troops from around the country in my many visits to Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere. These are remarkable, remarkable men and women, citizen soldiers through and through, who,

when called upon, respond to the call of their Nation and their fellow citizens, serve us so courageously.

So, again, I'm honored to be a sponsor of this resolution, and I commend the gentleman for introducing it.

I urge a ``yes'' vote in support of its passage.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank my colleague from Massachusetts for yielding, as well as for taking the time to help manage this bill and for being an original cosponsor; and I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania, as well, for cosponsoring this bill and for his kind words in discussion of what it is and how meaningful it is not just to Salem, Massachusetts, but to the country as well.

I rise in support of this bill to officially recognize Salem, Massachusetts, as the Birthplace of the National Guard. Salem was the site where our country's first military regiment mustered. This militia was the foundation of what would eventually become the National Guard.

Last year, I offered a version of this legislation as an amendment to the Defense authorization bill, and it was approved by a voice vote. Unfortunately, my amendment was not included as part of the final conference report. So for the past several months, we've been working together to bring this bill to the floor.

Next month is the 375th anniversary of that first muster on Salem Common, and it's being commemorated; so I'm particularly pleased that the House is considering this bill at this time. I want to be clear: consideration of this bill today is made possible because of bipartisan support; and just like my two colleagues here, there are a number of people, over 116 cosponsors from both parties, who participated in bringing this bill. I want to thank the majority leader, as well as the leadership on both sides, for his courtesy given to the staff as well as to me. I also want to thank the House Armed Services Committee chairman, Buck McKeon, as well as the ranking member, Adam Smith, and their staffs; and I want to note the 116 colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, all the Democrats on the Armed Service Committee and a substantial number of Republicans on that committee for their support.

This kind of consideration is just the way this House should behave and should act, and I'm glad that we were able to do it on this bill.

So today is an important day for the City of Salem and for the National Guard and for local residents like Larry Conway and many others who have been advocating for this designation for years. Designating Salem as the Birthplace of the National Guard will pay tribute to those who first organized to defend our country almost 375 years ago, and it will also honor those men and women who continue to serve in the National Guard today.

We are working closely with our Senate counterparts to ensure that that Chamber acts quickly in time for the 375th anniversary next month. I won't recount all of the details my colleagues here were so kind to enumerate, but I do note that the bill itself sets forth all the important benchmarks and the progress that we've made.

Again, I want to thank my colleagues, and I urge all the colleagues to support this bipartisan bill.