National Security and Job Protection Act

Mr. Speaker, before my colleague from Virginia leaves the floor, I plan to spend most of my hour disagreeing with most of what he spent his last hour on, but what he said at the very end is just so accurate and so infrequently said here on Capitol Hill, and that is, there are no good options left.

If you have over a $1 trillion budget and you want to balance that budget, you're either raising somebody's taxes or you're cutting somebody's spending. There is no easy solution to that problem. It's not going to go away on its own. We're going to have to find a way to parse that--and by ``we,'' I don't just mean the 435 of us in this room, I mean the 315 million of us across the country.

What I have here, Mr. Speaker--you can't see it from where you are-- but it's down to where we're in a spending-driven debt crisis. I think that's important because something has happened in the media. When I open up the newspaper, it's all about the tax component of this fiscal cliff, and there absolutely is a tax component. We talk about taxes as it relates to small businesses and creating jobs. We talk about taxes as they relate to individual families and being able to make ends meet.

But what this chart shows, Mr. Speaker, is spending and tax revenue of the Federal Government of the United States of America from 1947 out to 2077. You can't see the intricate detail on here, Mr. Speaker, but what you can see from far, far away is that this green line that represents tax revenue is a relatively flat and constant line. As a general rule, it does not matter whether tax rates were the 90 percent marginal rates, the 70 percent marginal rates that they were when John F. Kennedy was President and he cut taxes, or whether they were the 28 percent marginal rates during the Reagan years; the American people are willing to give you about 18 percent of the size of the economy in tax revenue.

Mr. Speaker, it turns out--and this is of no surprise to you--it turns out the American people are pretty smart. If you raise taxes on this behavior, they switch to this behavior. If you raise taxes on that behavior, they switch to this behavior. Because at the end of the day we're more concerned with providing for our family, raising our kids, and taking care of our parents than we are about funding the Federal Government, and so we make changes in our lives to respond to the Tax Code.

So whether taxes are at a top marginal rate of 28 percent, Mr. Speaker, as they were during the Reagan years, or whether they're at a top marginal rate of 90 percent as they were before the John F. Kennedy Presidency, America paid the same amount as a percent of GDP in taxes. This chart shows that. Taxes relatively constant going out over that horizon.

Mr. Speaker, spending, this red line here--now you can see this red line is higher than the green line for most of the past 50 years. This business of running deficits is not new. We've been running deficits my entire lifetime. With the exception of a couple of years in the Gingrich years here in the House and the Clinton years there in the White House, we've run budget deficits in this country, but they've been relatively small. I grew up in the Reagan years, and I remember lots of talk there about all the money we were spending on defense and those massive deficits that President Reagan was running in order to win the Cold War. Those deficits are minuscule compared to the deficits that we're running today.

Mr. Speaker, what you see on this chart, as we go out from here where we are today in 2012 and 2013, what you see is a chart that reflects what happens if you and I do nothing, Mr. Speaker. If you and I were to close down this House, if President Obama were to leave the White House tomorrow and bolt the door, if we passed absolutely no new laws, no new promises, made no new commitments, this red line represents the spending that would happen automatically. This red line represents the spending that happens if we don't change one thing.

What you see then, Mr. Speaker, is there is just no way--this green line represents taxes--there's no way that we can raise taxes high enough to cover this red line of spending. If we took everything from everybody, Mr. Speaker--hear that: if we had a 100 percent tax on every dollar you earned, if we took everything you had in your household and sold it all for its value, if we confiscated every asset of every business in America and we sold it at the auction block, and we put all of that money in a bank account to save for a rainy day, we still would not have enough money to pay for the spending that we've promised America in this red line. It's a spending problem we have. Our problem is not that we tax too little; our problem is that we spend too much.

That's important when we talk about this fiscal cliff, Mr. Speaker. This is not a tax issue. This is a spending issue. And this isn't an issue that folks don't have an answer to.

Mr. Speaker, you and I serve on the Budget Committee. And one of the things that I am most proud of in my 2 short years here in this body is that we looked at these tough challenges, the ones that my colleague from Virginia just described as being tough, tough choices. You are raising taxes. You are cutting spending. Someone is going to be unhappy. It is probably going to have to be a combination of both.

We looked at those things we did on the Budget Committee, and we came up with a solution. We didn't just tell America who to blame. We didn't just talk about how hard it was and how tough it was going to be and how lousy that is for America's children and America's grandchildren. We proposed solutions.

It's represented here on this chart, Mr. Speaker. What I have here is debt as a percent of GDP, the Federal debt. That's about $16.3 trillion today. I go all the way back to World War II here where debt was 100 percent of GDP. The historical debt is represented by this gray line, Mr. Speaker. This red line, just a different representation of the spending I showed down there.

On that chart, I was showing actual spending as a percent of GDP. This is a debt that we are going to run up as a percentage of GDP. And this green line, Mr. Speaker, represents the budget that you and I crafted in the Budget Committee under the leadership of Chairman Paul Ryan. We called it ``The Path to Prosperity'' because for the first time in my lifetime, this Congress got serious about making the tough choices necessary to get us out of these record-setting deficits.

And that's so important because I get so tired, Mr. Speaker, as I know you do too, of everybody just pointing the finger to blame--Oh, it's his fault. It's her fault. It's their fault. It's their fault. This budget was not about blame. This budget was about solutions. And we laid it all out. That distinguishes us, particularly in this fiscal cliff debate, from the White House and from the Senate, which continue to talk in broad platitudes, but it failed to lay out the difficult, difficult line-by-line explanation of what their proposal would be to solve these problems. We did that in our budget, and it was hard.

There is a reason the United States Senate hasn't passed a budget in almost 4 years, and it's because it's hard. A budget is a statement of your values. It's a statement of your values. We confiscate all of this money in tax revenue from the American people, and then we redistribute it out to those priorities that we have--national security, kids, school lunches and education, our criminal justice system, to make sure families are safe in their homes. We distribute it to those things that are important to us.

So when you're running trillion-dollar deficits, as we're running today, and you have to put together a budget, you either have to tell the American people and their children and their grandchildren that you're going to continue running trillion-dollar deficits and bankrupt this Nation, or you have to tell the American people, you know what, we've got to prioritize, and these are my priorities.

I'll tell you something, Mr. Speaker. It just drives me to distraction when I read the media accounts. One of the things that gets lost is that when we passed that budget, that budget that passed this House not once but twice, that budget represents the only budget that has passed anywhere in this town--in fact, the only budget that has received a majority of votes anywhere in this town. When we passed that budget, we said revenue in this country has to rise. It has to.

Mr. Speaker, we go back to this historical chart that I showed you. We're down here in this green dip right here. Tax revenues are at their lowest level in modern times. Tax rates are plenty high, Mr. Speaker, plenty high. But guess what, if you don't have a job, you can't pay any income taxes. It doesn't matter--a 5 percent income rate on you, a 100 percent income tax rate on you--if you don't have a job, you can't pay taxes. That's why tax revenue is so low.

If companies aren't making profits, companies can't pay taxes. If you can't sell your home, you don't have capital gains to pay taxes on. If you can't start a business, you don't have income to pay taxes on. That's why tax revenue is so low.

Mr. Speaker, the tax rates are the same rates they've been over the last 10 years. We had a giant spike in tax revenue. The reason for the decline is because of this recession. When folks aren't making money, they can't pay taxes.

So what did we do in our budget? We crafted an economic growth plan that would bring in--hear this, Mr. Speaker--it would take us from what was about 14.5 percent of GDP. Today it's 16 percent of GDP. We passed a budget that would bring us up to over 18 percent of GDP and tax revenue. That's more than a 10 percent increase over what we're doing today.

Do we do it by punishing little groups of people like the President wants to do? No, of course not. We do it by growing the economy, unleashing the power of the American entrepreneur, and allowing folks to pursue their dreams. That's how we bring more revenue into the coffers of the Federal Government.

But hearing that said loudly and proudly, the only budget that has passed anywhere in this town was passed in a bipartisan way by this U.S. House of Representatives, dominantly passed by Republican votes; and it includes a revenue increase of over 10 percent. So just go ahead and dismiss that nonsense about Republicans ignoring the revenue side of this equation. Of course there's a revenue side of the equation. My colleague from Virginia was right when he mentioned it. It continues to be true, and we've dealt with it responsibly.

What about the spending side, Mr. Speaker? Before I take this chart down, I want folks to see that spending side back in their offices. This green line represents the budget that we passed. This red line is the path of debt if we do nothing. This green line is the path of debt if we pass the House-passed budget plan and make it the law of the land.

There are opportunities to make this difference. This House, in a bipartisan way, has stood up to those challenges. I encourage the President and the Senate to follow that strong lead.

But let's take on the thing that we hear the most often, Mr. Speaker, and that is that the President is committed to taxing, raising taxes, exacerbating the tax burden on all of these family-owned businesses that you and I know are the keys to job creation.

Now, I don't want folks to think that these businesses aren't already paying their fair share. We talk so much about ``fair share,'' Mr. Speaker. I think of fairness as being a society that rewards hard work and merit. I think that's what fairness is. It's that opportunity society that we all came to America for, that our parents or our grandparents or our great grandparents came to America for. We didn't come here for guaranteed success. We came here for the opportunity to work hard and to make our tomorrow better than our today. That's fairness: maintaining that opportunity, ensuring that other generations of Americans have that opportunity.

I am going to quote Milton Friedman, Mr. Speaker. The country is the poorer for not having Milton Friedman with us any longer. But he said, There's a distinct difference between raising taxes, where the 90 percent of America votes to raise taxes on themselves to help the bottom 10 percent because that's what we do as Americans. We're generous, generous people. We care deeply about our neighborhoods and our communities.

It's one thing for the 90 percent to raise taxes on themselves to help the 10 percent. But it's an entirely different thing when the 80 percent raise taxes on the top 10 percent to help the bottom 10 percent. Think about that, Mr. Speaker.

When we talk about the tough choices that my colleague from Virginia just brought up, how tough is it to decide you're going to raise taxes on them to solve the problem? Whoever the ``them'' is, raise taxes on them. ``They'' should pay more to solve the problem. That's pretty easy.

The power to tax is the power to destroy. And we, through this House and the power of taxation, can choose to destroy any element of American society that we choose.

I will tell you, it's our constitutional obligation to protect the minority, that an opportunity society means we do not let the majority run roughshod over the minority. Even in this House of Representatives, with our proud tradition, the minority has rights. The minority is protected from the will of the majority. That's always been true in our American tradition.

How tough is it to decide that ``they'' are going to foot the bill so that ``we'' don't have to? Those aren't tough choices. Those are easy choices. We call that class warfare, and it's going on entirely too much in this country. But even in class warfare, Mr. Speaker--and you see it here on this chart I have presented of who benefits from tax loopholes--you can make choices that either help the economy grow or bring the economy to its knees. This chart shows the bottom quintile of income earners, the second quintile, the middle quintile, the fourth quintile. Here is the top 20 percent. And there on the end is actually the top 1 percent, Mr. Speaker.

Who benefits from loopholes in the Tax Code? I'm a flat tax guy. And by flat tax, I mean the national retail sales tax. It's called the Fair Tax, the special retail sales tax that deals with the payroll tax inequities, and on and

on. It absolutely turns our Tax Code on its head and puts our economy on hyperdrive. It's an amazing plan. It's a popularly cosponsored tax reform plan in this United States House of Representatives. I hope we're going to get a vote on it next year. But what it does is it eliminates all the deductions and exemptions, all the loopholes, all the carve-outs, all the special lobbyist-included benefits, all those special benefits for whoever is favored by a particular administration.

It eliminates them all in order to create one flat and fair system for the country. Now, if you make more money, of course you're paying more in taxes; if you have less money, you're paying less in taxes. It's progressive in that way. That's always been true in America and always will be. But the President is committed--and we heard it again today--to raising tax rates on family-owned businesses. Not ensuring that they pay more taxes, mind you--this is an important distinction-- but raising the tax rates.

Look here, Mr. Speaker, if we go through and we eliminate all of these tax loopholes--and the top 1 percent is the crowd that benefits disproportionately from all these tax loopholes--we can still ask the top 1 percent to contribute more to the funding of our economy, but we can do it in an economically responsible way. Flattening the Tax Code asks more of those who benefit from the special deductions, exemptions, exceptions, and credits.

This chart tells you who those folks are. Of course it's true that the top 1 percent benefit the most. They pay all the taxes. Oh, that's an exaggeration. Well, they make about 20 percent of the income, and they pay 40 percent of the taxes. That's right, Mr. Speaker. The top 1 percent--and I'm glad we have them because they're footing the bill for all the rest of us. The top 1 percent of income earners are paying 40 percent of the burden for our entire United States Federal Government. One percent is paying 40 percent of the burden.

If we eliminate the exceptions, the exemptions, the tax credits, and the loopholes, those folks will pay more. But the President is insisting not on cleaning up the Code and making it more economically viable; instead, he just wants to raise rates and punish folks more.

Let me go, Mr. Speaker, to President Barack Obama, August 2009. He says this in an interview:

The last thing you want to do is to raise taxes in the

middle of a recession because that would just take more

demand out of the economy and put businesses in a further

hole.

That was President Barack Obama, August 2009. He was absolutely right then. Those facts hold true today. And it's not just that those facts hold true over a small period of time, Mr. Speaker; those facts hold true over a decade.

I want to take you back to President John F. Kennedy, Mr. Speaker. It's not as if these are new ideas that we're talking about. This isn't some rocket science problem that has suddenly been thrust upon the United States of America in 2012. These are basic economics. Adam Smith talked about these economics hundreds of years ago. Let me tell you what John F. Kennedy said. This is in one of his news conferences, November 20, 1962, as he was providing the largest tax cut in modern American history. He said this:

It's a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and

tax revenues are too low.

That's where we are today, Mr. Speaker. Tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low. It's a paradoxical truth that that can be true.

He goes on and talks about raising revenues, and that's exactly what we're trying to do when we talk about a balanced approach. We need to cut spending, and we need to increase revenue. President Kennedy says this:

The soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is

to cut the rates now. Cutting taxes now is not to incur a

budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous expanding

economy which can bring us a budget surplus.

That was brought to you by a raging conservative economist, President John F. Kennedy. No, he's not a raging conservative economist, Mr. Speaker. He was a proud liberal of the Democratic party, but he knew economic truths, economic truths that were as sound then as they are today, and that apparently so many in this Chamber have forgotten.

Cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus.

I'll go on with what was in his annual budget message to Congress, Mr. Speaker. Again, 1963, John F. Kennedy, the annual budget message to the Congress. He says this:

Lower rates of taxation will stimulate economic activity

and so raise the levels of personal and corporate income as

to yield, within a few years, an increased, not a reduced,

flow of revenues to the Federal Government.

This is not a conservative idea, Mr. Speaker. This is not a liberal idea. This is not a Reagan idea. This is not a Clinton idea. This is an economic truth.

John F. Kennedy:

Lower rates of taxation will stimulate economic activity

and so raise the levels of personal and corporate income as

to yield, within a few years, an increased, not a reduced,

flow of revenues to the Federal Government.

President Barack Obama:

The last thing you want to do is to raise taxes in the

middle of a recession because that would just take more

demand out of the economy and put businesses in a further

hole.

These are truths that have gotten lost in this election season, Mr. Speaker.

I'll be honest with you. I'm not excited about the way the election turned out. It pleased the American people with a wide margin, returned a Republican majority to this U.S. House of Representatives, this the people's House, this the House that is the closest to the American voter. It was a huge Republican majority that was returned by the American people.

I thought when we got past that election, Mr. Speaker, that politics would be done. I thought when we got past that election, we would get on about the serious business of correcting this avalanche of debt that threatens to crush generations of hopes and dreams of Americans, extinguishes the freedoms that we hold so dear. We know what the right answers are. John F. Kennedy knew in 1962 and 1963; Barack Obama knew in 2009 and 2010, and we still know today, but politics still seems to control.

Mr. Speaker, to make my point about where we are in terms of spending being the problem, again, as you and I serve here on the floor of the House, we have so many folks pointing to different demons that are the problem, so I just went ahead and put all the demons that folks talk about up here on the board.

What I have here, Mr. Speaker, represented by this blue line--this is about 20 years of spending. I go from 2002 out to 2022, and I look at spending of the Federal Government. This giant blue line that consumes the entire chart is just base, normal, everyday Federal Government spending, which is increasing 33 percent if we don't change it over the next 10 years. Hear that: Normal spending, not bailouts, not special war taxes, not any of that, but basic Federal spending is set to increase 33 percent over the next 10 years if we don't move to change it.

This little yellow line, Mr. Speaker, that you can just barely see, this little yellow line is the cost of the global war on terror. Is that real money? You better believe it. When we choose to send American young men and women around the globe to protect our freedoms, you better believe we give them every single advantage that we can, and we take care of them when they return home. Absolutely, there is a cost to the global war on terror. There is a cost to protecting the homeland. But, Mr. Speaker, in comparison to all other spending that is going on, it's minuscule.

Here are the financial bailouts in green, Mr. Speaker. You probably can't see those. Was that a lot of money? You better believe it. Do I think a lot of it went down a rat hole? I absolutely do. Those bailouts are over now. That money is out the door now. But as a percent of what's going on here, it's not that.

Here's the 2009 stimulus bill. That's actually the highest order of magnitude here. That was a lot of money. There was over $800 billion that went out the door that I would again argue to questionable purposes that we cannot measure the success of here years later. But that's not the cause of the

problem. The problem is systemic. The problem is baked into the way that we operate our Federal Government today. It's baked into program after program that we continue to create even in deficit times. It's baked into new promise after new promise after new promise that we continue to make even though we don't know how to afford the ones that we've already made.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to go through a few of those accounts that have been increasing. Folks won't be able to see this back in their offices, so I'll just read a couple of them to them. The chart is entitled, ``Where the Money Goes.'' It's inflation-adjusted dollars, so we can compare apples to apples. It compares 2002 to 2012. Let's just look at a few. I've put them in the order of how much money we're spending on them today:

Social Security spending, for example, from 2002 to 2012, has increased 35 percent over the last 10 years. It's the largest pot of money that we spend in the government, these Social Security checks. Folks have paid into it their entire lives. They've earned them and they deserve them. I'm glad they're getting them. It has gone up 35 percent in the last 10 years;

With national defense, of course, between 2002 and 2012, there has been a lot going on in the world. The world has become less safe. We've been involved in two wars, and that spending has been going up between 2002 and 2012. Again, in inflation-adjusted dollars, the spending on national defense has gone up 50 percent. Now, it's still dramatically below where it was in the eighties and nineties when we were trying to win the Cold War. We've been fighting two wars over this past decade. It's dramatically lower than it was when we were fighting the Cold War, but it's up 50 percent;

Medicare spending over last 10 years--2002 to 2012--is up 70 percent. You hear so much talk that the Medicare trust fund is going bankrupt. Over the last 10 years, Medicare spending is up 70 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars--constant dollars. It's up 70 percent, and that climb continues; but, in fact, Mr. Speaker, those numbers are low compared to some other categories:

Food stamps from 2002 to 2012 are up 136 percent. We're in some tough economic times. We all know that, in tough economic times, support program prices--costs--increase, but this is 136 percent over the last 10 years. K through 12 education is up 144 percent. Energy spending-- sadly, this is going to include all of the Solyndras of the world, all of those stimulus dollars that went out to support dubious enterprises--is up 1,751 percent.

So, when we talk about budget cuts--and this is important--it's always described as we're going to gore someone's ox, as we're going to destroy someone's program. Energy spending is up 1,700 percent. What if we reduced it so it was just up 1,600 percent, Mr. Speaker? Would that destroy President Obama's green energy plans? I don't think so. What if food stamps, instead of going up 136 percent, just went up 130 percent? Can you really say that that is an attack on folks who are recipients of food stamps; or can you say that when the American people increase food nutrition spending by 130 percent that we're actually making a pretty good faith effort to make sure folks are taken care of?

We see it time and time again--30 percent, 40 percent, 50 percent, 59 percent, 46 percent, 62 percent. We're not talking about destroying Federal Government programs. We're talking about curbing double-digit increases that have gone on over the past 10 years--triple-digit increases in so many cases. That brings us to this balanced approach we keep hearing about, Mr. Speaker.

I hear the President say ``balanced approach'' over and over again. I just have not seen him yet do a balanced approach. I mean, we saw his proposal that came out yesterday where he wanted to raise taxes by $1.6 trillion and where he wanted to increase spending on a variety of programs, and he thought he could find $400 billion in reductions. Not today, of course. Somewhere down the road, he thought that we could get together and maybe find $400 billion. So bring taxes up $1.6 trillion and then find $400 billion in spending reductions.

It's not a tax revenue problem, Mr. Speaker. It's a spending problem. We've got to focus on this red line. We've got to focus on spending.

Look at where we are with the sequester, for example. We're talking about balanced approaches. I have defense spending cuts in the sequester, I have non-defense spending cuts in the sequester, and I have mandatory cuts in the sequester. As you know, Mr. Speaker, about a third of all of the dollars we spend in this country we call ``discretionary spending.'' Half of those are defense and half of those are non-defense. Everything else--two-thirds of the pie--is what we call ``mandatory spending.''

So the two-thirds of the pie over here represent 63.8 percent of all Federal spending. The sequestration is going to ask that big piece of the pie--63.8 percent--to bear 14 percent of the cuts. We're going to ask non-defense discretionary spending, which is about 13 percent of the pie, to bear 35 percent of the cuts. It doesn't quite seem balanced, does it, Mr. Speaker? Then we're going to ask the Defense Department, which represents 16.8 percent of all spending, to bear 49.5 percent of all the cuts.

Now, I'm not a math major. I didn't study statistics, but I'm pretty sure, if we were implementing a balanced approach, these lines would be roughly equal; they'd be balanced. What we have instead is a dramatic attack on our national security concerns while the driving piece of the pie, that piece of the pie that's growing larger and larger each year-- it's already the largest, and it's growing at the fastest rate--which alone threatens to undermine the economic security of the Nation is asked to do next to nothing.

Now, as you know, Mr. Speaker, the only serious proposal in town--the only one that has received a majority of the votes to deal with that mandatory spending issue--came out of this U.S. House of Representatives. It came out of our Budget Committee. It passed the floor of the House in a bipartisan way to deal seriously with those; but as the President asks time and time again, ``Can we have a balanced approach?'' my answer is, ``Yes, we can. Let me see your balance.'' He hasn't been shy at all about talking about all the taxes he wants to increase. I just haven't seen any of the spending cuts he wants to implement. It's because we don't have a tax problem. We have a spending problem in this country.

If you haven't looked at what the spending problem is, Mr. Speaker-- and I know you have because you serve on the Budget Committee, and you're one of the finest members we have on the Budget Committee. You've taken difficult and tough stands in order to support your constituency and to make sure the children of tomorrow have a better future than the children of today, and you continue to pass on that American Dream. Yet this chart represents the chronic deficits that we have at the Federal level. These are actual dollars, and these numbers come both from the Office of Management and Budget--that's the President's budget team--and from the Congressional Budget Office, which is the nonpartisan budget team here on Capitol Hill.

We go back to 1970--through the Carter years, through the Reagan years, the Bush years, the Clinton years. You'll see there were systemic deficits through all of those years. It was only under the partnership of Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton and, I might also add, with some of the most aggressive spending reductions that we've seen in my lifetime that we were able to create budget surpluses if you include the Social Security trust fund; although, there is still a little sleight of hand going on there as we look at this chart because we're looking at cash flow, not at what's going into the trust fund baskets, but there was absolutely a cash flow surplus here for 4 years.

Then the tech bubble bursts and 9/11 happens, and we get into these Bush years where you see some of the largest deficits in American history. In response to 9/11, in response to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there were some of the largest budget deficits in American history. This was on a Republican President's watch and on a Republican Congress' watch in response to some tremendous crises, but they were the largest deficits in history--frightening deficits.

Mr. Speaker, those deficits are barely noticeable compared to where we are today.

These were the largest budget deficits in American history during the Bush years, deficits so large they were threatening our economy. President Bush began to bring them down over the last 4 years of his tenure, and they're dwarfed by the size of the deficits created by this U.S. House of Representatives under Democratic control, by the United States Senate under Democratic control, and by President Barack Obama and the White House.

Mr. Speaker, those numbers have begun to come down. You can see here, over the past 4 years, we had a $1.5 trillion deficit in 2009, a 1.34 in 2010, a 1.32 in 2011, a 1.1 in 2012. They start to go down, but look out over this 10-year horizon. Again, these numbers come from the Congressional Budget Office, which is a nonpartisan group here on Capitol Hill. They come from the Office of Management and Budget, which is the President's budget team down at the White House.

If we do nothing to curtail spending, the largest deficits ever known to this land occur not once, occur not twice, occur not 3 years in a row, but occur forever in looking forward through the budget window. Now, the truth is they don't actually occur forever because America would collapse under the weight of that debt. Our economy would cease to function. Our Nation would cease to exist. It absolutely does not go on forever, but it never gets solved. Not 1 year, Mr. Speaker, not 1 year. We begin to bring deficits down, and we bring them down to almost $600 billion. Again, the best year in the next 10 is worse than the worst year in the last 50.

As you look at the proposal of what folks believe is going to happen in the economy over the next 10 years, the best year we have over the next 10 is worse than the worst year we've had over the last 50 when it comes to raising the debt and deficit here in the United States of America.

Continuing talking about the balance, Mr. Speaker, the President is a smart man and I have always respected him, Mr. Speaker, for the fact that he has released a budget to the American people, made a proposal, in every one of his 4 years in office. Every one. The law requires him to do it, but he has always done it. That distinguishes him from the United States Senate, which the law also requires them to do it, and they haven't done it.

So every year the President goes through the very difficult work of producing his own budget, sharing with the American people his vision for what the Federal budget should look like. I happen to have a graphical representation of that vision. This is the one he gave us last. It was February of 2012. There was an election coming up, and he wanted to do his very best. This was actually the most serious of all of the budgets that he's submitted.

And what I show here, Mr. Speaker, with this white dotted line is the debt that America would have to pay if we change not one law on the books. If we change not one law on the books, the debt of America would rise along this white dotted line.

This red line that runs right above the white dotted line is the debt that we would accumulate if we passed the President's budget. I'm not misspeaking, Mr. Speaker. I'm talking about that budget he introduced in February of 2012. I'm talking about that budget that raised taxes by almost $2 trillion on the American people; he raised taxes by $2 trillion on the American people and still ran up higher debt because he spent even more than that.

Now, to give the President his due, he actually only ran up higher debt in his budget for the 2013 year, the 2014 year, the 2015 year and '16 year and '17 year and '18 year and '19 year and '20 year and '21 year. It was really only the first 9 years of his 10-year budget that he continued to run up higher debt. By the 10th year of his 10-year budget, and I blew it up so folks could see it, there's a little bit of a betterment there. We did a little bit better in that final year in terms of trying to bring the debt below what it would have been if we'd done nothing. And all the while, the budget raised taxes by $2 trillion and raised spending even more.

Mr. Speaker, that's not balanced. I try to explain that to my constituents back home, the ones who come and say, Rob, why can't you all just come together and build consensus? Why can't you find that middle ground? It's because in my mind, Mr. Speaker, there's no question but that we have to raise revenue through smart tax policy and we have to cut spending, which is the driver of our debt.

But when my President looks at this very same set of numbers, looks at this very same rising debt across the country, looks at the very same economic destruction that this debt is causing across the Nation, he raises taxes by $2 trillion and raises spending by even more.

Mr. Speaker, he says balance, but the only proposal he's brought to Congress in the last 12 months is about as unbalanced as they come.

We can, Mr. Speaker, we can come together in the middle. We can find consensus. As I said earlier, my Democratic colleague from Virginia accurately identified the challenges. None of them are easy. None of the solutions are easy. But don't be fooled, Mr. Speaker, into believing that either, A, this House isn't serious about bringing revenues back to historical norms. We are, and we've passed language to do it. And don't think, too, that the President is serious about cutting spending because we've yet to see one single proposal to suggest that he is.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, in the proposal he rolled out yesterday, the one budget-cutting exercise that we've done, this across-the-board sequester that's coming, the sequester that's coming as a result of those 12 men and women--the 6 Republicans, 6 Democrats; 6 House Members, 6 Senate Members--who got together on the Joint Select Committee to try to craft a proposal, as a result of that failure, we now have these across-the-board cuts. The President's proposal supports kicking that can down the road for another year. Mr. Speaker, we can't kick the can down the road.

Is it going to be a challenge to get over this economic hump? You better believe it. It has been for the past 4 years. Americans have been challenged for the past 4 years. This recession has been debilitating across the board. There's still no easy solutions out on the horizon. But we know this: we know when we raise taxes, the economy suffers. We know when we lower taxes, the economy grows.

I'm looking at a National Bureau of Economic Research report, Mr. Speaker. They say this:

Tax changes have very large effects. An exogenous tax

increase of 1 percent of GDP lowers real GDP by roughly 2-3

percent.

We can raise taxes if we want to. It's going to lower economic output; it's going to harm American families. It's going to diminish job creation; but we can do it. That's the debate we're having here on Capitol Hill.

Mr. Speaker, this chart represents the plan that the President has proposed for cutting spending. It's not that the camera is not adjusting to it properly, Mr. Speaker. It's that this is a giant blank sheet of paper. It's absent of any information whatsoever because so, too, is the President's proposal for tackling the real economic challenge we have here, the real driver of budget deficits, the real threat to American economic superiority in this world, out-of-control Federal spending.

The President of the United States, he's been President for 4 years, no credible plan for tackling that spending.

I want to go back, Mr. Speaker. This United States House of Representatives, in a bipartisan way, passed a plan not just to change the trajectory of Federal spending, but to actually pay down the debt to zero over time. That shouldn't sound so crazy, Mr. Speaker. Folks have to pay their debts, but we haven't seen that out of this administration in even one of those budgets. Not one of those budgets put us on a path to being debt free.

In the time I have left, Mr. Speaker, I just want to do a little math here on the board. I brought my big marker with me. I want you to know I got this free with rebate. We squeeze every penny we can in the office. I think everybody ought to do that. I think you ought to lead by example. But I've been struggling with the idea of fairness, Mr. Speaker, and I brought with me the tax rate chart from the IRS. This is a 2012 tax rate chart.

If you earn between $35,000 and $85,000, you're in the 25 percent tax

bracket. If you earn between $35,000 and $85,000 in America in 2012, you're in the 25 percent tax bracket. I'm calling that middle class, Mr. Speaker. Depending on how large your family is, it's tough to make a go of it at $30,000. And depending on how large your family is, $85,000 puts you right there in the middle. But that ball park--30, 40, $50,000--I think we can call that secure middle class America. You pay a 25 percent income tax rate.

Payroll tax. Your payroll tax is 15.3 percent, Mr. Speaker. Every wage earner in this land, 15.3 percent they pay each and every month in payroll taxes. Those FICA taxes you see on your paycheck.

Let me do some quick math, Mr. Speaker. Bear with me.

40.3 percent in Federal taxes. That's the tax rate for every middle class American in the land.

I ask you, Mr. Speaker, are tax rates too low?

Do you think you ought to work for the first 5 months out of the year just to pay your Federal tax burden before you begin to pay your State tax burden, before you begin to pay your local tax burden, before you begin to actually earn money to pay for your food and shelter and clothing for your family?

Forty percent is the marginal tax rate for middle class America. Thirty-five percent, Mr. Speaker, is the rate that that 1 percent are paying today. Thirty-five cents out of every dollar earned by that top 1 percent today, that's the marginal tax rate for those folks.

Now, a lot of folks don't realize, taxes are already going up next year. You know, the President's health care bill, that bill that I was not here to oppose. Though I've tried it repeal it, I haven't been able to get that through the Senate. But the President's health care bill raises taxes come January 1.

So on this top income bracket that the President wants to raise taxes even further on, they have a tax rate increase coming, and it's coming on January 1; 3.8 percent, Mr. Speaker. Every dollar of unearned income these top 1 percent earn is going to have a new 3.8 percent Medicare tax added to it, 3.8 percent.

0.9 percent, Mr. Speaker. That's an increase in the Medicare tax on all the earned income of these folks, 3.8 percent increase on the unearned income. Another 0.9 percent increase on the earned income.

2.7 percent, Mr. Speaker. That's the Medicare tax that that top 1 percent is already paying on all of their earned income today. It's going to go up another 0.9 percent. They're already paying 2.7. The President says that's not enough.

Let me do some quick math here. Since they're only going to have to pay one, Mr. Speaker, either the unearned income tax or the earned income tax, it's going to be 3.8 percent either way. They're paying 39.8, plus this 15.3, of course, on all those dollars that are subject to Medicare and Social Security under the cap today, plus another 6 percent is the average rate for State income tax today.

So let me add those to both of these charts. Six percent is the rate in my home State of Georgia. So I'm just going to come back over here to these middle class taxpayers that appear to be paying 46.3 percent as a marginal rate on every dollar they earn.

Let me come back over here to the high-income folks. Before they pay their payroll taxes, we have 44.8. And of course, on that money that they earn up to $100,000, they're paying an additional, where are we, about 11.5 percent on that. 11.5 added to 44.8. That's an over 56 percent tax rate.

Mr. Speaker, how much is enough?

When does freedom in this country cease to have meaning?

At what level of confiscation of the work product of the American people does freedom cease to have meaning?

We've got to be getting close to it, Mr. Speaker. But more importantly, when we talk about paying their fair share, when is America as a whole paying its fair share, Mr. Speaker?

When is America paying its fair share, but the Federal Government is spending too much anyway? Middle class America, 46.3 percent. That's middle class America. That's $35,000 a year you're earning, and your Federal Government and your State government hit you for a combination of 46 percent of every dime.

What incentive is that to go out and work longer and harder?

Forty-six percent. Fifty-seven over here. Fifty-seven. We all know that small businesses create all the jobs in this country. That's why we're so worried about this tax proposal, because, while this is already 57 percent over here, Mr. Speaker, the President wants to raise it another three, to almost 60 percent. 60 percent of every dime earned by family-owned businesses the President wants to take back for Washington, D.C.

I'm in favor of a balanced approach. I'm committed to fairness in American society. But, Mr. Speaker, I ask you, is the problem that taxes are too low, or is the problem that spending is too high?

We're better than class warfare, Mr. Speaker. We're better than saying we're going to ask them to bear the burden while we benefit.

Three hundred twenty million of us have to come together, Mr. Speaker, on tough, tough challenges, challenges that this House has crafted solutions to. These solutions are not easy. These solutions are not pain-free.

These solutions involve shared commitment from every single American because as freedom is eroded in this country, ever single American suffers. And as economic opportunity and economic liberty is expanded in this country, absolutely every American benefits.

We can do better, Mr. Speaker, as a Nation. We have done better as the United States House of Representatives.

And I come here today just to remind my President and the White House that the election is over. The time for clever soundbites that register on the public opinion polls is far behind us. What's in front of us are hard, hard decisions that this House has led on, and that we are waiting patiently for partnership to work on and to pass.

I want to leave you with three numbers, Mr. Speaker: H.R. 5652, it was passed in May, called the Sequester Replacement Reconciliation Act. It was the House-passed idea to avoid the debilitating sequester cuts that we see coming, to deal with the mandatory spending side of the equation, passed in a bipartisan way here in the House. It is the only proposal in all of Washington, D.C., to have been passed by a body. H.R. 5652 passed in May.

I'll leave you with H.R. 8, Mr. Speaker, the Job Protection and Recession Prevention Act. That's our plan, House-passed plan for how to deal with these tax increases that threaten America's family-owned businesses, threaten our economy, how to deal with them in a responsible way to get us past this fiscal cliff, passed in August, only plan in Washington, D.C., to prevent these debilitating tax increases from hitting across all of our family-owned small businesses.

And finally, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 6365. It's the National Security and Job Protection Act. We passed that in September. That's the bill that looks specifically at these coming defense cuts, these cuts that Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has called devastating in their impact.

If you don't know--and I know you do, Mr. Speaker--Leon Panetta, the former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, former chairman of the Democratic-led Budget Committee here in the U.S. House of Representatives, current Secretary of Defense, calls these defense cuts devastating. This U.S. House has passed a proposal to prevent that second round of cuts from taking place. It's the only proposal anywhere in this town to have passed. We did it in August. We took care of our business. And we have yet to have partnership from either the White House or the Senate on that proposal.

We took care of the Sequester Replacement Reconciliation Act in May, Mr. Speaker. We took care of the Job Protection Recession Prevention Act in August, Mr. Speaker. We took care of the National Security and Job Protection Act in September, Mr. Speaker. The work of this House has been done month after month after month. We've passed two budgets in a row, Mr. Speaker, that take on the tough challenges of entitlement reform, that take

on the tough challenges of increasing revenue, that take on the challenges that no Congress in my lifetime has ever taken on, Mr. Speaker. We did it not once but we did it twice. And the silence from the Senate and the White House has been deafening.

We can do it, Mr. Speaker. We must do it. This House has done it. And as we did in May, as we did in August, and as we did in September, I reach out my hand again, Mr. Speaker, to the Senate and to the White House to join us in tackling these tough solutions, tackling these challenges, providing these solutions not for Republicans, not for Democrats, not for politics whatsoever, but for America. Because it's the right thing to do. And without it we all know where this country is headed.

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

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 778 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my good friend from Florida (Mr. Hastings), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

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

House Resolution 778 is a closed rule for the consideration of two bills, H.R. 6365, which is the National Security and Job Protection Act, and H.J. Res. 117, which is the Continuing Appropriations Resolution for FY13.

Mr. Speaker, I'm a freshman on the Rules Committee. It's a good committee to be on. I enjoy it. I get to work with learned Members like my friend from Florida, who is across the aisle, but it falls to me to handle continuing resolution bills. As you'll remember, when we showed up at the beginning of 2011, there was a lot of unfinished business from 2010, and we went right into continuing resolution act to continuing resolution act to continuing resolution act--sometimes 2 and 3 weeks at a time. That's no way to run a government. It's no way to have a Congress.

My friend from Florida and I disagree on a great deal of policy, but we believe that a deliberative process yields better results than the ``right here, right now, hurry up and wait'' kind of mentality that this body so often adopts. So what we've done here today with this bill, with this H.J. Res. 117, is to say we understand that the appropriations responsibilities of this Congress have not yet been completed. The Constitution gives this Congress--not just this body, but this Congress--the responsibility of providing appropriations for this Nation.

Now, as the Speaker knows full well, this House has set about getting its business done. We divided those appropriations bills up across a number of bills. The Commerce-Justice-Science bill passed this House with a bipartisan majority. It went to the Senate, and the Senate had no floor action whatsoever. Mr. Speaker, you know that the Energy and Water bill passed this House with a bipartisan majority. It went to the Senate, and the Senate did nothing with it whatsoever. You know that the Homeland Security bill passed this body--again, with a bipartisan majority. It went to the Senate, and the Senate took no action. I can go on and on and on. There is the leg branch bill, the military construction bill, the defense bill, on and on and on.

So here we are. We don't have control over the Senate. We only have control over what goes on here in this body, and I've got to tell you that I'm proud as a freshman that we've set about getting our business done. With one deliberative bill at a time and one open rule on appropriations bills at a time, we allowed every Member of this body to come to the floor to offer their amendments and to have their voices heard in order to produce the very best work product that we could produce. I might add, Mr. Speaker, that we did that at a funding level even lower than what the American taxpayer asked of us in the Budget Control Act. I'm very proud of that work.

But in the absence of the Senate taking action, Mr. Speaker, we have to move on. The American people are going to have a referendum in this country. They're going to have a referendum on what fiscal responsibility means.

We're going to have an election in November, and new House Members are going to come and new Senate Members are going to come. The administration may change. We're going to have that opportunity for all of us as citizens to speak out in November and choose a path for 2013. But our business today, Mr. Speaker, is making sure the doors stay open moving into 2013.

As my colleagues know, in the absence of action, Mr. Speaker, government offices begin to close on October 1 of this year, one by one--national parks, veterans services, Social Security services, Medicare services. That's not the kind of governing responsibility that we all swore an oath to uphold.

So I'm pleased to be here today, Mr. Speaker, to bring this rule to the floor to say, yes, we have gotten our work done in this House, but we've been stymied by the leadership in the Senate that has not scheduled votes on these bills, but we will not allow the American taxpayer and American citizens to pay the price of inaction by the United States Senate. We will make sure that government services continue with this great referendum that this great Republic will have in November. It's a 6-month continuing resolution, Mr. Speaker, and it will solve that need.

This rule also, Mr. Speaker, provides for consideration of H.R. 6365. It's called the National Security and Job Protection Act, but what it is is a sequester replacement bill. Mr. Speaker, I don't know that I've ever been more disgusted in my 18 months in this body.

We came together here in this House in a bipartisan fashion. We passed the Budget Control Act, which gave six House Members and six Senate Members--six Republicans, six Democrats--12 Members of this Congress, esteemed Members of this Congress, talented, bright, conscientious, American-loving Members of this Congress, an opportunity to look at our entire budget. They didn't just look at the $3.8 trillion that we'd spend this year, Mr. Speaker, not just that $3.8 trillion, but next year, and the year after that, and the year after that, well into the three-generational window. It was hundreds of trillions of dollars these 12 men and women had an opportunity to look at to find bipartisan agreement.

About 4 months they worked on that project, Mr. Speaker, and you know how that story turns out. After 4 months of labor by 12 of the brightest, most conscientious Members of this body--six Republicans, six Democrats, six House Members, six Senate Members--looking at hundreds of trillions of dollars in tax expenditures in social programs, in taxes and tax cuts, they agreed on absolutely nothing. Not one dollar out of hundreds of trillions did they come together on. That was a tremendous disappointment.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, in order to try to bring agreement to that body, we passed legislation that implemented what they called the sequester, to say, if against all odds this joint select committee were to fail--candidly, it was not on my radar screen that they would. This was a solemn responsibility. These were talented Members who were assigned to it. But if they were to fail, we would implement automatic spending cuts that would achieve the kind of budget reductions that every American knows that we need. The problem in this town is spending, and the sequester said we will not fail on this opportunity to address it.

Well, that sequester goes into effect in January of next year, and hardest hit will be the United States military. Again, this was a device that was put into place not because folks thought it was the best policy in the room, but to be there as the hammer to say surely this 12-member committee, this joint select committee will come to the agreement that will bring us back from this fiscal cliff. They didn't. Now this sequester hangs over the head of not just the United States military, but over Medicare, over social programs.

Again, Mr. Speaker, I'm just so proud to be a freshman Member of this House. This House said back in the spring that is an unacceptable outcome. It was never intended to be the outcome. No one ever desired that it be the outcome, and we can change that outcome.

So we passed a sequester replacement right here in this House that went into mandatory spending programs, which is where the real problem is in the budget, as we all know, and said let's replace the sequester that may harm

defense--cuts that are going to deal with our military, that are going to put our national security at risk, and let's replace those with spending reductions that make sense.

Again, we passed that in the House. The Senate has taken no action whatsoever.

I don't mean to suggest, Mr. Speaker, that they've taken no action on our bill. They most certainly have not. They're under no obligation to. It's the right thing to do, but they're under no obligation. They are under an obligation to do something about it. They are under an obligation to stand up and listen to the same constituents that my colleague from Florida and I listen to to say there must be action. We must prevent this tremendous threat to our readiness, to our troops, and to our troops' families.

This bill, introduced in this body by Colonel Allen West of Florida, gives us an opportunity to do just that in the bipartisan, open-minded way that I think has characterized the 18 months that I've served in this House because of the leadership of folks like you, Mr. Speaker. It doesn't say you have to use the House-passed bill already.

Was it a good bill? Absolutely. Was it the right answer? I believe that it is.

But what it says is use the House-passed bill or use something like it. If you can find a better plan, if the Senate, in its wisdom, can find a better plan, that's going to work, too. It's not our way or the highway. It's that we know that there's a right way and a wrong way to deal with our budget challenges, and we want to do it the right way.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this rule. I rise in strong support of the two underlying provisions, as well. I look forward to the debate on that this afternoon. We're going to be able to debate these individually, which I believe is the right way to handle questions of this magnitude and this importance.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, before I yield to my freshman colleague from Pennsylvania, to say to my friend from Florida, I don't think you heard the word ``Democrat'' come out of my mouth during my presentation except to talk about those things on which we cooperated together. There are absolutely challenges in this Chamber, but the challenges I'm talking about are challenges with the United States Senate.

Democrats and Republicans in this body came together to pass 7 of the 12 appropriations bills this cycle. We began back in April. Far from being an 11th-hour solution, we began, as the Constitution requires us to begin, one piece of legislation at a time in the most open process this body can implement, Mr. Speaker, where every Member of this body gets to offer any amendment that they desire. Seven appropriations bills we've moved through this body, Mr. Speaker. And then it became apparent, as the Senate has moved not one of 12 bills, that that process was going to be fruitless--fruitless.

Again, is that what the American people want from us? Absolutely not. Are we doing what the American people deserve in this body? Absolutely we are. In my 18 months, I have not found it to be a Republican- Democratic problem. I've found it to be a problem of ideas.

I said to my friend from Florida, I know that he believes in his heart every single word that he has just enunciated. He speaks for inspiration, Mr. Speaker. I have the great pleasure of sitting behind him on the dais in the Rules Committee, so it's always his words that inspire me before it's my turn to take the microphone.

My constituents back home, they say, Rob, what have you learned in 18 months with a voting card? I said, What I have learned is it's not theater on the other side of the aisle. Folks aren't taking to the microphone for their 15 seconds of fame on television. They're taking to the microphone with heartfelt beliefs that they know in their heart to be a reflection of their constituents back home.

And so as we hear two different presentations about what it is we're doing today--a presentation that suggests it's an 11th-hour, last- minute process versus that presentation that says we've done it all right in the openness of day, and here, 4 weeks before the deadline approaches us, we are going to take action to make sure that uncertainty does not further slow this economy.

I'm told, Mr. Speaker, that the fewer days Congress is in session, the higher the stock market goes because at least nothing bad happens here. We're the problem, Mr. Speaker. Government is not the solution. Government is too often the problem.

The last Congress that passed as few bills as this Congress has passed, it was the 104th Congress, when Republicans took control of this House for the first time in over 60 years, because they were elected then not to expand the size and scope of government but to improve the size and scope of government, to reform those processes.

What my friend from Florida says about 2005, 2006, unfunded priority after unfunded priority, I'd love to tell him he's wrong, but he's absolutely right. He's absolutely right. The American taxpayer knew it, and Republicans in this Chamber paid the price for it in the very next election. That's the ace in the hole for America, Mr. Speaker, the American taxpayer. They're paying attention to what happens here.

My colleague may believe that we're on the wrong track. I'll tell you, in 18 months, I've never been more proud for what this institution has done. We're going to find out when the American taxpayer speaks out in that referendum November 6.

With that, Mr. Speaker, there are 87 new freshmen in this freshman class and two more added. I yield 2 minutes to a freshman colleague from Pennsylvania (Mr. Marino).

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

I'd just like to remind my colleague from Massachusetts how we ended up here; and, again, we ended up in a way I think that we can all be proud of.

Take ourselves back to April of this year. Again, this is the 2013 funding bill we're talking about. We sit here in September of 2012, we're talking about funding 2013 spending. We began this process back in April on the floor of this House, bill after bill after bill passing in a bipartisan way.

The Military Construction, Veterans' Affairs bill, Mr. Speaker. What could be more important and what could be more bipartisan? Passed this House 407-12. We went through that bill, Mr. Speaker. We went to every single Member of this Chamber. Not just 435, Mr. Speaker. We went to every delegate as well and said do you have a voice that needs to be heard on this floor on this issue and gave every Member that opportunity.

At the end of that, Mr. Speaker, which was just a free-for-all of democracy right here--it was our Republic at its best--this House came together, 407-12, to pass that bill. Mr. Speaker, 226 Republicans, most of our number, 181 Democrats, most of their number, passed that bill-- 407-12 for our military and our veterans. That bill didn't see the light of day on the Senate side, Mr. Speaker.

Our failure to pass this continuing resolution today sees those dollars go to zero. Far from being an abdication of responsibility, this is the height of taking responsibility. Abdication of responsibility has already happened. I can't fix it. I can't change it. We did our business here in this House. But we are being held hostage. And by ``we,'' I mean we, the citizens of this country. I mean ``we,'' the voters of this country. Those with the priorities of this land, we are being held hostage by a Senate that is finding other priorities, priorities other than military construction and our veterans.

Mr. Speaker, it doesn't end there with Military Construction. It goes on. It goes through Leg Branch appropriations, Homeland Security appropriations, Energy and Water appropriations, Transportation and Housing and Urban Development appropriations.

How about Transportation and Housing and Urban Development, Mr. Speaker? I mean, when you listen to some of the voices on this floor, there's a reason, there's a benefit to being a Southerner and talking slow. It gives your blood pressure time to come down just a little bit before the words begin to come out of your mouth, because Transportation, including mass transit, Housing and Urban Development, those programs for the neediest among us, passed this House 261-163 in a huge bipartisan majority; 182 Republicans, 79 Democrats came together to say let's focus on the priorities of our constituents back home.

Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. Let's move that bill through this body. Again, Mr. Speaker, in the most open process this institution can imagine where every single Member has a chance to be heard, where every single Member can offer their amendments right here in the well.

There are no voices that are being quieted here. We all represent American citizens back home. It's their voices that get shut out.

Do we have a closed rule today on this continuing resolution? We do.

I think back, Mr. Speaker, I know you do, too, to H.R. 1, back in the spring of 2011. It's the only continuing resolution I've ever known of that came under an open rule, and boy did we have a show of democracy here.

It began on a Tuesday, Mr. Speaker. Congress was supposed to adjourn by Thursday afternoon; but by early in the morning on Thursday, it was clear we were nowhere near done. As a freshman, I was a little cynical about this process. I had a suspicion the leadership was going to close that process down because Members had planes to catch and events to go to, and after all, all it was was a continuing appropriations bill.

You know what this leadership said, Mr. Speaker? They said not on our watch. We're going to go into Thursday night. And I don't mean Thursday night at 9. I mean Thursday night past midnight. We're going to go all night long. We're going to go all night long into Friday. We're going to go Friday to noon and Friday through dinner and all night long on Friday night. We finished at 5 a.m. on Saturday morning.

Mr. Speaker, I jumped on the first flight out of National. Flew home. Did a town hall meeting no later than 3 hours after we adjourned that Saturday morning. I was on fire because this House gave every single Member a chance to offer every single amendment that their constituents would have them do. That was extraordinary.

We can't do that every day. We can't go marathon sessions 5 days, day and night. I'm young and vigorous, Mr. Speaker, but I've got to tell you, some folks may not be able to handle it. I'm with you, Mr. Hastings, if you're ready to go those days and nights. I'll do them with you.

But we did that, those 12 appropriations bills. We did that in this body. Not all in one package, but one at the time, at the time, and the Senate said no.

Our choice here today is do we close the doors at these agencies? Do we close the doors on these social services? Do we go through another one of those government shutdown scenarios that benefit absolutely no one, or do we do the right thing which is observe our budget caps, continue to reduce spending? That's right, Mr. Speaker, you know as well as I do on these appropriations bills, on this discretionary spending we spent less in 2011 than they spent in 2010. We spent less in 2012 than we spent in 2011. And if we pass this bill, we'll spend less in 2013 than we spent in 2012.

It hasn't happened since before World War II. Three years in a row, Mr.

Speaker, of this body coming together and telling the American people we can do better with less. That's what this bill is about today, Mr. Speaker.

Again, strong supporter of this rule. Strong supporter of the two underlying measures.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

I'm grateful to my friend for yielding.

I'd say to the gentleman, I think we would be here until 5 a.m. yet again. But our experience, as was our experience on H.R. 1, is time and time again we do the people's work here and the Senate says, no. I have had no indication from the Senate that they will accept anything in that body except this continuing resolution.

If the gentleman will yield?

I'd say that I regret I'm not high enough up the chain to know all the strategic decisions, but I will tell you that the bill that came out of the Senate is a sad 2-year bill that provides absolutely no certainty to any of the farmers in my district. It spends more and provides less certainty.

The farmers in my district say, Rob, we need a farm bill, but why can't you do it right? And I know my colleague would agree with me.

Mr. Speaker, I'd say to my friend from Florida that I have no further speakers remaining.

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

I appreciate my colleague for his words. A lot of folks, Mr. Speaker, have the burden of working with folks whose motives they question. I have the great benefit of working on the Rules Committee with a team of folks whose motives I absolutely never question because I know folks are operating from their heart and from their constituents' best interest.

Let me say, because we talk so much about productivity down here on this floor, Mr. Speaker, The Washington Times did an article earlier this year on productivity in the House and the Senate. They called it ``the futility index''--the futility of all the efforts in the body. They said the Senate ranked number one of all the years that they've been keeping records; less activity going on in the Senate by a large margin than ever before. Then they came to the House and they said, you know what, it's true the House hasn't passed a lot of bills. As you know, Mr. Speaker, we outlawed all of those silly commemorative bills that were not about the people's business but were about folks and their campaigns. Those no longer come to the floor. We eliminated a whole portion of that that was not about the people's business. What The Washington Times said was this: that we had more time in this House in session than all but 10 Congresses since they began keeping records and that we had more debate in this House, Mr. Speaker, than all but two Congresses on record; more debate, more discussion about those ideas and those priorities that are important to the American people.

Now, I have to tell you, Mr. Speaker, there's not a man or woman in my district that defines success by how many bills the President of the United States will sign; or if they do, they find those things to be inversely proportional. They don't want us to take over any new industries; they don't want us to regulate any new industries; they don't want us to pick any more winners and losers. They want us to stop. And even better than stopping, they want us to roll those things back.

We're having that debate in America, Mr. Speaker: Who are we? Who are we as Americans? Who are we as a people? And what is so wonderful about this country, despite all of our differences there has always been more that unites Americans than that divides us, always. You can't pick up a newspaper today, Mr. Speaker, without them talking about the ideological divide in this country being as stark as it has ever been, but there is still more that unites us than divides us.

I believe, when we come into this election in November, Mr. Speaker, we're going to have the largest voter turnout in American history. I have no idea what they're going to conclude. But I believe in this country, and I believe that if more of us are at the ballot box participating in this Republic--as we are required, duty bound to do-- we're going to end up with a better result.

I look at the young faces in this Chamber, Mr. Speaker. I like to think of myself as young, but I'm in my forties. The gentleman from Florida expressed his age, despite his youthful vigor. It's about the young people, Mr. Speaker.

And when the gentleman says America is strong enough that we can handle all of these growing debt challenges, I say to the gentleman, I admire his optimism but I disagree with his conclusion. The numbers I look at tell me, if I take everything from everybody, if I take everyone's house, everyone's car, everyone's bank account, if I nationalize every single company in this country, if I take it at all and put it in a bank account today, I still can't pay the hundreds of trillions of dollars in promises that this Federal Government has made to generations to come.

We don't have a problem in this country, Mr. Speaker, that we're not taxing people enough. Our problem is that we're spending too much.

I serve on the Budget Committee as well as the Rules Committee, and we took that challenge on head-on, head-on, Mr. Speaker. They call some things the third rail of politics. We said, in this House, in a bipartisan way, the third rail of politics is failing to deal with these challenges. Failing to deal with these challenges is the problem; dealing with them is the solution.

This wasn't a solution that everyone agreed with. It was a solution that got the only bipartisan majority in this entire town. And we did it not once, but twice, Mr. Speaker.

This is not a happy day. I usually come to the floor; I talk about how excited I am to be here because we're going to do an open rule and we're going to have the Republic at its best. That's not today.

That day was May 10 on the Commerce-Justice-State appropriations bill, where we had every voice heard. That day was July 19 on the Defense Department bill, where we had every voice heard passing those bills in huge bipartisan fashion. That day was June 6, when we did it with the Energy and Water bill, huge bipartisan majority; and again on June 7 with the Homeland Security bill, and the Legislative Branch bill on June 8; May 31 on Military Construction, on and on and on, Transportation, HUD, June 29.

We've done those things, and the silence on the Senate side is deafening. We could do all those bills again, but this House has already spoken. The people have already spoken. And this continuing resolution gives this body and the American people 6 months for that referendum in November, for every voting-age man and woman in this country to come out and have their voice heard.

We've done all we can do in this body, Mr. Speaker.

I would be happy to yield to my friend.

Reclaiming my time, I have had no prouder moment than our debate on H.R. 1--no prouder moment.

Though I will say to the gentleman, as the gentleman knows quite well, it is frustrating that we can't do the business today. We tried.

As the gentleman from Florida knows, we tried all of these appropriation bills. They weren't 6-month bills. They weren't 2-week bills. They were entire FY13 bills, and we did them right. We did them the way they were supposed to be done. Some people won, some people lost, but, in the end, a bipartisan majority came together and passed every single one. That's what

we should be doing here, Mr. Speaker, and we have.

The American people are going to decide in November: Is the problem the House? Is the problem the Senate? Is the problem the executive branch? I have my own suspicions, but I trust the American people more than I trust any other vote that we make in this House, Mr. Speaker.

Again, I rise in strong support of this rule. I rise in strong support of the two underlying bills, the continuing resolution bill and our opportunity job protection sequester replacement bill.

I urge my colleagues to support the rule. I urge my colleagues to support the two underlying bills.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, this is really quite a charade we're engaged in here today on the floor of the House of Representatives. Let's just flash back a year ago to how we got to this spot.

At that time, our Republican colleagues threatened that the United States would default on its full faith and credit, that we wouldn't pay the bills that we already incurred, that this Congress had already voted for, and threatened to tank the economy unless we passed their version of the budget, the Ryan budget, the budget that came out of the House Budget Committee. In order to prevent the United States from defaulting, everybody got together--the House, the Senate, and the President--and they passed the Budget Control Act. To hear our Republican colleagues today, you'd think they had nothing to do with the Budget Control Act. We heard the chairman of the Budget Committee, Mr. Ryan, on television the other day not wanting to associate himself with that.

The reality is he voted for it. The Speaker of the House said he got 98 percent of what he wanted. Here's the Speaker of the House after we passed the Budget Control Act:

I got 98 percent of what I wanted. I'm pretty happy.

Now we are faced with the consequences of the Budget Control Act. What did it do? Two things: It cut spending, discretionary spending over 10 years by a trillion dollars by putting in spending caps, and it created a sequester process.

There's agreement in this House that allowing the meat-ax sequester agreements to take place would really be a stupid thing to do. There's agreement on that.

The issue is: How do we replace that? How do we achieve a similar amount of deficit reduction to replace that sequester?

We hear our Republican colleagues say there is no leadership from the President; they haven't heard any alternatives. That's just not true.

There are lots of alternatives that have been put on the table. They just don't like the alternatives. And do you know why? Because the Democratic alternatives to the sequester, and the one put forward by the President, takes the same balanced approach that's been recommended by bipartisan commissions.

They say that in order to tackle our deficit we should make additional cuts. But we should also eliminate a lot of special interest tax breaks for Big Oil companies. We should ask the very wealthy to go back to paying a little bit more in taxes, about what they were paying when President Clinton was President, the last time we balanced our budget.

The President has submitted that. In fact, a year ago the President sent down a plan right here on how we could take a balanced approach to deficit reduction.

Just yesterday in the Rules Committee, on behalf of my Democratic colleagues, we proposed a substitute that would totally have replaced the sequester, again through a mix of cuts, cutting some of the excessive agriculture subsidies, but also raising revenue by cutting some of the big breaks for Big Oil companies and asking the wealthiest to chip in a little bit more.

Our Republican colleagues who say they want a big open debate on the floor here, they denied us even a vote on that amendment. We're not going to get to vote today on that amendment. Instead, we're voting on this resolution that, even if we pass it and the Senate passes it and the President would sign it, it would do nothing about the sequester-- nothing. That's why I said this is a charade.

We had an option to bring to the floor of this House a real substitute proposal that, if we passed it, it would have removed the sequester, made sure that there are no cuts to defense and nondefense under the sequester. We don't get to vote on that today. Instead, we're voting on something that is totally meaningless.

They say they're going to ask the President to submit a report to the

Congress. He's already done it. He did it a year ago. They just don't like it because it takes a balanced approach, because it does ask Big Oil companies to give up some of their big taxpayer subsidies.

So, Mr. Speaker, let's end the charade. The moment our Republican colleagues come to the conclusion that it's more important to protect defense spending than it is to protect special interest tax breaks for Big Oil companies, we can move on and deal with this in a balanced way, the same way bipartisan commissions have recommended.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Will the gentleman yield?

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

We've heard before that there was this vote on the President's plan and that it got no votes. We had a vote on a fake President's plan. When we actually had to vote on the Democratic alternative, which the White House made clear was closer to their plan than the one that was put up for a fake vote, it got a huge vote from our Democratic colleagues.

I would just ask Mr. West to read his own amendment. Because if you read the bill, it's pretty clear if we were to pass it and the Senate was to pass it and the President would sign it, it doesn't make the sequester go away. No, it doesn't make the sequester go away. It calls for action. In fact, it says the President should submit a plan within a certain period of time. It's right here in your bill: Presidential submission not later than October 15, 2012. The President shall transmit to the Congress a legislative proposal.

Exactly. And reclaiming my time, that's exactly right. That's exactly what it says. But you tell the President what his plan has to do. You tell the President that his plan cannot include one penny of revenue for the purpose of reducing the deficit. In other words, you say the President's plan has got to look like your plan.

So, Mr. Speaker, the issue here is not whether the President has a plan or not. He does have a plan. Our Republican colleagues don't like it because it says that it's more important to protect defense spending and protect domestic spending like NIH than it is to

protect special interest tax loopholes. And I see the chairman of the Armed Services Committee on the floor, and I respect him greatly. That's the position he took last October. Here's what he said when he was asked:

``If it came that I had only two choices, one was a tax increase and one was a cut in defense over and above where we already are, I would go to strengthen defense.''

That is the President's position. That's the President's position, Mr. West. He said we need to take a balanced approach to reducing the deficit. We need to combine cuts. But we also should end special interest tax breaks for the big oil companies. George Bush himself said when you've got oil above $50 a barrel, you don't need these ridiculous incentives to keep them drilling. And we should ask very wealthy individuals, frankly, to pay the same tax rate that the people who work for them do; the same effective tax rate. And we should eliminate some of these ag subsidies.

Now you asked about other proposals. I have a proposal in my hand. I took it to the House Rules Committee yesterday. It would have totally replaced the sequester. If we actually voted on this, it would replace the sequester for defense and nondefense. You know how we do it? We do it through cuts to big ag subsidies, we do it by eliminating subsidies for the big oil companies, and yes, we ask people making more than a million dollars a year to pay a little bit more because we think it's more important to do that than allow these cuts to defense to take place and all the consequences you talk about, and we think it's important to protect investments in places like NIH, people who are fighting to try and find cures for diseases.

So, Madam Speaker, the issue is not whether we replace the sequester. The President's got a proposal. I've got a proposal. It's how we do it. And, again, our Republican colleagues have doubled down on this idea that you're going to protect every tax break that's out there before you protect spending on our national defense.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I just would ask the gentleman, and I would yield to him for an answer, whether he means Bain Capital is a small business.

Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time. Mr. West, when Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan and all our Republican colleagues cite those figures about passthroughs, that includes companies like Bain Capital. It also includes some Fortune 100 companies. The President has put forward a proposal that says let's act right now to extend tax relief to 98 percent of the American people and 97 percent of all passthrough businesses.

It's true we don't think that Bain Capital needs a big additional tax break when we've got a big deficit that we should deal with in what we think should be a balanced way.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Announcement by the Speaker pro tempore

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

It's hard to know where to begin because--I hope everyone was listening very carefully. If we allow these spending cuts to take place, we will lose hundreds of thousands of jobs in Virginia alone. Thousands of jobs around the country.

You know, I've heard a lot of complaints from our Republican colleagues about the recovery bill and the fact that we had to do some emergency spending to prevent the loss of millions of jobs. You know what? That worked. And here our Republican colleagues here today are saying that we've got to make sure the spending cuts don't take

place because if we do, it will result in a lot of lost jobs.

Well, you know what? It takes jobs to build an aircraft carrier, absolutely. It also creates jobs when you invest in trying to repair and modernize our roads and our bridges, our infrastructure.

The President submitted a jobs bill more than a year ago to this House to do exactly that. Let's invest more in modernizing our infrastructure. We haven't had a single vote on the President's jobs bill.

So I'm really glad to hear our Republican colleagues say that if we make these kinds of cuts, it's going to result in lost jobs because you know what? You are right about that.

The debate today is not about whether we should prevent the sequester from taking place. As I said, we should. It's how we do that.

I heard again from the Republican leader the President doesn't have a plan. He has a plan. They just don't like his plan. They don't like his plan because it takes a balanced approach. It says, you know what? In addition to cuts, we should also ask people who make more than a million dollars a year to contribute a little more to reducing our national deficit and preventing the sequester. We should ask big oil companies to give up their taxpayer subsidies.

So, the question, Madam Speaker, is not whether we replace the sequester. There are lots of plans that I've already talked about. The one in my hand, I offered it yesterday. I can't get a vote on it today.

The issue is not whether; it's how. We should take a balanced approach.

I yield now 3 minutes to the gentlelady from Pennsylvania (Ms. Schwartz).

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

I agree with the chairman of the Armed Services Committee; we should act like adults.

We agree that the sequester cuts are done in a stupid, meat-ax way. We also agree with what the chairman of the Armed Services Committee said last October when, if it came to choosing between allowing all of the terrible consequences that he rightly spoke about and taking a balanced approach to deficit reduction which included some additional revenue, he would accept the balanced approach.

I will yield for a very quick question.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We wanted to give you that opportunity yesterday, which is why I went to the House Rules Committee with this substitute--which is in my hand, Mr. Chairman--that said you can replace the sequester right away if you're willing to cut some big ag subsidies, which I thought we were all agreed that we could do, but also get rid of some of the subsidies for the Big Oil companies, not some of the smaller producers, the big five, and you ask folks over $1 million to pay the same effective rate that people who work for them pay.

I agree with what you said last October, which is that it's more important to prevent the kind of cuts that we're talking about here today to defense and non-defense than it is to protect tax breaks for Big Oil companies.

Mr. Chairman, I wanted to vote. We wanted to vote. If the Rules Committee will allow us a vote, you can do it right now. In fact, the thing I have in my hand, the substitute, if we passed it, would actually replace the sequester. The resolution on the floor doesn't replace the sequester, even if it goes to the White House.

I now yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan, the distinguished ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Levin.

(Mr. LEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my friend from California for those comments, and I would just say this:

I have in my hand a proposal, a substitute amendment. If we passed it, it would prevent the sequester from taking place on defense and non- defense in a balanced way. You spend these things one time to get rid of the sequester.

The chairman of the Armed Services Committee said he wished he had an opportunity to vote on something like this, and I say to him, I wish the Rules Committee had given him that opportunity.

With that, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland, the distinguished Democratic whip, Mr. Hoyer.

I yield the gentleman another minute.

I now yield 1 minute to the distinguished Democratic leader, the gentlelady from California (Ms. Pelosi).

Madam Speaker, I wish Mr. Mulvaney were more persuasive with his colleagues because we agree. I wish we had a vote on this. We're happy to have that debate. In fact, that's what we've been having on the floor today.

We heard a lot from our colleagues about the devastating impact of these cuts on defense and other things, and we agree, which is why we think it's appropriate to ask people who earn more than a $1 million a year to help contribute a little bit more to our deficit so that we don't have to see these consequences.

I now yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler).

May I ask how much time remains on each side.

I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished lady from Texas, Ms. Sheila Jackson Lee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the remainder of my time.

Madam Speaker, the issue all afternoon has not been whether we should replace the sequester. Yes, we should. The issue has been how we do that.

We've heard our Republican colleagues talk about the devastating impact of the sequester on defense and nondefense. We agree. That's why we put forward a plan to replace the sequester in the balanced way that has been recommended by bipartisan groups through a combination of cuts, but also revenues generated by things like closing the tax loopholes for big oil companies. Our Republican colleagues have just doubled down on the position that it's more important to protect tax breaks for big oil companies and very wealthy individuals than it is to protect our investment in spending in defense or other important national priorities. That's what this debate is all about.

I hope we will reject this proposal and adopt a more balanced one.

With that, Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

Madam Speaker, I am opposed.

Madam Chair, let's just flash back to a year ago when we were working on the Budget Control Act, and it's, I think, worth reminding everybody what the Speaker of the House, Mr. Boehner, said at that time:

I got 98 percent of what I wanted. I'm pretty happy.

That's what the Speaker of the House said about the Budget Control Act.

We now find ourselves here trying to find a way to prevent these across-the-board meat-ax cuts from taking place in the defense budget and the non-defense budget. There is agreement that that would be a stupid way to deal with our deficit, so there's no dispute there.

The issue is: What do we do to replace the sequester, to achieve deficit reduction, but do it in a reasonable and credible way?

That's where the rub is.

What Democrats have said is we need to do it in the way that bipartisan groups have proposed that we do it, through a combination of additional cuts in a targeted way, not in a meat-ax, across-the-board way.

But, yes, we also have to ask the very wealthiest Americans to contribute more to reducing the deficit, because the math is pretty simple. If you don't ask very wealthy people to contribute one more penny to reducing the deficit, then you have to hit everybody else much harder. You have to hit seniors on Medicare harder. You have to reduce dramatically our investment in our kids' education. You have to cut investments in infrastructure, our roads and bridges. Those are the consequences of not taking a balanced approach.

So we say, when it comes to the sequester, we should avoid all the terrible things our colleagues have said and which we agree with. Let's take a balanced approach to do doing it.

You know what? The President submitted a plan to do just that, more than a year ago. It's not that he doesn't have a plan; it's our Republican colleagues don't like the plan. Why? Because he says we don't need to provide these big taxpayer giveaways to the Big Oil companies anymore. We don't need to cut dramatically into things like Medicaid and Medicare when we should be asking seniors to pay a little bit more. Let's ask them to pay what they were paying when President Clinton was President. That's the last time we balanced our budget.

The question is: How do we do it?

The President submitted a proposal. As I said earlier, I took a proposal yesterday to the Rules Committee that would have done this in a balanced approach. Our colleagues say they want an open, democratic process. We haven't had a vote on that.

Instead, we're going to have a vote on something that actually, even if it passes the House and the Senate and is signed by the President, doesn't do anything to eliminate the sequester, doesn't do a thing. It just says that the President has to come up with a plan. But they tell him what it has to do. They say it cannot be balanced. It cannot include any revenue. It has to be across the board in cuts.

Now let's talk a minute about taxes.

The President has called upon this Congress to immediately enact tax relief to 98 percent of the American people, let's do it now before they expire at the end of this year, and our Republican colleagues say, No, no. Nobody gets tax relief unless very wealthy people get a bonus tax break, because everybody on the President's proposal gets tax relief on the first $250,000 of their income. Our Republican colleagues say, No; unless people like Mitt Romney get an extra tax break, nobody gets tax relief.

You know what? The President's proposal provides tax relief to 97 percent of all pass-through businesses. The Republican colleagues say, No; unless you're going to give businesses like Bain Capital a bonus tax break, we can't ask them to contribute one more penny to reducing the deficit.

Let's talk about jobs. It was really interesting to hear our Republican colleagues talk today about the fact that, if you allow these budget cuts to take place, it will have devastating impacts on the jobs in this country.

You know what? A year ago this month, the President submitted a proposal to this Congress, a jobs initiative. It called for investing more in our infrastructure, in our roads and in our bridges, to help put more persons back to work. We have 14 percent unemployment in the construction industry.

So here are our Republican colleagues saying, Well, we can't allow any of these cuts to take place because people who were building tanks will

lose their jobs. And we agree; spending that money on defense has consequences. But how is it that spending money on roads and bridges and infrastructure doesn't also put people back to work? That's what the President proposed a year ago. Not a single vote on the President's jobs bill. There were 37 votes to repeal ObamaCare, but not one vote on the President's jobs bill.

So, Madam Speaker, whether it's acting on the jobs bill, which has been sitting here for more than a year, or acting on the President's proposal to immediately extend tax relief to 97 percent of the American people, or whether it's taking a responsible balanced approach to replacing the sequester, let's do what bipartisan groups have recommended and take that balanced way to build our economy and reduce our deficit.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

That's just not true. We asked the Parliamentarian, and they said we couldn't bring it in that format because of the rule.

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

Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from my neighboring State of Georgia, whom I consider to be one of the most conscientious, hardworking individuals in the Congress, and I appreciate the fact that he's 18 months here in the Congress. He and I know that he understands this institution considerably, having worked here for a number of years, and I'm grateful the process allows and he has allowed that I receive the traditional 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, this rule provides, as has been said, for consideration of two bills. To identify them again, H.J. Res. 117 is the Continuing Appropriations Resolution, and H. Res. 6365 is the National Security and Job Protection Act.

When my colleague began his remarks, he said the magic words, ``This is a closed rule.'' When I was, as he, 18 months in the House in 1992 and I would be on radio, people were talking about how awful it was that the Democrats had so many closed rules. The Democrats lost the election that following year in 1994, and one of the leading reasons was closed rules. Yet we find ourselves on something as important as the financial circumstances of this country coming to the floor at the 11th hour with a closed rule, and, in fact, not having many more days that we are scheduled to be here, but having absolutely no reason why we could not be here at any point in time between now and the time that our financial circumstances would begin to be, as they are, much worse. Maybe the Republicans should have added a third entitled resolution. I would call it the ``No More Getting Anything Done in This Congress Act,'' because that is the message of this particular package.

This continuing resolution is merely a reminder that my friends in the majority were unable to complete work on the regular appropriations bills.

Instead of devoting congressional time to tackling the needs of essential government programs, Republicans have spent the summer trying to repeal the health care law, giving away benefits to the oil and gas industry, and chipping away repeatedly at women's rights.

Now, my colleague is correct in many respects to point out that the other body presents us with challenges, but it is not as if the other body has not done something. Let me tell you one of the measures that I have a continuing interest in because of my constituency, and that is that the Senate has passed a farm bill for a 5-year extension.

What my colleagues or leadership on the Republican side will not do is put that farm bill here on the floor even though we are faced in this country with a residual from one of the worst droughts that America has ever experienced. Even though food prices for all of the people in this country are continuously rising, here we are with this time that the chair of the Agriculture Committee and the ranking member begging the leadership, cannot find time for it to be on this floor. Instead of devoting our time to tackling the needs of essential government programs, we decide that we're going to attack women's rights.

Now, suddenly, you seem to have awakened to the looming, described, fiscal cliff. It's kind of good that you've noticed; but rather than address this challenge head on, the Republicans are pushing a bill that doesn't do anything. The sequester replacement does not actually prevent the sequester with a prudent mix, and every panel that has looked at this says that we have to have a prudent mix of spending cuts and revenue increases. What the Republicans simply do is kick the can down the road, which is no surprise.

I said in an earlier Rules meeting, and it was during the Olympics, that if kicking the can down the road were an Olympic sport, then Congress and the Republican majority would win gold, bronze, silver, and tin. This poor can doesn't have much more space to be kicked on, and I can tell you it places the burden on someone else to deal with this in the future. And this is what my Republican colleagues would call fiscal responsibility?

We got into this mess because of the massive deficits the Republicans piled on this country. Two wars in the Middle East not paid for, huge tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans--for those among us that are in a high-paying position--and huge, unpaid prescription drug benefits are all things that Republican Members in this House voted for despite the huge costs that would be imposed.

In fact, just 61 bills have been signed into law this year, the fewest in more than 60 years. In all of 2011, only 90 bills were signed into law. When Democrats controlled both Chambers in 2010, 258 bills were signed into law.

Now, I don't want to sound like I'm the only person who is making this observation that is being made. Let me cite two people, especially here inside the Beltway, that have made this observation, and that are generally respected as nonpartisan and accepted as experts by Republicans and Democrats.

We on this side are not the only ones who have noticed the lack of productivity that I just identified with the 61 bills. Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann wrote in a Washington Post column, the two gentlemen, and I am quoting them:

We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for

more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this

dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both

parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we

have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the

problem lies with the Republican Party.

That's from two particularly nonpartisan observers that everybody around here recognizes as experts. Now we are asked to support the Romney-Ryan vision of America, which ignores any responsibility for today's economic difficulties and instead demands that those who have the least in this great country should sacrifice the most. While Republicans last year were fighting tooth and nail to default on our debt obligations and crash the economy, millions of Americans were fighting to keep their jobs and millions lost them.

Millions of Americans were fighting to pay off their mortgages, and millions could not pay them. Millions of Americans were seeking access to quality health care, and they could not afford it. Millions of children of parents who wanted them to go to college are finding themselves without the capacity to get a decent education largely for the reasons that I have suggested.

But under the Romney-Ryan vision those priorities should take a back seat

to increase defense spending, and yet give more tax cuts for the wealthiest among us in our society. When it comes to Medicare and Medicaid, student loans and public safety, the Republicans are quick to dismiss billions of dollars in essential funding with a wave of their hand and the crocodile tears of deficit reduction. But when the defense contractors stand to lose just $1, Republicans suddenly find their fighting spirit and cry about a weakening America.

It's a shame, Mr. Speaker, that Republicans can't shake off their do- nothing indolence to fight as hard for all Americans as they do for the richest.

We have a long list of programs, tax cuts, and activities set to expire at the end of this year; but rather than confront those challenges head on, Republicans are wasting our time with do-nothing bills. I suppose that when you have absolutely no ideas to offer besides tax cuts for those that are better off among our society, you may as well campaign on a platform of ``we have no ideas or even a plan to offer.'' But the American people need and deserve much more.

Mr. Speaker, I reject the Republican notion that a do-nothing Congress can help grow our economy, create more jobs, and address the many challenges facing this Nation from crumbling infrastructure to the impossibly high cost of education; and I also reject the Romney-Ryan vision that the only solution, at least that they have offered to these challenges, is tax cuts that help the rich and increase military spending.

My Republican colleagues paint a very pessimistic vision, Mr. Speaker, of a country where it appears to them that we have given up on trying to better everyone's lives and instead use the public's resources to enrich those who have already made it.

But I believe differently. We can afford to invest in our future. We can afford to create jobs. We can afford to make the choices now that will reap benefits for future generations--right now.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, before yielding to my good friend and colleague, Mr. McGovern, I would just urge my colleague from Pennsylvania to know that all of us are mindful, and rightfully should be concerned, about what's transpired in the Middle East. But he cites to one set of finances, and I would urge that he look at how and why the United States is involved in a compact with the Egypt military for the moneys that are distributed there, and not base it on what is happening today but look at what has happened throughout the years to assist in stabilizing that area. It didn't just happen overnight. It happened as a result of a serious compact in peace negotiations.

I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to my good friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).

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

My good friend from Georgia speaks out of both sides of his mouth. On the one hand, you're saying that we began this process open and this democracy flourished, and you were so passionate about it until when we left at 5 a.m. in the morning you rushed home and you were on fire.

I'm curious to know when we finish up here, ostensibly tomorrow afternoon, what is it that would cause us not to be able to be here and allow, as you put it, every Member to have his or her say for their constituents on this measure?

But, no, we're here on a closed rule.

I understand that the government has to continue and that's why we are doing a continuing resolution, but I also know we could have done an omnibus bill, and I also know that my colleague and others were the ones that caused this country to come to the brink and our credit rating to be assaulted; and you are going to tell me that we can't stay here tomorrow, that we can't come back here after the holidays or tomorrow and stay here if need be to get this done?

But, no, we're doing it now before April so that when we come back, we will be faced with the same crisis, and the only thing that's going to change is the faces and the places that the people come from, and all I'm saying is let's do it now. Let's do those things that you were talking about. And if it requires 5 a.m. in the morning, let's do it at 5 a.m. in the morning. I'm 76 and I'm still staying up. I don't know about you.

I yield to my colleague from Georgia.

Reclaiming my time, first I ask my colleague. You know and I know you have farm interests in Georgia the same as I do, not necessarily the same, but we have farm interests in Georgia and farm interests in Florida. The Senate did pass the farm bill.

Can my colleague tell me why we don't have the farm bill on the floor during all of this period of time? We could at least do that in light of the disaster relief that took place.

I yield to my friend.

Where did you get the number 2-year rather than 5-year bill from? Because the 5-year proposal is what the chair of the Agriculture Committee, your and my colleague, Mr. Lucas, is seeking to offer. But I don't want to get us caught in the weeds.

Let me go ahead and yield 2 minutes to my friend, the distinguished gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

I also have no further speakers and I'm prepared to close, and I thank the distinguished gentleman.

I also would like to offer an apology to my colleague. I committed a parliamentary faux pas when I said you speak out of both sides of your mouth. In the heat of the moment, I guess what I was trying to say is you said one thing one way than you said at another point in time, so I offer you my deepest my apologies.

Mr. Speaker, we will soon start another long district work period even though we haven't given the middle class an extension of tax cuts for the next year. If we defeat the previous question, I'm going to offer an amendment to the rule to ensure that the House won't leave town until middle class tax cuts are signed into law. The first step is to give this House a vote on the middle class tax cut, introduced by Mr. Levin, which is the same proposal the Senate has already passed and the President is eager to sign.

So, Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, there is an upside to the Republicans' ``do-nothing'' Congress.

First, it creates a clear contrast between the Republicans and Democrats.

Democrats want to press forward with meaningful ideas to create jobs, improve access to affordable health and education, and invest in the kinds of programs that bring about progress and prosperity for all Americans. I believe that my friends in the majority want to push legislation that either cuts taxes for the wealthiest among us, or increases spending on the military, or does nothing more than pay the bills today--play politics while accomplishing nothing.

This is not about the deficit. The United States doesn't lack the money to prioritize our future. What we do lack is the political willpower and leadership necessary to set gainful priorities.

The Romney-Ryan vision for America is nothing more than a reckless sellout to the ideological extremes of the Republican Party, a party that is utterly dominated at this point in our history by a Tea Party dogma which cares more to preserve tax cuts for the rich than to be about the business of ensuring the well-being of our entire society.

The so-called ``sacrifices'' continually demanded by the Republican majority in order to provide ever more money for foreign wars and tax cuts for the wealthy are shortchanging the future of this Nation. Continuing to move further to the right--or to the left--does not constitute progress. Furthermore, the closed-door negotiations and closed process is truly disheartening and does not reflect the democracy that is supposed to be the hallmark of this institution.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question, and I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Will my colleague yield?

I just want to ask, 6 months from now, when we come back, if you and I are here, will you commit that we would have that debate 6 months from now under an open rule?

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 778, I call up

the bill (H.R. 6365) to amend the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 to replace the sequester established by the Budget Control Act of 2011, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 6365.

At this time, Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to myself.

Mr. Speaker, under current law, there will be a $110 billion across- the-board cut known as sequester. It will be imposed in this country on January 2, 2013, resulting in a 10 percent reduction in the Department of Defense programs and an 8 percent reduction in certain domestic programs as well.

In May of this year, the House passed a bill to deal with this. That was H.R. 5652, the Sequester Replacement Reconciliation Act. What this legislation would do is it would replace that sequester of 2013 with commonsense spending cuts and reforms. Unfortunately, we have seen a lack of leadership both over in the Senate and in the White House. The Senate has failed to act on this legislation--the Senate, where all good bills go to die, so too with this, or any sequester replacement bill. Today the House will once again try to responsibly fix the sequester.

The National Security and Job Protection Act would ensure our national security, but at the same time we do that, we'll cut spending. The National Security and Job Protection Act would do two things quickly. First, it would turn off the sequester of Congress, enacting the House-passed reconciliation bill or similar legislation that achieves equal levels of deficit reduction. Secondly, the National Security and Job Protection Act would require the President of the United States to submit to Congress a legislative proposal to replace the sequester with an alternative no later than October 15 of this year.

Up until this point, we have seen absolutely no leadership, we have seen no plan from the President to fix this sequester problem, but yet there is strong bipartisan agreement that the sequester, as it is right now, is bad policy and should be re-prioritized. Once again, the President has failed to lead in this area, failed to put forward a credible response, failed to put forward a legislative proposal, and the Senate has failed as well. The result is that in less than 100 days we will see reductions that our own Secretary Panetta says will hollow out our Armed Forces and make totally arbitrary reductions in other spending programs.

Not only has the President failed to lead in this area, he has failed to put forward a plan. The President has also failed--and this is important--to submit to Congress a report, as law requires him to do so, detailing specifically how this administration would implement the sequester.

Mr. Speaker, after months, literally months, of stonewalling Congress on how this administration would implement the sequester, Congress now comes to the floor because we are forced to pass legislation requiring the President to submit a detailed sequester implementation program. When that legislation became law, as we said, the President's response has been no response. Rather than him doing his homework, the President has simply taken a pass on this matter and instead has provided Congress with nothing, and he is not even meeting the requirements of the law. It is an example, I think, to use the President's own word, of an ``incomplete'' by this President on his report card.

That the President lacks leadership is simply stunning to this Member and to the American people as well. As I say, the Senate is no better for failing to respond in this matter. The Senate refuses to take up any bill or to replace the sequester whatsoever.

Today, Mr. Speaker, we again come here passing legislation to try to solve this problem, to fix the sequester, to make sure that these draconian cuts do not go in place now. We're not saying that it has to be the House-passed bill that passed. We're also asking the President to put forward his own legislative proposal, for the Senate to act before the legislation takes effect.

Americans are looking for leadership, and they're getting it from the House of Representatives today.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the sponsor of the legislation before us, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. West), who recognizes that while the President may have presented a plan to this Congress, that bill went down 414-0, and to the Senate 97-0.

Before we hear from our leader, I yield 15 seconds to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. West).

I yield 1 minute to our leader, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor).

Madam Speaker, I would now like to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon) who recognizes that it is really not a balanced plan to say that we want to raise $3 on every American in taxes and only $1 in spending reductions, and it is not a balanced plan to say that we want to pick and choose winners and losers when it comes to the Tax Code reform.

Madam Speaker, at this time I'd like to yield 2 minutes to another gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell), who understands that we are in fact presenting a balanced approach inasmuch as we present the options to either pass this legislation that the House already did or an alternative.

Madam Speaker, at this time I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Lankford).

Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert).

I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Mulvaney).

Madam Speaker, I advise my colleague from Maryland that I have no further speakers at this time, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I began this day being interviewed by a group of southern college students, and the primary question that they asked was why can't Congress seem to work in a more bipartisan manner, work across the aisle, work with the other Chamber. I had to explain to them what was about to occur here on the floor; that one of the most seminal issues that we have to deal with in this country is fiscal matters and also our defense matters that this House, led by Republicans, have done everything we possibly could to make sure that this country stands strong fiscally and stands strong in a defense posture, as well. We've reached across the aisle, and we've reached across to the Senate in a bipartisan manner to effectuate that.

We have passed a budget out of this House only to find that bill go to the Senate where as they say ``all good bills go to die,'' and not have anything come back. We've communicated to the President of the United States that we want to work with him on a budget, only to see his own budget come to the Senate and fail 97-0, and come to this House and fail 414-0, not getting any Democrat or Republican support for that bill, as well.

We have reached across the aisle. We have tried to work on the fiscal matters and the defense matters when it comes to the sequester. We recognize the devastating impact that this will have on our defense posture in this country. As other Members have already come to the floor, in light of all the past circumstances that have come across this country in the last decade, in light of the memorial services that we just held, all of us, in a bipartisan manner out on those steps just days ago on September 11, in light of what has just been in the newspaper in the last several days of our embassies being attacked and Americans killed on American soil, we realize the important significance of making sure that we have a strong defense at this point in time.

I ask anyone who considers this legislation to vote ``yes'' in favor of this legislation, and anyone who would stand and vote ``no'' against trying to make sure that we're strong fiscally

and trying to make sure that we are strong in the defense posture as well, anyone who would vote ``no,'' I would ask them how do they when they go through the airport leaving here or coming to Washington, look anyone in uniform in the eye and say that they voted against a bill to make sure that there would not be the defense cuts here.

The other side of the aisle has no answer for that. Their only answer today, and as it's been ever since I've been here in Congress, is to say the solution to all problems is what? Raising taxes. As I said before, they want to raise $3 in taxes for every $1 in spending cuts.

We do not have a revenue problem in this country; we have a spending problem in this country. You know, there is an old saying that goes, if there is a dime left on the table in Washington, someone, primarily from the other side of the aisle I would suggest, will find a dollar's worth of use for spending it, and I think that's the case here. If they raise the taxes 3 to 1, they will find $30 worth of spending to increase.

As the gentleman from California pointed out, that was the example every single time in the Budget Committee. Every single time it was suggested for spending cuts, they were opposed. They would always use the same spending cuts to further increase spending elsewhere.

The gentleman from California makes the reference to spending a dollar every time for--what was it?--for breath mints, I think it was. Well, quite candidly, after listening to this debate, and after listening to the debate continuously in Budget Committee over years, I always leave there, as I will leave here tonight, with a sour taste in my mouth if the other side of the aisle does not agree to begin to work with us in a bipartisan manner to make sure that this country is strong fiscally, to make sure that this country is strong in a defense posture as well.

I would urge all of my colleagues from both sides of this aisle to vote ``yea'' on this legislation.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion.

The seminal question, I think, to those who are watching deliberations here on the floor tonight, they are asking themselves the question: Are you better off today than you were 4 years ago?

When you look at the economy, you have to answer that question with a resounding, ``No.'' Poverty is continuously up year after year after year, at the highest levels in this country we have seen since back in 1995, when one out of seven people in this country now find themselves, unfortunately, on food stamps.

Forty-seven million of our friends and neighbors find themselves in that situation. One out of six Americans will be on Medicaid. Are you better off today than you were in the past? Absolutely not. And that's why it's astonishing as I stand here to listen to the other side of the aisle and the proposals that they presented so far and that they have over the years.

For the last hour of the debate, the gentleman from Maryland has been saying one or two basic things, but one primary thing is that he went to Rules last night, that he had a plan. He pulled out his plan and he said, This is what the solution is. This is how we solve the problem. But the problem was that that mean old Rules Committee just wouldn't allow him to have it come down to the floor tonight.

Well, my friend and colleague from South Carolina made the recommendation to him: Take that proposal. If that is truly the answer in your heart, it's the right answer, that is truly the way to go, and lay it out. If you really do believe that the solution to the problem is by raising taxes to the tune of $85 billion and cutting spending to the extent that there's only a net reduction of $5 billion; if you truly do believe, as you said for the last hour, that the way to resolve the issue of sequester is by raising taxes by $3 for every $1 in cuts; if you truly believe, and for the last hour, as he has said, that is the solution to the problem, then he could have come here and presented an alternative in this format. But he has not done so.

Reclaiming my time, what we have here before us is a lack of direction, a lack of leadership that America is so looking for out of Washington. The American public is looking for leadership from Washington. They're not seeing it from the President, who has failed to present a budget that would get any single vote in either the House or the Senate--97-0, 414-0. They're looking for the Senate to demonstrate some degree of vision, some degree of leadership by taking any of the bills that we send over to them, whether it's the budget or the sequester legislation, and showing that they can pass that legislation. They're looking for some degree of vision from the other side of the aisle in the House as well on these matters to make sure that we can stand up fiscally and a strong defense, and they're seeing a lack of vision here by the other side of the House as well.

We know what writings tell us: A Nation without vision leads to a people that will perish. Well, Madam Speaker, I can tell you this: that the route these last 2 years, this Republican-controlled Congress has shown vision with our strong budget, with our sequester bill, and now with this bill as well to present the option to the other side, to the Senate, and to the President to make sure that we can defend this Nation strong militarily and fiscally as well.

I would encourage all my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this motion to recommit, and I yield back the balance of my time.