Congress is Not a Career Act

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Georgia for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise today in opposition to this structured rule. This is yet another example of this Congress' remarkable ability to take commonsense measures and churn them, through partisan posturing, into measures that not only put in jeopardy broad, bipartisan support from this body, but significantly weaken them and reduce the quality of the work product for the American people.

This rule that we're debating does two things. We'll have the opportunity in a moment to talk about the Expedited Line-Item Veto and Rescissions Act, an underlying bill that I strongly support, one that would empower the President of the United States to use the line-item veto on unnecessary expenditures to help reduce our deficit, subject to an en masse approval vote of the United States Congress. It fundamentally addresses some of the constitutional flaws with a broad line-item veto, which has been attempted in the past, that many Governors currently wield.

So it's, I think, a good-faith effort by both sides to come to something that the American people think is common sense. Congress should not be able to force the President to spend money in areas that are unnecessary, that are earmarks, that are special interest expenditures. The President can then highlight those, bring them back to Congress, subject to an up-or-down vote.

The bigger problem with this rule is the other component of this rule, which prevents Members from offering amendments that would strengthen the STOCK Act--a very significant piece of reform legislation offered by Mr. Walz and my Rules Committee colleague and ranking member, Louise Slaughter, which I proudly cosponsor.

This bill, the STOCK Act, has been subject to a lot of media attention of late. It would ban insider trading in Congress, again, a commonsense approach and something that I think has broad, if not universal, support on both sides of the aisle.

But a little bit of history of how we got here and why this particular rule many on our side and I myself see as an attempt to water down many of the critical provisions of the STOCK Act and make it less meaningful in responding to the public outrage about perceived behaviors that can occur, both among the Members and the staff in this body, as well as on the executive side of government.

This bill has been introduced, the STOCK Act, by Representative Slaughter for 6 years now. I've been a cosponsor since last year. It has rapidly picked up cosponsors in the last year, including close to 100 cosponsors from the other side of the aisle. It's a strong bipartisan piece of legislation with strong support.

First, this bill, the STOCK Act, was blocked by the majority leader. Now it's being rewritten behind closed doors and without the input of Mr. Walz or Ms. Slaughter. We don't know what this so-called STOCK Act will contain. We have reason to believe it will water down a number of provisions of the STOCK Act.

It's my understanding that at least the version of the STOCK Act released last night removed the requirement that political intelligence firms register as lobbyists. Now, what are political intelligence firms? They are firms that are hired by those who do financial transactions and effectively bet on stocks going up or down. Hedge funds, et cetera, would hire these political information firms to try to figure out, using their connections, what Members of Congress and, just as importantly, committee staff and staff members are thinking, and timing, with regard to hearings and the introductions of bills.

Now, in an open system, obviously, discussion among people is certainly fine, but the issue is whether they have to register as lobbyists. Lobbyists have a registration process that critically includes who their clients are to provide visibility and transparency into who their clients are.

Political intelligence firms do not need to register under current law. They would be required to register under the STOCK Act. But under the version, the weakening of the STOCK Act that Leader Cantor posted to the Web site, they would no longer be required to register. In fact, specifically, from the Web page of a political intelligence firm, it says that they, in fact, relish this ability to operate in secrecy. Quoting from their Web site it says: ``providing the service for clients who do not want their interest in an issue publicly known.''

So again, there is this, I think, commonsense loophole that the American people are outraged over that allows people to avoid registering as lobbyists who are in the business of developing relationships with Members and their staffs for the purpose of seeking inside information for financial gain. And I would strongly recommend that any serious STOCK Act include a registration requirement around political intelligence firms.

We also won't have the opportunity in the House, as the Senate did, to make the STOCK Act stronger and to strengthen the bill through the amendment process. Under this particular version of this rule that we're debating, there will be zero, zero amendments allowed--no amendments from Republicans and no amendments from Democrats to strengthen the STOCK Act.

Now, even the Senate, which is hardly known for its legislative efficiency, was able to consider amendments and get the bill done and passed because of its bipartisan support. We should do so in the House under an open process, or even a controlled process, 10, 15, 20 amendments.

I know Members across both sides of the aisle have ideas about how to reduce the perceived inequities and conflicts of interest that exist, both among Members and appointees, and on the executive side of government. We owe nothing less to the American people.

So I am terribly disappointed that this rule will not allow for any strengthening of the STOCK Act and, quite to the contrary, actually deals it a severe weakening blow by removing political intelligence.

Furthermore, we don't know, at this point, what exactly will be in this STOCK Act that potentially could be under consideration tomorrow. Contrary to the promise that the Republican majority made to the American people about having time to read bills, it's my understanding that an initial

version was posted last night. It's my understanding that a subsequent version weakening the STOCK Act was posted just an hour ago, which I don't think any of us have had the opportunity to read.

We fear that this could be changed again; and, yet, under this rule, this Congress could be called on to act on this tomorrow, to vote on this tomorrow, with no opportunity to strengthen the bill, no opportunity to prevent the watering down of the bill by the majority leader of this body, which is occurring behind closed doors as we speak.

Now, again, while I cannot support the rule for those reasons, I want to also discuss one of the underlying bills that this rule will bring to the House, which is the Expedited Line-Item Veto and Rescissions Act. This act is an important step, albeit a small step, a small but constructive step, towards the cause of deficit reduction and eliminating the wasteful spending and earmarks that have too often been the hallmark of this Congress and past Congresses.

Now, Members on both sides of the aisle have disagreements about this bill. When you have a bill that impacts legislative prerogative, that's likely to be the case. I know some are concerned about constitutionality, generally, of line-item veto bills. I believe that this bill was carefully crafted to take into account those valid constitutional arguments about the separation of powers and the prerogative of the legislative branch.

This legislation strikes the correct balance between the Framers' intent to place the power of the purse in the hands of Congress, which retains, under this bill, the ability to approve or disapprove of any Presidential line-item veto, with the need to cut out wasteful spending that piggybacks on larger, must-pass legislation which, whether it's an omnibus or an appropriations bill, we know that this body has been unable to produce, cleaner, leaner spending bills. And I think it can be a constructive step to enlist the help of the President of the United States in removing unnecessary and indefensible pork from spending bills.

I would also add that this bill is a welcome change for many of the other so-called budget-reform bills that have been brought forward by the House Budget Committee. The House Budget Committee has brought forward bills to pretend that inflation doesn't exist. They've brought forward bills to have funny scoring, trick scoring, dynamic scoring, rather than the usual objective process of the Congressional Budget Office.

But you can't pretend the deficit away. You can't pretend the deficit away by assuming there's no inflation. You can't pretend the deficit away by putting in wacky numbers that are whatever you feel like, based on your biases.

So this bill is really the first budget bill that is a constructive step towards actually controlling spending, something that I've often heard Members of both parties pay lip service to, but this body has done relatively little to address that notable goal of budgeting our budget.

However, there's a lot more to do. I've always maintained, as have many on my side of the aisle, that rather than talking about balancing the budget, rather than talking about what we want to do, and rather than trying to change the rules, let's balance the budget. The supercommittee had an opportunity to do that with a balanced approach.

The President of the United States has called for a balanced approach to balance the budget. The President of the United States has convened the Simpson-Bowles Commission to outline specific plans around ending our budget deficit and returning our Nation to fiscal responsibility. That bill, from the Simpson-Bowles Commission, there were no bills that have been taken up by this body that would fundamentally address the very real budget problems that we face.

And to be clear, we cannot simply pass this Expedited Line-Item Veto and Rescissions Act and say, problem solved, game over, let's go home. A constructive step towards balancing our budget, yes, but a small step, a baby step, a potential step in the right direction, but one that, by no means, should get Congress out of the responsibility of acting responsibly in a balanced manner to balance our budget, right our fiscal ship, ensure the long-term integrity of Social Security and Medicare, and balance our budget deficit.

We need to use a balanced approach to budget challenges. The approach needs to be comprehensive and bipartisan. I would like to maintain some hope and optimism that perhaps the Expedited Line-Item Veto and Rescissions Act would be a small first step towards a larger collaboration between the two parties to tackle the issues of the day.

While not, in and of itself, the real progress we need to actually solve the budget item, the Expedited Line-Item Veto and Rescissions Act will assist lawmakers in targeting wasteful government spending. Unlike previous attempts at a line-item veto that have been ruled unconstitutional, the Expedited Line-Item Veto and Rescissions Act respects the careful system of checks and balances that our Framers established.

Under this bill, the President can highlight unjustified government spending that's wasteful, and the President can then identify those items, but it has to come back to Congress to affirmatively approve, by majority, any cancellation of expenditures in those areas. Let them be debated and defended on their merits, rather than slipped in to thousand-page bills in the dark of night.

Further, the President's withholding authority is limited. The President can only hold back on spending for 45 days after the appropriations bill has been enacted.

I think this bill can be a step towards putting our Nation on a path towards fiscal discipline and a balanced budget. I am aware that there are those on both sides that, for constitutional or legislative prerogative reasons, feel differently than I do. But I think a ``yes'' vote on the underlying bill would be a small positive step towards combating the runaway spending that has characterized not only this Republican Congress, but prior Congresses controlled by both parties.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to ensure that the House votes on the political intelligence provisions that are included in the STOCK Act written by Ms. Slaughter and Mr. Walz as a standalone bill. This bill will help shine sunlight onto political intelligence firms and require that they register as lobbyists. This provision already has the support of a majority of the Members of this body--285 Members, including 99 Republicans.

The fact that the Republican leadership has weakened and watered down the STOCK Act by stripping out this provision we'll be considering this week is both shameful and wrong. It's clear that this House needs to act, and it will be my hope that we defeat the previous question and I'm able to offer this amendment.

I am honored to yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), the ranking member of the Rules Committee and the sponsor of the STOCK Act.

I would be happy to yield an additional minute to the gentlelady from New York.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I have to say, after hearing my colleague from Florida, I'm a little bit confused about where he stands.

Certainly, his arguments were many of the same arguments that I and others have been making. In fact, Ranking Member Slaughter proposed in committee yesterday to strike suspensions authority specifically so the gentleman from Florida could offer his bill as an amendment to the bill and so we could have a discussion about this blind trust issue. I think that would have been a better way to have brought it to the floor.

Yet the gentleman from Florida voted ``no'' yesterday to the provision that he is effectively trying to argue for on the floor today. He concluded his remarks by confirming that he plans to vote for a rule that fundamentally doesn't allow him to do what he thinks needs to be done to restore ethics and integrity to this body.

So I think that that is an example of the type of contradictions that we're hearing, but I would urge the gentleman to be convinced by his own arguments so that he might join me in opposing the previous question and in opposing the rule.

Madam Speaker, it is my honor to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota, an original sponsor of the STOCK Act, Mr. Walz.

Yes, I do. I have one further request for time.

It's my honor to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

I yield a total of 1 additional minute to the gentlewoman from Texas.

I am prepared to close.

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

The Expedited Line-Item Veto and Rescissions Act is a fiscally sound way for both Congress and the President to reduce wasteful government spending and ensure that American taxpayer dollars are spent wisely. This legislation will help in a small way to address

our budget crisis. Again, I want to be clear that the Expedited Line- Item Veto and Rescissions Act does not solve our deficit, does not restore fiscal discipline and fiscal integrity to our country, but is a step in the right direction that will produce savings that will all be applied to deficit reduction under this bill.

The bill is a balanced measure, and I know that there is some support and opposition from both sides of the aisle. I encourage my colleagues to seriously consider supporting this small, but important, step forward.

The country's budget situation is dire. The supercommittee's failure and the threat of sequestration underscores the need to address our fiscal policies head on. The worst possible outcome is that we pat ourselves on the back and say ``job well done'' while this country faces record deficits of trillions of dollars over the next 10 years.

We need a big and balanced budget compromise to reduce our Nation's debt. Passing the bipartisan Expedited Line-Item Veto and Rescissions Act will be a small step and keep us on track to help restore fiscal integrity to our country; but we need to remind ourselves that it is only a small first step toward addressing our budget problem.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to extend the unemployment insurance and middle class tax cuts to reach a big, bold, and balanced solution to our Federal budget situation along the lines of the President's commission.

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.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question. I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 540 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my good friend from Colorado (Mr. Polis), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I'm pleased to be down here with you today, Madam Speaker, because what we have an opportunity to do with this rule is bring another in a series of 10 fundamental reforms to the congressional budgeting process.

Today, House Resolution 540 provides a structured rule for consideration of H.R. 3521, the Expedited Line-Item Veto and Rescissions Act. And yet again today, with this rule we have made in order every single amendment by either Republicans or Democrats that was germane to the underlying legislation to give us an opportunity to make this bill better.

Now, to be fair, Madam Speaker, H.R. 3521 is another example of bipartisanship in this House. It was introduced and sponsored by both the Republican chairman of the Budget Committee, Paul Ryan, and the Democratic ranking member, Mr. Van Hollen, another opportunity of things that we can do here in this new Congress to bring common sense to our budgeting process.

It's a bipartisan attempt, Madam Speaker, to provide both Congress and the President with all of the tools necessary to get our fiscal challenges under control. It exemplifies what can happen here in this body when we're willing to listen to folks back home and come together to try to make a difference here in Congress.

In the 111th Congress, Madam Speaker, nondefense discretionary spending was increased by almost 25 percent. This Congress, this body, working with the Senate, increased nondefense discretionary spending by almost 25 percent. Now, if your constituents are like mine, Madam Speaker, had they had that budget around their family dinner table, they could have found some items that they could have done without. In exchange for not putting their children and their grandchildren further and further and further in the hole, further and further and further under the mountain of debt that this country has run up, they could have found some things to cut.

Now, Congress in the past has tried to pass a line-item veto, line- item vetoes that I would have opposed had I been in Congress, Madam Speaker, because they transferred our authority, our authority here in the U.S. House of Representatives, to the executive branch. I'm opposed to that.

What we have today is not that process of days of old, not that process that has been tossed out by the Supreme Court as a violation of our House prerogatives; but what we have today is an expedited rescissions process that allows the President of the United States to go through those budget bills, those appropriation bills, those funding bills, to say, When I see this, it doesn't pass the smell test, let me give the Congress one more shot at it; send it back to Capitol Hill, where we accept it or reject it in its entirety.

I confess, Madam Speaker, I'm not thrilled about involving this President in budgeting decisions any more than is absolutely necessary. But given the nature of our challenges, it's not about this President or the previous President or the next President. It's about the American people. It's about what are we going to do to fulfill our responsibilities to keep America strong. This is one of those bills, Madam Speaker, that will provide another arrow in the quiver of fiscal responsibility to this Nation, and I believe it's one whose time has come.

Yesterday, we saw another bill in this budget reform process. Last week, we saw two other bills in this budget reform process. Each are coming to the floor, Madam Speaker, in as open and honest a process as we can bring the American people into this budget process, to make Congress' budget process as open and honest as it can be. As a proud member of the Rules Committee, Madam Speaker, and of the Budget Committee, I am here today in strong support of this rule and in strong support of the underlying resolution.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to thank the gentleman for his kind words about the underlying bill.

I say with the utmost sincerity that here in my freshman term in Congress, one of the Members I have enjoyed working with the most is Mr. Polis. You can always count on him in the Rules Committee to say something unexpected. You can't pigeonhole him as to where he's going to be on things because he's thoughtful about all of the issues. And I would hope that he would find that to be one of the highest compliments we can pay to a Member, to find a thoughtful Member here in this body, and it's certainly been my pleasure to work with him.

I agree with him that we can't pretend the deficit away. We can't use wacky numbers, I think was his word, to wish the deficit away, though we do have a difference of opinion about where that pretending comes from and where the wacky numbers come from.

As a member of the Budget Committee, I will tell you that the steps we're taking this year are changing a historical process of pretending the deficit away, bringing in real accounting, changing a historical process of generating wacky numbers and bringing in new, honest accounting.

But I also want to say this, Madam Speaker. As folks come to the floor to talk about whether or not we're actually saving any money today, whether we're cutting the budget today, whether we're creating jobs today, this is a Budget Committee bill.

As a member of the Budget Committee, I wish it were in my authority to cut spending and create jobs, because, by golly, I've got to tell you, I could do it, bring bills to the floor on a regular basis to promote those ideas. But it's not within the Budget Committee's authority.

What is in the Budget Committee's authority to do is craft the most honest numbers possible to share with the American people to describe what it is that we're doing with their tax dollars day in and day out. That's exactly what this legislation is designed to do. That's exactly what the other nine pieces of budget reform legislation the Budget Committee is moving, what they are designed to do.

It is really with great pride, again, as a new member to the Budget Committee, to have my colleague from Colorado say such nice things about this bipartisan work, about the hope that this presents for us moving forward, and I, too, hope we'll be able to build on that progress.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say that I appreciate the gentlelady's work. I know that her effort on the STOCK Act comes from the heart. I disagree with a lot of the underlying crafting of that bill, but I know that the effort is to solve a very real problem and to solve it in a very genuine way, and I am grateful to her for that.

At this time, Madam Speaker, I would like to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida, Sheriff Nugent, one of my freshman colleagues, who also comes to this issue with a pure heart and who has an alternative proposal here in the House to prevent insider trading, of which I am a strong supporter. He is also my colleague and seatmate in the Rules Committee.

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

I thank my friend for his kind comments. I know that Mr. Walz and Ms. Slaughter have been working for years and years on this proposal. And again, I have some issues with this proposal. I do believe that there are some better options out there. But I must speak up on behalf of the leadership in this House.

For Congress after Congress after Congress, Ms. Slaughter labored to bring this bill to the floor, labored to bring this bill to the floor to no avail, to no avail, through 4 years of democratically controlled Congresses--folks who have the deepest respect and admiration for the gentlelady and her legislation--failed to bring this legislation to the floor. And the rule we have here today does. It does. It's not the only way to bring this legislation to the floor. It's not even a requirement that the legislation come to the floor in this way. But what this rule does is it provides the first opportunity that this Congress has had to vote on the STOCK Act. Madam Speaker, that's not a topic for the gnashing of teeth. That's a topic for the clapping of hands.

If you believe in this bill, if you believe, as Mr. Walz said, that this may not be the end-all/be-all, but it's a step in that direction, if we can move a little today and a little tomorrow and a little beyond that to ultimately get to where we need to be, this is a step in the right direction.

As a member of the Budget Committee, Madam Speaker, it just happens to be my privilege that that opportunity was attached to the bottom of a budget rule because the truth is, the reason we are here today is not to talk about the STOCK Act and not to talk about ethics reform but to talk about budget process reform, budget process reform that was reported out of the Budget Committee in a bipartisan way, budget process reform that was sponsored by both the Republican chairman of the Budget Committee and the Democratic ranking member of the Budget Committee--budget process reform that makes sure that every little piece of the United States budget, every topic in an appropriations bill, doesn't just get examined in committee, doesn't just get examined on the House floor, doesn't just get examined at the White House, but gets examined one more time for those things that just don't pass the smell test, by coming back to this body for an up-or-down vote on that rescission.

I would inquire of my friend from Colorado if he has any speakers remaining?

Madam Speaker, I would inquire of my friend if he has any further requests for time.

I'm prepared to close as well.

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

It really is a source of pride for me as a Budget Committee member to be a part of this. This is an effort, much like the STOCK Act, that did not begin in this Congress. The Expedited Line-Item Veto is an effort that has been going on for almost two decades here in this body. And previous attempts, Madam Speaker, I would argue, were in fact an unconstitutional delegation of our responsibility here in the House to legislate delegating that responsibility to the President.

This underlying bill, however, looks less like a line-item veto and more like an expedited rescission, rescission authority that the President already has today, but ensures that when that rescission is presented, it actually gets a vote here on the House floor.

If these were wonderful economic times, Madam Speaker, I don't know if I would be as enthusiastic about this legislation, but these are dire economic times. Our budget challenges here have grown exponentially in my life time. And I think we must pull out every single stop that we can to make the situation better. Whether a little or whether a lot, every single opportunity we must seize. And this is one of those. I so appreciate, again, the work of Chairman Ryan and Ranking Member Van Hollen in bringing this forward.

But I would be remiss, Madam Speaker, if given all of the talk about the STOCK Act today, I didn't speak up just a little on behalf of my colleagues. I have served now 13 months as a Member of Congress. I see good and decent, hardworking men and women trying to do the very best that they can for their Nation. I see men and women from different parts of the country whose constituencies have different hopes and dreams, and those Members coming here to advocate for those hopes and dreams as best as they can. And I see a population back home that has lost all faith in those good men and women here in this body. And I wonder what we do here in this body to perpetuate that stereotype.

You know, the STOCK Act, Madam Speaker, has been characterized colloquially as the prevent-insider-trading-by-Members-of-Congress as if, as if Members of Congress are allowed to participate in insider trading today. And they are not. Insider trading was against the law yesterday, it was against the law a week ago, it was against the law a year ago, and it will still be against the law tomorrow. Do not let your constituents, Madam Speaker, believe for a minute that you have a right to insider trade when they don't. The laws of the land apply to us as well, and we owe it to this institution and we owe it to our constituents back home to tell them they are not being represented by a bunch of thieves and scoundrels, but they are being represented by their neighbors. Can we do even more? Must we do even more? We must.

Thirty-eight pages in the STOCK Act of new criminal regulations, new sanctions. If you got bribed last week, you're going to go to prison for a number of years. If you get bribed next week, you're going to go to prison for more years. Folks, don't get bribed. It was wrong yesterday; it is wrong tomorrow. It's not more wrong because we're deciding this here today.

We have a responsibility to do the job we have been entrusted to do, and we must punish the bad actors in this body, but we cannot let our constituents back home believe that this body cannot be saved. We cannot let our constituents back home believe that this body is being operated by folks who breach the public trust. We do America a disservice, Madam Speaker, when we allow that contention to go unchallenged.

Are there bad apples here in this Congress? I don't know if they are here today. I know they have been here in years past. And we've sent those folks to prison. There are bad apples in my church; we've sent those folks to prison, too.

This body is only as good as the American voter back home. And I tell you, Madam Speaker, if your district is like my district, the American voter back home is spectacular. The American voter back home is a man or woman of integrity. The American voter back home is a person with hopes and dreams for a better America tomorrow than we have today. We can deliver that on their behalf. We are the voice of those hopes and dreams in this body.

The kind of bipartisan work that we've done on the Expedited Line- Item Veto and Rescissions Act, I say that is exemplary. My colleague who chuckles, Madam Speaker, has been here longer than I. He's been here longer than I. I don't believe he's beyond saving, though. I think we can convince him that it's not a laughable matter to work together, that it's actually something that folks do. And I'm optimistic to be the carrier of that message today and tomorrow.

With that, let me again urge strong support for the rule. The rule both allows the Expedited Line-Item Veto bill to come to the floor, as well as provides an opportunity for the very first time a vote on the STOCK Act here in this body. I rise in strong support of that rule and in strong support of the underlying provision.

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

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

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 3521, the Expedited Legislative Line-Item Veto and Rescissions Act.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes.

I want to begin by thanking my friend, Chris Van Hollen, the ranking member of the Budget Committee. This is a collaborative effort. This is a bipartisan effort. It's not that often that we have a chance to do this. Mr. Chairman, I want to first thank the gentleman from Maryland for this collaborative effort. We believe whenever we can find the opportunity to reach across the aisle and work in a bipartisan fashion to go after wasteful spending we should do that, and that's what this effort is all about.

I also want to thank the staffers who put a lot of work in this: Paul Restuccia, Nicole Foltz, and Jon Romito on the majority side. I want to thank Tom Kahn, Gail Millar, and Ellen Balis, for their hard work on the minority side; Chairman Dreier at the Rules Committee; Congressman Hensarling, who has been one of the forefathers of this effort.

What this does is it is the expedited line-item veto and enhanced rescissions. This bill is constitutional, and I want to explain to Members why.

The 1996 line-item veto was ruled unconstitutional because it delegated legislative power to the executive branch. This does not do that. This is quite the opposite. This simply says, after an appropriations bill has been passed, within a short period of time, the President can send up a new rescissions proposal to the House and the Senate to consider rescinding spending from that bill, and we have to simply have the vote. We can't hide from the vote. We can't duck from the vote. We have to have the vote.

Here's why we're doing this, Mr. Chairman. Lots of bills from both parties over the years have had so many

miscellaneous provisions stuffed into them without seeing the light of day, whether they even pass the House or Senate or not. The President has to sign the whole bill or nothing at all. This gives us the ability to pull those miscellaneous provisions out, send them back to Congress and have them vote on them on their individual merits.

We believe what this will do will make every Member of Congress think twice before trying to insert, sometimes we call them airdrops or earmarks or pork or whatever you want to call it. We ought to have Members of Congress think twice that they might have to justify this provision on the spending bill on the merits by a stand-alone vote by their own peers. We think that act of sunshine, that act of transparency, that act of accountability will help improve the integrity of the spending process here in Congress.

I yield myself 30 additional seconds to simply say this bill is bipartisan, it's constitutional, and it is yet one more tool in several that we are bringing to the floor to restore trust, accountability, and transparency to the way we spend hardworking taxpayer dollars.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I would simply say that 44 State governments have the line-item veto in their constitution, but we're not proposing that here. We're proposing to keep the power of the purse with the legislative branch and not grant that to the executive branch. This bill does that.

With that, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arizona, a member of the Appropriations Committee, Mr. Flake.

I would simply say that the same majority that produces the appropriations bill can reject any rescission requests by the President in the same majority.

With that, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ribble), a member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds to simply say that what we are trying to do here is add another layer of transparency and accountability. When an appropriation bill comes to the floor--at least under this majority--it comes under an open rule, which means that any Member can open it up to amendment, and we can have those up-or-down votes on individual items under consideration in this bill.

But what happens after that moment, after a bill has passed the House, after a bill has passed the Senate and then it's conferenced, a bill comes to the floor, up or down, take it or leave it. Lots of things go into those bills in those moments between House and Senate passage and final conference report passage.

I yield myself an additional 10 seconds to say that this simply gives us that extra layer of accountability so that we can still consider individual items. And all we have to do if we don't approve of them is not pass them. We decide.

With that, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Manzullo).

At this time, Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock), a member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 seconds to simply say I agree with a lot of what the gentleman said. He's a good friend. We don't have all spending in this bill, but that doesn't mean don't go after some of the spending that's passed by Congress. This is the kind of spending Congress passes annually every year. I think it's a good step in the right direction.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the chairman of the House Republican Conference, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling), who is one of the fathers of this idea and of budget process reform.

Mr. Chairman, with that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Hurt).

Mr. Chairman, after that, I'd like to yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Lankford), a member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the remainder of our time.

Let me, first of all, say the gentleman left the floor, I believe, but Mr. Simpson, I want to thank him for a civil and spirited debate. This is not an attempt to go after one committee, the Appropriations Committee. And I understand that this committee might feel that way. This is an attempt to take one more step on behalf of the taxpayer to clean up the system on how we spend hardworking taxpayers' dollars.

Here's the issue, Mr. Chairman. When we pass large spending bills, we vote on things we're not even necessarily sure we're voting on. And I think the measure of success of this reform will not be measured by how many individual spending line items get voted out of spending by Congress, but how many items don't get put in these bills in the first place because this brings through to the final part of the process that extra level of transparency and accountability that has been lacking.

I'll take a provision authored by a Republican a few years ago as an example: $40 million, I think that's the number, for a rainforest museum in Iowa in a spending bill for Labor and Health that didn't go through the House, didn't go through the Senate, but came at the last minute.

And, yes, this Congress, through the rules of this House, is banning earmarks and airdrops, but who's to say they won't return under our new management some day?

I think it would be helpful to the process to say, you know what, if we're going to put $40 million for a rainforest museum without real consideration before the House and the Senate, we ought to think about that individually. Or, more importantly, if I'm a Member of Congress and I want to put something like this in a spending bill, I ought to think twice about whether or not I'm willing to defend this kind of spending in the light of day on an individual vote among my peers, because that could happen under this reform.

This is constitutional because the President signs this spending bill. He doesn't sign part of it. He doesn't rescind part of it. He signs it, and then this gives him the ability to create a new bill saying, vote on this piece of spending.

We have expedited procedures so we have to take a vote. It's no different than how Presidents send us trade agreements to vote on under expedited procedures.

We're not saying the President can take a part of a bill and not sign it and then send us this. No. We're saying the President signs a big spending bill and then, if he wants, he can write a new bill within a tight time window saying cancel that spending. Then Congress makes the decision, the House and the Senate, by a simple majority vote, both Houses. They get to decide whether or not to reaffirm or to spend that money.

All this does is it puts the taxpayer in front of turf, as my friend from Maryland says, and it gives Members of Congress the ability to have that extra layer of accountability and transparency so that at the end of the day we are always thinking of the taxpayer first and special interests second in the way we spend taxpayer dollars.

Will this fix all of our problems? No. But this, along with many other reforms we seek to bring to the floor, will hopefully turn the process by which we spend taxpayer dollars into one that is more accountable, more transparent, and more responsible.

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

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, I don't think we need to spend a lot of time on this.

This amendment makes technical revisions to certain procedures and definitions. The time period was reduced from 5 legislative days to 3 legislative days for the introduction of an approval bill in the motion to proceed. The amendment clarifies that approval bills are described as discretionary bills only. Additionally, it includes a procedure that provides for the consideration of an approval bill should the previous Congress end before an up-or-down vote.

All this simply does, Mr. Chairman, is clarify concerns raised by the Rules Committee so that we have consistent procedures and concerns by the minority that this bill simply does what it says it does and that it circumscribe to discretionary spending.

With that, I really have no other things to say other than I'd be happy to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, I won't take all of my time.

The gentleman says the Army Corps clearly provides an extremely important function, a very valid Federal function to our government, to our country. I rise in opposition only that we shouldn't be carving out exceptions.

The idea that we'll carve out an exception from appropriation bills for expedited rescission consideration to one government agency versus all of the other government agencies out there, I don't think that's a good precedent to set. What's to say that other agencies shouldn't be exempt in consideration? If Congress feels that these are important projects, which they clearly do when they pass these bills, then clearly they will affirm that if another vote ever does arise.

For the sake of consistency, for the sake of treating all agencies equal, I would urge a rejection of this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that, in the engrossment of H.R. 3521, the Clerk be authorized to correct section numbers, punctuation, and cross-references and to make such other technical and conforming changes as may be necessary to reflect the actions of the House.

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

Let me begin by thanking the chairman of the committee, Paul Ryan, and our staffs for working together in a cooperative and bipartisan manner on what I think is a very important piece of legislation to bring before the House.

While we have deep disagreements in this House over many policy issues, I know that we all agree that we should be responsible and careful stewards of taxpayer dollars. That's what this bill before us is all about. It creates new mechanisms for greater transparency and greater accountability in spending taxpayer dollars. I believe that it will, over time, result in a better use of those taxpayer dollars, and savings identified through this process will go to deficit reduction.

For those of us who believe that government can play a positive role in people's lives by creating opportunities, like investing in education for our kids, like strengthening our economy through investments in infrastructure--our roads, our bridges, broadband--by making key investments in scientific research, for those of us who believe that, it is especially important that taxpayers have confidence that their tax dollars are being used wisely. To the extent they don't believe that, it makes it more difficult to invest in the common good. So we should take every opportunity in this body to make sure those taxpayer dollars are being well spent.

Let's be clear about what this bill does and what it does not do.

As the chairman indicated, it does not give the President unilateral line-item authority. The Supreme Court ruled in 1996 that the line-item veto law that was passed by an earlier Congress was unconstitutional because it handed over that unilateral authority to the President of the United States. I think that was the right Court decision. I also think it was the right policy decision.

This approach is entirely different. It's different because it expressly requires congressional action before any savings, sometimes called rescissions, proposed by the President can take place. It simply requires Congress to consider and vote on the President's proposed savings. Congress, by a majority vote in each House, can support the President's recommended savings or reject those savings. In the end, Congress has the final say.

Now, I think everybody here knows we can do a better job in this Congress of scrutinizing spending bills. This bill provides a strong incentive to do that. Let's consider how the process worked just last December with the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2012.

That bill was over 1,200 pages long and included over a trillion dollars in spending. In fact, Mr. Chairman, I've got that bill right here. It was submitted to this House at 10:47 p.m. on December 15, 2011, and was voted on less than 15 hours later. No one can say they had an adequate opportunity to scrutinize that spending bill.

Let me mention a couple facts about that bill. It included in it nine separate appropriation bills rolled into one. Of those nine bills, four had not been reviewed or voted on by the full House. The House had never had a chance to look at them or vote on them. Two of them hadn't even had a vote in the Appropriations Committee. One of those two, the Labor-H bill, $160 billion in taxpayer money, not voted on even in Appropriations Committee. The Foreign Ops bill, not voted in Appropriations Committee. Only one of those nine was voted on in the United States Senate before that last-minute decision.

I want to make this clear. This is not a criticism of the Appropriations Committee. This is a criticism of the process that we've had in this Congress whether you have Democratic Houses in control or Republicans in control. What this bill does is try and provide a small fix to that process so that we have a little more scrutiny.

Under current law, the President can already propose savings, but under current law, the Appropriations Committee can totally ignore it. All this does is say let's take up those recommended savings in the light of day. Let's have an up-or-down vote in the United States Congress and, you know what, if we agree the President's identified additional savings, that will help reduce the deficit.

This is a good bill. It's a bipartisan bill, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida, a member of the Budget Committee, Ms. Castor.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch), who has spent a lot of time focusing on budget issues.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly), a former member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Barrow).

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

I thank the gentleman from Texas for his words. I just want to hark back to what the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole) said, who's in opposition to the bill, but he did make clear that in his opinion this bill is constitutional. I really think we should put that question aside.

As the chairman of the committee has pointed out on several occasions, Congress gets the last word on this issue. Congress gets an up-or-down majority vote. We're simply requiring that Congress take a vote on savings that the President recommends for the taxpayer. We believe we should do that in the light of day. It's a small step.

It's a little curious to hear one of the solutions offered from some of the folks opposed to this bill is to give the President even more authority. On the one hand they say, well, we shouldn't do this because you're giving the President too much leverage. The amendment they mention, of course, would give the President even more leverage over tax expenditures and mandatory spending, so I'm a little puzzled there.

Where I do agree with them is that if we're going to get a hold on this deficit situation, we've got to deal with mandatory spending as well, and we've got to deal with the revenue side of the equation--tax expenditures. And the bipartisan commissions, Simpson-Bowles, Rivlin- Domenici, all of them presented a more bipartisan framework for doing that. While I don't agree with every one of their recommendations, I think the framework they presented was the right one.

I would agree with the chairman of the committee, Mr. Ryan, here: just because we're not able to tackle the whole thing as part of this reform effort doesn't mean we shouldn't try and tackle a piece of it. And I think this is a small piece, but I think it's an important piece. I think it will have a positive impact on how this body approaches the appropriations bills.

Again, the way this process is driven now, it's not a criticism of the Appropriations Committee. They do the best they can under the rules as they exist now. What this bill does is just say let's have one more opportunity, an opportunity to take an up-or-down vote on savings that the President believes we can make toward deficit reduction. And it seems to me that's a positive step to take.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, this bill is an important, bipartisan measure. It has bipartisan support here in the House. It has strong bipartisan support in the Senate where it's introduced by Senator Carper and Senator McCain and has strong bipartisan co-sponsorship. It's supported by the Obama administration.

But Mr. Simpson is absolutely right: it's not the bipartisanship that makes this bill the right thing to do. It's the fact that it calls for greater transparency and greater accountability in our process. Everybody in this body has to concede that we can improve our budget process. Yes, we should work on the tax expenditure component. Yes, we should work on mandatory spending. Of course we should. But this is a simple bipartisan measure we can take to provide more transparency when it comes to over $1 trillion in discretionary spending.

And I go back to where I started. Just look at this bill, 1,200-plus pages. This House took less than 15 hours, less than 15 hours to review this bill. Now, given the fact that we didn't have adequate time to scrutinize this, I don't see anything wrong with saying that if the President of the United States, Republican or Democrat, identifies some savings we can make for the taxpayer that go to deficit reduction, that this Congress should have to vote on that. You don't have to say yes. You just have to vote, up or down.

And for those who argue otherwise, I have to say that I don't think putting turf over the taxpayer is a winning argument when it comes to dealing with our budget issues because, make no mistake, this is constitutional. It's been designed to be constitutional.

Mr. Young said I said it wasn't relevant that it's constitutional. That's not what I said. It's totally relevant that it's constitutional. And it's designed that way; Congress has the final say. That's what makes this constitutional.

Are we giving the President a little more power? Well, only if you say that it's more power to recommend to Congress some savings for the taxpayer and that we will then vote on them. It seems to me that's just basic responsibility. Well over a majority of Governors have total line-item authority. This is not line-item authority because it requires congressional vote and oversight.

So I would say that the process is broken. It's not broken because of the Appropriations Committee. They do incredible, hard work and put in lots of hours. But at the end of the day, we just saw last December, less than 15 hours to review 1,200 pages of appropriations bills. Who, in this body, can say that they looked at everything, they scrutinized everything, that we can't find any additional savings for the taxpayer for the purpose of deficit reduction?

So I ask my colleagues to support this bill, not because it's bipartisan, but it is; and I think that's an important reflection on the fact that people on both sides of the aisle, bringing their own independent judgment to bear on this, have concluded this would be in the best interest of the country.

But, in addition to that, because it does take one measured, responsible step toward improving a broken budget process, and my goodness, at the end of the day, that would be a good day's work in a bipartisan Congress if we could get that done.

I thank, again, the chairman of the committee, Mr. Ryan. I thank his staff and our staff, the Democratic staff on the committee, for working together.

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

Mr. Chairman, I have nothing to add to that and would urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers), the chairman of the full Appropriations Committee, an individual who is trying to do more to reform the appropriations process by bringing individual bills to the floor.

I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis), the former chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Minnesota (Ms. McCollum), a member of the Appropriations Committee and the Budget Committee.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert), a member of the Appropriations Committee and, more importantly, the Budget Committee.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), a member of the Appropriations Committee and the Budget Committee that marked this bill up.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington, the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, Mr. Dicks.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young).

Mr. Chairman, I would inquire--we're ready to close--how much time do I have remaining, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

I appreciate the fact that some of my good friends have a different opinion about this than I do, particularly Chairman Ryan and Mr. Van Hollen. I appreciate the bipartisanship with which they have worked on this issue; but I will tell you, bipartisanship does not make something right which is fundamentally wrong, and this is fundamentally wrong.

I also feel a little bit like Custer at the Little Big Horn. I know this is probably going to pass without much doubt, but it's still wrong.

For 200 years, as the gentleman from Alaska said, Congress has been shifting more and more authority to the administrative branch of government. We are doing it again with this legislation.

I keep hearing people talk about earmarks and airdropped provisions in appropriation bills. I would remind the Members, in the 2011 appropriation bill there were no earmarks, there were no airdrops. In the 2012 appropriation bills there were no earmarks, there were no airdrops. We have changed the way we do business around here.

Now, you might have had an argument several years ago when there were thousands of earmarks in the appropriation bill. That doesn't happen anymore. For the first time, we're trying to bring appropriation bills--for the first time in 5 years--bring appropriation bills to the floor under an open rule. We didn't get it all done last year. We ended up with an omnibus, as Mr. Van Hollen shows on his table. This year we are committed, given the floor time, we're going to bring every appropriation bill to the floor under an open rule so that every Member that has a problem with any provision can offer an amendment to have that removed.

It's been said that this is constitutional, Mr. Van Hollen said, so let's take that argument away. Not necessarily and not so quickly. In conversations with members of the third branch of government, the judiciary, they have concerns that this may be unconstitutional, because what's required now is that the President presents the judicial request for appropriations, but he can't change it. He just passes it on to Congress. This gives the President a say in line-iteming specific provisions in the judicial request, which may violate both U.S. Code and be unconstitutional.

So that question is still out there about the constitutionality of this. But I will tell you, in times of extraordinary circumstances, as we currently have, with a $15 trillion debt, and everyone wants to reduce that debt, nobody more than the members of the Appropriations Committee have reduced spending in the last 2 years. But in times of extraordinary circumstances, we often do unwise things in the name of trying to address that problem. Such is this bill.

Most Members have never negotiated an appropriation bill with the Senate. Let me tell you how it works. We would think that the President has no say in the appropriation process until we present him with a bill. When I was negotiating the Interior bill with the Senate, I was not negotiating with the Senate. I was negotiating with the White House. They did not approve anything that was not pre-approved by the administration.

And we made some deals, and we got some priorities of things that we, on the Republican side, think are important, and the President got some priorities that he thinks are important on his side. That's called legislating.

But now, what you are going to do is say, okay, you make those deals. You get an appropriation bill. There's going to be things in it I don't like. There's going to be things in it the administration doesn't like. There's going to be things in it that nobody in here likes.

But now you're going to give the President a second bite at the apple to break that deal. And do you think he's going to take those things that Democrats think are not their priorities and take them out of the bill? Of course not. He's going to take out Republican priorities and put them for a second vote. And a Republican President would do the same thing to the Democrats.

This is going to be partisan politics. And when you say it comes back for Congress to have a final say, once it comes back to overriding a veto or overriding a rescission, it then becomes political. You, on your side of the aisle, in this case, are going to say we have to support our President. That's what happens. That's the reality. We, on our side of the aisle, would say the same thing if it were a Republican President. That's just reality.

So what you're breaking down is that balance of power between the administrative branch of government and the legislative branch of government. This is, without a doubt, a step in the wrong direction.

Voting for this bill will not make you a budget hawk. And frankly, I don't think it will save any money. But it will make for some good press releases.

But don't go out and say that you've reduced Federal spending, and you've taken wasteful spending out of the

Federal budget by passing this bill. You haven't. What you've done is said, I'm willing to sacrifice the legislative authority that was given to us in the Constitution and shift more power to the administrative branch of government.

Do you honestly believe that the Founding Fathers would recognize what they built in the Constitution? Do you really think that they would look at the administrative branch of government and say we wanted this kind of Presidency and a weak legislative branch? I don't think so.

This is a bad bill. I would vote it down if I were you.

I yield back the balance of my time.