Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 1) making appropriations for the Department of Defense and the other departments and agencies of the Government for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2011, and for other purposes, and waiving a requirement of clause 6(a) of rule XIII with respect to consideration of certain resolutions reported from the Committee on Rules.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Georgia for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor today still waiting for the majority to give us a chance to vote on legislation that will create jobs. We are now 6 weeks into the 112th Congress, and we have yet to see a jobs bill from the Republican majority. It's high time the majority party allows us to debate and vote on legislation to get Americans back to work. Instead today, we are debating dangerous and reckless legislation that will cut American jobs and seriously threaten our ability to build upon our fragile economic recovery.

At a time when many Americans are still struggling to find employment, the Republican majority proposes a spending bill that ends construction projects, takes police off the street, and halts innovation that spurs job creation. This stands in stark contrast to the President's 2012 budget proposal that lowers our Nation's deficit and creates jobs for Americans by investing in national priorities like education, infrastructure, and emerging energy technology.

Unlike some within the Republican Party, the American people are not looking to completely cripple the Federal Government and leave the Nation to the corporate elite. Americans have repeatedly expressed a desire to make smart investments in our national priorities that leave our country more competitive now and into the future, and I stand today with the American people.

The Republicans' slash-and-burn budget does nothing to achieve this goal. It even cuts the most fundamental public services, ending policing programs and defunding educational reform efforts here in the United States. As nations like China and India pour money into the research and development of solar panels, wind power, and high-speed trains, creating thousands of jobs for their citizens, the Republican majority is removing the most fundamental investments in comparable American jobs. This reckless approach not only destroys jobs today but also in the months and years to come.

This is a critical time in America's history, and if we are to compete with nations like China to create jobs in the United States and win the global marketplace, we must support our own Nation with smart, targeted cuts that will lower the deficit but invest in American jobs.

As I said, 6 weeks into the new Congress, and we are still waiting to see this smart, targeted plan to get Americans back to work. Instead, we see this hastily drawn up CR that takes a meat axe to the middle class. And as America waits, the global economy moves ahead, leaving us behind.

As the 112th Congress was sworn into office, we were bombarded with promises that an open and transparent process would make a triumphant return to this House floor. But as we now consider our first appropriations bill, we continue to stand here waiting for that grand return.

Mr. Speaker, while this rule may have the word ``open'' in the title, I assure you this is not an open process. Through last-minute changes, convoluted parliamentary maneuvers, and a pre-printing requirement, the Republican majority has provided an extremely convoluted and restrictive process.

An open rule means that as the legislative process proceeds, as an amendment passes, it may spark an idea for an amendment that another Member may choose to offer with the changes that are made in the legislation. This rule takes away that ability.

Also, the Republicans adopted, in a party-line vote at 9 p.m. last night, a parliamentary sleight of hand that blocks the transfer of any money from one part of government to another. This means you cannot use an offset from one part of the bill to increase spending in a different part. In all my years serving in Congress, I have never seen such a blanket prohibition, and yet the leadership would have us believe this is an ``open process'' and that this is ``regular order.''

To top it all off, Republicans have even given themselves an escape hatch with a martial-law provision of the rule which will allow them to report out a new rule for H.R. 1 that shuts down the amendment process without the normal 1-day waiting period.

This convoluted process has once again illustrated that the Republican Party continues to believe that claiming the sky is green will make it so. The truth is, you can't create jobs with a press release. You can't fix the Nation's health care system with a clever tag line, and you can't create an open and transparent Congress by creating an open rule in name only.

My fellow Democratic colleagues and I are committed to living within our means, while investing in the programs and policies that will help our country compete and win the global future. The Republican majority's continuing resolution couldn't be more dangerous to these values that we all hold dear.

I urge my colleagues to stand up for our communities, support legislation that creates jobs, strengthens the middle class while reducing our deficit. Today's CR does not meet this threshold and, as a result, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on today's rule.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds just to say that what I really would love to see us debating today is how we're going to get out of Afghanistan and stop paying 8 billion borrowed dollars a month for that.

Also, in an editorial printed today, The New York Times said what I think a lot of us are saying, that this bill will cut vital government functions and not have any lasting impact on the deficit.

[From the New York Times, Feb. 14, 2011]

The Obama Budget

On paper, President Obama's new $3.7 trillion budget is

encouraging. It makes a number of tough choices to cut the

deficit by a projected $1.1 trillion over 10 years, which is

enough to prevent an uncontrolled explosion of debt in the

next decade and, as a result, reduce the risk of a fiscal

crisis.

The questions are whether its tough choices are also wise

choices and whether it stands a chance in a Congress in which

Republicans, who now dominate the House, are obsessed with

making indiscriminate short-term cuts in programs they never

liked anyway. The Republican cuts would eviscerate vital

government functions while not having any lasting impact on

the deficit.

What Mr. Obama's budget is most definitely not is a

blueprint for dealing with the real long-term problems that

feed the budget deficit: rising health care costs, an aging

population and a refusal by lawmakers to face the inescapable

need to raise taxes at some point. Rather, it defers those

critical issues, in hopes, we assume, that both the economy

and the political environment will improve in the future.

For the most part, Mr. Obama has managed to cut spending

while preserving important government duties. That approach

is in stark contrast to Congressional Republicans, who are

determined to cut spending deeply, no matter the

consequences.

A case in point: the Obama budget's main cut--$400 billion

over 10 years--is the result of a five-year freeze in

nonsecurity discretionary programs, a slice of the budget

that contains programs that are central to the quality of

American lives, including education, environment and

financial regulation.

But the cuts are not haphazard. The budget boosts education

spending by 11 percent over one year and retains the current

maximum level of college Pell grants--up to $5,500 a year. To

offset some of the costs, the budget would eliminate Pell

grants for summer school and let interest accrue during

school on federal loans for graduate students, rather than

starting the interest meter after graduation.

Those are tough cutbacks, but, over all, the Pell grant

program would continue to help close to nine million

students. The Republican proposal would cut the Pell grant

program by 15 percent this year and nearly half over the next

two years.

The Obama budget also calls for spending on green energy

programs--to be paid for, in part, by eliminating $46 billion

in tax breaks for oil, gas and coal companies over the next

decade. Republicans are determined not to raise any taxes,

even though investing for the future and taming the deficit

are impossible without more money.

The budget would also increase transportation spending by

$242 billion over 10 years. It does not specifically call for

an increased gas tax to cover the new costs, though it calls

on Congress to come up with new revenues to offset the new

spending. Republicans want to eliminate forward-looking

programs like high-speed rail.

The budget is responsible in other ways. It would cap the

value of itemized deductions for high-income taxpayers and

use the savings to extend relief from the alternative minimum

tax for three years so that the tax does not ensnare millions

of middle- and upper-middle-income taxpayers for whom it was

never intended. For nearly a decade, Congress has granted

alternative minimum tax relief without paying for it.

House Republicans want to leave military spending out of

their budget-cutting entirely, but Mr. Obama's budget reduces

projected Pentagon spending by $78 billion over five years.

If anything, Mr. Obama could safely have proposed cutting

deeper, as suggested by his own bipartisan deficit panel.

The bill for the military is way too high, above cold-war

peak levels, when this country had a superpower adversary.

There's a point where the next military spending dollar does

not make our society more secure, and it's a point we long

ago passed.

Mr. Obama's budget also includes a responsible way to head

off steep cuts in what Medicare pays doctors. It would

postpone the cuts for two years and offset that added cost

with $62 billion in other health care savings, like expanding

the use of cheaper generic drugs.

But not all of Mr. Obama's cuts are acceptable. The

president is proposing a reduction by nearly half in the

program that provides assistance to low-income families to

pay for home heating bills. Shared sacrifice need not involve

the very neediest.

Ideally, budget cuts would not start until the economic

recovery is more firmly entrenched. But the deficit is a

pressing political problem. The Obama budget is balanced

enough to start the process of deficit reduction, but not so

draconian that it would derail the recovery.

The same cannot be said for the plan put forward by

Republicans last week. It would amputate some of government's

most vital functions for the next seven months of fiscal year

2011. (They haven't even gotten to next year yet, never mind

the more distant future).

Real deficit reduction will require grappling with rising

health care costs and an aging population, which means

reforms in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, as well as

tax increases to bring revenues in line with obligations.

Mr. Obama's budget does not directly address those big

issues, but doing so would require a negotiating partner, and

Mr. Obama, at present, does not have one among the Republican

leaders in Congress. His latest budget is a good starting

point for a discussion--and a budget deal--but only if

Republicans are willing participants in the process.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis), a member of the Rules Committee.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).

Mr. Speaker, I am honored to yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from California, the Democratic leader, Ms. Pelosi.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds to just say, in a column printed Sunday in The New York Times, prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said the bill will sacrifice the future. He also said, ``Republicans don't have a mandate to cut spending; they have a mandate to repeal the laws of arithmetic.''

[From the New York Times, Feb. 13, 2011]

Eat the Future

(By Paul Krugman)

On Friday, House Republicans unveiled their proposal for

immediate cuts in federal spending. Uncharacteristically,

they failed to accompany the release with a catchy slogan. So

I'd like to propose one: Eat the Future.

I'll explain in a minute. First, let's talk about the

dilemma the G.O.P. faces.

Republican leaders like to claim that the midterms gave

them a mandate for sharp cuts in government spending. Some of

us believe that the elections were less about spending than

they were about persistent high unemployment, but whatever.

The key point to understand is that while many voters say

that they want lower spending, press the issue a bit further

and it turns out that they only want to cut spending on other

people.

That's the lesson from a new survey by the Pew Research

Center, in which Americans were asked whether they favored

higher or lower spending in a variety of areas. It turns out

that they want more, not less, spending on most things,

including education and Medicare. They're evenly divided

about spending on aid to the unemployed and--surprise--

defense.

The only thing they clearly want to cut is foreign aid,

which most Americans believe, wrongly, accounts for a large

share of the federal budget.

Pew also asked people how they would like to see states

close their budget deficits. Do they favor cuts in either

education or health care, the main expenses states face? No.

Do they favor tax increases? No. The only deficit-reduction

measure with significant support was cuts in public-employee

pensions--and even there the public was evenly divided.

The moral is clear. Republicans don't have a mandate to cut

spending; they have a mandate to repeal the laws of

arithmetic.

How can voters be so ill informed? In their defense, bear

in mind that they have jobs, children to raise, parents to

take care of. They don't have the time or the incentive to

study the federal budget, let alone state budgets (which are

by and large incomprehensible). So they rely on what they

hear from seemingly authoritative figures.

And what they've been hearing ever since Ronald Reagan is

that their hard-earned dollars are going to waste, paying for

vast armies of useless bureaucrats (payroll is only 5 percent

of federal spending) and welfare queens driving Cadillacs.

How can we expect voters to appreciate fiscal reality when

politicians consistently misrepresent that reality?

Which brings me back to the Republican dilemma. The new

House majority promised to deliver $100 billion in spending

cuts--and its members face the prospect of Tea Party primary

challenges if they fail to deliver big cuts. Yet the public

opposes cuts in programs it likes--and it likes almost

everything. What's a politician to do?

The answer, once you think about it, is obvious: sacrifice

the future. Focus the cuts on programs whose benefits aren't

immediate; basically, eat America's seed corn. There will be

a huge price to pay, eventually--but for now, you can keep

the base happy.

If you didn't understand that logic, you might be puzzled

by many items in the House G.O.P. proposal. Why cut a billion

dollars from a highly successful program that provides

supplemental nutrition to pregnant mothers, infants, and

young children? Why cut $648 million from nuclear

nonproliferation activities? (One terrorist nuke, assembled

from stray ex-Soviet fissile material, can ruin your whole

day.) Why cut $578 million from the I.R.S. enforcement

budget? (Letting tax cheats run wild doesn't exactly serve

the cause of deficit reduction.)

Once you understand the imperatives Republicans face,

however, it all makes sense. By slashing future-oriented

programs, they can deliver the instant spending cuts Tea

Partiers demand, without imposing too much immediate pain on

voters. And as for the future costs--a population damaged by

childhood malnutrition, an increased chance of terrorist

attacks, a revenue system undermined by widespread tax

evasion--well, tomorrow is another day.

In a better world, politicians would talk to voters as if

they were adults. They would explain that discretionary

spending has little to do with the long-run imbalance between

spending and revenues. They would then explain that solving

that long-run problem requires two main things: reining in

health-care costs and, realistically, increasing taxes to pay

for the programs that Americans really want.

But Republican leaders can't do that, of course: they

refuse to admit that taxes ever need to rise, and they spent

much of the last two years screaming ``death panels!'' in

response to even the most modest, sensible efforts to ensure

that Medicare dollars are well spent.

And so they had to produce something like Friday's

proposal, a plan that would save remakably little money but

would do a remarkably large amount of harm.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my fellow New Yorker (Mr. Bishop).

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 92 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

General Leave

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

Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 92 provides for a modified open rule for consideration of H.R. 1. This bill reaffirms our commitment to fiscal responsibility by implementing two main pillars of our pledge to America: to cut discretionary spending and to ensure an open and bipartisan debate.

If you had told me 6 months ago that I would have been standing here on the floor of the House handling my very first rule on the floor of the House and that we would have been succeeding on two pillars of the pledge to America, I would have told you that might have been wishful thinking. But we have come together as a House, not as Republicans, not as Democrats, but as a House to bring this process forward today.

Now, you know, Mr. Speaker, as an experienced Member of the Rules Committee in a former life, how unusual it is to have an open process on a continuing resolution. I daresay, even the dean of the House, the gentleman from Michigan, has not seen a continuing resolution come to the floor under the open process that we're bringing it to the floor under today. And that's important, because as I listened to 1-minutes this morning, and I heard some folks on the left and heard some folks on the right who weren't quite happy with the way H.R. 1 turned out, that was an important consideration over the past 4 years, even over the past 10 years, over the past 20 years, because if you weren't happy with the way a continuing resolution turned out when leadership brought it to the floor, too bad for you. You didn't have a voice. You didn't have a vote. You didn't have a process. It was take it or leave it. Whether it was Republican leadership or whether it was Democratic leadership, take it or leave it. In the 112th Congress, our new leadership said we can do better, we have to do better, and the American people deserve better. And today, we are fulfilling that promise.

This open process will allow any Member, Republican or Democrat, to come to the floor today, tomorrow, bring their amendments to the floor so that they can say, We don't think you got it right. My 600,000 constituents back home want to make a change. We think we can do better. We think you did too much. We think you didn't do enough. The first time a continuing resolution has come to the floor in this open process. I ran on that commitment of openness, Mr. Speaker, and I believe in that commitment of openness.

I can't tell you how many times I said that if Speaker Nancy Pelosi rammed a bill through in the middle of the night, that was wrong. And if Speaker Newt Gingrich rammed a bill through in the middle of the night, that was wrong. That right and wrong are not partisan issues. Right and wrong are American issues. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed our Rules Committee hearing last night, Mr. Speaker, where we had the ranking member and the chairman of the Appropriations Committee come forward, lay out competing views about where they think we should take spending in this country, and then agree to come to the floor over the next several days to offer amendments, to work through that process, to make sure that at the end of the day, no longer do we have a take-it-or-leave-it leadership bill from either side of the aisle; that at the end of the day, we have a bill that was truly the work product of this new 112th Congress of this people's House. And it's just with tremendous pride, Mr. Speaker, that I take part in this debate today.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, you've caught me both on my first rule on the floor and a day where I am just so pleased to be here because of the things that are going on here today, because of the changes that I believe in, both in terms of fiscal responsibility and in terms of openness here in the process.

Now, I understand this rule isn't going to make everyone happy. It doesn't make me happy because we're only here today, and it's been very confusing for folks back home, Mr. Speaker. We talked so much about receiving the President's budget on Capitol Hill yesterday. Of course, that was his budget for FY 2012. We're still here working on the budget for 2011. This is the fifth continuing resolution that we've had to try to get that process right, and it's the first one since I've been sworn in that we've been involved in.

Now, I can tell you, as much of a voice as you have in this continuing resolution today, we have not seen this much debate or this many amendments in the last four continuing resolutions combined. In fact, I'm told that last night more than 400 amendments were filed to be eligible to come to the floor.

Now, I hear from my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle, for whom I have deep respect and admiration, that they believe this bill was put together in a hasty process. I'll tell you, we've been working on this bill day and night for weeks.

But then I hear from my friends that they're disappointed that we have a pre-printing requirement to allow for the thoughtful consideration of amendments, and they would rather it just be a willy- nilly process that happens here on the floor as folks come up with good ideas, one by one.

Well, I'll tell you, I look forward to that process. I very much hope we can have that as the appropriations bills move forward.

But, folks, this is a time of urgency. We have troops in harm's way overseas. We have economic development projects going on around this country that have no idea after March 4 whether there will be a single nickel available to support their cause. No idea. It is no way to run a government. And, again, to put credit where credit is due and blame where blame resides, both parties, over the last decade, have been guilty of this horrendous practice of bringing continuing resolutions to the floor.

Today we bring forward a bill that will put a stop to this process, that will get us through the end of 2011 and allow us to go through regular order to bring the remaining appropriations bills to the floor. And it's a process I very much look forward to.

I see my friend Mr. McGovern in the Chamber this morning. He and I had a discussion last night in the Rules Committee about how to go after some, what I would call, egregious tax subsidies, those things that happen on the tax side of the ledger that shouldn't happen. I believe in a fair code. I believe in a code that's transparent, that people understand. You'll see my fair tax pin that I'm wearing here today. I believe in fundamental tax reform.

But today we only have a chance to talk about FY 2011 spending. I want to have that discussion about fundamental tax reform. I want to have the discussion that the gentlelady from New York wants to have about entitlement reform because I know precisely what my colleagues know, which is if we're going to be serious about budgets, that's where the dollars are, that's where the growth is, that's where the change has to come.

But today we have, because it's an open process, simply one bill that we can deal with, simply one idea that we can deal with, and that one idea is spending for FY 2011.

It would have been easy, Mr. Speaker, for this new House to have punted on making tough decisions. It would have been perfectly legitimate for this new House to say, we didn't cause this problem, we inherited this problem from last year's Congress, and we're just going to continue a continuing resolution on until the end of the year because we don't have the time or the commitment to start making tough choices. But we didn't. And I'm just so proud that we didn't.

What we said is, we have 7 months left in the year. Let's start right now. Let's start right now; and let's lay these ideas out one by one by one, not in big general terms, but in specifics, line item by line item by line item across literally thousands of appropriations accounts.

And we didn't say it's my way or the highway, Mr. Speaker. We said, if you have a better idea, if you have a better idea, come to the floor and let's talk about it. If you have a better idea, if we did too much here, tell us where we did too much and tell us how we can do better. And if we did too little here, tell us where we did too little and tell us how we can make it better.

I so look forward, at the end of this rules consideration, as we pass this rule and move forward in the general debate, to being able to engage in those amendments one by one, not in a back room somewhere, not off in the corner where it's just the leadership involved, but here on the floor of the people's House, for all of America to see, line item by line item by line item about where our priorities are.

Now, I'll tell you, Mr. Speaker, you know, as I know, that every nickel we collect in Federal revenue today goes to fund entitlements and service our national debt. And every nickel that we spend on every program we're going to talk about today, every program on the discretionary side, on the non-defense discretionary side, is a nickel that we borrow.

So when we talk about are these things good to do, I promise you that that's not where my heart is today. I know there are some good programs out here that are doing good things. What I also know is we're borrowing every nickel to fund those programs from our children and our grandchildren. When we talk about priorities, one of those priorities is paying for what it is we commit this Nation to.

Again, my good friend Mr. McGovern was very persuasive last night when he said, for Pete's sake, they are programs I don't agree with; but dadgummit, if we're going to be involved in them, we ought to fund them; and I couldn't agree with him more. That's hard.

We received the President's budget just yesterday; and over a 10-year window, our systemic deficit never falls below 3 percent of GDP. We don't even qualify to join the European Union. We are so devoid of fiscal responsibility at this point in our Nation's history that we do not even qualify to join the European Union. I tell you, Mr. Speaker,

that's a low standard. We should do better. We should do better. We can do better. We brought H.R. 1 to the floor today, this rule, we'll bring it to the floor this afternoon so that we can do better.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf).

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield 2 minutes to the hardworking member of the Appropriations Committee, the gentleman from Georgia, Jack Kingston.

I am pleased to yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I am proud to yield 2 minutes to a hardworking member of the Appropriations Committee, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen).

Mr. Speaker, at this time I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Latham).

Will the gentleman yield?

I appreciate the gentleman's yielding. As a newcomer here to the U.S. House of Representatives, I would certainly defer to the Parliamentarian; but I'm encouraging everyone to bring every amendment. Bring every amendment, Congressman, to the House floor and offer that amendment for debate and discussion.

I would say to the gentleman that having an open process and abiding by the rules of the House is critical to getting our work done. And if the rules of the House permit this amendment, I look forward to supporting it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to yield 3 minutes to a true American patriot, a lover of this country, the gentleman from Iowa, Mr. Steve King.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the freedom-loving State of Idaho (Mr. Simpson).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Emerson).

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the chairman of the Rules Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier).

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

Mr. Speaker, I will say again, I can't believe that here on my first rule we have an open process; for the first time in the history of this House, the best I can tell, an open process on a continuing resolution. Now, we're only dealing with this continuing resolution because of the mess we were left in last year, and we're doing the very best we can with it.

You've heard words like ``draconian,'' ``decimates,'' ``slashes.'' I want to put it in terms that I think we can all understand. I want you to think about it in terms of your family grocery budget, Mr. Speaker. If you went to the grocery store today and bought your groceries for a month, our friends on the other side would have you believe that we want you to fast for an entire day, because that's about what it is, this $100 billion, about 1 day out of a month's grocery budget.

But if you took that 30 days of groceries and you spread those 30 days around--and that's what we do under an open process. We let you spread it around--add where you want to add; cut where you want to cut; spread that around. Can we do that? Can we do that as a very first step towards getting our fiscal house in order? Not only can we do it, Mr. Speaker, we must do it.

I'm grateful to the leadership for allowing us to do it. I urge a strong ``yes'' vote on the rule.

The text of the material previously referred to by Mr. McGovern is as follows:

An Amendment to H. Res. 92 Offered by Mr. McGovern of Massachusetts

At the end of the resolution, add the following new

sections:

Sec. 4. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution the

Speaker shall, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare

the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on

the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R.

11) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to extend the

Build America Bonds program. The first reading of the bill

shall be dispensed with. All points of order against

consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be

confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally

divided and controlled by the Majority Leader and Minority

Leader or their respective designees. After general debate

the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-

minute rule. All points of order against provisions in the

bill are waived. At the conclusion of consideration of the

bill for amendment the Committee shall rise and report the

bill to the House with such amendments as may have been

adopted. The previous question shall be considered as ordered

on the bill and amendments thereto to final passage without

intervening motion except one motion to recommit with or

without instructions. If the Committee of the Whole rises and

reports that it has come to no resolution on the bill, then

on the next legislative day the House shall, immediately

after the third daily order of business under clause 1 of

rule XIV, resolve into the Committee of the Whole for further

consideration of the bill.

Sec. 5. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the

consideration of the bill specified in section 4 of this

resolution.

(The information contained herein was provided by the

Republican Minority on multiple occasions throughout the

110th and 111th Congresses.)

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in very strong opposition to this rule and to the underlying continuing resolution.

The spending bill that the Republican leadership is bringing before the House today is reckless, thoughtless, and heartless; and, most disturbingly, it's a jobs killer. I believe that the best way to reduce our deficit and long-term debt is to grow our economy, to help businesses create jobs.

At a time when our economy is emerging from the worst recession in our lifetimes, when millions of Americans are out of work and millions more are struggling to make ends meet, this continuing resolution takes exactly the wrong approach.

Instead of making needed investments in education, medical research, infrastructure, and other priorities, this bill takes a meat axe to them. Instead of strengthening the middle class on Main Street, this bill gives sweetheart deals for Wall Street. Instead of investing in our workers, it protects special interest subsidies for big oil companies and hedge fund managers.

A few weeks ago on this floor, Republicans told us that veterans programs, education, child nutrition, and health care research would be protected. It is clear now that those were empty promises, Mr. Speaker.

For veterans, the bill eliminates a program that offers housing vouchers for homeless veterans. In education, the bill decimates the Pell Grant program by reducing the maximum award by $800 and by cutting another $4.9 billion from other education programs. For child nutrition, the bill cuts $750 million from the Women, Infants, and Children's program. And the bill slashes $2.5 billion from the National Institutes of Health, jeopardizing important research into diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's and diabetes. It destroys the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a commonsense program to preserve and protect our natural resources and outdoor recreational space, helping local economies grow.

Mr. Speaker, when we brought up the prospect of these cuts a few weeks ago, we were accused of demonizing the debate. Now that we have seen the numbers before us, I am sad to say it is worse than any of us could have predicted.

I find the cuts in education funding to be particularly troublesome. As President Obama made clear in his State of the Union, we must invest in our children if we are to compete in the 21st century economy. In order to maintain our economic standing, in order to create the jobs of the future, in order to compete against China, we must have a well- educated workforce. So why on Earth would we slash Pell Grants, which help millions of families, 12,000 in my district alone, pay for college? We shouldn't.

This bill will also decimate important lifesaving food aid programs to feed hungry children and refugees. It would literally take the food out of the mouths of some of the most vulnerable people around the world. Mr. Speaker, retreating from the global war against extreme poverty and hunger will undermine not just our moral authority but our national security as well.

I also want to point out that this bill continues the same misguided policy under Republican and Democratic Presidents alike that borrows hundreds of billions of dollars to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If we are truly serious about reducing the deficit, then those wars need to be ended or paid for. Along with my colleagues like Walter Jones and others, I'm going to continue to talk about this issue. These wars are bankrupting us, and we need to have a meaningful, thorough debate about them.

So again, Mr. Speaker, I believe this continuing resolution contains exactly the wrong prescription for our Nation. We should be focusing on creating jobs and growing our economy. Instead, this Republican bill would lead to more unemployment, more unfairness, and more hardship with the American people.

I urge my colleagues to reject this rule and reject this underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, my friends on the other side of the aisle talk about the need to be fiscally responsible. I tried last night to offer an amendment in the Rules Committee that would simply say that we should pay for the war in Afghanistan, that we should not continue to borrow the money. Last year, we borrowed $450 billion. That went onto the credit card. And that means our kids and grandkids will have to bear that burden. That amendment was not made in order. I couldn't offer that amendment.

We talked last night about the giveaways to big oil companies and the need to get at those subsidies. The way the bill is written, we can't do it. We can't do it. So it's not so open.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

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

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations.

I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly).

Mr. Speaker, I would like to have entered into the Record a statement as to why this is not an open rule and about the restrictions that are on Members who are wishing to offer amendments.

What's Wrong With a Modified Open Rule?

A modified open rule such as this one imposes several restrictions on Members wishing to offer amendments:

It stifles the free flow of debate by preventing Members from offering amendments inspired by the debate or by other amendments.

Several years ago Chairman Dreier succinctly explained why an open rule is superior to a modified open rule. He said: ``An open rule means that as the legislative process proceeds, as an amendment passes, it can spark an idea for an amendment that another Member may choose to offer with the changes that are made in the legislation.''

A modified open rule also limits Members' ability to respond to changes on the floor that would require redrafting an amendment.

And the rule in front of us goes even further than any modified open rule I've ever seen by adding the unprecedented provision that prohibits using offsets from one subcommittee allocation to transfer funds to a different subcommittee allocation.

The rule finally provides for same day consideration of another rule for H.R. 1, which will allow the Republican Majority to report out a new rule shutting down the amendment process and take it to the floor that very same day. We haven't even begun debate, and already Republicans have prepared to further restrict this supposedly open process.

I think Chairman Dreier said it best just last month when describing a rule even less restrictive than this one. He said: ``This is not an open rule. I want to make it very clear to all my colleagues again: This is not an open rule.''

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, Democrats very much want to eliminate wasteful spending. We are committed to making the tough choices to get this budget more balanced, to get our deficit reduced, and start paying down the debt. That's not the issue. The issue is where do you make those cuts.

My friends on the other side of the aisle talked about shared sacrifice. Well, the only people that seem to be sacrificing under their approach are middle-income families and the poorest of the poor in our country. A few weeks ago, at their insistence, millionaires and billionaires got an extension of the Bush tax cuts at a cost of billions of dollars in terms of more borrowed money added on to our deficit. So the

Donald Trumps of the world are not sacrificing.

Big Oil is not sacrificing. Just to put it into perspective that BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell made a combined profit of over $1 trillion during this past decade, and yet taxpayers are subsidizing Big Oil companies. Why? And for all the talk about how open this rule is, we can't come up with an amendment that is germane or that will be made in order to go after the subsidies because they are protected.

I mentioned, earlier, the war. We borrowed $450 billion last year. Our soldiers are sacrificing, their families are sacrificing, and we're not paying for the war. We're just putting it on our credit card. That is unconscionable, and yet an amendment is not eligible to be brought up to insist that we pay for this war.

So where do they cut? Education, more than 200,000 kids kicked out of Head Start and thousands of teachers would lose their jobs. An $800 reduction per student in the maximum Pell Grant award. Innovation, 20,000 fewer researchers supported at the National Science Foundation trying to find a cure to cancer; a $1.4 billion reduction in science and energy research to spur a clean energy economy of the future; $2.5 billion in cuts to the National Institutes of Health, again, trying to find cures for diseases like cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's. If we found a cure for Alzheimer's, we would never have another problem with Medicaid again. Yet you are cutting back on those important investments. High-speed rail being cut back. A loss of 25,000 construction jobs if your bill becomes law. You're cutting cops and firefighters, and yet we're protecting the very wealthy in this country. We're protecting subsidies to major oil and gas companies. It is just wrong, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I would urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question so that I can offer an amendment to the rule to provide that, immediately after the House adopts this is rule, it will bring up H.R. 11, the Build America Bonds to Create Jobs Now Act.

Unlike the irresponsible bill the Republicans want to bring up, which will cut jobs, threaten American innovation, and slash initiatives that create economic growth, this bill will spur job creation here at home by extending through 2012 the successful Build America Bonds to help State and local governments finance the rebuilding of American schools and hospitals, water systems and transit projects at significantly lower costs.

It has been calculated that every $1 billion in Federal funds invested in infrastructure creates or sustains approximately 35,000 jobs and $6.2 billion in economic activity.

Build America Bonds are broadly supported by American business, the construction industry, and President Obama, as well as State and local governments. And at a time of fiscal restraint, they're a good deal for the American taxpayer, wisely using small public investments to leverage significant private funds to rebuild America and create jobs.

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

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question so that we can debate and pass real jobs legislation. The American people want us to talk about jobs and how to create jobs and protect jobs. This will do it.

So I urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question and a ``no'' vote on the rule.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, Americans' top priority is creating jobs. But six weeks into the 112th Congress, the Republican leadership has yet to bring a single, solitary jobs bill to the floor.

Once again, we are here today to exercise one of our primary constitutional responsibilities as members of Congress--to pass appropriations legislation to fund the many basic

and essential programs the federal governments, on which millions of Americans rely. Today is an incredible opportunity, for Republicans and Democrats to work together--to bridge the gap between parties and talking points--and pass a bill that meets our shared goals of creating jobs, building our infrastructure, and strengthening our economy.

Sadly, the Republican leaders have brought to the floor a continuing resolution that jeopardizes American jobs and our economic future by rolling back investments that will help our private sector grow and put people back to work. It thoughtlessly makes extreme cuts to appease an extreme wing of their party, at the expense of the American people.

Education

Mr. Chair, building an excellent public education system that provides each and every child the opportunity to succeed is the single greatest investment we can make to secure our nation's future--an investment that I have devoted much of my life to support and achieve. From Preschool to K-12 to Higher Education, Republican cuts would undermine our global economic standing by denying opportunity to students, who depend on the government for their education.

As President Obama said in his state of the union address, it's not just about ``how we cut'' but ``what we cut.'' Education is an investment in our future, and we can't sacrifice our future. But Republicans--through this CR--seem willing to sacrifice our future to meet their arbitrary campaign pledge.

They want to drastically reduce quality preschool for poor children with a $1 billion cut in Head Start, which has shown positive results. For K-12 students, Republicans are proposing to dismantle a wide range of essential school supports--literacy programs; teacher improvements; math and science partnerships; arts in education; parent education; counseling; and graduation promotion.

Their proposal would also slash special education services and college preparation. And many more students would be blocked from going to college if the Republicans had their way--with about half a billion dollars less for Pell grants for disadvantaged youth.

Education is how America can reclaim our edge in job creation, in business leadership, in providing a livable wage, and in economic innovation. Destroying this promise by attempting to balance the budget on the backs of poor children and youth is both unwise and unjust.

By cutting to the heart of the learning needs of America's children and youth through these extraordinary and nonsensical measures, Republican lawmakers clearly don't understand the meaning of investing in our future.

Environment

This CR arbitrarily kills jobs, hurts the public health and is a slap in the face of environmental protection. The CR will set our country back decades by curtailing scientific research, simply because Republican's don't like what the science says. It puts our children's health at risk by handcuffing the EPA to police polluters and simply keeps us addicted to foreign oil and discourages clean energy innovations. This is sound bite politics at its worst, the American public needs real solutions and thoughtful policy.

The CR prohibits any funding from being used to carry out the EPA's power plant pollution safeguard rules. These rules are tailored to only the biggest polluting power plants, ensuring average Americans and small business aren't affected by any regulations.

The Clean Air Act guards the most vulnerable Americans--those with asthma and other lung disease, children, older adults, and people with heart disease and diabetes--from the dangers of airborne pollutants, including the threats from growing carbon dioxide pollution. Each year the Act prevents tens of thousands of adverse health effects, including asthma attacks, heart attacks and even premature death. This year alone, the Clean Air Act will save more than 160,000 lives, according to preliminary estimates by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Yet Republicans plan to starve this life-saving agency of its funding based on purely ideological reasons.

Immigration

The CR would cut all funding for immigrant integration. Republicans claim that they support legal immigration and want to reward immigrants who waited in line and did things the right way. But then they go and cut funding to critical programs that help those legal immigrants become proud American citizens and better integrated into our communities. If Republicans really want to support legal immigrants, they wouldn't cut important programs that emphasize the value of learning English, learning American history and civics, and becoming U.S. citizens. Regardless of what side of the aisle you sit on, these are commonsense programs that we can all support.

It would also cut overseas refugee assistance and admissions and domestic refugee assistance funding. These cuts would severely diminish our country's ability to help refugees across the globe. The victims would be some of the world's most vulnerable people: refugees fleeing religious persecution from Iran, political persecution from Burma, etc. We are the global leader in refugee resettlement. This is a proud American legacy and it makes us a shining beacon for the world. Haphazard cuts like this endanger refugees, but also America.

If Republicans truly claim to be committed to deficit reduction, then why as they cut millions from beneficial programs like head start and LIHEAP, do they continue to increase defense spending? Until Republicans get serious about controlling defense spending--the largest part of the discretionary budget--they will never achieve their goals of reducing our deficit.

Local/US 36

Mr. Chair, at the state and local level, my home state of Colorado is getting slapped in the face by this CR.

A year ago, US 36--the highway that connects Boulder to Denver--was awarded a $10 Million TIGER/TIFIA Challenge Grant through the recovery Act--to expand one of the most used and heavily congested highways in the state, creating jobs and fostering economic development. The $10 million federal investment helps leverage the additional funds in the area, creating $276 million in employment income and 7,200 jobs. The project impacts 191,000 corridor employees--10% of the state's employment.

To date, only $900k has been obligated, and because the Republican CR rescinds all `unobligated' ARRA funding across the board without thought to details or individual projects--the many state, regional, and local transportation groups that have invested in the project will never see the remaining $9.1 million they were promised.

For the businesses and residents in my district--this is a slap in the face.

Colorado's US 36 Corridor project won the TIGER Award because it was one of the most innovative projects in the country. Mr. Chair, Rome wasn't built in a day and we can all agree that we should not be punishing innovation.

Mr. Chair, the President's budget release yesterday is an excellent example of cutting back in nearly every aspect of the federal government, while investing in the future. We must tighten our belts and make hard choices and tough changes. But we cannot do so at the expense of growth and innovation.

With cuts like these, Republican leadership has made it very clear that they're not interested in helping families to get ahead in this economy. Instead, they're holding our economic recovery and global competitiveness hostage in an attempt to meet an arbitrary spending goal, to appease the fringe of their party--the same people who advocate for cutting the Department of Education and privatizing social security.

The Republican's continuing resolution before us today is sound bite politics at its worst. The American Public need and deserve real solutions and thoughtful policy. We can and must do better. I encourage my colleagues to oppose the rule for this CR as well as the underlying CR to prevent the irresponsible impact of this Republican spending bill.

Mr. Conyers, the Majority introduced H.R. 1, the ``Full Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011,'' which will make immediate and drastic cuts to the federal budget.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, Chairman Rogers deserves an awful lot of credit for having been able to put together this H.R. 1, that saves $100 billion over what many expected we would spend this year. The largest part of this bill is the defense part. The defense part of this bill is not a CR. It is not a continuing resolution. It is an actual, honest-to-God appropriations bill, one that under the leadership of Chairman Dicks during last year we put together; the subcommittee worked hard, many hearings, a really good bill. We worked with our Senate counterparts and we had agreement on this bill.

We had agreement on this bill from the Defense Department, and we were just really disappointed that here we are 5 months into the fiscal year and we are just now getting this bill to the floor. It is no fault of Chairman Dicks. He worked hard, and I know the pressures that he tried to apply and that I tried to apply to get permission to put this bill on the floor. But, anyway, here it is and we have it today.

It is a good defense bill. It is $516 billion. It is a lot of money; but our warfighters, they need training, they need salaries, they need pay, they need medical care, they need weapons, they need equipment, they need technology; and this bill, for the most part, provides that.

The $516 billion is $14.8 billion less than was requested for this fiscal year. That $14.8 billion didn't come about easily. We saved that by going line by line the best that we could in the time that we had to find program changes, to find budget changes, to find slush funds that we didn't think were necessary, and a lot of other ways that we saved the $14.8 billion. But we have a good bill here, and I am hopeful that the House will support this today.

One thing that is different from the bill that we thought we were going to have on the floor is 1,200 earmarks aren't there any more. We took out the earmarks, nearly $3 billion worth of earmarks.

So we have a very clean Defense bill here for you today. I know that there are many who would like to have more, and there are more things we could do. We could reach out into the future, but the world we live in today shows a growing deficit, and it is important that we are willing to contribute to solving it. It is crucial to the future of this Nation that we solve this deficit problem, because if we don't, I hate to think what might happen to our economy, what might happen to our currency, what might happen to our standing in the economy of the world.

I would ask the Members, if this bill came on the floor during Jack Murtha's chairmanship, we would have probably passed this bill in about 10 minutes. That is the way that he did business when he was in the majority. We didn't quite do that. We have an open rule. We have an open rule here that anybody can offer an amendment that is germane to the bill. If it makes it better, fine, we will agree to it. If it doesn't make it better, we will not agree to it. We understand that there are some that will be subject to a point of order, and we will raise those points of order, but we will allow the Member that offers the amendment to discuss it before we raise the point of order as a courtesy to them.

Anyway, again, I want to congratulate Mr. Dicks for the work that he did during the time that he was chairman. As he said in the general debate, he and I have worked together for over 30 years on the national security and intelligence affairs of our Nation. He is very honorable, a very hardworking individual, very much determined to do a good job for our Nation; and he shares the same feeling that I have here that while we may have to make reductions and have to come up with savings, we will not approve anything that has an adverse effect on the warfighter. We

will not do anything that has an adverse effect on the readiness of our national security effort.

It is a commitment that I made many years ago and that Mr. Dicks made many years ago. When we made these cuts we did not affect the warfighter. We didn't cut his pay. One of the largest portions of our Defense bill is military personnel, the cost of salaries. We did not cut that. We didn't get into that at all.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment.

Mainly, what I'm opposed to is the fact we're not sure what boards or commissions this amendment would deal with. I think it's probably a good idea, but I think the subcommittee will really like to have an opportunity to investigate whether or not a board is necessary or is doing some positive function for the Department of Defense. We'd like to have time to look into that.

We agree with the gentleman that we should find all the savings, all the waste we can, and we did. We reduced the request for this year by the $14.8 billion. I think we did a pretty good job.

On the gentleman's comment about the process, I had the privilege of serving as chairman of this Appropriations Committee for 6 years. I never brought an appropriations bill to the floor under a closed rule. It was 6 years that any germane amendment could be offered.

I yield to the gentleman.

I thank the gentleman for his comments. Like I said, the subcommittee would really like an opportunity to really review this to make sure that we don't make a mistake and cut something that is important.

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

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Chair, America is at war. We have soldiers fighting, losing their lives, having serious injuries not only in Afghanistan but in Iraq and, before that, in Kosova and in Bosnia. We have known war for a long time, and cutting the defense budget was unheard of. Yet the subcommittee has been able to recommend $14.8 billion in a very short period of time that we don't think has any negative effect on the national defense.

The idea of the Flake amendment may be a good idea. The subcommittee would like to be able to analyze it to make sure that it doesn't have any kind of a negative effect. It may be, as we go through our process for this year, that we would include that, but the subcommittee would very much like to have an opportunity to review this recommendation by the Flake amendment.

Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

The amendment sounds good. But unlike the Flake amendment, which sounded good, and we'll learn more about it, that was a small amount of money. This is a half a billion dollars.

A lot of people are of the opinion that government has the answer to everything. Government doesn't even have the questions to everything, let alone the answers.

And how many people in this Chamber have any idea how much technology our warfighters are using today? Whether it's on the battlefield or whether it's in training, whatever it might be, how many people know how much was created by small business or large business?

American industry produces good ideas most of the time. And much of what we see on the battlefield today and in the Armed Services came about because of innovations from small business and big business. Who knows?

If somebody can tell me how much of those great systems that we create for our soldiers, how much of that came from innovation, how much of it came from the government, then I might change my mind.

But we don't know today. You give the committee an opportunity, we'll find out. We'll find out how much this innovative, the SBIR, how much it provides compared to industry, large and small. But today we don't know the answer. And for a half a billion dollars, we need to know the answer.

So I don't object to the gentleman offering the amendment, really. But I do object to the gentleman's amendment because we don't know what the effect of it would be. We'd like to find out, and we think we owe it to the Members of this House who are responsible for the national defense to find out for them.

I yield back.