Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Resolution, 2014

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 371 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my good friend, the gentlelady from Rochester, 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

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

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule for the consideration of 10 different joint resolutions, all of which demonstrate House Republicans' continuing commitment to reopen necessary portions of our government.

The rule is a closed rule, which provides for 40 minutes of debate between the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations for each joint resolution. Additionally, the rule provides for 40 minutes of debate between the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for H.R. 3223, the Federal Employee Retroactive Pay Fairness Act. The rule also provides for a motion to recommit for each bill or joint resolution.

Additionally, the rule extends same-day authority for resolutions reported by the Rules Committee through the legislative day of October 21, 2013, thus continuing to allow the House the flexibility to continue to address the government shutdown. Finally, the rule permits the Speaker to entertain motions to suspend the rules until October 20.

Here we are again, Mr. Speaker--day four of a government shutdown. Unfortunately for the American people, not much has changed. The Senate is still recalcitrant, unwilling to consider legislation that would reopen parts of the government. I do want to add an exception, though, and thank our friends in the upper Chamber for actually agreeing with us to exempt our military from these cuts, both civilian and uniform. The Senate, however, is still unwilling to go to conference to discuss the very serious fiscal issues facing this country. The Senate is also unwilling to consider any of the five pieces of legislation the House passed in the last 2 days, which will reopen parts of our government. Even so, House Republicans continue to bring legislation to the floor to meet the needs of American citizens.

Today's rule will allow for the consideration of resolutions that reopen the Bureau of Indian Education, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Indian Health Service, the WIC program, the National Weather Center, FEMA, our intelligence agencies, Impact Aid, Head Start--and the list goes on and on.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, this rule makes clear our commitment to the 800,000 Federal workers currently furloughed that they will, indeed, be paid. It is not their fault that Washington is dysfunctional in that Congress can't agree on the size and scope of government. Yet they are caught in the crossfire, wondering if they will be able to afford their mortgages and pay their utility bills. Mr. Speaker, that simply isn't fair. H.R. 3223, of which I am a proud cosponsor, would codify what we have done in every previous government shutdown: pay our Federal employees from the date on which the government shut down.

I particularly want to compliment in a bipartisan fashion our friends Mr. Moran and Mr. Wolf, who worked together on this measure, who brought it forward and gathered many dozens of cosponsors from both sides of the aisle. Quite frankly, I think their example of bipartisanship and working together is something that we could all learn from.

Mr. Speaker, Democrats and Republicans alike agree that that's the responsible thing to do. House Republicans are working to deal with the real-world problems of our constituents. Republicans are working to reopen the government. However, we lack a willing partner in the Senate and in the President. Every time we have attempted to negotiate with them, they have told us to accept their plan. They have even rebuffed our attempts to go to conference. Therefore, House Republicans have been left with little choice except that of passing a number of smaller bills to see if the Senate would be willing to accept those. Again, I remark on one occasion, with respect to the military, that they

did, indeed, accept one, so I would urge them to do that with the others.

I urge support for the rule and the underlying legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I want to address a couple of points that my good friend raises; but before I do, I want to agree with her in that I think we all think the government ought to be open. I, actually, don't think there is much division about that, and folks have actually tried to do that. On our side of the aisle, every single piece of legislation we've brought to the floor during this period has either kept the government open in whole or in part, and I suspect we will continue to try and do that. So it's not the aim of either side here to shut down the government.

In terms of the Affordable Health Care Act, I certainly don't support it--I voted against it, and voted multiple times to repeal it and delay it--but I'll agree with my good friend on that, too, in the sense that there are times when we have actually worked together on both sides of the aisle to change it. My friends like to quite often mention there have been 41 or 42 efforts to repeal, delay, defund the bill; but they usually forget to add--and, quite frankly, some people on our side of the aisle forget to add--that seven of those have actually succeeded, that is, a Democratic Senate and a Democratic President agreed with them.

The proposals that we have on the table now in terms of the Affordable Health Care Act are immanently sensible and overwhelmingly popular. To put it quite simply, we just don't think that political appointees and elected officials ought to be treated differently

than other Americans. Now, we can get into a big fight about health care; but the reality is, right now, under the law, Members of Congress and their staffs can bring subsidies with them onto the exchange. No other American can do that. We can do this either way as far as I'm concerned. I could leave them back as Federal employees, and they could be treated like every other Federal employee--that's the acceptable solution to me at least--or we could allow other Americans to bring subsidies onto the exchange just like Members of Congress; but the underlying principle is that we ought to treat them all the same. Washington political appointees shouldn't be treated differently than the average American.

The second thing is, I think, very simple. We're not talking about delaying all of ObamaCare; but if we are going to allow big businesses to wait a year before they implement what they're required to do--if we are going to allow 1,100 organizations and many labor unions to do it-- why shouldn't we allow the average American, at his choice, to delay it as well?

They don't want to delay. They can go onto the exchanges. The subsidies are still there. The tax programs are still there. Why shouldn't the average American have the same privilege that we've bestowed on Big Business, Big Labor, and countless organizations? That's what we're talking about.

To my friend's point here--and I suspect this is true of the debt ceiling a little bit further down the road--the Democratic approach is very simple: do everything I want, and then I'm willing to negotiate. We would like to sit down and talk now and see if we could find some common ground. We've got negotiators, conferees--the technical title-- available to sit down and find common ground. We're not asking for something that is unreasonable, in my view. We're certainly not proposing something that is outside the scope of the type of things we've been able to agree on before.

The President, I want to add, is taking the same approach that the Senate has taken with regard to the continuing resolution with the debt ceiling. He has just simply said we have to raise it unilaterally. That's not a particularly popular vote, probably on either side of the aisle. It's certainly not on my side of the aisle.

I'm willing to work with the President on the debt ceiling. I did it in 2011. And I want to note for the record, that is something he never did when he was a Member of the United States Senate. He didn't vote to raise the debt ceiling when he had the opportunity to do it. Instead, he engaged in a lecture about debt. It probably was a lecture that was needed. Regardless, he did not do for George Bush what he's asking us to do for him.

I'm willing to do that. I'm willing to work with him on the debt ceiling. If you voted for the Ryan budget, you envisioned the debt ceiling as being something that has to be raised while you deal with the underlying deficit. I do want to do something or be in a negotiation with the President about what to do on that deficit. I don't think that's an unreasonable position.

I think the real central issue in this is not the Affordable Care Act, not the debt ceiling, and, frankly, not even the government shutdown, as serious as that is. The real issue is whether my friends and the President of the United States will simply come to the table to negotiate. Will they put a counterproposal out there, or is it simply going to be: We insist in getting our way, in full, all the time? I don't think that's an acceptable way to arrive at common ground, and I don't think it's likely to succeed.

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

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

Just a quick point. My friend is always quite eloquent, and I know, frankly, very passionate and very well-meaning and very expert when he talks about nutrition programs, where he spent a great deal of time.

For the record, it's worth noting that we have increased nutrition programs broadly by 400 percent since George Bush became President. We doubled them, roughly, when Bush was President. Doubled them again since President Obama has been in office. What the Republican program is talking about is a 5 percent cut after a 400 percent increase based on reforms. I think it's maybe not quite so dire.

Again, I recognize my friend's good work in this area and hope that we have an opportunity to get to conference, have that discussion. I suspect the bill, if it comes back, may be closer to his liking than the bill that went out.

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Reclaiming my time, the rolls have been going up in a period we're supposed to be recovering. I think we have some genuine problems in this program in terms of reform. Again, that's the initial proposal. It's not out of bounds considering a 400 percent increase to have a 5 percent cutback. We'll wait and see what comes out of the conference committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall), my good friend and fellow member of the Rules Committee.

I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my good friend from the great State of Florida (Mr. Mica).

I yield my friend from Florida an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my good friend from Kentucky, the Honorable Hal Rogers, the distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

Certainly.

Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, we schedule a conference, we go to conference, and we try to negotiate our differences.

If the gentleman will yield, no, Mr. Chairman, I do not. I would just highly recommend to my friends we do, since it seems to be a good way to resolve our differences.

Mr. Speaker, I have some good news I want to announce here just shortly.

But I want to note, for the record, my friends quite often make the point that they don't like a piecemeal approach. The reality is, if you look at actions, sometimes they do. They like it until they don't.

I would point out we had, of course, H.R. 3210 here, which funded the military, by our good friend from Colorado (Mr. Coffman). I think, in a very bipartisan way, we voted overwhelmingly on both sides to fund the military and most of the contracting and civilian employees.

There is a little disagreement with the administration about that right now, but that's half the discretionary budget taken care of in a ``piecemeal approach.''

Today the administration just announced, and I commend them for doing it, and I commend my friend because she announced she was going to be supportive of this too, and I think we all are. It was very evident in the Rules Committee, H.R. 3223, the Federal Employee Retroactive Pay Fairness Act.

The administration's just announced that they're going to support that legislation. The President looks forward to signing it, and that's a bipartisan agreement between both sides and, frankly, a product of the work of our mutual good friends, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), who found common ground and, in a piecemeal approach, moved us closer to a solution.

So I think that's maybe not the greatest news in the world, but on a day where there's not as much good as we would all like, some good news. And I would hope my friends would look at the individual pieces of legislation that are coming, where we mostly agree, and accept those.

We don't have to agree on everything, as the point's been made by several, to agree on some things. Those are areas that we do agree. And if we can fund our military in this fashion, and if we can make sure that our Federal employees are not going to lose any pay, retroactively, certainly, one step at a time, we can walk in the right direction and turn back on critical parts of our government. I hope that's what we're moving toward, Mr. Speaker.

So my friend knows, I'm quite prepared to close whenever she wishes to close.

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

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

I want to thank my good friend from New York. She's always a terrific, frankly, counterpoint and debater, and we agree on some things. We both agree that the government shutdown's not a good thing.

Frankly, there's a strong bipartisan agreement. It's not something that either side wished to achieve, and it's something we ought to be working together, step by step, to try and undo; and, frankly, we've made a little bit of progress.

Again, the idea that it never works to work piecemeal, it certainly did with respect to the United States military, civilian defense force, and contractors. That's exactly what we did.

We passed something out of here; and the Senate, which said it wasn't going to agree to anything, magically did.

Now we're going to, hopefully, eventually pass H.R. 3223 out of here to guarantee back pay. I think most people on both sides of the aisle will support that. The President's indicated he'll sign it, which suggests to me that the Senate will probably take it up and move on it. So, voila.

Once again, just working through the process, we've found something that we can agree on. The differences here should not be so great that they can't be bridged.

Just to remind everyone of the history, we have placed multiple offers concerning the Affordable Care Act before the Senate. The last offer seems to me something that we ought to be able to agree on, or certainly be willing to sit down and discuss. It only has two points, and it's basically a question of fairness.

Why should Members of Congress and high appointees in the executive branch and our staffs go into the exchange and be able to bring subsidies with us, when no other American can do that?

It's just not fair.

Now, we could amend the law and let everybody come into the exchanges with subsidies. That would be fair. Or we could say, you know, really, Members of Congress and their staff are at a fundamental level employees of the Federal Government and they ought to be in that, and that would be fair. But let's treat everybody the same.

More fundamentally, currently, the President has unilaterally decided to exempt 1,100-plus organizations. He's unilaterally, in a questionable measure, constitutionally, decided to suspend parts of the law for a year and exempt Big Business.

We think, gosh, if you're going to do that, shouldn't every single American have the right to decide whether or not they want to participate in this for just 1 year until everybody is actually operating under the same system?

That too is a question of fairness. Give every individual American the same relief from a mandate that you're giving Big Business and Big Labor. It just seems to me commonsensical.

It doesn't mean you have to stop the exchanges.

You don't have to undo the program. Just treat everybody the same. Be fair. That's the Republican proposal in front of the Senate right now, and, frankly, I think they probably don't want to discuss it because it's a hard one to say ``no'' to because it's fundamentally fair. And that's all we've asked, is that the Senate, which has rejected it, at least come to conference and talk about it.

The real issue here beyond the questions of policy is whether the Senate is going to be allowed to dictate unilaterally what the House does. Is it just going to say, no, you've to do it our way? We're not going to negotiate. We're not going to go to conference. We're not going to deal with you. You have to do it our way. That's not the way the system was set up.

My friend, Chairman Rogers, pointed that out quite succinctly. We've got a way to handle this. It's called go to conference, argue, and work out the differences. And I suspect we're going to see the same thing a little bit down the road from the President, who's told us and told the Speaker this week, I'm not going to negotiate with you on raising the debt ceiling in the United States. You just have to do it unilaterally. You have to put the country further into debt without any discussion of what we can do to change the trajectory of that debt.

Now, that's a remarkable change from where he was in August of 2011. A remarkable change. He was in a very different place and position and was willing to sit down and talk. I don't know why he would change that now.

So I think we should do something in this bill to build on this piecemeal approach. We should pass these different measures. We agree these parts of government ought to be open; and we should continue to work through, conference with our friends in the Senate and ultimately in negotiation with the President of the United States on the debt ceiling.

And so I urge the adoption of this rule.

In closing, I'd like to, again, say that one of the basic functions of Congress is to fund government. This rule would allow 10 or more pieces of that government to open again to provide for crucial services that they provide. I would urge my colleagues to support this rule and the underlying legislation.

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

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

I want to thank my colleague, Congressman Frelinghuysen, for his comments though, obviously, I have serious reservations about this bill because our country has been the world's shining example in how a democratic Republic can actually work efficiently, successfully, and democratically. Yet, today, we continue with the shenanigans from a minority of the majority, wasting God's good time.

For my colleagues who are listening, and for the country, let me say this bill should be coming to the floor at a level of $31 billion to meet the national security, energy, and water needs of this country. The measure before us today contains $10.6 billion and only deals with the nuclear security portion of the legislation. That is simply not sufficient for this great country.

We cannot continue to be governed by staggering from manufactured crisis to manufactured crisis, and the folly--some would say madness-- of what is going on here must be stopped. It is creating great uncertainty inside this economy, and it is harming us globally with our trading partners and with countries who simply can't understand what is happening here.

Over the course of the last several weeks, my Republican colleagues have loudly called for compromise. They have said, Negotiate to reopen the government, but, all the while, changing their demands daily and moving the goalpost. They moved it up the field, down the field, off the field. We start the day and never know exactly where we are.

Mr. Speaker, the Democratic Members of this House have agreed to a total spending level that is the Republican level of $986 billion for all of our bills. That is not a number I personally agree with. It will not meet our Nation's needs, but it is a compromise offered in good faith to move our country forward.

My advice to all those who are listening is to bring that clean continuing resolution with the Republican budget number in it to the floor. Let's reopen the government, and we can deal with our tangential issues that have nothing to do with operating the Government of the United States.

Our economy is still in the process of recovering from a horrible Great Recession. We have still not come back to the preemployment levels in this country that were so deeply harmed by the Wall Street- induced housing crisis. Shouldn't we be debating ways to spur economic growth, not continuing to debate a shutdown that is slowing economic growth?

Under the Obama administration, we have had 42 consecutive months of economic growth. We are crawling out of a mammoth hole. The American people view the disarray here as very, very destabilizing to their own security because they are worried about their futures, and what is going on here adds to their anxiety.

For the entire country, the Republican shutdown is already having real and negative consequences. Over 800,000 workers have been furloughed. They are having to borrow on their credit cards because they don't know how they are going to make their mortgage payment. They have to put their kids in school. They have to buy groceries.

From coast-to-coast, we know--although we don't have people in place at the Department of Labor right now--that over 66,000--up to 300,000-- more unemployment claims have now been filed in the country because of what is going on due to these 800,000 more people that have gotten some form of a pink slip.

For the entire country, this shutdown is wrong and unnecessary. The impacts will be felt across this economy--and already are--in the services that the American taxpayers pay for and that the Federal Government has, up to now, provided. As we continue to shortchange critical energy and infrastructure investments so vital to a strong economy, we will witness, as dusk follows dawn, the slowing of economic growth and the hindering of American competitiveness.

Let me turn to what is not funded by the piecemeal approach that this bill represents. Our bill should be coming to the floor with all the parts of the Department of Energy and Army Corps of Engineers and National Nuclear Security Administration in it. The bill should be coming to us at a level of $31 billion. The bill is but one-third of that. At a level of $10.6 billion, it is two-thirds underfunded.

Let me turn to what is not funded in the bill that is before us.

First of all, the Corps of Engineers, one of the most important instrumentalities in our government to create jobs, is not even in this cynical bill. Communities across our country will continue to feel the consequences of this decreased investment. We should be doing more to prevent flooding, to build infrastructure, to create jobs, not less.

For those of you who have been yelling from the rooftops about the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, this bill does nothing--zero--for your ports and harbors.

This bill does not fund any of the energy technology accounts so critical to our Nation becoming energy independent again. As our foreign competitors double down to develop 21st century technology-- look at the Chinese stealing our solar technology--and undermine our markets through illegal dumping and intellectual property poaching, our choice in this bill: do nothing.

So, renewable energy will receive cost competitiveness by whom? Which countries will succeed? Who will develop it and own that technology? According to this, we are ceding the turf to them, ceding the field to them.

If you look at U.S. trade accounts, you don't have to be a mathematical genius. What is the number one category of trade deficit of this country? Imported energy. And what is the number two category of trade deficit? Automotive and automotive parts. It is all connected. If America doesn't heal those accounts, we become weaker as a country; we have fewer jobs here at home, less wealth creation here at home.

And this particular bill is absent any forward thinking about new energy systems for our country. The United States has spent $2.3 trillion importing petroleum just since 2003.

I hear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say we have a $17 trillion debt that we have to pay off. We sure do. And where do you think it has come from? It has come from the lack of wealth creation inside this country for a quarter of a century, starting with imported energy.

This represents thousands and thousands and millions of jobs across this country lost and dollars out of the pockets of working-class Americans who see their purchases of fuel transferred to build giant hotels in Dubai, supporting universities in Dubai, all across the Middle East, while we see companies close, communities shut down, Detroit go bankrupt; and all these problems because we are not energy independent and we are not transportation independent.

These are dollars spent not in much-needed job creation but siphoned off overseas, assisting our competitors in developing their economies and their energy futures, not our own.

Is it any wonder that America has a debt? It is rooted in very major holes inside this economy. You could start with two wars. What did those cost us? Probably $4 trillion to $6 trillion--unpaid for. There wasn't any war tax imposed when President Bush took us to war.

I remember Donald Rumsfeld saying, Well, you have got to go to war with the military you have. Well, they borrowed to do that, and now this President has begun to keep his promise to the American people. We are out of Iraq and we are moving out of Afghanistan, as we try to hold those sad places together with our allies.

The housing crisis of 2008, it is anybody's guess what that cost us, but we know it hollowed out money creation in this country. We have the largest transfer of wealth and loss of equity in modern history. Do you think you crawl out of that in a month or 2 months? It takes years. We have had 42 months of steady job creation.

The trade deficit, America hasn't had a balanced trade account in three decades. Since 1975, the cumulative trade deficit of this country was $8.4 trillion. There was more petroleum coming in here from abroad than American energy exports out, more cars and auto parts in here from abroad than cars and auto parts out, and more electronics components coming in here than American electronics exports out.

So if you add up $8.4 trillion of trade deficit, $6 trillion of war expenditures,

if you take the cost of the meltdown on Wall Street--only God knows how many trillions that cost us--is it any wonder that the United States has a budget deficit and debt and the Federal Government is trying to hold the Republic together and our 50 States from coast-to-coast? It is pretty clear to me what is going on here.

So we look at this bill. Our Republic will not compete in the 21st century and beyond if we further reduce investments in energy and cede our energy future to other countries. The bill before us today does nothing about that. In fact, in one of the most important related sectors to us, manufacturing, this bill does nothing in manufacturing.

One of the reasons we don't have as much economic muscle in this country is because every community you go to, what do you see? Shuttered factories. Every product you pick up, what does it say? ``Made in China.'' Anytime I go to the store and find anything made in America, I buy it in hopes that it will help somebody somewhere along the way.

This bill does nothing for manufacturing. We have lost 15 percent of our manufacturing jobs. And it isn't just because of technology; it is because they have been shipped out, outsourced, made in China, not made in the USA, made in countries some of my constituents don't even know where they are, and these goods come in here. And every time American jobs get displaced in the manufacturing sector, 8.8 million manufacturing jobs disappear.

Manufacturing is one of the most important drivers in our economy, and yet we have a huge trade deficit in manufacturing. There is little merit in using Federal dollars to foster technological advances or breakthroughs for products that are not ultimately manufactured domestically in our country. This bill usually provides a means for us to do more to reverse the trend of domestic firms shifting manufacturing overseas because, to put it simply, domestic manufacturing drives domestic innovation, and that drives wealth creation and job creation in our country. This bill does nothing in the advanced manufacturing sector--off the table.

How sad. How sad for those people across our country who know the value added from manufacturing.

This bill does nothing for science or advanced science and energy. Return on investments from our publicly funded research and development ranges from 20 to 67 percent. What a bang for the buck. With this rate of return, we should be passing a bill that invests in science and high sciences, but that is not happening inside this bill. In fact, across this country, at all of our major labs, the workers are furloughed or have the threat of being furloughed hanging over them--at Livermore, at Sandia, at Argonne. The brain power of this country is being put on the shelf while they watch this charade here inside this Chamber.

This bill does nothing to address the funding for the Office of Environmental Management, whose mission is to complete the safe cleanup of what they call an ``environmental legacy'' and that I call a ``nuclear mess,'' brought about by five decades of nuclear weapons development and government-sponsored nuclear energy research.

So what do we do to clean up nuclear mess around our country in this bill? Zero. We do nothing.

What about our promises to the people who live near those communities? What about those who sacrifice so much for America's nuclear superiority? We shut the door. So long. Nothing. There is nothing in this bill.

This energy and water bill is one of the most critical investments we can make in this country. It should promote job creation. It should ensure national security. It should protect and promote our vital infrastructure and advance American competitiveness through energy independence and through strengthening manufacturing and scientific capability right here at home, right here in the good old USA. Unfortunately, a minority of the majority of Republicans is choosing to ignore all of these critical investments in order to execute a blatantly political stunt that is already harming our country, upsetting our people, and tamping down on job growth.

Mr. Speaker, our Nation is stronger when we come together. We as a people can solve the serious challenges facing our country; yet here we find ourselves today again, wasting time on a lopsided bill which only extends the GOP-driven shutdown. We should be spending our time passing a clean continuing resolution, not holding the entire country hostage to a reckless political stunt that some must get great pleasure out of but that is such a sadistic approach to the governing of this country. We ought to work together toward a long-term solution, not continue to award a faction of one party which has no interest in governing this country.

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

Mr. Speaker, might I inquire as to the time remaining on this side, please.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlelady from New York, Congresswoman Nita Lowey, our esteemed ranking member.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute and 15 seconds to the gentleman from New York, Mr. Hakeem Jeffries.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the esteemed gentleman from New Mexico, Congressman Ben Ray Lujan.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from Oregon, Congressman Earl Blumenauer.

Mr. Speaker, I would thank the chairman for that courtesy and just say that I would urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this particular piecemeal continuing resolution. Hopefully, others will come to their senses and we will be able to vote for a clean continuing resolution, which I think the majority of members of our subcommittee would appreciate, so we can reopen the government and deal with all of the responsibilities that we have under this particular bill and meet our responsibilities to energy and water across this country.

I thank the gentleman for his courtesy, and I hope to reciprocate sometime.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, we are now in the closing hours of this session of the Congress. We are getting ready to take our break. I am rising to exhort our Members to vote for the urgent supplemental. I appreciate the fact that we have adopted the motion to proceed.

I remind our colleagues what is in the urgent supplemental. First, it is to fight wildfires in our own country: $615 million to fight 27 large fires that are sending homes and communities up in smoke in eight Western States.

Second, it fortifies Israel's antimissile defense system, Iron Dome, by providing $225 million to enable Israel to purchase interceptor rockets that they have utilized in their own self-defense. It is lifesaving technology. It is defensive technology.

Third, and not at all least, it is to deal with issues on the border, providing $2.7 billion to deal with the surge of children coming through Central America, through a treacherous route through Mexico, presenting themselves to our border, asking that we consider their petition for refugee or asylum status. This bill is a reduction by $1 billion of what the President asked for. The President originally asked for $3.7 billion for the surge of the children all by itself and then additional funds for Iron Dome and the wildfires.

When we looked at the request for the surge at the border, we felt we could reduce that by $1 billion, and to ensure the taxpayers that we are doing rigorous and vigorous oversight, we have money in there for the inspector general.

This is an emergency spending bill, which means no offsets are required.

Also, it is meant to deal with humanitarian crises, both in our own country with firefighting and then a crisis a treasured ally is dealing with and then a crisis in Central America, where the violence is so severe that children are on the march to be able to escape it. These funds will pay for additional law enforcement for our Border Patrol, humanitarian assistance for HHS to house, clothe, and feed the children on a temporary basis while we find a relative and their legal status is determined; that is, do they qualify for asylum or refugee status.

Much has been said about the backlog and even a mockery--some States mocked the current system because they said there were so many awaiting these types of hearings. Maybe if we passed regular appropriations, which we haven't done in 3 years, we wouldn't be in this crisis. But this supplemental includes money for additional immigration judges to be able to expedite the determination of these children's legal status.

Also, it goes after the drug smugglers, the human smugglers, the drug traffickers, the human traffickers, and the coyotes who are exploiting, creating the misery and violence in Central America, and also, while they are doing that, exploiting these children who are on the move and on the march.

I understand there is a great deal of reluctance to either vote for the money or to weaken our asylum laws. I would caution us in weakening our asylum refugee laws, particularly as it affects children. I hope we can pass this bill and begin to move forward with it.

I want everyone to be aware we are talking about a surge of children--approximately 60,000 children, not 600,000 children--just barely enough to fill Ravens stadium. We are a country of 300 million; we are talking only about this.

I hope we can move on this bill, meet our responsibilities to our neighbors in the West facing wildfires and an ally who is running out of interceptor rockets to protect itself and not only deal with the children and their request to determine asylum status, but at the same time we put the money in the Federal checkbook to go where the crime and the criminals are, which is the narcotraffickers in Central America.

I will have more to say before we wrap up, but I now yield the floor.

I object.

Madam President----

Madam President, if I could respond to the Senator from Texas, first of all, I do not want my objection to be interpreted by him or by the Senate or those watching as a pugnacious dismissal of the Senator's request. The distinguished Senator from Texas has always stood for Texas and he has also stood for the protection of the border. He comes with an incredible background where he was a judge, a former judge of the highest court in Texas. So I understand. And I have also heard him speak repeatedly about the plight of these children, and he has spoken with great compassion. He and I both agree that we should not have open borders and open wallets, that we have to deal with this.

But I say to my colleague, this bill is a money bill. It is an appropriations bill. We do not legislate on appropriations. There is no legislative language in this bill. What the Senator is proposing, working with the administration, with the Judiciary Committee, on a bipartisan basis--because I think there is a sentiment perhaps we could arrive at some other language, but on this bill I objected because this would be legislating on appropriations. The type of pragmatic approach the Senator from Texas is proposing--and we have perhaps some ideas-- cannot be done on this bill tonight with the urgent nature of it.

So I want the Senator from Texas to know my great respect for him and his advocacy on this issue, and I know of his heartfelt compassion for the children and his desire to have a broader immigration policy. I look forward to working with him on legislative matters in a different forum.

The Senator will yield for a question.

Is that the Senator's question?

First I would like to respond----

Thank you very much. We are eager to engage in conversation with each other.

It is the belief of the members of the Judiciary Committee--at least the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee--that the President has enough

current authority to provide what Secretary Johnson is asking. I too have heard what Secretary Johnson has. So there is a dispute about whether he needs more authority or whether the President can exercise the authority he has. We believe he already has enough authority.

Then there are two large issues. The two large issues are: immigration reform, commonsense, sensible, along the lines that passed the Senate--Senator McCain of Arizona and others have worked on this, Senator Durbin--and then the other is what is going on in Central America with these drug traffickers.

Quite frankly, the fact is we need to start to pay attention to our own hemisphere. I note that when everybody talks about how much money this is, it is less money than we are going to spend to give to the Afghan security force. OK. We give $4 billion to the Afghan security force. Let's hope they are going to use it and shoot in the right direction.

I am looking at making sure our country goes in the right direction, and I am going to work on a bipartisan basis. I say pass this bill. Let's put together a bipartisan task force and see if we can deal with these two problems of both immigration reform--to move it through both bodies--and also bring our focus back to our own hemisphere and deal with the issues in Central America.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, a parliamentary question: Did the Senator from Alabama raise a budget point of order? Did the Senator from Alabama raise a budget point of order?

I say to the Senator from Alabama, do you want to raise it now or do you want to raise it later?

Madam President, I note that the Senator from Maryland wishes to respond.

How much time do the Democrats have in this debate?

I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Illinois have 4 minutes to offer a rebuttal and I have 5 minutes for the wrapup debate before we move to vote.

Madam President, as we begin to close out this part of the debate, I would just say that the issues I am advocating are deeply personal to me and, I believe, deeply personal to all Senators.

When I talk about the fact that we have to fund help for wildfires in several States and help them be able to help themselves by replenishing the money for the Forest Service, I am reminded of the fact that a great writer by the name of de Tocqueville came to the United States to hear: What is this thing called democracy? He wrote that famous book, ``Democracy in America.'' In it he called for something that he observed. He said what sets America apart is its habits of the heart, that it helps neighbor helping neighbor.

Now, we used to do that through barn raising and pancake suppers. But, my gosh, these issues have gotten too big, too horrific. We now have thousands of acres burning, homes being destroyed, businesses being destroyed. We need to be able to help our neighbors in the West.

And I say to my colleagues from the West: I appreciate all the support you have given us on the East Coast who faced hurricanes. We didn't say we practice ZIP Code politics, that we only help one part of the country when they are facing a disaster.

Habits of the heart, de Tocqueville said that is what defines us. We now need to help that.

This issue now in terms of the Israelis and Iron Dome began for me right after I was elected to the Congress. When I traveled to Poland I went to Auschwitz and saw forever and a day--6 million Jews exterminated--why they needed a homeland, forever--a homeland safe and secure. Now they are asking for help to replenish their interceptor rockets on the eve of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, where people fought with sticks and stones and children crawled through sewers to defend themselves.

We are not going to fool around here. We are not going to delay until we come back from the 5-week break. Israel is the homeland for the Jews. We need to help them defend themselves.

My journey in Central America began as a brand new Member of Congress, with four Maryknoll nuns and a woman named Jean Donovan, who were raped and killed by the death squads in El Salvador. I watched a gallant, brilliant, charismatic bishop named Oscar Romero killed, gunned down in his own cathedral. Then we finally got around to looking at Central America and what was going on. We were worried more about communism than the rise of violence. For 30 years we have been up and down in Central America. We have inherited the winds. Our way of ignoring these three countries is by turning a blind eye, by always looking elsewhere in the world. If we have $4 billion to arm the Afghan security forces, I think we ought to back our Border Patrol, back our FBI, back our law enforcement to go after organized crime in Central America, because if we don't, it will be an additional threat and it will not only be the children--and now we have 60,000 children crossing the border.

I understand Texas and Arizona, the border States, are facing these problems. We do want to work together. But could we in the final minutes of this Congress get ourselves together enough to meet the urgent supplemental request to do this? This is what America is. This is who we are, helping our neighbors in the West, helping the country fighting for its survival, and also helping our own country dealing with the crisis in Central America facing our border.

I think it is time we pass this legislation, move forward, and come back and deal with the crisis there and also at the same time take a good look at immigration reform and do it in the way I think we can do it.

How much time do I have?

With that I urge the adoption of this bill and hope we could move forward as a united bipartisan Congress.

I yield the floor. I yield what time I would have.

Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive all applicable sections of that act for purposes of the pending bill, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, first of all, the Senate is not in order.

I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 3 minutes in support of my motion to waive.

The bill that is before the Senate contains $3.57 billion of emergency spending, a reduction of $1 billion, to help fund and care for the children who seek refuge and to fight the criminal traffickers at the border. We fund fighting wildfires for our States and we also help Israel replenish its interceptor rockets.

What happens if the motion to waive fails? If the Senate fails to waive the point of order, the bill will go back to the Appropriations Committee, but the urgent need will remain. If the Senate fails to waive the point of order, agencies will take from other programs to fund this compelling need. What does that mean?

It means that HHS, which has already cut $138 million from the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control, and others--we could have an ebola crisis in the world, and maybe even come to our border, and we are fooling around cutting HHS and CDC and other agencies. Please, let's look at what we are doing.

Homeland Security is also spending resources that would otherwise be used to secure the border, such as FEMA disaster relief money has to be there if we have a hurricane.

Simply put, failing to act is irresponsible. Let's waive the Budget Act, let's get on with the bill, and let's do our job.

I yield back my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend for yielding me the time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Unless the silent Members of the majority speak up, today's debate is a fait accompli.

For the last 2 days, Members of the majority have said publicly that they wish this government shutdown would end. In fact, a coalition of more than 218 Democrats and Republicans has publicly declared that it is ready to vote on the clean Senate CR. This 218 would be the majority, and we would pass it; and that's why the powerful minority, who has taken the government hostage, is doing all it can again today to prevent the Senate CR from coming to the House floor. It doesn't make any sense. Not only doesn't it make any sense; but, actually, were we to do that, we wouldn't have to be here today, trying to do these piecemeal pieces.

Last night, the Rules Committee proposed a rule for these 11 piecemeal funding bills before us today. They didn't go through a single meeting of a committee. At least, in the committee process, the subcommittees and committees would have given both Republicans and Democrats an opportunity to weigh in on these measures. Remember that half the population of the United States is represented by Democrats and that, in the last election, Democrat candidates for Congress achieved a million more votes than our Republican friends, but we are shut out of the process. Indeed, these bills were written yesterday afternoon and were brought straight to the Rules Committee, as so many are lately, in order to be rushed to the floor.

During our hearing, a colleague promised that the reckless approach would continue, even suggesting that we could see 150 more of these piecemeal bills before the majority agrees to end the government shutdown. That should take us to, maybe, October of next year. Yet, while they're willing to take 150 votes on bills the President would veto--and everybody knows the President would veto them--and the Senate would reject, they haven't allowed a single vote on the cure to the problem: bring up the CR, and put the government back to work.

Fortunately for the American people, no minority--no matter how powerful--can stop the will of the House if we exercise it. Unlike the Senate, a majority in the House can only be held back for so long. Thanks to the democratic spirit baked into our Chamber's rules, the majority will always succeed. For the more than 218 Members--a majority who has expressed a desire to vote on the clean CR--our most powerful tool is voting down the previous question and bringing the clean Senate CR to the floor to vote on.

Now, earlier this week, my Democrat colleagues and I urged the Chamber to vote ``no'' on the previous question so that we could bring the Senate bill to the floor. Not a single Republican joined our cause. Today, we are going to give you another chance. Following the debate on the rule, we will have a chance to vote down the previous question. While that may simply be legislative language to most people, what that will do is give us an opportunity--those of us who very strongly believe this government should work--to bring the CR, bring the shutdown to a close and put everybody back to work. I want to see by the end of this day that we can accomplish that, because words are no longer enough. Those Members of the majority who claim that they want to end the government shutdown get the opportunity today to stand up and vote. As I said the other day when we had the same opportunity, I would like them to put their voting cards where their mouths are.

Over the next hour, I encourage every Member of this Chamber to reflect on the damage that has already been wrought on our Nation because of the shutdown and on the damage that will ensue if we wait another day. The shutdown is costing the Nation $300 million a day, and more than 800,000 workers are furloughed without pay. Today, we are going to vote--and, I think, almost unanimously--to pay them when the shutdown ends. A logical person would say, Why don't you bring them back to work? If they're going to be paid anyway, let them work. There is no answer for that. There must be some reason here that is available to only a few people as to why the majority wants to keep the government shut down.

We have to also end this because our State Department and intelligence employees need to go back on the job. A hurricane is bearing down right now on the State of Louisiana while 80 percent of the FEMA workers are furloughed. NASA had to turn off the Mars Rover, which was giving us so much information about the universe--stopping all the space exploration in its tracks.

I think one of the best things I've read to describe what we are doing in this House was said by a Republican. Because there is no plan here--there is no end game here--he is saying that what they are doing is laying the track ahead of the speeding train as it bears down on them.

The majority started the shutdown because they were dead set on repealing the Affordable Care Act; and I think, by doing this piecemeal, they think they can still do that. Throughout the process, they have issued dire predictions about the health care law and have warned that the law would hurt American workers. It is absolutely turning out not to be true.

In the last week, two of our Nation's biggest companies have responded to the Affordable Care Act by giving tens of thousands of their part-time employees full-time jobs. Guess who they are? One is the largest employer in the United States--Walmart. They are raising 35,000 of their part-time employees to become full-time employees in order to make them eligible for health insurance. Walt Disney announced that 427 employees at Disney World who have been hired as full-time employees will be given access to the health insurance plan. We also hear all the time--and I've really got to research this--that Delta Air Lines has said, they tell me, that the affordable care plan would cost them $100 million a year. I surely would like to know how that's possible unless they plan to hire 70 million new employees, which would certainly be good for employment, but I see no earthly reason for them to do that. We need to know whether that's true or not since all of the rest of the dire predictions have turned out not to be.

The Affordable Care Act is working; but because of the majority, the government is not, and it's time for the majority to give up this losing game. I strongly urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule and on the underlying legislation; and, so importantly, I urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question. Then, Mr. Speaker, we can bring the clean Senate CR to the House floor, as we should have done weeks ago, and end this government shutdown today.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I'm so pleased to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), our incredible member of the Committee on Rules.

Mr. Speaker, I'm delighted to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the Democratic whip.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 45 seconds.

My colleagues have confused the fact that they have gone around saying how, indeed, throughout August and all the rest of this time, that they don't want to shut down the House, in some hope, I guess, that nobody would understand that when they shut down the House, that they had actually done it.

Now what my colleague is talking about from the Democrat side, what they are saying, let's do what we agree with, they are taking their word for it that you didn't want to shut down the House. So let's not do it. You cannot superimpose that notion onto the idea of setting up this government by dribs and drabs. None of us are for that. The Senate won't do it. You know this is an exercise in futility. But pretty soon, the previous question is coming up. You are going to have a chance to do what you said you didn't want to do, shut down the House. But I understand from what you have said that because of health care, because of health care and what you think it has done to people in your district, you are holding this country hostage.

I don't have the time. My time has been given out.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am feeling quite badly. I didn't know how much time I had remaining.

I am happy to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica), if he would like.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Danny K. Davis) a member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that regular order has not been the order of business in this House for a long time.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr), ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture.

Mr. Speaker, I believe I've only got one more speaker in the room, so I wanted to inform my colleague that, after Mr. Andrews, I may be prepared to close.

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.)

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

I am absolutely going to vote to retroactively fund the Federal employees because that's the best I can do, on that one issue. It is a matter of basic fairness, but it is not good enough.

The fact is that the Federal employees will not get paid their retroactive money until after all this charade is over. We have no idea when that's going to be.

Let me reiterate again what all my colleagues have said: we can do it right now, put them back to work and let them get their paycheck.

I'm embarrassed every time I pass the Capitol Police at what's happening to them. It bothers me terribly to hear my friends at the State Department say that they're working on fumes.

We cannot run the Government of the United States, which is the beacon of democracy, has been the pattern for countries all over the world, by saying we're going to fund this piece over there and that piece over there, and we don't care what happens to the rest of it. That's not what we are here for.

Certainly, we will fund that one piece; but I can tell you right now, the Democrats are not going to do any of the rest of it because the Senate is not going to take it up and the President is not going to sign it.

We are simply wasting time, and we're taking up valuable time, and we are worrying the country half to death.

For heaven's sake, when we do this previous question, let us do the right thing. Vote ``no'' and get all these folks back to work.

Does it literally make sense to anybody who either manages a household or their own business that we would say to everybody, go home and rest around here or there; we'll pay you later when we decide you can come back, for not being here. That makes absolutely no sense.

Let them go back to work. We're going to pay them. Pay them now for the work they're doing. Pay concurrently with work.

Doesn't that make more sense?

Does it really make any sense at all that we're saying to them, we have no idea what the end game is here. You may be sitting around for a very long time, while the country pays $300 million a day of the cost of the shutdown.

For heaven's sake, I would say once again that we have to do this previous question today. We have to stop this nonsense. It is humiliating us. We cannot go on with this another week.

We're only here today to try to make it look like we're doing something because the government's shut down, and we know it. Those bills that we're voting on today had no committee action, nothing. The Senate has made perfectly clear they're not going to take them up. They will not become law, as every school child knows.

Now, those who vote ``no'' on ordering the previous question will be giving this Chamber what the leadership of the majority has not, and that will be the real chance to vote this down so that we can put the CR on the calendar and stop the shutdown now, today.

It doesn't have to go back to the Senate. The President's waiting for it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues, I beg my colleagues, I do implore my colleagues, for goodness sakes, come to the floor, defeat the previous question. Vote ``no.''

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

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

Madam President, how much time is remaining?

Madam President, the problem we have at the border today is a direct result of the actions of the President of the United States. In 2011 we had 6,000 young people coming to America unlawfully. They were apprehended. Now we have 60,000. It was because of his DACA program and his open statement that was heard throughout the world as: If you come to America as a young person, you will be able to stay.

That was exactly and I think to some degree remains the situation.

If you come to America as a young person from Central America, not Mexico, and you turn yourself in, you will be released on a permiso or bond or promise to reappear.

People come and pick up the children and they stay.

This is no way to run a lawful system of immigration. You know, it was said: Well, we offered a comprehensive bill to fix it.

That bill was flawed. I opposed that bill. It was rejected by the House of Representatives.

I would say with great confidence that because the House of Representatives rejected the bill that Members of this Senate supported and that the President of the United States supported does not thereby mean the President of the United States can do what the bill says when it was rejected and did not become law. It takes both Houses to pass a piece of legislation.

The bill would not have worked. It would not have been effective. The people of the United States, through their elected representatives, did not allow it to become law.

I would point out that this administration amazingly has announced its intention to bypass Congress and to implement an executive amnesty by fiat. This would include, as has been widely reported, 5 million to 6 million work permits and legal status for illegal immigrants into America.

This is contrary to Congress's decision. Congress has not approved that. But Congress has approved a law that says it is unlawful for somebody in the country, for example, to work if they are not here lawfully. They can't work in the United States. They are not approved for work.

The President is saying he is going to give them legal status and permission to work contrary to plain law. This is

very serious. This action would be in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act. It would be an executive nullification of our laws and the protections that American workers are entitled to. Congress must not surrender to such lawlessness.

It has been in half a dozen papers. The Wall Street Journal 2 days ago: Millions of people by executive action of the President--it is unbelievable to be so open and bold about this, as if he thinks maybe this would intimidate Congress to force us to adopt legislation Congress has rejected.

We have the power--the power of the purse--to stop it. That is the appropriate response of Congress. When the President proposes something that is improper and outside of law, when we have powers as coequal branches of government, we can respond, and we should use the power of the purse.

Senator Cruz has filed an amendment to this bill that would prohibit the executive expenditures by the President of any funds for administrative amnesty or work authorization for unlawful immigrants. However, the majority leader, with the support of his conference, has blocked all amendments to this border supplemental. If we do not stop this Presidential action, we will ensure that the border crisis continues a catastrophe.

The President's planned action would also represent a total breach of our constitutional system, and it would be a hammer blow to millions of unemployed American citizens. We do have the power to stop this. We ought to stop it. We have a duty to Congress, we have a duty to the rule of law, and we have a duty to the Constitution.

What we can do today by voting yes on my motion to clear the amendment tree and to consider and pass Senator Cruz's amendment would fix this problem. It would say: Mr. President, you are not authorized to utilize any money of the U.S. Government to spend on a program to grant amnesty and work permits to millions.

The vote we are about to have will be a vote on whether to support the President's illegal amnesty or to block it. It will be a vote to allow us to vote on it, because right now the tree is filled and we can't vote.

I am going to be asking to table what is on the tree and clear that amendment out so we can vote on this amendment, and we will have a vote on it. Everyone in this Chamber will cast a vote before this whole Nation and reveal whether they stand for our laws, for our border sovereignty or whether they stand in support of the President's illegal activities, in truth.

A number of cosponsors support this amendment. I think it is the right thing to do, and we will be asking for that later today.

Colleagues, in addition, the administration has announced its intention to bypass Congress, according to the Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, and others, with as many as 5 million to 6 million of these work permits.

Unfortunately, the bill before us is merely a blank check to perpetuate the failure of this administration to fix the problems at the border. This can be done, colleagues. It is not impossible. It is not hopeless. We simply need a President who wants it to happen.

He has been sued by his own ICE officers, saying that they are being blocked from doing their duty. They asked a court to give them relief and tell their supervisors to quit telling them to violate the law and not enforce the law. That is amazing. Their morale is in the tank.

The current crisis on the border can be attributed to specific actions taken unilaterally by the President. After his 2012 Executive order, the number of unaccompanied minors apprehended at the border jumped from 7,100 in 2011 to nearly 15,000 in 2012, and now we have already hit more than 57,000 heading to 90,000. Estimates suggest approximately 32,000 unaccompanied minors are projected to cross the border in the remaining months of this fiscal year.

We have this egregious funding supplemental before us that would equal more than $110,000 per child who is coming into the country.

I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.

I thank my colleagues. We do have good colleagues here, and we have great robust debate, and I appreciate the chairman of the committee, Senator Mikulski.

Moreover, this border supplemental provides the Department with unlimited transfer authority of $1.1 billion--an unlimited ability of up to $1 billion. It becomes, really, a slush fund in that sense. They can use it for anything. Finally, the border supplemental would provide an additional $1.2 billion to the Department of Homeland Security.

So I am raising a point of order. And I am sure a motion to waive will be heard. But make no mistake. A vote to suspend the budget rules and to block our point of order is a vote for the President's amnesty; it is a vote for continued chaos. I urge my colleagues to sustain it.

The bill before us today is in clear violation of the budget. All the money is borrowed money, it violates the budget, and I raise that point of order.

Madam President, I have not raised it at this point, but I do intend to. I thought we had an understanding so we could make the votes occur at the agreed-upon time.

I would raise it later.

Mr. President, this is a $2 billion bill, all the money borrowed as a result of a crisis the President has created at the border, money this country does not have, and there are zero policy changes in it.

Republicans on the floor today have filed and argued for a number of amendments and attempted to offer those that are focused on critical policy changes to strengthen this legislation and make it more effective.

Unfortunately, the parliamentary maneuvering has been executed, the amendment tree is filled, and we have been prevented from offering any amendments at all that are necessary to establish a lawful system of immigration that works and that we can be proud of.

So I move to table the Reid amendment on the tree, 3751, for the purpose of offering the Cruz amendment. That amendment would prohibit the President of the United States from expending any funds to unilaterally provide amnesty and work authorizations for millions of people as has been reported in the press. The Cruz amendment is No. 3720.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, the pending measure, S. 2648--a bill providing emergency supplemental appropriations for fiscal year 2014-- contains a number of provisions in violation of the Budget Act and spends in violation of the Budget Act. Specifically, it contains matter within the jurisdiction of the Budget Committee that was not reported or discharged from the Budget Committee. Therefore, I raise a point of order against the measure pursuant to section 306 of the Congressional Budget Act.

I ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes.

I respect the remarks of the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, but I would note that every penny of this bill is borrowed. None of it is funded through any offsets or other sources of income. This country has to be more careful. The bill needs to go through the Budget Committee. It did not get approved properly there. I would note, again, it is all borrowed. It does not make any policy changes. I think we all should stand firm to reject this bill, and to sustain the point of order.