Paycheck Fairness Act

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

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

Madam Speaker, budgets are moral documents. These annual documents are really statements of who we are as political parties and as groups and as people. They represent our values. They tell a story about what we believe in and how we would govern.

I had thought that I had come here today to say that this budget before us, the Ryan budget, is simply bad or that it is misguided. Madam Speaker, it is much worse than that.

This is an awful budget. It takes our country in the fundamentally wrong direction.

It seems as though every year we shake our heads wondering how the latest Ryan budget could possibly get worse than the previous year's efforts. And yet, time after time, the Ryan budget manages to pull it off.

This budget is cruel, but sadly, it is not unusual.

The gentleman from Georgia says he can't contain his smiles when he talks about this budget. I don't think there is anything to smile about.

Year after year, the Ryan budget does more and more damage to the social fabric of our Nation. Year after year, it puts the wishes of the rich ahead of the needs of the poor. And year after year, it sacrifices the reality of desperately needed investments at the altar of theoretical deficit reduction.

Let's look at the details. The Ryan budget includes deep cuts. How deep? $791 billion below the sequester number. $791 billion below sequester. That is amazing, Madam Speaker.

Now, I voted against sequester because of the damage it would and it did inflict on our economy. This budget would actually cut nearly $1 trillion on top of the sequester. I thought we wanted to end sequester, not make choices that are even worse.

But that is not the end of the story. According to one estimate, 69 percent of the Ryan budget cuts come from low-income programs. It would shred the safety net. The programs that keep millions of Americans out of poverty and help provide millions of Americans with health care, that will provide millions of children with school meals and early childhood education, received the lion's share of the cuts. That is what the Ryan budget does.

In fact, according to the same estimate, $3.3 trillion of the Ryan budget's $4.8 trillion in non-defense cuts come from low-income safety net programs like Medicaid, SNAP, school breakfast and lunch programs, Head Start, the Supplemental Security Income program, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and Child Tax Credits.

Sixty-nine percent of the total non-defense cuts come from these life-changing, indeed, lifesaving programs.

The Ryan budget is successful at one thing: it deepens the divide between the rich and poor in this country. It successfully makes life harder for those who are already struggling to make ends meet.

If you are hungry in America, you would see food benefits cut by $137 billion.

If you are a middle class college student in America, hopefully you can win the lottery, or have a rich uncle, because Pell grants would be cut by $125 billion by freezing the maximum grant and cutting eligibility.

If you are a low-income working mother in America who gets health care through Medicaid, you would join at least 40 million Americans who will become uninsured by 2024 after the Ryan budget cuts at least $2.7 trillion from Medicaid.

And if you are a middle class family with kids in America just trying to get by in this sluggish economy, you would see your taxes go up by $2,000.

But if you are fortunate enough to be very rich in America, you lucked out. It is time to pop the champagne because you make out like a bandit. The oil companies keep their tax breaks. Businesses can keep putting money in overseas accounts just to avoid paying taxes here in America.

And if you are a millionaire?

Get ready for a big fat check from Uncle Sam. That is because anyone making $1 million a year will see a tax cut of at least $200,000.

On top of these disastrous policies, the Ryan budget, once again, goes after seniors. This version, once again, ends the Medicare guarantee and reopens the Medicare prescription drug doughnut hole.

As a result of these cuts, seniors will see their traditional Medicare premiums soar by an average of 50 percent. As AARP says:

Removing the Medicare guarantee of affordable health

coverage for older Americans by implementing a premium

support system and asking seniors and future retirees to pay

more is not the right direction.

Now these policies have real world ramifications. Last week, Madam Speaker, an incredibly strong and courageous group of women called the Witnesses to Hunger returned to Capitol Hill to talk about their struggles as low-income, working women trying to make ends meet.

It takes guts to come here to Capitol Hill to tell your story and challenge Members of Congress to do better, and that is exactly what these impressive women did. They told their stories. They talked about their struggles, and they challenged us to do more to help so they don't fall back into poverty.

These women, and the millions of Americans like them who work hard every day, don't earn enough to make ends meet. They are having to choose between rent and food and electricity.

These women and their children aren't line items in our budget. They aren't statistics in our reports. They are people, people who just want to have a roof over their heads, food on their tables, and an education system that will help their children learn and succeed.

They want to go to college and not have to worry about losing their scholarships just because they are a single mother and need to work a night job to feed their child.

These women, and millions of Americans, would be hurt, they would be devastated by the Ryan budget. I am glad there are people who are able to make a lot of money in this country. I have nothing against rich people, but we shouldn't penalize those who are struggling.

Madam Speaker, we should be providing ladders of opportunity to help people get out of poverty and move into the middle class. When people need a helping hand, we should provide that assistance, whether it is a job training program, early childhood education, health care, or something as simple and as basic as food.

These aren't handouts; they are hand-ups. They are investments in our future, and we should be providing opportunities to strengthen our communities and the middle class through job creation, higher education, and advancing research and innovation.

This is a great country. We have done great things, but we have begun to think small. That is what the Republican majority has succeeded in doing. They have got us to start thinking small rather than big. We don't tackle big problems anymore. We use deficit reduction as an excuse to do nothing.

What we need to do is tackle big issues like ending hunger. We should tackle the issue of ending poverty. We should want to strive for a country that benefits not just the few who are rich but the many who are poor.

The Ryan budget would set us back. It would do real damage to millions and millions of real Americans, our neighbors, our friends, our fellow parishioners.

As Pope Francis has written in his Papal Exhortation:

I ask God to give us more politicians capable of sincere

and effective dialogue aimed at healing the deepest roots,

and not simply the appearances of the evils in our world.

Politics, though often denigrated, remains a lofty vocation

and one of the highest forms of charity, inasmuch as it seeks

the common good.

Inasmuch as it seeks the common good. This budget, this Ryan budget, this Republican budget, or whatever you want to call it, does not seek the common good. This budget fails that basic test that Pope Francis outlined. It does not seek the common good. It deserves to be defeated.

We can do so much better in this Congress and for our country. I am ashamed that this is what we are debating here today, that this is the Republican vision for our future.

This the wrong way to go. Democrats and Republicans should say ``no'' to this.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I think one of the differences between what the Republicans have proposed and what Democrats are proposing is that what they propose is just one thing--cuts. Cuts and cuts and cuts in programs for the most needy in this country, and more tax cuts for the most wealthy.

What the Democrats have proposed is a more balanced approach. Yeah, there needs to be some sacrifice, but we also understand the importance of investment.

If you want to find a way to balance the budget, why don't we find a cure for Alzheimer's disease? Not only would that help improve the quality of life for millions of people, but it would also eliminate all the fiscal problems that Medicaid has.

Let's find a cure for diabetes. Let's find a cure for cancer.

Why aren't our energies devoted toward investing in medical research?

And yet the Ryan budget that we are now debating would devastate medical research in this country. It would devastate it.

We have researchers coming in to visit us who are telling us that China is offering them a better package to do their medical research, Singapore. I want these cures to be found here in the United States. I want to invest in that research that will not only save people's lives, but create jobs and also save money.

Yet, my friends on the other side, they devastate investments in medical research. They devastate investments in scientific research. They devastate investments in transportation.

Their way is one way: cut programs that help the most needy, and give tax breaks to the Donald Trumps of the world. Donald Trump doesn't need any more help. Middle class families, those struggling to get into the middle class, do need help.

Madam Speaker, I am going to urge that we defeat the previous question, and if we do, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 4415, the House companion to the unemployment insurance extension bill passed by a bipartisan majority in the Senate just yesterday. Representative Kildee introduced this bill just hours after Senate passage.

Today, on Equal Pay Day, my amendment will also bring up H.R. 377, Rosa DeLauro's Paycheck Fairness Act. It is shameful that women in America still make an average of only 77 cents for every dollar earned by their male colleagues. The Paycheck Fairness Act will require equal pay for equal work.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) to discuss our proposal.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Caardenas).

Madam Speaker, I think what you just saw on the floor is frustration. In the supposedly open House that my colleagues brag about--erroneously, I should add--this issue of comprehensive immigration reform has failed to be given a day on the floor.

The United States Senate, in a bipartisan way, passed comprehensive immigration reform, a bill that would, by the way, raise close to a trillion dollars over the next 20 years to pay down our debt, and yet we can't even get it scheduled on the House floor. The leadership here continues to block it, and Mr. Caardenas and Mr. Polis last night in the Rules Committee thought that, given the fact that there is such an incredible savings here, it was relevant to this.

And, by the way, the Rules Committee can do whatever it wants to. The Rules Committee could issue the necessary waivers to allow this to happen. There is no reason at all why this couldn't have been brought up today except that a majority in the Rules Committee said no. I mean, that is the reason why.

So what you see is frustration. What you see is frustration not just by Democrats. There are people on the Republican side who, as well, would like to see us debate comprehensive immigration reform, and instead we are blocked at every single avenue. So that has to change; otherwise, you are going to see more of the kinds of displays that you just witnessed.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I want to agree with my friend from Oklahoma that Mr. Ryan has given us a choice. He has presented us a budget that would end Medicare as we know it; it would slash the social safety net to smithereens; it cuts SNAP by $137 billion; and it would damage the National Institutes of Health and transportation funding. Pell grants would be cut. I could go right down the list. Yeah, I know we have got a choice here, and people ought to understand what that budget is all about.

My friends on the other side may be proud of this. Again, I find that puzzling, because the notion that the only way to balance the budget is by hurting poor people or hurting the middle class, I don't agree with.

You talk about sacrifices. Why are all the sacrifices on the backs of middle-income families or on the backs of the poor in this country? The rich get a tax cut. The rich get a tax cut. Middle class families get a tax increase. Poor people get their food stamps taken away from them. Why is that always the choice that you provide Members of this House? Why are those the only people that sacrifice? I just find it unconscionable, quite frankly.

With that, Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman.

Madam Speaker, I would just say to the gentleman from Florida that national defense includes more than the number of weapons we have in our arsenal. It also include the quality of life for our people here at home, and these programs that he is denigrating, like SNAP, for example, I should remind him there are an extremely high number of military families that rely on SNAP to get by and a high number of veterans who do as well.

Basic food, they are looking for helping with putting food on the table. So before anybody denigrates those programs, understand that they contribute to our national defense as well. They are feeding our military families and veterans because our returning veterans can't find jobs that pay a livable wage.

At this time, it is my pleasure to yield 6 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), the distinguished ranking member of the Rules Committee.

I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman.

I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Madam Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining?

Madam 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.

Madam Speaker, I insert in the Record a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities entitled ``Ryan Budget Would Slash SNAP by $137 Billion Over 10 Years, Low-Income Households in all States Would Feel Sharp Effects.''

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question and to vote ``no'' on the underlying bill.

The Ryan budget will create a government without a conscience. It is cruel. This budget is a rotten thing to do to poor people; it is a rotten thing to do to the middle class. It is an outrage.

So please, again, vote ``no'' on the previous question, and vote ``no'' on the underlying bill.

This really is an embarrassment. We could do so much better in this Chamber. The people in this country deserve much better than what we are giving them.

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

[From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Apr. 4, 2014]

Ryan Budget Would Slash SNAP by $137 Billion Over Ten Years

Low-Income Households in All States Would Feel Sharp Effects

(By Dorothy Rosenbaum)

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's budget plan

includes cuts in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance

Program (SNAP, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program) of

$137 billion--18 percent--over the next ten years (2015-

2024), which would necessitate ending food assistance for

millions of low-income families, cutting benefits for

millions of such households, or some combination of the two.

Chairman Ryan proposed similarly deep SNAP cuts in each of

his last three budgets. The new Ryan budget specifies two

categories of SNAP cuts:

It includes every major benefit cut in a House-passed

version of the recent farm bill that Congress ultimately

rejected when enacting the final farm bill. The Congressional

Budget Office (CBO) has estimated the House cuts, which

amount to $12 billion over the 2015-2018 period, would have

terminated benefits to 3.8 million low-income people in 2014.

After a difficult two-year process, Congress just two months

ago, on a bipartisan basis, passed a farm bill that rejected

these House cuts and reauthorized SNAP and other Agriculture

programs for five years.

It would convert SNAP into a block grant beginning in 2019

and cut funding steeply--by $125 billion (or almost 30

percent) over 2019 to 2024. States would be left to decide

whose benefits to reduce or terminate. They would have no

good choices--the program already provides an average of only

$1.40 per person per meal, primarily to poor children,

working-poor parents, seniors, people with disabilities, and

others struggling to make ends meet.

Ryan Block Grant Would Force States to Cut Food Assistance Deeply

Since 90 percent of SNAP spending goes for food assistance,

and most of the rest covers state administrative costs to

determine program eligibility and operate SNAP properly,

policymakers couldn't achieve cuts of this magnitude without

substantially scaling back eligibility or reducing benefits

deeply, with serious effects on low-income families and

individuals. Table 1 provides state-by-state estimates of the

potential impact of the block grant proposal.

Cuts in eligibility. If the cuts came solely from

eliminating eligibility for categories of currently eligible

households or individuals, states would have to cut an

average of 10 million people from the program (relative to

SNAP enrollment without the cuts) each year between 2019 and

2024.

Cuts in benefits. If the cuts came solely from across-the-

board benefit cuts, states would have to cut more than $40

per person per month in 2019 to 2024 (in nominal dollars), on

average. This would require setting the maximum benefit at

about 77 percent of the Thrifty Food Plan, the Agriculture

Department's (USDA) estimate of the cost of a bare-bones,

nutritionally adequate diet. (Under SNAP rules, the maximum

benefit--which goes to households with no disposable income

after deductions for certain necessities--is set at 100

percent of the cost of the Thrifty Food Plan.)

The impact of such a change would be pronounced. All

families of four--including the poorest--would face benefit

cuts of about $160 a month in fiscal year 2019, or more than

$1,900 per year. All families of three would face cuts of

about $125 per month, or about $1,500 per year. Of course,

policymakers could shield some households from such deep

cuts, but then other households would need to bear even

larger cuts in order to produce the $125 billion in block-

grant savings.

While states might not seek to hit the Ryan targets through

eligibility cuts or benefit cuts alone, these examples

illustrate the magnitude of the reductions needed. States

would have few other places to achieve the required cuts; as

noted, about 90 percent of SNAP expenditures are for food

assistance.

Proposed Cuts Rest on Inaccurate Claims

Chairman Ryan bases his proposed SNAP cuts on a series of

inaccurate claims about SNAP program growth, work

disincentives, and waste, fraud, and abuse.

Spending growth. Chairman Ryan justifies deep SNAP cuts in

part by claiming that the ``explosive growth [of SNAP and

other low-income programs] is threatening the overall

strength of the safety net'' and ``SNAP spending is forecast

to be permanently higher than previous estimates even after

the recession is long past.'' While SNAP spending did grow

substantially during the recession, it has begun to decline

as a share of the economy and is expected to continue

shrinking over the coming decade.

SNAP grew because of three factors: the depth of the recent

recession, which made more people eligible; improvements in

reaching eligible households (particularly working-poor

families); and the 2009 Recovery Act's temporary benefit

boost (which ended in November 2013). As Figure 1 indicates,

CBO projects that SNAP will return to pre-recession levels as

a share of the economy

(gross domestic product) once the economy fully recovers. The

program does not contribute to the nation's long-term budget

problem because it is projected to grow no faster than the

economy over time.

Work and dependency. Chairman Ryan also justifies cutting

SNAP and turning it over to the states by implying that SNAP

doesn't encourage recipients to work. Yet the number of SNAP

recipients who work while receiving SNAP has more than

tripled over the past decade. Furthermore, CBPP analysis

finds that the large majority of SNAP recipients who can work

do so, and many more rely on SNAP when they are between jobs

or looking for work.

Among SNAP households with at least one working-age, non-

disabled adult, more than half work while receiving SNAP and

more than 80 percent work in the year prior to or the year

after receiving SNAP. The rates are even higher for families

with children: more than 60 percent work while receiving

SNAP, and almost 90 percent work in the prior or subsequent

year. Only 4 percent of households that worked in the year

before receiving SNAP did not work the following year.

Moreover, SNAP already has work requirements. Adults

without children face a harsh three-month time limit if they

are unemployed and not participating in a qualifying

employment and training program. States can apply for a

waiver from this requirement during a weak economy when jobs

are not available by submitting detailed Department of Labor

data showing high unemployment in local areas or statewide,

but the number of areas qualifying for a waiver is falling as

the economy recovers, and CBO expects the number of such

areas to shrink markedly over the next few years. (The Ryan

budget would eliminate these waivers immediately, even for

areas with double-digit unemployment.) In addition, states

have broad authority to operate employment and training

programs, and the recent farm bill includes a major

demonstration program for states to test innovative

approaches to providing employment and training services that

raise recipients' earnings and reduce their reliance on

public assistance.

Waste, fraud, and abuse. Finally, Chairman Ryan justifies

his SNAP proposals based on charges that SNAP is rife with

waste, fraud, and abuse. The reality is that SNAP has one of

the most rigorous quality control systems of any public

benefit program and a very low error rate. Despite the recent

growth in caseloads, the share of total SNAP payments that

represent overpayments or payments to ineligible households

fell to a record low of 2.77 percent in fiscal year 2012. In

addition, USDA has cut ``trafficking''--the sale of SNAP

benefits for cash, which violates federal law--by three-

quarters over the past 15 years. Only 1.3 percent of SNAP

benefits are trafficked. USDA has also permanently

disqualified thousands of retail stores from the program for

not following strict federal requirements. When cases of SNAP

fraud are reported in the news, it is because the offenders

have been caught, evidence that states and USDA are

aggressively combating fraud.

Benefit Cuts Would Primarily Affect Low-Income Families With Children,

Seniors, and People With Disabilities

The Ryan budget documents assert that Congress could

achieve the required savings by capping federal SNAP funding

and ``allow[ing] states to customize SNAP to the needs of

their citizens'' through a block grant. That description

leaves the mistaken impression that the program is not

serving a population that is overwhelmingly poor and that

savings could be achieved without significantly harming

millions of vulnerable Americans.

Unlike most means-tested benefit programs, which are

restricted to particular categories of low-income

individuals, SNAP is broadly available to almost all

households with very low incomes. Cutting SNAP thus would

affect broad swaths of the low-income population. Currently,

46.8 million people receive SNAP to help them feed their

families. Census data show that in 2012 (the latest year for

which these data are available), 46.5 million Americans lived

below the poverty line, and 64.8 million lived below 130

percent of the poverty line, SNAP's gross income limit.

The overwhelming majority of SNAP households are families

with children, seniors, or people with disabilities. Seventy

percent of SNAP participants are in families with children;

more than one-quarter are in households that include senior

citizens or people with disabilities.

SNAP households have very low incomes. Eighty-three percent

of SNAP households have incomes below the poverty line while

they are receiving SNAP assistance (about $19,800 for a

family of three in 2014). Such households receive 91 percent

of SNAP benefits. Two of every five SNAP households have

incomes below half of the poverty line. Such individuals and

families have little flexibility in their monthly budgets to

cope with deep reductions in food assistance.

Low-wage workers rely on SNAP to boost their monthly

income. Millions of Americans live in working households with

earnings that are not sufficient to meet basic needs. In

2012, some 39 million people (1 in 8 Americans) lived in a

working family with cash income below 130 percent of the

poverty line. Low incomes like these--which typically reflect

low wages or limited work hours--can leave families unable to

afford necessities like food and housing on a regular basis.

SNAP benefits play a crucial role in boosting such families'

monthly resources: in 2012, a typical working mother with two

children on SNAP earned $1,148 per month ($13,700 on an

annual basis) and received $307 per month in SNAP benefits.

If the Ryan proposal had been in place in 2012 and was

implemented via across-the-board cuts, this family's monthly

benefits would have been cut by $110 per month--or about 36

percent.

SNAP Benefit Cuts Would Increase Hunger and Poverty

SNAP cuts of the magnitude that the Ryan budget proposes

would almost certainly lead to increases in hunger and

poverty. Emergency food providers report that more people ask

for help in the latter half of the month, after their SNAP

benefits run out. Under the Ryan budget's steep funding cuts,

a typical household's SNAP benefits would run out many days

earlier, placing greater strain on household finances (and on

emergency food providers) and significantly increasing the

risk of hunger.

Deep SNAP cuts also would cause more families and

individuals to fall into poverty and push poor families

deeper into poverty. Currently, SNAP helps lessen the extent

and severity of poverty; Census Bureau data on disposable

family income that include the value of SNAP and other non-

cash benefits and taxes show that:

SNAP lifted 4.9 million Americans above the poverty line in

2012, including 2.2 million children.

SNAP kept more children--1.4 million--from falling below

half of the poverty line in 2012, more than any other

program.

The Ryan SNAP cuts would thus have a sharp, adverse effect

on millions of the lowest-income Americans. Moreover, they

would not occur in isolation. The Ryan budget contains steep

cuts in other low-income assistance programs, compounding the

effects of the SNAP cuts. Many vulnerable families would lose

health coverage, housing assistance, and other important

supports such as child care at the same time they faced SNAP

cuts.

Cuts Could Be Even Larger Under a Block Grant

Block-granting SNAP, as Chairman Ryan proposes, would

eliminate its ability to respond automatically to the

increased need that results from rising poverty and

unemployment during economic downturns. Annual federal

funding would remain fixed, regardless of whether the economy

was in a recession or how severe a downturn was. As a result,

the House Budget Committee staff's estimate that the Ryan

plan would cut SNAP by $137 billion over ten years may

understate the magnitude of the cut--the cuts would be still

more severe if the economy performs less well over the coming

decade than CBO projects.

If a SNAP block grant had been in effect in 2013 at funding

levels set in 2007, before the recession, federal funding in

2013 would have been about 50 percent below actual funding

that year (excluding the Recovery Act benefit boost).

Furthermore, under a block grant, SNAP would not be able to

respond to natural disasters. Hurricane Sandy victims in New

York and New Jersey obtained temporary food aid through SNAP

in 2013, as did victims of disasters in five other states.

Also, under a block grant, many states would likely shift

funds away from food assistance to other purposes when they

faced large state budget shortfalls. SNAP includes several

non-food components, such as job training and related child

care; a block grant structure would enable states to divert

funds away from food to these purposes and withdraw state

funds currently spent on these services.

Finally, because of its capped funding structure, a block

grant like the one Chairman Ryan proposes would reverse the

recent progress made, on a bipartisan basis, to improve SNAP

participation among eligible low-income households. Viewing

SNAP as an important work support and health and nutrition

benefit, the last three Administrations, as well as governors

from across the political spectrum, have sought to boost

participation rates--especially among working-poor families

and low-income elderly people, the two groups with the lowest

participation rates. Overall, the efforts have paid off. SNAP

reached 79 percent of all eligible individuals in a typical

month in 2011 (the most recent year for which these data are

available), a significant improvement from 2002, when the

participation rate bottomed out at 54 percent. Participation

among eligible low-income working families rose from 43

percent in 2002 to about 67 percent in 2011. For the elderly,

it improved more modestly--from 26 percent in 2002 to about

39 percent in 2011.

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

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

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

Well, I want to come to the floor to wish the Republicans a happy anniversary. I brought a gold ring. This is the 50th repeal of ObamaCare. I want to wish my colleagues a happy 50th anniversary for the appeal of ObamaCare.

Like any marriage that lasts 50 years, it takes a lot of work. The American people have shown that they want this marriage to last. They have shown that by reelecting Barack Obama as President. They have shown that by electing a Senate that won't even consider a repeal of the Affordable Care Act; but also like any marriage, it takes work along the way to improve it, to work at it, to make changes to it.

Democrats stand ready to work with President Obama, to fine-tune this wonderful marriage celebrating the 50th anniversary of its repeal here today, to make sure it endures for another 50 repeal votes by the House Republicans here in the coming months. We are ready to make the changes that we need to, to ensure that the Affordable Care Act works for every American.

There are issues in the implementation in my district. Two of my counties, Summit and Eagle County, have among the highest insurance rates in the exchange in the entire country, these two counties. That is due to a problem that the State had in implementing it, but we would love to work with Republicans on a Federal fix for Eagle and Summit County, and the other Colorado counties that are affected by it.

I would be proud to work with my colleagues to replace the revenue and the medical and device tax with other sources of revenue to ensure that the Affordable Care Act works.

There are a lot of great ideas, and perhaps it is time that, rather than continue to celebrate anniversaries of repeal, that we enter couples counseling sessions today, and we work together in trying to find common ground.

Rather than talking about repealing ObamaCare and going back to a system we know wasn't working, in which 40 million Americans didn't have health care insurance, in which Americans and my constituents and yours were frustrated that, year after year, rates were going up 10, 15, 20 percent--rather than going back to a formula we know didn't work, let's enter couples counseling and work together to make health care work in our country, to talk about a path forward, with the President, with Democrats, with Republicans, with Independents, to ensure that these cost increases that have been epidemic the last couple of decades come to an end, that we can extend coverage to more American families, that we can ensure that the quality of health care that is our Nation's pride can continue to be available to Americans, regardless of their economic background.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Isn't that wonderful? Isn't this great that the President has made 19 changes to improve the Affordable Care Act to make it work?

You know what? That is what a marriage takes. That is what has helped the Affordable Care Act withstand the 50th vote to repeal it here in the House. Had the President been inflexible--just like in a marriage, if one partner is inflexible, it would have been a lot harder to survive 50 votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Here, we are celebrating the golden anniversary of repeal votes, 50 votes.

But thanks to the President's flexibility with 19 changes, hopefully, there are more along the way to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable health care:

That no American faces pricing discrimination or is kept out of a plan because of a preexisting condition;

That people can move between employers;

That somebody can leave a large company to be an entrepreneur and have a startup without worrying about losing their health care if they have a preexisting condition;

Making sure that young Americans, as they are trying to find a job or working part time, can stay on their parents' plan;

Making sure that Americans have a real choice in the exchanges that choose between multiple providers.

These were some of the elements that I think the American people want to keep and one of the reasons that this health care act has not only withstood 50 votes to repeal and is celebrating its golden anniversary, but will survive the next 50 votes if the House Republicans choose to have them to try to appeal the Affordable Care Act.

The American people want to see changes to make it work. We applaud the President for the 19 changes he made. We encourage him to use the discretion that we rightly give him under the Affordable Care Act to help make it work.

We encourage the discretion at the State level that many Governors, like the Governor of Kentucky and others, have shown to make the Affordable Care Act work in their State.

We applaud the fact that there are over $200 billion of deficit reduction in the Affordable Care Act. If we can find additional savings and replace lost revenue, we are certainly open to that discussion. So I rise in celebration of having withstood 50 repeal votes. We are ready for the next 50.

We use these opportunities to highlight the American people on the benefits of the Affordable Care Act and to say that we are ready to have a real discussion with Republicans, to exert our legislative privilege, to make changes, and in the absence of that, we applaud the President in using the abilities that we give him under the act to help make sure the Affordable Care Act truly makes health care more affordable for American families.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

This bill--this 50th anniversary--golden anniversary of ObamaCare repeals here in the House--50th vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, gutting mental parity, health parity, gutting protection for Americans with preexisting conditions, went through no hearings, no markups, no amendments that we are allowed to discuss or debate or vote on here on the floor of the House. This is not the process for improving the quality of health care for American families.

The American people have made it clear they want this marriage to last. They want to make it work. They know it requires hard work. The President has made 19 wonderful changes to the law.

I am not a constitutional lawyer. If there are folks on the other side who want to sue the President, who think that he did something contrary to the law we passed, they are certainly welcome to sue. I believe that the President was given broad discretion under the law to make it work.

I hope that this legislative body takes up the gauntlet and makes the changes we need to make the Affordable Care Act work. Any marriage takes effort. Here, we have a marriage between the Affordable Care Act and the American people, and 50 votes to repeal it are not going to break up that marriage.

It is a stronger marriage than that because the American people have voted on it. They didn't elect a Presidential candidate who wanted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. They didn't elect a Senate that wanted to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

So here we are, and we are welcome to have another 50, 100, 200 votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act; or we can get to work on an open process, letting Members of both parties offer floor amendments. This rule allows no floor amendments.

Having a markup in committee, having hearings in committee about how we can deliver better health care value to the American people will make sure

affordable care is available to every American family and affordable for small businesses, to make America more competitive.

But instead of going through an open process, encouraging ideas from Republicans and Democrats to make health care work in our country, we are presented with the 50th vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

In the absence of meaningful improvements and legislation, the President is using the authority that we gave him under this bill to make the changes that he needs to make, to make sure the Affordable Care Act works.

This body can reassert itself and take back its prerogative whenever we want by passing commonsense bipartisan bills to improve the Affordable Care Act, but it truly is hypocritical to criticize the President out of one side of one's mouth for making changes that actually improve the law and make it work better, when here in this body we are refusing to make some of those same commonsense changes.

I hope that if people think that there was authority of the law that exceeded, they are welcome to work that out in the courts. That is what the court is for, to settle the differences of separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches; but I hope, more important, because the American people care about affordable health care, that this body is willing to take up some of those improvements that we can make, to make sure that this marriage can endure for the next 50 votes as well.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, make no bones about it. The individual mandate is a linchpin of RomneyCare--or whatever you would like to call it--modeled on, in fact, the insurance reforms in Massachusetts. This component is critical to ensuring that people with preexisting conditions are not discriminated against in pricing in the exchange. It is important to make sure that we have a younger, healthier risk pool in the exchange to bring down rates for all Americans.

If this bill were to become law, which it won't--it is simply the 50th repeal of the Affordable Care Act, the golden anniversary of repeals--the entire affordable care structure, including the pricing in the exchange, would go up for American families, and it would devastate health care reform. This is not a bill that has support from the President. It is not a bill that has support from the proponents of the Affordable Care Act. It doesn't make the Affordable Care Act better. It is, in fact, the 50th repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

I was on the Education and Labor Committee, as it was called at the time, two Congresses ago. My colleague from Texas talked about the process under which the health care bill was written. We did have a substantial markup. There were other committees: the Ways and Means Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee. My committee was one of the committees that it was reported out of, and there were other committees it was not reported out of.

This was an amazing process of writing this bill over the period of a year. In fact, in our Democratic Caucus meetings, we even, essentially, functioned as a committee of our entire Caucus, where we went through the bill page after page, and we made suggestions. There were a number of bills that were written by Republicans that were included in the Affordable Care Act, and there were amendments that I was involved with that were included. Like in any legislative process, some that I advocated for were not included in the final bill.

Unlike this bill, which had no hearing and no markup in any form-- because the gentleman from Texas is right. This bill number came from the Senate, and that is the normal process around here. We sometimes have bills from the Senate we approve, and sometimes they originate here and go over there. So this bill number and this title came from something else, and they approved it in reconciliation.

Yet the Affordable Care Act--the bill that led to it--went through my committee. I remember being up until, really, I think, 7 o'clock in the morning. We went straight through the night, under Chairman Miller, offering a number of amendments, some passing and some not. Sometimes I was on the prevailing side, sometimes not. We had a lively discussion over amendments from Democrats and Republicans, some of which made it into the final bill and some of which didn't. That is the legislative process.

To somehow compare that to the legislative process around this bill is like night and day. So, although the gentleman from Texas is technically correct--the bill number was a reconciliation from the Senate that the House concurred in and sent back with some changes--the work that went into forming that bill had countless hearings and had several markups, including one that I participated in and offered amendments in and voted for and against amendments from both sides of the aisle in.

We are where we are. We would love to see the Affordable Care Act go through a process now. Again, why not allow amendments under this rule? Why not allow Republicans or Democrats, who have ideas to make health care more affordable, to offer them now to the floor? If they would pass, then they would move on to the Senate.

Instead, we have a narrowly focused Affordable Care Act repeal that makes health care less affordable for American families by leading to a risk pool in the exchanges that is less healthy and older. We need to ensure that young people are part of the exchanges. Young people want to have insurance, and they want to have affordable insurance. Let's make sure they have a way to do that in the exchanges. This bill would repeal that.

I reserve the balance of my time.

To the gentleman from Texas, I say it is possible I will have one more speaker. If I see her arrive, I will yield to her. Otherwise, I am prepared to close, and I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, this week, the number of people who lost their unemployment benefits as a result of Congress' failing to extend the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program has climbed to 2 million Americans. If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up legislation that would restore unemployment insurance and provide much-needed relief to countless families across the country as well as to stimulate our economy.

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 do urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question and to vote ``no'' on the underlying bills.

We could be doing a lot of important work here in the House rather than to have, I think, what both sides would agree is a purely symbolic 50th vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, unless there are, perhaps, some who think ``50'' is the magic number. I think anybody who has a degree of political sense realizes, if the other 49 didn't go anywhere, this one is very unlikely to go anywhere. Rather than proceed with something that isn't going anywhere and that gives the Democrats once again the opportunity to talk about how important it is to make health care more affordable--and the American people overwhelmingly want health care to be fixed, not repealed--we could be doing a lot of important things that the American people actually want this body to do.

Let's talk about immigration reform.

There is a bill that passed the Senate with Democrats and Republicans--68 votes. It is rare for more than two-thirds of the United States Senate to come together around a commonsense solution. How did they do that? They did that because the American people want this problem solved. They are sick and tired--and they should be; I am, too--of having over 10 million people illegally in this country. In my district, there are tens of thousands of people who are there illegally. We don't even know because there is no way to even count. President Obama has deported over 2 million people at an enormous cost to taxpayers--$10,000 to $20,000 per deportation. That is how much it costs taxpayers--you and me, Mr. Speaker.

Guess what? There is a bipartisan solution supported by the law enforcement community, supported by the business community, supported by the technology industry, supported by both the agriculture industry--farmers and farmworkers--and supported by business and labor, supported by the faith-based community, supported by over 75 percent of Americans across the political spectrum, supported by a majority of Republicans and a majority of Democrats and a majority of Independents. That bill is ready.

There is a bipartisan House version, H.R. 15. Let's bring that forward under a rule. That bill would have the votes to pass tomorrow if we brought it forward. We could send it to the President. We could reduce the deficit by over $100 billion, increase our GDP, create hundreds of thousands of jobs for American citizens, as the bill has been scored. Finally, we could secure our borders so we could have control over who comes and goes, both people and illicit products. That is what the American people want. Let's get that bill through rather than celebrate yet another empty anniversary for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

I strongly suggest that my colleagues start bringing forward bills that the American people want to see pass. If we can bring forward immigration reform with bipartisan support and get it out of this body and to the President's desk, the American people will start to improve their opinions of this institution. When I see the polls and they say, oh, 15 percent approval is what Congress has--or 12 percent--it is really no wonder because it is a little bit like a broken record around here. They are, frankly, sick and tired of our every week, it seems like, repealing the Affordable Care Act and making health care more expensive for the American people. They don't want to see us talking about golden rings and 50th anniversaries of votes. They want to see us solving problems.

We offer the Speaker and the majority leader the opportunity to do that. We welcome the Republican immigration principles. There are ample grounds to work on a bipartisan solution based on H.R. 15 or on another bill that encapsulates those principles that the Republicans laid down on which we can find common ground so as to solve a very real problem, to grow our economy, to reduce our deficit, to secure our borders, and to ensure that America remains competitive in the global economy. I challenge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to reach a solution on that issue and to really move forward with regard to making health care more affordable.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this closed process--this closed rule--that allows no Republican ideas and no Democratic ideas to come forward, to enter this discussion. I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question so the Democrats can bring forward the unemployment insurance bill, and I also encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the underlying bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the rule and the underlying bill, which should be called the More Work, Less Pay bill.

As my colleagues know, last week Majority Leader Cantor outlined his party's agenda for the month of May. The words he used to describe it was as a ``full legislative agenda,'' yet here we are only debating this bill on the floor of the House and I think finishing the business of the House around 1:30 p.m. today with plenty of time for Members of Congress to play golf, to go to the beach, whatever they want to do. This is hardly a full legislative agenda.

Let me add, Madam Speaker, that this bill is about overtime. Under this current legislative agenda, Congress wouldn't even come close to qualifying for overtime at a time when we have increasing national needs, balancing the budget, moving forward with jobs and the economy, comprehensive immigration reform. There are so many issues crying out for our attention, but here we are debating yet another bill that not only won't go anywhere, but also would actually make life harder and more unpredictable for American families.

This bill claims to provide working families flexibility, but in reality it allows employers to avoid paying overtime and get interest- free loans from their own employees.

There are many hourly employees who struggle holding two or three jobs, depending on overtime to pay bills, to keep food on the family table. If this bill were to become law, employers would be able to save a couple of bucks by essentially requiring people, in effect, to take comp time instead of overtime pay if they want extra hours.

Many American workers want to work more, not less. Under this bill, people's paychecks would be reduced and people don't have a real choice. It's no wonder that the vast majority of labor unions and workers oppose this bill and are not asking for this bill or this ``kind of help.''

I also want to correct something that has been claimed by my Republican colleagues, that somehow this bill gives private sector employees the same protections as public sector employees. That is not true. Most public sector workers are already protected against arbitrary and unfair treatment by civil service laws. Private sector workers don't have anything like that kind of protection.

That's why my colleague, Mr. Tim Bishop of New York, offered an amendment in committee specifying that private sector employers could provide comp time instead of overtime if they provided the same job security protections that public employees already receive. But this amendment was voted down in the Rules Committee yesterday, and we're not even allowed here on the floor of the House, where we're going to finish by 1:30 p.m., to have a debate. Somehow, there is not even enough time. Ten minutes is all we asked for on Mr. Bishop of New York's amendment.

Madam Speaker, the presentation of this bill is not consistent with the content of the bill. Of course it sounds good. Why wouldn't employees want the choice of being able to choose how they take their time? It all sounds good.

But like so many things that Congress does, the devil is in the details.

Contrary to what this bill says, employers can already give their employees time off if they so choose. Many do. We had Representative Joe Courtney in our Rules Committee yesterday who talked about when he was in the private sector and he had employees who had to attend school meetings, et cetera, he gave them time off. That's what most responsible employers do. We don't need legislation to tell employers it's okay to give their employees comp time.

Contrary to what the majority party here in the House says, employees wouldn't get paid under this bill until the end of the year for saved comp time--at no interest. No interest. So effectively, an interest- free loan to the company. Let's say an employee does overtime, works 45 hours a week for 3 weeks, accruing 15 hours of overtime. If they want this so-called flexibility that's provided under this bill, they choose to say, ``I may use this as comp time.'' That's their choice. However, they pay dearly for that choice in a number of ways.

Number one, if they don't use that comp time after a year, they get paid the original amount by the company. While it is true that if they got a raise in the intervening period, they get paid at that level of the raise, there is no accounting for interest or the net present value of those dollars. That's less of an impact when inflation is 1 or 2 percent, but still, it's an interest-free loan to the company. There's a much greater impact should interest rates ever return to their historical norms. And it wasn't that long ago that interest rates were in the high single digits, even double digits, effectively taking money from the worker and giving it to the company.

Number two, let's say the employer does want to use this comp time. Effectively, the employer has a unilateral veto over that. All they have to do is show that it creates undue disruption. That's the standard of unilateral employer veto.

Now, this is nothing like what occurs under the Family and Medical Leave Act, the FMLA. We've heard them say it's the same; it's not. Under FMLA it's a factor that leave doesn't create undue disruption. There's a variety of factors. It's not a sole determinant as determined by the employer.

In this case, the language is wide open to effectively provide a complete veto right of when that employee takes their time off. So again, our friend works 45 hours a weeks for 3 weeks, accrues 15 hours of overtime, and they get sold on this program. They say, ``I'll set aside the 15 hours.'' They try to take it off for their kid's birthday, they try to take it off when their kid is home from school. The employer says, ``No, you can't take it off that week.'' So it turns out that at the end of the year they still have their 15 hours.

They finally get paid, but because of net present value and interest, they are out 2 or 3 percent of that. Again, with higher interest, they could be out 10 percent. They could be out 15 percent of that. We can and must do better for American workers.

This bill would have a devastating impact for workers in my home State of Colorado. Me and my staff talked to Debbie Olander from United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 7. Debbie is a leader in our community, and she told me that wage step is already a big problem for workers in Colorado, and this bill would make it easier for employers to avoid overtime obligations and make it harder for employees who need those hours to pay those bills.

What happens if the employer goes out of business in the intervening year? Of course, the person whose wages are due can line up with other creditors, but who has the time or, if you're living paycheck to paycheck, the ability to wait to see if you ever get paid by a bankrupt employer? Instead of improving the lives of working families by giving greater flexibility, this bill allows employers to avoid paying overtime.

My Democratic colleagues on the Education and Workforce Committee and I agree that we must give working families flexibility to meet workplace and family needs. That's why we support bills like the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would help ensure that women are paid as much as men in the workplace, and the Healthy Families Act, which would establish a national paid sick day standard.

I've also heard from hundreds of workers from my district and across the country who support the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, which would prohibit workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. In more than half of the States, it's still perfectly legal in this day and age for an employer to fire an employee just because they're gay and what they do in their off work time. It's none of the employer's business who an employee is dating. To think that in this day and age it's legal in half the States for an employer to fire an employee because of who they're dating is absolutely absurd. We need to solve that by passing the Employment Nondiscrimination Act.

American workers are asking for these kinds of protections, unlike this sort of program that's being discussed today, which workers oppose or don't see as necessary. Well, you know, based on again the schedule for Congress, me and my colleagues aren't about to accrue any overtime anytime soon unless things change around here. Here we are, examining bills that are catchy, have good titles, might sound good on the surface, but don't address any of the real issues faced by American workers, the American economy, or our country as a whole. We need an agenda that's consistent with the needs of working families.

Madam Speaker, despite this fixation on changing the image and appealing to voters, many on the other side of the aisle seem to be recycling old ideas. In fact, an identical version of this bill was introduced in 1996, 1997, and 2003. It failed to pass the House each time. Madam Speaker, what this body needs is not just new branding, it needs new ideas, ideas that will actually help working families and make our country stronger.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Before further yielding, I yield myself a moment to respond.

I thank the gentlelady for the correction. What I was referring to is the vote in the Rules Committee yesterday on an open rule which we voted on in committee. Had we considered this bill under an open rule, I or Mr. Bishop, or any other Member of this body, could have brought forth his amendment.

You're correct, it was not submitted to the Rules Committee. It was offered in the committee of jurisdiction, on which I also serve. And I argued, you might recall, to the chair yesterday that this bill is a fine candidate for an open rule. Given that there's nothing else this body's doing today and we're getting done at 1:30, we might as well allow amendments like Mr. Bishop's and others to be able to be debated by the House and considered by the full House.

I also want to discuss something that the gentlelady said, something about how a mischaracterization of the opponents of this bill is somehow saying the private sector is bad or the government's good. I haven't heard anybody argue that. The private sector is great. The private sector is a chief engine of economic growth. This discussion is about the private sector.

In fact, it's the other side that's somehow trying to model policies that they say already exist in the public sector and force the private sector to comply with them. We're not here seeking to try to copy what exists in the public sector and apply it to the private sector. The private sector is the primary engine of economic growth.

I think where perhaps we disagree is that I hear from many on the other side that somehow government is bad. I believe, and many on my side believe, that the minimum amount of government is necessary to ensure the success of the private sector, to ensure the rules are followed and there's an open and competitive environment that allows the private sector to thrive and succeed and create jobs for American families.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 377, Representative DeLauro's Paycheck Fairness Act. To discuss her bill, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Before further yielding, I want to address this fallacious concept that the gentlelady from North Carolina has brought up in previous debate as well as this one that somehow the White House discriminates against women. Again, that's been proven as untrue. We actually have a young lady on our Rules Committee staff who worked for the White House and tells us she earned the same amount as men.

Of course, for the same job, women get paid the same amount. That's what paycheck fairness is about. It doesn't say if you do a different job you get paid the same amount, and it doesn't mean that every man and every woman is compensated the same. It's just for the same job, same pay. As for the Obama administration, every one of their actions and the White House's actions have been consistent with that. We believe it should apply to the private sector because, of course, not every woman in the country has the privilege of working for the White House.

We're talking about American families with real private sector jobs out there, not these government jobs that the other side keeps alluding to.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps.)

Before further yielding, I want to again address this great and sudden desire that the gentlelady from North Carolina has expressed to make sure that government policies apply to the private sector, to try to say somehow the way that government employees are treated needs to be the way that every private sector employee is treated. Usually it's the private sector that leads the way, not Big Government like the gentlelady from North Carolina is arguing. In fact, it's even a misinterpretation of what the public sector does.

The public sector has civil service protections for its employees. That's something that doesn't exist in the private sector. That's why, if we had been able to, under an open rule--which we don't have because, of course, somehow this body has to finish up by 2 p.m. so everybody can go home. But if we were allowed to have an open rule and actually bring forth amendments on this, we would be able to introduce Mr. Bishop's amendment, which would have facilitated this discussion of, well, if it's good enough for the goose, it's good enough for the gander. If the Republicans are so keen to apply public sector personnel policy to the private sector, then why not apply civil service protections to the private sector?

Again, the truth of the matter is there's a night-and-day difference between the types of protections and policies that public sector and private sector employees have. One of the goals of the Civil Service Act was to add a degree of professionalism to public sector jobs, to take away the patronage components that had a corrupting influence on the system. By and large it succeeded in that goal, to its great credit. It's a very different set of rules that we have with regard to the private sector.

So, again, I think that that is, to a certain degree, a false analogy, and I hope that the information I provided helps correct that in the eyes of those who are listening.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), a colleague of mine.

I yield the gentlelady an additional 30 seconds.

I would just like to indicate I have one remaining speaker.

With that, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close.

I would like to inquire if the gentlelady has any remaining speakers.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remainder of the time.

First of all, conflating somehow paycheck fairness with compensation of women at the White House is comparing apples and oranges.

Nothing that we are supporting or that the Paycheck Fairness Act includes says that women and men should all be paid the same regardless of what their job is. It simply says ``equal work, equal pay.'' There's no evidence in the Daily Caller or anywhere else that for the same job, in the White House or anywhere in the administration, that women are paid less. They are not.

Even if you had paycheck fairness--again, we passed our law; it becomes the law of the land in the private sector--it doesn't mean every woman gets the same pay as every man. It simply means that for the same job men and women get the same pay. It is quite possible there could still be a differential either way. There's not a problem with that. It depends on what jobs people have. But for the same job, it should be the law of the land, just as it has been President Obama's policy that men and women receive the same pay.

Mr. Speaker, this bill, the ``more work, less pay bill,'' is yet another attempt to roll back workers' rights under the guise of doing just the opposite.

I wish we were here talking about things that would benefit American families like the Paycheck Fairness Act to ensure women receive equal pay for equal work; making sure that people can't be fired from their job just because of who they date. It is none of the boss's darn business.

But instead of collaborating with Democrats to produce a compromise bill we can be proud of, instead, this House is considering a bill that would

weaken over time and is nearly identical to bills that have failed in three prior Congresses.

There are many measures that we could be taking up to help grow the economy, reduce the deficit, create jobs, invest in the middle class, replace our broken immigration system with one that works; but this bill is none of those.

I wanted to point out and highlight the work of the Democrats on the Educational and the Workforce Committee. The Web site is Democrats.edworkforce.house.gov. They produced a video that shows exactly what this ``more work, less pay'' legislation is.

Mr. Speaker, I support giving American workers and families more flexibility. There could be a way to work together; but, again, this body has not done so. It does just the opposite. Instead of having an open rule under which many of us could bring forth amendments to discuss, Democratic Members offered several sensible amendments, which were rejected by the House majority, both in the committee of jurisdiction and the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 377, Representative DeLauro's Paycheck Fairness Act, of which I am an original cosponsor.

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 to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question so we can bring up the Paycheck Fairness Act. I urge a ``no'' vote on this restrictive rule and the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 198 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis), 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

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

House Resolution 198 provides for a structured rule providing for consideration of H.R. 1406, the Working Families Flexibility Act of 2013.

Madam Speaker, it's hard to raise a family and earn a living at the same time. The reality is that every hour you spend working to provide for your family is an hour you can't spend with your family, seeing your children off the first day of school, taking them to a doctor's appointment, or attending parent-teacher conferences. As a mother who worked while my daughter was growing up, I understand the firsthand

struggles of working parents. That is why my colleagues and I have introduced H.R. 1406, the Working Families Flexibility Act.

This commonsense legislation will allow private sector workers to choose paid time off instead of cash wages as compensation for working overtime, which is the same privilege that Federal, State, and local government employees have been able to choose for over 30 years.

The Working Families Flexibility Act is pro-family, pro-worker legislation that gives workers the flexibility to spend time with family, attend parent-teacher conferences, care for aging parents, or attend to other family needs that may arise.

If an employer and an employee agree on comp time, then the paid time off must be granted at time-and-a-half for each hour of overtime worked. Labor unions support flexible overtime compensation for their own members, and this benefit is already included in many public sector union collective bargaining agreements.

The flexible approach offered by this bill has worked for public sector employees since 1985. If the policy works for our public service employees, it will work for our private sector employees, as well. Fair is fair, Madam Speaker.

The bill maintains protections for workers to ensure that this new flexibility is not abused by making the decision to receive comp time completely voluntary and allows an employee to change his or her mind if he or she initially chooses comp time but later decides to receive cash wages for overtime. All existing protections in the Fair Labor Standards Act remain in effect under this legislation, and it is up to the employee when he or she decides to use accrued comp time. Additionally, an employee cannot be intimidated, coerced, or otherwise forced to accept comp time in lieu of cash wages for overtime.

The legislation also maintains all existing enforcement remedies for employees if an employer fails to uphold the agreement, and employers must provide 30 days' notice to employees if comp time will no longer be offered.

H.R. 1406 provides proper protection and flexibility for employees and will help American workers better balance the needs of family and the workplace. I urge my colleagues to support this rule and the underlying bill.

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

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to respond to the gentleman from Colorado.

Madam Speaker, this bill sounds good because it is good. This is the theme from our colleagues across the aisle: everything about the private sector is bad; everything about government is good. That is their constant theme. This bill allows voluntary participation by employees. It does not require things.

I would also like to point out to my colleague from across the aisle, who is very quick to point out any mistake that I might make, is we did not have an amendment from Representative Bishop in the Rules Committee yesterday. Representative Bishop's amendment was offered in the Education Committee, but was not offered in the Rules Committee yesterday.

I would also like to say that government employees do not get interest paid on the time that they eventually get paid for instead of comp time, so we are not setting up a double standard here. What we're trying to do is eliminate a double standard, again, that our colleagues across the aisle love to have--bash the private sector.

Madam Speaker, we live in the greatest country in the world, and what made us a great country? Look at the rest of the world. What's made us a great country is the rule of law, which means we believe everybody should be treated the same way. It's our capitalistic system which has worked wonderfully well for this country, and every other system has failed all across the world. We don't need to do much but to look at what is happening in the rest of the world and how sorry their economies are, and it's our Judeo-Christian underpinnings. Those are the things that I think have made us great, Madam Speaker, and this bill will allow us to give people who work in the private sector, which is part of what's made us such a great country, the same privileges that people get who work in the public sector.

With that, Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my distinguished colleague, the gentlewoman from Kansas (Ms. Jenkins).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to my distinguished colleague from Missouri (Mrs. Hartzler).

Mr. Speaker, I would believe that the comments of my colleague from Connecticut would be a little more sincere if she would direct the issue of pay disparity to the White House. The White House needs to do something about pay disparity. If we had leaders who led by example, then the White House would straighten out the pay disparity that exists there.

Also, my colleagues don't seem to want to talk about the bill before us today because it is such commonsense legislation. They have no real arguments to offer about defeating it, so they want to distract the American people onto other issues.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my colleague from Indiana (Mr. Stutzman).

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

As my colleague from California knows, I am very fond of her and respect her a great deal; but I want to say that this bill is not a bad bill. This bill does not roll back the rights of workers at all.

And if the bill is so bad and what it does is give fairness to people in the private sector and it gives to the people in the private sector the same rights and privileges that people in the public sector have, then why are my colleagues not trying to roll back those rights for the public sector? It would make sense that all the horrible things they've said about this bill which apply to the public sector you would want to protect the public sector.

But that's not what my colleagues are doing. They're simply saying it isn't right to let the private sector employees have the same rights and privileges that public sector employees have. It doesn't make any sense for them to make that argument. It just doesn't make any sense to do that.

Mr. Speaker, the Working Families Flexibility Act makes it easier for American workers to juggle the needs of family and the workplace. That's what it accomplishes.

I want to urge the people watching this debate to read the bill. Unlike the thousand-page bill that came out that people have to ``wait until it passes'' before they understand what's in it, before we understand what's in it, this bill is basically 8 pages long. Any American can read this bill and understand it. So I would say to you, if you doubt what we are saying on our side of the aisle, read the bill. That is the best way for the American public to be informed.

Mr. Speaker, as we consider it, there are some things to keep in mind.

First, it in no way undermines longstanding essential worker safeguards or forces workers to give up overtime pay if that's how they choose to be compensated. It simply provides an additional level of flexibility that government workers already enjoy. I don't know how many more ways we can make that point, Mr. Speaker, but we will continue to do that.

Further, the bill does not allow employers to bully employees into picking comp time over cash payment. It provides new important safeguards to ensure that the choice to use comp time over cash wages is truly voluntary. Employees can change their minds and request overtime cash payment in lieu of unused comp time.

For employees represented by a labor organization, the labor organization and the employer must first reach an agreement to provide this benefit before the employee can choose to exercise it. For an employee who is not a member of a labor organization, the agreement is between the employer and the individual employee and must be entered into knowingly and voluntarily by the employee and may not be a condition of employment.

The bill does not change the 40-hour workweek or how overtime is currently calculated and accrued, and it does not affect comp time provisions regarding employees of Federal, State, or local governments.

Mr. Speaker, in fiscal year 2012, IRS employees accrued 246,450 hours of comp time in lieu of overtime pay. That amounts to 30,806 full 8- hour days. Employees at the Department of Labor accrued 51,097 hours of comp time, or 6,387 full 8-hour days. Employees at the Department of Education accrued 12,408 hours of comp time, or 1,551 full 8-hour days.

It's clear that Federal employees appreciate this flexibility. What is unclear is why my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are so hell-bent on denying private sector employees this same flexibility. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

We hear the word ``fairness'' from the other side of the aisle constantly. This bill is fair, Mr. Speaker. H.R. 1406 simply affords private sector employees the same flexibility that Federal, State, and local government employees have enjoyed for over 30 years. It is unconscionable to me that our colleagues would vote against this and say you should be a second-class citizen if you work in the private sector.

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

Mr. Speaker, I assume the gentleman from Colorado has additional speakers, but at this time I would like to reserve the balance of my time.

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

A little while ago we had a debate about the pay in the White House. I have an article from the Daily Caller that I would like to enter into the Record, and I will quote briefly from the article. The article is dated January 15, 2013, posted by Caroline May:

While President Obama handily won the women's vote by 11

percentage points in November over Republican nominee Mitt

Romney, his administration paid the women on his payroll less

than his male employees last year.

A Daily Caller analysis of the administration's ``2012

Annual Report to Congress on White House Staff'' shows that

while women comprised about half of the 468 staffers--as the

President touted during his press conference Monday--they

also earned about 13 percent less, on average, than their

male counterparts.

The median 2012 salary for female employees of the White

House was $62,000; for men that number was $71,000.

The article ends with a quote from New York Democratic Representative Charlie Rangel. He, however, called Obama's failure to appoint more women and minorities to high-profile positions ``embarrassing as hell.''

``The questions I've heard are fair,'' Rangel said January 10 on MSNBC. ``The record does speak for itself.''

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

[From the Daily Caller, Jan. 15, 2013]

Obama White House Paid Women Staffers Less Than Men in 2012

By Caroline May

While President Barack Obama handily won the women's vote

by 11 percentage points in November over Republican nominee

Mitt Romney, his administration paid the women on his payroll

less than his male employees last year.

A Daily Caller analysis of the administration's ``2012

Annual Report to Congress on White House Staff'' shows that

while women comprised about half of the 468 staffers--as the

president touted during his press conference Monday--they

also earned about 13 percent less, on average, than their

male counterparts.

The median 2012 salary for female employees of the White

House was $62,000; for men that number was $71,000.

The DC calculated the median male and female salaries by

determining employee genders based on their names. In cases

where the gender was not clear, The DC either identified the

specific employee in other ways or--in a few cases--assigned

gender based on the most common use of a given name according

to databases of baby names.

The 2012 pay disparity represented an improvement from the

disparity in 2011 figures the Washington Free Beacon reported

last year. According to that analysis, the median female

compensation in the White House was $60,000--$2,000 less than

in 2012--and the male employees' median was unchanged at

$71,000. That amounted to an 18 percent difference.

In his statement last year declaring April 17 Equal Pay

Day, Obama lamented the pay disparity between men and women

in America, echoing the well-worn yet often-questioned

statistic that ``women who worked full-time earned only 77

percent of what their male counterparts did.''

He pointed to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which made

it easier for women to sue for lost wages due to pay

discrimination, and to the creation of the National Equal Pay

Task Force in 2010, as examples of the administration's

commitment to equal pay.

``At a time when families across our country are struggling

to make ends meet, ensuring a fair wage for all parents is

more important than ever,'' the president said. ``Women are

breadwinners in a growing number of families, and women's

earnings play an increasingly important role in families'

incomes. For them, fair pay is even more than a basic right--

it is an economic necessity.''

Obama's White House female employees achieved a slightly

better 87 percent of what their male counterparts earned,

compared to Obama's national 77 percent figure.

In recent weeks Obama has come under fire for the

composition of his inner circle--initially sparked by an

official White House photo of the president published by The

New York Times in which he was surrounded by all men. His

nomination of white men to all four second-term cabinet

positions so far has also drawn criticism.

Establishment media outlets and women's groups have been

troubled by the apparent lack of female leadership and

diversity the administration has exhibited so far--with the

National Organization for Women demanding to know ``President

Obama, Where are the Women?'' Jane Fonda, Robin Morgan and

Gloria Steinem, all co-founders of the Women's Media Center,

have pressed Obama to adopt an inner circle that looks more

like American.

``[Obama] wouldn't have been re-elected without 55 percent

of the women's vote, something he earned by representing

women's majority views on issues, yet now he seems to be

ignoring women's ability to be not only voters, but

leaders,'' the trio wrote Friday in a CNN website essay.

NBC's Andrea Mitchell noted Sunday on ``Meet the Press'' that

women inside the White House ``are not happy'' with the male-

dominated face of Obama's administration.

Monday, Obama addressed some of the criticisms about the

composition of his cabinet, saying that it is too soon to

``rush to judgment'' and that women were influential

throughout his first term.

``So if you think about my first four years, the person who

probably had the most influence on my foreign policy was a

woman,'' Obama said. ``The people who were in charge of

moving forward my most important domestic initiative, health

care, were women. The person in charge of our homeland

security was a woman. My two appointments to the Supreme

Court were women. And 50 percent of my White House staff were

women. So I think people should expect that that record will

be built upon during the next four years.''

We have no further speakers, Mr. Speaker, and I am willing to close after the gentleman from Colorado.

Mr. Speaker, we are very proud of this bill. I can't understand why our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are so opposed to fairness when fairness applies to the private sector.

I would like to point out to my colleague that we would have entertained amendments in the Rules Committee had they been germane or if they had not been withdrawn. As he well knows, being a member of the Rules Committee, the amendments that were introduced by his colleagues were withdrawn before the committee had an opportunity to consider the amendments or were ruled nongermane.

I also assume that, based on the comments our colleagues have made across the aisle, that because the rights and privileges that are given to public employees are so horrible that they cannot be extended to the private sector, that they will probably be introducing a bill to withdraw those rights and privileges because they're only hurting public employees, and our colleagues don't want to be hurting private sector employees.

Mr. Speaker, House Republicans are committed to providing more opportunities for more Americans and helping make life work for more families. This legislation is a great step in that direction.

The rule before us today provides for consideration of a bill that gives employees across the country the flexibility that they deserve so they can better manage the many daily challenges of family life. Whether the employee is a new parent who wishes to stay at home with a newborn, a proud aunt who wishes to attend her nephew's baseball game, or a son or daughter who wants to care for an elderly parent, America's private sector employees should be able to determine for themselves what to do with the overtime compensation that they have earned.

Therefore, I urge my colleagues to vote for this rule and the underlying bill.

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, and I thank my good friend from Florida for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

Today, we are taking up the very serious issue of the constitutionality of separation of powers, but the rule also covers the deregulation of pesticides. I think that should be noted here as well, because one is as ridiculous as the other.

This is a ridiculous lawsuit of one House of Congress seeking to sue the President for not implementing a law they have tried everything to kill.

The majority has wasted time, money, and energy on legislative proposals designed to distract us from the real problems of the United States.

Instead of tackling climate change, ensuring that college is affordable, and modernizing our crumbling infrastructure, the majority wants to sue the President for doing his job. The record is clear. This has been judged the most recalcitrant and useless Congress in history.

This lawsuit will be a monumental waste of time, energy, and funds. This is a political maneuver timed to peak as Americans go to the polls in November for the midterm elections. This lawsuit is a drumbeat pushing Members of the Republican Party to impeachment.

Last week in the Rules Committee, Democrats attempted to amend this resolution. In the pursuit of transparency and accountability, we offered

several amendments that addressed the cost of this lawsuit.

The majority in the Rules Committee voted down every amendment that the minority offered. With this closed rule, we have set a new record, by the way, for the most closed rules in a single Congress. On the committee level, on the House floor, and in the minds of our citizens, this is a closed process, a partisan maneuver, and nothing but a political messaging opportunity.

This lawsuit is a gimmick, which even legal scholars of the majority's own party say will fail, including the conservative writer and former Justice Department official Andrew C. McCarthy. He wrote about this lawsuit and said it is:

A classic case of assuming the pose of meaningful action

while in reality doing nothing.

Democrats in the House and the American people could not agree more.

The House minority has three main concerns about this lawsuit: first, the cost; second, the partisan nature; and third, the lack of legal standing and the implications for our constitutional separation of powers.

First, the cost. Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, which not a single Republican voted for, the majority has mounted a Herculean effort trying to repeal, dismantle, and discredit it. It seems that they will spare no expense attempting to take health care away from millions of Americans.

Not only did they shut down the government to deny Americans health care, it took from this economy $24 billion to pay for that shutdown. In addition, with over 50 votes on the House floor to undermine the Affordable Care Act, the majority has spent more than $79 million on that voting effort.

When the minority of the Rules Committee requested from the majority the proximate costs of this lawsuit, we got a response that read: ``A lawsuit is a small price to pay.''

Cost is not a hypothetical question, because there are real consequences for our country.

The minority and the American people still would like to know how much will this cost and where will the money come from. We asked directly through letters and by offering amendments to the resolution, and we have gotten no clear answers.

What cuts will come from what programs that Americans depend on to pay for this ridiculous lawsuit? The majority will spend money on more than 13 hearings, 50 briefings, 25,000 pages of documents produced, and allocated $3.3 million for a Select Committee on Benghazi. All that money for Benghazi, but they won't give us a concrete answer on where the funds will originate to pay for the lawsuit.

In a similar lawsuit, when Republicans defended the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act, they paid their lawyers $520 an hour. I choke over that figure. At that rate, we would have paid over $1 million a year for a 40-hour workweek. If we are spending that kind of money, we ought to do it out in the open, and that amendment was defeated on party lines.

The majority does not intend to make this lawsuit anything but another opportunity to attack the President, which leads me to our second concern: its partisan nature.

As I said, no Republican voted for the Affordable Care Act. After strenuous efforts to take health care away from millions of Americans, the majority plans to file a lawsuit that, if successful, would result in the faster implementation of the Affordable Care Act. The inconsistency is breathtaking. Let me reiterate that. After not a single vote for health care, with over 50 votes to kill it, they are suing the President of the United States because he did not implement it faster. I don't know if anybody can make sense out of that, but all this effort to derail a law that is working. Just 2 days ago, The Washington Post reported in an article, titled ``Medicare finances improve partly due to ACA, hospital expenses, trustee report says,'' that the Affordable Care Act has extended the life of Medicare by 4 years because of the savings, and that will only get better.

I would like to insert this article from The Washington Post dated July 28, 2014, into the Record.

[From the Washington Post, July 28, 2014]

Medicare Finances Improve Partly Due to ACA, Hospital Expenses, Trustee

Report Says--Outlook for Social Security, However, Remains the Same

(By Amy Goldstein)

Medicare's financial stability has been strengthened by the

Affordable Care Act and other forces that have been subduing

health-care spending, according to a new official forecast

that says the fund covering the program's hospital costs will

remain solvent until 2030--four years later than expected a

year ago.

The annual report, issued Monday by trustees overseeing the

government's two largest entitlement programs, found little

change overall in the finances of Social Security. The

trustees warned, however, that the part of Social Security

that pays monthly benefits to people with disabilities is

especially fragile and, without changes, will start to run

short of money for benefit checks in 2016.

Taken together, the findings provide a nuanced portrait of

the fiscal future of these two programs, which act as

cornerstones of social insurance--and a buffer against

poverty--for older people and other vulnerable Americans. The

trustees welcomed the improved financial prospects for

Medicare but acknowledged that the underlying reasons are not

yet entirely understood. At the same time, they exhorted

Congress to take steps to prevent both programs from

collapsing in the long term.

``Neither Medicare nor Social Security can sustain

projected long-run program costs,'' the trustees said in a

message accompanying their reports.

For the past few decades, Democrats and Republicans have

fretted about the unsustainability of the Medicare and Social

Security programs. They have appointed high-level

commissions, proposed legislation and tried to stoke public

fears that benefits might not be available for their

parents--or themselves. But Congress has not restructured

either program to withstand long-term fiscal pressures, and

the issue has been absent lately from the agendas of both

parties.

At a news briefing Monday, Cabinet secretaries and two

public trustees reiterated the call for Congress to act.

``[We] must make manageable changes now, so we do not have to

make drastic changes later,'' Treasury Secretary Jack Lew

said.

``It is getting very late in the game'' to find a

bipartisan consensus, said the trustees' only Republican,

Charles P. Blahous III, who worked on Social Security and

other economic issues as an aide to President George W. Bush.

``A solution much further delayed is a solution much less

likely to occur.''

Both programs are being strained by the nation's

demographics. As more baby boomers reach retirement age,

people 65 and older are making up an increasing percentage of

the country's population, with proportionally fewer working-

age Americans chipping in payroll taxes.

Medicare's finances are facing other pressures, too,

including from scientific advances that lead to new treatment

and therapies, the report said.

The trustees' forecast said that the trust fund that pays

for hospital care--Medicare Part A--has been strengthened

significantly, with the date when it is predicted to start

running short of money extended by 14 years since the

Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010. The report also

predicted that the insurance premiums that older Americans

pay for the portion of Medicare that covers doctors' visits

and other outpatient care would probably remain the same for

a third year in a row.

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell

said that it is impossible so far to gauge how much of that

trust fund's improved fiscal health was due to the health-

care law as opposed to other changes in the health-care

system that are slowing cost increases. She said both had a

role. The ACA, for instance, is slowing payments to Medicare

Advantage, the part of the program in which older Americans

join private health plans, while other provisions focus on

curbing hospital readmissions.

The report said that spending on hospital stays last year

was less than expected, although trustees noted that analysts

have not determined whether this trend reflected broad

economic trends or stemmed from specific changes in the

practice of medical care.

If Medicare is unchanged by 2030, the year it is projected

to become insolvent, it would then be able to pay 85 percent

of its beneficiaries' hospital bills, a proportion that would

slip to 75 percent by 2047, the forecast said.

For Social Security, the trustees predicted that the

program's two separate trust funds will, combined, have

enough money to pay all the retirement and disability

benefits it owes until 2033, the same time horizon as in the

last two annual forecasts. They forecast that Social Security

will be able to afford checks for retirees and workers'

survivors until 2034--nearly two decades longer than the part

of the program that pays disability benefits.

Social Security's expenditures last year exceeded its

income from payroll taxes, as it has each year since 2010,

the report says, although interest so far is making up the

difference.

This year, President Obama backed away from an idea he

broached in his budget last year to save money for Social

Security by changing the basis on which inflation is

calculated for the program. But his 2015 budget proposal

reprises the idea of charging more for care under Medicare to

older Americans who are relatively well-off--an idea that

Congress has not touched this year.

In calculating Medicare's future finances, the trustees for

the first time acknowledged that Congress has each year

overridden scheduled reductions in Medicare doctors' fees--

cuts that, if adopted, would lower payments for doctors'

services by 21 percent in 2015. In the latest report, the

trustees assumed that such cuts would continue to be waived.

The trustees noted that their new forecast was released 49

years to the week that President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the

law that enacted Medicare, a major component of the Great

Society programs of the mid-1960s. Social Security was a

response to the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Last year, Medicare insured 52 million Americans, including

43.5 million age 65 and older and nearly 9 million younger

people with disabilities. Social Security last year provided

benefits to 41 million retired workers and their families, 6

million survivors of workers who died, and 11 million

working-age people with disabilities.

Mr. Speaker, a recent poll from the Commonwealth Fund found 77 percent of people were pleased with their new coverage. Republicans themselves have a 74 percent satisfaction rate with the new plan that they have bought.

The House majority is going to spend unknown millions of dollars coming from somewhere to stymie a law their own party Members support.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to insert this article from Talking Points Memo, citing a survey from July 10, 2014, entitled: ``Survey: Most Republicans Who Bought ObamaCare Coverage Like Their Plans,'' into the Record.

[From Talking Points Memo Livewire, July 10, 2014]

Survey: Most Republicans Who Bought Obamacare Coverage Like Their Plans

(By Dylan Scott)

About three-quarters of Republicans who obtained health

insurance under Obamacare are satisfied with their coverage,

according to a survey published Thursday by the Commonwealth

Fund.

The survey found that 74 percent of Republicans said they

were very or somewhat satisfied with their new coverage.

Overall, 78 percent of Americans said they were satisfied: 73

percent of those enrolled in a private plan and 84 percent of

those enrolled in Medicaid.

There was a minimal difference between the previously

uninsured and the previously insured: 79 percent of the

former were satisfied and 77 percent of the latter were,

according to the survey by the group, which is generally

supportive of Obamacare.

Those surveyed also reported being better off: 58 percent

said that they were better off now than they were before,

while 9 percent said they were worse off. And 81 percent said

that they were optimistic that their new coverage would help

them get the health care they need.

Some of the survey's broader findings, on the overall drop

in the number of uninsured and the percentage of Obamacare

enrollees who were previously uninsured, generally fell

within other findings. It found that the uninsured rate for

adults under 65 fell from 20 percent to 15 percent since

Obamacare enrollment began. It also found that 63 percent of

Obamacare enrollees had been previously uninsured.

The survey, conducted from April 9 to June 2, covered 4,425

U.S. adults.

Mr. Speaker, it is also obvious to the American people that this is a political stunt. A recent poll, commissioned by CNN, shows 57 percent of us oppose this lawsuit. That is right: the majority of this country recognizes it for what it is: a political scheme. They recognize that there is no basis for this lawsuit.

And our third concern is the legitimacy of standing, in the legal sense, as well as the constitutional principles that the Supreme Court has said limit the kind of disputes that a court can consider.

Perhaps the best authority for the inadequacy of the majority's claim to standing is one of the majority's own witnesses at our Rules hearing, the Florida International University College of Law professor, Elizabeth Price Foley. Professor Foley wrote in a February article:

When a President delays or exempts people from a law--so-

called benevolent suspensions--who has standing to sue him?

Generally, no one. Benevolent suspensions of law don't, by

definition, create a sufficiently concrete injury for

standing.

That's why, when President Obama delayed various provisions

of ObamaCare, his actions cannot be challenged in court.

Congress probably can't sue the President, either.

If the majority's own witness doesn't think that Congress has standing, what judge will?

Finally, one of the most dangerous possible consequences of this lawsuit would be an unprecedented transfer of powers from the legislative to the judicial branch.

This concern for maintaining the separation of powers as it was written into the Constitution by the Founding Fathers is exactly why courts have established what is called the ``political question doctrine.''

It says that courts should stay out of fights between the other two branches of the Federal Government and should defer to the other branches when the Constitution says the matter to be resolved is the responsibility of the President or the Congress. That couldn't be clearer, Mr. Speaker.

The mismanagement of our Nation's funds is deplorable, the partisan nature of the stunt is a abundantly clear, and our constitutional balance of powers is in jeopardy. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the closed rule which, yet again, distorts the legislative process and stifles debate even on the most important issues.

Mr. Speaker, we will ask the House to defeat the previous question. If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to bring up four bills: first, the Bring Jobs Home Act; second, the Paycheck Fairness Act, which pays women equal to men for the same job; third, a bill to increase the minimum wage to $10.10; and finally, the Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act, which makes it easier for young people to pay their college loans.

These are the priorities of the American people, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question and align themselves with those priorities instead of this lawsuit, which is surely a waste of time, money, and resources.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), my colleague on the Committee on Rules.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield).

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Hahn).