Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 273) to eliminate the 2013 statutory pay adjustment for Federal employees, and for other purposes.

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 66 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, I object.

Will the gentleman yield?

Madam Speaker, I rise to claim time in opposition to the point of order.

I'd like to say to my friend that I endorse, Madam Speaker, his request to do away with stale political gamesmanship. I would put in the stale political gamesmanship category making a point of order against an unfunded mandate in the bill and then failing to make any indication that you actually believe there's an unfunded mandate in the bill, but simply using this time to talk about an issue that we have already litigated in a multihour hearing last night.

That said, I know, Madam Speaker, the gentleman's heart is felt in this issue. I would say to the gentleman that, while there was only one objection in this body, I make that objection out of great affection for the gentleman because, as I read the underlying bill, I see absolutely no way to divide this legislation into the components that the gentleman would like to debate.

The gentleman would like to debate a Member pay freeze. The gentleman would like to debate a Federal employee pay freeze.

I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

I thank the gentleman. In fact, I thought that's where the gentleman's heart lay.

As the gentleman knows, the reason the Bera-Connolly amendment is not on the floor today, among others, is that it is nongermane to this legislation. We cannot subdivide this piece of

legislation to include nongermane components, which, again, I know the gentleman wants to debate those components. And, Madam Speaker, when the House schedules those bills, I look forward to having that debate, too; it's just not in this bill.

One of the great pleasures I've had in this body, Madam Speaker, has been being a part of a majority that is bringing bills that are simple to read and simple to understand. This is a front-and-back bill. I happen to have mine on two pages because I like to flip, but if I had been more conservative with my printer, it would have been a front-and- back page here, Madam Speaker.

What we talked about in the Rules Committee all last night--and it would have created more points of order for germaneness issues and others--was adding amendment after amendment after amendment that did not affect this language, but instead created brand-new debates about brand-new issues.

Again, I associate myself with the comments of my friend from Colorado. I think the American people are absolutely fed up with the way that this process works. But what I think they're fed up with are those bills that stack a transportation issue beside a health care issue beside a Commerce Department issue beside a military issue beside a child care issue, all of these things that are completely unrelated to one another, Madam Speaker.

In this bill, one issue and one vote. And the gentleman is absolutely right: in a vote in the Rules Committee last night, Madam Speaker, we decided not to allow this bill to be complicated with nongermane issue after nongermane issue after nongermane issue. Those measures, these debates can actually come to the floor one item at a time, but we were not going to allow that to subsume what is also an important debate, and that's on the provisions that actually are contained in H.R. 273.

So given, Madam Speaker, that the gentleman observed no unfunded mandates in this bill, because there are no unfunded mandates in this bill, I ask the Chair to reject the point of order for there being unfunded mandates in this bill.

Madam Speaker, if I could conclude by just asking that in order to allow the House to continue its scheduled business for the day, I urge the Members to vote ``yes'' on the question of consideration of this resolution.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

General Leave

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

Madam Speaker, House Resolution 66, this rule that we're considering today, will allow for debate on the underlying bill, H.R. 273.

This rule that we're considering today is a little bit unusual in that it not only allows for the underlying resolution, but it also takes care of some housekeeping business that we have here on the floor of the House. For example, all of America, Madam Speaker, has read of the nuclear tests that happened in North Korea, and this resolution allows us to consider tomorrow a bill under suspension of the rules to condemn that activity in North Korea. It's very important business that we are able to take care of here in the House. We would not be able to take care of it but for this rule. I'm glad we considered that here in the rule.

In this underlying bill, Madam Speaker, we're continuing what the President himself continued through March of this year. We're continuing through the end of the calendar year a freeze on the automatic increases in Federal employee pay. Again, I brought down a copy of the resolution, that small, front-and-back bill.

So often you see findings in these bills, Madam Speaker, you see findings about what the Congress believes and why this bill is coming to the floor. And I promise you, Madam Speaker, if you read this resolution--and, again, it's only a page and a half long, so it will be easy to do--you will not find one finding of contempt for Federal employees. In fact, if you had listened to the hearing in the Rules Committee last night, what you saw is universal praise for the hard work that our men and women in the civil service are doing for this country.

We have a lot of work that has to be done. I know it's a popular sport in some districts to kick Federal employees. Federal employees, by and large, work hard, though I'm happy to say you can distinguish, for example, the love and affection that so many of our constituencies have for our men and women in uniform. You see those pay-raise bills move through very quickly, versus a little suspicion that you have from time to time from folks who say, well, golly, I was just down at XYZ Federal office, and I didn't get great service. Golly, Rob, I was on the telephone trying to get results from X, Y or Z agency, and they kept me on hold for 3\1/2\ hours. What are my dollars paying for?

I blame us for that, Madam Speaker. We owe better to our Federal employees than to put them in that circumstance. And gradually, not nearly fast enough, but gradually, our Federal employee system is moving towards recognizing hardworking, successful and dedicated employees through merit pay, through merit increases, through bonuses and through bumps--ways to say, do you know what, service matters. Service matters. And a one-size-fits-all pay scale does not work across the Federal system.

I'm very proud, Madam Speaker, I've just been appointed to the Oversight and Government Reform Committee in whose jurisdiction this bill is. I hope we're going to be able to take up those issues and build on that progress that has been made. But in all the conversation you'll hear on this floor--I won't say ``rhetoric,'' Madam Speaker, because, again, I know people's hearts are in this issue--in all the debate you will hear on this House floor, what you will not hear is that $1 is being cut from those merit bonuses. What you will not hear is that $1 is being removed from agencies that have an opportunity to say, Do you know what, job well done. You deserve a bonus. What you will not hear is that $1 is being taken that would have gone to recognize performance above and beyond in the service of our citizenry.

What you will hear is that in line with the recommendations of the much-discussed Simpson-Bowles Commission, a 3-year freeze on Federal automatic salary increases will be continued, upheld. It's been in effect for 2 years and 3 months, and it will continue through the end of the year.

Now, so often I hear, Madam Speaker, my constituents say, Rob, I just want to make sure that Congress is abiding by the same rules you ask everybody else to abide by.

I want to make that clear. That's what my friend from Colorado was discussing. It's not actually a provision in this bill that's extra. It's a function of law. Members of Congress' pay will absolutely be frozen for just as long--just as long. The same rules that apply to everybody apply to the Vice President, Mr. Speaker, apply to the executive branch, apply to folks back home in Georgia, apply across the board to Federal employees, and apply to everybody here in this Chamber.

We had one of the longest, and I would argue most intensive, hearings of our Rules Committee cycle last night, Mr. Speaker, where we explored this bill line by line, detail by detail. I was pleased to be part of that debate. I'm glad we had an opportunity, really, for unlimited time in which to do that. But I believe we crafted a good rule, Mr. Speaker, that will allow for thorough debate of this underlying bill.

Again, I would remind you, Mr. Speaker, and all Members, this bill,

posted on the House Rules Committee Web site, front and back of a sheet of paper, is simple and direct for everyone in this House to be able to read and everyone back home to be able to read so that we can have a thorough debate on this bill this afternoon.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 90 seconds to say to my friend, I always appreciate the eloquence of his words. My only saving grace, Mr. Speaker, is that the facts are on my side. If the world was as the gentleman from Florida had described it, I'd probably be where the gentleman from Florida is in terms of position. That's not the case.

Every dollar we spend in this town, Mr. Speaker, has consequences. The $11 billion that we're talking about in this bill is not money that's being cut from the Federal budget; it's money that's not being given as an automatic inflater to every Federal salary in the land. Instead, it remains available to those agencies to perform the services that they were created to perform.

Let me just be clear, Mr. Speaker. That means for every dollar that is not going into a clerk's pocket at the Veterans Affairs Administration, that's a dollar that's going to go to implement Veterans Affairs services. For every dollar that's not going to be an automatic pay increase in my hometown at the CDC, it is going to go for critical research and infrastructure there to perform the very important role the CDC was created to perform.

We have to make choices, Mr. Speaker. Google ``Greece and pay cuts.'' Google ``Greece and pension cuts.'' In fact, don't just use Google. Use Yahoo. Use Bing. Use anything you'd like, Mr. Speaker. You will see where we are headed.

When you refuse to make the tough decisions that my friends are refusing to make with respect to the Federal budget, you know where those cuts are going to fall.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to yield 5 minutes to one of our very distinguished freshman Members, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Williams).

I yield myself 4 minutes to talk about cheap political stunts because I see a few cheap political stunts down here from time to time. I don't want to characterize anybody's behavior in that way as I don't think that's appropriate, but what I would say is, if we go to the very top of the GS scale and take a good senior person, like a GS- 14 who is making $84,000 a year, this one-half percent pay increase that the President did by executive order and that we're saying won't go into effect until next year is going to give that one working person, that income earner for that family, $2,000 for that family to use over the next year.

I will yield to the gentleman to answer this question: The gentleman sees here $10,793. That's the additional burden that the gentleman, when he controlled this Congress for 2 years with the President of the United States, also of his party, added to this working family's burden.

Now, when you come to the House floor and profess your affection for the working people in my district and when you express that affection by ensuring that, this year, one-half percent of their pay is going to go up, you're adding $10,000 for that worker, $10,000 for that worker's wife, $10,000 for that worker's oldest child, middle child and youngest child--for a family of five in my district. The gentleman added $50,000 in debt and deficit that has to be repaid.

Now, I know the gentleman was using his heart when he passed those programs that did this. I don't question the gentleman's motivation at all. What I do is take offense that the gentleman questions my motivation in shifting $2,000 from workers' salaries into programs-- programs for veterans, programs for research, programs for health--and that he questions my commitment to working class people when, while he did this, he voted ``yes'' after ``yes'' after ``yes'' with no remorse whatsoever.

I'd be happy to yield to my friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts.

In reclaiming my time, I welcome my friend to the sequestration debate, the one that we tried to have last May with absolutely no assistance whatsoever.

Here we are at midnight on sequestration day, saying, Hey, let's do it. Folks, let's do it. Let's do it. Back in May, we passed a bill here. Let's do it with the bill we passed in August to solve the fiscal cliff. Let's do it with the one we passed in September. Let's do it with the one we passed in December.

There is not a person in this body I don't want to work with to solve these problems--there is not one--but when we do it here at the eleventh hour and say, Golly, I wish folks had gotten serious about it earlier. Mr. Speaker, we've been trying to get serious about it for 18 months. When the President passed the law of the land and signed this sequestration into law after the Joint Select Committee failed, the question isn't why are we having to plan for sequestration today; the question is why wasn't the administration planning for it 13 months ago, when we knew the law of the land was going to put it into effect come March 1, 2013?

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

I actually asked that question--or a version of it--of the distinguished gentleman from Maryland, the minority whip, last night.

If the gentleman would continue to yield.

I asked, What would it have taken to get that Joint Select Committee to succeed? Because that's why we're here in sequestration; that's why we're dealing with these things. He said he did not know what more we could have done to find agreement then.

So I say to the gentleman that those same challenges the minority whip observed last night that were preventing agreement then are those same challenges that are preventing us, whether we work until midnight tonight or not, from solving them today, though I would be happy to stay with the gentleman just as long as there is work to be done here in this House.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, at this time it is my great pleasure to yield 2 minutes to a good friend here, Mr. Wittman.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. And I want to say of my friend from California, he gave a very thoughtful presentation in the Rules Committee last night. And as my colleague from Florida suggested, I am a big fan of open rules. It's early in the process. It's always harder to go through regular order until the committees have spun up.

But I would just say to my freshman friend from California that even if we had made an open rule controlling for this bill, the gentleman's amendment still would not have been made in order. It would have been ruled by the Parliamentarian as out of order, as being nongermane to the underlying bill.

I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

I appreciate my friend's comment. He's absolutely right.

So my advice to my new freshman colleague from California would be, in this case, it's not an open rule that he's after; it's his colleagues on the Rules Committee working their Rules Committee magic to waive the rules. It would have actually taken a waiver of the House rules to allow the gentleman's amendment to come.

But he made a very passionate case last night, Mr. Speaker, and I know his heart is in this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I want to be clear about what this bill is and what this bill isn't. And what it isn't is a pay freeze for Federal employees, and, in fact, what has been the law of the land for the last 2 years has not been a pay freeze.

All of the increases that come with longevity have been taking place. All of the increases that come with promotions have been taking place. All of the increases that come with meritorious pay and bonuses and all of those activities have still been going on.

What this is, however, is a 9-month suspension of the automatic, across-the-board .5 percent increase that the President directed by executive order in December. That is all this bill is, and that's all this bill will be under this rule.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes to say to the gentleman--he heard it from the gentleman from Virginia on my side of the aisle--the respect for Federal employees and the job that they do is not a question that's being debated here today.

The admiration that I have for the folks at the CDC, in my neck of the woods, the support that, led by the Speaker of the House from my State, Speaker Gingrich, to double the NIH budget, and then double it again. The kind of work that goes on here is undisputed.

But I want to show you, Mr. Speaker, what my constituents also see in their tough times, because it's not just the clerk at the VA that hasn't gotten a raise in 2 years.

I was talking with a friend of mine who's a clerk at a furniture store, single mom, child, son, 6 years old, hasn't gotten a raise in 2 years, makes $11 an hour.

Average median Federal wage, $74,000.

What I show you here is a chart from the CBO, the same organization that sites the job loss figures that you've quoted here earlier, that compares the work of folks with high school degrees, with a little bit of college, with college, in the private sector, the salaries and the benefits in the private sector with that of the public sector.

Now, I say to the gentleman, in no way, Mr. Speaker, do I want to minimize the tremendous responsibility placed on our Federal civilian workers. Again, I have chosen a career of public service, as have they, and I admire them for it. I know it's at great sacrifice to themselves and their families.

After this one sentence, and that is, in this tough time, until we can get our handle on the debt and the deficit, my constituents continue to look at how their tax dollars appear to be paying salaries and benefits higher to Federal employees than what my folks are getting back home.

I hope the CBO will produce a different report that shows a different result; but until it does, I wish my friends wouldn't categorize what's going on here as some sort of hateful act, disrespectful act towards Federal employees and could recognize it as a balancing of salaries and benefits that our own Congressional Budget Office has suggested is actually an inequity that exists today.

With that, I would be happy to yield to my friend, the gentleman from New Jersey.

I yield myself 2 minutes.

I just want to read from the Simpson-Bowles Commission report. And I want to read from it not because I support everything the Simpson- Bowles Commission had to say. I want to read from it not because it's a bill that has passed here on the floor of the House--it's been introduced but it hasn't passed--but I want to read from it because it was put together by the President to be a thoughtful, nonpartisan, deliberative body that would try to find those things in the Federal Government that should change to right the fiscal ship that is the United States of America. And this is what that group, appointed by President Obama, Republicans and Democrats, a thoughtful deliberative body, had to say:

Out of duty and patriotism, hardworking Federal employees

provide a great service to this country. But in a time of

budget shortfalls, all levels of government must trim back.

In the recent recession, millions of private sector and State

and municipal employees have had their wages frozen or cut

back, and millions more lost their jobs altogether. In

contrast, Federal workers' wages increase annually due to

automatic formulas in law, providing them with cost-of-living

adjustments totaling more than 5 percent in the last 2 years.

This proposal would institute a 3-year government-wide freeze

on Federal pay at every government agency, including the

Department of Defense civilian workforce. This proposal will

save $20.4 billion in 2015.

In 3 years, the President, to his credit, implemented the first 2 years of this proposal. Perhaps there was consultation with someone in this body. It wasn't with me. I serve on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The President, by executive order in December, decided he was not going to extend it a third year and was instead going to give a half percent pay raise.

These are issues that can absolutely be debated, Mr. Speaker.

I yield myself an additional 30 seconds.

This isn't a Republican idea; it's not a Democrat idea; it's not something that was created in the minds of folks who hate Federal employees and the Federal Government. It's an idea that came directly from the commission appointed by President Barack Obama to solve exactly the kind of fiscal problems that we are facing today.

Like it, don't like it, but don't say it's something that it's not, Mr. Speaker. This is an idea from the President's fiscal commission, and we're bringing it to the floor today.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I also have no further requests for time and am prepared to close.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say the gentleman believes we're wasting the American people's time. An equally precious commodity is the American people's money.

I talked earlier about the $10,000 per American inhabitant. A lot of folks do their numbers by American tax-paying families, Mr. Speaker. A lot of folks do their numbers by per adult or per children. I didn't want to game the system like that.

The chart I have right now, Mr. Speaker, $52,381. If you take today's $16.5 trillion debt that America has and divide it by every single human being that the Census Department tells us is in America in January 2013, you will find that we have borrowed and spent $52,381 for every human being in America.

I don't minimize the burden that will be on a family of four in my district when they don't receive that half a percent pay bump that the President tried to do by executive order that we're rescinding here today. I don't minimize that at all. But it is minimal compared to the $52,000 for each member of that family of four. That half a percent pay raise is minimal compared to the $208,000 that that family owes as its share of the Federal debt.

The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Speaker, made a very passionate presentation last night, and I believe he is absolutely right. He referenced himself and our ranking member as the only two folks in that committee who know anything about sacrifice. I always go through my grandparents' stuff. I was one of those kids who loved being in the attic. You always find neat stuff in the attic and the basement. I have all the ration stamps, Mr. Speaker--sugar, rubber. I don't know what that's like. I don't know what that's like for a Nation to come together with such a sense of purpose that they say we're going to police ourselves and our own family. We're going to have the posters up on the wall that say ``loose lips sink ships,'' and don't waste because we need it for the war effort, and we're going to come together and make that happen.

In fact, the last time, Mr. Speaker, this country had the kind of debt as a percentage of the size of its economy that it has today was when we were coming out of World War II. In that time, when we were rationing rubber and sugar, when we no longer minted our currency with copper because we didn't have enough to go around--or nickel--we were using steel to put the coins together at that time. In that time of crisis, Mr. Speaker, when we thought the freedom of the world was on the line, we borrowed the largest amount of money ever borrowed in the history of this country to win World War II.

As we stand here today, we have borrowed trillions more in actual dollars, but that same gargantuan number of 100 percent of our economy. And for what? What does that leave us when the next crisis comes--and I promise you it will. The next crisis will come, and the tools that we have to address it will have been eroded by the policies of today.

I take no pleasure in being down here today managing the rule that will extend into year 3 a Federal employee pay freeze. I told folks in my constituency, Mr. Speaker, I said I want to come back home and I want to tell you how much I've been doing good work for you in Washington and doggone it I deserve a pay raise. I want us all to be so successful that we can go back home and tell folks we deserve it. But with $16.4 trillion in debt, 4 years of no budgets at all coming out of this town, trillion-dollar annual deficits, we don't.

If you think the pain of a 3-year pay freeze is bad, Mr. Speaker, Google Greece, Bing Greece, do your Yahoo search on Greece--not half a percent freezes, but double-digit cuts to Federal benefits; double- digit cuts to pensions that seniors are relying on; double-digit cuts to salaries; layoffs, double-digit percentages. It doesn't get better on its own, Mr. Speaker. We have to do it.

My friend from Florida is so right, Mr. Speaker: we have to come together to solve the bigger problems. This is not the bigger problem. At best, this is a symptom of a problem. At worst, it's just something we're trying to do to manage through.

In this body, Mr. Speaker, and the Senate, the President, we put six of our best minds from the House, three Democrats and three Republicans, six of our best minds from the Senate, three Democrats and three Republicans, and we locked them in a room for about 3 months and said do anything, do anything you want to with the Federal budget. Dream your biggest dreams. Come up with your best ideas. Get outside the box. And we're going to close the door so you can have that conversation with the utmost candor, Republicans and Democrats alike, House Members and Senate Members alike.

After 3 months, Mr. Speaker, having looked at literally hundreds of trillions of dollars of Federal spending going out for decades, they found that they could agree on not even one dollar, not one dollar in changes.

Mr. Speaker, as you well know, and as the freshman Members of this body are going to learn, we only control one-third of the budget here, just one-third of the budget, that discretionary spending, one-third of the budget. That's where the Federal employee salaries are, one-third of the budget. So everything we do to try to get a handle on $52,000 in debt per man, woman and child in America, everything we do to try to get our fiscal ship sailing straight once again is coming from that one-third.

Because to get to the real drivers of the debt, Mr. Speaker, to get to the real drivers, we've got to get into the two-thirds, the two- thirds that can only get to the table when the House and the Senate and the President all agree.

As highly unorthodox as that is, my great respect for my friend requires that I do.

Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker--and again, pleasure to yield--I say to my friend, I fear it's thinking like that that's going to take us exactly there.

Mr. Speaker, again, I take no pleasure in this freeze today. I believe in shared sacrifice across this country to solve our problems. The only thing that would be permissible in this legislation is to ensure that Members of Congress and fellow employees are both frozen together, as is ensured in this legislation.

I urge my colleagues to support this rule, bring this bill to the floor, support this underlying resolution, and remember that until $52,381 per man, woman and child in this country reads ``zero,'' we're going to have these discussions again and again and again.

The President, Mr. Speaker, I'm told is planning to produce a budget. It's not going to be this month. It may come next month. Do you know that in the 2 years I've been here as a Member of Congress, the President's budgets never, ever, ever pay down one penny of this debt? We're complicit in this, Mr. Speaker; and, together, we can get ourselves out of it.

The material previously referred to by Mr. Hastings of Florida is as follows:

An Amendment to H. Res. 66 Offered by Mr. Hastings of Florida

(1) At the end of the resolution, add the following:

Sec. 6. Notwithstanding any other provision of this

resolution, following debate on H.R. 273 it shall be in order

to 1 consider the amendment received for printing in the

Congressional Record pursuant to clause 8 of rule XVIII and

numbered 1, if offered by Representative Van Hollen of

Maryland or a designee. That amendment shall be in order

without intervention of any point of order, shall be

considered as read, shall be separately debatable for one

hour equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an

opponent, and shall not be subject to a demand for a division

of the question.

(2) On page 2, line 5, insert ``with or without

instructions'' after ``recommit''.

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 66, I call up the bill (H.R. 273) to eliminate the 2013 statutory pay adjustment for Federal employees, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 273 and to include extraneous material thereon.

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

Good-paying, full-time jobs should not be limited to those fortunate enough to work for the Federal Government.

At a time when hardworking American taxpayers are struggling to find work and keep their heads above water, the Federal Government offers its workforce sufficient and generous pay and job security. This is not to imply that they're overpaid. This is not to imply that they're overcompensated. That's a discussion for another day.

But certainly, at a time in which the American people saw their household income drop by $4,000, that has not happened in the Federal workforce. Year after year, the Federal workforce has received step increases and other pay increases. And with the exception of a relatively limited pay freeze done under President Obama's executive order, they, in fact, have received consistent pay increases and their benefits have been maintained.

At this time, we are faced with sequestration. Sequestration for our men and women in uniform means aircraft do not fly, ships do not get maintained, and, yes, furloughs may very well happen. To avoid furloughs, to avoid arbitrarily cutting the most junior individuals or stripping away our military's ability to protect us, it is a small price to pay to, consistent with the President's previous pay freeze, to hold pay increases of Federal employees for one more year.

It is my sincere hope that, working together, we will both resolve the budget shortfalls and get America working again over the next year. But at a time when most--a great many--of the average Federal workers make more than their private sector counterparts, when a great many make more than $100,000 a year, at a time in which Members of Congress, appropriately, have frozen their own pay year after year, it is a price that we have the authority--and we ask the Federal workforce to agree with us that in fact this is a year not to raise the pay of Federal workers. Last year, we spent $11 billion on non-merit pay increases for Federal workers. It's the right time to say no increases other than those specifically deemed by specific merits under statute are important.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle will not agree with this, I have no doubt. But let me say one thing. I know that Mr. Cummings and I do agree that we have to find viable alternatives to stripping away the capability of our military to maintain our safety. We have to find viable alternatives to cutting the important work on medicines and other lifesaving Federal programs that in fact our seniors and all of our citizens rely on. We could do this today, or we could cut the National Institutes of Health. We could do this today, or we could park two or three of our aircraft carriers and lay off the crews. I don't think the other side has any question that a viable alternative to those kinds of across-the-board cuts are clearly important.

So I ask the minority to join with me today in realizing that this is not what we want to do. This is what we need to do if we're going to prevent arbitrary cuts that in fact will touch Americans, in many cases, in all the wrong ways.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

The loyal opposition is entitled to their opinion but they're not entitled to their facts. Let's go through some facts.

The ranking member may not remember January 1. I know it was a long time ago--over a month. On January 1, with the President's blessing and insistence, we raised the taxes on the highest income producers and on family businesses by 5 percent on their ordinary income and by 5 percent on their capital gains. Capital gains would be a 33 percent increase, from 15 to 20 percent.

These were not small increases. These were huge. I didn't vote for them. My ranking member did. I didn't vote for them because in fact the President deliberately said, Oh, no, we're not going to touch anything else in taxes, except to stick it to the rich. And he did. And this body did. That was a decision. But I hope my ranking member will remember that a month ago and a few days we had a huge tax increase--of the President's choosing.

It had been offered up by Republicans to work together to find loopholes, but that was rejected in favor of a stick-it-to-the-rich tax increase that he chose.

There was $500 billion worth of revenue that would have been generated per year--$5 trillion over 10 years--if the President had been willing to go back to Bill Clinton-level taxes on all. He was not. So it is the height of hypocrisy to come in 30 days--actually, in about 1 day--and begin talking about the next round of tax increases on a relatively limited group of our population, the 1 percent or 3 percent, and in fact start reducing their ability to have working capital for new oil exploration, for new natural gas exploration, the things that the President, just a few days ago, standing in front of where you are today, lauded as great. We're becoming oil self-sufficient. We are natural gas self-sufficient. We are, in fact, able to move to cleaner fuels for our energy.

But let's break something else down. My opponent--and I keep saying opponent, he's my ranking member, but he is the loyal opposition here-- he talks about $100 billion. I think we need to break it down. That's $100 billion over 10 years. It's not even $10 billion in the first year. His $100 billion of sacrifices, many of those sacrifices won't even occur because people aren't going to necessarily be here for all 10 years, because next year or the year after, this Congress might be able to increase pay to make up for what we have to hold back this year. We may have that good time and good employment and good ability to do that, and I would join with the Member to try to find that way.

But the fact is what actually is being asked to be given up by the typical Federal worker--the one that the President is calling such a huge sacrifice--is $274 per employee per year.

With that, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Ross), who has been a leader on this issue and who understands the hardworking men and women of the Federal workforce and why this is necessary.

Mr. Speaker, I'd now like to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. DeSantis), a member of the committee and a newcomer, but not someone who hasn't watched this play out time and time again as people call $274 a catastrophe for the Federal workforce.

Mr. Speaker, I said earlier, and now I have to repeat it, the other side is entitled to their opinion but not their facts.

Mr. Speaker, that's the number. Almost half a million out of 2 million of our Federal workforce receive over $100,000, but the gentleman from Massachusetts chose to pick a GS-3. Okay, fine. This is an entry-level, unskilled position. But let's understand something. It still pays better than the minimum wage job that you're hoping to get in some cases, and it pays more than an awful lot of jobs out there. As a matter of fact, it pays about the average for somebody who has no special skills coming in. But we won't even debate that. We won't debate any of that.

Let's have the facts, the truth. That woman receives a step increase every year. She has gotten a pay increase every year, like the rest of most of the workforce. As a 3 level, she's getting a step increase. So to say that she didn't get a pay raise is just not true. If my colleague from Massachusetts were better informed, he would have said that himself rather than leaving that fact out of the pay raise that was achieved, because step increases occur even during pay freezes.

With that, I will yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins).

Will the gentleman yield for a question?

I'll wait.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, again the facts speak louder than the rhetoric. The .4 percent is less than a quarter of the exit rate in the Federal workforce of the private sector, one of the reasons people in the private sector are fighting to figure out how to get a job that pays better. This is our exit in the public sector.

They're not leaving because they weren't paid enough. There's no draconian cuts.

Not any more than your Member did.

The fact is this is the truth, and the facts speak louder. Only 22 percent of the Federal workforce believes that their pay is linked to performance. Of course the Federal workforce doesn't like not getting $274 more for the remainder of this year. Neither do I.

You'll have your time.

The fact is we have a problem, and the problem is everyone wants to call a total of about $1 billion of not increases as somehow draconian.

The .4 percent, they're not leaving the workforce. That's the important thing.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to myself.

It is the minority's job to find facts that, in fact, we may not have said. I appreciate them doing that rather than flinging opinions and statements about people's intent.

Mr. Ross stood here, though, and he told us facts. And he has a bill, a Simpson-Bowles-type bill that is comprehensive. He isn't just here picking facts. He picked apart Simpson-Bowles and put together a comprehensive savings bill that, in fact, was modeled after Simpson- Bowles. If he were here, I would have given him time to say just that, because he's a leader in our Congress.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself just 1 minute.

I know the gentleman didn't mean to when he was talking about Maya, but he did say that her pay has been frozen for 10 years. I'm sure he meant 2 years and, if we enact this, a third year. Mr. Wolf is a dedicated servant of this country, but he did say a couple of things that I'd like to touch on.

First of all, when we talk about the men and women of Congress and when they say they do it for the right reasons--they do it because they care--we're doing it with 11.5 percent less money in the House on both sides of the aisle. So, in fact, in many cases, we're paying the same or less than we were paying before. We've made those cuts. The Federal workforce has not seen an 11.5 percent reduction in actual dollars spent, but our offices have made those cuts under the Speaker's leadership.

Lastly, I certainly believe when we talk about Walter Reed that we should include what the commander of Walter Reed told me on Monday of this week, and that was that he is now in the process of planning whom to let go.

I yield myself an additional 15 seconds.

He, in fact, is in a situation--a commander there, a two-star--of dealing with the possibility of furloughing for a 20 percent reduction. With the number he has been given, he cannot possibly maintain the same level of care for those men and women--those wounded warriors and those veterans. It will be devastating if we do not find ways to deal with alternatives.

I yield myself an additional 10 seconds.

I was at Walter Reed. Walter Reed has a problem, and this is a small part of the solution. Every man and woman at Walter Reed would rather have a pay freeze than, in fact, see people disappear from their rolls and not be able to service the needs of those people.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The gentleman from New Jersey is right. He is right when he said that we, in fact, have to make these tough decisions. This isn't freezing the pay of our men and women in uniform, and perhaps we should scrutinize in detail as to the station chiefs and the others in harm's way their combat pay, their special hazard pay and so on. We held a hearing on Benghazi, and we were very aware that, in fact, they weren't paid enough to die for their country needlessly because we didn't do the right thing. I have no doubt about it.

I represent Camp Pendleton. The marines of Camp Pendleton--the First Marine Expeditionary Force--have deployed more than anybody. They have been in Iraq, they have been in Afghanistan, and they have been on those FOBs. In fact, we need to make sure we support them. That's the reason we're looking for alternatives to sequestration every day, and we would love to have people on the other side of the aisle.

So, when we talk about the men and women in harm's way, it's not, in fact, those in the towers helping to get our planes safely landed, and it's not the people inspecting our food. We have to make tough choices, and I join with anyone who wants to make tough choices on behalf of those in harm's way. Let's remember that we are talking here of the vast majority. These are Federal civil servants who, in fact, are paid pretty darned well, who are not leaving, and we are asking for a small sacrifice.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself 30 seconds.

Earlier there was a statement made about a nurse making $27,000. After checking, we discovered that's a nurse's assistant. I think it is important to understand that a nurse at the Veterans Administration would make a lot more. A nursing assistant is paid a modest salary, $27,000, plus probably another 10 or $11,000 in direct benefits. It's still more than the national average for somebody with that skill level. It is still a steady job, and it still would have had a step increase.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I inquire as to how much time I have remaining?

I yield 2 minutes to the chairman of the Rules Committee, a person very knowledgeable of how this law that the President signed came to be passed.

I yield an additional 15 seconds to the gentleman.

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

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Texas was right. The President signed sequestration; the President asked for sequestration; the President negotiated sequestration; and the President has had from this body alternatives to sequestration repeatedly. The minority in this body has not offered viable alternatives to sequestration. The Democratic majority in the Senate has done nothing to block sequestration.

I yield to the gentleman.

I'm not aware of that, but this is not a new bill. You've had alternatives in the past.

Mr. Speaker, I noticed that I was closing, and I do believe the other side is completely out of time; is that correct?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I close, I think it is important that we take Mr. Hoyer's very words.

First of all, he said ``Mr. President'' before ``Mr. Speaker,'' which got me to remind myself that the President is responsible for sequestration, something we're trying to avoid. The President has offered no viable alternative to sequestration. The President avoided $5 trillion worth of new revenue because he wanted to say he was only sticking it to the rich or, as Mr. Hoyer would say, those people who earn more money in 10 minutes than this amount.

The thing that I want everyone to understand that the gentleman from Maryland said that is so right, this is only a quarter of a percent. He's right, this is a very small amount. It's $1 billion total over the Federal workforce for the remainder of this fiscal year. And over the last 2 years, this is how much the increase has been: $3,328 or about $1,500, $1,600 a year is how much the Federal workforce has got in a pay increase while they were under a freeze.

The reason it's only a quarter of a percent when you see about a 5 percent increase in the last 2 years in actual compensation is the Federal workforce system, Mr. Speaker, includes basically automatic step increases for the vast majority of employees, meaning so many people who talked about how this was being devastating are forgetting the fact that while the American worker got little or no pay increase, the American family saw a reduction in their actual revenue, the Federal workforce enjoyed 2\1/2\ percent increases while under a freeze. And, yes, Mr. Speaker, they will get another 2\1/2\ percent increase this year even though we forego this one-quarter percent automatic pay increase.

That's the amazing thing that can only happen here in Washington is people can come and talk about devastation, great sacrifice, a willingness to sacrifice, but not so much. Well, in fact, every year that dedicated employee, the GS-3 there as a nurse assistant, she got this kind of an increase year after year after year, even during a pay freeze.

We're not here to talk today about the dedicated men and women both in and out of uniform, but we have. And I want to commend all of those men and women who serve our country. But I want to commend them while saying that this is a small sacrifice. As Mr. Hoyer said, as the whip, the Democratic whip, a representative of the party of the President, this third-year pay freeze called for initially by the President, in fact, is not an absence of increases--the increases are significant to anyone listening in America. These are real increases they're getting while we're foregoing in this bill a quarter of a percent.

So I want to thank the Democratic whip. He made it very, very clear that, in fact, this is miniscule. To him, $1 billion, $11 billion over 10 years, is not enough to even spend 2 days of the Congress on. And perhaps he's right; perhaps we should have done much more. Perhaps this small amount, this incredibly small amount, $274 on an average employee for the remainder of this fiscal year, is too little to pick up.

But if it's too little to bother with, isn't it also too little to have so much opposition to? The fact is, and the facts are stubborn, this is a small reduction in what would otherwise be a significant increase that they're going to get anyway.

So, Mr. Speaker, as I urge my colleagues to vote for this, I remind them that we have asked for this time and time again, that the President has not seen fit to keep up his own request, the President has not, in fact, been aware or willing to deal with the rest of the increases. He takes credit for what you would call a small quarter percent reduction and calls it a freeze.

Well, the Federal workforce received a good compensation. The fact is when you go from $69,000 for a typical or median income of Federal workers, to $72,000 during the period of a pay freeze, it reminds me of a can of soda--that when you freeze it, it doesn't

change, but the can ruptures because it has swelled.

We have increased the actual compensation, of payroll compensation, to the Federal workforce by an average of $3,300 during a time in which the American people are told there's a freeze. And we will increase their pay an average of about $1,600 during this freeze if it becomes law.

So, Mr. Speaker, this is small, as the whip said. It is so small that I call on the members of the loyal opposition to be the kind of Democratic Party that understands that this is so small that they certainly should vote for it. It is not a great sacrifice; it is a very small sacrifice. Every Federal worker eligible for step increases will see compensation increases, an average of $1,600 this year, when we're only foregoing $274.

At a time like this the President and Congress must face reality.

We cannot keep spending money that we do not have.

H.R. 273 stops an $11 billion expense for non-merit based raises that has no business moving forward.

The economy is struggling, hard-working taxpayers are suffering--it is fundamentally wrong to reward government workers while everyone else is trying to make ends meet.

The idea of giving raises to government workers at a time like this highlights how out-of-touch Washington has become with the rest of the country.

The truth is government pay and classification systems, many designed in the 1940s, lack the flexibility needed to keep pace with the current work environment and demands.

That is why the President's top pay advisors continue to point to the need for reform.

The numbers don't lie. Once people get a government job, they rarely leave it.

The private sector quit rate is 4\1/2\ times higher than that of the federal sector.

Moving fully to a merit-based pay system would give agencies needed flexibility to use appropriated funds to better compensate our hardest working federal employees and attract those with critical skills.

The responsible conversation we should be having is about pay reform, not across-the-board raises with no measure of performance.

Simpson Bowles recommended a three year pay freeze.

Anyone who claims to be serious about reducing the debt and reigning in Washington's out-of-control spending could not in good conscience support this $11 billion spending measure.

With that, I urge support for this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this short-sighted, unnecessary, and ill-conceived bill. H.R. 273 imposes yet another pay freeze on federal employees, many of whom have not seen a cost of living adjustment in over two years. The men and women who have dedicated their careers to public service--the majority of whom earn middle-class wages--have already made sacrifices in pay and benefits totaling more than $100 billion to help reduce our Nation's debt.

Federal employees in several sectors already earn less than their private-sector counterparts. These are the men and women who care for our veterans, keep our airplanes flying and ensure our food is safe to eat. They work in every Congressional district, from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta to the Department of Veterans Affairs in Providence. In fact, 85 percent of federal employees live outside of the Washington, DC, area, with 18,000 located in my home state of Rhode Island.

Not only does this bill prevent hard-working federal employees from receiving a modest pay adjustment in an attempt to keep pace with the rising cost of living, it sends the unfortunate message to bright young people that they will not be valued if they choose a career in public service. At this time of national crisis, when we are facing so many challenges, we should be encouraging the brightest minds in the country to help solve these problems.

I support and have cosponsored the bill introduced by Mr. Cummings and Mr. Connolly to extend the pay freeze for members of Congress. But just because I do not believe this body deserves a pay raise does not mean we must also punish the talented men and women who have dedicated their careers to supporting the United States of America.

It's time to get serious about moving this country forward. We only have five legislative days left until automatic budget cuts go into effect, costing us a projected 750,000 jobs this year alone and threatening to plunge our economy back into a recession. Instead of dealing with the looming sequester, House Republicans have us voting on a bill that has no chance of passing the Senate, and then sending us home for a week-long recess.

I have already co-signed a letter urging Speaker Boehner to keep members in Washington until we have averted the impending across-the- board spending cuts and put our budget on a fiscally sustainable path. I repeat that message again today: Mr. Speaker, it is time to stop with these phony messaging bills and get to work.

I urge my colleagues to join me in rejecting this unnecessary bill and bringing up legislation that will actually address our immediate fiscal problems. Our constituents are counting on us to act, and we must not let them down.

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

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 273. Given the many critical challenges our Nation faces, I and many of my colleagues hope that the 113th Congress would bring a new era of shared purpose that would enable us to work together to grow the Nation's economy, create jobs, and invest in our country's future. There are only 5 legislative days, Mr. Speaker, left before the across-the-board cuts required by sequestration will take effect. Rather than seeking solutions to the urgent challenges we face, our Republican friends are wasting 2 days simply renewing their attacks on middle class, hardworking Federal employees.

H.R. 273 has one purpose: it would extend the current freeze on Federal employees' pay for a third consecutive year. Mr. Speaker, Federal workers--the same Federal workers who care for our veterans, the same ones that clean our offices, the same ones that find cures to devastating diseases at NIH, the same ones that secure our borders, the same ones that regulate our drug supply--have already contributed more than $100 billion towards reducing the deficit and funding unemployment benefits for millions of American workers. No other group of Americans has contributed more to reducing the deficit. No other group has contributed more to ensuring our government remains strong. No other group has worked harder to ensure we're securing our Nation from threats. No other group has worked harder to provide the services on which our fellow citizens depend.

If H.R. 273 becomes law, the same middle class, hardworking workers

would be required to contribute another $11 billion towards deficit reduction, for a staggering total of nearly $115 billion. These are the same workers who have had their pay frozen for years. And these are the same workers who are now facing the very real threat of furloughs and layoffs if Congress fails to resolve sequestration by March 1. It's estimated that 1 million employees will suffer furlough days. The administration estimates that the arbitrary across-the-board budget cuts for Federal agencies that would be required under sequestration will result in the furlough of, again, a million employees.

We are at a tipping point in our Nation. The American people have reelected President Obama and voted in favor of policies that will support continued growth, create new and expanded job opportunities, and ensure the safety and health of our great Nation. However, here in the House, the voters are not being heard, and we continue to waste time considering measures that will only make our fellow Americans less financially secure, less secure in their health care, less secure in their children's education, and less secure in their jobs.

One of the arguments that we consistently hear is that we need certainty. People need to know exactly what is going to happen in their lives. We've heard that argument over and over and over again. Yet when it comes to Federal employees, we leave them in the lurch, not knowing how much the next paycheck will be. At the same time, House Republicans have refused to consider asking the richest among us to contribute a dime more. And that's one of the most painful things about this entire thing. A lot of times when I'm interviewing people to come to our staff, a lot of them tell me, Congressman, we don't mind not taking paychecks from the private sector because we want to do good for the public sector. And they say that they want to simply feed their souls. They want to do something significant. They want to affect broad groups of people. But yet this is what they get.

We could have spent today considering a proposal to eliminate tax breaks used by oil and gas companies and hedge fund managers. We could have spent today considering a limit to itemized deductions for the wealthiest Americans. Instead, House Republicans continue to return to the same hardworking middle class American workers over and over and over again.

The problem is that these repeated cuts will impair the ability of the government to carry out its mission and service to the American people. Social Security is located in my district, and I have seen and talked to our Social Security employees, as they are my neighbors. And they tell me that they have seen cut after cut with regard to employees. And now you've got people who once had three people doing a job, now there's one. And the cuts continue. They don't mind working, they don't mind sacrifices. But they said that if you're going to make us sacrifice, then let's have some equal sacrificing from people who can afford the cuts.

As President Obama has emphasized, ``our economy succeeds and our economy grows when everybody's getting a fair shot and everybody's getting a fair shake.'' I urge my colleagues to move beyond this partisan agenda of denigrating our Nation's public servants and join together to address the real issues Americans elected us to solve.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, the Republicans keep citing the Simpson- Bowles Commission in support of the bill. The Simpson-Bowles Commission was a comprehensive deficit-reduction proposal that called for shared sacrifice from all groups of Americans. I see only one group of Americans being asked to sacrifice in this bill, and that's Federal employees.

The studies conducted by the Congressional Budget Office, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Heritage Foundation rely upon U.S. Census Bureau's current population survey, which consists of self- reported data from surveys of households. This data is not as reliable as the data tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is used by the President's Pay Agent to set the annual Federal pay adjustments.

I now yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlelady from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Lynch).

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Lynch mentioned a nurse taking care of veterans. I just want to say that it's not about somebody being unskilled. She's taking care of some folks who have served us and need skillful workers, and $27,000, I don't know whether anybody has looked at daycare here lately, but just daycare can cost you $27,000.

I don't have much time, unless you're going to give me some time. If you give me some time, I'd be happy to yield. I've got a number of speakers.

I yield 2 minutes to my distinguished colleague, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Clay).

Mr. Speaker, I would like to know how much time we have.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly).

I yield just 1 minute to myself.

I just want to say, Mr. Speaker, I hope that our Members before they vote on this bill will take a moment and talk to their own employees and find out why they're in Federal Government and why they really work for the government. That's all I want them to do. And I guarantee you nine out of 10 of them will say, because we love what we do, because we want to make a contribution.

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

I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.

The gentleman talked about the employees on our committees taking a pay cut. That's true that they took a pay cut, and every single one of my employees who

took a 5 percent pay cut--and sometimes a little bit more--said one thing to me: We don't mind sacrificing. We will. This was from every single one of them. But they said: Others have sacrificed, too.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. LoBiondo).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time both sides have.

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

My good friend, the chairman of our committee, has several times talked about loyal opposition. I am not the loyal opposition. I am someone who believes in what I'm talking about, and I'm not standing here opposing legislation just to be opposing it because I'm a Democrat.

We have to put a human face on all of this. I live in an area in Baltimore where a lot of these employees who are making $40,000, $45,000 or less take the early bus, and they are the ones who believe in what they do. The Social Security Administration is smack dab in the middle of my district.

I think about the people who make $100,000 or more, but we have to remember who those employees are. Many of them we see every day. These are employees who are highly skilled professionals, and I think Mr. Wolf and Mr. LoBiondo talked about them. These are folks, such as doctors on staff at the Department of Veterans Affairs, who treat our wounded warriors. They're the lawyers at the Department of Justice and at the Securities and Exchange Commission, and we've heard their testimony before our committee. These are folks who deal with some very, very complex issues, and almost any law firm would be willing to pay them far more than what they are earning to work for the agencies for which they work. These are the folks who investigate and prosecute complex fraud and criminal cases. These are some of the most famous scientists in the world and air traffic controllers who help navigate our planes.

Just a few months ago, the ranking member and the chairman of the committee and I went to an awards ceremony at which Federal employees, who contribute so much to our society and who could earn far more than what they're earning, were getting awards for doing some very magnificent and awesome things.

I want to just spend some time on this one issue. It's not so much again that Federal employees don't mind sacrificing. They don't mind sacrificing. The question is will others sacrifice, too, those who are making far more money than they're making. But yet and still they're asked over and over and over again to pay more and more and more.

And so this is a very deep-felt situation with most of the people who have spoken--all of them. And as I listened to Mr. LoBiondo and I listened to Mr. Wolf, what they were basically doing was making a case and reminding us that Federal employees go into the business of being our Federal employees because they want to make a difference.

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

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland, a fellow Marylander, Mr. Hoyer.

I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman.

I thank my colleague from the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker and everyone who is listening, you know by now and what you've heard by now is they want sequestration. The local papers and the ones that we've printed on Capitol Hill today all say they want sequestration. The excuse they're giving is they're going to wait and see what the Senate will do, that we're not going to take any action here, that we're just going to be bystanders until we find out they want sequestration.

Over 700,000 workers are going to lose their jobs. A lot of economists tell us that this could be worse than the Great Depression, but they're willing to do it. They're willing to do it because they want to fight this President. I think that means a whole lot more to them than doing their job here as elected Members of Congress. As we've heard before, we only have 6 legislative days left. When we come back from a week's vacation, we will have these cuts that will have this devastating impact on our economy and on the well-being of every American citizen.

I urge the CEOs of America who are very worried, and they've said so for months and months, that they're concerned desperately about the prospect of sequestration, to talk to their Members here and get them to change their mind, if they can.

This is really dire. We're not kidding around here. This is serious business. We are literally facing a fiscal cliff. But the solution we've made to this, as you all know, a manmade crisis here, they take a swing at their favorite punching bag and hold hostage again the people who make their living serving all of us.

Last night was the first time I really heard that what we're doing, we're not going to save anything. Now, bear in mind that the Federal employees have already given in salary give-backs over $100 billion over the next 10 years. That should be enough sacrifice from them, but no, we're going to go for more. But we're not going to use it to reduce the deficit, it is going to be made available to agencies.

Well, there's a lot of ``Alice in Wonderland'' sort of sense in Congress these days. Alice, one of the things that I liked about her the most, and she's a very strange little girl, but she said that she practiced as hard as she could to try to believe six impossible things before breakfast. And I'm trying to put this in that same category, and it simply is impossible for me to believe that we gain anything in the world by taking away the salary and income of hardworking government employees to put back in Federal agencies. Frankly, if any of you can really understand that, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know.

We had a chance--in the last 2 weeks, we've had two chances--to do away with the sequester in a commonsense way and also to cut the deficit with a sensible solution. Mr. Van Hollen, who is the ranking member of the Budget Committee and deserves our respect, was not allowed to do anything.

As you pointed out, and I also heard Mr. McGovern say so, the Rules Committee now runs the House. There's no committee action on any of these bills. No chance for Republicans and Democrats in the committee setup, which the Founding Fathers did, and which we followed for generations and hundreds of years here, no possibility for them to discuss it. It simply is brought to Rules.

Now, Mr. Van Hollen, his sensible solution here, which really does make sense, was simply not allowed to be put on the floor so that we could discuss it and give people a vote. A bipartisan group of the Members of the House don't want this bill passed. I'm going to put a letter in from one of the most thoughtful Members and a friend, Representative Wolf from Virginia, about what he thinks this is about. He calls this a cheap political trick, and I think that pretty well sums it up.

Now, already cuts totaling $1.5 trillion have been made to discretionary spending. And as a result, because of the layoff of employees, our economy experienced an unexpected economic contraction in the final quarter of 2012, which we should pay heed to.

Sequestration would compound our economic troubles even further. George Mason University says sequestration would cause 2.14 million American employees to lose their jobs. Meanwhile, important Federal programs would be crippled because of irresponsible cuts. I need to mention a few of them again.

FAA, which makes flying safer, they would experience a great cutback. The people who guard the border, who do drug interdiction, who keep our border safe and strong, they would have a severe cutback. Sequestration would mean that vital research would be slowed. And as a scientist, let me assure you that research cannot be turned off and on like a faucet. It is necessary for us to maintain that research with dollars because, as it's been pointed out before, we want to keep our population healthy.

How important that is for us, not only for our economic well-being, but for the well-being of our citizens.

This is a foolish thing that we're doing here today, and I can't imagine anybody in the Senate would even contemplate bringing it up. So all of this is simply a waste of time, as we do here so many times.

I urge my colleagues on both sides, vote ``no'' and please give us a chance to let Mr. Van Hollen bring his bill to the floor--or some bill from the Republican side. I don't care where it comes from. We have to stop sequestration.

Congress of the United States,

Washington, DC.

Vote No on H.R. 273

Dear Republican Colleague: Next week, the House is

scheduled to consider H.R. 273. I urge you to vote no on this

legislation.

Let's be honest: this bill is nothing more than a political

stunt that targets the hardworking, dedicated men and women

of the civil service, who have already had their salaries

frozen for more than two years. Everyone knows they are an

easy target. But we are kidding ourselves if we think we can

balance the budget on the backs of federal employees. It's a

drop in the bucket towards deficit reduction and a hollow

gesture absent meaningful mandatory spending reforms. Worse,

this is just busywork as our economy faces the sequestration

meat ax.

I believe that the federal government must be able to

recruit and retain qualified individuals in order to deliver

government services in an efficient manner. And about half of

all federal employees make less than $60,000 a year. These

are individuals who haven't had a pay raise in more than two

years. And now we're talking about freezing their pay for a

full third year. The president's proposed .5 percent

adjustment is cheap grace ($225, since a quarter of it has

already been frozen) and won't bring civil service pay close

to the private sector, but it will at least attempt to tell

these employees that they are valued.

And just who are these federal employees? They are the

people you call when you need help, and 85 percent of them

live outside of the Washington, D.C. metro area.

They are the CIA agents who planned the raid to kill Osama

bin Laden. They work side-by-side with our military. Those

agents depicted in Zero Dark Thirty? They haven't had a pay

raise in more than two years.

They are the FBI agents you call when your child has been

kidnapped. Those agents who rescued the 5-year-old kidnapped

and held hostage in a bunker in Alabama? They haven't had a

pay raise in over two years.

They are the Customs and Border Patrol and DEA Agents who

are working to stop illegal immigrants and human traffickers

and drug runners. The border patrol agents who worked side-

by-side with slain Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry haven't

had a pay raise in over two years.

They are the nurses and doctors at the VA who care for our

veterans and wounded warriors--they haven't had a pay raise

in more than two years. I know I'm not alone in wanting the

best doctors and nurses to care for our veterans.

They are the foreign service officers who represent our

government at embassies in Libya, Israel, Russia and beyond.

The FSO's who worked side-by-side with slain Information

Management Office Sean Smith in Benghazi haven't had a pay

raise in more than two years.

They are the FDA inspectors who trace E. coli outbreaks to

ensure that our food is safe to eat. They are the NIH

researchers working to find a cure for breast cancer, and

prostate cancer, and Alzheimer's and Autism.

They are the defense civilian riggers and machinists and

refuelers and engineers repairing sophisticated electronic

weaponry systems at Army depots and Air Force bases and

shipyards who support our military personnel;

They are the firefighters you call when a lighting strike

sets a national forest on fire and homes and business are in

danger. And they are the park service rangers who ensure that

your constituents can safely hike and camp in our national

parks and tour our battlefields.

They are the scientists working at the DOE labs. They are

the meteorologist at weather service storm centers tracking

hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis and blizzards. They are the

NASA astronauts, engineers and scientists.

Over the last Congress, unlike other groups, federal

employees contributed more than $103 billion to deficit

reduction--no other group was asked to sacrifice more. I know

that these patriotic Americans are willing to do more, but

they rightly expect all of us to fully join this effort. A

vote for the bill next week isn't a vote just to cut a

program, but it's a targeted vote to specifically freeze an

individual's pay from a marginal increase--a personal affront

to the employee and their entire family, including their

spouses and children, and the retired parents who care about

their children.

I get it--this vote polls well with certain groups. But we

were elected to represent our constituents. Let's pass bills

that actually reduce the drivers of our nation's debt and

deficit. This is cheap grace. Vote no.

Please don't hesitate to contact me or Mira Lezell on my

staff at 5-5136 if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Frank Wolf,

Member of Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend, the gentleman from Georgia, for yielding the customary 30 minutes to me. I rise obviously in opposition to the rule for consideration of H.R. 273, to eliminate the 2013 statutory pay adjustment for Federal employees.

I just heard my colleague from Georgia say that this is a good rule; but I've also heard him say what I agree with very frequently, and that is that this body should proceed toward regular order, allow the committee process to go forward in a meaningful way, to have hearings, and to let the will of the body be worked here in the people's House. I've also heard him talk about closed rules; and it's for that reason that I believe that this process is not a good process because it is a closed rule, and this couldn't, in that sense, be good. There were no hearings.

He talks about this one week, one bill. Why this week for Federal employees? Last night, I talked with six members of the American Federation of Government Employees, some of them older, some of them younger, and all of them agonizing, as are Federal employees around the country.

Let me get to the point. The Republicans have decided that they want to continue in the same shortsighted and counterproductive campaign against Federal employees that we saw in the last Congress. When they introduced this very same bill in the 112th Congress, it passed the House and then went nowhere and accomplished absolutely nothing. I'm quite certain--and I'll bet--that it will face the same fate this time around.

Just last week, the Rules Committee considered H.R. 444, the Require a PLAN Act, which should have been called the ``Republicans Have No Plan Act.'' Instead of offering real solutions to the challenges facing our Nation, my Republican colleagues continue to introduce do-nothing legislation that will do nothing to help the American people.

Obviously, all of us know that we face $85 billion in sequestration cuts in a matter of weeks. These cuts were intended to be a fail-safe. They were supposed to be so unpalatable, so horrible for everyone, that Congress would never allow them to go into effect. Yet, instead of making sure that these massive cuts don't threaten the progress that we've made, my friends on the other side would rather play politics at the expense of the middle class and the working poor, underscoring the working poor.

As the President put it in his State of the Union address: ``Arbitrary deficit reduction is not an economic plan.''

Deficit reduction is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. It is just one tool that will help us get our country back on the right track. You can't build a house with just a saw. Deficit reduction needs to be part of a comprehensive economic plan, one that will stimulate growth and create jobs.

A serious economic plan is one that does not take potshots at our economy and our Nation's full faith and credit for political purposes. We must, in this people's House, move beyond politics and work to avoid a dangerous backslide in our Nation's economic recovery.

For the life of me, I can't even begin to understand why House Republicans continue to pick on Federal employees. It's as if the people that keep the Capitol clean, the police officers that keep us safe, the countless people that work right here on this Capitol complex do not deserve this paltry raise and are to be picked on.

My AFGE friends were saying to me last night that Federal employees have already contributed $103 billion towards deficit reduction. Furthermore, Federal employees and retirees have contributed $15 billion in savings over 10 years through an increased pension contribution. A 2-year Federal pay freeze has been in effect since 2011 and will produce an additional $60 billion in savings. The reduction and delay of a 2013 pay increase included in the current continuing resolution will yield $28 billion in savings.

At what point does enough, as my friend from Virginia said, become enough? What's more and puzzles me--and I asked the question of the scrivener of this bill last evening--is: Why aren't Federal contractors, who make twice as much as Federal employees, included in this pay freeze? He gave me some political fogging. I don't know what it was and don't care to even bother to try to remember.

During the debate over the fiscal cliff, Republicans said that we shouldn't ask corporations and the wealthiest in our society to pay their fair share. The reason that was put--this is a while back during the debate on the fiscal cliff--was that if we tax the wealthy, they won't work as hard if they're taking home less money. What about Federal employees? Why is it that that logic does not apply here? It's incomprehensible that we find ourselves in this position.

Mr. Speaker, if the Federal Government is not paying realistic salaries, then we can't expect to be able to provide for people to allow for themselves and their families to have a decent living.

Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that the Federal workforce is smaller now than it was in 1988, a historic low compared to the size of the national population. There are fewer Federal workers now than at any time during President Reagan's administration. Something has got to give.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would advise the gentleman that I was a businessperson, too, and there is a distinction between private businesses and civil servants of the Federal Government.

I'm pleased at this time to yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman on the Rules Committee and my good friend from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, before yielding, I would ask

my good friend from Georgia a question: If we are leaving here, as I suspect we will tomorrow for a week, why don't we just stay here and get this done rather than go on vacation or waycation or whatever we do?

I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

He doesn't control the House, Mr. Woodall.

I continue to yield.

In reclaiming my time, one thing is absolutely certain: the majority whip controls the floor, and the Speaker controls the House, and if they chose for us to stay here, we could stay here.

With that, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to my very good friend, the distinguished gentlewoman from New York, who is my ranking member on the Rules Committee, Ms. Slaughter.

I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlelady.

Mr. Speaker, would you be kind enough to tell both of us how much time remains.

Mr. Speaker, I'm very pleased at this time to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Bera), a new, very thoughtful Member of the House of Representatives.

Will my colleague yield?

But we have the power in the Rules Committee to waive that germaneness, and we could have done that and allowed Mr. Bera's measure to go forward. I thank my colleague for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I'm very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell), my good friend, the former mayor of his city.

I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased at this time to yield 2 minutes to my friend, the distinguished gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON LEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

I yield the gentlewoman 1 additional minute.

Mr. Speaker, I would alert my colleague from Georgia that I have no further requests for time, and I'm prepared to close.

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

I really like and have great affection for my friend from Georgia, and I understand exactly what he just did with reference to the President's commission as appointed by Senator Simpson and Erskine Bowles, but the fount of wisdom with reference to what is required in order for this Nation to right its ship doesn't emanate from just any one commission. And while this particular proposal may be listed as an idea from the Simpson-Bowles Commission, I would urge my friend from Georgia to read the whole thing, which does contemplate shared sacrifice. And that's what I tried to get across to my colleagues here in this institution.

As a person that lived as a child during the Second World War, I saw what sacrifice meant, and I saw the people that did the sacrificing. And they did it together, differently than us today. And that's why I think it's wrong to cherry-pick and then use a sledgehammer against Federal employees for something that is not likely to become the law of the land. It's a waste of time.

The only good thing that I have to say about the bill before us today is that it has zero chance of becoming law. I anxiously wait for my friends on the other side, particularly the leadership, to actually start considering legislation that will help, not hurt, the American people.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment which would allow the House to vote on replacing the entire sequester for 2013 with savings from specific policies that reflect a balanced approach to reducing our national debt.

There are only 6 legislative days left until the sequester hits. Now is the time to act. Smart government is not about sequesters; it's about solutions. And it's time to work together for the American people.

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 urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question.

I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time with the final thought that we don't have that much time to waste, and we are wasting the American people's time.

I know you're on a roll, but will my friend yield for just 5 seconds?

I thank you so very much.

I just want to say America ain't Greece; it ain't going to be Greece.

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