Protecting Children from Identity Theft Act

Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring of the majority leader the schedule for the week to come, and I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy).

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that information. I am constrained to observe that, from my perspective, it will be the last year that we will not start creating extraordinarily more debt for our country. But that aside, let me ask the gentleman a couple of questions.

First of all, there has been discussion in the press, certainly, and some discussion in the Congress about a possibility of a rescission package. As the gentleman knows, both he and I, the Speaker, Leader Pelosi, Mr. McConnell, and the White House, worked very, very hard on reaching an agreement so that we could pass an omnibus some weeks ago. That omnibus was the result of some very hard bargaining and negotiations and trade-offs, and certainly, not--I don't think anybody was pleased with everything that was in that bill, or, frankly, that wasn't in that bill.

I am, therefore, very concerned that I now hear talk about we are going to, in effect, go back on the agreement that we reached. It was clear that there were some things in there that I didn't like and others didn't like, and I am sure that was the case with yourself as well, Mr. Leader. But it was an agreement. It was an agreement reached after hard discussions, over months, and it was a very late agreement at that, funding 2018 finally until September 30, not until last month.

So I am very concerned about the possibility that we are going to try to, in effect, relitigate that issue.

Can the majority leader give me some insight as to whether or not, in fact, we will be facing a rescission

package at some point in time? And if so, can the majority leader advise us as to what may be in that package?

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend, the majority leader.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments.

The issue is, of course, not oversight. We believe that there ought to be oversight.

The gentleman is correct, I voted ``no.'' The gentleman voted ``yes.'' Many of his colleagues voted ``no'' with me. Many of his colleagues are wringing their hands now and saying too much money was spent.

But this was an agreement that was brought to the floor by the majority. This was an agreement that was negotiated by the majority. We didn't have the authority to put the bill on the floor or not put the bill on the floor.

And it was an agreement. As I say, Mr. Speaker, it was a tough agreement. I didn't particularly like the agreement, but it was an agreement, and that is why I voted ``no.''

But the fact of the matter is that the majority of this House voted ``yes,'' and the majority of the Senate voted ``yes,'' and they voted ``yes'' as the result of an agreement.

And, yes, of course, there have been rescissions in the past; and although I don't know what the rescissions are, there may well be a rescission that I might support. The gentleman is correct. I wouldn't irrationally oppose a rescission which said we have had money lying in an account that has not been spent for 1, 2, 3 years. We shouldn't just have it sitting in that account. The gentleman is absolutely correct.

But very frankly, in my view, Mr. Speaker, this is to, in effect, negate an agreement that was reached and to, in effect, say, no, we really don't want to spend that money. That may be correct, but the majority of the Republicans in this House voted for it.

Nobody said: We are going to vote for it, but days later we are going to come back and say we don't want this, we don't want that, and we don't want the other.

And we think it is a little bit like what we did yesterday, where the majority has offered a tax bill which cuts $1.8 trillion in revenue. I made the point yesterday that it was a little bit like a businessman that has a product to sell. The product costs him $10 to produce, and he charges $7 when he sells it. That businessman does not stay in business very long.

But the Republicans do it the opposite way. They cut the revenues, they create debt, and they vote for more spending. And their constituents seem to be upset about that. I don't blame them.

Therefore, we had a balanced budget amendment offered yesterday, which, of course, did not comport at all with what our Republican friends, Mr. Speaker, have done over the last year, and, very frankly, in my view, over the last decades when they were in power to do so, which is why we have this extraordinary debt and why CBO has just come down and said, as a result of those bills, we are going to create $14 trillion in new debt over the next 10 years, which my kids and your kids and our grandchildren are going to have to pay.

I want to make it very clear that I think we need a serious, disciplined discussion on getting a handle on this deficit. Part of that discussion needs to be revenues.

Very frankly, Mr. Speaker, I believe, on their side of the aisle, they want to spend a lot of money. They want to spend it on defense. We increased defense by over 10, 12 percent this year.

Now, very frankly, what was being spent on defense was as a result of Republican budgets over the last number of years, so that it is hard for me to believe that they would vote for budgets and appropriation bills that they thought were undermining defense.

But, in any event, we increased that substantially. And, yes, we increased spending on education, on healthcare--opioids, in particular--other items on emergency relief. The leader and I visited Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, Texas, Florida. They needed assistance, and we passed that as well. But, very frankly, we didn't pay for any of it.

We hear about spending. Whatever the spending level is, we ought to pay for it. That would be my position. And if we want to spend the money, we ought to pay for it.

Now, however, I hope these rescissions do not set a precedent whereby future negotiations will be put at great risk, because at least one party will not trust that the negotiations are real.

When Ryan-Murray was agreed to by Speaker Ryan and by Senator Murray, shortly after that agreement was reached as to what spending levels would be, some of my Republican colleagues came back and said: Oh, well, they are ceilings.

It is like my bargaining to buy a house for $100,000, and then I come back at the settlement table and say: Well, I am really going to pay $75,000. $100,000 was just a ceiling on what I was going to pay for that house.

That doesn't make any sense, and nobody would think it makes any sense.

So I will tell my friend, the majority leader, I hope that the rescissions are based upon the sort of example that he gave, and, therefore, it may receive some support. But if they are simply to reverse hard-bargained results, then I

think that will put at risk any kind of bipartisan negotiations that might occur in the future.

Very frankly, the budget--and I am going to ask the gentleman about the budget now--is supposed to come down pretty soon. As a matter of fact, it is supposed to be reported out of the Budget Committee by now. It is supposed to be passed by the Congress by April 15 or 17, depending upon which date you use, but sometime this month.

Does the majority leader have any reason to believe that we are going to pass, over the next 2 weeks, a budget--and send it to the Senate-- that is balanced?

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend.

Did the majority leader hear me say that is a reasonable thing to do?

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend.

I have heard that argument, Mr. Speaker. I heard it in 1981.

We passed a massive tax cut. The debt increased over the next 7 years 187 percent. That was Ronald Reagan's tax cut. And, frankly, Bob Dole helped raise some revenues to offset that, which is why it was only a 187 percent increase in the debt during the Ronald Reagan years.

I heard that argument in 2001 and 2003: We are going to grow the economy. We are going to have extraordinary growth, creation of jobs, and revenues that will come to the Federal Government as a result of cutting taxes.

And what happened? Six years later, we had the deepest recession we have had since Herbert Hoover. Nobody in this House is over 90 and, therefore, didn't experience the depth of that recession. The recession that we experienced in December of 2007, when you thought those tax cuts that the gentleman talked about would have grown the economy, just as he talked about, he has got a problem in that CBO says it doesn't grow the economy. In fact, it creates $14 trillion of new debt. That is what CBO says, not Steny Hoyer, not the Democrats. That is $14 trillion--with a T, Mr. Speaker--in new debt that our children and grandchildren will be confronted with.

So what do the Republicans do? They had to say, let's balance the budget. Now, balancing the budget means you pay for what you buy. Yes, I am for that.

Very frankly, if you buy an aircraft carrier, I think you can amortize that over 40 years. Why? Like a house, you will use it for 40 years and my grandchildren will get use of that aircraft carrier to defend themselves and our country.

As I am sure the majority leader knows, there are few Members of this Congress who have been any more consistently supportive of the Armed Forces than this Member. I supported much of Ronald Reagan's follow-on to what Jimmy Carter started, and that was building up our military strength so the country would be secure.

And I continue to be a strong supporter of the military. We need to keep America strong. The gentleman's party, of course, contrary to the almost unanimous--I think unanimous, but I will say almost unanimous-- desire that we repeal the sequester over the last 8 years, your party, I tell the majority leader, Mr. Speaker, wanted to keep the sequester, and did keep the sequester, and we could have done away with the sequester, except they crossed their fingers. They crossed their fingers and said: We will keep the sequester, but Speaker Ryan will make a deal with Senator Murray so that we don't have to live its effects. And we passed those Ryan-Murray deals. And there was not an attempt to reverse that course.

So the sequester argument, Mr. Speaker, is an argument of constraint imposed by the majority party; not by us. We had urged that the sequester be rescinded. And, in fact, we supported the Ryan-Murray agreement. As a matter of fact, I didn't support the first Ryan-Murray agreement. I didn't support it because I thought it was a facade, and it turned out to be, I think, pretty meaningless in terms of what the agreement was.

So we haven't grown the economy. As a matter of fact, we had the worst economy any of us have seen under the Bush fiscal policy supported by my Republican friends. I didn't support that.

CBO says this bill will not grow the economy, but this bill will create substantial debt. I asked the gentleman a question that I want to go back to. And that is: Does the gentleman expect us to have a budget this month?

Before I do that, let me say, the gentleman says--and it was a good strategy--that they passed 12 appropriations bills. They packaged them in two packages. They didn't consider them individually, but two packages. They sent them to the Senate, and they were partisan bills.

Mr. McConnell, the majority leader, did not bring them to the floor. Now, he may say he didn't bring them to the floor because the minority wouldn't agree with them, but he could have brought them to the floor. He didn't want to subject them to amendments and discussion.

Or, they would have had a vote and our people wouldn't have voted to bring them to the floor and he could have pointed to that vote.

So I ask my friend one more time: Do we expect to have a budget here in April when it is due or soon thereafter? And if so, will that budget be balanced? I yield to my friend.

I did.

Reclaiming my time. I said I had voted for balanced budget amendments in the past when I spoke on the floor, and I said that I rose not to oppose the constitutional amendment, but to deride it. It was such a politically patently dishonest effort to pretend that you are for a balanced budget. And guess who said that? Mr. Massie, a member of your caucus; Mr. Meadows, the chairman of your Freedom Caucus; and Senator Corker from Tennessee. They all said that, that it was not a real item, yet we spent all of yesterday working on a document that you knew, Republicans knew, everybody knew was not a real effort and would not pass.

We spent all day doing that. That is what I said. Yes, I have, in the `90s, supported a budget amendment which would restrain us from acting without paying for what we buy.

Your side of the aisle, in my opinion, does not like to pay for what you buy, but you want to buy things because you spend as much money in your budgets as we spend--maybe on different things.

But this side, I want to tell the majority leader, do not run out that canard--Mr. Speaker, I say to the majority leader--that Democrats do not support national security. We do, and the votes prove it.

You had 90 of your Members vote against the agreement. I voted against it as well. I voted against it because we did not reach an agreement, and I am going to get to that issue in just a second. The gentleman knows I feel very strongly about it. I talked to him about it, and it should have been in that bill, and it wasn't. That is why I voted ``no.'' But 90 of your Members voted against it.

Does the majority leader say to me that those 90 people--including when we established the level of spending, the chairman of your Armed Services Committee who voted ``no''--are you telling me they were not for protecting our military, protecting our men and women in the Armed Forces, protecting the training that we give to our

men and women in the Armed Forces? Are you telling me those 90 Republicans weren't supporting that? Is that what you are saying? Yes or no? I yield to the gentleman.

Reclaiming my time. Mr. Leader, I am not sure. I want to understand. They upheld their word. Ninety people voted against the bill you are saying supported the military, 90 of your people voted against that. The majority of Democrats voted for it. Are you telling me those 90 Republicans who voted against it were against the military? That is my question to you.

Would the gentleman yield?

But the gentleman says that I shut down the government. Can you tell him that the Senate didn't adopt the budget? With all due respect, I don't vote in the Senate.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend.

Mr. Speaker, the Budget Act is not the problem. The problem is a lack of discipline, not the Budget Act. I said yesterday on the constitutional amendment, if you want to balance the budget, do it. Do it. Offer a balanced budget.

You had that opportunity to do it. You won't do it. I guarantee you that you won't do it. You can say whatever you want.

Mr. Speaker, they won't do it. They haven't done it. There will not be a balanced budget on this floor from either side because we have dug such a deep hole. To balance the budget tomorrow or 2 years from now would decimate Social Security and Medicare. Now, maybe that is what is in store. Maybe that is what is contemplated.

But when I hear, Mr. Speaker, the majority leader talking about the Budget Act, first of all, the American public does not know what the Budget Act is. They do know who we are, and they sent us here to be responsible and have discipline and have the courage of our convictions.

The reason I say pay for it is because the constraint we have abandoned, and we have pretended that we could cut taxes and magically things would be paid for. They have not been, and what we buy today we are expecting our children to pay for it tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

I suggest that is an intellectually bankrupt policy, and it is also an immoral policy. And to pretend that somehow we can fix that either by an amendment--which, by the way, could be waived--or by amending the Budget Act--is the Budget Act perfect? Could it be perfected? I am sure it could be. But that is not the problem.

The problem is the pretense that somehow we are going to grow ourselves magically without discipline and without paying for what we buy, whether that is defense or nondefense.

Now, Mr. Speaker, we need to get on to some other issues, and I want to explain to the majority leader why I didn't vote for the bill.

The President of the United States did something I think was bad judgment and put millions of people at risk. It is called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Eighty-six percent of the American people think that we ought to protect those children who came here not of their own volition but as children.

The majority leader, myself, the minority leader, and the Speaker of the House met with leaders of the Hispanic community, leaders of the African-American community, and leaders of the Asian Pacific Islander community. When I say leaders, the three chairs of those caucuses. We talked in late September about a week and a half after the President had withdrawn DACA protections and said we need to solve this.

Now, Mr. Speaker, let me quote the Speaker of the House, Mr. Ryan: My commitment to working together on an immigration measure that we can make law is a sincere commitment.

Let me repeat: My commitment to working together on an immigration measure that we can make law is a sincere commitment. We will solve this DACA problem, said the Speaker, once we get this budget agreement done.

This was not the omnibus. This was the precursor to the omnibus which set the level of spending.

He said: We will solve this DACA problem, and we will get this done no matter how long it takes us to stay here. We will focus on bringing the debate to this floor and finding a solution.

I voted ``no'' on the omnibus because they did not follow through on that commitment, so everybody understands. However, I am the whip. I count votes, and I certainly think the majority leader has had enough evidence and has enough respect for my ability that if we had worked to defeat that bill, we would have defeated it with the 90 Republicans who voted ``no'' on the bill the Republicans brought to the floor, which was an agreed.

But that bill needed to pass. But, yes, I voted ``no'' because from September--and the Speaker told me: Oh, March 5 is coming, we have got time to fix it. We have got time to take care of these 700, 800,000 young people that 86 percent of the American people think ought not to be sent to a country that is not their home, they don't know, and they have not been there for the overwhelming majority of their lives.

So, yes, I voted ``no'' because, on their behalf, I was concerned that that commitment that the Speaker enunciated in February, approximately a

month before DACA was to terminate, had not been met.

It is now a month after March 5, Mr. Speaker, and that commitment has not been met to this day, notwithstanding the fact that Speaker Ryan urged the President not to do what he did, and the President turned around and said: Fix it by legislation. And the Speaker committed in that meeting to which I referred just weeks after the President acted as saying: We will get that done.

Now, Mr. Speaker, there is a rule that has been filed by a Republican Member of this House. It now has, I think, 44 Republicans on it. If it doesn't have yet, it will have 190-plus Democrats on it, which will mean that 230 Members of this House will have signed on to a document that says: Let's fix DACA now.

Yes, I voted ``no.'' I voted ``no'' in protest and in dismay that we had not addressed this issue. I hope I have explained to the majority leader why I voted ``no'' but at the same time why a majority of my party, including the leader of my party, Ms. Pelosi, voted ``aye.'' They voted ``aye'' because they knew we had made an agreement. They knew it was an agreement reached by both sides. They didn't like everything in it any more than Republicans liked everything in it, but it was an agreement, and so it passed handily.

I will tell my friend I hope he does not doubt--perhaps he does--that that would have happened without a perception and belief on this side that we had an agreement and it ought to pass, and it did pass with 90 Republicans voting ``no'' and the overwhelming majority of my party voting ``yes.''

I hope the leader will tell me, Mr. Speaker, whether or not the commitment that was made in September, the commitment that was articulated by the Speaker of the House in February when he was urging us and his own Members to support the legislation which sets the level of spending on which the omnibus was based, I hope he can assure me that, before the end of this month, that we will have the opportunity to do what we think is extraordinarily fair to do.

Mr. Goodlatte of the Judiciary has a bill. I don't like the bill, but it is a bill that came out of the majority committee. There is another bill called the Dreamer bill. That is a bipartisan bill sponsored by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican from Florida, and Lucille Roybal- Allard, a Democrat from California. Bring that bill to the floor.

Then there is a third bill, Mr. Speaker, sponsored by Mr. Hurd from Texas, a Republican, and Mr. Aguilar, a Democrat from California, that I believe has the support of over 218 Members of this House. I have asked the majority leader and we have asked the Speaker: Bring those three bills to the floor. Bring those three bills to the floor and let the House work its will.

The Speaker is leaving, but the Speaker has on numerous occasions said: We will not duck the tough issues. That is a direct quote, Mr. Speaker. We will take them head-on. We should not hide our disagreements. We should embrace them. We have nothing to fear from honest disagreements honestly stated.

Bring those three bills to the floor, Mr. Speaker, I implore the majority leader. Let the House work its will. Face the tough issues.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, will the majority leader tell me when I voted to shut down the government? Does he have a cite there?

I yield to my friend.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the majority leader and I serve in a coequal branch of government. We don't serve at the pleasure of the President, nor should we go hand in hand to the President of the United States and say: Can we do this?

The majority leader, of course, did not answer my question. He wants to continue to talk about who voted for or against the omnibus as opposed to responding to are we going to have a balanced budget on the floor. We can have amendments on the floor; that sounds good. We can articulate that we are going to grow ourselves out. But doing it, just do it.

Yes, temporarily, the courts have said the President didn't do the right thing in the right way, so there has been a stay. And the gentleman is correct that the DACA students are not at risk as of March 5. I say ``students.'' Some of them are students; some are not.

Words do, in fact, mean something. The leader says that all he wants is border security. Well, border security, and he wants to restrict the ability to unify moms and dads and their children in the United States of America.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, is the gentleman saying that, when we had discussions in your office and you wanted to eliminate the option to sponsor mothers and fathers by their children, was not that not part of the offer that you discussed in your office, Mr. Leader?

I yield to the gentleman from California.

I'll be glad to hear the explanation.

Currently.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, we go round and round on that.

Obviously, when we talked about family reunification, you had an offer that you said you were making on behalf of the President that clearly undermined the ability to sponsor, by some, their mothers and fathers. We can go round and round on that. That was my perception of it. We will get the record, and I think that is pretty accurate, Mr. Leader.

Mr. Speaker, the answer to the question, though, has not come, and that is: Will the majority leader bring to the floor three bills and let them be voted on by this House and express the will of the American people?

One of those bills is a Republican bill. One is probably perceived by the Republicans as a Democratic bill, although Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is a cosponsor of that bill. And one, clearly, is a bipartisan bill, negotiated by Mr. Hurd, a Republican from Texas, and Mr. Aguilar, a Democrat from California, that has at least 44 Republicans who have signed on to a rule to bring that particular bill to the floor. All 193 Democrats will be for that bill, to bring it to the floor, which is over 230 Members of this House.

I am asking the leader: Will he bring those three bills to the floor? Because what the President said--and the leader says words matter. What the President said on TV for all of America to see: We will solve the DACA issue. You send me a bill, and I will sign it.

That is what he said, Mr. Speaker. But what happened? The Senate had four bills. Unlike the House, Mr. McConnell brought those four bills to the floor so the Senate could work its will. And there were some 25 Senators, Republicans and Democrats, had come together and put a commonsense bill on the floor, contrary to what the President of the United States said in that meeting on television--not my words. Just go back to the video. Replay it: I will sign a bill.

And then he said, beating--he didn't beat his chest literally: I will take the heat.

What did he do when the commonsense bill came to the floor? He said: I will veto it if it is sent down here.

It had $25 billion in authorization for the President's wall and border security, and he said: I will veto it.

As a result, it only got 54 votes. It needed 60 votes. Had he not said he would veto it, it would have passed. I am absolutely convinced of that.

That was four bills. Why, Mr. Speaker? This is the people's House. The Speaker said: We will take the tough issues head-on. We will not shrink from that responsibility.

All we are asking is to bring those bills to the floor.

Recisions, we can argue about the recisions. And when they come down here substantively, the leader mentions frequently about money that is not going to be spent anyway. None of us are going to oppose that if that is, in fact, what it does. That is an obfuscation of the issue that we are talking about.

We had an agreement. We think that agreement upset a lot of the majority leader's party, and that is why this is happening. They are going to try to correct that political problem they have, just like the balanced budget amendment is trying to correct a political problem.

So I would hope, Mr. Speaker, that the leader would assure me at some point in time that they will do what they said they will do from September to now: address solving the DACA issue. And then what the President said, Mr. Speaker, was then we will go to comprehensive immigration reform.

We ought to do that. The Senate passed a bill some 5 years ago. We asked and have asked over the last 5 years: Bring that bill to the floor.

Now, that bill doesn't exist now because, in the Congress in which it was sent to us, it wasn't brought to the floor. The Republicans were in charge, and they didn't bring it to the floor. We asked for it over and over and over again so we could solve what everybody knows is a broken immigration system.

But, at least in the ambit of these three bills, there is a solution to one small part of that that the President, on national TV, said he wanted to solve and would sign the bill--right up until the time he said he would veto the bill.

The President is a very flexible individual, as we have all seen. I hope he would sign any one of these bills.

And I think the Senate would pass the Aguilar-Hurd bill. If it were brought to the floor, I am convinced it would pass. I think it would pass the Senate, and I would hope the President would sign it and solve a problem that the President of the United States, when he rescinded the protections, asked us to legislate on and send him a bill. I would hope he would do that. I hope the majority leader would do that.

I yield to my friend.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I will look at those references.

I did vote to shut down, certainly, I think in--I am not sure of the January date. When we had the majority, won that vote, the majority leader came back to the floor within a few hours. We had a vote. We voted to open up the government. Almost every Democrat voted for that. The government opened, and then we got a deal.

So the issue that I asked the majority leader about he still has not responded to, notwithstanding our meeting in September, notwithstanding the representations made by the President of the United States, notwithstanding the fact that the court has said what was done was done incorrectly, and notwithstanding the President's request to solve this issue and send him a bill and he would sign it and take the heat for it.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at noon for morning hour and 2 p.m. for legislative business. Votes will be postponed until 6:30 p.m.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning hour and noon for legislative business.

On Thursday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business. Last votes of the week are expected no later than 3 p.m.

Mr. Speaker, the House will consider a number of suspensions next week, a complete list of which will be announced by close of business today.

Next Tuesday, April 17, is also Tax Day. While this is a day Americans usually dread, I am pleased that this will be the last year they will have to file under the old and burdensome Tax Code. Because of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, not only will filing be simpler, Americans will keep more of their hard-earned money, on top of the bonuses and increased wages we have already seen.

In addition, the House will vote on several important bills aimed at safeguarding all taxpayers next week.

First, there is H.R. 5192, the Protecting Children From Identity Theft Act, sponsored by Representative Carlos Curbelo. Studies have shown the rate of ID theft is actually 50 times higher among children than adults. This bipartisan bill would modernize fraud detection systems to prevent such theft from occurring in the first place.

Second, H.R. 5444, the Taxpayer First Act, sponsored by Representative Lynn Jenkins, which would improve the independent appeals process at the IRS, along with other crucial taxpayer services within the agency.

Lastly, H.R. 5445, the 21st Century IRS Act, sponsored by Representative Mike Bishop. This bill would boost cybersecurity and other IT systems in the IRS to ensure the agency serves all taxpayers effectively and efficiently.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to the House passing all these critical bills without delay.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding to me.

Mr. Speaker, my friend is correct that in this House we worked to pass all 12 appropriation bills. We sent them to the Senate, and the Senate did not act. So as the process works, we had to come to an agreement.

My friend on the other side said he worked very hard on that, but at the end of the day, I tell my friend: You voted against it.

A rescission, as my friend knows, is not about an omnibus bill. It is about finding savings for the American people. To quote Ronald Reagan: ``The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that the government spends too much.''

On this side of the aisle, we know that unaccountable and unnecessary spending not only puts our fiscal future on shaky ground, but it also puts burdens on the programs that Americans actually rely on. That is why we passed all 12 appropriation bills. Unfortunately, the Senate Democrats blocked even debate on every single one of these bills. So they wouldn't even debate it, and they put us into this late process.

Now, as far as rescissions, I believe the Trump administration is committed to sending Congress a rescission proposal.

As my friend knows, the 1974 Budget Act would give this proposal fast-track procedures both in the House and, more importantly, in the Senate, which means, to the American public, it takes 51 votes to pass. So no longer can a minority hold up debate or hold up process to harm the American public.

While this has not been done in 20 years, President Trump is not afraid of challenging the status quo, and I personally respect that. But I want to look at history, and I want the American public to understand it.

Rescissions were once commonly used by five different administrations, both Republican and Democratic, and at times the Republican Presidents had Democratic majorities in Congress. Let me give you a for-instance: President Bill Clinton proposed 166 rescissions. Congress passed 111 of those.

George H.W. Bush, when Democrats controlled both, proposed 169. They passed 34 of those.

Ronald Reagan proposed 602, and they accepted 214 times to be able to cut spending.

Now, Jimmy Carter proposed 122, and Congress accepted 50.

President Gerald Ford proposed 152, and Congress accepted 52.

As far as what this proposal looks like, it remains a work in progress. Now, I will continue to work with the administration, but the one thing I want to be very clear about is this is not about an omnibus. This is about saving money.

So what a rescission package can do is it can go back into other accounts that have just sat there with money in them with no action. No business would run their business that way. No family would want it run that way, to keep some debt while you have money sitting over here.

If you can save, I would believe everybody in this body would want to save the taxpayers some money if there is an opportunity to do this. And if I checked my record correctly, I believe my friend has voted for a few rescissions in the past.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

If I first may answer the other questions the gentleman raised.

First of all, when he talks about trust, everybody should know what happens when you get to an omni and why. We had an omni not because of this House. We had an omni not because of this majority. We passed all 12 appropriation bills. The last time that was done by a Republican majority, the iPhone wasn't invented.

We sent it to the Senate, and do you know the sad part? The last time when we sent it to the Senate, maybe they debated the bills and the bills failed--no. And it wasn't the majority on the other side in the Senate. It was my friend's party on the other side that wouldn't even allow it to come to debate.

Now my friend talks about being very concerned because they spent a lot of time negotiating. You see, I don't really care for omnis. I would never want to see another one on the floor. That is why we did our job.

But when it comes to an omni, the minority has power. They could say: No. This can't be in it.

And they kind of finally came to an agreement. And when they did, my friend on the other side said: I am worried about trust, so I am voting against it after all these negotiations.

And then he brings up: Oh, my God. The Republicans. They spent money on the military.

Sequester has cut more than 20 percent from the military. You can look back just the last 2 weeks. How many of our men and women died not in combat, but in training? How many planes of ours can actually fly today?

I will tell you this: The world is not 20 percent safer while the military has been cut.

As we speak today, our Navy is sailing. As we speak today, we are concerned about what is going to happen with Iran. We are concerned: What is North Korea going to do? And where is Putin on the march?

So, yes, I am proud of funding the military. That is why we did it.

Did you want to put the other? No. We are held hostage because the minority in the other Chamber decided to hold the country hostage.

Now, when it comes to rescissions, let's be truthful with the American public. That could be unobligated funds from prior years. So if there is money, just because it was budgeted and appropriated but they didn't need it all, why don't you save the taxpayers and bring that back to the Treasury?

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to the gentleman's support, because we didn't have it last time.

Mr. Speaker, in these rescissions, we can look at these unnecessary programs. That is healthy for the country. The world changes. We should modernize. We should make government more efficient and more effective and, most importantly, more accountable.

Now, my friend needs to be familiar with this process, because when I look at history, both in 1996 and 1998, the omnibus bills included numerous rescissions that President Clinton proposed and Congress accepted.

Now, that was back when you voted for the spending bills, but I am hopeful you will be for this rescission as well, because I believe the American public will look at it not as a Republican or a Democrat.

Every time I watch people run for office, they say: I want to go line by line. For 20 years, we didn't have people that wanted to do that in the administration. Today, we do, And I applaud President Trump for saying it, and I applaud President Trump for doing it.

Now, you talked about a few other things. You are concerned about debt. I am concerned about debt. You think there are two different ways to solve this. I believe if we grow the economy and we watch our budget, we can solve this problem. When I look at the revenue coming in, it is hitting its highest level.

When I walk across this country, I now see growth of more than 3 percent. I see unemployment at almost the lowest point in my lifetime. And if you happen to be African American, or you happen to be Hispanic, it is the lowest it has been in America. I just saw 800,000 people come back into the workforce.

If you look at manufacturing jobs, in the last 3 months, we haven't seen that type of growth since 1984. If I look at the last administration and I go and look for the highest growth year under President Obama, it is still lower than the worst year under Bill Clinton.

So let's grow and get this deficit taken care of. But what is interesting to me--I wrote this down because I want to get it right, and you correct me if you think it is wrong--you said: Whatever we spend, we should pay for it. Is that correct?

So this concerns me then. That Democrat budget that you voted for not only increased the deficit by $6.8 trillion over 10 years, it calls for the $3.9 trillion in revenue enhancements. We know what that means. That means tax increases. So you want to increase taxes by $3.9 trillion, but you want to increase the debt by $6.8 trillion. That doesn't meet what you just said. You said whatever we spend we should pay for.

So you are going to increase the debt almost double, and you are going to increase taxes. That is the difference between us. When we put the tax bill on the floor, and I look at just in one company, 1.2 million of those employees, they got extended maternity leave; the number of companies that raised what they pay; the electrical bills for Americans in 39 States are now lower because of that tax bill. And let's not even talk about the millions of bonuses that Americans got. That is their own money. And the revenues are coming in higher.

The growth is bigger. Our opportunity is greater. But what you want to do is snatch that back--say, no, no, government needs it. But you are not saying government needs it to pay off the deficit because you are raising the deficit even higher. It just doesn't work.

So what I am hopeful for, when we come back to this table--and I do believe in trust--but if you are at the table and you make an agreement, come to the floor and be honest. Come to the floor and uphold that agreement that you talked through. Because I will tell you, I didn't like that bill. Because we voted on all 12 bills here. I voted for all of those. I voted for those and sent them to the Senate, and the Senate held this country hostage.

And do you know what? The military, the number of men and women, there is a greater number who are dying in training than in any combat we have today. That is a direct correlation to the funding they have. And we know where the world is today. We have an obligation to make sure our men and women can carry out their duty and be safe. But today, the question is: Can they carry out their training and be safe? We made a downpayment to make sure that is the case.

And so I will say to my friend, I am concerned about the debt as much as you and even more. That is why I voted to grow this economy and get more money in. I voted on this floor to actually curve what is causing the greatest growth, to guarantee it for next generations so it is there. Because if you let it get out of control, it will not be there.

But what is more important, at the end of the day, is that we can look back on any unobligated funds. It may be 5--it could be 6, 7, 8 years ago, and that money is just sitting there, and that program is doing nothing. If you are concerned about the debt, you want to take it back and let's pay it down. I look forward to working with you.

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I apologize, you did ask me that the last time. I got caught up, and I forgot the other stuff. The President has sent a budget. The Budget Committee is reviewing it. I think you will see one coming after they review it.

But the one thing I do want to bring up, let's not repeat the same things we have gone through. We are living under the Budget Act of 1974. I think the world has changed since then. Why don't we modernize the Budget Act? We put that in that last bill. The bipartisan working group, I would say that should be our top priority. Let's not repeat the same mistakes, and let's not constrain ourselves if we really want to tackle this deficit.

I am hopeful you will work with us on that. But you said a few things that are interesting. You support the military, and I don't doubt that. But you voted against the military funding that was on the floor. When you talked about that omnibus that you wanted a lot of trust because everybody worked so closely together on and you are really afraid about the rescissions coming back that can take money back that wasn't even in the omnibus--a trust that that could break that you voted against-- you said, but, of course, the Republicans wanted the military. And you said, we increased it by 10 or so, even though it has been cut by more than 20. You said, but, of course, we wanted to fund other things. I thought you said education.

You said opioids.

So if you care about the military, you care about education, you care about opioids, and you are concerned about breaking a trust because you negotiated this, why did you vote ``no?'' Why did you vote against the things you just said you cared about? Then you said you cared a lot about the deficit. But on this floor, we had a balanced budget agreement--you actually said you supported it--but that is not how you voted. You voted ``no.'' So when you had an opportunity----

The answer is no, I'm not saying that, and you know I am not. Let me be very clear. They fought for the military funding; and when we got in the room to make the agreement, we held up our word. So let me follow through with a few more, because you make me concerned.

May I ask the gentleman if I may finish my answer before the gentleman reclaims his time.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is very healthy that we have these debates. I think the American public should see it because I believe, Mr. Speaker, when somebody says they support something, the best way to prove it is you vote for it.

As I stated earlier, the gentleman said he supports the military. I don't doubt that. But when the military funding bill came to the floor, after it has been cut by more than 20 percent and after more people have died in training than in combat, we had the opportunity to do it.

The gentleman also said in that bill there was good stuff like opioids and education. But he said ``no'' to that. I have heard the gentleman on this floor, Mr. Speaker, I have heard my friend talk about CHIP and the importance of that. I know it is important to the gentleman, but he voted against it.

I heard, Mr. Speaker, my friend bring up, because one of our colleagues here, Mark Meadows, talked about he would rather have a different BBA, but when he had the opportunity, he voted for that because he does believe in a balanced budget.

Mr. Speaker, I went to Puerto Rico with my friend. But when that funding came on the floor, I don't doubt that what he wants to do, we have written editorials together. He voted ``no.'' He told me time and time again that shutting down the government is the worst thing and that he would never do that. But when the time came, Mr. Speaker, he shut the government down this year.

So there is a difference between words and actions.

The one thing I would say, Mr. Speaker, my friend also told me he would let me answer this question without reclaiming his time.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate individuals and their words. I just want to make sure people are held accountable for their actions. Yes, there was an omnibus on the floor, not anything on this side of the aisle wanted.

We passed all 12. We did our job. We did our job just like we promised. Unfortunately, the Senate--and it wasn't the majority over in the Senate, it was the minority--wanted to hold it hostage the same way they did when they wanted to shut down the government.

I think the American public deserves more and deserves better. That is why I think we need to reform the 1974 Budget Act, and I think this floor will see a great debate. I think both sides of the aisle would like to see it reformed. I just hope that the American public will not only hear the words but see the action in the votes to back up what people say.

We have.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to my friend to give his explanation of why he voted ``no'' on the omni the people negotiated for, and I don't doubt that that is the reason why. He said he was concerned about DACA. The only thing, Mr. Speaker, I am concerned about, that was the same excuse he gave me of why he voted to shut the government down when he said he would never do that either.

But, Mr. Speaker, when I read his Twitter account----

Once I finish this, I will give my friend the date.

Tuesday, on the gentleman's Twitter account--I like how my friend uses it more often, maybe the President inspired him--@WhipHoyer, Dreamers can still apply to renew DACA protections. Learn more about the requirement for applying for renewal.

I don't know which one is right. If on his Twitter account he says that it is okay because no DACA students or kids are being removed, he says in his Twitter account you can apply right now. But I am going to vote against the omni that we negotiated with because I am really worried about the rescissions that go against maybe some money that has been wasted.

But when I look at this, Mr. Speaker, I know for a fact the President made another offer to not only solve DACA, but to solve Dreamers. All he requested was could we have the border secure. He wasn't asking for an astronomical number.

When you think back, many times, Mr. Speaker, I get an argument from the other side about the Gang of Eight bill. They spent twice as much on border security than the President is asking for.

I know for a fact the President talked to the leader on the other side, of his party. I know for a fact they came back and said no. I know the President actually put it out on his Twitter account. The President wants to solve this problem, but he wants to make sure the border is secure.

Mr. Speaker, as we speak right now, there are people who are marching from other countries because they think they can just march directly across our border.

I think our border needs to be secure. I would hope everybody would feel that same way. I know the President wants to solve this problem. He offered. As a fact, Mr. Speaker, the President said it from inside these Chambers for the whole Nation to hear.

Sometimes I begin to wonder: Do words and action actually do the exact same thing? Could it be possible, Mr. Speaker, that sometimes people play politics with issues? Could it be possible that sometimes people could use that for an excuse? Could it be possible that people would say they want to solve a problem, but when they have the offer of a solution, they say no so they can keep it to try to make a political argument out of it?

I don't know. Maybe. But I will tell the American public this: We want to solve that problem.

Now, Mr. Speaker, my friend on the other side of the aisle is worried about the debt. I am, too. He voted for a budget that would increase it by more than $6 trillion, but he wants to raise your taxes and take more of your money by another $3 trillion. It still increases it much more than what he takes in taxes.

He said he heard those arguments all before that the Republicans, they won't do well if they let people keep more of their own money. Well, I just looked at the latest numbers. In the first 3 months with the new tax bill, do you know what? More revenue came in. Millions of people got to keep more of what they earned.

What is interesting is so many Americans got a pay raise simply because government said you could do better with your own. That, I think, is true. And if my friend, Mr. Speaker, agrees with that, I know he will be there for the recision.

Where can we stand up for the taxpayer? If there is money wasted here, why wouldn't we go line by line? It won't be just the omni. It will be all those other accounts that have been sitting there. I don't think that is a Republican or Democratic idea. I truly believe that is an American idea, and I think that is the responsibility that we all have.

I know these colloquies go long. I like my friend across the aisle, Mr. Speaker. I consider him a friend. But just as anybody has friends, we have different philosophical opinions, and that is healthy. But at the end of the day, we can't make excuses. At the end of the day, Mr. Speaker, there is a bill on the floor.

And, yes, I want it 100 percent my way, but, unfortunately, that is not the way our government is created. It is supposed to find compromise. I can always find an excuse: Do you know what? Someone didn't look right at me, or someone said something I disagreed with.

But as we know today, no DACA child is getting deported. As we know today, the President wants to solve this. As we know today, the President

has made many offers. So, I think, Mr. Speaker, there is no more time for excuses. It is time for solving.

Will the gentleman yield?

He knows that is not true. You just said I want to stop unification of moms and dads? You know that is not true, and you know I made an offer to actually speed that up.

Yes, I am saying that is not true. Let me explain what it is.

So, when someone comes here, they can petition others. They can petition their parents. They can petition their children. They can petition their spouse.

They can petition their brother and sister, and then they can petition their married children.

Right as of today, currently, you are only allowing 65,000 for brothers and sisters. That is not a mother, and that is not a child.

Right now, today, there is more than a 30-year wait. So what we proposed is that system is not working. So a brother and sister has their own family. So instead of taking those up, why don't you put those into the spouse and the children?

So what we offered to you--and maybe they didn't quite understand it--you would speed up the process for parents, your spouses, and your children. I always thought that was very reasonable.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman asked me a question earlier. I want to make sure I answer it.

I made a claim that the gentleman voted to shut the government down. My claim is based upon three times:

January 22, the continuing resolution to keep the government open, you voted ``no'';

On February 6, the continuing resolution, you voted ``no'';

Then, when government was shut down, there was a bill to reopen the government on February 9, and you again voted ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 830 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (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

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

Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 830 provides for consideration of H.R. 5192, the Protecting Children From Identity Theft Act. The resolution calls for a closed rule, as no amendments to the bill were submitted.

Mr. Speaker, this bipartisan legislation is designed to reduce identity fraud by allowing financial institutions to verify the accuracy of a name, Social Security number, and date of birth before passing that information to credit bureaus.

This legislation is designed to target something known as synthetic identity fraud. This begins when a criminal combines a real Social Security number with fictitious information, such as a name and date of birth, to apply for credit with a financial institution that passes information to credit bureaus for a credit check.

Credit bureaus create a record based on the fraudulent credentials. Over time, this creates a synthetic identity based on the valid Social Security number but a false name.

Currently, children and other vulnerable individuals are more likely to be victims of synthetic identity theft because they do not drive, work, or establish credit. This makes it easier for an identity thief to misuse the Social Security number of a child without being detected.

Reports indicate that over 1 million children have their identity stolen each year. Studies show that children are 50 times more likely than adults to be a victim of identity theft.

This is a real and serious issue that is only becoming more and more common. According to TransUnion, a record $355 million in outstanding credit card balances was owed by people who it suspects didn't exist in 2017. That is up more than eightfold from 2012.

This type of fraud can saddle children with unintended debt and a flawed

credit history sometimes before they can even walk or drive a car.

That is why this bipartisan legislation is so important. The bill would require the Social Security Administration to create a verification system to match the name, Social Security number, and date of birth submitted by permitted entities against their official records.

This would allow financial institutions to verify the accuracy of the customer's personal information in order to guard against synthetic identity fraud.

Importantly, the bill requires that users of the verification system pay the full cost to limit any costs to taxpayers. Also, the bill ensures that the provisions do not distract the Social Security Administration from their core duties and responsibilities.

It is also important to note that the bill includes protections to ensure the verification system is secure and not subject to abuse or misuse. The consumer must also consent before their information could be subject to an inquiry.

This is bipartisan, commonsense legislation that solves a real-world problem, but I bet it will never get the attention that it deserves. This bill went through regular order. It passed out of the Ways and Means Committee on a 38-0 vote, and I hope it receives a similar vote here on the House floor.

Despite what some in the national news media would have you to believe, this type of bipartisan legislation actually happens all the time here in the House. The vast majority of bills we pass receive bipartisan support, and while that may not make for the best television, it is the reality of the work we do on a daily basis.

So I urge my colleagues to support this rule and the Protecting Children From Identity Theft Act, and let's work to solve a problem impacting Americans each and every day.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support House Resolution 830 and the underlying bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the remarks of my good friend from Florida. I do want to note the presence on the floor of our newest member of the Rules Committee, the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Torres). We welcome her to the committee.

I do think there are bipartisan things that we can do. The gentleman said one that I think is very important; that is, infrastructure. He and I have had this discussion before. The President wants us to do an infrastructure bill, and I think all of us want to do an infrastructure bill. I think there is some time here we need to take to make sure that we do get a bipartisan bill in that regard. I don't think it will pass without a bipartisan agreement, so I hope we do that.

On the gun issue, as I think the gentleman knows, the bump stock rule was actually something put in place by ATF under the Obama administration, and President Trump has asked the ATF essentially to rescind it, and they are in the process of doing that. So I hope they'll do that.

We did pass, and this body is part of our appropriations bill for this fiscal year that has gone to the President and been signed, the Fix NICS bill. So there are gun legislation things, addressing these issues, that are moving forward.

He also brought up the very important issue of immigration. The President, I think, has made some very bold moves in that regard to try to get a discussion going so that we can have some bipartisanship here. It is clear that that is not going to pass both the House and the Senate without that. I hope that those negotiations and those discussions can somehow resume because they clearly hit a very bad spot. The President has shown his good faith. I hope the rest of us can reach back and find a way to address this issue.

But this issue is not just the Dreamers. It is also border security. If we are not willing to talk about that and chain migration and the others, we are not really talking about immigration reform; we are talking about one piece of it.

With regard to the AUMF, Authorization for Use of Military Force, I am a strong advocate, as I think the gentleman knows, for a new AUMF. Actually, I am a cosponsor for one of the bills that would provide for that. I have said, going back several years, that I think we have been operating in certain parts of the world without adequate authorization. And whether it is constitutionally required or not, I think it is the right thing to do.

However, I do not think the President had to have prior congressional authorization before the strike that was launched Friday night against Syria in conjunction with France and Great Britain. He clearly has that authority under Article II of the Constitution, to protect our servicemen and -women who are in Syria right now. So I applaud what the President did. I applaud the way he did it. But I am clear in my thinking that he did not need prior authorization from Congress to go there.

Now, I hope that we will get a strategy in general for Syria that fits into our overall strategy to the Middle East. We have been stumbling around in Syria for several years now. President Obama put out the so-called red line, and then the Syrians walked across it and used chemical weapons against their people. And we did nothing. All that did was encourage further bad behavior like what we saw in this horrible chemical attack on innocent civilians in Syria.

At least President Trump is doing something. And I hope that that something that he has done will send a loud message, not just to the Assad regime in Syria but also to Russia and to Iran, that the civilized world is not going to tolerate that sort of activity. And we don't care who does it; we are going to take appropriate action. The President had the authorization to do it, and I am glad that he did it.

We are not done legislating this year. I think the gentleman suggests that we are, but we have got some big bills coming before us. This week we will take up a major IRS reform bill. I am looking forward to that, this being tax day for so many of us. A good tax day for the vast majority of the people in America, by the way.

We will be taking up a reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration. We will be taking up another farm bill. We will be taking up the National Defense Authorization Act that comes out of the Committee on Armed Services that I am in.

We have a host of legislation that we will be doing, and I think doing successfully, between now and when we have these midterm elections in November. So we are not done legislating by any means.

I look forward to continuing to debate these issues, but today we are talking about a very important bill that did come through committee in a bipartisan fashion and, I believe, is going to get broad bipartisan support here in this body, once more showing the American people that we can get the people's work done in the right way.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am as well.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the remarks of my good friend from Florida. I certainly hope that there can be some further discussions and we can have something that comes forth on this floor that is truly bipartisan on the issue of immigration reform, including border security.

I know that there are some people, not including my friend from Florida, who would like to pass legislation that would repeal the Second Amendment. I hope that that legislation doesn't come to the floor because I do not think it would meet with the approval of the vast majority of the people of America.

I do strongly believe at some point we should be debating on this floor a new Authorization for Use of Military Force. But I will say again, the President did not need that authorization for what he did on Friday night, not because he was presuming to act under an old authorization, but because he had the inherent power to do that under Article II of the Constitution. If he is acting under that authority, he doesn't need extra authorization from us.

This bill, however, that we are talking about today is something we can all agree on, is something that is important for protecting young children and, yes, for protecting people who have just become immigrant citizens of this country. So I applaud the fact that we have come forward with this legislation. It shows that we are working together. I look forward to the debate on the floor of this House.

Mr. Speaker, I again urge my colleagues to support House Resolution 830 and the underlying bill.

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

The previous question was ordered.

Mr. Speaker, it is kind of good to see a Floridian in the pro tempore chair.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to debate this rule. Last night at the Rules Committee, we had the opportunity to hear from Chairman Kevin Brady of the Committee on Ways and Means, the chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee, Lynn Jenkins, and the ranking member of the Oversight Subcommittee, John Lewis, about this legislation.

They discussed--hey, America, listen to this--the bipartisan nature in which they worked on this issue to craft legislation that they hope can achieve strong bipartisan support in this body.

It came out of committee 38-0.

H.R. 5192 protects young children and recent immigrants from synthetic identity theft, a type of fraud that involves combining a legitimate Social Security number with a fake name in order to create a new synthetic identity. One in every 10 children have fallen victim to this type of threat. Research has shown that children's identities are stolen at a rate of 50 times more frequently than adults, resulting in children and families shouldering unforeseeable debt and a flawed credit history that is extremely difficult to clear.

Mr. Speaker, in a refreshing change of pace, this measure, as I indicated, had a 38-0 vote coming out of the markup in committee and included input from Democrats, the IRS, and consumer protection advocates.

Unsurprisingly, as I have indicated, it came out of committee overwhelmingly with all 16 Democrats voting in favor. The bipartisanship reflected in this bill is certainly a rarity in this body and, frankly, could have easily come before us under suspension of the rules.

It is now painfully obvious what the Republican majority's playbook is. My friends across the aisle can work in a bipartisan manner if they want to, but when it comes to major issues facing our country, like taking away healthcare from 23 million Americans or handing a $1.5 trillion tax giveaway to America's wealthiest citizens, they would rather force through partisan legislation written in back rooms with little to no expert analysis, similar to the farm bill that is about to come out here sometime in the not-to-distant future.

While it is certainly refreshing that we are working in a bipartisan manner for a change, protecting children and families from identity theft is not the only bipartisan priority. These reforms are just as pressing as protecting our children from gun violence, providing relief for hard-working, young Dreamers, and debating the use of military force overseas--or how about an infrastructure bill of consequence and real immigration reform.

Sixty-eight percent of Americans say Congress must do more to reduce gun violence. More than a million Americans took to the streets across the country to march for our lives and to urge Congress to take action to reduce gun violence. I had the honor of sitting on the stage on that day, and I was never as proud as I was of the children from Broward County, where I am privileged to serve, or from around this Nation, and their friends and allies, parents, loved ones, and constituents who came from all over the country here, as well as to events in a significant number of locations around the country.

207 members of Congress, including 14 Republicans, are sponsoring H.R. 4240, the Democratic Representative Mike Thompson's bill that would give States the resources to help them submit information to the background check system. One hundred Members of Congress, including seven Republicans, are cosponsoring the Gun Violence Restraining Order Act, which will allow family members or law enforcement officials to petition a judge to temporarily remove firearms from an individual in crisis. We had that example in Florida after it passed its law. Immediately, a family came to the sheriff's office to have weapons taken from a person in crisis.

Has the Speaker brought these bipartisan measures to the floor for a vote? No. The Republican majority has refused to take up even the most basic commonsense legislation to help mitigate the epidemic of gun violence facing this country. My friends across the aisle have even refused to address the use of bump stocks, a reform whose need is agreed upon by Democrats and Republicans, including the President. Fortunately, in the State of Florida, it did pass in the last session of the legislature.

Mr. Speaker, just last year, 34 House Republicans signed a letter to Speaker Paul Ryan urging him to bring forward a permanent legislative solution for the Dreamers, these young, hardworking individuals who are stuck in legal limbo. But despite this bipartisan support, not to mention the support of 90 percent of the American public, the Republican majority continues to block the Dream Act, ignoring the calls of the vast majority of Americans.

It is time for the Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress to stop playing politics with the lives of Dreamers and come to terms with the fact that their long anti-immigrant wish list is not going anywhere fast.

Mr. Speaker, the House of Representatives is a place where the issues facing our Nation should be addressed and solved in a bipartisan manner, similar to this legislation. It is a sad state of affairs for the Nation that Congress has continued to sit idly by while the executive branch further engages our military in conflicts overseas without congressional authorization.

Republican leadership's refusal to allow a robust debate on the efficacy of an authorization of the use of military force for our presence in Syria is not only a dereliction of duty but does a great disservice to the country and our Constitution. If the President, any President, intends to further involve American troops in the Syrian conflict, or any conflict, then Congress has not only the responsibility but also the constitutional authority to lead that conversation.

Despite across-the-aisle support for these pressing problems, we are not here today debating the rule to address gun violence in America. We are not here today debating the rule to protect Dreamers from being removed from our

workforce or being deported to countries of which they have no knowledge. We are not here today debating the rule for the use of military force in Syria. We are not here today discussing immigration reform. We are not here today discussing an infrastructure measure that is desperately needed.

When I came to Congress in 1992, there were 14,000 bridges in this country in need of repair. Today there are 54,000 bridges in this country in need of repair. But we are not discussing that here today. Instead, we are using floor time to discuss a bill that could have easily been considered on the suspension calendar, and I predict that, had it been on the suspension calendar, 435 Members, or as many as assembled, would have voted unanimously in favor of the measure today as they would if it were on the floor at this particular moment.

Are my friends across the aisle intent on running out the clock before the midterm elections? Is that what the American people have to look forward to over the next 7 months? The people who sent us here deserve bipartisan solutions to the pressing problems confronting this great Nation. Not next month. Not next week. Not tomorrow. But today.

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

Mr. Speaker, through you, I would advise my friend that I have no further speakers, and I am prepared to close.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened very intently to my friend from Alabama, and he indicated that the action that was just undertaken over the weekend by this administration was ``something,'' and I maintain that it was under an old Authorization for Use of Military Force.

Listen, one of the reasons Congress won't undertake to debate an authorization for the use of military force, which I would urge my friend would give us a strategy if we had that debate and at least the administration would have Congress' input with reference to the use of military force--we can't continue to have pin pricks at the whim of any President. I argued the same thing during the Obama administration, and I argued it during the Clinton administration.

What we have done is abdicate our responsibility in Congress when it comes to war. And if you think it isn't war, then ask the 500,000 people who are dead as a result of this measure undertaken in Syria, not just by the United States but with a variety of forces fighting inside. If you think it isn't war when a bomb destroys a building, or 76 missiles destroy buildings, then I have news for you about what war looks like. And we had no input.

My understanding is the administration met with the leadership of the Republican Party. I don't recall hearing a single Democrat was invited to have any discussion at all about this matter.

Mr. Speaker, I applaud this bipartisan legislation, as I have said, that would limit synthetic identity fraud and help protect millions of identities, including those of young children and recent immigrants, from being stolen. In a refreshing change of pace, this measure received input from Democrats, the IRS, and consumer protection advocates.

My friend from Alabama said that there are measures that are coming

forward, and I applaud him that those measures are coming forward. But I didn't hear him say that there were going to be measures having to do with Dreamers. I didn't hear him say there was anything that would be significantly involved in gun violence other than his words with reference to bump stocks and some reference back to some other date in time. I am talking about right now, not only bump stocks but the necessary indicia for buying a weapon and the age for buying a weapon and a variety of measures.

Twenty-six measures exist right here in the House of Representatives on which we could be voting--any one of them--that are commonsense gun reform. And we refuse to do so because the Speaker won't put them on the floor.

I hope that we can continue working together across the aisle to confront the pressing issues facing this great Nation. When the farm bill comes here, I hope Democrats have some input. They haven't had any at this point. And we can help people whom we have been elected to serve.

However, it is time that we address gun violence in America; it is time that we protect Dreamers; it is time we exert our constitutional authority and debate a new Authorization for Use of Military Force; and it is time for us to repair these broken-down bridges and raggedy roads in the United States of America.

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 830, I call up the bill (H.R. 5192) to authorize the Commissioner of Social Security to provide confirmation of fraud protection data to certain permitted entities, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 5192, currently under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 5192, the Protecting Children from Identity Theft Act, and I am grateful that it is being brought before the House today.

This bill aims to combat synthetic identity fraud by directing the Social Security Administration to accept electronic signatures when financial institutions want to verify their customers' information.

Synthetic identity fraud accounts for 80 percent of all credit card fraud losses today. It has been reported that a record $355 million in outstanding credit card balances was owed by people who it suspects didn't exist in 2017, up more than eightfold from 2012.

The Government Accountability Office describes this type of fraud as involving the creation of a fictitious identity using a combination of real data, like a Social Security number or date of birth, from multiple individuals, along with fabricated information.

H.R. 5192 is an important step in reducing fraud, while also ensuring that the Social Security Administration is able to continue providing important services and benefits.

The SSA Commissioner is not allowed to begin development of the new verification system until the Commissioner determines that at least 50 percent of the program's startup costs have been covered by users. After initial development, users of the verification system are obligated to pay for the ongoing costs associated with this new workload by way of advances, reimbursements, user fees, or other recoveries, as determined by the Commissioner.

My south Florida district is far too familiar with fraudulent activity affecting the community, and sadly, children and immigrants are particularly vulnerable to these schemes. Over 1 million children have their identity stolen annually, and they are 50 times more likely than adults to be victims of identity theft.

I am proud to partner with Representatives Sinema, Hultgren, and Marchant on this important effort. I would also like to thank Chairman Brady and subcommittee Chairman Johnson for their leadership and hard work, as well as the staff of the Social Security Subcommittee and the rest of the House Committee on Ways and Means staff who have worked on this legislation.

I encourage all my colleagues to vote in favor of H.R. 5192, the Protecting Children from Identity Theft Act, to help modernize identity protections for our children.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson), the distinguished chairman of the Social Security Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, first, let me thank my colleague, Ms. Sinema. It is a pleasure to work with her and to team up, in a bipartisan manner, to fight fraud and to help the most vulnerable, in this case, the children. I am very grateful to her, for all her work on this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hultgren).

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of my colleague, Mr. Davis, and I agree with him. This is certainly something to celebrate. The American people oftentimes see us arguing. It is less often that they see us collaborating, working together to advance policies that will improve quality of life in our country.

That is why I want to again urge all of my colleagues to support H.R. 5192, the Protecting Children from Identity Theft Act. We need to do everything we can to safeguard our communities from these fraud schemes. This problem has worsened significantly over the past few years and is leaving families with debt they did not accrue and a weaker credit history.

H.R. 5192 will help root out synthetic identity fraud through modernized verification of customer information, and I hope my colleagues will join me in voting to help protect individuals across the country from this illegal activity.

Once again, Mr. Speaker, my appreciation to Chairman Brady, to Ranking Member Neal, to Mr. Davis, to Mr. Hultgren, to Ms. Sinema, and to everyone who has been a part of making this happen, so that, after we pass this legislation, children in our country won't have to worry about having their identities stolen at such a young age.

This kind of fraud can really ruin people's lives, and today, we are working together, as one united House, Republicans and Democrats, to fight fraud and to protect children, some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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