Providing for consideration of the Senate amendment to the bill (H.R. 88) to modify the boundary of the Shiloh National Military Park located in Tennessee and Mississippi, to establish Parker's Crossroads Battlefield as an affiliated area of the National Park System, and for other purposes; providing for proceedings during the period from December 24, 2018, through January 3, 2019.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 1180 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Torres), 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.

Mr. Speaker, thank you and Merry Christmas. It is also Merry Christmastime to the American people, Mr. Speaker, as Congress moves to its final resolution for this term.

Mr. Speaker, we can't forget that there is important work that is still to be done. The American people sent us here to do work and expect us to do that.

Today I lay before the House the Rules Committee Print 115-87, the text of the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 88. Now, that may sound pretty pro forma, just like a normal bill, but, Mr. Speaker, what is in here is not a normal bill.

In fact, it is a compilation of things which we do every year that are called tax extenders because we have been unable, necessarily, to agree on them for a longer term. So, one year to the next year to the next year, we gather together before we leave, and we normally come to an agreement. We have done this virtually every year I have been in Congress.

We say on a bipartisan basis and a bicameral basis: Let's make sure that we take care of the things that have not been taken care of on a longer basis now.

What might that mean, Mr. Speaker? Well, that means that we, as a body, need to be responsible and understand that during the year there have been a number of circumstances also that contributed to people needing tax help. Some of them are fires. Some of them are earthquakes.

Some of them are the changing of the circumstances back home where we are trying to make sure that the Tax Code is updated in this tax year now so that if someone--for instance, if they are in a California wildfire--loses everything they have got, they know that Congress has passed laws that help them as they move forward to rebuild their home, to make decisions about their future.

It could be, Mr. Speaker, that a lot of work that the gentlewoman from Kansas, who is a member of the Ways and Means Committee, one of your colleagues on that committee, had done to make sure that any whistleblower who saw something that was going wrong at work for tax- related matters is protected.

These are important issues. But they are also important because there are broader activities, and they deal with taxation that was put into the Affordable Care Act. It is called ObamaCare, but it is the Affordable Care Act from years back.

What this Republican Congress has done is shielded, protected the American people from many of the devastating effects, notwithstanding that this Congress and the President, President Trump, signed the law that takes away the individual mandate--not the business mandate but the individual mandate.

But, Mr. Speaker, there are still three hugely onerous provisions that still lag on from that piece of legislation. Embedded in that is something called the medical device tax. The medical device tax is a tax on the newest technology--not, Mr. Speaker, on the sale of that to where, okay, Uncle Sam wants a little bit more of that, but the onerous part is it is on the manufacture.

And when you put a tax on the manufacturing piece, that means that that product is not produced in an effective, efficient way. That means that they are produced one at a time because, upon that manufacture, the tax has to be paid, not upon the sale.

It is something we fought on, I thought on a bipartisan basis, but it seems like today it is simply partisan, simply only Republicans, really, when it comes down to it, who are for doing away with the medical device tax.

There is something called the Cadillac tax. That is the Democratic Party's and President Obama's idea of you really shouldn't have better healthcare than somebody else, and if you do, we are going to tax that asset. It is at the heart of the Affordable Care Act.

This Cadillac tax has been, every single year, deferred, stopped, agreed to. We are not going to apply that Cadillac tax, because it is on people, many of them who work for unions, people who have earned the right to have the healthcare that they have but the Democratic Party wants to tax it.

Lastly, the healthcare tax. And that is a tax on every single person that has a healthcare policy. It is about $70. That means that every single American is going to pay an extra tax because they have healthcare.

These are things that the Republican Party had worked on, and we thought we were, on a bipartisan basis, going to take care of these issues. We find out, really, today, that is not true.

But I think we found out around election time the real effort for the Democratic Party. It is called H.R. 676, Medicare for All. Mr. Speaker, to those of us who have looked at the bill, section 102 lays out every single piece part of healthcare that you could think of, from an audiologist, to a dentist, to a person who may provide massage therapy.

Section 104 in that bill outlaws all private health insurance in America if a piece part that was in section 102 is provided or paid for by a health insurer. It outlaws all private insurance. What does that also mean? That means employer-provided insurance under H.R. 676, section 104.

So, Mr. Speaker, sometimes you have got to read to the end of the book or watch the end of the movie to see exactly what the plot and the theme is.

Mr. Speaker, we have, for the last 8 years, been going down a pathway of thinking that what we were doing was really bipartisan, that our colleagues on the Democratic Party were really opposed to the Cadillac tax because they consented and agreed to it, voted for it, that the medical device tax was something that they understood would cause great harm and increase prices and deny people to get the best technology.

We thought they were going along with this. We thought they understood how important it was not to tax medical devices, the latest technology that saves lives. And we thought that they understood that the healthcare tax of $70 on every single health insurance plan in this country was probably a bad idea after we already had the Affordable Care Act signed into law.

I find out now I was wrong. I was wrong, and I think the American people were fooled. The medical device tax, the Cadillac tax, and the healthcare tax are in this package, along with the ability to help the people in California and on the West Coast and other people who were a part of natural disasters, people who are seeking help where they are finding an employer doing something wrong, to give them that needed opportunity to protect themselves, a safe harbor.

So much is being done in here at the end of the year, but that is not the

story that was told at the Rules Committee. The story that was told is: Oh, this is just about the top 1 percent. This is just about a special deal.

Mr. Speaker, that is a long way from, not just the facts of the case, but the truth. So I am here, as chairman of the Rules Committee, bringing to the floor an opportunity to, once again, do as we have done in the past to say the healthcare tax, the medical device tax, the Cadillac tax--we are asking my colleagues to join with us.

It is a very genuine offer. It is an offer that has been extended and accepted for the past few years, since the Affordable Care Act passed. It is the right thing to do.

So I will ask each of the Members of this body to pay attention, to see what is in there, help the people who have been a part of natural disasters this year. Let's get this package done. It is the right thing to do.

And I can sincerely look at you, Mr. Speaker, and say thank you. Thank you for your years of service, but thank you for making sure that we were faithful to the end. Even though it is starting to look a lot like Christmas, we still have to do our work.

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, the argument that we are involved in today is whether we are going to, as this body, on a bipartisan, bicameral basis, understand that it is about hundreds of billions of dollars. It is about hundreds of billions of dollars that the American people have been spared from.

Mr. Speaker, we are not undertaxed. We spend too much money. But that is not what this is about. What this is about is control. This is about the control that some in this body want over people's lives.

This is not about whether we are going to arbitrarily cause the Federal Government to be in trouble over a Cadillac tax, a medical device tax, a healthcare tax and blame that on greedy people back home who, by virtue of them wanting to have healthcare and robust healthcare and better healthcare but somebody in Washington does not want them to have it and blames them on being greedy for what might be billions of dollars when you add up everybody across the country; this is about control. This is about controlling people's lives.

And, Mr. Speaker, I will once again say it. I had thought, during these years, we came to an agreement that the Cadillac tax, the medical device tax, the healthcare tax, things that happened during the year, whether they be tornadoes, whether they be wildfires, whether they be other circumstances, would still be able to be reached on a bipartisan, bicameral basis.

After all, President Obama signed these into law.

After all, the American people understood that their gift for being gracious and working and doing the right thing shouldn't be an onerous tax.

After all, many people who live, as an example, in Minnesota could look up and see where their two Democratic Senators fought hard to make sure this medical device tax that was the lynchpin for tens of thousands of jobs in medical innovation, that we could get together and work together.

Now we find out, no, that is wrong. That is wrong. What we want is we want that $180 billion. We want that. You can't have that, and we are going to tax you because we can, because we can control your life and the outcome of your healthcare; because, actually, those who have great healthcare, yours is greedy, so we are going to tax it.

So, Mr. Speaker, that is why the Republican Party in the House of Representatives is here today, as stalwarts of not just the middle class of this country but stalwarts of people who understand people get up and go to work--yes, the union worker, too.

That union worker will find out, loud and clear, the party that was for taxing their healthcare, their working healthcare.

The people in these States, where medical devices are robust and made America at the top of the world, they will understand.

And the people, who are average families like those in Dallas, Texas, which I proudly represent, they will understand somebody was for taxing them further and somebody tried to continue what we have done now for years and not tax them on their healthcare.

So it is about control, and I am sure we will find out, as the new year comes around, about H.R. 676, Medicare for All, that will outlaw all employer-provided private healthcare in this country. That is what the bill says. It is very plain. Section 104 gets right to it. That is what this is about.

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

Mr. Speaker, I do not.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the distinguished gentlewoman from California, not only her comments and her ideas--I know they are well represented by the Democratic Party.

I would say to her that the people who vote against this bill will turn their back on the people who had the wildfires in California, the tornadoes in Georgia, the opportunities to help provide proper instructive help on their taxes this year as they enter next year. After all, it did happen this year.

But perhaps, more than that, Mr. Speaker, we recognize now more about shifting the blame for 8 years and $9 trillion worth of spending. They called it investment.

This Republican Congress, 1 year ago, almost to the day, passed a tax bill that has created the greatest economy in the history of this country. More revenue is coming in today than has ever come in in the history of the country. More people are working today because of that tax bill done 1 year ago. More people, more African Americans, more women, more families have an opportunity to enjoy the benefits of a job and the creation therein that they come home at night a little bit more satisfied, and their children, in the next generation, see work as a positive attribute, and communities are turning the corner.

Mr. Speaker, gas is $1.82 in Dallas, Texas. What a far cry from when it was almost $5 at the same time in President Obama's administration when the Democrats were running the place: the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. Oh, Mr. Speaker, we have not forgotten what a difference it makes, but the finger-pointing still continues.

Mr. Speaker, let the Record reflect, itself, that we have more revenue than ever coming in, more people working than ever, more opportunity for people, and part of that success has been because Republicans chose not to have a healthcare tax, a medical device tax, a Cadillac tax, choose not to make in order H.R. 676, Medicare for All, that would outlaw all employer-provided healthcare in this country.

Mr. Speaker, the differences between our ideas really find themselves at the center point of what we do today.

Last night in the Rules Committee, the distinguished gentleman from Lewisville, Texas, Dr. Michael Burgess, a retired physician who has delivered more than 3,000 babies, said that he had sat through, for years, these arguments at the Energy and Commerce Committee, and he lamented how the story really is not told about some 3 million people who now have jobs in this country, that a number of them that is undefined also got employer-provided healthcare; and that while there may be 1 million out of that 3 million who went to a larger company, it is their families that benefited because there was maybe a spouse behind that and a child or two who had previously been without employer-provided healthcare.

Now we are going to find out that Grinch showed up at Christmas, this rush to get out the door where we failed to secure the door, where we were so eager to get home rather than do our work.

Mr. Speaker, I can't imagine that somebody would just want to say, ``It is okay; it is Christmastime; let's get home,'' and then stick coal in each of the stockings of the American people who have healthcare, stick coal in the stockings of the medical device employees and employers, stick coal into the stockings of the medical community for doctors who had been providing these leading-edge ideas in medical devices, stick coal in the stockings of the workers of America who might have great healthcare only to find out that somebody who had voted for it for years turned their back. So that is why we are here.

Mr. Speaker, here is the bill right here, pretty easy to do. We have seen it a number of times. Nobody complained they didn't have time to read the bill. They actually know what is in it this time.

They actually know what they would not be supporting. They are going to put their vote and be on the line, and we are going to find out where people really are.

So, Mr. Speaker, that is the debate, whether we are going to step up and do our job; whether we are willing to complete the task; whether we are willing to be consistent for the things that we have stood for; or whether we are willing to make excuses about, well, it is just Christmastime, and we have got to get home.

Mr. Speaker, I want to say that my party believes that we should not have a white flag in our backpack, that we should not yield and just say, well, the timing was difficult. We should stand on our two feet, not beg on our knees.

We should move forward and do our job for the American people, and that is what I am proud to say my party and myself and the Rules Committee stand for. We are men and women who can stay to get the job done, not want to get home and not have performed our duties.

So that is the story. That is the story that we are going to tell. So I urge my colleagues to support this rule

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, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

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

Mr. Speaker, I recall this very quaint time when some of us arrived in Congress when the legislative session would wind down. There would always be this stellar photograph of the Speaker of the House and the Republican leaders and the Democratic leaders and the Republican and Democratic leaders in the United States Senate, who would be photographed on the front page of most major dailies on the phone speaking to the President of the United States, regardless of what the President's political affiliation might be.

So here we are closing the second session of the 115th Congress when we had time to do this. Instead, this is the second iteration of an irresponsible manner in terms of process that was offered to the Democratic minority in this House.

On Monday night, we got notice of this without even seeing the substance of the proposal that was in front of us. This is not the way regular order functions nor, as I have just referenced, the way that legislative sessions are supposed to conclude.

My friend--and I mean that with all sincerity--the chairman of the committee, noted that the American people are waiting to hear from Congress. Well, let me tell you this about these tax bills. It didn't take the wealthy long to hear from Congress. They heard from them right away, and the offering that they had was more concentrated wealth and more tax relief for people at the very top in America--taking that top rate from 39.6 to 37 percent, a cut in the corporate rate to 21 percent, doubling the estate tax, and here we are again with another vehicle that is not paid for.

So where do we find revenue right now as a percent of gross domestic product? It is at 16.4 percent. And we are hearing, well, just maybe this tax bill might bring us to 17.5 percent, when the historic battle tha the two parties have had in this House has generally been about between 18 and 19 cents on the dollar.

So a year later, what do we have in front of us? The same procedure: closed doors, no hearings, not one witness. And if you pick up some gossip in the hallway about what this is to include, that is generally conceded now to be a point of achievement.

So a year later, we are rushing another package through to correct the errors that were delivered in the first bill.

And, by the way, these were not small errors. A couple of them were big enough to drive a Mack truck through.

Not one hearing, not one witness, not one piece of evidence documented to put in front of this committee.

So this is a last-ditch effort by our Republicans to revisit their tax law and ensure that it further benefits those who really are the strongest already in our society. They want to jam through some of these provisions to help corporations at the expense of shining some light on how we might have found a substantive opportunity to achieve a bipartisan outcome.

The American voters delivered a resounding rebuke last month, and our friends don't seem to understand what that message was about.

On election day, the tax bill polled that 49 percent were against and 41 percent were for. And if you think it was just a messaging problem, that would be a mistake. They should have joined with us to advance some very important matters that are in this legislation; and when we would have had an opportunity to fix these together through transparency, hearings, witnesses, I think we could have easily accomplished a different outcome.

I oppose this legislation because it is also not offset. For the third time this year, the party of fiscal rectitude that always lectures us when there is a Democratic President about balancing the budget went out and borrowed more than $2 trillion for the purpose of providing a tax cut to the people at the top--$2 trillion added to the budget deficits.

Can you imagine what the reaction would have been if Barack Obama or Bill Clinton did that? The outrage would have been empowering in this institution. We would have heard about it for years at a time. But, no, it is okay to do it and then call it juice to the economy.

Well, there are many items in here that we fully approve of, but we disagree with the approach that is being taken, and we disagree with many of the substantive matters that are being offered.

There is a national principle involved here, and that is, we come to the aid of all members of the American family when natural disasters settle in, not on a piecemeal basis. And we will, I assure you, try very earnestly and very quickly next year to address many of these same issues. And I guarantee you this, for all members of this committee, there will be hearings, and there will be witnesses, and it will be done in daylight to make sure that there is an opportunity for all to be heard, including our Republican friends.

To close on part of this measure as well, this bill significantly erodes the Johnson amendment by allowing certain tax exempt organizations to make political statements during the ordinary course of activities.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself an additional 2 minutes.

So this would allow now priest, rabbi, imam, minister, to stand at the pulpit and offer an endorsement of a particular candidate for public office.

What happened to Jefferson's wall of separation?

What happened to the idea that, unlike Europe and places like that where they have had religious strife for centuries, that we were able to avoid that because of the wall that Mr. Jefferson very skillfully constructed?

This is a dangerous precedent that threatens to politicize charitable and philanthropic organizations.

Finally, the health provisions in this bill do nothing to increase accountability for the device industry, employers, or health insurers. If we are going to provide tax relief to corporations, we should have guarantees that the savings will be reinvested in innovation; put more dollars in workers' pockets, and lower insurance premiums.

Another issue that is not in dispute, Mr. Speaker, is the following: Overwhelmingly, that tax cut went to share buybacks with corporations and dividends. It did not come to the benefit of people who needed tax relief every single day.

There are a number of provisions here that we find very supportable, but the idea that we are doing this in the closing minutes of the 115th Congress, I think, is objectionable to our side.

The proposal before us is not paid for. It did not go through the regular order, and I urge our colleagues to oppose this legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin), the ranking member of the Health Subcommittee, who has served this institution with great distinction and dedication over many years.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett), the ranking member of the Tax Policy Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Thompson), the very assertive spokesperson from Napa Valley and my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell), the always erudite Mr. Pascrell.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Judy Chu), well-known for her financial acumen.

Mr. Speaker, we don't object to the three brackets being lowered for the American people in the middle class. We object to the idea that there were no hearings on this and the top brackets were reduced, doubling the estate tax exemption, cutting the top rate from 39.6 percent to 37 percent. If you want to do that for people at the very end of the economic scale, we are in.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. Speaker, could we have clarification as to how much time is remaining on each side.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

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

Mr. Speaker, so the holy grail of the tax cut was the constant reference to the stock market. That is what we have heard for the last year. I wonder about some of our Members, if they want to compare their 401(k) to what it was like in October of 2008. Or as we have witnessed that constant reference to the stock market, the stock market, the stock market, and a reminder that at the end of 2017, the stock market, or the Dow Jones Industrial Average went up to 24,719, and this afternoon, it is at 22,859.

Mr. Speaker, I call attention to that because of the chaotic nature in which this legislative body has functioned: no hearings, no witnesses, legislation crafted, we don't know where, brought to the floor, and then referenced as the achievement of a rising stock market.

So here we are again without one single hearing, rushing through another tax package that is not offset, and doubles down on the original law's skewed benefits for people at the top, again, without a markup or a single hearing.

A rushed process resulted in a failed product. And now, they want to duplicate that process with these changes proposed here today.

The bill includes a number of provisions that could have been reconciled very easily with our side enthusiastically, including the references that Mr. Kelly made to retirement benefits. We are all in.

But the hit on nonprofits--by the way, taking away benefits for parking for some of the nonprofits, is but another example of how this legislation actually lacked substance.

We can do much better. And I certainly want to encourage colleagues to oppose this legislation on process and policy, and just as I yield back, we on both sides here, are very fortunate to have exceptional tax advisers in terms of the staff members, and I want to thank Kara Getz for her work as the chief tax counsel as she moves to her new role in my office as well.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to be able to say Merry Christmas to all, but this tax bill does not help my enthusiasm. But I will still say Merry Christmas to all, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1181, I call up the bill (H.R. 88) to modify the boundary of the Shiloh National Military Park located in Tennessee and Mississippi, to establish Parker's Crossroads Battlefield as an affiliated area of the National Park System, and for other purposes, with the Senate amendment thereto, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion at the desk.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on the bill that is currently under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this important tax and oversight legislation. This bill has key timely components, each of which will help our economy continue moving in the right direction and provide help to families and communities damaged by disaster.

First, I think it is simply irresponsible to wait until next year to deliver crucial tax relief for families in 14 States and territories who are struggling today to recover from this year's devastating wildfires, hurricanes, flooding, earthquakes, and other severe storms. California alone, 17,000 structures destroyed; nearly 90 lives lost throughout the Carolinas; throughout these other States, so many families waiting to hear from Congress that they will receive relief now and not next year.

Both parties need to come together to help these communities rebuild, and rebuild today. This bill allows disaster victims to immediately access funds from their retirement accounts to begin their home rebuilding. It ensures losses from these disasters are immediately deductible and helps small businesses keep their workers on the payroll, even when their operations have been interrupted by these severe storms and wildfires.

Together, we can, we will, and we should help these communities rebuild today.

Secondly, working with the Senate, we have reached common ground on important retirement savings reforms. The House version of this bill already passed with many Democrats' votes. These reforms will help families save more throughout their lives, start saving earlier, while also helping our small businesses offer retirement plans to their valued workers.

This bill includes bold redesigns and restructuring of the Internal Revenue Service, the first bipartisan reforms to that agency in nearly two decades. Working together, Republicans and Democrats in the House passed this redesign package 414-0 earlier this year.

It is time now to send these reforms to the President's desk to ensure that the IRS is an agency truly focused on quality taxpayer service.

We are also offering bipartisan tax relief from some of ObamaCare's most damaging, harmful, and egregious taxes. Specifically, this bill provides relief from the Cadillac tax that punishes companies that provide good healthcare to their workers, the medical device tax that has chased thousands of jobs overseas, and relief from the health insurance tax and the tanning tax. These harmful taxes stifle innovation, reduce jobs, and increase the cost of families' health insurance.

This package also makes good progress on two temporary tax provisions that expired at the beginning of this year. Temporary tax policy is hardly ever good tax policy. We have an opportunity here to set a new tone for how we treat these temporary tax extenders moving forward.

Additionally, in this bill, we proactively eliminate any potential uncertainty for our churches and community groups so nothing distracts them from their core mission.

We have included a small number of straightforward, time-sensitive technical corrections to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Technical corrections, as we know, are normal and traditional with any big piece of legislation, especially with rewriting the Tax Code. These small tweaks are important and will ensure our new Tax Code works as intended, to grow the economy and increase wages for middle-class families.

I urge all my colleagues to support these measures so we can send this important legislation to the Senate soon.

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

Mr. Speaker, I know everyone in Congress is eager to get back to a full week of Christmas shopping, but I am proud to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Rice) who represents a community devastated by disasters in 2018.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood), a key member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Wenstrup).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kelly), the leader of the retirement and savings portion of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I recognize, under a Democrat majority, every American will be taller and smarter and better looking.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Holding), who helped lead legislation dealing with disaster relief.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Paulsen), an outstanding key member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mast).

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Estes).

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

Mr. Speaker, today, what we have heard is: our feelings are hurt. They are really, really hurt. This didn't go through regular order, and so our feelings are really hurt.

Those who oppose that say: Look, we are trying to help families that are damaged by our disasters, thousands of them. I imagine those families who are looking at their homes that are charred and burned, and families who are living on the second floor of their home because it has been wiped out, I bet they would like some regular order to their life. I bet they would like things to go back to normal. I bet they would like to spend the holidays in that home, not safe and warm up here in Congress, coming up with excuses on how not to help them.

We are told it is shameless to help those who are victims of disaster, in Alabama, California, Florida, and Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, and North Carolina. It is shameless to help you. We can't be bothered, is what opponents are saying today. In South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, we are busy, opponents are saying: We have got holidays. We can't help.

I believe we ought to help. Every one of us, Republicans, Democrats, ought to provide this key disaster tax relief that those families and communities need.

We are told it is reckless to help families and small businesses save more earlier in life, but we know we are not a Nation of savers. We have got to do more to help them. We used to do that in a bipartisan way. We can do that today.

We are told we never heard of a bill that reins in the IRS, redesigns them to become a taxpayer first agency and protects our personal data. Yet, that bill passed this House 414-0 because we had leaders like Lynn Jenkins from Kansas and John Lewis from Georgia, who worked together along with the Senate to do really thoughtful work together. Both parties gave, and took, and found a good solution. That is in this bill.

We are told that we ought not delay these ObamaCare taxes, but Republicans and Democrats, together, have worked to do this in the past, and President Obama signed them as well.

And then we are finally told that there is an attack on women's reproductive rights. Here is what it is: in this bill we allow, when you find out you are pregnant and you want to get a little head start to start saving for your child's education, like preschool, kindergarten, elementary school, get a head start on saving for trade school or for college, we are told that somehow that is an attack on reproductive rights.

It is a head start just for families that want to save a little more, get one more year. Because today, you have to actually open an account in someone else's name and transfer it later. We are just saying, look, get a head start. If you want to start saving, we are with you. Do your very best for your child. We think that is important.

At the end of the day, I think we ought to put aside this temper tantrum and come together to help a lot of families in our country who need this help.

My guess is, if our Democrat friends get their way and manage to obstruct, they will take all of these elements right back up at the beginning of the year. It will be their idea and their credit. I will give them credit right now for it. I just think we ought to help people today, and that we ought not break for any holidays until we have really done the work that these people deserve.

As long as we are talking about people who deserve our appreciation, I want to thank our chief tax counsel Barbara Angus, who has done just a remarkable job leading an amazing Tax Policy Subcommittee, and staff who have done such remarkable work for the American people and for us here over the past 3 years.

I want to thank the staff director of our Oversight Subcommittee, Rachel Kaldahl--the whole team--who have done remarkable work in a bipartisan way, reforming the IRS; Stephanie Parks in the Health Subcommittee area, on these ACA taxes; and, Machalagh Carr, our general counsel, who shepherded us to the work today.

The bottom line is I think there are lots of ways we can work together to help the American people, especially those in need right now. This has bipartisan work, bipartisan thought. Let's join together and help the American people.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, this rule represents many of the failures of the 115th Congress. To put it succinctly, the legislation before us is a bill which has absolutely no chance of passing into law and a bill that will add billions--billions--of dollars to our national debt.

I guess this is a Merry Christmas to those who hold our national debt, but this is not what our constituents sent us to do here. They sent us here to work together and find compromise in order to make our communities, their lives, better.

This rule makes in order the Senate amendment to H.R. 88, Shiloh National Military Park Boundary Adjustment and Parker's Crossroads Battlefield Designation Act.

But it is more accurate to say this is the GOP's second tax scam. Instead of taking this opportunity to use our remaining time here to actually accomplish something, our vote today on this rule will prove to be meaningless. The Senate is leaving town and has left us just a few items that we can accomplish, and this isn't one of them.

However, one item that is ready for passage is Savanna's Act.

Mr. Speaker, Native American women face a murder rate 10 times higher than the national average, with 84 percent experiencing some form of violence in their lifetime.

The Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 and the Tribal Law and Order Act have helped bring attention to the high rates of violence against Native women. However, there is still no reliable way of knowing how many Native women go missing each year because the databases that hold statistics of these cases are extremely outdated and in need of reform.

Congress hasn't paid attention to the lives of Native American women. That is why I joined Senator Heitkamp in introducing Savanna's Act earlier this year, named after Savanna Greywind, a pregnant, 22-year- old North Dakota woman and member of the Spirit Lake Nation, who was murdered in 2017.

Savanna's Act would require the Department of Justice to finally keep a nationwide database of missing and murdered Native women.

This is common sense. It passed the Senate unanimously last month.

One Member--one Member of this body--has decided to prevent us from passing Savanna's Act, and the rest have capitulated, one Member standing in the way of finally doing the right thing for Native women, American women, women who are victims of crime. Shameful, and shame on this body for allowing this and not taking this last week of the 115th Congress to finally bring about some justice to these cases.

Now, one thing that this body, the 115th Congress, has been really good for in the face of tragedy has been moments of silence, and that is why, today, I want to take some time that we have left to have a moment of silence. Mr. Speaker, I would like my colleagues to join me in a moment of silence for Savanna.

Mr. Speaker, instead of taking action on Savanna's Act, we are asked to vote on this rule to pass a tax bill which has been crafted in secret and has no chance of becoming law, when we could be doing something for justice, for truth, for victims of crime.

This is the 115th Congress. Good riddance.

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

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, does the gentleman from Texas have any more speakers?

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

Mr. Speaker, it is just about time to finish up here and return home for the holidays, time to see our loved ones and give them a hug. But for Savanna's family and the countless other Native American families destroyed because of this violence, there will be no return home for them, and we will have failed these families by not passing Savanna's Act today.

Instead, we are here because of a wall--not the wall that you are assuming, not talking about our southern wall. I am talking about the wall of debt, a massive wall of debt that this Republican Congress has built, trillions--trillions--of dollars of debt towering over our children and grandchildren's future. This rule will build it even higher. That is why I urge my colleagues to oppose the previous question and the rule.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for bringing this important legislation to the floor.

I rise in strong support of H.R. 88, a comprehensive package that in many ways will help millions of American families save more of their own money for their future.

Among H.R. 88's many important features is a section that includes key elements of three retirement savings bills that I have been proud to introduce and champion over the last 2 years.

One of those bills, the Family Savings Act, stood as one of the three main pillars of Tax Reform 2.0, which passed this House with bipartisan support in September. With H.R. 88, much of that bill, along with my bipartisan Retirement Enhancement and Savings Act and bipartisan Rightsizing Pension Premiums Act, is one giant step closer to becoming law.

In short, this package is a wonderful gift at Christmas for all Americans, and it cannot come soon enough.

Americans should be able to rely on three main sources of retirement income to ensure full financial security during their retirement years: first, Social Security; second, personal savings; and third, employer- sponsored savings plans.

Now, when it comes to that third source, an alarming number of Americans do not have access to an employer-sponsored 401(k) plan. Among those who do, a recent study found that 42 percent of them have less than $10,000 in their plan.

Combined with the fact that more than 60 percent of Americans don't have enough cash to cover a $1,000 emergency expense, the passage of today's package is especially critical.

Specifically, H.R. 88 will make it easier for small employers to pool together and offer retirement plans to their employees. This would help bridge the divide between the benefits that large employers might offer to their employees and those that smaller employers only wish that they could offer.

Overall, this will help ensure that the next generation of Americans doesn't outlive its savings.

I have to tell you, one of the things that I remember so clearly as a child growing up is my mother and dad saying to me: The one thing we never want to be to you kids is a burden.

I thought to myself, my gosh, my mom and dad are worried about being a burden to my brothers and sisters, after all they have done for us?

What we are trying to do is make up for that. The Greatest Generation, they are telling us they don't want to be a burden to the next generation. How American is that? That has nothing to do with Republicans and Democrats. That has to do with who we are as Americans.

This H.R. 88 accomplishes a lot of those goals, but I have to tell you, a secure retirement for every American should not be a partisan issue, and we know it is not. So, today, let's come together as a unified body and send this bill to the Senate, for the sake of every American's peace of mind during this season of peace.

Before I conclude, I also want to highlight the railroad track maintenance tax credit for the short-line railroads and the extension of the biodiesel tax credit. Each of these actions will directly support economic growth and job creation in rural communities

across America.

As I look across to the other side, I think we are all the same. I can remember, as a child growing up, sitting down and making up a list and sending it off to the North Pole, telling Santa Claus everything I wanted. But I can remember coming down on Christmas morning, and I never got everything I wanted, but I was really thankful for everything I got.

Mr. Speaker, this is bipartisan. This is who we are. If we cannot secure the future for those who have done so much for us, what are we doing here?

This is a wonderful opportunity for us to act at a time of year when it is much more important to give than it is to receive.