Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 1301) making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2017, and for other purposes.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Ms. Cheney) for the customary 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I want to express my appreciation to Defense Subcommittee Chairmen Granger and Frelinghuysen, and Ranking Member Visclosky, for their hard work in bringing this bill to the House floor today. The Defense Subcommittee is known for its ability to work in a bipartisan manner, and this bill demonstrates that this tradition continues.

Last year, the House approved its version of the FY 2017 Defense Appropriations bill. It was a deeply flawed bill filled with funding gimmicks, including a funding cliff that cut off funding for the war budget in order to boost base defense spending by $18 billion. The Senate version of the Defense Appropriations bill did not contain such gimmicks and was marked up by the Senate Defense Subcommittee, the full committee, and reported out of the Senate Appropriations Committee, but it never went to the Senate floor for consideration.

The FY 2017 Defense Appropriations bill that the House will consider later today is not, therefore, a conference report. It is being treated as if it were a conference report, namely by having a closed rule, but let us be perfectly clear that this is not a conference report.

Let me also be clear, Mr. Speaker, that we could have had this type of final bill come before us last December, just as we could have brought up all of the pending FY 2017 appropriations bills before the House last December for final action. Instead, Republican leadership chose to keep nearly the entire Federal Government, including the Pentagon, operating at FY 2016 levels without any clarity about what their annual budgets might be.

So when we hear talk about problems with military readiness or shortfalls in defense budgets, I suggest the Republican leadership hold a mirror up to their faces and take some responsibility.

This bill is 5 months late. It could also have been taken care of 3 months ago in December, and, in fact, it should have been taken care of in December. It is now making its way through another convoluted process today. But we still have no idea about the fate of the other pending ten appropriations bills that the Republican leadership failed to complete last December.

And I say convoluted, Mr. Speaker, because when the House votes on H.R. 1301 today, it still needs to go back to the Senate, and we really have no idea what they are going to do with it. Are they going to pass it without any changes and send it to the President for signature? Or are they going to use it as a vehicle to attach the other ten appropriations bills and send it back to us as the FY 2017 omnibus that we should have completed in December? Perhaps they might consider holding on to it until the President gets around to sending Congress his request for the FY 2017 supplemental so that we finally know how much Congress is actually being asked to approve for Pentagon spending in FY 2017?

So hold on to your hats because we are not done today with the defense spending bills for fiscal year 2017, one way or the other.

Mr. Speaker, I know that everyone in this House wants to make sure that our men and women in uniform are well staffed, trained, and equipped to carry out the missions and duties that we have asked them to carry out. In these areas, in particular, there is much to recommend in this latest version of the FY 2017 defense bill. The same is true for the funding included in H.R. 1301 for suicide prevention, sexual assault, and medical research.

I would also like to point out that H.R. 1301 totals $577.9 billion. This includes $516.1 billion in the base bill and $61.8 billion in the overseas contingency operations account to fund the many wars in which we are engaged. Coupled with the $5.8 billion FY 2017 supplemental Congress approved last year, total defense spending for FY 2017 currently stands at $583.7 billion; and that is before we receive still another FY 2017 supplemental from the President.

Mr. Speaker, that is well over half a trillion dollars for the Pentagon, more than the combined total military spending of the next seven greatest military powers in the world. So for those who bemoan how underfunded the Pentagon is, I would argue it is more a matter of failing to set priorities and tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars of waste, fraud, and abuse. Every report on every attempted audit of the Defense Department reveals that the Pentagon doesn't have a clue about where the money goes. Billions and billions of dollars cannot be accounted for. No other agency in the U.S. Government gets so much money or is allowed such sloppy

accounting, yet the White House and the Congress can't wait to throw even more billions at the Pentagon, rather than demanding accountability and setting clear spending priorities.

There are also other matters of concern with this bill, Mr. Speaker. H.R. 1301 not only continues, but adds to the prohibitions regarding the detention facility at Guantanamo. This is all an effort to prevent Guantanamo from shutting down, which hurts America's ability to do human rights work around the world and remains a stain on our own values and ideals.

This bill continues to spend billions of dollars on the insane trillion-dollar effort to modernize and produce new generations of nuclear weapons when what we should be doing is continuing to reduce our nuclear arsenal and enter hard negotiations with other nations that have nuclear weapons to eliminate them altogether.

Finally, H.R. 1301 continues to provide so-called emergency funding through the OCO account to continue wars in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere. These wars are hardly unexpected or an emergency and should, therefore, be fully incorporated into the base budget for the Pentagon. They are also wars for which Congress has not debated or approved any authorization for the use of military force.

We do not have an AUMF to deploy our military forces against the Islamic State, yet we have deployed military forces in the air, at sea, and on the ground in Iraq, in Syria, and elsewhere in the region.

We do not have an AUMF to deploy our military forces in the civil war in Yemen, yet we have deployed them to Yemen where one of our Navy SEALs was killed in combat and several others wounded in January.

The Republican leadership continues to fail at its constitutional responsibilities by not bringing any AUMF before the House for consideration, despite promises to do so. So here we are in the 115th Congress, following in the failed footsteps of the 113th and 114th Congresses, getting ready to vote on tens of billions of dollars for wars that Congress has failed to authorize.

I am proud of the courage demonstrated every single day by our men and women in uniform. I wish I could say the same thing about Congress and this House.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, while I am glad that at least one of the pending appropriations bills is going to see some action today, I wonder about the fate of the other ten.

When will we see those bills, Mr. Speaker?

In fact, speaking of urgent pending matters, when will we see a jobs bill?

When are we going to see legislation to repair and modernize America's infrastructure? Will extra funds be included in the fiscal year 2017 Transportation--HUD Appropriations bill, in the Energy and Water Appropriations bill, in the Interior Appropriations bill for similar improvements on Federal lands?

We have all read about the replacement proposed by the Republican leadership for the Affordable Care Act, and correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Speaker, but I am having trouble remembering how many hearings were held on that proposal so that Congress could benefit from experts in the healthcare field about whether this replacement bill will provide health care to even more Americans at less cost than the ACA. Oh, that is right, Mr. Speaker. The proposal is being marked up today without any hearings or expert testimony whatsoever.

Especially for the new Members of this body, it is important to remember that, when the Democrats drafted the Affordable Care Act, there were dozens of hearings and 30 days prenotification before Energy and Commerce held its markup, a markup that continued over many days. And then the bill, as reported out of committee, was posted for over 2 months online before coming before the full House for debate on amendments and final passage.

Quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, if a replacement bill to the ACA is not able to make sure that more Americans have health insurance at a lower cost, then what is the point other than politics?

We don't need to see any bill that covers fewer people and forces workers, families, and individuals to pay even more for their healthcare coverage and get even less in terms of healthcare protections. In fact, Mr. Speaker, the Republican replacement bill is being marked up in committee without a score by the Congressional Budget Office; and without a CBO score, then no one in this Chamber, in this city, in this Nation has any idea, has any clue how much this replacement bill will cost the taxpayer, let alone who will benefit and who will suffer under its provisions.

That is simply a scandal, Mr. Speaker, completely unacceptable. It is a cruel joke on American families, American workers, and the States, local communities, hospitals, doctors, nurses, and healthcare providers who will have to struggle with the consequences of people losing their health insurance.

Mr. Speaker, let's see America's priorities taken care of: a jobs bill, an infrastructure bill. Let's make sure we don't weaken healthcare protections for people in this country, and let's see all of the FY 2017 appropriations bills come before the House in the next few days so that we can complete the work that should have been done last December.

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

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

I want to thank the gentleman from Oklahoma for his kind words and for understanding that it is inappropriate for Congress to continue these wars without having a vote on an AUMF. I hope that that changes, but I appreciate his support, and there is bipartisan support for having this body actually do its job. That shouldn't be a radical idea, but, unfortunately, nowadays, doing our job seems to be something that a lot of people don't want to do.

Mr. Speaker, at the very beginning of the year, the Republican majority adopted a rule to explicitly exempt the cost of any bill that repeals or amends the Affordable Care Act from a requirement that it not increase spending by $5 billion. They effectively adopted a legislative blindfold to completely ignore the cost of repeal.

Let me show you the poster of the language, and I am happy to provide this to my colleagues on the Republican side. I will even give you my bifocals if you want to read it, because I think it is important that people understand what it says. It says:

Point of order: It shall not be in order to consider any

bill that would cause a net increase in direct spending in

excess of $5 billion.

Limitation: This subsection shall not apply to any bill

repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Mr. Speaker, as you can see, with this act, the majority declared that they were not going to let the rules of this House, which are purportedly in place to ensure fiscal discipline, stand in the way of repealing the Affordable Care Act no matter how much it would cost American families.

But, Mr. Speaker, it gets even worse. As we stand here today, Republicans have taken their head-in-the-sand approach to the Affordable Care Act to a new low. Right now, both the Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means Committees are considering Republican legislation to repeal healthcare reform without providing any analysis from the nonpartisan experts at the Congressional Budget Office on the cost of their legislation.

So let me put this another way. Earlier this year, the Republicans said: It does not matter how much it will cost to take health care away from millions of Americans. Now they are saying they don't even want to know how much it will cost or what impact it will have on American families.

Mr. Speaker, we have over 200 employees at the Congressional Budget Office. That office costs nearly $50 million a year. We pay them to advise us precisely at times like this. Republicans have talked about repeal and replace for 7 years. Acting like they had not enough time to weigh the cost of their actions would be laughable if it were not so irresponsible.

Now, we Democrats care about health care and we care about costs and we demand to know what the impact of this repeal bill will be. Members should not be asked to vote on this legislation until they know the full weight of their decision.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule that would require a CBO cost estimate to be made publicly available before any legislation that amends or repeals the Affordable Care Act may be considered in the Energy and Commerce or Ways and Means Committee or on the House floor.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Khanna), who has been a leader on this issue, and he will explain this even further.

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

I appreciated the gentleman from Florida's comments, but I would just ask him: Why is the Republican leadership 5 months late in bringing a defense appropriations bill to the floor?

We could have done this months ago. So if there was this urgency, it seems to escape the Republican leadership.

I want to take issue with the gentlewoman from Wyoming when she says that what is important today and what we are debating today is only this Defense Appropriations bill.

As you know, we are currently debating the rule, and the rule is a tool used to set the House agenda and to prioritize consideration of legislation. For that very reason, this is, in fact, the appropriate time for us to explain to the American people what legislation we would like to prioritize, what is of grave concern to us, and what agenda we would like to pursue in this House.

The fact of the matter is that, as we are speaking, the House Ways and Means Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee are marking up TrumpCare, which we know, in all likelihood, is going to result in millions of Americans losing their health insurance. We also are concerned that it is going to cost the American taxpayer a boatload of money.

What we are simply saying here today is that the Congressional Budget Office, which we fund and we rely on, ought to be able to give us a cost estimate, ought to tell us how much this is going to add to our deficit, how much it is going to cost the American people, how many people are going to lose their health care.

Why in the world would you rush a major piece of legislation through committee and onto the floor without even knowing what you are talking about?

I mean, this process constitutes mindless legislating. This is not doing your job, and that is all we are requesting.

We can argue over whether or not you like the Affordable Care Act or you don't. But whatever you are going to do, we ought to bring it to the floor with everybody's eyes wide open and knowing what the impacts are going to be.

Talk about lack of transparency, this TrumpCare bill was under lock and key until just a couple of days ago. It was the best-kept secret in the world. For 7 years, my friends have been talking about a replacement bill. No one ever saw it. But all of a sudden, it is brought out before the American people at a press conference and, again, in a way that doesn't answer a lot of questions. It is being rushed through committee, and it is going to be rushed onto the House floor. That is not a good process.

I will remind my colleagues that when the Affordable Care Act was considered here in the House, the House held 79 bipartisan hearings and markups on the health insurance reform in 2009 and 2010. You have held no hearings. None. There has been no expert testimony, no healthcare professionals, no doctors, no patients, no nurses, no families, nothing. There have been no hearings. The bill went right to markup.

House Members spent nearly 100 hours in hearings, heard from 181 witnesses from both sides of the aisle, considered 239 amendments, both Democratic and Republican, accepted 21 amendments. Again, there have been no hearings.

In markup, the Energy and Commerce Committee adopted 24 GOP amendments. In markup, the Education and the Workforce Committee adopted six GOP amendments. The original House bill was posted online for 30 days before the first committee began their markup and more than 100 days before the tricommittees formally introduced their merged bill in the House.

House Democrats posted their first House bill online for the promised 72-hour review. The Senate bill voted on in the House was online for 3 months, and the reconciliation bill was online for 72 hours of review before the final vote.

House Democrats heard and answered questions from constituents at more than 3,000 healthcare townhalls and public events. Tens of thousands of emails, calls, and letters were logged in congressional offices to register public comment. My friends are busy trying to avoid public town meetings.

I am just simply saying that we are raising this issue because we are deeply concerned about the prospect of millions of Americans losing health care and about you adding God knows what to our deficit. I don't think it is too much to come together in a bipartisan way to say: Let us know what the costs are going to be, let us know what the impacts are going to be. And if you still want to vote for TrumpCare, you can vote for it, but you ought to know what you are voting for.

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

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

I want to say to my colleagues on the other side: I know you don't like me talking about health care. If I were you, I wouldn't want to talk about health care either. This is a serious matter, and it is a matter of security for millions and millions of Americans in our country.

Again, maybe somebody over there can tell me: How much is this new TrumpCare bill going to cost? How much is it going to add to the deficit? How much are the American taxpayers going to have to pay for it? Does anyone know how many people will lose their coverage? Hello?

I guess I would ask the questions: Why do we have over 200 employees at the Congressional Budget Office, who we pay $50 million a year to be able to give us these estimates, if we are not going to utilize them? Why are we doing this?

It seems to me that before we do something that could harm millions of people in this country, before we could do something that could result in an increase in our deficit, why don't we ask the experts? And we all acknowledge that they are experts and we pay them lots of money. Why don't we get their advice?

This whole process seems backwards. You ought not to be marking up bills when you don't know what their impact is going to be.

Part of our job as Members of Congress, in addition to holding hearings and listening to experts and listening to citizens tell us their perspective--which, again, has been totally ignored in this process of the repeal of the healthcare bill--is also to make sure that when we are voting, we know what the impact is going to be, we know whether or not it is going to have a positive impact or whether it is going to have a negative impact.

Again, one of the reasons why I want to defeat the previous question is so that we can vote in a, hopefully, bipartisan way to get a CBO score so we know what is what.

I get it. I know my colleagues don't want to talk about health care. They would rather talk about something we should have done months ago. That is what we are doing now, we are doing old work now. This should have been done 4 or 5 months ago. I am just baffled why you don't want to do your job.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I surely want to make sure that we support our warfighters. My problem with the Defense bill is that we are spending so much money on things that I think are questionable. I would rather spend money on supporting our troops more than spending $1 trillion over the next 3 decades building more nuclear weapons. We have more nuclear weapons than any other country in the world, and we ought to be talking about limiting nuclear weapons and eliminating them altogether.

I want to support our men and women who we put in harm's way, but I want this Congress, I want Members of this House, to do their job. It doesn't take any courage to sit back and have troops deployed all over the world, in harm's way, and we don't even take the time to actually debate an authorization for the use of military force. We are too afraid to talk about those issues.

So when we talk about supporting our men and women in uniform, people ought to do a little bit of reflection on how we have not been doing our job.

Again, I note my friends don't want to talk about health care. My colleague actually said she would like to talk about health care more. Well, we should, because the fact of the matter is, as I said, as we are speaking here, the Republicans have unveiled this bill that has been in secret, that nobody has really had a chance to digest. No hearings. They want to talk about health care so much--no hearings, no expert testimony, no nothing. Right to markup; trying to rush it to the floor before we find out the true cost to the American people about what this TrumpCare bill is going to be all about; when they find out how many of them are going to lose their care; how it is going to cut Medicare; how senior citizens are going to see an increase in their healthcare costs; how average Americans are going to pay more for health care and get less protections; how people who are struggling in poverty are going to be out of luck because they are going to do away with the Medicaid guarantee to States.

Health care ought to be a fundamental right in this country, and they are taking that right away, and they are doing it in a fashion so that CBO, again, 200 employees at the Congressional Budget Office that Congress appropriates $50 million a year to support so they can do their expert work, they are doing this in a way so we are not even asking for their expert advice. What sense does that make?

This is the rule. This is where we set our priorities about what our legislative agenda ought to be; and all I am simply saying is vote ``no'' on the previous question so we can vote on an amendment so we can demand a CBO score in the healthcare bill.

By the way, that doesn't slow down the Defense Appropriations bill. It still goes forward. Nothing stops. So let's do what is right. Let there be a little sunshine on this House of Representatives.

There is a pattern that has developed under the Republican leadership where everything is closed. This bill that we are dealing with right now, closed rule. It is not a conference report, closed rule.

We have had more closed rules in the first few months in this Congress than any Congress, I think, in history, and that is the pattern. No hearings, no discussion, just go right to markup. We don't want to know how much it is going to cost. We don't want to know how many people are going to be thrown off of health care. Let's just rush something through. That is mindless legislating, and it has to stop.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I am going to again urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote to defeat the previous question so we can actually bring an amendment to the floor to demand CBO tell us how much the Republican healthcare bill is going to cost and what its impact is going to be on the American people.

Mr. Speaker, let me tell you why I am worried. The AARP estimates that the Republican repeal bill could increase premium costs by $8,400 for a 64-year-old earning $15,000 a year, and it could put at risk the health care of millions of vulnerable Americans.

Now, we have over 200 employees at the Congressional Budget Office. That office costs nearly $50 million a year. We pay them to advise us precisely at times like this. We ought to rely on their information. We ought to ask for their guidance. Before marking up bills, before rushing bills to the floor that could adversely impact millions and millions of Americans that could break the bank in this country, we ought to find out what we are talking about.

We can walk and chew gum at the same time. You can pass the Defense bill and you can also pass an amendment that tells us how much this Republican healthcare bill is going to cost. We ought to do both.

So defeat the previous question so that we can bring this amendment to the floor. Let a little sunshine in on this process. Let the American people know what is going on here. I think that is the appropriate way to proceed.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 174 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), 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, I rise in support of House Resolution 174, which provides a closed rule for consideration of H.R. 1301, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal 2017. I would like to thank, in particular, Chairman Frelinghuysen, Chairman Granger, and Ranking Member Visclosky for their hard and dedicated work on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, we have no higher obligation as elected representatives of the people of this great Republic than ensuring for the security and defense of our Nation. We are gathered here at a tremendous time of action and achievement across an array of crucial policy areas, regulatory relief for the citizens and businesses of our Nation, restoration of authority to our States and local communities, tax reform, ObamaCare repeal and replacement, and the list goes on.

President Trump is doing what he promised during his campaign, and it is an honor to serve the people of Wyoming at this historic moment. But, Mr. Speaker, it is no exaggeration to say that if we fail to provide the resources our military needs to defend our Nation, if we fail to do what is necessary to ensure America's Armed Forces remain superior to all others in the world, if we fail to provide the support our men and women in uniform need to recover from 8 years of devastating policies, nothing else we are doing in this body will matter.

Mr. Speaker, the need is urgent. As we meet today to debate the 2017 Defense appropriation, our Nation faces a more complex and grave threat environment than we have faced at anytime since World War II, and possibly, Mr. Speaker, more than at anytime in our history. For 8 years, our adversaries' strength has grown, while our relative capabilities have stagnated and, in some instances, declined.

North Korea continues its ballistic missile launches as it threatens our allies and interests.

The Iranian nuclear agreement has bought time for Iran to continue to advance its nuclear weapons program, as it reaps the windfall of at least $1 trillion of U.S. taxpayer funds provided to it by the Obama administration. Iran continues to threaten U.S. naval vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, support terrorism across the Middle East, and test ballistic missiles despite its U.N. obligations.

China is rapidly building up its military, and it is targeting, in particular, technologies to try to level the playing field with our capabilities. It continues to threaten freedom of navigation and trade in the South China Sea, and to conduct cyber operations against the United States.

Russia has invaded Ukraine, threatens Eastern Europe and the Baltics, is violating INF Treaty obligations, and openly threatening the use of nuclear weapons.

Al-Qaida today exists in more counties than ever before, and ISIS continues to recruit and hold territory as it plans and launches attacks against the West.

Most of the actors I just mentioned are also responsible for cyber attacks against the United States.

Against this backdrop, Mr. Speaker, the U.S. military is vastly under-resourced. At a recent House Armed Services Committee hearing, the vice chief of staff of the Army told members that of the 58 brigade combat teams, only three are ready to ``fight tonight.'' The vice chief of naval operations, Admiral William Moran, recently testified that more than half of all Navy aircraft are grounded due to maintenance issues and an inability to acquire the necessary parts. Our nuclear force is aging, even as our adversaries continue to make advancements in their own nuclear forces and capabilities. Our Air Force is the oldest, smallest, and least ready it has ever been.

These stories and shortfalls, Mr. Speaker, exist across nearly every aspect of our military. America's fighting men and women are the greatest fighting force and the greatest force for good our world has ever known. They deserve the resources to do their job.

We have prevailed over great challenges in the past, from our unlikely and miraculous founding, through our Civil War, two world wars, the Cold War, and the early years of the war on terror. We must, Mr. Speaker, marshal our forces to do so again. To prevail, Congress-- this Congress--must do its job.

That job begins with passing this 2017 Defense Appropriations bill. Then, Mr. Speaker, we must repeal the Budget Control Act and end sequestration. There is a rational and responsible way for us to undertake defense budgeting. The process in place today is neither.

The last time our military was able to assess the threats we face and then recommend the necessary funding levels to defeat those threats was fiscal year 2011, over 6 years ago. We must return to this standard budgeting process. In describing the effects of sequestration several years ago, our current Defense Secretary put it this way: ``No foe in the field can wreak such havoc on our security as mindless sequestration is achieving today.'' We must end this practice with all speed.

This should not be a partisan issue, Mr. Speaker. It has not been in our past. Since World War II, every American President, Republican and Democrat alike, has understood the importance of American military superiority of ensuring a world in which America and our allies set the rules.

Threatened by the Nazis and the Japanese, Franklin Roosevelt and George C. Marshall knew America had to be the ``arsenal of democracy.'' At the beginning of the Cold War, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy roused the Nation to defeat freedom and liberty against communism. John F. Kennedy knew America had to be ``the watchmen on the walls of freedom.'' In the 1980s, President Reagan oversaw the defense buildup we are still benefiting from today. He knew that ``war comes not when the forces of freedom are strong, it is when they are weak that tyrants are tempted.'' And in the aftermath of 9/11, it was George Bush and Dick Cheney who kept us safe, who knew we could not win this war on defense, who understood we had to have a military strong and capable enough to deny terrorists the safe havens from which they plot and plan and launch attacks against our fellow citizens.

Mr. Speaker, now it is our turn. Across the globe, our adversaries challenge us, from China to North Korea, to Iran, to Russia; across the Middle East, in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Thirty-four years ago, Ronald Reagan described our duty at another time, against another enemy, this way:

It is up to us in our time to choose, and choose wisely,

between the hard but necessary task of preserving peace and

freedom, and the temptation to ignore our duty and blindly

hope for the best while the enemies of freedom grow stronger

day by day.

Mr. Speaker, we can no longer ignore our duty while our enemies grow stronger. We must take the first step today to begin rebuilding our military. H.R. 1301 is that first step. It increases defense spending, provides a full pay raise for our servicemen and -women, and begins to address our readiness shortfalls. This bill provides funds based on our military's priorities for fiscal year 2017 and gets us off the cycle of continuing resolutions, which are doing real damage to our readiness and capacity.

Therefore, I urge support for the rule to allow for consideration of H.R. 1301, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), the vice chairman of the Rules Committee.

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

What is incomprehensible to me is that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle seem so fundamentally confused about what the actual issue before us today is. The issue before us today is whether or not this House is going to undertake its fundamental, most important, most sacred obligation under our Constitution and provide for the defense of this Nation.

Now, they can choose to dedicate their time to another very important topic. It is a hugely important topic and one that we will have many days to debate and discuss on this floor. Unlike under the previous leadership, Speaker Pelosi, our leadership, Speaker Ryan, has not told us we have to pass the bill before we know what is in it.

Today, the issue before us in this House is whether or not we are going to provide for the defense of this Nation.

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

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

I would say that not knowing what they are talking about is something with which our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are quite familiar. Accounts of public input really bear little

relationship to what actually happened when ObamaCare itself was drafted in the dark of night.

Imagine what it must be like if you are tuning in to this conversation and this discussion thinking that the U.S. House of Representatives is taking up the rule to debate, discuss, and pass our FY17 Defense Appropriations. Instead, what we are hearing is a list of when bills were posted online--a list--which, as I said, bears little reality to what actually happened when ObamaCare was passed.

Now, those are hugely important issues. I am incredibly proud of the job we are doing as Republicans in this body to help save a collapsing healthcare system.

Mr. Speaker, I think there is no higher duty and obligation we have than to ensure that our military is second to none. No matter what kind of a job we do, as important as that is to repeal and replace ObamaCare, if we fail to address this fundamental issue and fail to provide the resources our military needs, nothing else we do in this body matters.

I believe, frankly, that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle owe our men and women in uniform, they owe the policymakers at the Pentagon, they owe those people who are serving this Nation the respect of talking about the resources they need to do their job and focusing on the true issue before us today.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn).

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

We on this side of the aisle are more than happy to talk about health care. We are more than happy to talk about the really crucial work that is underway to rescue our healthcare system from the collapse and the train wreck of ObamaCare, which my colleague's party put into place in the dark of night with no reading of the bill.

We are thrilled actually that our bill is 120 pages and that it is readable and that it is available online right now. So when he leaves the floor, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Massachusetts can go read the bill.

It is also not surprising that our colleagues do not want to talk about our national defense because the record of the last 8 years, the record of the last President is unparalleled in American history. The mess that we are having to clean up with respect to our healthcare system is matched perhaps only--and maybe even exceeded--by the damage that was done to our military and to our national security under the last administration.

We think, on this side of the aisle, that it is crucially important that we do our job when the time is now to debate, discuss, and vote on this bill and address this topic.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Taylor).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. GALLAGHER).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Arizona (Ms. McSally).

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

H.R. 1301 is the first step we must take in rebuilding our military. It is only a first step. We must also repeal the Budget Control Act and end sequestration if we are going to truly address our shortfalls. We must return to a rational budgeting process at the Pentagon, where spending is based upon defending the defeating threats to this Nation, not arbitrary and devastating across-the-board cuts.

Mr. Speaker, nearly 70 years ago, President Harry Truman addressed this body about the growing Soviet threat to Eastern Europe. He said: ``There are times in world history when it is far wiser to act than to hesitate. There is some risk in action. There always is. But there is far more risk in failure to act.''

President Truman continued: ``We must be prepared to pay the price for peace or, assuredly, we shall pay the price for war.''

Today, Mr. Speaker, I urge that we begin to pay the price for peace. I urge support for the rule and for the underlying bill.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Colorado for yielding me the customary 30 minutes for debate.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to debate a rule for a piece of legislation that will, in the final analysis, make it more difficult for hardworking Americans to stand up to corporate malfeasance; a piece of legislation that jettisons a history of legal precedent in the blink of an eye because, well, it helps keep the deep pockets of the ultrawealthy as deep as possible.

I learned this law in law school in 1959, but it was in existence way before that time, and now my friends across the aisle are going to tell us that this legislation is needed because it will protect small businesses. This is a feint, folks. Small businesses--indeed all of us--have been and continue to be protected by the century-old jurisprudential rule that the Republicans come here today to upend. In reality, all this bill will do is make it more difficult for regular folks across this country to bring lawsuits against massive corporations.

I shudder to think what would have happened in the critically important asbestos case had this particular law been in effect; and there are many more.

This bill will make it more expensive both in time and treasure for our fellow Americans to hold corporations responsible in the courtroom, a need all the more prevalent today as my friends across the aisle have been busy gutting regulations at a dizzying pace.

Let me make it clear, after we finish, my colleague from Colorado and I are going to go back to the Rules Committee to discuss some more judicial reform. A lot of it is stuff that is going to harm little people in the courts and to cause them not to have access to the court system, as have many of the regulations that we have already disapproved.

Let us be clear, the American people didn't vote for dirty water, but that is what they got with this Republican majority when it voted to repeal a rule that barred corporations from dumping mining debris into our drinking water, helping powerful mining companies by hurting all of the rest of the people in their near curtilage.

The American people didn't vote to weaken the Securities and Exchange Commission, but that is what this majority did when it passed a bill adding more hurdles to the SEC rulemaking process, making it more difficult for the agency to protect consumers, helping Wall Street while putting our economy at risk. I will make a prediction

here. It may not happen right away, but just like we saw the Great Depression that we are just coming out of, we are likely to see that same kind of situation again by virtue of lessening the rules against violations in securities.

The American people didn't vote to drug test Americans on unemployment insurance--degrading the hardworking men and women in this country--but that is what this Republican majority did without delay.

Mr. Speaker, the list really does go on and on. In fact, just yesterday, Republicans continued to chant the corporate clarion call with the unveiling of what I now will call their shameful replacement of the Affordable Care Act. Until there is a resolution, I am going to call it TrumpCare.

My colleagues like to tout how short the bill is compared to the Affordable Care Act. Well, the American people will be surprised to find that, in that brevity, Republicans managed to repeal an Affordable Care Act provision that placed a limit on insurance executives' compensation. Let me repeat that. They managed to repeal a provision that placed a limit on insurance executives' compensation. The insurance executives shouldn't be too surprised by this, however. Repeatedly, Republicans have shown they represent corporate interests over the interests of the American people.

But my Republican colleagues didn't stop there. Their so-called replacement, the Trump bill, also claims to have done away with the individual mandate. What they don't tell you is that, instead, their plan calls for funneling money to the insurance companies in the form of a 30 percent surcharge if an individual goes without health insurance.

Let me tell all the older Americans and 80-year-old people like me to get ready because they are going to be able to charge you just exactly what they want to charge you, and all--mine and yours--insurance is going to go up if this particular measure were to become law.

That is right. Under the Republican healthcare proposal, if you, the American worker, goes without healthcare coverage for longer than 2 months--say you couldn't after a new plan between jobs--then Republicans give insurance companies the right to charge you 30 percent higher premiums. That is ridiculous.

Republicans didn't get rid of the individual mandate. They just turned the mandate into a windfall for insurance companies--a windfall that is going to work out great for insurance executives now that Republicans also removed the cap on their compensation tax deductions.

Mr. Speaker, let us not lose sight of the fact that it took Republicans 7 years of undermining the Affordable Care Act to finally come up with this proposal for replacing it.

Their plan would kick millions of Americans off their health insurance and force millions more to pay higher premiums. It would take health care away from the poor, give tax cuts to the rich, and pull the rug out from under seniors, families, and children.

In fact, this plan is so bad that Republicans literally hid not only their horrific proposal, but themselves, from their constituents. Many of their Members are seeing it just in the last 36 hours. They did this by callously brushing off townhall meeting after townhall meeting.

Why all the smoke and mirrors regarding something as simple as this measure is in light of the fact that they ran on replacing it? Why hide it and why rush it and why go through this charade that most of us know and several Senators said yesterday will be dead on arrival?

Actually, let me ask the American people. Who do you think the Republican Party is representing, you or corporate America?

Mr. Speaker, we are not even a full 2 months into the Republican-led government and, in addition to the unconstitutional Muslim bans--and notice I said ``bans,'' because the old one is nothing but the new one, and the new one is the old one, minus one, and that is the country of Iraq--we have the Republican denial of clear Russian influence in our most recent election.

Let me be very clear about this particular aspect. All of the intelligence agencies have indicated that there was Russian interference in this last election. I don't understand why we are not totally outraged and why there is not extraordinary emphasis on this kind of action against our fundamental democracy.

It is ridiculous that we are around here doing things that we know are not likely to pass the United States Senate and that we are disapproving regulations, yet we cannot get an independent commission to make a determination of how this impact occurred. And we do know that it occurred. I am outraged, and I would hope more Americans would be as well.

We have also seen the almost immediate recusal of the Attorney General due to his inability to be forthright with our Senate colleagues; wild and baseless claims emanating from late-night Twitter storms from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue or Mar-a-Lago; and we have a Republican Party dedicated to ensuring that their corporate benefactors can rest easy, no matter the harm they cause to everyday working Americans.

Are we addressing any of these concerns here today?

I would imagine my colleague, rightly, will come back and argue that all the things that I just talked about are not this particular rule. Well, this rule is not even deserving of that kind of consideration, largely for the reason it is yet another structured rule disallowing Members of this House to have an opportunity to have input into a measure that is getting rid of a century of precedent in our judiciary. No, what we are doing is debating obscure civil procedure rules that date back to the days of President Teddy Roosevelt.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for the chairman of the Rules Committee and he knows that.

I just heard him say his insurance went up under ObamaCare. Mine did, too. I also want to remind him that, if this measure as offered yesterday were to become law, his and my insurance is going to go up again.

So we weren't doing all of the things that you said you were going to do by bringing the price down. In addition, we don't even know what CBO's score is with respect to this matter.

You said that you are reading it to understand it now, yet Members are in the Energy and Commerce Committee, as you explained, marking it up, and they don't even know what CBO's score is. I will get back to that in a few minutes about all these people we pay over there to do that work, and then we are not utilizing them.

I also want to address my friend from Colorado and have him understand that I am not precluded from presenting to the American public what legislation we wish to prioritize.

As the gentleman knows, we are currently debating the rule. This is a tool used to set the House agenda and to prioritize consideration of legislation. For that very reason, this is, in fact, the appropriate time for us to explain to the American people what legislation we would like to prioritize and what agenda we would like to pursue in this House. I won't reiterate it, in the interest of time.

I will have a previous question that will demonstrably show what legislation we think we should be addressing. I will do that for as long as I am given the opportunity to manage rules. I will come down here and present the position of the Democratic Party so that they understand our priorities and not necessarily am I hidebound by this rule.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I am going to offer an amendment to the rule which would modify the rules of the House to require a cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office before any legislation that would amend or repeal the Affordable Care Act may be considered in committee or on the House floor.

The Committee on Ways and Means and the Committee on Energy and Commerce are marking up repeal legislation today. Legislation this significant should not advance through the committee process, let alone the House, without first hearing from our nonpartisan budget experts at the Congressional Budget Office on what the cost and overall impact will be.

Mr. Speaker, we have over 200 employees at the Congressional Budget Office. We pay them collectively--and administrative duties--nearly $50 million a year to advise us at times exactly like this.

House rules already require the Congressional Budget Office cost estimates to be included in committee reports. We are simply trying to improve and strengthen this principle of transparency in order to ensure that we know the cost of this repeal legislation before we vote, and that includes the members in the Committee on Energy and Commerce today who are marking this up so as how they would know the cost before they vote in committee today.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is not too late for my friends across the aisle to tether themselves to the ideals that have made this country great for generations; ideals that, if we are to be saved from the rushing current we presently find ourselves being dragged down by, will be, as they always have been, those ideals which save us from ourselves.

We are a nation built upon the strength of immigrants, of teachers, of doctors, of mill workers, garbagemen and -women, small-business owners, and farmers. We are a nation of dreamers and innovators, respectful of our individuality and mindful of our unparalleled power once unified in common cause.

At some point, my Republican friends will, I hope, realize that their unabashed and wholesale championing

of corporate interests at the expense of hardworking Americans is a losing cause. For the sake of our environment, our children, our grandchildren, and our unborn children, I hope this day is earlier rather than later.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule and the underlying measure, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 175 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, I rise today in support of the rule and the underlying legislation. Current Federal court rules allow trial lawyers to engage in picking their preferred venue. In particular, trial lawyers are able to file suit against the defendant in one State while keeping their case in a different State's court.

When a lawsuit is filed against a defendant in another State, trial lawyers may also sue a defendant in the State where they want the trial to occur. This keeps the case in the lawyers' preferred State court.

Many times the target of the lawsuit is a large, national business. But if the only defendant in the case is an out-of-State business, then the case can be heard in Federal court. Because of this, the trial lawyer will then also sue an innocent local individual or a small business in order to keep the case before a local court.

Usually, the case against the innocent local defendant is dropped once the case is safely back in State court, but it is dropped only after the innocent local defendant has spent time and money dealing with the lawsuit.

This practice is wrong. This practice perverts our justice system and causes needless pain. Trial lawyers should not have the power to subject innocent local individuals and small businesses to costly and time-consuming lawsuits just to rig the system. This kind of abuse of litigation is unjust and must be stopped.

A well-respected Federal appeals court judge, J. Harvie Wilkinson of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, has publicly supported Congress putting an end to this abuse. He has suggested that Congress provide judges greater leeway in making the proper decision on whether a case should be removed to Federal court. He has also suggested that Congress give Federal judges greater discretion to determine early on in a case whether a local party has been fraudulently sued. The Innocent Party Protection Act provides these exact changes.

In 2014 Judge Wilkinson addressed these proposals and said:

That is exactly the kind of approach to Federal

jurisdiction reform that I like because it is targeted.

And there is a problem with fraudulent jurisdiction law as

it exists today, I think, and that is that you have to

establish that the joinder of a nondiverse local defendant is

totally ridiculous and that there is no possibility of ever

recovering.

That is very hard to do.

So Judge Wilkinson went on:

So I think making the fraudulent joinder law a little bit

more realistic appeals to me because it seems to me the kind

of intermediate step that addresses some real problems.

The legislation that this rule makes in order is the solution to the problem that Judge Wilkinson identifies. The underlying legislation would protect innocent local defendants in two main ways. First, the Innocent Party Protection Act allows Federal judges more leeway when determining whether a defendant has been fraudulently joined to a lawsuit for the purpose of keeping the case out of Federal court.

When a judge has a case before his or her court, the judge will have clear guidelines for determining whether the locality of a defendant can be disregarded in establishing whether the case will proceed in Federal or State court. However, this in no way infringes on our State court systems.

The judge must conclude that the defendant will not face a liability under applicable State law. Once that conclusion is reached, the judge then may release the innocent defendant from the case. This provision keeps legal claims in Federal Court that properly belong there by allowing Federal judges to decide whether a local party is truly a legitimate defendant and not simply ensnared in a case for the sole purpose of keeping the case in a trial lawyer-friendly State court. This is a fair and efficient solution to the problem.

Secondly, the Innocent Party Protection Act establishes a uniform approach for evaluating whether a plaintiff has a good-faith intention of seeking judgment against a local defendant.

While the U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized the right of courts to consider whether a plaintiff has a good-faith intention of seeking a judgment against a local defendant, the application of this principle has not been uniform.

The Innocent Party Protection Act simply codifies this longstanding principle and permits Federal judges to limit a lawsuit to the appropriate defendant.

Plaintiffs with legitimate claims against both a local and out-of- State defendant will be able to pursue their case in State court. However, if no legitimate claim exists, the out-of-State defendant will have the opportunity to have the case heard in a neutral forum. By codifying this principle, we effectively protect innocent individuals and small businesses from bad-faith litigation.

Mr. Speaker, the underlying legislation is a fair solution to one type of frivolous litigation. I support this effort, and I thank Chairman Goodlatte and the Judiciary Committee for bringing this bill to the floor.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the gentleman from Florida that we are debating the special order of business from rules and that all comments must be relevant to the rule or the underlying bill.

This particular underlying bill has to do with a rule of civil procedure and fraudulent joinders. It does not have to do with the gentleman's healthcare replacement act or his thoughts on the healthcare replacement act, insurance executive's compensation, individual mandates, tax cuts for the rich, Russia, Iraq, although I did appreciate the gentleman's memories from law school the year that I was born.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Iowa for his thoughts.

May I inquire how much time is remaining on my side?

Mr. Speaker, I would advise the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings) that I have no additional speakers.

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

Mr. Speaker, the rule before the House today is simple. It provides for the consideration of the Innocent Party Protection Act.

Mr. Speaker, we often speak of the Federal regulations or taxes inhibiting job growth in our country, but there are other headwinds that our Nation's job creators face as well. One of those headwinds is frivolous litigation.

I believe strongly that anyone and everyone should have access to justice. Everyone who is injured deserves to have their day in court, and they should have the opportunity to make their case. However, sometimes trial lawyers take advantage of our justice system and seek to gain an unfair advantage against a defendant. Trial lawyers may try to go court shopping in order to rig the case against the defendant.

One way they may seek to secure their preferred venue is to sue a perfectly innocent individual or a small business who happens to reside in the jurisdiction within which the trial lawyer desires to pursue the case. After some time, the innocent party is often released from the litigation, but not before incurring legal costs as well as emotional and opportunity costs. Each time an innocent small-business man or woman has to divert their attention from growing their business and divert resources away from investing in their employees and creating jobs and divert energy away from expanding their involvement in our communities, and instead they are forced to direct their attention toward defending themselves from a frivolous legal claim, each time this happens is a missed opportunity for creating jobs and for realizing economic growth.

The Innocent Party Protection Act defends our small-business men and women from bad faith lawsuits. It provides relief from trial lawyers who seek out friendly courts in order to pursue their cases. It balances the needs of justice with proper restraints on decidedly unjust actions. The Innocent Party Protection Act is a good and equitable solution. I ask my colleagues in the House to support our local businesses and defend them against frivolous lawsuits. Vote ``yes'' on the resolution. Vote ``yes'' on the underlying bill. Rein in this abuse of our justice system. I thank Chairman Goodlatte and Chairman Sessions for bringing this bill before us.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a delight for me to join the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Buck) on a piece of legislation that actually has his name on it, he is responsible for, understands, and is prepared today to fully debate.

I would also like to thank the gentleman from Florida, a member of the Rules Committee, for not only coming down to offer his argument against the facts of the case as they reside today on this important piece of legislation, but I also want to acknowledge that I know the frustration.

I know there is a lot of frustration. There is a lot of frustration from our colleagues who have lost the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. They are in the middle of what might be called wandering, as they have called it, in the darkness or in the doldrums of being deep in the minority.

With that said, there is an agenda that is being laid out before the American people. It happened, Mr. Speaker, directly as a result of what we call an election--an election where all these issues, or most of them that have been discussed by the gentleman, were fully debated not only in a theater near you, but directly in congressional contests, in senatorial contests and the debates for the President of the United States.

The facts of the case are really pretty simple. The Republican Party will be talking about all the issues that the gentleman brought up today right before our eyes. Probably on C-SPAN, trying to compete against us, is a hearing in the Energy and Commerce Committee.

The gentleman, Greg Walden, the chairman of the committee, over the weekend released the text of the chairman's mark, the ``bill'' of the Republican Party of how we are going to look at health care.

It is true that we have Chairman Devin Nunes of the Intelligence Committee looking at the issue that was

brought up of Russia. We have forthrightly, over the weekend, said: All right. We are being asked to look at this. Just so you know, media, American people, we are going to do that. We are going to do what you have asked because we believe it is the right thing to do: open hearings, open debate, acknowledgement of the issues, and a certainty that we will go look into it, and we are going to let you know what we find. That is really where we are.

This morning, at 8 a.m. in my office, I cohosted with the gentleman from Florida an opportunity for the American Bar Association. We brought in, from across this country--I didn't bring them in; they came into my office from across the country--a number of well-established, thoughtful, and articulate people. We didn't ask: Are you Republican? We didn't ask: Are you Democrat? We said: You represent your organization, and we want to hear from you.

This is the kind of leadership that I believe not only myself but also the gentleman, Mr. Hastings, wants to be associated with. We want to be associated with listening to the American people, trying to be thoughtful about what we do and have equal participation.

The gentleman knows that at the Rules Committee yesterday we had a very thoughtful person representing the Republican Party. The gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) came up. We had Mr. Buck, who was able to come and talk about this issue today.

In fact, it might be an arcane issue to the American people, but it consumes a lot of time, and it has a deliberative effect on the outcome of important cases in Federal courts and State courts across the country. We feel like it is worthy of an afternoon, an afternoon at the Rules Committee, to fully vet the legislation and an afternoon here on the floor of the House of Representatives.

But like any other good majority, we have a lot of other things going on, and we are looking at the Affordable Care Act, how it worked and how we might thoughtfully replace it. We are looking at the issues related to Russia. We are looking at the American Bar Association.

Members of Congress are extremely busy, but, Mr. Speaker, I think, with great respect, we should give the author of the bill, Mr. Buck, his time to come and thoughtfully explain why we are doing what we are doing.

I am just a dadgum chairman of the committee. I just do the things that I hope are necessary to look at every single item and being fair-- being fair in the ability that people have to come and bring their ideas and trying to be fair in trying to bring them down here.

So I want to thank the gentleman for acknowledging this body is busy. This body is engaged in, as we speak, a public, open debate about what direction health care should go.

What I would like to offer is my evaluation of where we are going to be. We are going to be at a point where we do not have to scare people about where we have been or why we are going to a place.

I am on what is known as ObamaCare. As a Member of Congress, I am legally required to be on ObamaCare for health care. But, Mr. Speaker, it is twice as expensive as what I had before; and it is not working for me, it is not working for my family, and it is not working for a lot of people.

So we are trying to look at how we might carefully, thoughtfully, artfully work with the American people, so we put the bill up and let you see it. We don't have to pass it to find out what is in it. We are trying to read the bill and understand it first.

Mr. Speaker, it is not a pledge. It is a hope that every single Member of this body will understand what is in the bill before they can respectfully, whether somebody disagrees or agrees with it, explain the bill for what is correct.

What is correct about the bill is this: if you like your own doctor, you can keep your own doctor. If you like your own healthcare plan, even if it is ObamaCare, you can do that, too.

The Republican Party is open about what we believe. We are trying to be thoughtful with the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I believe, with the leadership that we have of Paul Ryan who has attempted to work through a difficult issue, the American people will understand why Republicans not only won the election, but why Republicans have better ideas in health care, too.

Mr. Speaker, without continuing the dialogue, I would like to at least respond to the gentleman and look right at you, Mr. Speaker, and tell you, in fact, we are going to have a CBO score. We are going to have a CBO score when we have an agreed-upon bill. This is a process that is open. The bill is being proposed. The bill is going to be debated. Then there are going to be votes.

For them to presume that they know the score before they know the outcome is not the way the chairman of the committee looks at it. Mr. Walden looks at it that he is going to let the committee vote and come up with a bill, and there are significant changes that could happen one way or another. I think it would be a presumptuous viewpoint to say here is the bill and here is the score, take it or leave it. I know Chairman Walden very well, and Greg Walden is trying to operate off openness and the agreement to look at the bill. When it is finalized, a score will become available. I appreciate the gentleman bringing this issue up.