Veterans’ Access to Child Care Act

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to insert extraneous material on H.R. 840.

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

Madam Chair, I rise in strong support of H.R. 840, the Veterans' Access to Child Care Act.

We ask our servicemembers to risk their lives in service of our country, and in return, we promise to provide healthcare and benefits so they can live happy, healthy, and successful lives, and provide for their families.

As our veteran population becomes increasingly diverse, as the number of LGBTQ and minority and women veterans goes up, we must ensure every veteran has the opportunity to access their healthcare and benefits. Addressing underserved veterans is a pillar of my VA 2030 vision, which will drive our work on the Committee on Veterans' Affairs in the 116th Congress.

I proudly chose Congresswoman Brownley's Veterans' Access to Child Care Act as the very first bill our committee would bring to the House floor because it addresses a sometimes overlooked group of veterans: veterans who are parents and caregivers to young children.

Providing cost-free, safe, and convenient healthcare so that veterans can see a mental health provider for treatment of post-traumatic stress, military sexual trauma, cancer resulting from exposure to Agent Orange, spinal cord injury, or even treatment for drug or substance abuse is the least we can do to make their lives easier so they, in turn, can be loving parents and caregivers to the children who depend on them.

Under my leadership of the most diverse and talented Committee on Veterans' Affairs in the history of this Chamber, underserved veterans, especially women veterans, minorities, LGBTQ veterans, and veterans from our tribal communities, homeless veterans, and even deported veterans will be a top priority.

We will work together to shatter the barriers and structural challenges underserved veterans face in this country they selflessly served by first attending to their most basic and essential needs: healthcare.

Ms. Brownley, the chair of the Veterans' Affairs Subcommittee on Health and the head of the Task Force on Women Veterans, has been a tireless advocate for veterans since being elected to Congress. Her bill makes an already successful and popular pilot program permanent, a program that helps mothers, fathers, grandparents, and caregivers who need their VA healthcare, but struggle to find safe and convenient childcare or struggle to afford the high cost of childcare for their children.

A veteran should never be made to choose between caring for their children and their health. This bill will make sure veterans will no longer have to make this terrible choice.

The Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act first authorized the pilot program we are making permanent today. Under the pilot, VA could provide childcare services to eligible veterans seeking mental healthcare, intensive mental healthcare services, and other intensive healthcare services that require veterans to travel to VA hospitals, clinics, or vet centers for regular or frequent appointments.

The first childcare program started at the VA Medical Center in Buffalo, New York, in October of 2011. Within 2 years, VA expanded the program to Northport, New York, and American Lake, Washington, and later brought childcare to Dallas, Texas.

The 2-year pilot program was meant to end in September 2013, but Congress has reauthorized the program for the past 6 years due to its success and popularity.

Since the beginning, over 10,000 children have used the childcare pilot program, and as more veterans and their children use the program, the cost decreased.

Last Congress, the legislation authorizing this program passed unanimously, and now we will have an opportunity to improve this already great bill with amendments we will be considering today and tomorrow. I am optimistic this bill will pass with the same bipartisan, unanimous support.

So I am very excited to work with Dr. Roe, the ranking member of our committee, on this bill and on future bipartisan legislation.

Before I give him a chance to share his thoughts on this bill, I would like to share one of the anecdotes we received from a social worker who helps homeless veterans under the Department of Housing and Urban Development-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing Program, otherwise known as the HUD-VASH program: ``Just this week a female veteran with a 3-year-old son discussed childcare with me. She was so relieved it was still open, because she scheduled a gynecological appointment that she was going to cancel because she had no one to care for her son.

``This is a veteran who came to us homeless with a newborn and unmanaged diabetes. She is now diligently following her medical regimen and consistently makes appointments. She is stably housed in the community, enjoying being a mother, attending college, and working part-time.

``I do not think we would have been able to stabilize her life without the support of childcare to allow her to get to her appointments and receive the treatment, medication, recommendations, and care that have helped her succeed.''

Now, as chairman of this committee, I look forward to sharing more stories of veterans throughout this country whose lives have been improved because of access to VA healthcare.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Chair, I thank the gentleman for his support of the bill. I would say, with regard to the amendments, we would have entertained more amendments. I would have been happy to do so had they been germane, and we would have been glad to entertain them, but they were not.

Before I yield to Ms. Brownley, the sponsor of this legislation, I include in the Record a letter of support from the Easterseals.

Easterseals,

February 6, 2019.

Hon. Julia Brownley,

House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Representative Brownley: Easterseals is pleased to

again support your Veterans' Access to Child Care Act

legislation to increase the availability of child care for

veterans who are receiving services or treatment at a U.S.

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical center.

Easterseals is a national network of more than 70 nonprofit

organizations who deliver local services to help children and

adults with disabilities, veterans, older adults and others

to live independently and to fully participate in their

communities. Easterseals is a leading provider of inclusive

child care and early education and development in the United

States, providing thousands of young children with and

without disabilities with high-quality child care.

Easterseals understands how important access to high-

quality child care is to allow parents, including veterans,

to go to work and to meet their own health care needs. That

is why we supported the establishment of a pilot program at

the VA to provide child care at select VA medical centers

around the country that qualified veterans could use while at

a medical appointment or while receiving medical services.

The program has been particularly helpful for female

veterans, nearly 30 percent of whom have children living at

home. A recent VA report found that 42 percent of female

veterans who use the VA reported that finding child care to

attend a medical appointment was hard or very hard. When

asked about solutions, more than three of out five female

veterans surveyed said on-site childcare would be ``very

helpful.''

The Veterans' Access to Child Care Act would expand and

make permanent the VA Child Care Pilot Program. The

legislation would make available a stipend, to cover the full

cost of child care provided by a licensed, on-site or private

child care center while the veteran receives services,

including travel time back and forth to the facility. The

legislation is a common-sense next step toward improving

access to VA health care to veterans.

Easterseals is pleased to support the Veterans' Access to

Child Care Act. In addition, Easterseals stands ready to

partner with the VA to provide child care assistance while

they attend to their well-being and medical care. Thank you

for your leadership on this important issue.

Sincerely,

Maynard Friesz,

Assistant Vice President,

Government Relations, Easterseals.

This bill is also supported by the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Vietnam Veterans of America, and other veterans service organizations. So I am pleased to say that we have heard the VSOs weigh in on Ms. Brownley's legislation.

Madam Chair, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Brownley), the author of the bill.

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Higgins).

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

We have the data to show how access to healthcare services improves and saves lives, but I think it is important that we also hear from the veterans and the providers whose lives have been improved by this program.

I would like to share another story from a childcare staffer in Buffalo, New York.

``Buffalo also has a World War II veteran, now 97 years old, who cares for his great-granddaughter. He heard of the service, stopped in to see the facility and ask questions to verify he felt `safe' in leaving her in their care. As primary caretaker for this child, he is so pleased to be able to attend his appointments at his `elderly age' and keep his family close.''

Let me also add, I want to address the reservation, although the ranking member has stated his general support for the bill, but this reservation about the legislation, H.R. 840, lacking a pay-for that was included in last session's legislation, and the pay-for that they said was necessary this time around.

I want to state that H.R. 840 simply makes permanent a program that we, as a Congress, have reauthorized six times since 2013. For none of those six times was the issue of a pay-for really germane. In fact, the CBO has never required that we do it.

The pay-for that the gentleman keeps speaking of will not pay for this program. It will simply take money from veterans and send it to the Treasury, and the VA, still under discretionary funds, will still have to find the money to pay for it.

Each of the six times we authorized this program, not once did my colleagues insist on a pay-for. Only when we are introducing legislation to make it a permanent program does this suddenly pop up as a concern.

In reality, even if we included the pay-for, the Treasury wouldn't see the funds for nearly a decade.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, just in response, the pay-for to which the gentleman from Tennessee is referring is under mandatory spending, which would not actually pay for the program. It would be returned to the Treasury, and the discretionary funds simply--there is no pay-for out of the discretionary funds. It is coming out of the mandatory side. It is a very illusory device.

So I want to reiterate that each time this pilot program was reauthorized under the majority, never was there a demand on their part that there be a pay-for.

Madam Chair, I have no further speakers. I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I wholly support Ms. Brownley's bill, H.R. 840. I urge my colleagues to join me in its passage, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I support this amendment because, by clarifying that community-based outpatient clinics are covered under the bill, we are ensuring that veterans seeking healthcare services at any VA facility are able to receive no-cost childcare.

Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, even though I am not opposed to the amendment.

Madam Chair, I rise in support of this amendment to ensure that our taxpayer dollars are spent according to Congress' intent.

I agree that childcare should only be provided to veterans when they are using the childcare to attend their healthcare appointments.

I thank the gentlewoman for working with me to make this amendment bipartisan and ensure it is clear to the VA that they cannot revoke this benefit from veterans for missing an appointment.

The intent of this amendment is not to be an incentive to access care. It is simply to make it easier for veterans to make it to their appointments. It will be up to us as lawmakers to keep close oversight over this program and many others at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

This committee will keep close watch over the resources we provide and the programs we authorize at the VA. We will hold VA leaders accountable when these programs are not carried out according to congressional intent, or made in a haphazard and uninformed manner, or without the purpose of doing what is best for veterans.

I look forward to working with the gentlewoman and my colleagues on this committee to oversee the successful execution of this childcare program so any eligible veterans who need childcare can get it.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the Northern Mariana Islands (Mr. Sablan).

Madam Chair, I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Let me say for the record that I believe, if a veteran is receiving care at a facility, in this case in Hawaii on travel from Saipan, that the intent of the legislation would provide that childcare for the time necessary for that veteran, and it would be at a VA facility. It would be childcare at a VA facility in Hawaii, in this particular case.

Madam Chair, in closing, I do urge that my colleagues support the amendment by Mrs. Radewagen, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I support this amendment because veterans are not immune from the opioid epidemic. They are not immune to alcoholism or substance abuse. When a veteran is also suffering from post-traumatic stress or other serious health conditions that may have caused dependency on a substance, we should do everything we can to make sure that veteran can receive care.

I thank the gentleman for offering this very important amendment, and I urge all my colleagues to support it.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment, which would prevent additional VA hospitals and clinics from providing onsite childcare to veterans receiving care at VA hospitals and clinics.

VA only has four childcare sites throughout the VA system, and this amendment would prevent further expansion of the program by preventing a VA hospital or clinic from even doing basic things to provide convenient childcare, things like covering electrical sockets to make a facility safe for young children or putting up fencing around the playground so children can play safely.

As our colleague, Ms. Shalala, reminded us during the Rules Committee meeting yesterday, and as many parents of young children quickly learn, most private childcare facilities do not allow children to be temporarily dropped off for just a few hours. Childcare facilities need to know whether children are up to date on their vaccinations, have food allergies or other medical conditions to provide safe care.

This means VA must have the flexibility to determine how best to execute this program at each of its facilities throughout the country. If this means that it makes sense to build an onsite childcare center, VA should not be barred from doing so.

I think this amendment was written without considering its effects, which would limit further the expansion of the program and prevent veterans from being able to access childcare and their healthcare when they need it.

Any of us who have been on this committee long enough know that VA has had trouble managing major construction projects. Admittedly, this is what we know on the committee. And I am just as outraged as my colleagues across the aisle when VA construction projects are mismanaged and money is wasted. However, we are talking about minor construction that, in many cases, will be necessary to expand this program to all eligible veterans who need it.

There are other ways in which we can ensure the money for this program is not mismanaged, and it doesn't need to be something as drastic as preventing construction which will, in effect, prevent the program's expansion.

Now, I hope to work with General Bergman and my other colleagues on this committee to prevent mismanagement of construction projects, procurement of the $16 billion electronic health record, and other contracts and programs at the VA; and I pledge to work with the general to ensure funds for construction of childcare facilities are not wasted.

Mr. Chair, I must say that I have to urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I would just wish to point out to the ranking member of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, General Bergman, that his amendment would not even allow for the repurposing of existing facility space that may exist at a VA.

It is so rigid that it would be difficult to even put protective electrical sockets in to prevent young children from electrocuting themselves. Even minor construction would be prohibited by this amendment.

I am pleased to know that the general is serving on the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, and I do plan to work with the chairman, Mr. Pappas of New Hampshire, and him to make sure that VA money is well spent.

As I said, this amendment would simply prevent reasonable expansion of this program, and that is something that members of this committee and Members of this House would not want to see happen.

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

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

I support this amendment because, by clarifying that vet centers are covered under the bill, we are ensuring that veterans seeking healthcare at any VA facility are allowed access-at-no-cost childcare.

Vet centers are particularly attractive to veterans who are uncomfortable in a more clinical setting, and they should be able to seek childcare while they receive their mental health care at a VA vet center.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, even though I am not opposed to it.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment offered by the gentleman from Kentucky, a new member on the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, and I believe the co-chair of the Bourbon Caucus.

I agree that it is important to require that VA collect data on the effectiveness of its childcare program so we can determine whether veterans are better able to access their healthcare because of this benefit.

As the veterans population becomes increasingly diverse, the VA of the year 2030 that I envision must be prepared to provide healthcare to women veterans, fathers of young children, stepparents and grandparents, and to make sure veterans are able to access their healthcare while also caring for their children.

Congress and VA need reliable data to inform these decisions and determine whether other barriers to healthcare access exist for veterans who care for young children. If the data from this study demonstrates that veterans are less likely to miss appointments and have better healthcare outcomes, it could be used to inform further VA policy decisions to expand the program.

Mr. Chairman, I wholeheartedly support this bipartisan amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I support this amendment because it will allow Congress to receive the critical data and information it needs to determine how to expand this program and the feasibility of expanding this program to community-based outpatient clinics and VA centers, VA facilities that are away from the main VA medical center campuses but critical for veterans in rural areas to access their care.

While this bill specifically provides the no-cost childcare benefit to veterans receiving care from the VA doctors, nurses, and VA providers, I would like to work with my colleagues on the committee at a future date on whether it may be feasible to provide no-cost childcare to veterans receiving treatment from community providers, or even look at ways we can provide incentives to community providers to offer no-cost childcare on-site when they contract with the VA to provide care to veterans.

I thank the gentleman for offering this important amendment. I support it wholeheartedly, and I urge all my colleagues to do so as well.

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I support this amendment because it provides an important clarification that veterans receiving physical therapy for a service- connected disability will be able to access no-cost childcare.

When 50 percent of the veterans treated in VA facilities suffer from chronic pain, physical therapy is a vital part of their treatment that will reduce their need for prescribing opioids. We are in the midst of an opioid epidemic in this country, and many of our veterans, sadly, suffer from opioid addiction because they were prescribed these powerful drugs to treat pain.

We should encourage other treatments like physical therapy, which can address the root cause of pain, and make it easier for them to access this care, which often requires multiple treatments over time.

I thank the gentleman for this important amendment, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition, even though I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment offered by the gentleman from Illinois, which would ensure either parent to a young child would be considered the primary caretaker for a child and, therefore, eligible to receive the childcare benefit.

This amendment is necessary, especially in instances when a veteran is receiving mental health services with a spouse. In instances like this, a veteran could not rely on the spouse to watch a child if it was important that a spouse participate in the treatment.

This will also relieve a significant administrative burden on VA and the veteran: As long as a veteran is a parent to a child and in need of childcare, that veteran would be eligible.

As lawmakers, we should strive to make sure that programs we authorize are not confusing to VA and conduct oversight to ensure our constituents are not confused when the VA rolls out a program. This amendment will make it more clear to VA and veterans that, in families where one or both parents are veterans, they are eligible for this childcare benefit when receiving services from the VA.

I support this amendment, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I want to make note that we just have gotten a release that the VA has exceeded 1 million telehealth visits in fiscal year 2018. That one-year achievement represents a 19 percent increase over the previous year. I congratulate the VA for that amazing achievement.

I want to make known my support for my good colleague from the Northern Mariana Islands, Mr. Sablan's, amendment, because as VA expands its footprint--and we have just seen how it has expanded its footprint significantly--and that it remains at the forefront of providing treatment via telemental health services, we need to ensure that the VA has the ability to make those telehealth services as successful as their in-person services.

In districts like Mr. Sablan's where veterans are separated from VA healthcare services by the Pacific Ocean, telemental health is often the only manner in which veterans are able to receive mental healthcare from the VA.

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for offering this very important amendment and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, even though I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment offered by the gentleman from Texas.

I think all of us can recount concerns raised by our constituents about VA payment processing and late payments to healthcare providers.

Although I am not aware of any issues with respect to VA stipend payments to childcare providers under VA's pilot program, I do think it is important that VA report to Congress on whether it has experienced problems with making timely payments and ask for the resources to address payment processing.

The more data we collect from VA, the better we are able to determine what solutions and resources are needed to improve VA programs and services.

Mr. Chair, I do thank the gentleman for offering this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have no further speakers. I urge support for the gentleman's amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Madam Chair, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Madam Chair, I rise today in support of H.R. 840, the Veterans' Access to Child Care Act, and I acknowledge the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Brownley), the chairwoman and sponsor of this legislation, for her hard work and leadership on this issue.

As a father of three and a grandfather of three more, I know firsthand how important affordable, accessible, and safe childcare is and how difficult it can be for busy parents to find.

I never want a veteran, particularly one struggling with a mental health condition that requires regular ongoing treatment to manage, to be unable to get the care they need because of a lack of childcare.

The Veterans' Access to Child Care Act would prevent that by authorizing the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide childcare assistance to veterans who are receiving mental health or certain other intensive healthcare services.

Since 2011, VA has been providing childcare assistance to eligible veterans in select sites through a pilot program that has been extended by Congress on a consistent basis. This bill would permanently authorize that program and expand it across the VA healthcare system.

I was proud to support this bill last Congress as it passed the House with unanimous bipartisan support, and I am proud to support it today. However, my support is not without some reservations.

When we passed this bill last Congress, it had been reported out of the committee fully offset with a mandatory pay-for that, again, passed the House with unanimous bipartisan support.

An amendment offered by Congressman Gus Bilirakis of Florida that would use the same pay-for to offset the cost of this bill, which has increased from $96 million 2 years ago to an estimated $120 million today, was ruled not in order by the Rules Committee yesterday. That is a shame.

As chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee in the previous Congress, I entertained frequent objections to other good policies from my friends on the other side of the aisle due to concerns about how improvements to the VA healthcare system would be accounted for under discretionary caps. It appears those concerns have suddenly disappeared.

Yesterday afternoon, Chairman Takano noted that no offset was provided for this bill because the House Democrats have no requirement for discretionary costs to be offset, and it would be up to the appropriators to provide the funding VA needs to implement this program.

The Democrats' lack of a rule promoting fiscal discipline does not mean that we should not aspire to be good stewards of taxpayer money. The American taxpayer should expect and certainly deserve more from their elected officials than literally passing of the buck.

I also have reservations about this bill because it failed to move through

regular order, which it most certainly would have benefited from.

I commend my colleagues from both sides of the aisle for offering a number of thoughtful amendments to this legislation. I look forward to considering a number of those later today.

That said, we do not know what the Department thinks of them. We do not know what veterans service organizations think of them. We are blind to the second and third order implications they will undoubtedly have on this program and its cost. What is more, not all of the thoughtful amendments that were offered to this bill were ruled in order or will be up for debate.

I offered an amendment that would have provided the Asset and Infrastructure Review Commission greater flexibility by removing a prohibition against the Commission meeting in any calendar year except 2022 and 2023.

The AIR Commission is an objective, data-driven, transparent process that will consider VA's real property portfolio as a whole and determine how it will be realigned and brought into the 21st century to continue providing the high-quality care that our veterans require in future years.

The bill we are considering today could result in the repurposing of existing space or creation of new space to be used to provide childcare services. Decisions about how limited VA medical facility space will be used must not be made in a vacuum, especially when Congress has already established a process for how those decisions should be made. I fail to see how my amendment doesn't apply here, and it is a shame that we didn't have an opportunity to have a robust debate on that in committee or on the floor.

Another good government amendment that was, unfortunately, ruled out of order was offered by Congressman Jodey Arrington of Texas. Congressman Arrington's amendment would have prohibited any employee who is hired by VA to provide childcare pursuant to this bill from spending their time on taxpayer-funded union activities rather than performing the childcare duties they were hired to perform.

I agree that government employees should be doing the job for which they are hired and receive a taxpayer-funded paycheck to do, and do nothing else.

Again, it is a shame we won't be able to discuss or debate that amendment. Despite these issues, I do find the underlying bill to be a worthy one, and I will be supporting it today.

I thank Congresswoman Brownley, again, and Chairman Takano for bringing this bill to the floor today, and I look forward to working with them in the next 2 years on these and other important issues of our Nation's veterans.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I have no further speakers. I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, just to, I guess, retort to my friend, the chairman, if a program costs money, the money has to come from somewhere. We have programs right now, and the appropriators are going to have to decide, if this program costs a lot of money, to take it away from some other VA program, whereas, we had the extra revenue to pay for this program. That is all we are talking about.

Every single one of us in this Chamber last Congress agreed to pay for it. So now something has changed. I have no further speakers on the bill, and I am prepared to close. I reserve the balance of my time.

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

First of all, I thank Ms. Brownley for her leadership on this. I, too, have been, at one point in my life, a single parent. I am a veteran, and I certainly understand the difficulty in childbearing and child-rearing from my previous life as an OB/GYN doctor. I delivered a lot of babies and took care of a lot of parents who were single parents, who struggled to not only make ends meet, but to get the healthcare they need.

I think this is a great bill. I think it should be supported unanimously in this Congress.

Our American heroes who have served this country can come get the care they need. We know that, in this country, 20 veterans commit suicide each day, and 14 of them have never gotten into VA care. We don't know what the reason for some of those are, but, hopefully, it is not a barrier of childcare.

Madam Chair, I encourage all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support unanimously H.R. 840, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition, though I am not opposed to it.

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

Madam Chair, I rise in support of Congressman Brindisi and former member of the committee Congresswoman Kuster's amendment that would clarify that veterans receiving intensive mental health or other qualifying treatment from community-based outpatient clinics, CBOCs, are also eligible for childcare assistance from the VA.

CBOCs are an important access point for many veterans, and healthcare continues to transition away from inpatient hospitals and will form the basis of future care. Madam Chair, we have over 800 of these CBOCs in the country, so it makes care much more available to our veterans in their home communities.

Childcare burdens are no less a factor for veterans who receive care in a CBOC than it is for veterans who seek care in a VA medical center. This amendment rightly recognizes that fact and ensures that we don't inadvertently create a disparity for veterans with the same conditions seeking the same treatments who happen to use different VA medical facilities.

Madam Chair, I urge all my colleagues to join me in supporting this amendment, and I thank Congressman Brindisi and Congresswoman Kuster for submitting that, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I have no further speakers, and I am prepared to close. I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I strongly support this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I thank Mrs. Radewagen, who is a tireless advocate for veterans issues, for bringing this up. She travels, I guess, about as far as anybody, 24 hours in the air to get here, so she is a tireless advocate for our Nation's heroes, and I thank her for that.

Madam Chair, I rise in strong support of this amendment that would clarify that childcare assistance is intended for veterans while they are attending a VA appointment or traveling to and from a VA appointment, but not at any other time.

This amendment is in line with the intent of the underlying bill, which is to provide access to childcare services so that veterans who would otherwise be burdened with childcare responsibilities can have easier access to the care that they need.

By clarifying when VA-provided childcare assistance will be provided, this amendment will help ensure that this program is sustainable, is not unintentionally abused, and will help the greatest number of veterans in need.

Congresswoman Radewagen is a valuable member, as I have stated, of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, and I thank her for bringing this commonsense, good-government amendment forward today.

Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting it.

Will the gentleman yield?

Madam Chair, Mr. Sablan and I have worked together on these unique issues about where he is in American Samoa. That is one of the reasons I wish we had had regular order. We could have brought this up, because the gentleman does have unique circumstances because of long travel distances, and I think that is something else we need to look at in the committee.

I will pledge myself to work with you on this issue as ranking member.

Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition, although I am not opposed to the amendment.

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

Madam Chair, I rise in support of Congressman Rose's amendment to include substance abuse or drug abuse counseling under the definition of a covered health service, and I thank him for his service to our great country.

Unfortunately, our veterans are not immune to the scourge of addiction that has tragically impacted far too many of our communities for far too long, particularly in the last few years of the opioid crisis. Veterans seeking substance abuse treatment from VA should certainly have access to childcare assistance if they require it, and I am grateful to Congressman Rose for sponsoring this amendment to make sure that they are specifically included in this bill. I hope that I am joined by all my colleagues in supporting this needed amendment today.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I urge support of Congressman Rose's amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I rise in strong support of this amendment to prohibit VA from constructing new structures to be used as childcare centers.

Mr. Chair, the VA has over 6,000 pieces of property, and 1,100 of them are either not utilized or underutilized. We on the committee, including the chairman, have just witnessed a $600 million hospital in Denver, Colorado, explode into a $2 billion--I didn't say that wrong, two thousand million dollars--project.

Both General Bergman's amendment and mine, which would have provided greater flexibility to the Asset and Infrastructure Review Commission, recognized that VA's vast and, in most cases, outdated, misaligned, and prohibitively-expensive-to-maintain infrastructure must be dealt with holistically.

I regret that my amendment was not made in order today, but I am glad that General Bergman's was. Where VA has existing space that is not needed for veteran patients, VA could and should consider repurposing that space to provide childcare assistance, and where existing space is not available, VA should use the authorities provided in this bill to provide childcare assistance.

Where existing space is not available, VA should use the authorities provided in this bill to provide childcare assistance off VA property--either through leases, sharing agreements, and other means--rather than investing in costly new buildings.

Mr. Chair, what happens? If we build a childcare facility and the demographics change and it is no longer needed, we have got an empty building. If we lease that building, which this gives us the authority to do, we can let the lease expire, and the VA can go on and use their moneys for something else.

General Bergman is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, and I thank him today, as always, for his leadership and vision on behalf of his fellow veterans.

Mr. Chair, I am pleased to support this amendment today, and I urge all of my colleagues to join me in support.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, although I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, I rise in support of the amendment sponsored by Congresswoman Lee and Congresswoman Lesko to provide for childcare assistance to veterans receiving readjustment counseling in a vet center.

The work done in vet centers is critical to veterans who are struggling to readjust to civilian life following their military service. I am glad that this amendment will make it easier for veterans who lack childcare to seek the support they need in vet centers, and I will be supporting this amendment.

That being said, expanding childcare assistance to include the hundreds of vet centers across the country is a costly prospect. Unfortunately, because the bill did not go through regular order, we do not know just how costly this project will be.

I wish that we could have received reviews and cost estimates on this proposal prior to voting on it and hope that, moving forward, bills will have the benefit of work in committee before being moved onto the floor.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Arizona (Mrs. Lesko).

Mr. Chair, I am prepared to close and urge support of this bipartisan amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman from Kentucky, my next-door neighbor, for doing this. We are really pleased to have him on the Veterans' Affairs Committee, Mr. Chair.

I rise in support of this amendment to require VA to study how the provision of childcare assistance impacts access to and compliance with care.

It is important that we closely monitor any taxpayer-funded program to ensure that it is meeting its intended objectives, and I am grateful for Congressman Barr's foresight in ensuring that we do this for this program as well.

Congressman Barr has long been a strong supporter of our Nation's veterans, and I am pleased to welcome him, as stated, to the Veterans' Affairs Committee this Congress. I thank him for his leadership on this amendment and hope that all of my colleagues will join me in supporting this amendment.

Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to rise in opposition, although I am not opposed to it.

Mr. Chair, I rise in support of Congressman Cisneros' and Congressman Welch's amendment to require VA to conduct a study to assess the feasibility of VA-provided childcare assistance for veterans receiving community care. This is a critically important amendment.

For decades, VA has had the authority to refer patients to community providers when veterans are unable to get the care they need in VA medical facilities for various reasons. Last year, almost 40 percent of appointments in the VA healthcare system occurred in the community.

Clearly, VA cannot meet every need of every veteran patient in every community across this country without the assistance of community partners. That is not the fault of the VA healthcare system. It is a strength.

Veterans in need of childcare assistance should not be denied such assistance when they are referred to a VA community partner rather than a VA provider.

I am disappointed that another amendment offered by Congressman Case, that would have simply lifted this barrier to care for those veterans who must seek care through community partners, was not accepted. However, I am encouraged that the issue will be reexamined through this study.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this amendment today.

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

Mr. Chair, I strongly support Congressman Cisneros' amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to rise in opposition to the amendment, although I am not opposed.

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

Mr. Chair, I share the gentleman's concern. I have been on the 405, and I certainly understand that trip.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of Congressman Cisneros' amendment to include physical therapy for service-connected disabilities under the definition of ``covered health service.''

Caring for service-connected conditions is the reason the VA healthcare system exists. Service-connected conditions should always take priority. I thank Congressman Cisneros for recognizing this with his amendment. I am proud to join him in supporting it.

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

Mr. Chair, caring for service- connected conditions is the reason the VA healthcare system exists. I strongly support Congressman Cisneros' amendment and encourage my colleagues to support it also.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I want to thank Congressman Rodney Davis, first of all, for his commitment to our Nation's heroes.

I was able and privileged to be in his district last year. I saw his commitment to that and the respect that they have for him, and I want to thank him for bringing this up. He does a terrific job for our Nation's heroes in his district, and it was a privilege to be there.

I rise in support of Congressman Davis' and Congressman Panetta's commonsense amendment. The bill we are considering today defines a veteran who is eligible for childcare assistance as a veteran who is ``the'' primary caretaker of a child or children. However, this amendment rightly recognizes that most children have two parents and either of them could be considered ``a'' primary caretaker of that child.

I thank Congressman Davis and Congressman Panetta for that clarification, and I am happy to support this amendment today.

Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to rise

in opposition, although I am not opposed.

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

Mr. Chair, I rise in support of Congressman Sablan's amendment to include mental healthcare provided via telemedicine under the definition of a ``covered health service.''

The VA healthcare system is an industry leader in telemedicine and should be commended in using it to increase access to care for veterans who would otherwise have to travel great distances on a regular basis to receive the care they need.

I want to thank my good friend, Congressman Sablan, who is a tireless advocate in the Marianas. He has been an amazing supporter of the veterans there who really have very limited services. I thank him for introducing this amendment to make sure that veterans accessing tele- healthcare are also eligible for childcare assistance, if needed.

I am pleased to join him in supporting this.

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

Mr. Chair, I rise in support of this amendment to require an annual report on the processing of claims for childcare assistance.

VA has made improvements in recent years in the speed at which community providers are being reimbursed for the services they provide to veteran patients, however, claims processing remains an area where VA struggles; to be kind to them, struggles.

We must take steps to ensure that veterans and childcare providers who are awaiting reimbursement pursuant to this bill are not left waiting like many veterans and community providers have been previously.

Mr. Chair, I am grateful to Congressman Cloud for his leadership and sponsoring this amendment and I look forward to joining him in its support.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I want to thank my friend from New York for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I am not going to have the opportunity very often, so I want to make sure I do it while the gentleman and I are together today to tell him I agree with absolutely everything Mr. Morelle had to say. It doesn't happen very often on the Rules Committee.

If you are ever having a good day and you need to bring some discord into your life, I want you to head upstairs to the third floor, where there is a 9-to-4 majority-minority distribution, and you can find discord up there every day of the week. It doesn't matter whether it is Republicans leading the institution or Democrats leading the institution.

Last night, we had a chance to come together and talk about something that unites us all; but I oppose the rule today, Mr. Speaker, because this is a bill that passed the Congress last year, and when we passed it last year, we passed it unanimously through the Veterans' Affairs Committee. All the Republicans and all the Democrats voted ``yes.'' Then we brought it to the House floor, and we passed it unanimously here on a voice vote.

But the difference between the bill we have before us today and the bill we had before us last year is that, when we made new promises to our veterans for much-needed benefits last year, we went and we found ways to pay for those promises--not controversial ways, not divisive ways, but ways that we agreed to unanimously at the committee and the full House level. When the bill reappeared this year, those pay-fors were miraculously absent.

I am concerned about that for two reasons, Mr. Speaker, and I think this body should reject this rule and give us a chance to improve this bill. We tried to improve it with an amendment last night, and the amendment was nongermane.

For folks who are new to the institution, understand that, if the committee that sends the bill to the House floor decides they are not going to pay for it, then any effort to try to pay for it is nongermane. So, once a committee sends a bill that is flawed to the Rules Committee, unless there is a waiver of the House rules to allow a pay-for amendment, pay-for amendments are not in order.

So what happens is we are making a new commitment of about $120 million to our veterans, a wonderful commitment.

Again, I agree with absolutely everything the gentleman from New York had to say. His heart for veterans is pure, and his words were true.

But that $120 million commitment we are making, Mr. Speaker, gets folded into the Veterans' Affairs budget that we don't increase by one penny, which means we now have to go cut $120 million worth of other veterans' benefits in order to pay for this veterans' benefit.

That is not what anybody on this floor wants to do. In the Budget Committee today, we were talking about the caps, talking about how to deal with caps. Nobody wants to dip into the already promised benefits that we have made to American veterans.

But the mystery to me is that, in this Chamber that America perceives as being so divided, in this town that America perceives as being so broken, we came together last year, unanimously, to do it the right way; and with new House leadership this year, Mr. Speaker, we have instead chosen to do it the easy way.

I think our veterans deserve better, but, more importantly, I know the Members of this institution can do better. We have, and we can again.

I hope my friends will reject this rule and give us a chance to go back, pay for this, make sure there are not unintended consequences of cutting other veterans' benefits that every man and woman in this Chamber supports.

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

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

It is not like me to correct the Chair because he serves the entire House, but, I will tell you, it is entirely possible that Mr. Morelle and I could yield each other time back and forth today. That is the nature of this institution's support for veterans.

And, I have to tell you, that is what hurts me the most about the way this bill has come to the floor. My friend is exactly right, Mr. Speaker, when he says that the CBO says this: There is no direct spending in this bill at all.

I just want you to think through that with me. We are promising veterans new benefits that cost money, and the scorekeeping institution of the United States House of Representatives says this bill will cost nothing.

Now, why is that true? It is true because there are other laws on the books, the budget caps that are on the books that say: If you add one penny of veterans funding in this category, you have got to cut a penny from this category.

When we did this bill last year, we all recognized that. I am not telling anybody anything they don't already know, and it pains me to see the defense of this bill as ``we didn't have to,'' ``they didn't make us,'' ``it is not required.'' All of those arguments were true last year, too. They didn't make us. We don't have to. It is not required.

It is just the right thing to do. And we came together, and we did it.

You have a different vantage point of this Chamber, Mr. Speaker, than I do. From your chair, it may look like that bipartisanship breaks out across this Chamber in mass quantities every day of the week, but, from my position behind this podium, we don't find that many things that both spend money and save money, those things that make new promises while revising old promises that weren't working as well, those things that make promises today but pay for them today instead of passing the bill on to our children and grandchildren.

And we did that together last year. We did it together. How can folks forget? Yes, we have lots of new freshmen in this Chamber, but we came together last year, unanimously, to do this bill right, to tell veterans: We do want to serve you better; we are going to create a new benefit; and we are not going to force cuts to other benefits as a result.

I am not going to give up on bipartisanship breaking out in this Chamber again and again and again, and I am certainly not going to give up on the bipartisan commitment that we have to serving our veterans. There are only so many days in a year. There are only so many weeks in a Congress. We cannot waste them doing a halfway job when we could have done the job right.

In this case, it is not as if we don't have a roadmap of how to do the job right. We did it. It is not as if we thought about doing it; we voted unanimously together to do it.

Yet, in this new day, we have chosen a different path, an inferior path. I just challenge my colleagues, as Paul Ryan used to say: Raise your gaze. This is a good idea. This is a good programmatic policy. But we need to pay for it, not cut veterans' benefits in order to squeeze it in.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would welcome my friend to close, but, in the spirit of bipartisanship, I will be happy to begin that process.

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

It is a different job in the minority. The power that Mr. Morelle has to open this debate and close this debate, it lends credence to his words. As I stipulated at the beginning, everything he said was true. It is what he didn't say that we can do better on.

I will say this one more time because, again, for new Members of this Chamber, you may not understand how the Rules Committee works. If a committee does not pay for legislation, if a committee just makes promises and does not find a way to pay for it, it is not appropriate, under House rules, to then try to add a pay-for. It requires a waiver from the Rules Committee of House rules in order to include a pay-for in a bill that is not already paid for. We offered that amendment last night. It was rejected on a party-line vote in the Rules Committee. Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question today, we will offer a solution.

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, the amendment that we will offer if the previous question is defeated would add the language that, by collecting fees on housing loans that would pay for this new childcare benefit so that we don't have to go deep into the Veterans' Affairs budget, cutting other benefits in order to pay for this, so we don't have to violate budget caps and borrow from our children and from our grandchildren, so that we can make promises to men and women who deserve and need this benefit and know that we have come together and done the heavy lifting to pay for it today.

I hope my friends will unite, as we did last year, in approving this funding language, unite in defeating the previous question, so that I can bring this amendment up and we can do this in the same honorable, bipartisan, collaborative way that we unanimously passed this very same language just a few short months ago.

I urge my friends: Know that we can do better.

Mr. Speaker, while I contemplated yielding back, I am going to reserve my time just in case there are any more speakers who have been affected by my words and want to come and join this effort that we have today. I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is troubling to me that we have those things that divide us, that permeate these conversations that could be uniting. Again, I don't think we have that many opportunities where we are able to come together as an entire institution unanimously to support legislation, so I deeply regret we have missed that opportunity.

I want to encourage my friends on the other side of the aisle not to fall under the same trap that I think Republicans fell into just 8 short years ago. Every single conversation we have now in the Rules Committee, the tax cuts come into it.

The fact that so many of my Democratic friends didn't want tax cuts for the American people isn't a mystery to me. I got not one Democratic vote on the entire bill. I get it. One team thought it was a good idea, one team didn't, but we cannot use that disagreement as an excuse not to do the very best that we can on each and every bill going forward.

I will give you that example from the Republicans experience. I was categorically opposed to the Federal takeover of healthcare that was the Affordable Care Act. I was categorically opposed to the way that small businesses lost options. And my friends that were promised they could keep their doctor and they could keep their plan, those promises were broken.

But I still came together with my Democratic friends on the floor to find additional dollars for veterans healthcare and plus-up those accounts, to find additional ways to serve veterans who had not been served through healthcare and plus-up those accounts. The fact that we disagree on really big important issues does not mean we cannot come together and do the very best that we can.

And with that in mind, I want to give credit where credit is due. I have talked a lot about how we unanimously passed this bill last Congress. It is true. We unanimously passed it out of committee, and we unanimously passed it on the floor of the House. But what that means is, it came to the floor of the House on the suspension calendar, which meant no amendments were made in order.

The way that my friends on the other side of the aisle have brought the bill up, amendments are made in order, and the Rules Committee made 21 different amendments in order. We passed the bill unanimously under our leadership, but there was not an opportunity to improve it.

My friends on the other side have chosen a different path that does allow an opportunity to improve it, but doesn't allow the opportunities that I am seeking to pay for it.

I don't have to demean my friends or their intentions because their intentions are pure, and they are thoughtful, honorable Members of this institution. The fact that we disagree about policy does not mean we have to disagree about the motives of one another. And when we have these opportunities to do not just good but better; not just good, but good in a way that we don't pass the bill on to our children and our grandchildren, we take care of that bill today.

I will close with this, Mr. Speaker. Again, I can't disagree with any of the words my friend from New York tells because the half of the story that he tells is absolutely true. This is an authorizing bill where we make a new promise to veterans.

If this bill passes the floor of the House today, it then goes to the Appropriations Committee to fulfill this promise that we all celebrate today, and the Appropriations Committee will have not one new penny to pay for this new promise.

We have all been in this business long enough to know what happens to promises that folks don't put any money behind and what happens to promises that don't get paid for. The law prevents the Appropriations Committee from funding this new promise, unless they cut dollars from existing veterans promises today.

This bill is doing all the right things for all the right reasons. Let's not make another veteran have to pay in a cut for what we are promising to one of his brothers or sisters in a new benefit.

Defeat the previous question; allow us to pay for this bill; and let's put our money where our hearts and our mouths are.

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 105 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall), 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 be given 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 105, providing for consideration of H.R. 840, the Veterans' Access to Child Care Act, under a structured rule.

The rule provides for 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

The rule makes in order 21 amendments, each debatable for 10 minutes. The rule also provides for adoption of H. Res. 86, a resolution providing interim funding for our two new select committees.

Lastly, the rule provides suspension authority through next Friday, February 15.

Mr. Speaker, the Veterans' Access to Child Care Act would make permanent the VA's childcare pilot program, allowing more veterans to access cost-free childcare when they receive mental or other intensive healthcare treatment through the VA.

A nearly identical piece of legislation passed in the House last year under a Republican majority with bipartisan cosponsors and without objection. It is my hope that this Congress will support these efforts to make it easier for our brave servicemembers to get the care they need while supporting their families.

Millions of working families across the Nation are struggling to afford the rising cost of childcare. Families in my own State of New York often pay upwards of $15,000 each year to place one child in a childcare center. Some parents may find themselves owing their entire salary each month to provision of daycare. This cost can be so debilitating that parents are being driven out of the workforce--many of them women.

For veterans, these struggles can be even more acute. Many veterans are primary caregivers to their children or even their grandchildren. These brave men and women rely on the VA for their healthcare, but many of them are forced to miss appointments or forgo treatment altogether because they

have no childcare options. For many, that can be devastating. We have seen the harm that can be done when military veterans do not receive high-quality mental health services.

This Nation is facing a crisis. Each day, 20 American veterans take their own life. Studies have shown that mental health disparities are a leading cause of high suicide rates among veterans who struggle with depression or post-traumatic stress.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has shown that the suicide rate has increased faster among those veterans who have not recently received treatment through the VA system. Addressing inadequate access to lifesaving mental health and intense health services is critical as we seek to reform our veterans' healthcare system, and we know that making care more accessible will save lives.

Currently, the Department of Veterans Affairs operates a pilot program to provide cost-free childcare to help primary caregivers seeking mental health treatment at selected VA facilities across the country. This program has been extended by Congress several times and has provided care for more than 10,000 children already.

Congress now has an opportunity to extend not only this pilot, but to expand this essential service to every VA facility in the Nation. This will allow thousands more veterans to receive cost-free childcare, ensuring that they never have to choose caring for their family over caring for their own mental health well-being.

This legislation is especially important for female veterans across the Nation, many of whom are single parents or primary caregivers. An increasing number of female veterans have been in combat. One in five female veterans seen by the VA report military sexual trauma.

It is clear that female veterans face unique health challenges and unique barriers to accessing the care they need. This legislation will work to dismantle those barriers so the VA can build on the progress we have made in treating female veterans.

For many veterans, it is not only essential that they receive mental and intensive healthcare, but that they receive care quickly. When facing a serious mental health crisis, veterans shouldn't have to worry about their babysitter dropping out or how they will pay for a day of daycare or how they will find someone to take care of their child while they go to the hospital and receive services. We must ensure that the men and women who have laid their lives on the line for our Nation have timely access to the lifesaving services they need and that we have promised to provide.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote for this rule and the underlying legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

First of all, I appreciate the comments by my distinguished and wholly entertaining colleague, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall). I do want to just make a couple of points related to his comments.

First of all, as the gentleman indicated, the amendment that he talked about was not germane, not before the House, and that was ruled such yesterday. But, as it relates to the paygo rule, we are entirely in compliance with that. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office advised us that there is no direct spending in the bill.

As my mother is often wont to say: You can't be holier than the church. CBO has ruled on it and indicated that the bill does not add a single penny to our deficit or to the national debt, period.

I do, Mr. Speaker, however, find it somewhat ironic. I was thinking about this just yesterday after our conversation in the Rules Committee, and I do note that the appropriation over the next 5 years, $120 million--that is million with an M, not billion with a B, and certainly not trillion with a T. And I do find it ironic to some agree that the gentleman and his colleagues last year would enact a tax cut which provided that 83 percent of its benefits went to the wealthiest Americans.

And, if we were here each day, Mr. Woodall and I, for 365 days a year, for the next 30 years--10,000 days, 10,000 times--that tax bill would have spent more money than this would during that time, if we did this for 10,000 days. Think about it.

The work that we do here: authorized spending on a program for veterans, not our wealthiest Americans; those who are struggling; those who have,

during their time, provided great service and sacrifice to our country; those who have kept us safe. And I know Mr. Woodall and I share an appreciation for all the work our veterans do.

But this is a policy bill, Mr. Speaker. It is not an appropriations bill, and it has no direct spending. What it does: It helps save the lives of veterans, and it helps put them on a safer, more sound bearing for the future.

The cost for implementing it is, as I said, $120 million over the next 5 years. And it seems to me, it seems to my colleagues, that this is appropriate given the priorities we have for our Nation and for our veterans.

So the next step, as the gentleman knows, is to provide funding through the appropriation process, and I hope that this Congress does invest in our veterans, particularly those who have challenging health issues, whether they be physical, mental, or behavioral, who also happen to be the parents or caretakers of our young children.

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

Mr. Speaker, I inquire of the gentleman whether or not there are other speakers or whether I should use this opportunity to close.

Mr. Speaker, I apologize. I am still learning this. The lingo on the floor of the House is much different than the lingo on the floor of the New York State Assembly, where I had the privilege of serving, and I do appreciate the gentleman's help through this. He has me at a bit of a disadvantage.

I do want to just reiterate before I yield that, in fact, this is a policy that we set with this bill and this rule. It will be up to the appropriators to make a decision about whether this is a priority as they go through this process and determine whether there will be funding for it in the appropriations bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for his indulgence and his patience as I hopefully will get the training wheels off at one of these points, but I appreciate his comments.

I do want to note that this bill, the amendment which the gentleman speaks of, will not have been germane in the previous Congress either, and it was not ruled germane during the Rules Committee deliberations.

But, Mr. Speaker, I do want to thank all my colleagues for the words of support for H.R. 840, the Veterans' Access to Child Care Act. The Veterans' Access bill, I want to especially thank the sponsor, Congresswoman Julia Brownley and Chairman Mark Takano of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, as well as the ranking member, Mr. Roe, for their work in supporting our Nation's veterans.

I am proud that this rule provides for the consideration of so many diverse ideas, including minority and bipartisan amendments, something that would not be allowed in the previous Congress. I am proud we have taken this bipartisan approach, and I appreciate all the work that Chairman McGovern has done to make sure that that is part of the work that we do.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule and a ``yes'' vote on the previous question.

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

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the majority leader, for the purpose of inquiring as to the schedule for the week to come.

Madam Speaker, as it relates to the suspension calendar, I know, this week, there was an extra bill added to the suspension calendar that wasn't on the list by close of business last week. Do you anticipate this Friday's list being amended again the following week, or should that be a complete list?

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Madam Speaker, clearly, as a suspension, it wasn't in the traditional sense--obviously, it went down. There being a sense of the House resolution, typically, those are resolutions where both sides work together.

I ask the gentleman, do they anticipate approaching senses of the House in a partisan way or, hopefully, in a bipartisan way, where we can work together to get a true sense of the House that could pass?

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman.

Madam Speaker, as we approach bipartisan resolutions, we hope that the gentleman from Maryland and his side would work with us on those. It could have been a resolution that actually passed, had we been able to work together and, hopefully, include some language about border security.

As we look to the conference committee that is now meeting, as we talk about border security especially being the centerpiece of the big debate over government funding that, hopefully, we get agreement to, there were reports that, last week, the Democrat majority was going to roll out their plan for homeland security. Ultimately, that plan wasn't, in fact, rolled out. Is there going to be a rollout? As we have these negotiations----

I yield to the gentleman from Maryland to let him know that his side said they wouldn't negotiate during a shutdown. Obviously, the shutdown is over now. Will there be a counteroffer now put on the table?

Madam Speaker, I look forward to hearing that proposal laid out. As the House and Senate Republican and Democrat conferees meet together, I do think, and have an optimistic approach, that we are not that far removed from reaching a deal, if we can ultimately find a way to put a real amount on the table that shows how we can secure the border, as our experts--the men and women who risk their lives to secure the border--have suggested in their proposal, if we can come to a place where we can agree on a way to actually achieve border security, and that includes physical barriers.

When the gentleman from Maryland, I think it was 2 weeks ago, was talking about some Democrats who were going over to the White House back then, it was said that they didn't have the authority to negotiate. Do the Democrat conferees have the authority to negotiate on behalf of the Democrat majority in the House?

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's quick candor.

Madam Speaker, as we wrap this up, I would ask about an issue that a number of our Members were concerned about and hope this is not a trend. In the House Natural Resources Committee, the majority, yesterday, as they were proposing their new rules for the committee-- and each committee, as we know, proposes their new rules as a new Congress is sworn in and established on a committee level--in the oath that is administered to men and women who come before the committee to testify, the original proposal suggested removing ``so help you God'' from the oath. One of the Members on our side noticed that omission and put an amendment in place to restore ``so help you God'' in the oath. Fortunately, that was added back in.

I would ask the gentleman, is this going to be a trend? Is there going to be some kind of general movement by committees to try to remove ``so help you God'' from the oaths that are administered to witnesses?

Madam Speaker, hopefully, it is not a trend that we see.

Madam Speaker, I know the last few weeks have been contentious. We have a lot at stake as we try to get an agreement on something that actually can work to properly fund the government and properly secure the border.

I am glad that the conferees are finally meeting. I hope we don't see any attempt to run out the clock, because we do have a limited amount of time, although it is far more than enough time to reach an agreement, if all parties are truly there in earnest, and I do think they are.

I hope that they put all options on the table and listen to all the proper expert testimony that has been given on why we need to have certain amounts to secure the border and certain tactics and techniques and technology that are all going to be part of this.

Hopefully, at the end of that discussion, very quickly, they can reach an agreement that we can then bring to the House and the Senate and pass in a bipartisan way that the President can sign to finally properly fund the government and secure our Nation's border.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman and I know we look forward to welcoming the President of the United States to this House Chamber on Tuesday night for the State of the Union Address.

I appreciate the work that we are going to do together to secure our Nation's border and properly fund our government, and unless the gentleman has something else he would like to add, I yield back the balance of my time.