Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 790) to provide for a pay increase in 2019 for certain civilian employees of the Federal Government, and for other purposes, and providing for consideration of motions to suspend the rules.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 87 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 have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 87, providing for consideration of H.R. 790, the Federal Civilian Workforce Pay Raise Fairness Act of 2019.

The rule provides for consideration of the legislation under a structured rule. The rule self-executes a manager's amendment, which strikes section 3 of the bill and makes certain other technical corrections to it.

The rule makes in order three amendments. The rule provides 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Reform. Finally, the rule provides suspension authority through the legislative day of February 8, 2019.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 790 will provide for a 2.6 percent pay increase for Federal civilian workers in 2019, beginning with the date of passage, and this brings the civilian pay increase in parity with the automatic adjustment of pay for military servicemembers, which is also 2.6 percent.

The President's fiscal year 2019 budget requested a 2.6 percent increase in basic pay for military servicemembers equivalent to the statutory formula. This increase went into effect on January 1. But on August 30 of last year, President Trump announced that he would issue a downward adjustment of the pay increase for civilian employees because of a national emergency or serious economic conditions affecting the general welfare. He proposed to set the civilian pay increase at zero, no raise.

On December 28 of last year, he followed through on this announcement by signing an executive order overriding the automatic 2.1 percent pay increase civilian workers were set to receive and replacing it with zero. Congress can override and Congress should override this executive order with legislation providing for a pay increase for our hardworking Federal civilian workers. H.R. 790 does just that with a reasonable 2.6 percent increase, matching the increase going into effect for military servicemembers.

Mr. Speaker, if there is any redeeming feature to the sordid chaos of the 35-day government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, surely, it is that it reminded America that our Federal workforce is indispensable to our commerce, to our economy, to our society, and to our way of life.

We have been reminded that if you take away the air traffic controllers, you take away air travel. If you take away the Transportation Security Administration agents, you take away transportation security.

If you take away the Park Service rangers and the Park Service maintenance personnel, you take away our ability to enjoy the national parks free of liter, garbage, backed-up sewage, and criminal activity.

If you take away the food safety inspectors from the FDA and other agencies, you threaten the food supply with E. coli, salmonella, and insect infestation.

If you shut down the EPA, you empower the polluters to foul the air and dirty the waters.

If you shut down the Department of Justice, you throw a monkey wrench into the ability of law enforcement to go after the Mafia, Medicare fraud, white-collar crime, human trafficking, and all of the criminal enterprises endangering public safety.

If you shut down the National Weather Service, you threaten transportation, travel, and public safety.

If you stop paying Customs and Border Protection officers, you weaken border security and you demoralize our Border Patrol.

If you shut down NOAA, you disable America's first responders in the campaign to meet the challenges of climate change.

All of it has an effect on the private sector, too. If you furlough the people writing checks for home mortgages, farm subsidies, State Department personnel, and private contractor payments, you threaten to ruin private contractors, home purchases, small farmers, and small businesses.

If you were to cut off the VA, you would cut off the veterans.

And if you were to pull the plug on the Social Security Administration, you would threaten tens of millions of Americans who depend on Social Security.

The contribution that more than 2.1 million Federal employees make to our country is indispensable; it is incalculable; and it is irreplaceable.

Mr. Speaker, throughout the 35-day self-identified Donald Trump shutdown, the American people not only witnessed the surpassing dedication and patriotism of the Federal workforce, 30 percent of which is made up of veterans, but we were reminded of the critical nature of the work that they do for all of us. They deserve a raise, and we should override President Trump's insulting and embarrassing 2019 pay freeze for the Federal workforce.

To be clear, Federal workers deserved a raise before the shutdown. The Federal Salary Council, an advisory body of the executive branch established to provide recommendations on locality pay, found at the end of last year that, ``Federal employee salaries on average lag behind those of the private sector by almost 31 percent,'' a finding based on U.S. Department of Labor data covering more than 250 different occupational categories.

900,000 Federal workers earn less than $60,000 a year, and we have seen in the soup kitchens and in the pantries, and the desperate pleas of our constituents for their families, how many Federal workers are just one or two paychecks away from disaster.

So Federal workers deserved a raise before the shutdown when 800,000 of them were furloughed or compelled to go to work without any pay and they had to take out loans from family members or credit unions just to pay their monthly bills.

They deserved a raise before President Trump imposed the Federal hiring freeze in 2017 and before he froze Federal worker pay in 2019.

They deserved a raise before he tried to cut their health benefits and before he issued three executive orders that would have made it easier to fire Federal workers and destroy their collective bargaining rights, orders that were promptly struck down in Federal court.

But if the Federal workers deserved a raise and needed one before President Trump declared war on the workforce for the American Government, before Steve Bannon defined the goal of the administration as ``deconstruction of the administrative state,'' before they were derided by the President as Democrats and vilified as the deep state, surely, the economic and moral debacle of the shutdown makes this modest 2.6 percent pay raise a powerful and inescapable imperative today.

Mr. Speaker, the Federal Government simply must do much better as an employer of our own people. How many private employers would try to retain their best workers and attract great new workers by attacking and furloughing the workforce, by accusing the employees of disloyalty, by freezing their pay, and then by compelling them to work for 35 days with no salary at all? It would never work for the vast majority of private-sector employers.

All over America, we read of workers demoralized and defeated, thinking of leaving their Federal jobs because of the sheer folly and cruelty of this most recent episode and because the President, I am sorry to report, is again threatening another shutdown with nothing but complicity from many of our friends across the aisle.

On top of all the anxiety induced by the shutdown, we know that between 30 and 35 percent of the Federal workforce is eligible to retire within the next 5 years. How will we replace them and replenish the ranks of this embattled and besieged workforce?

These are our people, Mr. Speaker. These are our workers. These are our constituents. These are the people who make America work.

Federal workers do not live the lifestyles of the rich and famous. They don't jet down to Mar-a-Lago at personal or government expense. And they can't afford the $36 cheeseburger at the Trump Hotel.

The Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross, will never be able to figure out why they can't just call up a friendly banker for a loan, just as Lara Trump will not be able to see why the 35-day shutdown caused something more than an eentsy-weentsy ``little bit of pain'' for them as they are invited to suffer in service of the greater glory of the Trump administration agenda.

Our public servants, civilian and military alike, deserve better from us, whether they work as a civilian officer or uniformed officer at the Pentagon; whether they are safeguarding air travel or the air or the water or the climate or our food supply; whether they are taking care of our treasured national parks; or treating breast cancer patients or finding the cure for cystic fibrosis or multiple sclerosis; or running our museums; or cutting Social Security checks; or preparing the President's meals at the White House; or guarding the coastline with the Coast Guard; or making the justice system work as judges, prosecutors, defenders, clerks, and marshals. They deserve better from us.

They need a pay raise, not a pay freeze. They deserve our respect, not our contempt. They don't ask to be deified, but they don't deserve to be demonized.

They have an important job to do. Let's pay them for it. Let's invest in our Federal workforce. I urge all of our colleagues to come together to pass H.R. 790, the Federal Civilian Workforce Pay Raise Fairness Act of 2019.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my dear friend from Georgia for his thoughtful comments, especially for conceding that the Federal workers do deserve a paycheck at the end of the week, and I am glad that we can start off a new season here where we agree that Federal workers deserve and need to be paid. I suppose we still have this difference about whether or not they deserve a pay raise.

Yes, the substance is clear. We are fighting for a 2.6 percent pay raise for the Federal civilian workforce to match the 2.6 percent pay raise that has gone into effect for the military servicemembers who are serving our country with their hard work and their sacrifice.

Mr. Speaker, our message is clear. There is a message that is built into there, because when you are deciding whether or not to give your workers a raise or give them a pay freeze or you are deciding whether or not to praise them or to compel them to work for free for 35 days or to furlough them, there is a message built into that. So we are the employer of these 2 million people who have come to work for the Federal Government, and there is a message there.

It is not just the money for their families, it is not just the money to pay the mortgage and to pay the rent and for the car bills and for the food bills and for health insurance and so on. There is a message there, and the message is simple: we stand with the Federal workers.

That is the message. We embrace that message that is built into the pay raise here.

But I have to disagree with my friend if he says that all we are doing is sending that message that we stand with the Federal workers. That is not all we are doing, we are giving them a pay raise they deserve. We have got tens of thousands of people who work at the Pentagon who go dressed as military servicemembers every day, and we have tens of thousands who go dressed as civilians, they work side by side, and they work together for the country.

Shouldn't they all get a pay raise?

Don't all of them deserve a pay raise?

Now, Mr. Speaker, my friend invites us to believe that because we are giving the workforce a pay raise, we can't continue to implement civil service rules that are meant to get rid of the rare bad apple that you get in the Federal workforce.

Why not?

Why can't we use the other mechanisms that are in place to reward workers?

If we want to improve those, then I am so happy to work with my friend on the Rules Committee to develop legislation to do that. But I am afraid that is an irrelevant distraction from the matter at hand. The matter at hand today is whether or not we are going to give the same pay raise to civilian workers that we have given to military workers.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman from Texas an additional 30 seconds.

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

The gentleman from Georgia has given me a lot to think about here.

The very first thing that I need to clear up is that 85 percent of the Federal workforce does not live in the national capital region. It is true that the local delegations from Maryland and Virginia and the District of Columbia are sensitive to these continuing assaults on the Federal workforce because we have so many workers who live here, but, again, 85 percent of the workforce lives all over the country.

I just learned that there are 100,000 civilian Federal workers in Georgia who also were affected by this government shutdown and lockout of the Federal workers, and I am sure the distinguished gentleman from Georgia heard the same kinds of complaints from his constituents that I heard from mine about not being able to balance their checkbooks, not being able to pay the mortgage or pay the rent because of what took place with the shutdown.

The President froze Federal worker pay without any hearings. The President froze Federal worker pay without any markups, and he did it without consulting any of us. That is something that he did.

Now, of course, we know that the 115th Congress, the last Congress, became famous--or perhaps I should say infamous--for being the most closed Congress in U.S. history, bringing us the most number of closed rules on the floor, shutting down debate, bringing us so many bills without hearings or markup.

We would have loved to have been able to have hearings and markup for this bill, but the Committee on Oversight and Reform wasn't organized until yesterday. We are all recovering from the shocks of the Federal Government shutdown. We are all trying to catch our breath from what has been imposed on the country. We have been consumed entirely with the question of the government shutdown.

So when the new rules come into focus and are activated on March 1, which is when they are supposed to come in, we have every intention of being a dramatically more open Congress than what we saw in the last Congress.

But we appreciate the push from our friends. They should give us the push. Certainly, they know what it is like to close down debate because they did it for so many years.

Now I understand they are suggesting, as a substitute resolution, what they want instead is a prohibition on raises for Federal employees with delinquent tax debt.

It is very clear that the Federal civilian workforce is graded on an annual basis, and you can get five different kinds of rankings. These are dealt with in the promotion process, in all kinds of personnel actions, including exclusion and separation in cases of delinquency where Federal workers are not performing. So the idea that the Federal civil service has existed all of this time without the ability to have incentives and disincentives and sanctions for nonperformance is, of course, quite apart from reality.

I am amazed that my friends would be immodest enough to raise the question of taxes in their opposition to this legislation. The first problem, of course, is that they passed a $1.5 trillion tax cut for the wealthiest corporations and people in America--$1.5 trillion.

Mr. Speaker, a trillion dollars is a thousand billion dollars.

So they piled what it is going to be a $1.9 trillion addition to our national debt over the next decade, at least. The

Congressional Budget Office estimates that it adds at least $1.9 trillion to our debt, yet they come back and say that they don't want to give a 2.6 percent pay increase to our Federal workers, who were just furloughed or compelled to go to work with no pay for the last 35 days.

Prohibition on raises for Federal employees with delinquent tax debt, that is their attempt to distract everybody from the pay raise that America's Federal workforce needs.

What about the President of the United States? What about his taxes? Are they finally going to support release of President Trump's taxes, which is what the last four decades of Presidents, Republicans and Democrats alike, have done?

No. They maintain a demure and respectful silence towards the President on that one. They are not interested in the President releasing his taxes, but they want to use the fact that maybe there is a Federal worker who wasn't able to pay his or her taxes as justification for not giving America's Federal workforce a pay raise. That is quite remarkable to me, Mr. Speaker.

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

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

My friend from Georgia eloquently calls us back to bipartisanship, and I could not agree more. I would love nothing more than for him and for all of our colleagues across the aisle to join us in supporting the 2.6 percent pay raise for America's Federal workforce.

I almost feel as though, if we were to add the names of our distinguished colleagues on the other side to the bill, they might support it. So I would reopen that offer and restate that offer: We invite everybody to come on and to be cosponsors with us in giving America's Federal workforce a pay raise right now.

But we do have to think about this in bipartisan-nonpartisan terms.

It was the President of the United States who maligned the Federal workforce, apparently, from his perspective, by calling them Democrats, and there are two problems with that.

One, it is not true. I have got lots of Republicans who work as Federal employees. I have got lots of Independents who work as Federal employees, as well as Democrats, as well as Greens, as well as people who are not affiliated with any party at all and are probably sick of a lot of the partisanship that goes on here in Washington.

Think about what the real problem with the President deriding Federal workers as Democrats is. The real problem is that they are Americans. We are all Americans. We stand together as Americans. That is why we have got to stand behind our Federal workforce.

I want to just clear up one other thing that has been bugging me, because the gentleman from Georgia is so persuasive in his tactics, and he kind of mixed apples and oranges.

We are talking about a pay raise for the workforce, and he said: Well, maybe most of the workers deserve one, but there might be some who don't.

I just want to state generally what the procedure is for evaluating Federal workers. Federal agencies use formal performance-rating programs for almost all of their career employees, typically with five different levels. The ratings are used in deciding on promotions, merit pay increases, cash awards, or discipline.

In the most severe cases, low-performing employees can be disciplined and removed from their jobs.

Now, the gentleman, I am sure, has some ideas for how we can improve that system and make it better. By all means, let's discuss that, but let's not cloud the issue of the fact that our workers need a raise.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule.

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

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 790.

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

Mr. Chair, I am proud to be an original cosponsor of H.R. 790, the Federal Civilian Workforce Pay Raise Fairness Act of 2019, along with my fellow colleagues of the local delegation. I pay special thanks to Chairman Connolly and Majority Leader Hoyer for their leadership on this very important piece of legislation.

H.R. 790, as amended, would authorize a 2.6 percent pay raise for Federal civilian workers for 2019, the same raise that our military servicemembers are receiving this year.

Historically, Congress has tried to ensure parity in pay increases between Federal civilian employees and military servicemembers. This bill would continue this longstanding tradition.

The bill would provide the pay raise to Federal employees in the competitive and excepted services, blue-collar workers, members of the career Senior Executive Service, and employees in the scientific and senior-level positions.

The men and women of our civil service deserve this small increase in pay because they have endured so much during the last several years. They were subjected, Mr. Chair, to repeated and unrelenting attacks on their pay and on their benefits.

They have suffered through pay freezes, hiring freezes, higher pension costs, and furloughs due to sequestration and government shutdowns.

Since 2011, Federal workers have contributed nearly $200 billion to help reduce our country's deficit and to fund other government programs. These hardworking, dedicated Federal workers include the 800,000 employees who were furloughed or forced to work without pay for 35 days during the longest shutdown in our great Nation's history.

The men and women of our civil service were held hostage to a political dispute over funding for a border wall that the President had stated over and over again would be paid for by Mexico. There is something wrong with this picture.

They include members of the Coast Guard, TSA screeners, Department of Agriculture workers who help farmers and ranchers, FAA air traffic controllers and safety inspectors, FDA food inspectors, the FBI, EPA pollution inspectors, Border Patrol agents, and Secret Service agents.

Given all the hardship Federal employees have experienced, they deserve a modest pay increase to help make up for the years of freezes and negligible increases and to help offset the cost of inflation.

The pay increase also would help the Federal Government compete against the private sector to recruit and retain highly qualified candidates to serve the American people.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, let me be clear that there are many Federal workers who are suffering and who have suffered. The message that we send to them is that we care about them, and we know that they give their blood, sweat, and tears over and over again. That is one of the messages we send.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly), the chairman of our Subcommittee on Government Operations.

Mr. Chairman, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), our distinguished majority leader.

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

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

Let me make it clear, Mr. Chairman: this is not about a border wall. This is about building people and allowing them to sustain themselves.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Jeffries), who is the very distinguished leader of our caucus.

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

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

Let me say this, Mr. Chairman. Yesterday we had our organizational meeting, and I made it clear that the distinguished gentleman from North Carolina has been truly a person who has worked very hard in a bipartisan way trying to come up with commonsense resolutions. So in no way do I want the gentleman to feel as if that is not being recognized, and we appreciate it.

It is just that we have a lot of employees who aren't making those very high salaries. They are the ones who are living from paycheck to paycheck.

Mr. Chairman, one of the saddest parts is when they go from paycheck to paycheck it is almost like no check because when they look at their bills, the bills are so much higher than their net pay. All we are trying to do is make sure that they keep up with the cost of living.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Lynch), who is the distinguished chairman of our Subcommittee on National Security.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentleman from Massachusetts an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).

Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia an additional 1 minute.

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

Today we are zeroing in on Federal workers whose average pay is $60,000. We are zeroing in on folks who are, in many instances, barely making it.

I don't want us to get it twisted. We have a situation where a lot of times we discuss a whole lot of other things but don't necessarily concentrate on the subject matter at hand.

Yesterday, Mr. Chairman, in our committee, we had a lady who came in and told us that her daughter died. She died because she couldn't get $333 worth of insulin a month. That happened in America.

What is my point? These dollars mean a lot to these Federal employees.

I am not going to pit our military against our civilian employees. They are all very important. I want them all to be well paid. But right now, we need to concentrate on, again, building people and making a difference in their lives.

Speaking of building people, Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Virginia (Ms. Wexton), a cosponsor of this bill.

Mr. Chair, may I inquire how much time I have remaining.

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

Mr. Chair, I insert in the Record an article from The Washington Post that reports the Federal Salary Council, the official monitor of Federal pay, found that Federal workers make an average of 30 percent less than their private-sector counterparts.

[From the Washington Post, Nov. 14, 2018]

Federal Employee Salaries Lag by Average of 31 Percent, Pay Group

Reports

(By Eric Yoder)

Federal employee salaries on average lag behind those of

the private sector by almost 31 percent, an advisory council

said Tuesday, while splitting between union and non-union

members on whether to recommend potential changes in the way

it arrives at that figure.

The average salary difference of 30.91 percent reported by

the Federal Salary Council is somewhat smaller than the 31.86

percent it reported at a special meeting it held April. The

figures of prior years were in the 34 to 35 percent range.

Those figures, based on two Labor Department surveys

covering some 250 occupations, stand in contrast to

assessments of some conservative and libertarian

organizations that have concluded that the advantage is about

the same or even greater in favor of federal employees.

The Congressional Budget Office last year essentially split

the difference. It found an average advantage for federal

workers of 3 percent, although within that average it said

there is a wide range by educational level: from a 34 percent

advantage for federal workers with a high school education or

less to a 24 percent shortfall for those with a professional

degree or doctorate.

Under a federal pay law, the ``pay gap'' as measured by the

Salary Council is to be used in setting annual raises varying

by locality for federal employees under the General Schedule,

the pay system covering most white-collar employees below the

executive levels. However, that law never has been followed

due to the potential cost of paying such large raises and

disagreements over how the figure is calculated.

In an August message to Congress, President Trump said that

following the law's formula would result in locality-based

raises in January 2019 averaging 25.7 percent plus an across-

the-board raise of 2.1 percent, at a cost of $25 billion.

``Federal agency budgets cannot sustain such increases,''

Trump's said in backing a pay freeze that he originally

proposed in a budget plan early this year.

A House-Senate conference underway on a spending bill will

decide between a freeze and a Senate provision to pay an

average 1.9 percent raise. Unless Congress passes, and Trump

signs, a bill specifying a raise, salaries will be frozen by

default. If the raise is enacted, it would vary slightly

among 44 city areas and what is called the ``rest of the

U.S.'' locality everywhere else; employees working in the

Washington-Baltimore area would stand to receive one of the

larger raises, probably around 2.3 percent.

The long-running controversy over comparing salaries flared

at Tuesday's meeting of the Salary Council, a group of

federal employee unions and compensation experts whose

decisions typically are unanimous.

A ``working group'' document produced since the April

meeting laid out a series of potential changes for

consideration by a higher-level body called the President's

Pay Agent. Those options included adding more detailed data

on salaries by occupation and level of work, taking into

account other data such as attrition rates, switching to a

``total compensation'' approach taking benefits into account,

and conducting a very detailed review only once every four or

five years--the latter two of which would require a change in

law.

Council chairman Ron Sanders, a longtime career federal

personnel official who is now a clinical professor at the

University of South Florida School of Public Affairs, argued

in favor of exploring those options. ``I think it's obvious

to all of us that the current methodology is problematic,''

he said.

``That methodology does not tell the whole story,'' Sanders

said. ``It's nice to say there's a 30 percent gap. If OMB

[the Office of Management and Budget] doesn't believe it, the

White House doesn't believe it, the Congress doesn't believe

it, what good does it do?''

He pointed to the testimony of officials of federal

agencies from several urban and rural areas not now receiving

higher city-based locality pay, who told of their

difficulties in recruiting and retaining employees despite

using special hiring authorities and incentive payments.

However, the current process doesn't support specific salary

rates for them, he said.

Two other members supported exploring the options: Katja

Bullock, associate director of presidential personnel, and

Jill Nelson, who leads an advisory committee on pay for blue-

collar federal employees.

However, members from federal unions argued against

changing the calculations and questioned whether the group

even has the authority to raise new options for

consideration. ``I don't think the methodology is broken,''

said J. David Cox Sr., president of the American Federation

of Government Employees.

``The elephant in the room is the Congress and the

president over time not funding the

pay system'' as the law intended, said Randy L. Erwin,

president of the National Federation of Federal Employees.

Anthony M. Reardon, president of the National Treasury

Employees Union, expressed concern that including the value

of federal benefits ``will be used as a justification to

reduce those benefits.''

The council adjourned without voting on whether to

recommend that the Pay Agent consider different approaches.

Afterward, Sanders said that in the annual report to that

higher-level body to be made by year's end, individual

members of the Salary Council could express their own

opinions.

Mr. Chair, it is so important that we do everything in our power to support our Federal employees, and I want to thank Mr. Connolly and Mr. Hoyer. They have given their blood and their sweat and their tears for Federal employees: constantly standing up for them, trying to make sure that they are treated fairly and given their due.

Just today, I spoke to two people who were telling me about how Federal employees at NIH basically saved their lives--saved their lives. One told me that the person who saved their life was making about $65,000. This is a doctor. Come on now. And the other said it was about, maybe, $70,000 at best.

These are people who could have been doing other things, could have been making a lot of money, but they decided to give their efforts to a greater cause.

Their names will probably never appear on the front page--or any page--of The Washington Post. They won't be on ABC News. They will not have the mansion that they could have gotten, but they have done something that will have fed their souls. They have come to the job with passion, compassion, and the desire to make things better, and they are the ones who have determined that they want to put their fingerprints on the future of generations yet unborn.

Then there are the others, like the TSA workers--you know the ones-- earning $28,000 a year and coming to work, by the way, during the shutdown when they couldn't even afford the gas to get there. What about them?

So we can make example after example after example, but one thing is for sure, and that is that they are working hard and they deserve our utmost support.

Now, if any message is going to be sent today, I pray, Mr. Chair, that that message goes to our Federal employees that we care about them and that they are not unseen, unnoticed, unappreciated, and unapplauded. No.

I hope the message goes out that we are upholding them and we realize that it is just not about them. We realize, when they don't get their raise, their family doesn't get their raise. When they don't get their raise, maybe that little girl they wanted to send to ballet lessons can't get them. We get that.

Or maybe that little vacation that they wanted to take, they can't get that. They are not trying to get to Disney World. They are just trying to get to the nearest amusement park with some tuna fish and crackers.

Come on now. And that is what this is all about. We can talk about fences all we want.

Right now, we are talking about the building of people and making their lives the best that they can be. We only have one life to live. This is no dress rehearsal, and this is that life.

I applaud the gentleman from North Carolina. I know his heart is right, but right now, I want to concentrate on those folks, the ones like people who live on my block, who get up at 5 in the morning, catch the early bus to get to Social Security and places, and trying to serve the public. I am talking about them.

Mr. Chair, I pray and I ask the Members to vote in favor of this great legislation.

I thank Mr. Connolly, Mr. Hoyer, Ms. Wexton, and all of our cosponsors, and I thank the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Meadows).

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

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for his words on the importance of making sure that our Federal workforce is properly compensated. Indeed, this is an important subject.

Mr. Chairman, I guess my question here today is, fundamentally, if it is so important, then why haven't we had a hearing? Why haven't we had a markup? Why the rush to push this bill on the floor?

Not too long ago, my good friend from Maryland, the chairman of the committee, would be on this same floor arguing the same thing: Why are we not having a markup? Why are we not going through regular order?

Mr. Chairman, I remind this body that, less than 30 days ago, there was a vote on the House floor that said we are going to return to regular order; we

are going to make sure that every bill goes through the committee, has a markup, and actually has fair debate.

Yet, here we are, less than 30 days into this new Congress, and we are putting forth a messaging bill that, quite frankly, has not been vetted. The amendment process has not come out of the Committee on Oversight and Reform.

I will also say, and this is no laughing matter, I have been one of the few Members on our side of the aisle on this committee who has actively engaged in trying to make sure that our Federal workforce is not only compensated, but properly recognized.

Mr. Chairman, here is my problem. According to Federal workers, over 25 percent of them believe that raises do not happen based on merit, that everyone gets a raise. Indeed, this bill does that. It says, regardless of how you perform, we are going to give everybody the same increase.

Now, that same Federal workforce went even further. One-third of them said that we don't do enough to get rid of poor performers.

What message are we sending to the Federal workforce here today? We are rushing a bill that has not gone through committee. We have not provided meaningful amendments that are actually appropriate. We have a Federal workforce that says they don't get raises based on the merits of their work, on the hard work they put forth. Indeed, they are saying that a third of the employees are getting compensated regardless of their performances.

Now, when we look at that, what message does this body send to the Federal workforce? It says that it doesn't matter what kind of job you do. I think that is a terrible message to send.

I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, as we look at this bill--and I am sure we will debate the merits of this particular piece of legislation--we have the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Connolly, here, and the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Cummings, both Members who I respect greatly. Yet, this rush to put this messaging bill on the floor does nothing but damage the underlying support that many of us on both sides of the aisle have for the Federal workforce.

I strongly object to this particular measure. Let's slow it down. Let's go through the appropriate time to make sure that, indeed, we have a markup, that we have a bill.

The chairman knows full well that Federal workers, not only in and around Washington, D.C., but across the Nation, deserve our full attention, and this deserves a full debate.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Jordan), my good friend, the ranking member of the committee, and a champion for the American people.

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

I am glad the Chairman made this admonishment because some of the comments that were just offered actually seemed to be directed at me from a standpoint of respect. I would remind the gentleman from Maryland, both gentlemen from Maryland, that this is one of the individuals who has actually worked in a bipartisan fashion on TPS and a number of things. The majority leader knows that well.

I would also say if we are going to make broad-sweeping statements that impugn the motives of individuals, it needs to start with the previous President of the United States, Barack Obama, because he froze the Federal workforce at zero three different times.

I didn't hear the outrage on this floor, Mr. Chairman, that I am hearing today. It is somehow always one side of the aisle's fault, unless it happens to be their party's President that invokes the freeze.

So I would say, Mr. Chairman, we need to make sure that those broad- brush characterizations are not conveyed here on the House floor.

Mr. Chair, I respectfully yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

I appreciate the gentleman, but I want to make sure, Mr. Chairman, we correct the record because the gentleman is correct in 2009 and 2010. But we gave them raises in 2010. The Federal pay freezes were 2011, `12, and `13 when the same President was saying that everything was going fine. So I want to remind the gentleman that if we are going to look at history, then I think--to use the gentleman's words--let's not use revisionist history.

Mr. Chairman, I am going to direct it to you. The same gentleman who is making the argument here today was not on the House floor talking about how evil the President was and how he should not be doing that. So I just want to make sure we correct the record here today.

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Jordan).

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining.

Mr. Chairman, before I make some statements, I would notify the gentleman from Maryland, my good friend, Mr. Cummings, that I have no additional speakers on this particular topic, so I am prepared to close at any time he would like to do so.

Mr. Chairman, I will continue to reserve the balance of my time based on the speakers the gentleman might have.

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

We hear a lot of discussion today on what is reasonable and small amounts. In fact, the pay raise that they are talking about is about $5.5 billion a year or $55 billion over 10. Actually, CBO would probably score it higher than that, closer to $60 billion over 10 years. Yet this whole shutdown that we are talking about could have been solved with a compromise between zero and $5.7 billion for a wall.

So it was an extreme amount of money when we are talking about securing families, securing our borders, and protecting our communities. It was a price too high to pay. But now, all of a sudden, it is not too high of a price to pay because it is a small amount of money? I fail to see the logic, Mr. Chairman.

When we are looking at this, if we are really talking about compromises, where was the compromise over the last 35 days? There was zero money for a wall on day one. There was zero money for a wall on day 35. Yet, here today, we are talking about $5 billion or $6 billion as if it were pocket change.

I find that interesting, Mr. Chairman, because, as we look at this particular issue, my friends on the opposite side of the aisle would have the American people think that it is only the Republicans who are totally responsible for everything. Yet we know that history shows that, when there was a Democrat in the White House, indeed, there was a pay freeze 3 different years.

We also know that there were two votes during the economic and financial meltdown in 2008 and 2009 where they gave Federal workers a 3 percent increase while everybody else was out looking for a job. Now, where is the parity in that?

The last question I would have for you, Mr. Chairman, is this: Where is the parity, when we look at our military men and women's faces, when we start talking about 2.6, that they are getting the same amount? They are not getting the same amount. Talk to a chief master sergeant who has been on the job for 15 years. He is getting far less pay than the Federal worker who is getting this same increase when you have over 25 percent of the Federal workforce making over $100,000 a year.

We hear all these statistics that are low statistics, but let's at least be honest in our debate. When we look at what we have, if this is a small amount of money, I guess I would challenge my colleagues on the opposite side: Let's find a compromise on border security measures.

What amount of money is proper to save families from losing loved ones? I have looked in the faces of angel moms and angel dads, where they have lost their kids. Are we going to just turn our back on them as well?

Perhaps there is a spirit of compromise here where we can work together and find a compromise where there are no more shutdowns. Let's look at passing a bill that freezes congressional pay if there is a shutdown. I am all in. Are all the Democrats in? Let's look at it, Mr. Chairman.

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

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

Let me close by saying a sincere word of compliment to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly).

We have great differences on this piece of legislation, and, indeed, we represent very different districts. It has been said many times that you can disagree without being disagreeable, and I want t compliment the two gentlemen for their vigorous debate today yet where they didn't make personal attacks. I hope that, Mr. Chairman, they have seen the same from me, and I have high respect for both of them.

I also believe that, at times, where perhaps we deescalate the emotions--and I know this is a highly charged, emotional debate, as it should be--we can find common ground.

Mr. Chairman, I commit to the two gentlemen with whom I have had the privilege of working for the last 6 years that I will continue to work hard and with great resolve to find ways that we can not only recognize and compensate our Federal workers, but we can do so in a manner that is fair and equitable and certainly makes sure that the servants they are is recognized.

Mr. Chairman, I would also say that this particular piece of legislation, hopefully, will provide the fodder for us going back to the committee and going through a markup process to look at how we actually address this, where we actually have hearings and bring in experts, because, Mr. Chairman, we have had the majority leader of the Congress on this House floor citing one particular survey and we have had me here citing the CBO, and those two statistics are at odds. So I think it is important that we hear from real experts and figure out how we do this.

The time is now for us to find a way to work in a bipartisan manner to truly move this country forward. The Federal workforce is an important part of that.

I believe this particular piece of legislation sends a bad message to those Federal workers who believe that pay raises are not based on merit, that they don't identify the poor performers. We have to address that as well, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I urge rejection of this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment suffers some of the same defects as the underlying bill.

Mr. Chairman, while there are numerous dedicated civil servants in all parts of the Federal Government, offering an additional across-the- board pay raise is simply not good policy. It rewards the bad along with the good.

The United States Secret Service is made up of many brave men and women, very honorable men and women. However, in 2015, the bipartisan report issued jointly by then-Chairman Chaffetz and the new chairman of Oversight and Reform, then-Ranking Member Cummings of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, detailed significant personnel problems. The report describes ``an extraordinarily inefficient hiring process which overburdens the USSS with low-quality applications.''

So the men and women of the uniformed division render critical services to our government. Many of them are friends. And, truly, as we see their dedication, they have to sacrifice so much. Whether it is at the Vice President's residence or whether it is on the complex just a few blocks from here, there is no margin for failure with respect to their protective mission, and I acknowledge that.

However, an across-the-board pay increase does exactly that. It rewards the good along with the bad. That is why we have to have, indeed, a merit-based system that truly recognizes the great performers--the vast majority of whom are great performance--but does not recognize and reward those who are not doing it. We need to do that. And for that reason, I would reject this particular amendment and ask my colleagues to oppose it.

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

Mr. Chairman, to rehash all the reasons, both good and bad, I am willing to work in a bipartisan way with the chairman of both the committee and the subcommittee to try to find ways to address this issue. This amendment does not do that.

Mr. Chairman, I urge a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, I am going to keep my remarks brief as we have got a number of different amendments going through.

I acknowledge the gentlewoman's tenacity and her willingness to offer this. I would point out, Mr. Chairman, though, this particular across- the-board pay raise, it really shouldn't apply to the very individuals that she is talking about because they have flexibility already. We know that. I mean, they get different pay raises.

That is not to undermine the wonderful work that they do. I have been privileged to be able to talk to NASA folks from here in Washington, DC, to her home district in the great State of Texas and across this country. Remarkably, they are one of the best run agencies--and I say that under the previous NASA Administrator and under the current NASA Administrator.

So it is not to not acknowledge their good work, but the whole premise of being able to give them a bump, there is already great pushback among some Federal workers about the flexibility of those individuals and the way that they get their pay raises. There are claims of unfairness. So I think that this sends a wrong message.

Mr. Chair, I urge the rejection of this particular amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I would highlight one thing.

We are going through all these amendments that are clarifying and technical amendments and all of that. That could have all been avoided if we had just had a hearing and had a markup and we had gone through it, and yet here we are today on the House floor trying to make amendments to a bill that, candidly, is missing the mark.

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Jordan).

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Jordan).

Mr. Chairman, I can tell you that when we look at sending a message, this sends entirely the wrong message. We need to make sure that we reward Federal workers, but we also hold them accountable. I urge rejection of this particular amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland for yielding. I would like to pick up where my friend from Maryland left off. They don't deserve to be deified, but they don't deserve to be demonized either. That doesn't just apply to our Federal workforce. That applies to so many elements of our conversation today.

I hope you have a chance, Mr. Speaker, to go watch the Rules Committee debate last night on this rule. You might have thought that, with a simple two-page resolution such as this one, we might have been up and out in about 10 minutes, making three amendments in order.

But, no, we spent the better part of almost 3 hours there talking with the committee experts on the issue, Mr. Connolly from Virginia and Mr. Meadows from North Carolina. You would be affected by the amount of agreement that those two gentlemen had.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I don't want to say you would be surprised, because you might know those two gentlemen as I do, you might know this issue as I do, and you might know its bipartisan roots and its bipartisan future as I do.

But if you don't watch that hearing, if you don't know the issue, if all you do is see a bill that was dropped in the hopper just a couple of days ago, has had no markup in committee, has had no hearings, has had no witnesses, and has had no dialogue whatsoever on it, but happened to be dropped in the middle of the week where some of the more cynical among us expected us to still be in a government shutdown before the President brought us out of it, this might just look like a messaging statement to folks who view it through that lens.

It is so frustrating and disappointing to me because this is an issue on which we agree. My friend from Oklahoma, an appropriator, happens to be the ranking member up on the Rules Committee. In testimony last night, we are talking about not an insignificant amount of money in this bill; we are talking about not millions with an M, we are talking about billions with a B of dollars going out the door.

The question is: Where do the dollars come from?

The answer is: They are just going to come from other accounts these agencies already have.

I don't know what other account that is, and I think that is worth having a conversation about.

If you read through this language, Mr. Speaker, you will see no effort whatsoever to do what every single one of us knows needs to be done, and that is to find those Federal employees who make us proud at agencies every single day, reward that service, protect that service, encourage that service, and make sure retention plans are in place for those employees. There is not a line in here to target those high performers.

Equally, look through this legislation, Mr. Speaker, to find those folks whom I know--because I hear it from my veterans in my district every day, and I hear it from the leadership in the VA every day--find those folks who just do not want to show up and serve. Somehow they got involved in Federal service. They are the exception, not the rule. They bring their colleagues in Federal service down instead of lifting them up. They bring the folks they are intended to serve down instead of lifting them up. There is no effort to identify those folks and no effort to reward the high performers while trying to train up the low performers. In true government fashion, it says that the definition of success is to treat absolutely everybody the same.

Mr. Speaker, there is no one else doing this work other than us. The problem in the civil service system isn't that we protect employees. That is laud worthy. That is a laudable goal. What the problem is in civil service is we are the only ones who do the oversight. There is no other board of directors. It is us.

Yet we bring a bill to the floor that we claim raises our Federal employees up and praises our Federal employees. We didn't even give it the dignity of a hearing or a markup. We can do better

than that, and candidly, I think we will.

We will never know what would have happened had we not gotten started on the foot we got started on in January as we did. I particularly regret that for our freshmen who are trying to figure out what the tone and tenor is of this place. This isn't it. Apparently, Republicans got us in bad habits in the last session of just dropping bills in the hopper and bringing them to the floor the next day, no hearings, no markup. It was wrong then, and it is not wise now either.

We have a lot of choices to make going forward, Mr. Speaker.

Are we poisoning the well, or are we protecting it?

Are we tilling the fields, or are we spreading salt in them?

We don't need to deify our ideological opponents, but we don't need to demonize them either. There is more that unites this country than divides this country, Mr. Speaker. Our Federal employees do deserve our trust, our appreciation, and, yes, a paycheck at the end of the week for the work they have done on our behalf.

They also deserve a way to be recognized when they go above and beyond. They also deserve to know that folks on their team who are not up to the task today are either going to be trained up or moved out.

We can do those things together. For reasons that are not clear to me, we have not chosen to try. This could have been a bipartisan effort. This could have been part of a larger package, and it wasn't. I regret that.

I will tell my friend from Maryland I did not bring any additional speakers with me who would have shared that very same message, so when he is prepared to close as am I.

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

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

I am always affected by the words of the gentlewoman from Texas, but my answer is clear: No, everybody doesn't

deserve a pay raise all the time; it is true on my staff, it is true in my life, it is true in every private-sector company in the country, and it is true in the Federal Government too.

Now we won't be able to have that conversation because there was no hearing on this bill. We won't be able to improve that circumstance because this bill doesn't try to expand itself to that scope.

We are in a new age. I won't be able to close this debate, Mr. Speaker. My friend from Maryland will be able to close as is the privilege of the majority.

The other privilege of the majority is titling the bills as they are coming to the floor. This is the Federal Civilian Workforce Pay Raise Fairness Act, and the definition of fairness in this case is that civilian workers be treated the same as military workers as it relates to a cost-of-living increase. That is worthy of debate.

I know many of my friends who represent the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area that have so many civilian Federal workers believe in that equity issue deeply and passionately and have worked to protect it over a long number of years. In the State of Georgia, we have many DOD employees, folks whose tempo changes regularly, folks who are called on with increasing frequency, folks who ask: Where shall I go when you send me?

That is qualitatively different service.

Should it be treated differently? Again, this is not the right place for that conversation. This is a debate on a rule about whether or not we will bring up a bill that the folks on the other side of the aisle absolutely have the votes to pass if they want to pass it.

In fact, it is language in the bill that we could absolutely move in a bipartisan way if we had it in the conversations. It is language that could have absolutely been part of the negotiations to end the government shutdown since this was a decision that the President made back in December of last year not to institute the 2.1. If folks had gone to the negotiating table, if folks had negotiated in good faith, if folks had said that this is what we need, and this is what we think is important, then we could have solved this long before now.

But this bill was dropped just days ago, again, with no hearing and no markups, and here it is before us.

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

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I intend to bring up a very simple amendment that would address just one of the questions that we would have addressed if we considered this issue important enough to have the committee of jurisdiction actually gather and hold a hearing on it; and that is the question of those who are delinquent in their taxes: those folks who have an outstanding tax bill, who have not tried to enter into a negotiated settlement, those who are not in a payment plan, but those who simply are not paying their Federal taxes, that they not be a part of this pay increase.

My constituents work hard every day of the week. They expect us to be doing the oversight. They expect us to be doing performance reviews. They expect us to be looking at who is showing up and who is going the extra mile, rewarding those folks who are going the extra mile, training those folks up who are not, and not rewarding those folks who are falling well below the standards that each and every one of us expect as taxpayers and, candidly, even more so, each and every Federal employee expects of his or her colleagues.

I want good work to be recognized with good pay, Mr. Speaker, but what would be better than this bill is a comprehensive plan from the Committee on Oversight and Reform to reform the civil service system so that that is not an aspirational goal but an absolute certainty that the American people can count on.

The best thing we can do to respect our fellow employees, Mr. Speaker, is not to have a messaging bill come to the House of Representatives. The best thing we can do for our Federal employees is to make sure that the reputation that travels across the land is not one of underperformance but is one of overperformance.

We are the only ones who can deal with the issues of bad apples spoiling an entire barrel. We are the only ones who can do it. We owe it to every agency in this land to be their partner in getting that done. By defeating the previous question and including this amendment, we will take a small step in that direction.

Mr. Speaker, unless my friend is prepared to close, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, you have the benefit of being there in the chair where I used to get to stand from time to time to preside over these proceedings, and you know that feeling. You may be a partisan on the weekends when you are at a Democratic rally, but when you stand in that chair, you don't stand there as a Democrat. I didn't stand there as a Republican. You stand there as the representative of the entire U.S. House of Representatives to make sure we have a full, fair, and free debate. In fact, you have got a wonderful team there in the Parliamentarian's and the Clerk's Office to make sure that all goes unaffected from one leadership to the next.

In fact, we go back hundreds of years in terms of trying to honor the precedence and the practices that this Chamber has brought together. We do that because, when you govern this institution with that mantra of fair play, we get better results in the end: we spend less time arguing about the process; we spend more time working together on progress; and we get to where it is each and every one of our constituents wants us to go.

My friend from Maryland and I, we are in a tough trap here in January. Of all the things I thought we would be talking about down here as it affects a Federal employee pay increase, the President's conversations about his tax forms in a campaign 3 years ago wasn't one of them.

But somehow, because of the nature of discourse today, if you have a sharp stick with the President's name on it, you just kind of have to work that in whenever the debate gives you an opportunity. It never once brings us closer to solutions, but it apparently makes folks feel better from time to time, makes their constituents feel better from time to time.

We are going to have to ask ourselves sometime soon: Did we get elected to make a point or did we get elected to make a difference? I know what that answer is for me, and I want this, Mr. Speaker, to go down as a missed opportunity.

This could have been a bill that we spent our time on the floor talking through together, as Mr. Connolly and Mr. Meadows did just last night in the Rules Committee as representatives of the committee of jurisdiction on this issue, of all the things we have in common from coast to coast, from north to south, as it relates to honoring our Federal workforce and improving our Federal workforce.

And, for whatever reason, the leadership decision was made that we wouldn't do this in a partnership way, we wouldn't do this in a bipartisan way, we wouldn't do this in a full-throated legislative process way, but we would just craft this bill, drop it on the floor, and force a vote.

We can miss a couple of opportunities, Mr. Speaker, to come together. We have already missed a few in January. We can miss a few more. But I know my friend from Maryland shares my concern.

There is going to come a time--and it happened to Republicans, too-- where you miss one too many opportunities to work together and you poison that partnership well for weeks or months or, in worst case scenarios, even years to come.

America can't afford that, Mr. Speaker, and each and every one of us is better than that. We haven't found our stride yet. If we defeat this rule today, perhaps that will be a step in finding our stride. If we defeat the previous question and consider my amendment, that might be a step in finding our stride. Even in the absence of those eventualities, we still must commit ourselves to one another to find that stride moving forward.

It is to the disadvantage of every Federal employee in the Nation to make this conversation about the importance of the work they do look like an ``us'' against ``them.'' When it comes to folks who wear a flag on their shoulder, when it comes to folks who show up in service of their fellow man, there is no ``us'' and ``them''; there is just an ``us.'' Any opportunity we use to either distort that understanding or fail to recognize that understanding does violence to us all.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend, the distinguished new chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform. I am so proud to call him that.

Mr. Chairman, let me just say, I heard the arguments from my friend from North Carolina, and I know he does care about the Federal employees, but his arguments ring hollow when you support a 35-day shutdown of the Federal Government.

If you believe in regular order, then you never shu down the Federal Government, nor do you advise the President of the United States to shut down the Federal Government, nor do you use shutdowns as a tool to get some policy goal achieved.

That is never acceptable. It shouldn't be acceptable to Washington. It is not acceptable to the American people. It certainly is not acceptable to the 800,000 Federal employees and an equal number of Federal contract employees and small business owners who were affected negatively by this shutdown.

So it is hard to listen to a lecture about regular order in the midst of that wreckage.

That is what we are trying to do here. It is not a messaging bill to embarrass anybody. It is a bill to try to begin to restore the integrity of respect and dignity to the men and women who serve this country. They are called Federal employees. They were innocent victims of political games, as if they were pawns, Mr. Chairman, for a wall. We are just trying to begin the process of making them whole again.

I thank the majority leader, Mr. Hoyer, for bringing this bill to the floor. The bill would end the current freeze for Federal employees, recommended by President Trump, and provide hardworking civil servants with a 2.6 percent pay increase, matching that for military employees.

On the heels of this largest government shutdown in U.S. history, and the longest, I believe it is appropriate for the House of Representatives to take up this legislation to make a statement in the people's body that we do respect the work of our civil servants and our Federal employees and that we are prepared to provide concrete measures to do that.

During the shutdown, some of these individuals reported to work without knowing when, or if, they would receive their next paycheck, while others were willing to work, but were told they couldn't.

Even though the Federal Government has reopened, most Federal employees are still waiting to receive that first paycheck. Under statute, Federal employees should have received a 2.1 percent pay increase for 2019. Instead, the recommendation from the White House was zero.

This bill represents a pay increase for Federal employees above that statutory level equal to an additional 0.5 percent over and above the statutory level that would have otherwise been provided.

While the House of Representatives passed appropriations bills that included a 1.9 percent pay increase for Federal employees, the continuing resolution agreed to by the House and Senate did not reverse the President's pay freeze. This bill would.

Historically, Congress has tried to ensure parity in pay between Federal civilian employees and military servicemembers. This bill would continue the tradition of pay parity for which I have advocated since I came to Congress 10 years ago.

A Federal employee pay increase of 2.6 percent is, in my view, further justified, as the distinguished chairman of the committee pointed out, by the hardships just suffered and those suffered over the last 10 years: three pay freezes, hiring freezes, compensation cuts, and benefit cuts. Federal employees are the only group on the planet that actually has contributed nearly $200 billion to deficit reduction.

In 9 of the last 10 years, Congress has failed to enact an increase in basic pay consistent with the statute. Not true on the military side. That is why we are trying to have pay parity.

In 8 of the last 10 years, basic pay increases trailed increases in the cost of living itself.

I will point out that the legislation in front of us has been endorsed by the American Federation of Government Employees; the National Treasury Employees Union; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers; the Senior Executives Association; the Federal Managers Association; and the Professional Managers Association.

Mr. Chairman, I include in the Record letters of support from these groups.

American Federation of

Government Employees, AFL-CIO,

January 29, 2019.

Dear Representative: On behalf of the American Federation

of Government Employees, AFL-CIO (AFGE), which represents

more than 700,000 federal and District of Columbia government

employees within 70 agencies, I write urging you to support

H.R. 790, the Federal Civilian Workforce Pay Raise Fairness

Act of 2019, introduced by Representative Connolly (D-VA),

when it comes to the floor this week. This legislation

provides federal workers with a FY 2019 pay adjustment of 2.6

percent. This modest adjustment would allow federal employees

to make up some of the purchasing power they lost over the

last decade and restore the long tradition of parity in the

rate of adjustment for civilian and military employees of the

United States government.

January 25, 2019 marked the end of our nation's longest

government shutdown, and federal employees have been without

a paycheck since December 21st. As a result of the funding

lapse, many federal employees have fallen behind on their

monthly bills and are experiencing serious financial

hardship. Although some federal employees make more, among

AFGE's own membership, the average take home pay is just $500

per week after they pay their taxes, health insurance

premiums, and mandatory retirement contributions. Many

federal employees were struggling to make ends meet before

the shutdown, and H.R. 790 would not only help agencies

recruit new employees, and retain a workforce battered by the

shutdown, compensation cuts enacted in the wake of the 2008

financial crisis, it would also demonstrate that the Congress

values the federal workforce's dedication and commitment to

serving the American public.

For decades, Congress supported pay adjustment parity

between federal and military employees. The civilian

workforce not only works alongside the warfighters to keep

our nation safe, they are also public servants who have

dedicated their lives to providing the American public with

invaluable benefits services. Federal employees work across

the country securing our borders, keeping travelers safe,

providing benefits to the elderly and disabled, caring for

our veterans, and keeping our air and water safe and clean.

Unfortunately, in recent years pay adjustment parity has not

been upheld and federal civilian salaries have continued to

lag standards set by private employers. H.R. 790 would help

narrow this gap.

As you work to pass legislation to fund the remaining seven

appropriations bills, AFGE urges you to support H.R. 790 when

it comes to the floor this week, and we strongly urge you to

support inclusion of a 2.6 percent federal employee pay

adjustment in the final funding measure for FY 2019.

Sincerely,

J. David Cox, Sr.,

National President.

The bottom line, Mr. Chairman, is that our Federal civil servants are like any other workforce. More than 900,000 of those Federal employees earn less than $60,000 a year. They are not rich. They are not living high on the hog. They deserve and need this adjustment, especially after the longest, most reckless shutdown of the government in American history.

Mr. Chairman, I thank my good friend from Maryland for his leadership on this amendment, which I support.

The Secret Service do put themselves on the line, and the studies my friend from North Carolina cited had to do with bad management and bad working conditions that really affect morale and productivity at the Secret Service. The gentleman's amendment is designed to try to help that situation.

The idea that an across-the-board cost of living increase doesn't distinguish between productivity and nonproductivity, performance or nonperformance, would also apply to the military.

My friend has no objection to an across-the-board increase for the military, but apparently on the civilian side, that is different. We are making the opposite argument. We are making the argument that pay parity is the right thing to do, especially after this reckless shutdown.

Mr. Chairman, I congratulate my friend from Maryland on his amendment, and I support it.

Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend from Massachusetts, and I congratulate her on this amendment.

I can't believe that the distinguished ranking member of our committee would continue to engage in conspiracy theories that have been, in fact, disproved and, worse, would actually paint the entire 41,000 or more workforce of the IRS with one brush. They are all, apparently, out to get us.

You would never know these are hardworking public servants who serve their country nobly and often under very difficult circumstances, because they are hardly the most popular agency in town.

Of course they deserve a pay raise. They were affected by the shutdown. Many of them were called back by the Trump administration to come back without pay because certain industries needed paper being processed. They did it because they are noble public servants and they are patriots, as the distinguished chairman of our committee indicated.

So instead of slandering public servants, we want to honor them.

You are right. We are proud of this amendment, and it is anything but the most ridiculous to come to the floor. It is a very important amendment. I support it.