A joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval of the proposed export to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland of certain defense articles and services.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order of the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, the arms industry is a unique industry. It is not like making shoes or apparel. It is not like selling watches. You are selling things that, when used properly, kill other people. They are deadly weapons that we have. We have accumulated the technology by the taxpayer paying for this. We have helicopters, planes, guided missiles, and we are able to refuel planes.

It is not a jobs program, and it is not something that--we don't willy-nilly give weapons to everyone. We don't sell weapons to Russia and we don't sell weapons to China because we have disagreements, and we don't think it would be in our best interest to sell weapons to them.

We also don't sell weapons, typically, to people we think are untrustworthy. I think there is every evidence that Saudi Arabia can be put in that category. When you have direct evidence and when our own intelligence community has concluded that there is high confidence that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia butchered a dissident with a bone saw in a consulate in a foreign country, you would think that would give us pause as to giving Saudi Arabia or selling Saudi Arabia more weapons.

But it is worse than that. We are not only selling Saudi Arabia offensive weapons, we are also talking about giving them nuclear technology. The nuclear technology, they say, is only for energy, but you have to wonder. A country that sits atop one of the largest oil reserves in the world is now saying ``Oh, we don't have enough fossil fuel. We need nuclear power''? There have been people who have gotten nuclear technology and then have moved on to nuclear weapons.

What could possibly be the worst thing to happen to the Middle East? It would be to have three powers there with nuclear weapons. We had Iran before. They now have the knowledge to enrich. They made an agreement not to enrich. They are still threatening to enrich uranium. What do you think will happen if Saudi Arabia gets nuclear technology and there is any rumor of their progressing on towards developing nuclear weapons? What will Iran do? Automatically, they will do the same thing.

It also happens in the conventional weapons arena. So every time we sell or give missiles to Saudi Arabia, what do you think Iran does? They have to either buy more or make more. It is an arms race. We are feeding both sides of an arms race.

But you will hear people in Washington say: But Iran--they are a malign influence. Well, yeah. So is Saudi Arabia. But what do we do when we have two powers that show tendencies toward evil and show tendencies toward acting in ways that are against our national interest? Do we just blindly give weapons to anybody who is opposed to Iran because Iran is a malign influence? Well, what about Saudi Arabia? They have spent $100 billion spreading this radical jihadism to other cultures; $100 billion around the world preaching hatred of Christians, hatred of Jews, hatred of Hindus. Yet we give them more weapons.

There is a madrasa supported by Saudi Arabia--that is a so-called religious school in Pakistan--and 80 percent of the boys who graduate from the school--because, of course, girls aren't allowed to go to school under this kind of religion--80 percent of the boys who graduate from the school fight in the Taliban against the United States. Why would we give weapons to a country that teaches hatred of our country and actually trains fighters to fight against our soldiers? What person in what insane world thinks it is a good idea to fund people who fundamentally don't like us? Why in the world do we keep doing this?

Last week, we voted on sending weapons to Qatar. Do you know who Qatar supplies weapons with? Hamas. I thought we were allies with Israel. But we fund Qatar, which sends missiles and weapons to Hamas, who then bombs Israel. Qatar also hosts fundraisers for ISIS. Remember ISIS--the ones chopping people's heads off? Why would we give weapons to countries that give weapons to our enemies?

In the Syrian civil war, we went in on the side of those who were opposed to Assad. Now, Assad is no saint, no Democrat, no Jeffersonian Democrat, no believer in freedom; yet the people on the other side-- most of them hate Israel. Most of them despise any rights for women. Most of them--many of them are allied with al-Qaida. Who is al-Qaida? The people who attacked us on 9/11. Al-Nusra, al-Qaida, ISIS--who do they get weapons from? Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Even Hillary Clinton admitted this in one of the emails that were released. Hillary Clinton was talking to John Podesta by email, and she said: We have to do something about this. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are arming and providing logistical help to ISIS.

So why does it go on? Some would say: Because people make a big profit on this. This is a jobs program for the arms industry, and we have to make sure they make their profit.

I disagree. This is an industry that uniquely has to do with our national interests. It is uniquely paid for by the taxpayer. These weapons are owned by the taxpayer, and we should not sell them to people who are not our friends.

This is what the debate is about today. We will vote shortly on whether or not we should sell offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia.

What are they doing with the weapons? Well, they are bombing civilians in Yemen, for one. They are transferring some of the weapons in Yemen to al-Qaida. Al-Qaida and the larger umbrella group that attacked us on 9/11 are active. They are called AQAP in Yemen. There are news reports in the last week that Saudi Arabia is indiscriminantly giving arms to anybody who is opposed to the group they are fighting against, the Houthis.

Who supports the Houthis? The Iranians.

Is one side better than the other?

Are we so blind to the malign influence of Saudi Arabia that we give money and weapons to anybody regardless of what they do? You can chop up a dissident. You can cut a dissident up to pieces with a bone saw, and we will still give you weapons?

My goodness, I can't imagine. I do not think that people in this body who will continue to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia are listening to the people at home. I guarantee, if we asked the people at home, if we had a national poll and everybody got to give their opinion, how many people at home do you think are saying: Oh, well, they just chopped up a dissident--no big deal. Let's just keep sending them weapons. Oh, well, they are giving weapons to Hamas. Yes, you know, we don't really care. Or, well, they are bombing civilians.

The Saudis killed 150 people at a funeral procession--people marching at a funeral procession. They knew it was a funeral procession. This was no fog of war, no mistake. This was an intentional act to kill people at a funeral procession. There were 150 people killed and 450 wounded. About 1 year ago, they killed 40 schoolchildren on a schoolbus.

They are indiscriminately bombing civilians, and they are blockading Yemen, which is one of the poorest countries on the planet. Millions of people--some estimate between 14 and 17 million people--live on the edge of starvation because of this war. The Saudis are preventing food from coming in. They have blockaded Hodeida, which is one of the key ports where food needs to come in. Yemen imports 80 percent of their food. The Saudis are blockading them and people are starving, and we are allied with Saudis. We supply them with bombs that they drop on civilians and until the last few months we were refueling the very planes that were dropping the bombs.

People talk sometimes about, you know, a dream of peace in the Middle East. If you want to have a peace plan in the Middle East, people say: Well, it is Israel and Palestine who have to come to a peace agreement.

Do you know what the bigger problem is--an even bigger problem than that conundrum--which is a conundrum? It is figuring out how to have peace between Saudi Arabia and their allies and Iran. Everything around here is Iran, Iran, Iran, Iran. Do you know who spends the third-most amount of money on the military in the world? Saudi Arabia. First, it is the United States. We spend more than the next 10 countries combined. We spend more than all the rest of NATO combined, for that matter. Then, a distant second is China, and, then, there is Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia spends more on their military than Russia and more than most of our NATO allies. Yet people say: Oh, we have to give them more arms because Iran is a bad actor. What if they are both bad actors?

Currently, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf sheikdoms around them spend 8 times more than Iran. I am not saying Iran is a great place or that the government is great. What I am saying is, when you have two bad actors, when you have two malign influences, do you think we always have to choose the lesser of two evils? Do we have to always look askance and say: Oh, whatever--you know, as long as we are doing something that is opposed to Iran.

One of our other so-called allies over there is Bahrain. We have a naval base there, and we say: It is important to have a naval base, and we have to look the other way. They have 4,000 political prisoners. Saudi Arabia actually imprisons people for political reasons, and they don't just kill them. They behead them and crucify them--I think, in that order. They put the bodies out for public display.

They executed a guy named Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, who was of a minority religion. The Saudis are Sunnis. This guy was a Shia religious person and spokesman. He was executed. His nephew is being held in prison and has been for several years now. He was 17 when he was arrested. His crime was sending a text message to encourage people to protest against the authoritarian regime of Saudi Arabia.

I think the problem is that some people come to the conclusion that arms are always good and we should never do anything to condition the sale of arms to behavior. Well, I am not for sending more arms there, period, because it is a cauldron always threatening to boil over.

Let's say you were someone who would say: Oh, no, we have to arm them. Perhaps we should condition arms on good behavior. Perhaps, if you are cutting up a dissident with a bone saw in a foreign country, maybe we should stop arms for a while to see if maybe you can get better people in the government or maybe to see if your ways will change.

Saudi Arabia said: Oh, we are doing it differently now. We are not going to fund radical jihadism around the world.

But they spent $100 billion infecting the world with the ideas of hatred of the West, hatred of Christians, hatred of Jews, and hatred of Hindus. There used to be a couple hundred of these schools in Pakistan. There is now said to be 20,000 schools in Pakistan. The Saudis support schools not just in Pakistan but throughout the world--in Indonesia and India and all over the Middle East. They support these schools that teach intolerance and hatred of the West. Yet we are one of their biggest arms suppliers. It makes utterly no sense, and it should be reconsidered.

We will have a chance to vote today, and the numbers are growing. When I first introduced a resolution to disapprove of arm sales to Saudi Arabia, I think I got 22 votes. We did it again a couple of months later, and I think we got in the forties. I think there is a chance today that we will get close to 60 votes.

We will have to get to 67 to overcome a Presidential veto. Look, I am a big fan of the President on many fronts, but on this someone has to stand up, even a Member of his own party and say: Arms sales are not jobs programs, and they should be conditioned on behavior, and we should not sell arms to countries that hate us.

As for these countries that burn our flag and chant ``Death to America,'' we shouldn't be arming them.

At one point in time, there were reports about ISIS. Remember the people who were beheading people in the desert over the last couple of years and spreading throughout the region? There were reports that they have $1 billion worth of Humvees. Some of them were captured, but some came because of indiscriminate arms. There are arms everywhere.

So when we had the Syrian civil war going on, all throughout the news media--public, private, everywhere--everyone was saying that Saudi Arabia and Qatar were giving arms to anybody, indiscriminantly giving arms to people. One of the groups that got arms and one of the groups that got anti-tank weapons--these are shoulder-launched missiles--said in a news report right after they got them: When we are done with Assad--they didn't talk about ISIS, and most of them didn't care about ISIS because they actually kind of agree with ISIS's religion--we are going after Israel next.

So we are arming people who are potential if not real enemies of Israel. We are arming people who are teaching hatred of the West, hatred of Christians, hatred of Hindus, and hatred of Jews. We are arming these people. Why are we doing that?

Let's say you don't agree with everything I have said, and you say: Well, maybe we should get them to behave better. Why don't you withhold arms for 6 months at the least?

Why don't we just stop for a while?

They have enough arms to blow up the Middle East 10 times over. Is there just no stopping? Is there no limitation to what we will do? Do we not believe that any of our arms sales should be conditioned on behavior?

This is a big deal and a big vote, and it is my hope that the American people will watch how people vote and decide: Is this who I want representing me? Do I want someone representing me who is selling arms to people who hate our country, who spend hundreds of billions of dollars on schools teaching hatred of our country? Do I want to have people representing me who continue to flood the Middle East with arms?

That is what this vote is about, and I hope the American public will pay attention to how people vote today and to which direction they want the country to go in.

We have had enough war. This is something I agree with the President on. We have had enough war. We have

been at war too long in too many places.

We have been 19 years in Afghanistan, and to what end? I was for the initial purpose of getting those who attacked us on 9/11. I would have voted to go. But after 19 years, it is nation-building. We are spending $50 billion a year. We build roads, and they blow them up. We build schools, and they blow them up.

We have roads and schools crumbling in our country. We don't have an extra $50 billion to spend in Afghanistan. We are $1 trillion short this year. We are going to spend $4 trillion, and we are bringing in $1 trillion--not great economics, not great budget balancing on our part.

No. 1, we cannot afford to try to be everywhere all the time, and, No. 2, the money we are spending overseas is counterproductive.

We went into Iraq and toppled a dictator. What did we get? Chaos. In the chaos we get ISIS and other groups forming.

We went into Libya and toppled the dictator in Libya. What did we get? Chaos. It is so confusing in Libya that I am not even sure which side the U.S. Government is supporting. They were supporting the U.N.- sanctioned government and now they appear to be supporting military generals who are trying to overthrow that government.

One thing is for sure: The country of Qatar that we voted to send arms to last week is supporting the side opposite us. So we give arms to people who are directly involved in a civil war where we are involved on the other side of the civil war. To me, it seems utterly preposterous that we keep doing that. There is Qatar's support for the other side in Libya and their support for Hamas. They are letting ISIS and al-Qaida do fundraising in their country.

Maybe we need to take a break from the arms race in the Middle East.

I don't think that someone can make a practical or reasonable argument that there has been more peace since we sent more weapons over there. They have plenty of weapons to kill each other for another thousand years. They have been killing each other for 1,000 years. They have enough weapons to kill each other for another 1,000 years.

Maybe we don't need to be involved in every civil war in the world. Maybe we can't afford it, and maybe when we have gotten involved, we had the unintended consequences of actually making it worse.

People have this idea that when you topple a dictator, somehow the next person they elect is going to be Thomas Jefferson. Well, guess what. Every time we have toppled a dictator, the people they end up electing are not Thomas Jefferson. Sometimes in the elections we don't like whom they elected in the elections and people go back and topple them again.

So when Egypt actually had an election, they elected somebody from the Muslim Brotherhood. Many in the Middle East and many in our country didn't want him. So we helped to get rid of him, and now we have a military rule with no elections and with the idea that you can be detained without trial. People say: Well, it is stable. It is another military autocracy, but we are going to put up with it.

We need to rethink our approach to the Middle East. We need to rethink the approach that we need to arm one or both sides in every war. We need to think whether regime change is a good idea, and we need to look at the practical effects of our foreign policy and say: Are we safer somehow?

I think one universal truth is that we are usually poorer by the time we are done, because what we end up doing is spending good money after bad.

I will give you a couple of examples in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan we spent $90 million in a luxury hotel in downtown Kabul. You say: How does that $90 million hotel protect us? Well, it doesn't, but it is money. Money runs through all this. Somebody is getting rich, but not the American taxpayer.

The guy who built it, I think, was a Jordanian national, but he built a shell of a hotel. He took the $90 million. He got all the payment, and it was never built. It mostly doesn't have walls, and none of it was completed. It is now a danger because it sits up across from our embassy and snipers crawl up in the building.

So the thing is that we asked for $90 million, and we need more now because, apparently, we now need to tear it down because it is a danger to our embassy and our soldiers.

So if we could just get $200,000 more, they are going to spend another couple hundred thousand dollars tearing down a hotel that we asked you to build in the first place, which we had no business building whatsoever.

We built a gas station for them in Afghanistan, too. But because our purpose in the military is now sometimes to fight the enemy but also to fight climate change--you didn't know this, but part of the military's goal is climate change now--so we built them a gas station. But we want to reduce the carbon footprint. So we built a gas station that sells natural gas. Well, the problem was, No. 1, nobody in Afghanistan has a car. The average income is about $800. Almost nobody has a car, and no one has one that burns natural gas.

So what they did is that they had to give them credit cards and buy them cars that actually ran on natural gas.

We wanted to visit over there and the military said it was too dangerous to take us there. So we have no idea if it is even in operation at this point.

I say we need to rethink this, and I urge today a vote against selling more arms to Saudi Arabia.

Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring of the majority leader the schedule for next week.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the distinguished majority leader of the House.

Mr. Speaker, I truly appreciate the concern, support, and prayers that have been offered. Obviously, we are all praying for the people of south Louisiana as Tropical Storm Barry approaches. In the next 24 hours, we expect landfall. We are surely expecting heavy rain.

I know, as I have talked to local officials, from the Governor to the mayor of New Orleans and other elected officials on the ground, they are prepared. They have asked for different things, including the Governor had asked for an emergency declaration.

I spoke to President Trump yesterday, and he did, in fact, issue that emergency declaration. So, all of the Federal agencies, from FEMA to the Corps of Engineers, to other Federal agencies, are working well with State and local officials to make sure they have the tools they need.

Our first priority, of course, is the safety of the people of south Louisiana. As they protect their homes and protect their property, we just encourage them to listen to their local officials, and, if evacuation orders are issued, we ask those folks to heed those warnings because it is a serious storm. And it is a storm that we are preparing for, but, as they say, you prepare for the worst but hope for the best, and we are doing all of that.

I appreciate the gentleman's concerns.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend.

Mr. Speaker, as we look at the calendar next week and, specifically, the bill dealing with the minimum wage, I would ask the gentleman if he has looked at some of the studies that have been done, as well as some of the other actions.

If you look at the city of Baltimore, they had proposed and actually passed a $15 minimum wage, and the Democratic mayor of Baltimore vetoed that, specifically citing the job losses that would come with that kind of change.

The CBO report that just came out a few days ago, as the majority leader knows, cited that you could have up to 3.7 million jobs lost in America if that bill were to pass.

Mr. Speaker, we have a growing economy, a robust, growing economy. We are the envy of the world right now with our economy. People at every income level are receiving the benefits of that in terms of higher wages and more jobs--in fact, more job openings today than there are Americans looking for work.

This is the kind of opportunity we want for all people. In fact, as we are seeing, people at even the lower income, entry-level job levels are the ones benefiting the most from the tax cuts and the growing economy we have as a result of it.

So why, I would ask, would we want to reverse course and pass legislation that not only studies estimate would devastate low-income people--literally, the entire State of Oklahoma, 3.7 million people, eviscerated job losses. That many job losses would come from this bill passing.

You don't need to just look at estimates. You can actually look at what happened in the city of Seattle.

Mr. Speaker, in 2014, the city of Seattle instituted a similar $15 minimum wage. So now, we have a few years of actual data to look at what happened in a city like Seattle.

Mr. Speaker, the University of Washington did a detailed study of that minimum wage increase. What they found were similarly devastating numbers for low-income workers, the same people who would be hurt by the bill that the majority is going to be bringing up next week.

In fact, what the University of Washington study found was that you had roughly 3 million work hours lost, 5,000 jobs lost. They, in fact, found that the cost to low-wage workers in Seattle outweighed the benefits by a margin of 3-to-1, devastating low-income workers the most.

If you look at not what might happen if we do this at the Federal level--where the estimates are we would lose 3.7 million jobs in America, mostly hurting lower income, entry-level jobs, those jobs where we want people to be able to get started to become part of the middle class, to become part of the American Dream, and taking that away from them--go look at what they did in Seattle when they actually did this, not when they talked about it, but when they did it, 3 years of data. The study showed it was devastating to low-income people.

I would hope that the gentleman has looked at some of this, the concerns that we have expressed along the way, and the recent CBO score that has underlined how bad and devastating this would be to low-income workers.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to point out it is not we who are paying those wages. It is small businesses, small and medium-sized businesses that are paying those wages to workers.

What we have seen from the current economy, from cutting taxes, not from the government coming in and saying we are going to have some $15 minimum wage that has been proven in other places to eviscerate jobs, to kill jobs and hurt lower-income people, with our current economy, because of cutting taxes, lower income people are benefiting the most. They are seeing wages go up. They are actually seeing wages go up, and the data shows that.

That is why you are seeing such strong economic numbers right now, because the tax cuts are benefiting people at every income level, especially at the lower income levels.

When you talk about the jobs that would be lost, if we split it in the middle, if we go with the median of the study, that is 1.3 million jobs lost. Don't take my number. Don't take your number. Take the median number in the study, 1.3 million jobs. That is the entire State of Maine losing their jobs.

What we have also seen is that small businesses, as minimum wages go to a higher level, look at automating jobs, which means those jobs go away.

It is the low-income workers, the first job for many people, their first entry into opportunity where they can then become a homeowner, then become part of the American Dream, those are hit the hardest. In fact, the study shows that this bill would reduce family income by $9 billion.

I know we can look at it from different sides, but, again, if you just took the median, split the difference between your numbers and mine, you end up with 1.3 million jobs lost and devastation for a lot of people at the lower incomes.

The Seattle study shows not theory but what really did happen in a city like Seattle where they did this. By a 3-to-1 margin, low-income people were hit the hardest and hit very hard in a negative way.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, when we talk about the 27 million, let's keep in mind that, as you look at what they studied on the impacts, it is the lower income workers, as the wages might even go up.

And, by the way, wages are already going up today. Without this bill, wages, real wages, are going up and especially benefiting the lower income, the entry-level jobs.

What President Trump wanted to do to rebuild our middle class that was evaporating--it, literally, was going away. We were losing our middle class to foreign countries because we were not competitive as a nation. And now we are competitive--not only competitive, but the envy of the world, the economic leader of the world.

Again, why would we want to bring a bill that would devastate?

And so those 27 million people, if you look again at the Seattle study, what they showed was that the cost to low-wage workers in Seattle outweighed the benefits by a ratio of 3 to 1.

So even for those people who were getting a higher wage because other costs went up and their hours went down, the amount of time they were able to work was reduced, it actually had a devastating impact to those low-income workers.

So on one hand it might sound really good: Hey, you are going to get a higher wage; but, Oh, by the way, we are not going to be able to give you as many hours to work. And you saw that over and over again in the study, it showed millions of hours lost.

So somebody that is working two jobs, struggling to get by because they want to become part of the middle class, today they are actually seeing a wage increase if that was evaporated because of this.

Even for the people who would see a higher wage, the costs to them would be more devastating by a 3-to-1 margin if you go by what actually did happen in Seattle when they did it.

So that is why I just say that study would be important to look at, because it doesn't show just in theory, which the CBO has a lot of good underlying data to back up with, but then Seattle is where it really did happen and it was devastating to lower income workers.

If the gentleman had anything else on this, I would yield back. I did want to bring up another issue, though, but I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, maybe next week as this debate continues, we will see if I can be more persuasive with my friend, but likely not, but at least we ought to have that debate and at least get these sides out and aired.

Now, I do want to talk about something where I do think we have agreement but maybe a lack of understanding of a timeline, and that is the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement. And we have had many meetings. I know we were in a meeting together with the Prime Minister, Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada. We know our friends in Mexico want this. Our friends in Canada really want this. We want this, too.

With only 8 legislative days left before the August recess, could the gentleman give an indication if there is the ability to include USMCA on the calendar in these next 2 weeks that we have available?

And I yield to the gentleman.

I thank the gentleman, and I share the same sentiment that Ambassador Lighthizer has done a great job of working with Members on both sides to address questions, concerns, find ways to make sure that those concerns are addressed, whether they are already inside the agreement or if there are other things that can be done to double underscore and highlight those concerns.

But, in the meantime, hopefully, we can move beyond trying to get to yes and actually have a bill where we can whip that and get to yes. I know we have a whip team that I have put together on our side that is ready to go and, hopefully, your side will be able to get there.

It would be ideal if we can do that before we recess. Clearly, that is not the only way to get this done, but we do have to respect, as well, that the other countries, our friends, Mexico and Canada, have an interest in this, as well.

Canada has elections coming up. We don't want to have this jeopardized and become something that gets pushed behind their national elections. Ideally, we can get it done well in advance of their elections and respect the fact that they would like this done, as well, and the good will that is being created between our three countries.

So I am hopeful that we can get through these final issues, get a bill that we can bring to the floor, work together to pass, and then see the benefits in our economy, see an improved NAFTA, a bill that is better for American workers and opening up more access to markets in Canada and Mexico that right now are closed.

So I thank the gentleman for the encouragement, and I remain hopeful, as well, and would continue to encourage that we get this done as quickly as possible.

Finally, on the NDAA bill that we just finished, we had, of course, disagreement on a number of fronts in terms of the priorities of our military, but I would want to bring up one point, and that was the piece of legislation, the Military Surviving Spouses Equity Act by our colleague, Joe Wilson.

When you all took the majority, you created a new mechanism for Members to bring bills to the floor called the Consensus Calendar. This was the first bill that actually met that criteria, in fact, far exceeded the 290 signatures--he had 365 cosponsors, incredibly bipartisan--to address a real serious problem for spouses of men and women in uniform who died fighting for our country, to make sure that an inequity is corrected that we both agree needs to be fixed.

Here is a bill that can quickly get to the President's desk, and maybe it gets included in other pieces of legislation that might come months away, but here is a bill where a Member worked in good faith, under the rules that were created, and it was unfortunate that the rule to bring the NDAA bill to the floor turned off the Consenus Calendar specifically for that bill, that one bill which happened to be the first bill that met that requirement.

I would just ask if the gentleman could maybe look again at bringing that bill to the floor as a standalone bill in respect of the hard bipartisan work that Congressman Wilson made to address a serious problem for spouses, widows of our men and women who die in uniform.

Mr. Speaker, let's be crystal clear about what happened.

The chairman of the Armed Services Committee made this a political bill by putting poison pills in the bill that undermined our national security. That is not a partisan issue.

And so if you go back to the funding levels--I yield to my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I will absolutely be happy to specify what those are, but first of all, let's talk about funding levels.

It is not just about funding levels. If you have a funding level and then you put policy underneath it that limits our men and women in uniform's ability to train safely and to do their job safely and effectively, that is a poison pill approach.

It is a partisan approach. It should have never happened.

Mr. Speaker, it has been 58 years where Republicans and Democrats have worked alike together to pass a National Defense Authorization Act, not making it political, specifically in committee.

There is no Member of our Congress who works better with people on both sides of the aisle to support our men and women in uniform than Mac Thornberry. Mr. Thornberry worked overtime to try to heal this divide, to make sure a bill could come out of committee that was bipartisan, reflecting those 58 years.

In fact, the Senate did this, and I think the gentleman from Maryland knows this well. The Senate did not make it political. The Senate passed a bill with an 86-8 vote, with all the leadership of the Republican side and Democratic side voting together.

That was the approach we wanted to take, Mr. Speaker. If there was a better way, we should have done it together.

But the majority side went against even what Senate Democrats did and chose an approach, for example, that undermined our nuclear missile defense and that went against the AUMF agreement that, if your bill were to become law, would have made it harder for us to counter terrorism activities in the Middle East.

Why would we want to do that in legislation and hamstring our men and women in uniform? In fact, the bill that the majority just passed would undermine the gains we have made in enabling our men and women in uniform to train more safely.

Before we came up with the 2-year budget agreement that we got together, Republicans and Democrats, when we were in the majority, we were seeing our men and women in uniform die in training missions more than they were dying in combat. It was by a 5-to-1 margin that men and women in uniform were dying in training missions, planes falling out of the sky because they didn't have enough spare parts.

We finally started to address that. This bill undermines that, making our men and women in uniform less safe. That is not the approach we should be taking. If the gentleman wants to call that bipartisan, then go look at the fact that no Republicans voted for that bill and eight Democrats voted against it. It was a partisan approach. It was a bill that undermines our national security.

The Senate didn't do that. The Senate came together the right kind of way. It is the way we should have done it here.

If the gentleman wants to talk about the pay raise, let's be very clear and upfront about it. If we didn't even have this bill, our men and women in uniform get that pay raise. It is current law. It is like they are putting a provision in their bill saying the Sun is going to come up tomorrow, and then if it does, they take credit for it.

The pay raise was already going to happen, so they put it in the bill and say they gave the pay raise. It was already there. We got it into law when we were in the majority working with the Democrats. We didn't just say it was our way or the highway.

The NDAA bill, every year we were in the majority, was a bill that was worked on with Republicans and Democrats, and they didn't send it out of committee until they had complete agreement. That was an area where we didn't have political differences.

We are going to have political differences on minimum wage and some of these other issues, but we shouldn't have our men and women in uniform become part of the political divide in Washington. The Senate didn't do it. Our Members didn't do it and tried to work together.

If the chairman wanted to go his own way, that is not the approach we should be taking. It is not the approach we have taken for 58 years. It is not the approach that Senate Democrats took when they worked with Republicans to come up with a bill that put our men and women in uniform as a priority.

Mr. Speaker, the majority leader can look at the bill and talk about what is in it. I will tell the gentleman that is already current law anyway. I will also tell him what the Senate did to make sure that they didn't have those poison pill provisions.

They shouldn't have been in the bill. Ultimately, they are not going to be in anything that becomes law. The gentleman knows it, and I know it.

What happened today shouldn't have happened. Maybe it is a lesson that when we get beyond this and we see what the final product is going to be, it will be a bill where we come together.

Ultimately, we will come together to make sure our men and women in uniform have the tools that they need to train safely and defend our Nation safely, but the bill that came out of the House today did not achieve that. It fell very short of where this House should have been in representing our men and women in uniform.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, as we continue this debate as the bill moves through the process, and we look at where the Senate started with a very large 86-8 vote, Republicans and Democrats working together and coming together, we can agree on funding levels. But if the underlying policy undermines the actual money that is being spent, undermines the mission, the ability for our men and women to train safely and defend our country safely, then the funding levels are not being spent properly.

It is about not just the money but how the money is being spent, the policies behind it that allow our men and women to train safely, to defend our country safely. That is an issue. We will continue debating that.

I would predict, in the end, a final product that goes to the President's desk is going to look a lot more like the Senate bill than the bill that came out of the House and, hopefully, addresses all of those problems that were identified earlier. We will continue that debate as well.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman if he has anything else.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, before I get into the schedule, I know that all of our thoughts are with my good friends in Louisiana and my good friend who represents Louisiana, his constituents, and the people of Louisiana as they brace for Tropical Storm Barry, expected to make landfall tomorrow.

This is a serious storm, and, when combined with the flooding we have already seen along the Mississippi, it poses a serious threat to the safety and welfare of many.

We hope everyone is safe and taking the necessary steps to get out of harm's way, and I want the gentleman from Louisiana to know how much we are paying attention to his constituents in the State he represents and the region he represents.

I know the gentleman is concerned. We share that concern, and we share the concern for the people of south Louisiana.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at noon for morning-hour debate, 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, we will consider several bills under suspension of the rules, including H.R. 748, Middle Class Health Benefits Tax Repeal Act of 2019. A complete list of suspension bills will be announced by the close of business today.

The House will consider H.R. 3494, the Intelligence Authorization Act. I am pleased to say that the bill was approved by unanimous voice vote in committee and would authorize funding and enable congressional oversight of the U.S. intelligence community.

Mr. Speaker, the House will also consider a resolution to hold Attorney General Barr and Secretary Ross in contempt over efforts to ignore congressional subpoenas and subvert the 2020 Census with the addition of a citizenship question meant only to deter minorities from participating, leading to an undercount in parts of the country.

In addition, the House will also consider S.J. Res. 36, S.J. Res. 37, and S.J. Res. 38.

Mr. Speaker, last month, the Senate passed 22 resolutions of disapproval related to the Saudi-UAE arms sale for which the administration declared an emergency, thereby bypassing the Congress of the United States. The House will take up three of these resolutions related to precision-guided munitions, the most controversial and significant sales contemplated.

Lastly, the House will consider H.R. 582, Raise the Wage Act. This legislation, authored by Chairman Scott, would gradually increase the minimum wage to $15 by 2024. This bill is an important step toward lifting millions of American workers out of poverty.

We believe that one should not be working a 40-hour week and still remain under the poverty level in our country. We raise the minimum wage for the first time in nearly a decade, essentially, 10 years.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his observations. He, I think, told a partial story of the CBO study and some other studies. Of course, he mentioned the city of Baltimore.

The problem with the city of Baltimore, as the mayor who vetoed it indicated, was that next door, the minimum wage was lower. Had the minimum wage been the same, there would not have been the same transfer, I suggest to the gentleman.

That aside, he mentions the CBO report on the impact of gradually raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. The minimum wage was last raised in 2007. It then incrementally raised over 3 years to the present $7.25. It has not been raised in a decade. The poorest workers in America have not had a raise in 10 years.

We don't think that is right, as we see this extraordinary disparity of income, where presidents of corporations now are making 1,500 times what their average worker makes.

Very frankly, we are a consumer-based economy. Seventy percent of our GDP is based upon consumers. If we raise their salaries, they are going to spend more, grow the economy, and, I suggest, grow jobs, not shrink jobs.

Let's look at the CBO study. The CBO study had a number of different averages that were perceived, three of which were zero loss of jobs. 3.7 million was the maximum, not the average, the maximum loss.

I am not surprised that opponents of raising the minimum wage would point to that as if it were the figure. It is a maximum, the worst-case scenario.

We have a growing economy. I don't expect the worst-case scenario to occur. The fact of the matter is that we believe that this bill and this raise will have little, if any, adverse impact.

What we do know is this, which the gentleman did not mention. CBO said the bill will give 27 million workers in America a raise, and that the worst-case scenario--we don't want to see anybody lose their job-- would be 3.7 million, but the average would be less than 2 million. That was their average estimate, and three of them were zero.

We believe that 27 million Americans, which will lift 1.3 million Americans out of poverty, is something that will be good for America. It will be good not only for those workers but good for business, for families, for children, and, frankly, for all of us.

The benefits of the Raise the Wage Act for America's workers, in our opinion, far outweigh any potential risk. We think the risk is minimal.

More than 10 years with no increase in the Federal minimum wage, I might point out, Mr. Speaker, is the longest period since the adoption of the minimum wage in 1938, the longest period we have gone without raising the minimum wage.

Mr. Speaker, it has been 10 years since we Democrats were in the majority. I point that out because the last time we were in the majority, we passed and, very frankly, President Bush signed the raise that was to $7.25 an hour. But this is the longest time in history it hasn't been raised.

The Raise the Wage Act is a critical step, in my view, toward restoring the value of work and ensuring that working families--we all say we are for working families. Well, we ought to pay them, and we ought to pay them a decent wage.

By the way, this raise is probably a very, very infinitesimal percentage of the raises that those at the upper level, in the top 10 percent and the top 5 percent, have received.

This will allow working families to achieve some type of financial security. We believe that is essential.

We are very pleased that this bill is moving forward, and we urge all of our Members to support it.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I would simply say that he said the entire State of Maine. Maybe he missed the fact that I said 27 million people, under this bill, are going to get an increase in their salary and in their ability to support themselves and their families. That, by the way, is about the size, perhaps, of New York. It is not quite California, which is 38 or 39 million people. But 27 million are going to get a raise.

My suggestion is, and I believe this sincerely, that that increase and raise, because they are consumers, those consumers all spend their spendable money. They need it to support themselves, and that is going to be an infusion.

When the gentleman says small business, I understand that. We all pay it in the end because the consumer of services and goods is who will pay it. We understand that. But not paying it perhaps advantages us because some families can't support themselves and, very frankly, may be on public assistance, so we pay for it one way or the other.

This is the right thing to do. Twenty-seven million Americans, that is about a sixth, I think, of our workforce, somewhere in that neighborhood, are going to get a raise under this bill.

I hope that the estimate of 1.3 million is wrong. I think it is wrong, as I explained. If everybody is doing the same, then the employer that needs to have things done is going to get those things done. He or she will be on a competitive level because others will be doing the same thing, in terms of the level of pay. They won't be competing with people who are paying their folks at a very low level, and people will be able to survive.

I understand the gentleman's position. By the way, I would say the gentleman's argument has been made since 1938.

Every time the minimum wage came up for increase, we have heard this. I didn't hear it in `38, I want to make that very clear. But that argument has been made every time the minimum wage, while I have been involved in this floor over the last 30 years, has been made. And I suggest to you, as a result of the raising of the minimum wage, our economy has been better, it has grown more, people have been better off, and we have had a better country.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I think we have exhausted that subject. I think the positions have not changed since 1938, and I don't expect them to change in the next few minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

We did have a meeting, and in a bipartisan fashion, I think we are all hopeful that we can pass the USMCA.

I was here when we passed NAFTA, as was the Speaker. There were a number of promises made, as the gentleman knows from his knowing experience of NAFTA. We are very focused, as the gentleman knows, on workers' rights, environmental protections, the price of

biologics, and the length of time that they would be protected from generic competition and bringing prices down.

But we are, as we discussed in the meeting to which the gentleman referred where we met with the Prime Minister of Canada, Mr. Trudeau, and many of his Cabinet, we are very concerned about enforcement. We want to say if we make this agreement that it will, in fact, be enforced. And, as the gentleman knows, there were meetings as late as yesterday on this issue.

The good news is, as the gentleman probably knows, Ambassador Lighthizer has great respect and confidence on both sides of the aisle. I would say that he is one of those people who both sides of the aisle believe is credible, knowledgeable, straightforward and an honest broker. So we are working very hard with him.

Almost every Democrat has said we are trying to get to ``yes'' on this. I don't think you have heard many Democrats, if any, say we are not for this agreement.

So I am hopeful that we can get there, personally. I think this is an improvement over the existing NAFTA.

I would say, however, that I think it would be a mistake if, in fact, we don't get to an agreement, which I hope we will, to back out of NAFTA, as the President has indicated. I think that would cause chaos in our economy and with respect to Canada and Mexico, as well. So I think that would not be a good policy. But I think a good policy would be, if we can get enforcement and the assurances that the agreements that are made will, in fact, be carried out by all parties, then, hopefully, we can get this done.

Whether we can get this done by the August break, can't make that representation to the gentleman, which does not surprise him, I am sure. But I can tell you, yesterday, as you know, there was work being done on it, and I trust that there will be work being done on it in the coming days. And if we can get to an agreement, we will move it as quickly as possible.

But we may need to make sure that the protections that are referenced in the document will, in fact, be the protections that are affected and enforceable.

I thank the gentleman.

I thank the gentleman for his comment, Joe Wilson, of course, a member of his party.

Joe Wilson filed that bill five Congresses ago, 8 years ago, and it languished. It was not brought to the floor. It did not pass.

I understand the gentleman's concern, but he ought to also reflect upon the fact that Joe Wilson introduced it four Congresses ago, so that we have now included it in the bill. We think it was a proper provision to have in our bill.

Of course, all your people voted against that bill, and I would observe, they voted against a bill that, frankly, the chairman of your committee, now the ranking member, wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal that said the appropriate level of funding was exactly what we put in our bill. The Joint Chiefs of Staff said that the figure for 2020 was 733.

I was deeply regretful that a bill which was the figure that Mr. Thornberry put forward in an editorial in The Wall Street Journal--and, I might say, I had conversations with him subsequent to that, recently, which confirmed to me that he still held that view.

Notwithstanding that, every one of your Republicans voted against it. And it was the largest--there was this complaint about the size of the military pay raise. It was the largest raise for our military in 10 years. Now, we were in charge 10 years ago and we are now back in charge, which means we have had the two largest raises, and that was included in your MTR.

Mr. Speaker, I would hope the whip would, as we do so often, work in a bipartisan fashion on these issues. The committee did work in a bipartisan fashion. I am very disappointed that this was made a political issue. Mr. Speaker, it was made a political issue on the theory that maybe the Democrats can't pass this bill, and if we all vote against it, we will say: Look, the Democrats don't support defense.

Mr. Speaker, we did pass that bill. We passed it with over 218 votes--220, to be exact--and it included some very, very important things for our men and women in uniform, for weapons systems, for operations, for training to strengthen our national security.

It was turned into, in my opinion, Mr. Speaker, a partisan issue, and that is sad and unfortunate because, at least on the national security of which I have been supportive for 38 years--I supported much of the Reagan buildup. I supported the deployment of missiles in Europe. I supported the MX missile, which was somewhat controversial in my district. I did it because I thought America needed to be strong and to make sure the world knew we were going to be strong.

When you talk about Joe Wilson's amendment, which we included in our bill, which you were supportive of and I think the level of funding was also, frankly, intellectually supported, if not politically supported, I regret that we did not have a bipartisan vote on the defense bill.

With respect to his specific question, I respond to the whip, Mr. Speaker: We hope this bill is signed. If not, we hope it goes to conference. We hope we have a conference agreement, Mr. Speaker, and we hope that the Wilson amendment is kept in the conference report.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman specify what they were?

Mr. Speaker, obviously, we could debate a bill we just passed, a bill that has been debated on this floor for 3 days, a bill that was chairmanned and supported by somebody equally, if not more, bipartisan in terms of his work over the years on this matter of defense, Adam Smith, period.

It is a good bill, Mr. Speaker. It takes care of the men and women. It provides them the necessary resources. And, yes, it says we ought to have a new AUMF that is now 18 years old.

With respect to the pay raise that was going to happen anyway, I presume that the gentleman refers to the recommendation of the President of the United States, a Republican. We took the recommendations of the President of the United States and put it in our bill. It is higher than any figure that was put in for our men and women in uniform during the previous 10 years that the Republicans controlled the House and controlled this bill.

There were poison pills, from my perspective, in the defense bills in years past. I now note that I voted against those bills when they passed the House. I voted for the conference committee when it came back.

I am hopeful that the Republicans will decide that the rhetoric they used, ``If you vote against this bill,'' meaning the defense bill, to our side, ``you vote against the men and women in the Armed Forces, the men and women in uniform, the men and women at the point of the spear,'' I hope you will remember that language, Mr. Speaker. I hope my Republican colleagues will remember that language. Now, apparently, it doesn't apply.

This was a good bill. That was a bill worked on in a bipartisan fashion.

I will tell the whip, Mr. Speaker, that I had conversations with some of the top Republican leaders on that committee with respect to funding levels. I was told that the funding levels that were in our bill, as the Joint Chiefs said and as the ranking member said in an editorial in The Wall Street Journal, were appropriate levels that will fund the priorities of our country and the needs of our national security, Mr. Speaker.

Certainly, I hope that the Senate and the House can work on this. By the way, the Senate number is the same as our number as it relates to compensation, I believe, for members of the Armed Forces.

I would hope, Mr. Speaker, when this bill comes back from conference, that we will have agreement, will pass it, and will send it to the President for signature. That is the way it ought to be.

I am sorry that we didn't get significant support, as is almost always the case, except when political games were played, not just that items were put in that the Republicans didn't like or the Democrats didn't like. There were a lot of things in the defense bills that I

voted for that I didn't like, but I thought the overall bill was a bill that supported our troops and supported our national security, as I think this bill did. We will see.

Mr. Speaker, I only want to say that I do not accept the premise that anything in this bill we just passed with a majority vote undermines training, operations, or acquisitions, period.

Mr. President, over the next few days, Senator Reed and I will be leading the consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2020. I consider this--and I think he would probably join me on this--the most significant bill of the year, and it is the most important bill.

There is an old document no one reads anymore called the Constitution, which says what we are really supposed to be doing here. No. 1 on the list is defending America, and now this bipartisan bill is more important than ever.

The world is more unstable and dangerous than at any time in my lifetime. The National Defense Strategy gave it to us straight. This is the document; the National Defense Strategy Commission put this together. It was made up of experts, equally divided, Democrats and Republicans. We have had several hearings on this. We have had meetings and discussed it with our Members. In fact, Senator Jon Kyl, during the brief time that he was back as a Member of the Senate, dropped out of this and then went back in. He is very active in this, and so are the rest.

None of the individuals here have ever been accused of being in any way partisan. What they put together is a defense strategy that is the best thing for this country, and they have done a masterful job of this and actually put it straight to us.

The strategic competition with China and Russia is something that is relatively new. During the last administration, China and Russia started surfacing, and they became more prominent and were challenging us in several areas.

The continuing threats from rogue countries are still important too. We are talking about Iran and North Korea and the other terrorist organizations.

New technology and new warfighting domains in outer space and cyberspace are things that in recent years have become very prominent, and we have to compete. Our peer competitors are out there even stating that they are ahead of us, not to mention the years of underfunding by the previous administration.

When you think about the last administration, if you look at using fiscal year 2018 dollars and you want to take the last 5 years of the previous administration, 2010 had appropriations using constant dollars of $794 billion. In 2015, 5 years later, it was $586 billion. So stop and think about that. I can't think of any bureaucracy that has taken that much of a dive in that period of time. We are talking about 20 percent.

So that is the reality we are facing, and this is what we are doing right now in trying to get our Defense authorization bill. Again, it will pass. That is one of the few things you can do that you know is going to pass. It has passed for the last 58 years, and it is going to pass this year too.

Yet we are facing a real national security crisis. There are real threats to our military and our way of life, and we are ready to meet and defeat these threats. We have to continue rebuilding our military, catching up with our competitors, and making strategic and holistic improvements to our national defense. I said catch up, and that clearly states that we are not ahead right now.

Using the National Defense Strategy Commission report as our blueprint, this year's NDAA pursues ``urgent change at significant scale'' to meet the needs of our Nation.

Our military leaders have said time and again that stable, predictable, on-time funding is the single most important way Congress can help support a strong national defense. We did this last year, and we are going to do it again this year. It is incredibly important that we stare down the barrel of sequestration cuts that would, in the words of former of Air Force Secretary Wilson, ``be absolutely devastating in scope and scale.''

It is not just her. Others have come before us and said that if we were to be subjected to sequestration, it would undo all of the corrections that have been made in the last 2\1/2\ years. This would undo all of the work we have done to rebuild our readiness. I am talking about fiscal years 2018 and 2019.

We also know that continuing resolutions are no way to do business, especially for our military. We have had the military in hearings we have had. We have traditionally--this year--two very long hearings on defense authorization in our committee. Each witness who comes in talks about how devastating it would be if we were to move back to sequestration or if we have to undo the improvements that we have made.

I know this firsthand. When I go out and visit military installations in Oklahoma, across the country, and around the world, it is true that we sit down with the commanders and the base leaders. But also--and I know my good friend Senator Reed does--we go and sit down and eat in the mess halls with our kids out there on the frontlines and talk to them. I have to tell you, they know what is going on. They know when we are dragging our feet on efforts that we have to fund our military. They know who is doing it, who isn't doing it, and they are the best source of getting that information.

The NDAA is the first step in the process of getting them that military funding. This year, we provided a total of $750 billion to ensure our troops have the resources they need to defend our Nation. This represents a bare minimum. People talk about $750 billion, but stop and think about it. This report says that until we get back to the point at which we have the military where it should be, we are going to have to increase each year, during this timeframe, somewhere between a 3 and 5 percent increase--net increase--each year. That is in this book here, and that is considered to be a bare minimum. Ironically, that is the same figure that our military uses. The NDAA aligns our defense resources and policies with our National Defense Strategy, which is found in this book.

Fully funding our military at $750 billion means we will be more ready to address great power competition like China and Russia. We are seeing our military lose ground. Anything less would keep us from regaining our combat advantage and our duty to deter aggression. I am using the words carefully. When we say regain, that is what we need to do, because we are not there

now. We can't plan to fight the wars of tomorrow with the weapons and equipment of yesterday.

The NDAA fully funds the Nuclear Modernization Program at or above request, including the nuclear triad, and directs funding to procure critical equipment.

The Nuclear Modernization Program has been suffering for a long period of time. A lot of people look at the triad system and assume that somehow that is a redundancy. It is not. It talks about systems that can project a nuclear weapon, and there are three different classifications. That is what the triad is all about. It is not as if you can take one or two out of it and still do the job.

In this bill, we have 94 Joint Strike Fighters, 12 new battle force ships, 105 naval aircraft, new aircraft for the Air Force, including the 15 KC-46As, and new helicopters for the Army, including 9 new Chinooks.

We also have to be prepared to meet challenges in new domains. Space is one of those. General Raymond, who is nominated to lead the U.S. Base Command, told our committee when we were having a hearing on this that our superiority in space is questionable. It is not guaranteed. That is work that has to be done. That is what we are finding in this bill that we are going to ultimately be voting for in the next few days.

Our society relies on satellites and space technologies. We need to address this problem now before it is too late, and I am glad President Trump has made this a key initiative.

We took President Trump's directive to establish a space force and came up with a bipartisan plan to establish a force that meets our needs in space. Our bill would stand up the U.S. Space Force in the Air Force. This will create a cohesive strategy to protect our interests in space, improve how we acquire space assets, and improve our space warfighting culture.

People say: Of all the things we are doing right now, we are doing a lot of things in space. What does this do that we are not doing currently? My answer is nothing. We are doing it all now, but this would allow us to do it better. Our plan prevents additional costs and bureaucracy and gets us off on the right foot to better fulfill our mission in space.

The legislation also implements policies that would change the way the Pentagon is run, allowing it to respond more nimbly and effectively to the current defensive landscape.

Last, but arguably the most important, the NDAA makes our all- volunteer force--the backbone of our national defense--the biggest priority.

I happen to be one of the few people--in fact, I think I am the only one in this Senate Chamber who is a product of the draft. That was back in the days when we didn't have an all-volunteer force. I came here absolutely convinced that was the best way to go until I started seeing what we have out there. When you see these kids and what they are doing, it is amazing how effective they are. They are truly the backbone of our national defense. Even though our military advantage may have been diminished, what hasn't changed are our troops. They are still the best in the world. We have to continue to look out for them. It is one of the biggest ways we stand apart from our adversaries or actors like Russia or China. They don't care about their people. We do.

A lot of times people ask me: Why is it we have to spend so much money on defense? We are spending more money than Russia and China.

That is easy. Our largest single expense to putting together a military is its end strength. It is the people.

It is the people. We care about the people. We make sure we are doing things that are good for the people. I remember we had this big discussion on the privatization of commissaries not too long ago. That was something where that is a benefit. It doesn't cost us any more, I contend, but that is a great benefit for those people--the spouses and members of the military--in remote places. That is where they go. That is where everybody wants to go. So it is true that it costs more, but that is because Russians--it goes without saying, Russians and the Chinese, they don't really care about the people. They are going to tell them to go out and fight. They have to do it. That is the largest single item. They don't have that; we do, and we are better off for it. That is what this is all about. It will put us back to where we are on top. We are not second in any of these areas.

It provides the 3.1-percent pay raise for our troops, and that is the largest we have had in 10 years.

We improved the quality of life for our troops and their families, making sure our troops have quality healthcare and a solid roof over their heads.

Just a few months ago, our committee became aware of some really serious problems in housing. This is only just about last February. This is something--frankly, I was one of the guilty parties because we privatized housing some time ago. That was something that--yes, in a way, it sure makes it easier for us. It makes it easier for the military. All of a sudden, we found ourselves in a situation where we sent out bids. We had contractors who were bidding to do the housing work. Then we found out that--it worked fine for a couple years, but then, as time went by--this is human nature--people got careless. I think the contractors got a little bit greedy. So all of a sudden, we found out we had housing for our people that had mold and all kinds of serious problems. So we had a hearing on this. Actually, we had two hearings on this. One was to listen to the tenants all throughout America who were talking about how deplorable that condition was, and the other one was we brought in the contractors and talked to them. The thing that impressed me was, during the second hearing of the contractors, they admitted there was a problem. They said: There is. We have become a little too relaxed. They started to clean up their act, but just in case they did not do that, we actually put a lot of those provisions in this bill that we are going to be considering now. It includes a Tenant Bill of Rights. We weren't going to do this until the end of the summer. We were going to have another hearing and talk about what we needed to do to correct the problem, but we already know. They went out there, and they looked.

So in this bill, we have a Tenant Bill of Rights. We have private housing partners being held accountable, ensuring each installation has the right personnel to conduct oversight. Overall, we make sure our military has the infrastructure to support it. Within the funding for military construction, $3.6 billion is set aside to replenish funds that may be used to build a wall. There has been a lot of criticism. People are saying: Well, you used some military funds--maybe some of the funds that were going to be used for military construction. If that is the case, we have $3.6 billion set aside here to replenish any funds that might have been used to build a wall. So they don't have that argument anymore.

As I said before, this legislation is legislation that all of our colleagues from both sides of the aisle can support. Defense needs to be our No. 1 priority. We may not agree on everything, but we can definitely agree on that.

The Senate Armed Services Committee approved the bill on an overwhelming bipartisan basis--25 to 2--in only 6 hours. This is kind of interesting. Each year it falls this way--I guess, intentionally. On a Wednesday, we get together at 9 in the morning. The Defense Authorization Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee meet. We go over what we are going to have to do in terms of this bill, and we get it done. We got this done actually in 6 hours. I thought that was a record, and we did it in a little less than that time this time, but we had a product that was 25 to 2. Only two people voted against it. We completed this work quickly--less than 2 months after receiving the administration's budget request. It was my goal to get this done as soon as possible. I thank the committee and the staff for helping to get this done.

We all understand the importance of this bill. This is the most important bill of the year. I think most people understand that and agree to that. On this committee, we considered 433 amendments and approved nearly 300 of them. Our markup took 6 hours just because of our shared commitment to working together.

So I want to thank, particularly, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Reed, and every member of the committee

working to pass this critical legislation. I want to thank the majority leader, Senator McConnell, for his leadership and for continuing to fight for a budget deal that includes a strong top line for our defense.

I look forward to continuing this fair, corroborative process on the floor in the coming days. We are going to consider amendments. Both Senator Reed and I want an open amendment process. Then we are going to pass this bill for the 59th straight year in a row. For nearly 6 decades, Congress has understood the necessity of a strong, capable, lethal force. The main reason America is the leader of the free world is because of our military might. Our Armed Forces are the very best in the world. Our leadership values pave the way for liberty, prosperity, and security across the globe. We preserve peace through our strength. Who else said that? Ronald Reagan talked about the necessity to be strong so we can avoid the very type of threats that are out there. Freedom isn't free. We understand that. We want to preserve this vital role--a role that guarantees a future of freedom and democracy for our children and grandchildren. We have to prioritize our national security. That is what we have been doing with this NDAA, and that is why we are going to continue to do it with the passage of this bill.

Again, I want to express my appreciation. It is a tough bill, and we have spent a lot of hours together, Senator Reed and I, and I think we have something now that is going to be going through. We do have an amendment process. It is an open amendment process, and we plan to do that and get that done.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, over the past few months, tensions with Iran have escalated. There have been a series of attacks on tankers in the Gulf region, and this morning it was reported that Iran has shot down a U.S. drone.

These events are deeply concerning--all the more so because the Trump administration has not explained to Congress or to the American people how it views these events, how it plans to respond, and, most importantly, what the broader strategy for confronting Iran is.

President Trump left the diplomatic agreement a little more than a year ago. It was obvious to anyone who even had a cursory knowledge of Iran that it would create consequences. With that decision, there is a course set for conflict--conflict whose purpose or strategy has never been articulated to the American people.

The President says on TV: It is a much better Iran than when I took office. Well, they were not building nuclear weapons--and I opposed the Iran agreement, as you know. But they were not building nuclear weapons. They were proceeding along the path of the agreement, and the President, as he seems to, just gets a bug in his head, something he said in the campaign without thinking, and then upends foreign policy-- another example of chaos in this administration. But he has done that. He has done that.

So now the issue is what is our strategy to deal with the consequences? The American people have to know this. We have seen too many conflicts in the Middle East escalate into war--escalate into a 10-year war.

The American people are not for spending a fortune and, more importantly, lives of Americans overseas. They want us to focus here at home, but the kind of adventurism--almost unplanned, unthought out, and, certainly, unexplained adventurism--of the President is the wrong way to go and could lead to severe consequences. And, I must say, even in closed-door briefings with Senators, the administration doesn't have a strategy.

This is not how democracy is supposed to work. This is not how the CEO of a major Nation or even a major company should behave, with no articulated strategy. The President needs to explain to the American people why he is driving us toward another endless conflict in the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia

Madam President, on Saudi Arabia, another matter concerning the administration's foreign policy, today the Senate will vote on resolutions of disapproval for arms sales to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

These 22 resolutions introduced by Senator Menendez would block billions of dollars in military sales, including the transfer of tens of thousands of precision-guided munitions that the Saudis have previously used to bomb innocent civilians in Yemen.

The timing of these votes is significant. Last night the United Nations issued a report that documented evidence that the Saudis meticulously planned the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and ``forensically''--their words--disposed of the evidence.

According to the report, the Saudis referred to Mr. Khashoggi as a sacrificial animal and that dismembering the body would be easy--how gross, how cruel, how beyond words.

Are we going to blithely go along and let the Saudis continue? They are an ally. Everyone knows that. That doesn't mean you let allies do the most horrible things and just treat it as if nothing happened. But in the wake of such monstrosity, the Trump administration is proposing another round of billions of dollars in arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Well, we should at least have a debate about whether that is the right course of action. Leader McConnell was on the floor saying: What are the Democrats doing here? We are debating, Mr. Leader. You have one view; I

may have another. But the American people are entitled to a debate on this important issue, and that is what the law provides, and that is the tool we use--one of the few tools we have to actually cause debate in this Chamber, which the leader, with his legislative graveyard, has assiduously avoided. With his reducing the amount of time that we can talk about and vet nominees, he has assiduously avoided that, turning this Chamber into a graveyard that the American people despise. But here we have an opportunity to debate, and even here the leader seems to be decrying that fact, in my view.

The administration is claiming emergency power and trying to circumvent congressional review of these arms sales. That premise must be rejected. It sets a dangerous precedent for congressional oversight of future arms sales, and it can lead to renewed conflicts. We are also discussing that, parenthetically, in relation to Iran. Should Congress have some say there? You will hear more from me later on that.

The very least Congress can do is to debate the merits of sending Saudi Arabia billions of dollars in military technology it may use not to confront Iran but to perpetrate one of the largest humanitarian catastrophes of its generation.

Saudi Arabia, even though it be an ally, must be held accountable for its human rights abuses in Yemen and the grotesque murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

Harriet Tubman

Madam President, now, on the Tubman issue, more than 3 years ago then-Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced that he had ordered an accelerated redesign of the $20 bill with a new design to feature Harriet Tubman's portrait on the face of the bill. The design was set to be released in 2020, the 100th anniversary of women getting the right to vote--a fitting tribute to an extraordinary American and an extraordinary New Yorker.

There are no women or people of color on our paper currency today, even though they make up a significant majority of our population. There haven't been for more than a century. The plan to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 note was a long overdue way to recognize that disparity and rectify it.

But shortly after the Trump administration took office, all mention of the Tubman $20 bill was deleted from the Treasury Department's website without any explanation. Then, Secretary Mnuchin testified that a decision had been made to delay the release of the $20 note until 2028, and Treasury refused to confirm that Harriet Tubman's image would ever appear on it.

The official word from the White House was that the delay was required to accommodate anti-counterfeiting measures. But if you believe that, I have a bridge that I can sell you. It is simply not credible that with all the resources of the Treasury Department, a decade or more would be required to produce a $20 bill.

A century ago, New Yorkers built the Empire State building in a little over a year. We landed a man on the Moon in what seems to be less time. Surely the 21st century Treasury Department can redesign a bill in a reasonable period of time. The questions as to why the White House, the Treasury, and maybe even the President delayed this are looming and real, given the President's attitude toward women and minorities.

I have asked the Department of Treasury inspector general to launch an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the Treasury's decision. The official reasons given aren't credible. The whole thing smacks of politics. President Trump has referred to efforts to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill as pure political correctness. To recognize more than half the people in our society, to recognize more than 25 percent of Americans who are people of color, all of whom have worked so hard to strive for this great country--is that political correctness? What is wrong with this President? What is wrong with this President, and what instincts is he appealing to? What bad instincts is he appealing to? It seems to be his practice, his way, his MO.

So among the questions the inspector general should examine is what role President Trump played in this apparent effort to renege on Treasury's 2016 commitment to honor Harriet Tubman.

Whatever the President's sentiments toward Jackson are, there is no reason to reverse the original Treasury Department decision to recognize Harriet Tubman's historic legacy on the $20 bill, which would still feature our seventh President on the reverse side.

I hope the inspector general will get to the bottom of this, but in the meantime, I hope President Trump himself is asked to answer for these delays. It would truly be a sordid state of affairs if the President or his team, for political reasons, interfered with and infected the process for designing American currency.

Background Checks

Madam President, now, finally, on background checks, in the early hours on Monday, a heavily armed man approached the Federal building in downtown Dallas and started shooting. This was a civilian walking into the middle of an American city with military-grade weapons, a mask, and body armor, and he was prepared to inflict the maximum level of damage possible.

It is to the credit of the incredible first responders that this accident did not result in the loss of innocent life, but it is remarkable that events like this now seem all too routine, and so the news cycle barely covers them before moving on.

Barely a week goes by without an incident like this somewhere in America. We are the only Nation in the developed world where these kinds of things--these horrible things--happen with regularity. Virginia Beach, Highland Ranch, Poway, and Aurora, IL, are all examples of shootings that have taken place this year alone.

Later today, I will join several of my colleagues from the House and the Senate, including our former colleague, the great Gabby Giffords, to urge Leader McConnell to bring background check legislation to the floor of the Senate. It has been 114 days since the House passed the measure, which more than 90 percent of Americans support, including more than 80 percent of Republicans and the majority of gun owners. But it seems that Leader McConnell has set aside another plot in his legislative graveyard for this potentially lifesaving bill.

For too long, the gun lobby has reflexively opposed gun safety reforms, even the most obvious and noncontroversial reforms, like closing loopholes in background checks, and, for too long, the Republican majority has marched in lockstep with them.

The American people demand we do these rational acts. The House has passed it overwhelmingly with a bipartisan vote. Where are Republicans? Are they still cowering before the NRA? I remind them, the NRA is a lot weaker today than it was a few years ago. It is time to do the right thing and stop being scared.

Let's move this bill to the floor. Let Leader McConnell finally let us debate an issue long overdue.

Election Security

Madam President, finally, as we continue to debate the NDAA, I urge Leader McConnell once again to allow and support amendments to protect our elections from future attacks.

Election security is a national security issue of the highest urgency. There aren't two sides to this debate. No one can defend doing nothing as the Russians, and maybe the Chinese, the Iranians, and the North Koreans, mess with the wellspring of our democracy--our elections.

As we have seen time and again from reports by the FBI, intelligence agencies, and the Mueller report, our elections came under attack from Russia in the last Presidential election. FBI Director Wray has warned that they are coming for us again, and he thinks it could be worse than in 2016.

Leader McConnell will not deny that this is true. So what are we waiting for? We know the threat is there. We know we can take steps to minimize it. So why won't Leader McConnell let us act?

We have several options for legislative action, many of them bipartisan. People on both sides of the aisle--Democrats and Republicans--care about this issue and have worked on legislation together, something not done frequently enough around here, and Leader McConnell just sits on these bills.

Last week, Senator Warner asked unanimous consent to simply say the FBI should be informed when a foreign power tries to influence an election. I believe Senator Blumenthal will try

to do the same thing today. Is Leader McConnell going to instruct one of his Republicans to block it again? Will he have the courage to block it himself if he wants it blocked?

The logical solution is to let us debate the bills. If Leader McConnell will not cooperate on this matter, Democrats are going to stand up for our democracy on our own, if we have to. We are going to ask unanimous consent to allow debate on these bills. We will insist on amendments to the NDAA. Leader McConnell has suggested he wants an open amendment process, so let's press the matter, and we will continue to push for more election security funding as part of a deal on budget caps.

There are not two sides on this one; there are just not. There is only one right answer: action to safeguard our election. I urge Leader McConnell to let us move on this issue. Stop stalling, stop obstructing. The legislative graveyard is full enough as it is. Let's come together, Democrats and Republicans, to protect our grand, imperiled democracy.

I yield the floor.