Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, last night, President Obama delivered his farewell address to the Nation. Today, I rise to thank President Obama for his steady and his strong leadership over the past 8 years. He has served this Nation with dignity, with purpose, and helped us achieve some important successes during his tenure.

When he took office, this country was on the brink of a depression, facing a financial crisis unlike anything we have experienced. He has helped to put us on the right track, rebuilding the American auto industry and steady private sector job growth.

Now, we know we have a lot left to do, as he said last night. But he has given us the opportunity and the tools to continue that good work. No country, no nation, and certainly no government is dependent on any single individual. As he said, it is up to all of us, not just those of us in Congress or in public office but all citizens, to continue to work together to create the great society that we are all committed to.

But it would be a mistake to not take this moment to thank that individual, to thank President Obama, for the clarity of his moral leadership, for his grace, and his class. We owe him a great debt of gratitude.

Mr. Speaker, well, there are only 4 days left until the Department of Homeland Security shuts down, so I urge all my GOP colleagues to please take up a clean funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security and take away the threat of another government shutdown. Take that threat off the table.

If you won't listen to us on the Democratic side of the aisle, listen to some of your own colleagues. Listen to Senator Ron Johnson who said: ``The political impasse on DHS funding must end.''

Or listen to Representative Mike McCaul, who is chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security. He said: ``We should not be playing politics with the national security agency like DHS, particularly given the high threat environment we're in right now.''

Let's stop the gamesmanship. Let's get back to governing the way the American people want us to. Bring a clean DHS funding bill to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I guess it is pretty clear that politics continues. Rather than bringing to the floor of the House a bipartisan Homeland Security bill, what the House brought to the floor back in January was a highly political, highly partisan bill--anti-immigrant legislation--that they knew was dead on arrival when it landed in the Senate. So let's make the record clear:

Democrats and Republicans have agreed to a clean Homeland Security bill; but rather than bringing that to the House floor for a vote, we continue to see the House Republican leadership pander to the most extreme, anti-immigrant voices in their party.

That is not what the American people expect of us. It is politics as usual. I do not understand why it continues to be the order of the day here. The American people reject that. We should be focusing our attention on the big questions: building an economy for the American people that works for everybody rather than for the few, rather than an economy rigged for the few.

Look, the American people are tired of this. I know other Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are tired of this. Bring a clean Homeland Security bill to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, as you have heard, there are only 17 days until the GOP recklessly shuts down the Department of Homeland Security--and only 6 legislative days before that happens. We have a bipartisan bill that we have already agreed to. Bring it to the floor. We will be here. We can pass it today.

When the majority leader was asked why we should pass the DHS funding bill, he said: ``Why do we have to?'' Seriously. This is about the safety of the

American people. Rather than dealing with the safety of the American people, the Republican leadership has decided to continue to pander to the extreme Tea Party voices within their party.

We ought to be taking this up as a matter of course and get back to the business of dealing with the big questions that people want us to take on, like how we can create an economy that is not rigged for the people at the top, with the rest of us paying the price. These are questions that people want us to deal with.

We ought to set aside the politics of this Homeland Security bill and bring the bill that you have already agreed to, and we will vote on it and get on with the business of the American people.

Mr. Speaker, there are only 18 days left until the Department of Homeland Security runs out of money and shuts down on February 28.

The Republican leadership, unfortunately, is still wasting time in this body in their appealing to the extremists within their party rather than addressing these important challenges that our country faces. The Republicans' extreme anti-immigration DHS funding bill is dead on arrival in the Senate, as they know. Border security experts have referred to the bill as ineffective, not serious, and dangerous for our Nation's security. Instead of coming together with Democrats in a bipartisan fashion to address the DHS funding issue and ensure the security of American families, we continue to see the House squander time, moving even further to the right in order to appease the most extreme voices.

At some point in time, Mr. Speaker, we have to end the politics and get

down to the business of the American people. Please, please join Democrats and Republicans to protect the American people and fund the Department of Homeland Security immediately. Then we can focus on middle class economics, which can create bigger paychecks for all Americans and build new infrastructure, and we can get back to the work of the American people.

Mr. Speaker, instead of taking action for bigger paychecks for Americans or rebuilding America's crumbling infrastructure, House Republicans yesterday introduced legislation to repeal and undermine the Affordable Care Act.

This legislation would undermine fundamental guarantees under the ACA that you can no longer lose or be denied coverage due to a preexisting condition. This latest proposal would put coverage for things like maternity care up to the whim of the States. It would include a tax hike on working families and would leave millions uninsured without any coverage at all.

Mr. Speaker, this is not a serious proposal, and more than 2,000 days after President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, Republicans still lack a serious alternative.

Thanks to the ACA, uninsured rates are at a record low and hardworking families can afford health care, but Republicans continue their obsession with stripping protections from affordable coverage.

This is the wrong direction for our country. We should be working on putting America back to work.

Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend for yielding.

I want to echo the comments of Ranking Member Waters. As a member of the Committee on Financial Services, I am particularly concerned with the direction that this bill takes us at a time when, on one hand, many of my colleagues have criticized the agencies charged with implementation of important regulatory reforms, such as Dodd-Frank, charging those agencies with not bringing forth rules in a timely fashion, and then at the same time reducing, through the budget process, the necessary resources to provide those agencies with the tools that they need to move forward on the rulemaking process, and now this, yet another, I think, effort to create another cumbersome step in the process of developing rules intended to implement legislation that was passed here by the United States Congress, law that is on the books.

The rulemaking process already includes a very logical progression of steps which allows for a comprehensive and all-inclusive comment period under the Administrative Procedure Act that allows the kind of substantive input that is specific to the rules being proposed to be provided, to be considered, to modify proposed rules, and then to move forward in an orderly process.

The other concern that I have is that there is language that is troublesome to me in terms of the way cost-benefit analyses would be conducted and considered.

Very often--and there is no better example than in the financial sector--if we limit ourselves to industry-specific costs and benefits, we lose the fact that many of the costs are not borne by those in the industry but those consumers who bear the brunt of their tactics.

Mr. Speaker, it is week five of this new Congress, and the American people are still waiting for action to create jobs. Instead of doing that, Republicans seem focused on appeasing and pandering to the most extreme voices in their party. Even some Republicans are appalled by this Republican agenda now that they control Congress.

One Republican Member told the National Journal:

Week one, Republicans had a Speaker election that did not

go well; week two, Republicans got into a big fight about

deporting children; week three, Republicans are now talking

about rape and incest and reportable rapes and incest for

minors . . . I just can't wait for week four.

Now we are in week five, and the new Republican Congress is still working. It doesn't look like we are going to see a jobs bill or an infrastructure bill. Instead, today, for the 56th time, we will see a vote on the floor of the House to take away health care for millions of Americans.

The Republican leadership needs to stop putting the politics of the extreme rightwing of their party in the fore and get back to the work of the American people.

Mr. Speaker, it is week five for the new Congress--and it happens to be Groundhog Day--and my Republican colleagues, unfortunately, I think, are still stuck in the shadow of their extreme agenda.

Instead of taking up a jobs bill or an infrastructure bill or a minimum wage bill to give working families bigger paychecks, they have again decided this week, for the 56th time, to take up repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

Never mind that repealing the ACA in this House would take away insurance for millions of individuals or raise insurance premiums on working families or allow insurance companies to once again discriminate against those who have preexisting medical conditions.

This extreme bill we know will never see the light of day or become law, however. Similar bills were dead on arrival the first time that the Speaker brought it up, and it is not going anywhere this time.

This vote, pandering to the most extreme voices at the expense of a jobs bill or the first vote on a national manufacturing plan or the first vote to repair our crumbling roads and bridges, takes away the time to deal with those important issues and continues this House on the road to another repeal of the ACA.

Madam Speaker, it is now week 4 in the new Republican Congress. There is still no jobs bill anywhere in sight. Instead of taking up an infrastructure bill or a minimum wage bill to give working families bigger paychecks, we are seeing a dangerous immigration bill that will actually hurt our Nation's security.

Next week, Republican leadership is abandoning a bipartisan border security bill from the last Congress and instead trying to pass an irresponsible and unworkable $10 billion bill that simply appeases the extreme voices within their caucus.

Border security experts say this bill would be ineffective. They call it unserious and dangerous for our Nation's security. Secretary Jeh Johnson says that if enacted, it would actually leave the border less secure.

This does not combat threats or secure our border. It simply requires the Federal Government to spend billions of dollars of taxpayer money on unnecessary projects.

If we really wanted to do something here in this House about border security, let's bring up the Border Security Results Act that was unanimously passed by the Homeland Security Committee in the last Congress, bipartisan and unanimous, and it would get things done.

Mr. Speaker, just the night before last the President addressed this body and laid out an agenda that we all might not agree with certain elements, but there are elements that we could certainly act upon.

We could take up an infrastructure bill. We could take up legislation that would assure every young person the ability to go to community college. We could take up the big questions that the American people expect us to address that are important to growing our economy. But we are not doing that.

Instead, this morning, the leadership will present to this body legislation that will again seek to curtail the health care rights of women, not because you have some expectation that it will become law, but I believe because it is just another attempt to pander to the more extreme voices of the base.

The President and others have called to us to elevate the dialogue in Congress and elevate our aspirations for our country.

We have legislation before us that would put limitations on the choices that women have and even deny access to abortion services to save the life of a mother. This is the wrong direction. We need to reject it.

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding.

Let me first say something about the process that we are engaged in. We have heard just in the last few weeks--and even as we opened this Congress--the Speaker and others in the majority talk about how we will adhere to regular order and we will get back to the process of legislating the way it was intended to be conducted.

What happened to that? Why did we set that aside? What is the emergency that requires us to bring this highly ideological piece of legislation to the floor in just a few hours after it had been brought to the Rules Committee? What happened to the previous legislation that we were supposed to debate?

I mean, to me, this is a big problem, and it is one that I think begs the question of whether or not those offers of returning to the regular legislative process are sincere.

I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule for that reason, but also because this is yet just another ideological attack on the health care rights of women in this country who want--in some cases, we know that abortion services are already prohibited from being funded through Federal sources.

This is simply going so far as to say that women, with their own money, who seek to procure insurance coverage, can't seek that coverage if it includes these services. To me, it goes just far too far. It does not allow even exceptions for abortions that would be required to protect the health of the woman or serious medical concerns.

We can't continue to make this a political question and a political football. Forty-two years ago, this question was decided at the Supreme Court. It is a right that is protected.

Rather than continuing to just sort of pander to the base and satisfy the ideological extremists in our country, we ought to be thinking about the questions that people actually want us to take this precious time on the floor of the House to debate: How are we going to put America back to work? How are we going to rebuild our infrastructure? How are we going to make sure that kids who want to get a good college education the way the President outlined the other night are going to be able to afford that?

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert my statement in the Record that the House should vote for bigger paychecks and better infrastructure instead of yet another attack on women's access to health care.

I thank my friend for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I feel compelled to point out, after listening to the debate and the hyperbole, the passionate thoughts of what a high priority this is for the Republican leadership to bring this bill to the floor--such a high priority that they didn't think about it until late last night. They didn't bring it to committee. They rushed it to the floor without having even thought of this legislation until late last night. Such a high priority. We know, the American people know, this is political theater.

In listening to the debate, it is also quite revealing in listening to some of the comments made that this is not about taxpayer funding for the health care choices that American women legally have and the Constitution supports and that the Supreme Court clarified 42 years ago, but it is about preventing women from making that choice in the first place. That is a choice that ought to be made by women, by themselves, in consultation with their health care provider, and not by Members of Congress.

First of all, thank you to my colleague, Mr. Pocan, for his leadership on this and for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, this is a really important subject for the American people. It is a really important subject for the people that I represent in Flint, Michigan, in Saginaw, Michigan, Bay City.

You mentioned Flint. It is my hometown. I was born and raised there. September 16, 1908, General Motors was incorporated in Flint, Michigan, and it was a company that brought together carriage-makers and wheel- makers, and they put the world on wheels.

About 30 years later, the workers in that city at General Motors organized and got the first UAW contract. Between the auto industry itself and the organized workers who were able to then claim their fair share of the tremendous wealth generated by their productive capacity, we built the American middle class. We built an amazing society that gives opportunity, gave opportunity, I think, to just about anybody who felt they could work hard and would put in the time and get a fair wage and get decent benefits and be able to go to work with some dignity.

We built something that was truly amazing.

It was not that long ago, because of globalization and because of trade deals like the one that is being considered right now, that the Federal Government, rightfully, and this President, rightfully, stood up for the American auto industry and put it back on its feet. They gave the American autoworker--the American worker--the chance to reclaim that dignity that so many people fought for even decades ago.

What I worry about is that everything that those people worked and fought for could go away. In fact, even the great work that this President did to rescue the American auto industry could all be for naught if we continue down this path of pursuing trade policy that puts corporate and stockholder and offshore interests, really, in front of the interests of the American people and the American worker.

My hometown has seen this play itself out. I remember--I was in local government--when the North American Free Trade Agreement was adopted. We keep hearing that the agreement that is being contemplated right now is a vastly different sort of agreement, but we don't see that. What we do hear and see is the very same language and the very same rhetoric and the very same explanations or excuses about the need to grant Fast Track authority to negotiate this agreement and bring it back to Congress for a ``yes'' or ``no'' vote. The same arguments that are being made now were being made then, and the people whom I represent truly believed that they were sold a bill of goods.

At one point in time, in my hometown of Flint, Michigan, we had 79,000 autoworkers. This was a city that was never more than 200,000 in population, so this is a city that really grew up around American manufacturing. It was direct GM employees, but it was suppliers and a whole community built around this incredible productive capacity that started over a century ago; but in just a few short years, we have gone from that 79,000 number to about 10,000 autoworkers in my hometown.

When I think about trade and these trade deals, it is not a question of sort of the big geopolitical tensions that we are trying to address. It is not even a matter of this kind of esoteric argument about the philosophy of trade policy. It is about Flint and Saginaw and Bay City, Michigan, families who have worked hard their whole lives and who stand to lose everything because we are continuing to pursue trade policy that thinks about the short-term profits of multinational corporations and not about strengthening the long-term integrity of the American middle class. This is a dangerous path that we are on.

What is particularly concerning to me is that, when I go home, as I do--as you all do--we get questions about this.

The questions are: ``We keep hearing that this trade agreement will have a high standard, a high set of standards, and that it will not be like past agreements.'' Even some here in Washington have said that we are fighting old battles and that this is a new day. Yet, when I have to answer to my constituents' questions like: ``Will these agreements have environmental protections and enforcement mechanisms for those environmental standards unlike some previous agreements?'' I have to say, ``I don't really know because we don't have access to the documents. We don't have access to the process. We haven't been asked to weigh in.''

``Will the agreements have labor standards that guarantee that American workers won't have to compete with nations that outlaw labor unions?'' for example.

``I don't know because we have not seen that language.''

We are being asked to accept on faith that, somehow, miraculously, this trade agreement is going to look dramatically different than others, even of those that have been fairly recently passed.

Finally, I am asked, ``Will there be protections to keep other nations from manipulating their currency?'' No matter what else is in any of these trade agreements, if currency can be manipulated to a point so that the price of one nation's exports makes it impossible for us to compete with them, all is lost.

From what we hear, there will be no currency provisions or at least, if there are any at all, they certainly won't be strong enough to have any influence whatsoever on the ability of these nations to undermine the American economy by dumping goods, by manipulating currency in a fashion that makes it impossible for us to compete.

This is the wrong track for this country. It is something for which Congress needs to stand up and assert its constitutional role in defending. I stand with my colleagues, and I know many, many others who simply are not going to sit idly by no matter who the President is--a Democrat, a Republican, or otherwise--and allow the prerogatives of Congress, which means the prerogatives of the people who sent us here, to be overlooked. It would be a dangerous path for us to take, and I am very grateful to my friend Mr. Pocan for his leadership and for the leadership of many others here on this issue.

I am glad to stand with you in fighting this battle.

I thank my friend for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, here we are on the second day of the 114th Congress. It has not yet been 24 hours since Members of this Congress were sworn in. What we have before us is a package of 11 complex bills with significant implications for our financial system--and I want to make this very clear, as my friend pointed out--some of which have not gone through the process of scrutiny by the Financial Services Committee or the regular legislative process. Some of it has and some of it has not, but it has not been at all by this Congress. This is not an emergency. Unlike TRIA, which expired before we left, there is not a time- sensitive nature of this question.

It is really important to me--and especially as now a second-term Member--to remember what it was like to show up here and to have things put in front of us that we had not really had a chance to fully and thoroughly vet.

The regular order--as was spoken about yesterday--it is critical for the minority to have access to the process, and it is only done through the regular legislative process.

This legislation just continues to give and give and give to Wall Street.

Despite the fact that my principal objection is with the lack of adherence to regular order and the process of legislating, substantively, there are problems with this legislation. Wall Street banks, whose banks and traders recklessly drove this country into a financial crisis, are being rewarded yet again, and I can't accept it. I can't support it.

What is really interesting to me is that here we are, less than 24 hours since we have been in Congress, yet in the last Congress, when Main Street had its needs, when unemployed people couldn't get Federal unemployment benefits, we couldn't get a hearing; we couldn't get a vote on the floor of the House for legislation that was bipartisan, that had an equal number of Democrats and Republicans supporting it.

When Wall Street asks, we suspend the rules in less than a day without taking a breath and move to fit their needs into our schedule. But when Main Street needs help, Congress didn't give an answer. This is not right.

We have got to get back to regular order. We talk about it all the time. We hear it on both sides. This is not a good start for the 114th Congress, to suspend the rules and deal with new language that many of us have just seen this morning, to pass legislation that is a gift- wrapped present to Wall Street. I can't support it. I urge my colleagues to reject this legislation.

I thank the gentlewoman.

Madam Speaker, I share the concern expressed by my friend, Mr. Cole, that if we don't act today, government will be shut down, so I agree that we need to act. The question that we have to ask ourselves in this body is: At what price do we keep government open?

There is a lot of good in this legislation, no question about it, but for me--and I have supported bipartisan efforts to keep government open in the past, I have only been here 2 years, and I had to do it already--but the notion that a price has to be paid in order to keep government open--and that price is to grant greater power to the wealthiest Americans to have more influence over our political process--is just too much for me to take.

Of all the problems that we could use this moment to try to solve, are we offering help to the unemployed who lost their benefits as a part of this package? No. Are we dealing with the massive problems we have with infrastructure? No. Are we trying to balance the playing field for people who happen to be born in a ZIP Code full of poverty? No.

But what we are doing as a condition of keeping government open is deciding that the one thing we have to do is to make sure that the wealthiest Americans can now spend 10 times more money on the political process than they did last year. Seriously? This is a problem that we have to solve in order to keep government open?

I just can't imagine that this is the price we have to pay.