Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 241.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak as well on the Working Families Flexibility Act.

Over a period of time, a lot of the rules and regulations that this body has passed, it becomes apparent they are one-size-fits-all and lack common sense. I am glad to be a cosponsor of this bill which gives people the flexibility, if they work more than 40 hours in a week, they can take the cash if they need the cash. But for some people, either because of life circumstances or because they are just less materialistic, they don't want that cash. They would rather spend time with their family.

I think particularly in today's world where so many people live in two-parent families in which both people work, a lot of people would love to spend a day with their children instead of having their children in daycare. I think it is right that people should have the freedom to do that. We recognize for government employees we frequently have comp time in which if they work more than 40 hours a week, they can come back, spend more time with their family, or maybe just spend more time on recreation.

It is high time we give that freedom to people in the private sector, high time to put family first, and we all have to remember that even though some people always want more money, some people say there are other things in life that are more important.

Mr. Speaker, those of us in this institution talk about we are a country of laws. However, over time, more and more of the statements that we have to live by are not laws. They are rules and regulations. Therefore, when the Whistleblower Protection Act was passed in 1989, I am not sure at the time whether it was intended to cover rules and regulations, but, as a practical matter, I think Federal employees will run into problems in which they are asked to disobey rules and regulations even more than statutory laws themselves.

On June 7 of last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in Rainey v. Merit Systems Protection Board that, while laws were covered by the Whistleblower Protection Act, rules and regulations were not, at least if you weren't a Federal employee.

Why is it relevant that we have to make up for the problems caused by this decision? Dr. Timothy Rainey was a State Department employee who, while serving as a contracting officer in 2013, was ordered by his superior to violate the Federal Acquisition Regulation. Dr. Rainey refused and was subsequently removed from his duties.

When Dr. Rainey invoked the right-to-disobey provision of the Whistleblower Protection Act, the Merit Systems Protection Board ruled the law only protected him from violating Federal laws, but such protections don't apply to rules or regulations. Dr. Rainey appealed the case, and the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the Protection Board ruling and, in doing so, exposed a glaring inconsistency in the application of the act.

What does this mean? Federal whistleblowers play an important role in exposing mismanagement, the rampant mismanagement at Federal agencies, and supporting the oversight work of Congress. Critical to them is the Whistleblower Protection Act which provides Federal workers with certain legal safeguards to disclose information that an employee reasonably believes evidences gross mismanagement, waste of funds, abuse of authority, or a violation of the law.

This ruling will take away the protections when they stand up to bad actors in the Federal workforce. In effect, this ruling will give permission to supervisors in positions of authority to force Federal workers to violate the rules and regulations that Congress, through law, directs the agencies implement.

Regardless of your opinion about certain rules, we should not leave, exposed, Federal workers who are just trying to follow the rules instead of obeying supervisors who want them to disobey the rules and regulations. The bipartisan Follow the Rules Act, which I am an original cosponsor of, will close this loophole created by the court's ruling and ensure that Federal employees have protections for refusing to violate the rules and regulations in addition to the law.

I ask support for this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I would encourage my colleagues to vote for the bill. The reason I ask you to vote for the bill is kind of like the reverse: What is going to happen if this bill fails?

If this bill fails, you won't be able to have the huge increase in funding in HSAs, a free-market, patient-centered tax provision which is going to help many people and particularly allow flexibility for older married couples.

If this bill doesn't pass, we are going to continue to levy fines on young people who don't want health insurance, as so many people have not had when they are young. We will continue to levy fines on small business that can't afford health insurance.

If this bill fails to pass, we are not going to allow States to put work requirements on Medicaid. Quite frankly, Medicaid, in many ways, is a more generous policy than the one that people who do work are able to afford through their insurers.

If this bill doesn't pass, we won't be able to stop the bleeding on Medicaid funding. We are approaching a $20 trillion debt. Of course, the bulk of that spiraling debt is caused by mandatory spending, of which Medicaid is one of the worst parts.

Finally, for the first time in years, we are passing a law that will make a significant dent in that mandatory spending.

If this bill isn't passed, we prevent putting a provision in here requiring documentation of citizenship for Medicaid. Right now, we are becoming the healthcare provider for the world. We cannot afford to become the healthcare provider of the world.

Under this bill, we are providing funds, seed money for high-risk pools for States, which will hold down insurance costs, which is the underlying problem we have here.

If this bill doesn't pass, we continue to fund abortion providers. I think this is the best bill in decades for those of us who wish we would stop funding these organizations.

We are providing assistance for people who can't get insurance through their employer. It is high time the Tax Code provided equality for people who get insurance from their employer and those who don't.

Finally, if we don't pass this bill, we don't end ObamaCare.

Already a third of the counties only have one provider. If we don't pass this bill now, we are going to go into the next year and we are going find a lot of people who think they have ObamaCare but have nothing because there will be no providers left.

We have got to step in to save those people and provide insurance in those counties in which ObamaCare will leave no insurance companies remaining.

I thank the gentlewoman.

Mr. Chairman, it is not a surprise, when you try to take over such a sizable chunk of America's economy, that you have all sorts of unintended bad consequences. I am going to focus on two consequences that are true of so many programs that the government puts out there.

First of all, ObamaCare is one more program that discourages work. If you talk to your accountants again and again, they will tell you stories of people who are very conscious of the fact that, as they get a raise, as they work more overtime, they lose big subsidies. If I were to lose my next election, ObamaCare would continue. As my income would go up from $49,000 to $50,000, I would get hammered with a $4,500 loss. So it wouldn't be surprising that people in my position would be very careful not to get a raise or not to work overtime.

Even worse, this is one more government program that discourages marriage. If you have a single parent who is making $20,000 and if he decided to marry somebody making $30,000 or $40,000, he would be hammered with a $3,500 loss. Combined with the FoodShare program, the low-income housing subsidies, Pell grants, and various TANF programs, this is just one more step that the American Government has taken to discourage work and to discourage marriage.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 3, had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.''

Stated against: