Floor Statements

I thank the gentlelady.

Mr. Speaker, thank you for your oversight of this evening. The gentlelady and I do not agree at all on football, she being from Missouri and my being an Oklahoma State fan, but we do agree on this. This is a critical area, and it gets to the basic element of what we do as a Nation and what a government is supposed to do.

A government is designed to protect and to serve the people. The people don't serve the government. The government serves the people. The government is set to allow people to be able to live their lives as they choose. Then along comes the Affordable Care Act, where the government looks down at the people, literally, and says, ``I am going to make better decisions for you. Instead of your choosing your doctor, instead of your choosing your hospital, instead of your choosing your insurance, I am going to pick a group of insurance policies and hospitals and doctors I like as the government, and you get to pick from my list.'' It removes those choices from individuals to then set up a Web site and say, ``You are required to go on this Web site and enter your information on this Web site.''

Now, Mr. Speaker, I don't know how you handle shopping online, but when I shop online, I am careful of what Web sites I go to. I want to make sure there are security protocols and there is some backing to that so I am not entering information onto some site where I don't know how the security is handled. But this one is different. On this one, the power of the Federal Government is coming down on an individual to say, ``I don't care what you think about the security of this site. Enter your information there, and not only enter your information there, enter your children's information there.''

Chief Information Security Officer Teresa Fryer, she is the one who was set to be able to sign off on the security protocols for the Web site when it was to be launched, but in September, she refused to sign off and to put her name onto the exchanges and the data hub and say that it was ready to go and that the security was there. In fact, her statement was that there was a high risk of security and that there had been no end-to-end testing of this site, and she refused to sign off on the security. This is the chief information security officer who was assigned to oversee that for the government. Instead, it was pushed up to Marilyn Tavenner, the Director of CMS, to have to make the signoff because the person under her refused to do it.

Should Americans be concerned in entering their information? Absolutely, they should be concerned in entering their information because there is still no certification that this is fully tested, fully approved and that there are not serious vulnerabilities.

In the first week that the site was launched, the Federal Government brought in what is called a ``white hacker,'' someone who is going to come in and test the system, try to hack into the system. Were they successful? Absolutely, they were successful. They found multiple vulnerabilities in the site, itself, and then reported it back to CMS. There are a lot of security vulnerabilities there.

Is this an issue? Yes, but as ironic as all that is, a government that is set up to serve the people is actually trying to protect itself and not report when there is a problem.

You see, when Target had 40 million credit cards stolen in a very rare incident for a retailer like that--my family's being one of those--we were all notified. We were told, ``You are at risk. Here is what has occurred, so go change your credit card. Go protect your identity,'' because Target has the responsibility to protect us and to be able to let us know you have got a risk.

The Federal Government right now is saying, ``If someone breaks into our system, we have the responsibility to protect the Federal Government and not to let anyone know,'' instead of protecting the individual. That is government on its head. Government is designed to serve and protect the people, not to have them say, ``I can't tell you that information because it will look bad for the Federal Government.'' No.

This bill does a basic thing. It says the people are more important than the program that the government has set up--the people are--and that if their information has been stolen, if there has been a compromise to that information, they should be informed of that so that they can take the steps that are necessary to make sure they and their children who they have entered on their site have their information protected in the days ahead.

This is the right thing to do. This is not some blanket partisan issue. We would want this in every aspect of every Web site that the Federal Government has, whether that be IRS information, whether that be ObamaCare information, whether that be information on an EPA computer. If it is compromised, that citizen should know so steps can be taken to be able to protect himself. It is a reasonable protection for the American people. That is why I think this is a reasonable thing to be able to do. Quite frankly, we believe that the Affordable Care Act will be completely repealed and that the American people will have the ability to choose for themselves again rather than have the Federal Government say we are going to make choices for you. Until that day comes, it is a reasonable thing to at least begin with this.

With that, I thank the gentlelady from Missouri. Again, I can't root for your football team, but I can stand with you on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of January 2014 being National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month.

Human trafficking victims suffer repeatedly with no apparent way out. An estimated between 100,000 and 300,000 children each year become victims in America of this abhorrent practice.

Many runaway children become victims of human trafficking within 48 hours of leaving home, and it is crucial that we, as Americans, are aware of our surroundings and immediately contact authorities when we see anything suspicious around children. Traffickers can be found at airports, parking lots, schools, malls, and other places where they search for young victims.

Two years ago, I authored a bill which this House passed, the Senate passed, and the President signed at the end of 2012 eliminating trafficking on our military bases around the world and our State Department facilities around the world.

We, as Americans, believe every person has value. Every person has rights that are given to them by their creator. Mr. Speaker, I would encourage every American, if they come into contact with someone that they suspect is a victim of human trafficking, to contact the National Human Trafficking

Hotline at 888-373-7888. Let's help our fellow Americans.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to wish a happy anniversary to an organization that is actually helping people.

Seventy-five years ago, the Wagner-O'Day Act was signed here in the United States Congress. It is now known as the AbilityOne Program. It honors each individual person across our country with unique disabilities to be able to say as a Nation we are going to stand with you on that.

I believe firmly that every individual evaluates success in a different way, but I think part of how they evaluate success is do they have a great family experience, do they have a great community of friends around them, are they deep in their own personal faith, and do they have work that is meaningful.

The AbilityOne Program--and what is happening specifically in my State with an organization connected to them called NewView Oklahoma-- they are helping people have great value and understanding that people that are blind and visually impaired can have great success in life and can contribute to society.

They are producing products that are sold commercially and to governments that are all over the world. In fact, 2 years ago I was in Afghanistan; and when we landed, as we got off the back of the aircraft there, there was one of the bright yellow chalks that is uniquely made in Oklahoma by people that are blind and visually impaired.

This is a great gift that we are doing, and I wish them happy anniversary.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today for an admonition and a redirection, somewhat of a philosophical conversation.

America started with a great, healthy reality of what government can do and what government cannot do. A government can't really control all of what is happening in every State from one central area. We begin at the very beginning with individual States, individual local government, individuals making decisions for their family.

Right now, we see in every poll, in every conversation, that every one of us has this great frustration that is rising among the American people. That frustration is not rising because the American vision, the American Dream, and the American spirit is failing. That frustration is rising somewhat because of what we are doing and because of this constant challenge that is occurring nationwide to the concept of a representative republic, the constant asking of the question: Has this become too gridlocked? Has it become too partisan? Has it become too hard to be able to get things done?

Maybe we need to do it a different way. Quite frankly, the American people know in their hearts that they should be represented, they should be heard, justice should be done, trust should be here, common sense should prevail. The basic principle among so many people, that we should speak for those who cannot speak for themselves, that every American should be heard, it goes from the Book of Proverbs to the very foundation of our constitutional system now.

So what do we do about that?

Well, around the world we see it. We see the frustration of other people in other countries. We see it in Syria as they are split up in a civil war. We see it in Cairo, in the streets at yet another set of protests. We see in Thailand, the absolute corruption of their government breaking out in things. We see votes in the Parliament in the Ukraine right now as worldwide, continent by continent, there is constant frustration with their government and people rise up in the streets.

What do we do about it? How do we lead? We are the leaders in our country. So what do we do?

Here is my quick admonition to us:

Stop running down America and each other. We are different. We think different, we function different, our families function different, but we should still be able to honor each other.

We see each other's worst. We see on the social media sites and we see on the press reports and we see everything else. We know so much about each other that there is this sense that it is different now. But quite frankly, Americans have always been flawed people. But we are people that are gathered around our work, our faith, our community, and our family, and that has made us different.

We have got to stop demeaning a representative republic. This constant statement of ``we are gridlocked and things aren't working'' implies to people all over the country maybe this system of government that made us the most powerful economy, the most powerful military, the greatest bastion for freedom the world has ever known, maybe it doesn't work anymore.

The problem is not a representative republic. The problem is not our Constitution. The problem is we are trying to do something that is not that. We are shifting away from the way that we were founded into something that doesn't really exist.

Quite frankly, the partisan gridlock is not something new. The patron saint of Oklahoma is Will Rogers. You can take every joke he made about Congress in the 1920s and pull it up today and it is still funny because things haven't changed on that because, quite frankly, we think different. But that is

the nature of a country that is like ours.

We have all these voices from all over the country that should come together and that should work together; but they should find us with solutions, not getting into their life and taking things over. They need to see a government that is thinking for them, not trying to make them the servant. They see it.

Why did we have to vote this week about lead in fire hydrants? Isn't that a no-brainer issue? The government has become so strong and so powerful in communities that communities are not sure if they can replace their fire hydrants anymore? Why is it that Americans can't get insurance anymore? Because they are waiting on a government Web site and they are worried about what is going to happen in a month because they are waiting in line for that.

Why is it that the education outcomes continue to decline when we increase Federal control year after year after year, and yet our outcomes continue to decline? Even this week, there is another international poll coming out for that.

Why is it getting harder and harder to start a company, find a job, pay your gas bill? Why is it tougher to fill up your car with gas or pay the bill for your cell phone?

It is because of increasing regulations, increasing fees, increasing control, and Americans continue to get frustrated because they know this is not what we were designed to be. We are doing too many things. We have got to get back to trusting the American people, our State leaders, our local leaders, and we have got to set the standard for what leadership looks like in America by our rhetoric and by our actions.

We can honor people and honor each other, even in our differences, but we have got to get back to doing this Nation's business the way that the American people in their hearts know it should be done, where their voices are heard, and where they get to make the decisions.

Thank you to my colleague for hosting this.

Mr. Speaker, about 3\1/2\ years ago, Americans started getting more and more frustrated. It is really a product of several years of building, this sense of helplessness as they struggled and watched their Nation--I don't even know how to begin to describe the emotions that really welled up about 4 years ago when Americans watched their health care beginning to slip away. This absolute divide that happened as a Nation between Republicans and Democrats--and they used to try to work together to try to resolve things--went out the window on a pure partisan vote to push through a health care change that not a single Republican voted for. And Democrats, in a skittish way, pushed it with glee while others stepped back and said, I hope this works the way it is being advertised.

As we know now, it is not working. It is working exactly as many Republicans said it would work. And the impulse of the Federal Government to take over more and more would actually cause serious problems in the process.

At the same time, the United States Government began to overspend more than it ever had in the history of the United States. Mr. Speaker, $1.45 trillion of overspending in a single year led millions of Americans to stop and to gather--many of them for the first time-- gather in small groups and say, Our government is really struggling. This is not going, as a Nation, how we thought it would go. And they gathered together in small groups, which were spontaneously called these Tea Party groups, groups of patriots and individuals, housewives, moms, business leaders, and guys that owned locksmith shops, and all of these different places that were around just started gathering together to say, What can we do? Just normal Americans.

As they began to form and to meet in groups of five, 10, 20, 25-- sometimes they would meet with huge rallies of 100 or 200 people. But most of the time, it is at somebody's house. Most of the time it is at a VFW meeting place or some other spot. They determined, Well, we need to get organized, and we need to be able to pass out materials and do some things. And to do that in our governmental system, they have got to try to find some way to be able to organize that money together, which means they need to contact the Internal Revenue Service and be able to access and get a revenue number. Well, they started that.

One of those groups was in Oklahoma, a group called Oklahoma City Patriots in Action. This group of individuals are just normal Oklahoma great folks. They got together, submitted their application, and went through the process they needed to do. And then they get a letter back with 21 questions, some of them having up to nine subquestions to it. Sixty-five total requests came back to this group of individuals saying, We will give you your number if you will tell us all of this information. And to accentuate it, the letter begins with first them needing to sign this statement:

Under penalties of perjury, I declare that I have examined

this information, including accompanying documents, and, to

the best of my knowledge and belief, the information contains

all the relevant facts relating to the request for the

information, and such facts are true, correct, and complete.

And then they go on to make 65 different data requests, many of them incredibly long.

There is no question this letter is intended to intimidate people; but I can tell you from knowing these Oklahomans, they tried to intimidate the wrong people with this.

So let me just give you an example of some of the things they began to ask for in this long list of questions. They asked things like:

Do you directly or indirectly communicate with members of

legislative bodies? If so,

provide copies of the written communications and contents of

other forms of communications.

In other words, if you redress grievances to your elected officials, as our Constitution allows you to do, please provide us a copy of everything you said when you went to your government for a redress of grievances.

How about this:

Give detailed examples on how you will educate the public

concerning key legislation and the positions of political

candidates and elected officials on that legislation.

Please explain how you obtain the current legislative

information, both State and Federal, and the turnaround time

to post on your Web site.

Why in the world does it matter what their turnaround time is-- whether they post it in a day or 10 days--for your IRS application?

How about this:

Please provide copies of your current Web pages from your

Web site.

Wouldn't it be easier just to ask for the Web site name and then go search it themselves? They wouldn't have to print out copies of every page.

And here are two sets of my favorites, of this long list. I could go on and on with it. This asks:

Have you conducted or will you conduct rallies or

exhibitions for or against any public policies, legislation,

public officers, political candidates, or like kinds? If yes,

please explain and provide the following: State the time,

location, and content schedule of each rally or exhibition.

Provide copies of handouts you provided or will provide to

the public. The names of persons from your organization and

the amount of time they have spent or will spend on the

event.

One last piece--and again, I could go on and on with this. This is the one that, when I read through this, it continued just to make my blood boil:

Have any candidates running for public office spoken or

will they speak at a function of your organization? If so,

provide the names of the candidates, the functions at which

they spoke, any materials distributed or published with

regard to their appearance and the event, any video or audio

recordings of the event, and a transcript of any speeches

given by the candidates.

Now, these are a gatherings of 20 people sitting around in someone's house. They are not transcribing every part of everything that is said. These are normal Americans getting together to discuss what is going on in their government. And the IRS said, If you want to continue to do this and be organized, we need to get a transcript of every speech that was done around your kitchen table.

And to add insult to injury, remember what I said at the beginning, Under penalties of perjury, if you don't provide completely everything in this, you are not eligible.

What is this intended to do? This is intended to silence. This is intended to tell good, hardworking Americans, Be quiet, sit around your dining room table, don't organize, don't keep moving.

Now when our committee asked about this, the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which I serve on, when we asked about this initially and began pushing forward to get more information--because as the folks in Oklahoma City know, this is not an isolated event. Letters like this, with other questions, went to other places all over the country, to everyone who had the name ``Tea Party,'' had the word ``liberty,'' or had the word ``patriot'' in their name. They were assigned to a specific group in Cincinnati, and they dead-ended all in that one group.

Now, initially, when we asked individuals about it, we were told this was just a crazy group of folks in Cincinnati that went rogue, as if they all worked for WKRP, and they were out there just being crazy in Cincinnati.

When we asked those quote-unquote ``rogue'' agents in Cincinnati to come before our committee and to tell us about it, what we were told was very clear. They were following the instructions they got from Washington, D.C., on what to do with these applications. And a special group was set up that all they did was take in applications that had ``Tea Party,'' ``liberty,'' or ``patriot'' in it. And when they arrived at that location, they were to sit there and wait for instructions from Washington, D.C.

So we asked the Cincinnati folks, Who gave you those instructions in Washington, D.C.? Those individuals were then called before our committee. And we asked those individuals, Did you give instructions to the Cincinnati office? Yes. Why did you do that? Here was their statement:

Because we were told by the IRS counsel to wait on their

instructions.

We are now in the process of doing interviews with the IRS counsel to say, Why was the decision made to say, people with certain names, send them letters like this with no intention of ever answering them? That they would get 65 detailed requests like this, each providing a very long response needed? And that then when it was finally collected, they would dead-end in Cincinnati. Why? We are still trying to get that answer.

Why does that matter? Because Americans, whether they be liberal, conservative, anything in between should have a government that serves them, rather than intimidates them. It is right that we continue to walk through this process. It is right that good, hardworking Americans are not intimidated by their government.

This is something that needs to be resolved and will be resolved, and though the headlines have faded away on it, we have not forgotten these individuals. And we will continue to work through the process to be held to account and to make sure this doesn't happen to anyone again in the days ahead.

I thank the gentleman for hosting this time so that these folks in Oklahoma City and around the country are not forgotten.

Mr. Speaker, the President seems to flippantly just talk about 5 percent of Americans have received a cancelation notice, as if they are just individuals that didn't have a policy that really met his standard for what he was looking for or what the administration is looking for.

That 5 percent equals about 5 million people across the country. They are not just a random statistic. They are families and individuals like the Evans family, and it is not just this one family, but everyone that works in their business received this same letter. Why is that? Because as the President continues to speak about these are just individuals or individual policies, that is not actually true either.

Here is a letter from Aetna that came to the Evans family and every employee in their business. It says:

As you have heard, the Affordable Care Act is bringing many

changes to health insurance. One of these changes is that the

association groups, which are comprised of small employers,

cannot provide coverage as a large group entity.

Consequently, Aetna is discontinuing the current plans and

has notified your employer.

The plans they have and they have been able to find are a 25 percent increase over last year. Their firm cannot hire additional people next year because of the additional cost.

This is the United States of America. What are we doing telling people what health insurance they can purchase?

Mr. Speaker, the ObamaCare Web site has been a nuisance. People spend hours of wasted time trying to get on it, trying to get information they cannot get information on.

This has moved far beyond just a nuisance of trying to get on a Web site. Now people are discovering the new cost increases that are happening, and over a million people have already received a cancelation notice for their insurance.

Let me just give you a couple of those from my district:

The Evans Law Firm has 17 people involved in their small law firm. That firm received a cancelation notice, not because their insurance was not up to the standards that the President has set, but because it grouped together with other policies, and now that is no longer going to be available to them, so they have to go out on the market. The cheapest they have found so far is a 25 percent increase to them.

Another business owner has notified me they are going to pay a 13.5 percent increase in their insurance next year because their current insurance doesn't have pediatric care in it. None of the employees there have children, so of course they haven't had insurance for pediatric care. This would be the equivalent of having a car in your driveway and waking up the next morning and some government official has switched the car to a better car and you get the bill for the more expensive car because they didn't like your car.

This does not help the families at home.

Mr. Chairman, i would like to bring up my support for this bill but also to be able to talk about the limited funds that the Corps of Engineers have. They have very limited funds because the United States of America obviously has limited funds, what we actually receive from the taxpayers.

There is a study within this bill itself that is being proposed that looks at the low-priority projects and the things that are not within the core mission of

the Corps of Engineers. That study doesn't need to be a study to nowhere. It does need to be a study to look at the low-priority inventory and then just go in a drawer and say, Gosh, we have low- priority inventory that we can't afford to maintain that sits closed and a local municipality can't open it. So we need to be able to establish the next step on that.

I thank the gentlelady for hosting this time to be able to talk about some of the serious issues.

Madam Speaker, I want to bring to our attention tonight something that we're trying to bring up over and over again. It is a simple injustice and an absolute avoidance of the law.

A week ago, this body, Republicans and Democrats together, agreed unanimously to make sure that the United States military, civilians, and all civilian contractors would be exempt in case there was a shutdown.

The United States military has taken the brunt of the sequestration, and in bases all over the country and all over the world they have suffered. They have stopped training missions, they slowed down the process, as they've rapidly try to adjust to very fast-moving furloughs and sequestration. But they have. They've done what they've been asked to do.

So we make sure as a body, Republicans and Democrats together, that in case we got to a government shutdown, the United States military, all civilians, and the civilian contributes that serve with them would not be affected.

We passed it. We sent it to the Senate. The Senate approved it unanimously. The President of the United States signed it. That's a done deal.

We are dealing with every other aspect of the shutdown or what really is to be better described as a slowdown of the United States Government, which is serious. But we knew at least the United States military would not be affected by this. They were held entirely exempt.

There were three aspects of this law. You can look it up. It's H.R. 3210.

Aspect number one: all title X individuals, all active duty military, without exception, would be held exempt from this.

Number two: all civilians that support them--all of them--if they're connected in any way as a civilian to supporting our military, they were to be held exempt from this and the government shutdown would not apply to them.

Number three: all civilian contractors.

It's a 1-page bill with very broad language giving authority to the Secretary of Defense to say whoever you determine in any area supports in any way military, they should not be affected by the government shutdown. It's clear. It's plain language.

And then it went to the United States Pentagon; and in the Secretary of Defense's office, they have a group of lawyers. And those lawyers say they're studying the law to see who it applies to and who it doesn't apply to.

For this entire week they have studied the law to see who it applies to and who it doesn't apply to, and our members of the United States military and the civilians that serve with them are on furlough this week--against the law.

Republicans and Democrats agreed 100 percent in the House and the Senate, and the Pentagon lawyers can't decide how this should work. A first-year law student could read that bill and could tell it applies to all military title X, all civilians that support them in any way, and all contractors. It's not hard language.

It is time for the Secretary of Defense to turn to the lawyers in his office and say, Release those folks. The law is clear.

Our own Defense Department is violating the law. The President is allowing it. It's time to get on with this. Why are we holding them back?

Well, the President stands up and says the Republicans are holding America hostage. The Defense Department really is holding their folks hostage, in clear violation of the law.

Let's fix it. This is not something that's hard for us. It's already been passed. Let's get on with it.

Mr. Speaker, I hear from folks all the time--we need to have a reasonable proposal to be able to end this. Well, how about this for a reasonable proposal.

There are lot of people that are concerned about the penalties and the effects that are coming down on them in the next year. People have reasonable questions about how this is going to happen.

Am I going to sign up right?

Am I going to have a problem?

So let's do this. Let's take, for the first year, just take the penalties away from individuals; that if you make a mistake on filing of your ObamaCare, or if you have real problems with it, for the first year you won't have to pay those penalties. Just for the first year.

And then also, here's something else reasonable: How about Members of Congress and the White House have to live under the same rules that every American does dealing with ObamaCare?

Is that a reasonable proposal?

Well, that happens to be the proposal that we have on the table right now--that if someone makes a mistake on their filing of ObamaCare, or they don't want to do it this first year, they won't face penalties the first year.

Every Member of Congress and all of the White House will have to be in the exchanges, just like every other American that's out there that's required to be in that. We think that's a reasonable proposal.

For my colleagues that support ObamaCare, I am amazed they're fighting like crazy to not be in it.

At this point, we should meet face-to-face. I was pleased to see the President say he wants to meet, was disappointed to see he wants to meet to say he won't negotiate.

Let's meet face-to-face and solve this.

Mr. Speaker, this administration's been very proud of the work that they have done to reduce fraud in Medicare, that they have done to reduce fraud in durable medical equipment. Just a couple of weeks ago there was a huge bust in Puerto Rico trying to deal with Social Security disability fraud that has happened there for years.

But for whatever reason, they have chosen, on this piece of legislation, to look the other way, to actually turn away and say we're going to allow people to self-verify whether they're eligible for the subsidies, when right now people don't even know if they're eligible for the subsidies.

If I walked up to 100 people on the street today and asked them the two questions on that--does your employer provide you a qualified health plan--most of them would say: I have no idea. What's a qualified health plan?

And then if I said, Do you qualify for the subsidies?, just about every American would say: I don't know. I have no idea.

Yet, they're being asked, when no one knows right now, to self-verify that you know one way or the other. They don't have the information. They don't know the information. We don't even know what's going to happen on the exchanges yet. That's not been released yet, and it starts in 3 weeks.

So to say to people something that doesn't even exist yet, you've got to be able to say whether you certify for it or not, whether you can say that, yes, I do qualify for, this is absurd.

We're just asking the simple question: Shouldn't we stick with the original plan on this if we're going to do this?

The law itself said that it had to be certified. Then they created a waiver out of thin air and said, no, this is going to be too complicated; we're going to delay that for a while.

Then people say, what's your plan?

I can tell you, my State is begging to keep our own plan for Insure Oklahoma. We're having to go back to the Federal Government and request that we can keep the plan we've had for a while taking care of those in poverty. This is absurd.

There is a straightforward, simple way to do this that can be done; but, instead, we've created this convoluted mess.

Just this morning I've heard people on the other side say that the train has left the station on this. I've heard health care reform, that train is rolling.

Well, I can tell you, in the Senate the Democrats are saying, at least some of them are saying, this is a train wreck. And I agree.

The train has left the station, and if we don't step out and say this has to stop, then we'll continue to have more and more fraud. We have got to take this on and take it on right now.

It is absolutely my honor to have the chance to be here as well to be able to speak out on the issue that was critical in the foundation of our own Constitution and of our Nation as a whole, and that is the right to believe.

We in America have this unique thing, the right to believe or the right to not have a belief at all; but if you believe, to also have the right to actually live what you believe. It is this unique American freedom that people around the world sometimes stare at with awe because they are bound to have a certain set of beliefs to be in that country, but not so with us in America. You can have a belief, not have a belief; but if you have one, you may live your faith.

Coptic Christians in Egypt would love to be able to live their faith and not live in fear right now. The Baha'i in Iran would love to be able to live out their faith and not live in fear right now. The Christians in Syria would love to be able to live out their faith and not live in fear. And the multiple religions that try to practice in countries like China and Vietnam and other

places that constantly live in fear because of their own faith would love to have that. But not so in America. Whether you be a Member of Congress, whether you be an individual in the administration, whether you be any person walking down the streets of America, you have the right to be able to live out your faith, and it is essential for us. It's a great value that we share, but it is essential that we also continue to protect. And on days like today, it is ironic that we are discussing again this unique value to say: Can we still live out our faith as Americans?

Let me just give you a couple of examples where the challenge has been put to the test recently. It wasn't but a couple of years ago that the Obama administration challenged the Missouri Synod Church on whether that church and Hosanna-Tabor could choose their own minister or whether they would be fought from the outside, that the government could step into the church and say, No, we have to help be a part of selecting who the minister is. That was argued all the way until it got to the Supreme Court, where they lost 9-0, and the Supreme Court reaffirmed again that a church has the right to select their own minister.

It is ironic that we are dealing with a great business that employs thousands upon thousands of people around the country, called Hobby Lobby, that the founders of that company are Christians, they live out their faith--they practiced their faith from when they were a craft/ framing shop in the garage of the family, and they continue to practice that business the exact same way now--to say: Can they live out their faith?

They are currently facing a set of fines right now where the administration has stepped in to say, if you provide health care insurance that we choose, you're fine; if you don't provide any insurance at all, I'm going to fine you $2,000; but if you provide insurance that doesn't meet the administration's religious belief, you will be fined, as a company, $36,500 per employee.

Let me run that past you again. In a country where you are free to live out your faith, if this particular company chooses not to provide insurance that violates their faith and it doesn't follow up with the administration's policy, they will be fined $36,500 per employee per year. And so they changed their insurance to meet the faith of the administration. It's not right. We are a place where we cannot only have a belief in a label, but also choose to live out that label. That's important for us as a Nation.

Two things that I wanted to be able to encourage us as well. One is that students, on September 25--just a few days from now--will stand at flag poles around this Nation. They will gather early in the morning before other kids even get up and stand at a flag pole for an annual celebration called ``See You at the Pole,'' where students will gather to pray. It's not a demonstration; it's not a declaration. It is just students doing publicly what they do privately every single day, and that's pray for our Nation. They can do that because of our freedom.

Today, I remember three Oklahomans that 2 years ago lost their life in Afghanistan. They are heroes. They were individuals that were protecting the freedom of people they had never met and protecting our Nation. Jane Horton, one of the widows, not long after her husband, Chris, was killed in Afghanistan, dropped by my office and got a chance to visit with me. We talked for a long time, and she handed me a tie that her husband had. I chose to wear it today, 2 years after he was killed, so that we would not forget those who stand for our freedom and that we will not forget what they have done for us and our Nation.

Mr. Speaker, last week in my hometown, thousands of families experienced their first week of a 3-month cut in pay.

These hardworking families aren't unaware of our Nation's fiscal problems. We all see that our Nation is rapidly approaching $17 trillion in debt. But a few years ago, Washington denied that this path would lead us the way of Europe and we would not experience pay and benefit cuts to solve our problems like Europe has. Well, here we are. Families are living on much less today as a direct consequence of government overspending for so many years and the mandate to get our economy back in balance.

In the past 3 years, Federal spending has been reduced, taxes have gone up, and the economy has actually experienced some rebound; but we're still overspending almost $700 billion a year, just this 1 year. That's down from $1.5 trillion in overspending 4 years ago, but it's still $700 billion in new debt that our Nation will take on this year.

We have to deal with the economic realities that we currently face because the spreadsheet where we see the negative numbers, those numbers represent families and people that face the negative consequences of our inactivity.

The GAO has identified multiple areas of government redundancy that waste money and where we fail to get the job done, but we seem to just nibble at the edges of fixing what is obviously in front of us.

Social Security disability is now 2 years away from insolvency, but no one seems to notice that if we don't fix disability insurance and get the people off disability that are using it just as unemployment, the most vulnerable in our society, the truly disabled, will face benefit cuts along with those folks that are just gaming the system.

The defense acquisition processes increase costs dramatically. Here's how it works. You get a prime contractor who pays a subprime, who pays a subprime, who pays a subprime. By the way, all of those are all the way through the path, and the last person has actually been someone who has done that job for years and years, and everyone knows it. Everyone knows the game, and everyone knows that in every part of that system there's a markup. The taxpayer is the one who loses on it. Let's fix that, because this affects families and lives.

Multiple defense procurement programs in the past several years have failed to produce a final product at all and have again cost taxpayers billions. Usually, our Federal civilian workforce can tell management exactly where we're wasting money, but sometimes no one's listening to them.

Those opportunities to save go untouched, costing more money in the long run and increasing our debt. Debt has a price for all Americans, but especially for the people working for our Nation.

So what does government debt look like today? For thousands in my district facing furloughs, families are cutting back on food, home repair, gas in the car, and every other expense.

A family I spoke with this past weekend will not have a summer vacation because of the furlough. That may not seem like a big deal to some people, but that's a lost significant family moment that they will never get back. Another family with two kids in college is currently trying to determine which kid won't go back to school this fall.

In some families, both parents are furloughed, making the problem twice as large. A single mom that experiences the furlough has a huge decision. This fall and just a month away, they're going to have to buy school supplies and clothes.

It's a serious problem. They're not a person just sitting at home living off Federal welfare, bemoaning the meager size of their check. They're members of our Federal family who work and give their lives to serve the warfighter.

As you would expect in our community, the community is stepping up. Tinker Federal Credit Union is working with families on their loan repayments, churches are providing school supplies, the Regional Food Bank is

giving additional food and is working to step up their provision. Many people, my family included, are giving financially to take care of people in need in this moment. Oklahomans are tough and we're caring, but I'm incredibly frustrated that it's come to this.

Regardless of your thoughts on the number of Federal workers on the payroll, surely we can agree that the families currently employed should be protected as much as possible. These families have carried the stress of this pay cut for a year now. For months they have wondered when and if it would come, and now it's here.

I've written numerous letters to the Department of Defense, asking them to exhaust every option in sequester before they reduce worker time and pay. To their credit, they've replied to all of my correspondence in writing within days, something other agencies in this executive branch could certainly learn from.

I've personally spoken face-to-face with Secretary Panetta, with now- Secretary Hagel, General Dempsey, and Comptroller Hale to find out about other opportunities to save money, like the unobligated balances in the defense budget. I asked for their reconsideration of operations that function on working capital funds. If you're not familiar with that, some departments pay other departments to do their work. Those departments should not be directly affected. The cuts have already happened in the other department. We're cutting twice when we hit on the working capital fund locations.

I asked Secretary Hagel to give more authority to individual installations to make local decisions on spending reductions rather than mandating cuts from the Pentagon.

Congress has already worked with the DOD to reprogram funds and to give maximum flexibility to the Pentagon to protect workers, just like we did with FAA and Homeland Security.

I'm grateful, I am, that the Pentagon has found a way to reduce furloughs from 24 days to 14 days and now to a maximum of 11. But I want to find a way that we can end these furloughs all together for our civilian workers as soon as possible. Three months with a 20 percent cut is tough.

In my last conversation with Senator Hagel, I was pleased to hear that he's still working on these ways. I urge him to continue to cut waste, not worker pay. It's time that we get this issue resolved.

Mr. Chair, this is all about the local election of a school board, a school board that is elected that is distinct for that district. The parents go to school with the same kids. They're all interconnected, they know each other, and they're making decisions because we don't have a national school board. We should have local school boards.

Why do we do that? Because we want local decisions made on whether they're going to have uniforms, what they're going to serve at lunch, how they're going to interact, what their class schedule is going to be, what their curriculum is going to be. Those are local decisions that should be made because those parents know their kids extremely well and love their kids more than anyone. In central Oklahoma, I can assure you, our parents love their kids and know their kids better than someone 1,300 miles away in Washington, D.C.

So the simple decision should be made that I have personally contacted the superintendents in my district who ask for one simple thing: allow us to make decisions locally. We want to know that the decisions we make are going to stick and we won't spend all of our time and all of our money hiring compliance people to connect with the Federal Government to know what monies go where and what silos go where. And I hear over and over again, Race to the Top didn't give us greater flexibility. It actually said, You have flexibility in the silo that we give you. They want just real flexibility.

I would encourage the passage of this amendment.

I thank the gentlelady for hosting this time.

There's a lot of things I've talked about in the well of this House. I've talked about budget. I've talked about a growing economy, about jobs. I've talked about transportation. I've talked about the relationship of the individual citizen and their government and how that relationship works--or sometimes it doesn't work lately.

But this is a time just to be able to pause for a moment and not talk about necessarily some new government law or some new regulation, but to celebrate, for just a moment, dads, with Father's Day this past weekend, and to be able to hesitate again and to be able to say thanks to my own dad, but to also talk about the fact that it is the love of our life for men to be able to enjoy their children, just like it is for ladies to be able to enjoy their children, as well, as a mom.

There is something very unique--and I believe firmly that every child needs a mom and needs a dad. They come at parenting from two different directions and they, together, make such a dramatic difference in the life of a child, to have a mom and to have a dad.

It's interesting to me that the last verse in the Old Testament, in that verse from Malachi 4:6 in that minor prophet book, it ends that Old Testament by saying the role of the prophet will be to turn the hearts of the children to their fathers and to turn the hearts of their fathers to the children, to be able to see that restoration.

In that time period, there was a collapse for a moment in the families, and they suffered as a nation and saw that. We see that today in our own families. Fifteen million children live life without a father--15 million. In 1960, there were only 11 percent of the homes that didn't have a father. Today, it's over one-third of the homes that don't have a father. As we watch all the consequences that occur with that in our own economy, in our own family, and in our own culture, it's just the separation that happens.

We see a greater emphasis right now with trying to figure out what to do in

schools as parents seem to be disconnected from their children and teachers struggle in the community, and things have changed in our schools with an absence of fathers.

As we've seen the families collapse, we've seen an increase in poverty. Some colleagues were here earlier speaking about hunger in America, which is rampant and is a huge issue for us as a nation. They mentioned that in the 1970s we had a very low hunger rate in America. It's interesting for us to come here now and talk about fathers and how that has changed, and from that point in 1970 when we had a very low hunger rate in America, we look at the difference now with a very high hunger rate in America and also a very low presence of fathers in the lives of their children. We've seen something different happen in families as fathers disconnect from their children and they no longer see a role to be able to be a provider and they've required government to go be the provider for children when it was never designed to be that way. And that's not where it is best.

Children have a higher risk of poverty. Children have a lower graduation rate from high school and have a lower entry rate into college. There is not a safe environment for children when there's an absence of a dad and a mom. It's different for them as they grow up and as they process through things without the stability that can come to a child with the presence of a mom and of a dad.

So what do we do about it is the challenge. Well, quite frankly, there are issues in our marriage laws right now as a nation that we have where there are penalties to be married in our tax law. There are penalties even in our disability benefits as we try and reach in and help families as they're disabled, but yet if they're married, it's a lower rate. So we look at that, and we ask the question: Why would we punish a family for being married because one of the individuals there is disabled? That doesn't make sense for us.

So we need to look at our policies that we have and be able to encourage rather than discourage marriage. Because we know when that happens--it's the reason that the Federal Government is involved at all in the marriage relationship is because we know what happens in the lives of children when a man and a woman are committed to each other for life. That commitment, the reason the government is connected to that is because of what happens in the lives of children and how it benefits people in the days ahead. So we need to look at the marriage penalty that's occurring in our tax law and our disability rules and such.

But, quite frankly, most of the issues that deal with fatherhood and from the absence of fathers won't happen because of a change in Federal law. It will happen when families turn and mentor young couples and they get personally involved in the lives of young families. Some individuals have never seen a functioning man and a woman married and committed to each other for life. They've never seen that in their community, and they haven't experienced that in their own family. It's so important for older couples to mentor young couples and to pass on the wisdom that they have gained.

It is, quite frankly, very important at the marriage altar for two individuals to truly commit to each other for life. That brings stability not only to those two individuals, but it also brings stability to the children where they grow up in a home where there's some emotional security and safety and not the constant fear of separation and of loss of either the mom or the dad. So for individuals to be committed to each other for life makes a big difference in that.

So what can happen? I talked about the Federal policies, but it's really individuals, individuals mentoring other individuals, and it's two individuals when they approach the marriage altar knowing that we're going to commit to each other and we're going to work through the problems that we have because that's what's best for our Nation, and that's what's best for the children that are coming up to provide them that stable home where they can grow up.

Do we always get it perfect? No. But we know economically and we know emotionally that the strongest homes and what's best for our children is for a mom and a dad. And I want to honor dads that do commit to walk through the hard, difficult days and to say to them, Keep going. Don't give up, dads. And as you face through hard times, your children need you.

The single most difficult part of my job is getting on an airplane on Monday mornings and flying away from my two daughters and my wife. No other moment of my week is harder than that one, because I know the importance of being a dad to my daughters, and they need me.

I encourage dads today to live out the commitment that you have made to your wife and the commitment that you've made to your children.