Floor Statements

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Heller) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Heller) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. President, I would say my colleague from Wisconsin is absolutely right. Let me first of all say, millions of citizens around this country have gotten engaged for the same reason as my colleague did; as a normal citizen, running his business, he saw what was happening here and he decided to get involved. Not everyone can run for the Senate successfully and come back to Washington to bring that message from America right here to the Senate Chamber, but he has done it, and I commend him for his leadership.

Yes, he is absolutely right. It turns out that his predictions and those of us who were on the Senate floor when this bill passed into law saying it was going to cost a lot more than our Democratic friends said; that it was going to cost a lot more than the Congressional Budget Office estimated, well, now the numbers are in and here they are.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office last week just released its updated figures, and it shows that the real cost of the ObamaCare subsidy spending is going to almost double. When ObamaCare was passed, they estimated the cost would be $938 billion. That is on the Medicaid part as well as the taxpayer-funded health insurance subsidies. As my colleague said, that is a 10-year cost. Of course, part of the game is that they are collecting money over 10 years but only paying benefits over 6 and that can make it look pretty good, as my colleague said. But it turns out, when CBO had to reexamine, now with 2 years' experience, what they found is, looking at the entire 10-year budget window, the true size of this cost was masked. Now that we have a clearer picture, voila, CBO says the projected amount is $1.7 trillion over 10 years. In other words, ObamaCare is going to cost more than $700 billion more than CBO estimated at the time the law was passed.

How can they miscalculate by almost double, from $938 billion to now $1.7 trillion? It is not CBO's fault. CBO is a bunch of accountants. They take what we give them and do their figuring. As the Senator from Wisconsin said, what the Senate Democrats and the President gave them was just part of the picture. They said: We are going to give you 10 years' worth of revenues, but we are only going to give you 6 years' worth of expenses. See how that works out. I wish we could all do our private budgets at home that way.

Here is another way to look at it. We have all heard of a mortgage with a bubble payment at the end. That is, in effect, what this was. They basically said: Look, we know CBO has to estimate 10-year budgets, so we have a great idea on how to make this cost less. We will put some of the big expenditures in years 11 and 12. Voila, 10 years of expenditures, not too bad. But now that 2 years have passed and we are now looking at a 10-year budget that goes out 10 more years from now-- 12 years from when ObamaCare was first calculated--it turns out when we add in years No. 11 and 12, it adds hugely to the cost--$700 billion worth.

We all said this at the time. It was a trick. It was smoke and mirrors. They were pulling a fast one on the American people. We said that. But we heard: Oh no. You can trust CBO. Sure, we could trust CBO as far as they could calculate it. But if one had said, how about years 11 and 12, they would have had to say: That is another story, but we weren't asked about that.

I say to my friend from Wisconsin, he is exactly right. Now the chickens have come home to roost. Now we know what the real cost of this is going to be and, oh, by the way, if we want to go out over the entire period once the law is fully implemented--remember, ObamaCare has not been fully implemented yet. So what happens when we calculate its full cost when truly implemented? The Budget Committee, on which Senator Sessions sits, says total spending under ObamaCare will reach $2.6 trillion. So these are the real costs we have to pay attention to, not just the estimates that were made at the time they were trying to get the law passed.

I might either ask the Senator from Wisconsin or our ranking member on the Budget Committee, what about this? If we use real numbers and real costs, are the American taxpayers going to be on the hook for something akin to $2.6 trillion, according to the Budget Committee? That is a lot of money.

Yes. I would say when my colleague from Kansas talked about the free care, it reminded me of the old saw: You think insurance is expensive now, just wait until it is free. That is the point. Somebody has to pay for it at the end of the day, and we just happen to have some new statistics how this is working out now that CBO has had a chance to examine how ObamaCare plays out. Here is their newest estimate. We are talking about real costs to real families.

CBO now estimates that ObamaCare will increase premiums by 10 to 13 percent. To make that number real, that is a $2,100 annual increase in the cost for the average family of purchasing their own insurance coverage. Six separate private actuarial analyses have all indicated ObamaCare will increase premiums with projected increases ranging as high as 60 percent.

Why is that so? It is like a balloon; you push in on one side, it pops out the other. Health care is still going to cost. Doctors still have to treat people, hospitals still have to take care, pay the people who work in the hospitals and so on. It is not free, as our colleague from Kansas is pointing out. Somebody has to pay for it. If the government cannot afford it, then what the insurance companies have to do is charge the extra expense to the people in the private insurance market.

When the President complains about why insurance costs are going so high, he only has himself to blame. If the government is not going to reimburse the providers adequately, they have to get the money from the private sector. That is why the $2,100 annual increase in the cost of insurance for the average family, because of the cost shifting that is going on. It is a result of the way the government designs the insurance that is provided for in ObamaCare. It hits the young people especially hard because they are the ones who have to buy insurance they do not need, according to America's Health Insurance Plans. Premiums increase 48 percent for people between 18 and 29 years old. That is in only 42 of the 50 States, premium increases of 48 percent. Then of course they also tax health insurance, which we end up paying for because that cost is passed on to us in the form of higher insurance premiums. That is a $60 billion tax on health insurance added on top of the new taxes on innovation, on new pharmaceutical products, on new medical devices. The taxes that are included in ObamaCare on those are all passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices.

The bottom line is we are paying for all this one way or the other, either through new taxes, through what we pay to the government, or through what we pay in our private insurance, because the physicians and hospitals have to make up the money one way or the other.

The bottom line is that ObamaCare, which was supposed to have reduced costs, ends up increasing them. By the way, it was supposed to expand the numbers of people who are covered but now we find that, according to Milliman, which is a private association estimating the cost here, actuaries there have estimated the cost shift from government programs, Medicare and Medicaid, totals $88.8 billion a year, adding $1,788 to a family's insurance policy. That is on top of what I spoke of before.

This cost shift obviously will greatly increase with ObamaCare's Medicaid and Medicare cuts, which are further on down the road here. That will cause premiums to skyrocket even more.

The bottom line is that we were right when we said it: The law is going to drive up insurance premiums for families, it is going to drive up taxes, it is going to reduce innovation. At the end of the day, it doesn't cover more people. All in all, a great success, I would say.

Madam President, Mark Steyn is one of the most gifted writers of our time. His trenchant analysis appears regularly in National Review. Steyn writes with biting humor and personal experience with government censorship and has chronicled the concomitant growth in government power and loss of freedom in Europe and North America.

In the March 5, 2012, issue of National Review he warns that America, which he calls the ``last religious Nation in the Western world,'' is in danger of going the way of European nations in replacing faith and family with the all powerful national government as the source of everything we need. He calls his piece ``The Church of Big Government.'' It reminds me of Barry Goldwater's warning that ``a government big enough to give you everything you want is a government that is big enough to take away everything you have.''

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record.

Madam President, let me return to the pending business before the Senate--the JOBS Act. At the same time, when millions of Americans are looking for work, we have an opportunity to do something in a bipartisan way that will actually help job creators and entrepreneurs.

Despite all the hype about economic improvements, we are still experiencing the slowest and weakest recovery since the Great Depression. More than 45 million Americans are on food stamps. Unemployment has been higher than 8 percent for 3 years. There are 700,000 fewer jobs today than when President Obama took office. I repeat: 700,000 fewer jobs today. On top of that, of course, gas prices are skyrocketing.

As I noted on Monday, I believe the President is painting a too rosy picture of the economy when he is out campaigning. He stated there have been 24 consecutive months of private sector job growth. But I would like to note how the numbers tell a different story. Economists generally agree that for employment to just hold even, about 150,000 jobs need to be created each month in order to employ the new people, the new entrants, into the job market or the workforce, and these include people such as those who have recently graduated, those who have concluded military service or other family obligations. Again, about 150,000 each month need to be created just to stay even.

The logical question to ask is, How many of the last 24 months saw a job growth above 150,000? The answer is, only 10 of those 24 months. In other words, job creation has been high enough to keep pace with the new force entrants only 10 months out of the last 2 years. In fact, private sector job creation was actually lower this last February than it was in January. This is according to a chart on the President's own campaign Web site.

So we clearly need better public policy to put people back to work-- legislation that will actually spur job creation. Practically every bill that has come to the floor in the last 3 years has been labeled a jobs bill, but to an Orwellian effect. Even bills such as ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank, which imposed massive new costs on businesses, were called jobs bills by their supporters. But, finally, with the JOBS Act now pending, we have a rare occasion to pass a bill that Republicans and Democrats agree will help create jobs.

The House overwhelmingly passed the bill 390 to 23--majorities in both parties, and the President has issued a Statement of Administration Policy endorsing the legislation. So this is something we should move forward with. The JOBS Act will demonstrate to entrepreneurs and job creators that we value what they do, that we want to make it easier for them to innovate, to gain access to capital to grow and to lift others up as they become more successful.

America has many dynamic companies and fast-growing businesses with the potential to create many more. The people behind successful companies are driven by the satisfaction that comes from creating and innovating and solving problems, and in many cases they are making products or providing services that improve our quality of life. This is a good thing. It deserves our support.

Good public policy--hurdles to opportunity, on the other hand--can help people accomplish their goals, and this bill will help to solve some of this by getting those hurdles out of the way. For example, the JOBS Act will help to cut some of the redtape that burdens startup companies. One of the best overhauls is a reduction in the costly regulatory burdens contained in the infamous Sarbanes-Oxley section 404(b) accounting rules. Reducing this burden means growing companies can spend

less time on paperwork and more time on raising capital and growing their businesses. These are companies that have the potential to be the next Groupon, Yelp, or LinkedIn--three companies that didn't exist a decade ago and all of which recently had initial public offerings.

Here is what the Chamber of Commerce had to say in support of the House-passed bill.

The JOBS Act would enhance capital formation needed to

build new businesses, expand existing businesses and create

jobs. . . . [It] would put into place several important and

in some cases overdue reforms that would incentivize initial

public offerings (IPOs).

Part of the beauty of this bill is we don't even know who will benefit from its policy reforms. It applies to everybody. It is the opposite of the crony capitalism that provided government funds to companies such as Solyndra and General Motors. Indeed, this is legislation that will demonstrate what the private sector can do when government promotes freedom and opportunity. It will show we don't need government to try to create jobs or make ham-fisted attempts to play venture capitalist.

Because this is such good bipartisan legislation, it is deeply troubling to hear it is being stalled right here in the Senate. The front-page headline of the Congressional Quarterly this morning reads: ``Democrats Move to Slow `Jobs' Bill.''

The article notes that passage appears unlikely this week as Democrats try to add controversial provisions to the bill which do not have broad bipartisan support.

If this bill does not pass, or if the Senate Democrats add poison pills, it will be quite obvious this is part of a broader political strategy--one that relies on a ``do-nothing Congress.'' That is the campaign theme the President has been running on.

If Congress actually does something in a bipartisan way that helps many Americans, well, it will undermine his narrative. He is relying on congressional dysfunction to keep that narrative going, and that is why we have to rise above it.

Yes, this is a cynical conclusion, but if this bipartisan bill is derailed, it will be hard to draw any other. It was our understanding, when we all agreed to go to the bill, it would be considered under regular order. This bill is too important to play procedural games, such as filing cloture and filling the parliamentary tree and the like.

I urge my colleagues not to stall this bill or to jeopardize its passage with partisan provisions. Let's get this bill to the President's desk. Our first priority should be helping Americans get jobs, not strategizing to save the President's job.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch), and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``yea.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch), and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``yea.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) would have voted ``yea.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch), and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) would have voted ``yea.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch), and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) would have voted ``nay.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) and the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) would have voted ``yea.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) and the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch).

Mr. President, I rise to explain the reasons I voted for Roberts amendment No. 1826.

First, the amendment would increase America's energy supply by approving the Keystone XL pipeline, opening lands in the Outer Continental Shelf and the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge for drilling, and implementing a commercial leasing program for oil shale.

The amendment would also extend a number of important temporary tax provisions that expired at the end of 2011. Significantly, it would not extend a number of provisions that are unsound policy or no longer necessary.

However, the amendment did extend some provisions that I believe should be ended because they are unwarranted subsidies that distort markets. These include tax credits for energy-efficient homes, alternative fuel vehicle refueling property, biodiesel, energy- efficient appliances, and alternative fuels.

While I supported the Roberts amendment, I do not want this vote to be interpreted as support for each and every provision that was included. I hope that as the tax extenders package continues to be considered by Congress, a number of unnecessary and harmful provisions will be eliminated. Ideally, Congress will consider comprehensive tax reform that lowers rates, eliminates special subsidies, and makes sound tax policy permanent.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) and the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) would have voted ``nay.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) and the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) would have voted ``yea.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) would have voted ``nay.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) would have voted ``yea.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) and the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) would have voted ``yea.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) would have voted ``yea.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. President, I rise today in opposition to the Baucus amendment No. 1825. Although I wholeheartedly support full funding for the Payment in Lieu of Taxes, PILT, Program, I have to oppose this amendment because it also includes a reauthorization for what is known as the Secure Rural Schools, SES Program. The SES Program was created in 2000 as a 5-year temporary funding measure to assist rural communities suffering from the loss of timber sale revenue caused by policies that decimated the timber industry in the 1990s. Because it has operated for more than a decade, communities have now come to rely on it, turning it into a ``would-be'' entitlement program. Though, the program expired last year, and, as painful as it is, we must let it sunset for good. The Federal Government can ill afford to continue to forever finance what was supposed to be a short-term safety net.

I support extending full funding of PILT payments. These payments to local governments help offset losses in property taxes due to nontaxable Federal lands within their boundaries. I recognize that the inability of local governments to collect property taxes on federally owned land can create a negative financial impact, particularly in States like mine that are dominated by Federal land. In Arizona, more than 85 percent of the State is under Federal control. PILT payments are one of the ways the Federal Government can fulfill its role of being a good neighbor to local communities. Had this amendment been limited to full funding for PILT, I would have voted in favor of the amendment.

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

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to respond to some arguments made in a recent opinion article by the chairman and ranking member of the Senate and House Budget Committees, respectively. It is entitled ``GOP Budget Attacks Misguided.'' The crux of the piece is that President Obama has made great progress in improving the economic outlook, and it would improve even more if only Republicans would embrace his policies.

The first set of claims I want to respond to relates to the strength of the economic recovery. The authors write that ``we've come a long way'' since the peak of the recession thanks to ``actions taken by the Obama administration'' and have had ``23 consecutive months of private- sector job growth.''

To start, I don't think the 12.8 million unemployed Americans would agree we have come a long way. Indeed, it has been 2\1/2\ years since the recession technically ended, and we are still experiencing the weakest recovery since the Great Depression. Growth is anemic, and there are 700,000 fewer employed Americans today than when President Obama took office.

Although it has been 3 years since passage of the stimulus bill, unemployment has been above 8 percent for the last 35 months. Remember, this legislation was sold as a way to keep unemployment below 8 percent. These are some of the signs that ``actions taken by the administration'' are not working to get Americans back to work or improving the economy.

Regarding the claim that America has had 23 consecutive months of private sector job growth, the President has been citing this number on the campaign trail, averring that 3.7 million jobs were created during that time. But the claim doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Those who cite it don't account for the role new workforce entrants play in employment statistics.

Economists generally agree that for employment to hold even, about 150,000 jobs must be created each month to employ new entrants into the workforce. These people include those who recently concluded military service or family obligations and recent graduates. If we multiply 150,000 by 23 months, we get about 3.45 million jobs. That means even by the administration's own figures, only about 250,000 new jobs have been created in roughly 2 years.

Moreover, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the net positive increase in payrolls was above 150,000 during just 9 of the 23 months to which the set referred. So, yes, it would have been nice to have 23 consecutive months of private sector job growth, but that is not what happened. Again, we need 150,000 just to stay even with the new people entering the workforce, and in only 9 of these 23 months did the economy produce that many jobs.

The second set of claims I want to discuss relates to supposed blame on

Republicans for the debt and the hampering of a stronger recovery. The authors of this op-ed claim that ``while the deficit has remained high over the past 3 years, that is largely a result of the policies of the previous Republican administration.''

Let's take a look at the actual deficit numbers. Labeling the last three deficits as ``high'' is quite an understatement. According to President Obama's own budget numbers, in 2009 the deficit was $1.4 trillion. In 2010 the deficit was $1.3 trillion. In 2011 it was, again, $1.3 trillion. The deficit this year is expected to top $1.3 trillion.

At the end of the budget window, in 2022, the deficit is projected to be $704 billion. The highest deficit under President Bush was $458 billion, in 2008. Every deficit under President Obama has been almost three times that figure--more than double. But President Obama should not be accountable for the debt problem? How does that work?

The President and his supporters like to point out that the budget contains $4 trillion in deficit reduction over the next 10 years. But most of this reduction is based on new taxes and gimmicks, such as alleged ``savings'' from actions that Congress has already taken or from ending operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As a USA Today editorial quoted today:

[The budget] relies on gimmicks and avoids some problems

instead of tackling them. . . . Most glaringly, Obama takes

credit for about $850 billion in savings from winding down

the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which were paid for with

borrowed money in the first place.

These were not actual savings. The Committee for a Responsible Budget put it this way:

When you finish college, you don't suddenly have thousands

of dollars a year to spend elsewhere. In fact, you have to

find a way to pay back your loans.

Regarding the supposed problem of Republican resistance to demand- based policies, there is a major misconception that consumption fueled by government spending actually creates jobs. This is the stimulus myth. It does not. It just inefficiently moves money around from one pocket to another or one taxpayer to another. That helps explain why the stimulus failed.

If Americans cannot spend enough money to stimulate more demand, how can the Government accomplish that for us? It is our money that is being spent. Simply put, demand policies do not work. There have been ample opportunities to prove otherwise in recent years. Let's remember the President got everything he wanted from Congress during his first 2 years in office. He has been in office a little over 3 years. The first 2 years there was a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate. The 111th Congress passed all of the demand-based policies he asked for: spending, temporary tax credits, tax holidays, the stimulus. Yet here we are.

A better idea is to encourage economic activity and greater opportunity through the supply side of the economy. That means reducing government consumption of taxpayer dollars and not raising taxes on anyone, especially job creators.

That brings me to the third set of claims involving the notion of ``balance.'' The authors claim the budget ``calls for a balanced approach . . . with everyone sharing responsibility for deficit reduction.'' They also note that balance is ``missing from the GOP approach.''

Balance in the Obama budget, of course, means higher taxes. I ask how is it balanced to tax job-creating small businesses even more than they are being taxed today?

According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, nearly 750,000 flow- through businesses--these are the small businesses, the businesses that pay their taxes as individuals--nearly 750,000 would be subject to the President's proposed tax rate hikes that would take effect on January 1 of next year. One-quarter of our Nation's workforce depends on these employers for a paycheck.

According to the National Federation of Independent Businesses, up to 25 percent of the workforce is employed by businesses that will be affected by the President's proposed tax hikes. Perhaps job growth is so slow because these job creators are skittish because they do not have certainty, and they certainly have not for a long time. In fact, the only thing they can see is the President's attempts to impose more taxes on them.

The specter of tax hikes has loomed for years and has inhibited job growth. If the tax increases actually occur, we can be sure any economic growth we might be perceiving will be killed.

Finally, the authors claim the President ``has demonstrated that he was willing to go the extra mile to reach a bipartisan deficit reduction agreement.'' I will note that the debt talks fell apart last summer because the President dug in his heels and insisted on harmful tax increases that Republicans, of course, opposed, for the reasons I just noted. When we had another opportunity to do something about the debt this fall, the President was not particularly helpful or encouraging. Often missing in action, he never participated in the process. The plan put forward by the Republican Senator from Pennsylvania at the time was the only balanced approach that put significant revenue on the table in the context of progrowth tax reform.

The majority whip called it a ``breakthrough,'' but it was never enough for the other side. So here we are, still debating this subject. So much for the President going the extra mile.

In conclusion, I would like to say the President's budget is more of the same spending, taxes, and debt we have seen for the last 3 years. Last year the budget was so unpopular with the American people that the Senate voted it down 97 to 0. Not a single member of the President's party voted for his budget. The massive amounts of spending, taxing, and borrowing in his budget will hinder an economic recovery. In times like these we have to focus on growing our economy, not our Government and debt.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, on behalf of the Republican leader, I ask unanimous consent, notwithstanding any other rule of the Senate, that immediately following the disposition of the pending Transportation bill, the Senate proceed to the consideration of H.R. 3606, a bill received from the House, which would increase American job creation and economic growth by improving access to the public capital markets for emerging growth companies; I further ask that the bill remain the pending business to the exclusion of all other business until it is disposed of.

Mr. President, I appreciate what the majority leader said. He is right about the importance of the legislation approved by majorities of both parties of the House of Representatives. I join him in hoping we can bring this to the floor as soon as possible with an agreement so we can consider it and try to provide some economic growth so people can go back to work in America.