Floor Statements

Madam Chairwoman, I haven't been here very long, only 3 years, but I've seen a pattern developing now which is that each year the Defense Department, the Pentagon, comes over and asks for a certain amount of money, and then we give them more than they ask for.

What the amendment does today is simply gives the Pentagon what they ask for. They asked for $80 billion to run the overseas contingency operation. For some reason, we decided to give them 85 billion. They come in; they defined a mission and they tell us what it costs to do that; and then, for some reason, we decide to give them more. All we're doing today is taking the folks who run the military at their word that they know what it costs to defend this Nation.

I think it bears repeating that both Secretary Hagel and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs were here just last week and said that $80 billion worth of OCO funding was enough to meet the mission. Simply spending more money than the Defense Department asks for does not mean we are stronger on defense than anybody else. It's simply foolish to waste money. If the Pentagon tells us they need $80 billion, we should look seriously at giving them $80 billion.

I disagree respectfully with my friend from Virginia who says that this amendment will hurt national security. If you assume that, then you must assume that what the Pentagon asked for in the first place would hurt national security.

I'm simply not willing to agree to that. I'm not willing to believe that the Pentagon would come over and ask for an amount of money that would be bad for national defense.

This is a commonsense amendment, it gives the Defense Department exactly what they need, and it gets us out of this rut of equating higher spending with a stronger nation defense.

Mr. Chairman, you can imagine my surprise when I found out that for the last 7 years, Congress has been dictating the number of carriers that are in the Navy. For 230 years we were satisfied to let the Navy make that decision. I was just stunned to find that this was actually happening. I wish I had known. I could have offered an amendment to simply get rid of the requirement entirely, but I applaud my friend from Oregon for at least offering this small improvement.

I would respectfully disagree with my friend from Virginia--this amendment has no impact at all on national security or national defense. Again, there's no impact on national security or national defense.

If the amendment passes, the Navy could have 20 carriers next year if the Navy decided that that's what it wanted to do. All we're doing is taking the congressional mandate down from 11 to 10.

I go back to the words of former Secretary Gates in 2010 to the Navy League. I thought it was interesting what he said. He said:

Our current plan is to have 11 carrier strike groups

through 2040 to be sure the need to project power across the

seas will never go away, but consider the massive overmatch

the U.S. already enjoys. Consider, too, the growing anti-ship

capabilities of adversaries. Do we really need 11 carrier

strike groups for another 30 years when no other country has

more than one? Any future plans must address these realities.

That's all we are doing, Mr. Chairman, is simply giving the Navy more control over how many carriers the Navy has.

With all due respect to all of my colleagues here, I am perfectly willing to trust the Navy with the operations of our naval warfare, more so than I am Congress. With that, I ask my friends to support this amendment, which has no impact on national defense but gives more control to the Navy, to the experts in the field.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I rise today to speak against the amendment. And I think there's one thing that has been overlooked in this debate so far, Mr. Chairman, which is not only was this provision in the bill originally in order to bring sustainability to the flood program, it was also designed to bring fairness to the flood program.

What do I mean by that?

Yes, the original bill was designed to raise flood rates on some people. It was also designed to lower them on other people. You heard the gentleman from Louisiana properly state that this amendment would have no score, have no impact. The CBO scored it at zero. No impact on the deficit; no impact on spending. Absolutely true.

The underlying language in the bill was scored the exact same way. When we passed this bill last year, that provision scored out at zero because the CBO assumed, on its own--it's not required by statute to do this, but it did this on its own. The CBO assumed that when rates went up on some people, they would go down on others. That seems to make a lot of sense; doesn't it? That we would have an insurance program that would actually charge folks more who are in riskier areas, but also seek to charge people less who are in less risky areas. I think that's important. I think it bears stating that if this amendment passes, yes, folks who live in high-risk areas will see lower premiums, but the folks who live in low-risk areas will see higher premiums.

We have a chance here to bring some sanity to something in a government program. We have a chance to bring reason and rational thought to this government program by saying people who are in riskier areas should pay more. Are there protections there? Yes. Are they necessary? Absolutely. But at the end of the day, this program was designed to bring some sanity to this flood program, which is why so many people, myself included, voted for this originally.

I absolutely think this is well-intentioned. I disagree with the impression that these are unintended consequences. These are the exact intended consequences of the underlying bill, that we would simply charge folks who are in risky areas more.

If you live 7 feet below sea level in New Orleans, your rates probably should go up. If you live 600 feet above someplace else, your rates possibly should go down.

I think it's important to know that, yes, there are people in my State who will pay more because of this law. There are also people in my district who will pay less, and that will be turned on its ear if this amendment passes.

So I would encourage us to consider that what we did last year was accurate and correct and brought some much-needed sanity to this program.

With that, I yield the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman, to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Westmoreland).

Mr. Speaker, in a few minutes, we are going to start taking up debate on several budgets. I want to point out one important consistent thing about the budgets that my esteemed colleagues will be offering. Not a single one of them ever balances. I will say that again, Mr. Speaker: not a single Democrat budget that is being offered will ever balance.

If we do not have surpluses, we cannot pay down the debt. We will never be able to pay down the debt until we have surpluses. If you offer a budget that never offers any surpluses, there is never any way to repay the debt.

And I respectfully suggest that if I come to you and ask you to lend me money and I have the intention of giving it back to you, that that is truly debt. But if I come to you and ask you to give me money and I have no intention of ever giving it back to you, that is theft. That is exactly what the opponents' budgets will offer us today. There is no way to ever repay any of this debt. It is wrong, and the American public deserve better.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H. Con. Res. 25, currently under consideration.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, last year at this time I came before this body and I offered as an amendment, as a possible replacement, the budget offered by the President of the United States. It failed overwhelmingly. In fact, I think it failed to receive a single vote.

I did that in order to promote a debate, and I think we had that debate. I think that was healthy.

Remember, a budget is more than just a spending document. It is also a vision document. I had hoped to be able to do the exact same thing this year, to bring forth the President's budget to discuss not only the spending levels in that budget, but also the vision contained in that particular budget. Imagine my surprise then when this week came around and we waited for the President's budget and it was not offered.

It was not offered for the first time in modern history. This is the first time in modern history that a President has failed to offer a budget before the United States House of Representatives took up the topic. It's the very first time since the Budget Act of 1921. I don't know how we're supposed to discuss the President's vision for the Nation as contained in the budget when it's not here. I think that's wrong.

It's required by law, Mr. Chairman. The law requires the President to submit a budget before today. I believe this is now the third or fourth time he's been late during his Presidency. It's inexcusable. It's inexcusable, regardless of the party of the President, not to follow the law and not to offer a budget.

So it's with great regret, Mr. Chairman, I'm not able to offer to you today for discussion before this body the vision for this Nation contained in the President's budget because no such documents exist. I actually tried, by the way. I offered a 34-page document full of question marks, but appropriately that was ruled out of order as not being able to be brought forward to the House. Again, it is with great reluctance I'm not able to offer the President's budget.

Why am I here? I'm here instead to offer as a substitute the budget that passed the Senate Budget Committee last week. It's the first budget to be taken up by the Senate, I believe, in 4 years. I would like to think it's a direct result of the bipartisan action that this body took several weeks ago in passing No Budget, No Pay. The Senate assures us, Mr. Chairman, they were going to do a budget anyway. I took them at their word. And I'm glad that this body was able to pass out No Budget, No Pay in order to give them the additional incentive to do that.

What have they done? What has the Senate offered us? What did the Senate pass out of committee last week on entirely partisan lines? They offered us a budget that increases taxes by $900 billion over the tax window. In fact, that's the smallest amount. That's the amount they admit to. If you take the Senate committee at their word, they also want to undo the sequester and add an additional $100 billion worth of stimulus money, and they want to do that without impacting the deficit. You can safely assume, I believe, that it's $1.5 trillion, not $900 billion, but $1.5 trillion in new taxes out of our colleagues in the Senate on the Democratic committee.

They increased spending by $265 billion over the baseline over the next decade, and they also spend $4.9 trillion more than does the Republican budget that we'll offer later today. Their spending, as offered in their budget, grows by 4.7 percent annually, one of the highest rates of growth other than the last several years in the history of the Nation.

The deficit, according to their budget, in the year 2023, will be $566 billion. In contrast, the budget that we will be offering will be surplus in 2023. It will finally allow us to start paying down the debt; and there are no significant reforms at all in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

How you can have a vision for this country going forward and not at least discuss possible and reasonable reforms to those programs is beyond me, but somehow it passed out of the Senate committee.

Defense is cut by an additional quarter of a trillion dollars over the sequester cuts that we've already had and over the reductions that the Defense Department voluntarily took upon itself during the last budget process.

Now, I've come before this body before, Mr. Chairman, and encouraged this body, in a bipartisan fashion, to look to the Defense Department as possible ways to save money, under the belief that there must be some money in the Defense Department that can be saved in a responsible fashion. What the Senate has done goes so far beyond that that it's hard to fathom--an additional quarter of a trillion dollars in defense spending reductions over the next 10 years.

Finally, perhaps most tellingly and most importantly, the Senate budget never balances--ever. It never balances. What does that say? They have no plan for ever repaying the debt. You cannot repay the debt until we start moving to surplus, and any budget that never goes to surplus never pays down the debt. I've said it before and I'll say it again: if you borrow money from people and are never intending to pay it back, you're not borrowing it from them--you're stealing it from them. That's exactly what this budget contemplates: borrowing money and borrowing money with no intention--a stated position of no intention-- to ever be able to pay the money back.

I'm glad they did it. I'm glad to think that they did it of their own accord without ``no budget-no pay'' hanging over their heads, and I applaud them for at least taking the first step in the last 4 years to put forth their vision of spending and of what the future of this country should hold. At the same time, I think it's incumbent upon us to have this debate and then to send a very strong message to the Senate that their ideas are not the right ideas for this country. I hope we get a chance to debate this further.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell).

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock).

Mr. Chairman, I'm prepared to close, and I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, the last time I was at this table and was accused of doing something for a political stunt or a gimmick was for No Budget, No Pay. So I'll take those criticisms because I think we were able to move in the right direction with that particular bill.

I would simply ask my friend if he's more bothered by this political stunt or by the stunt being perpetrated by the President of the United States for not offering a budget. We had time to do one. He had time to do one. The President clearly had time to do one and is intentionally not delivering it to us, and I think that does a disservice to the entire process.

Finally, all of that said, I want to thank my friend from Maryland for reminding us once again that only in Washington, D.C., can a cut never cut, can a freeze never freeze, and a balanced approach to a budget never balance.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life and mark the passing of Sergeant First Class L.C. Rice, one of my constituents, a highly decorated veteran, and a true servant of our nation.

SFC Rice was born in Greer, SC, in 1923, the son of the late Bunyon Clinton Rice and the late Tenie Jane Beaver Rice. L.C. Rice grew up during the Depression, so after completing the lower grades, he went to work. In January 1941, SFC Rice joined the Navy at the age of 17.

He was a machinist mate stationed on the USS Pennsylvania at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941. His ship was in dry dock when it was attacked, and all weapons and ammunition had been removed. SFC Rice spent that day ``which shall live in infamy'' rescuing the wounded and collecting the dead.

Next, SFC Rice was sent on a secret mission to deliver the cruiser USS Milwaukee to the Russians. His family could not be told where he was, and he was gone for so long they believed him missing in action. Later, he was stationed on a ship off the coast of Normandy, which was torpedoed and sank beneath him. Although he was hit by shrapnel, he swam through the debris and made it to shore, rescuing others along the way. Once on land, L.C. was given a rifle and helped fight against the Nazis. During World War II, he served both in naval and ground combat in both the Pacific and the European theatres. SFC Rice also participated in the Pacific Island campaigns and was part of the atomic bomb tests at the Bikini Atoll in 1946. For his service to our nation, SFC Rice was awarded the Purple Heart.

After his service in the Navy, SFC Rice joined the Army's 82nd Airborne and became a master parachutist, drill sergeant and jumpmaster, completing more than 1500 jumps. He served two combat tours in Korea and won a bronze star for bravery. SFC Rice was instrumental in forming the Army's ``Golden Knights'' official parachute team, and was one of the first military advisors sent to South Vietnam during the Vietnam War to train their soldiers. SFC Rice also trained soldiers at Fort Jackson and Fort Bragg.

SFC Rice retired from active duty in 1963 and from reserve duty in 1973, after 32 years of military service during three separate wars. SFC Rice is York County's most decorated soldier. After retirement, L.C. devoted nearly all his time to the Rock Hill VFW, the American Legion, the Honor Guard, and to veterans in general.

SFC Rice was interred with full military honors on February 15, 2013, in Rock Hill, SC. L.C. Rice was the widower of Jeanie Rice and Edna ``Jan'' Biles Rice. He was the last survivor of 11 children, six sisters and four brothers. He is survived by 11 nieces, 10 nephews, and many loyal friends and devoted caregivers.

L.C. Rice was an American Hero. He was truly on the front lines of the generation that saved America and the World. We will remember L.C. not only for his bravery and service to our country, but more importantly, as a dear friend. My thoughts and prayers are with L.C.'s family and for all those who knew him and share in the pain of his loss.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Thank you for the opportunity to the chairman and the ranking member.

I want to make it very clear what this amendment is and what this amendment is not.

This amendment is not about delay. This amendment is not about offering a poison pill to the underlying bill. This amendment is not about preventing money from going where it is very desperately needed. I want that to happen. I want these folks who need this money to get it.

I live in an area that is hurricane-prone. I have lived through hurricanes myself. I have lived through floods myself. I have waded through chest-high water full of snakes and human waste to get into my own business. I've been able to take advantage of and to use, to rebuild a small business, a small business disaster loan. I want the money to go where it needs to go.

I'm here for one reason and one reason only today, Madam Chair, and that is to talk about how we can pay for it. That's it.

There was a time when we didn't have to have this conversation. There was a time back during Hurricane Hugo in the late 1980s where we didn't have to talk about how to pay for disaster assistance because the deficit was only $3 trillion. But we've so badly mismanaged our money after that, that by the time we got to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, that we actually did start talking about offsetting and paying for disaster relief and paid for and offset about 40 percent of it.

But we didn't learn. We didn't learn from those mistakes, and we've continued to mismanage our money and to run up our deficit to such a point now where it's $16 trillion today, and it is incumbent upon us to have the discussion about whether or not we have the money to do this and whether or not it's important enough to us to pay for it.

I wish very much that we weren't here today, I wish very much that we could pass this and easily borrow the money without any questions whatsoever, but we've wasted that opportunity. We've mismanaged our own finances to the point where we are now no longer capable of taking care of our own.

Think about that for a second. In the United States of America, we do not have enough money to take care of our own citizens who need it. There's no rainy day fund. There's no savings. What ability we had to borrow money we blew through several years ago with trillion dollar deficits. We don't have enough money saved up to take care of our own people, and that's wrong. It's absolutely wrong.

It is important to me that this money goes to the folks who need it very badly. It's so important to me that I think we should pay for it. I think we should be willing, as a body, to come together and say, Look, there are things that we do not need this year, things that we can do without this year so that the people in New York and New Jersey and Connecticut and the other States who so badly need the money can have it, without us having to go hat-in-hand to other nations of this world and say, Would you please lend us money so that we can take care of our folks who need it so badly?

I hope the amendment passes. I hope the amendment passes so that I can vote for the bill. I want this money to go where it is so desperately needed. But the time has come and gone in this Nation when we can walk in here one day and spend $9 billion or $17 billion or $60 billion and not think about who's paying for it.

This is important money. It's important to you, it's important to me, and it's important to everyone in here. But it's important enough for us to pay for it ourselves. For that reason, I encourage passage of this amendment and passage ultimately of the underlying bill.

With that, I would yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock).

Madam Chair, I would like to yield 45 seconds to the gentlelady from Wyoming (Mrs. Lummis).

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

In closing, Madam Chair, I would just say I don't like across-the-board cuts any more than anybody else does. I offered other alternatives. They were ruled out of order.

But I would put it to my colleagues, just tell me what you're willing to do without. Are we willing and able to do without anything so that these people can get this money this year? That's the question that I want to debate. That's what I'm looking for for my colleagues across the aisle. Are there no savings, are there no reductions that we could put in place this year so these folks get this money?

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 4 I missed rollcall No. 4 on January 3, 2013. I was with my family and unable to make it to the floor.

Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye''.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 5, I missed rollcall No. 5 on January 3, 2013. I was with my family and unable to make it to the floor. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 6, I missed rollcall number 6 on January 3, 2013. I was with my family and unable to make it to the floor. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.''

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life and mark the passing of Mrs. Joan Schlaudt Wheeler, one of my constituents and a matriarch of the Cherokee County, South Carolina Republican Party.

Mrs. Wheeler was born in Cleburn, Texas, in 1927 to Edo Schlaudt and Marjorie Nail Schlaudt. Mrs. Wheeler was a very intelligent woman who valued education as one of the most reliable assets a person can possess. She graduated from Montreat and Converse Colleges, and worked as a teacher in York County, South Carolina. She particularly loved history and government, so her life-long dedication to public service came as no surprise.

For more than 20 years, Mrs. Wheeler was active in community concerns and local politics, fighting for her convictions even if at times they were unpopular. She fought to stop the damming of Broad River, led a group to stop wasteful school spending and halt a public school building program, and worked to stop a landfill in the McKowns Mountain community. Most notably, she was an alternate delegate to the Republican Convention in 2000, and served as the chair of the local Republican Party for seven years. During her chairmanship, the party increased both its membership and visibility, and started a scholarship program for Gaffney and Blacksburg High School seniors. Mrs. Wheeler always had the best interests of her community at heart.

Mrs. Wheeler was often recognized for her public service. She received the Woman of the Year award for the South Carolina Federation of Republican Women. She was the first recipient of the Palmetto Elephant award for the S.C.G.O.P. In 2010, Governor Mark Sanford presented Mrs. Wheeler with The Order of the Palmetto, the highest civilian honor in my State, recognizing a person's lifetime achievements and contributions to South Carolina.

Mrs. Wheeler was also a woman dedicated to her family. She is survived by her husband of 63 years, George Wheeler, and four children--David, Tom, Mary Lois and Jan.

We will remember Mrs. Wheeler not only for her convictions and her work to improve the lives of others, but more importantly, as a dear friend. My thoughts and prayers are with Joan's family and for all those who knew her and share in her loss.

I thank the gentleman from New Jersey.

I saw the gentleman from Maryland this morning on television. It was the first time I had heard, Madam Speaker, of his proposal. So I had a chance to take a look at it today, and I also had a chance to look at the CBO report that was performed on it. I saw some interesting things that I don't know if we've discussed fully here today.

It raises taxes by $85 billion over the 10-year window. According to the CBO, it raises spending by almost $80 billion. This is a refrain that I used to hear a lot when I was younger--taxes and spending, taxes and spending, raise taxes and increase spending. I thought it was gone from today's party across the aisle, but evidently, here it is--alive and well--in Mr. Van Hollen's substitute offering, raising taxes by $85 billion and raising spending by $80 billion, which is a net reduction of the deficit of $5 billion over 10 years. According to the CBO, it actually increases the deficit by $55 billion in the first year.

It does that, by the way, in part and parcel by offering what they call the Buffett rule. The last time I came to this well, I believe the gentleman from Maryland and I had a nice exchange about whether or not my amendment was a gimmick. It was the amendment regarding the President's budget. I seem to remember someone else calling the Buffett rule a gimmick. In my research in coming over here today, I found out that it was, in fact, the President of the United States who called the Buffett rule a gimmick. So I'm wondering now if the President believes that part of the gentleman from Maryland's offering is, in fact, a gimmick because it encompasses the Buffett rule in its entirety.

I compare all of this, Madam Speaker, to the offering that we have before you with our bill. That bill reduces the deficit by at least $237 billion over the same 10 years. Theirs reduces it by $5 billion-- raising taxes. According to the CBO, ours reduces the deficit by at least $237 billion. That's the smallest number the CBO gives us. It also gives us four times as much in deficit reduction in the first year as does the BCA that it seeks to replace. Again, theirs increases the deficit by $55 billion in the first year. Ours decreases it by more than the BCA it seeks to replace. Our offering does that without asking anybody to pay more money to the government. People pay enough money to the government. We spend their money improperly. It's not that we don't take enough from them. We take enough money from our citizens. We spend it improperly.

So, when I finished looking at this, I thought to myself, I think it would be great to have this come up for a vote. I'm disappointed that the Rules Committee did not give Mr. Van Hollen the chance to bring it to the floor. It has happened to me before, and for that, I am sympathetic. At the same time, I know that he has a chance to do that still. We are going to finish this debate here in a few minutes; and before we vote, there is going to be a motion to recommit. The gentleman from Maryland could easily offer his amendment as the motion to recommit. In fact, I would welcome the opportunity to see that debate. I would welcome the opportunity here, 60 days before an election, to have my colleagues across the aisle come over and say, We want to raise your taxes. Would you please reelect us. I want that on the floor. I'm disappointed the Rules Committee did not bring it. I would love to see if that's really what our colleagues across the aisle stand for.

I heard it described by the gentlelady from California a few minutes ago as a better plan. I think we are doing a disservice by not allowing a vote on this particular bill, because it is not a better plan, and I think the vote here would bear that out, not just on our side of the aisle. I would be curious to see if that's what our colleagues stand for--more taxes, more spending here 60 days before an election.

I encourage folks to support our bill. Our bill cuts spending, lets people keep their money, and still allows us to end the sequester.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

The amendment is fairly simple. It's an amendment to seek to freeze defense spending for 1 single year. It is not a cut. Only in Washington, D.C., could we spend more money from one year to the next and call it a cut.

This is not a ``cut'' amendment. This is an amendment to freeze spending for 1 year. It is an amendment to set the base defense spending levels at $518 billion, the exact same amount as last year's appropriation that was approved just a few months ago. It is $2 billion above what the Pentagon asked for. It is also $2 billion above what the President asked for. While the amendment gives control to the generals over the spending, it still protects military pay, the Defense Health Program, and the war budget.

We've heard arguments in favor of a 1-year freeze before. This amendment is entirely consistent with the Simpson-Bowles plan, and it is entirely consistent with the Domenici-Rivlin plan.

What arguments will we hear against it? We may hear, as we've heard earlier today, that the defense budget has already been cut $39 billion over the last 2 years. This is the base defense budget for the last 2 years and the base defense budget in this year.

The base defense spending has gone up from 2011 to 2012. If the bill passes unamended, it will go up again this year. Only in Washington, D.C., is that considered a $39 billion cut.

We may hear that the CBO says that the Pentagon is still $9 billion short based upon a report they released earlier this month. I have the report. The report reads:

To execute its base-budget plans for 2013, the Department would require appropriations 1.4 percent less than last year's appropriation.

We may also hear the argument that this amendment would compromise our defense in some fashion. That can only be true if the same exact appropriation that we passed just 6 months ago put our defense at risk, because this is the exact same spending level as we established 6 months ago.

The one thing we do know is that even with this amendment, if this amendment would pass, we will be spending more on defense spending than the Pentagon asked for and that the President asked for, and we will be spending exactly the same as we did last year.

We've heard a lot in the last day or two about ``austerity.'' It's another word that, I think, has lost its traditional meaning. It means something different in Washington than it does back home.

``Austerity,'' to me, means spending less. Total discretionary spending will be up this year. Total mandatory spending will be up this year. Total government spending will be up this year. We are still facing a $1 trillion deficit by the time that this year is over. We need to do better in getting our spending under control. It is easy to cut things that we do not like on both sides of the aisle; it is hard to cut things that we like.

The defense of this Nation means a tremendous amount to me, as I know it means to every Member of this Chamber. If I thought for a second that this amendment would put a single soldier at risk, if I thought for a second that this amendment would put a single citizen at risk, I would take it down immediately. All it does is freeze spending from last year. If we cannot do that simple task, do we really think we have an honest chance of solving our debts and our deficit problems?

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman from California.

I rise very briefly to respond to a few points made by my colleague and friend from New Jersey. Yes, North Korea is a threat. Yes, Iran is a difficulty. Yes, China's role in the world is growing, and we will need to deal with that. No, Syria was not a problem last year, but Egypt was. All of these were challenges to us last year. All of these were challenges to us just 6 months ago when we set the base Defense appropriation at $518 billion, and $518 billion was good enough 6 months ago. It should be good enough today.

I received a letter regarding this particular amendment, and it used a lot of the same language the gentleman from New Jersey did. It mentioned that these were real cuts already, that the cuts we have put in place regarding the defense budget were real cuts, not cuts in future growth. This is the CBO's estimate of the defense-based budget for the next 15 or 20 years.

Can someone please show me in this dark line, which is the base budget, where the cuts are? Because in my world, when we cut spending, those graphs go down. The only reductions that we have seen, the only real reductions that we have seen in defense spending are in the overseas on the global war on terror, which we all agree was a good thing because it came as a result of winding up operations in Iraq and reducing operations in Afghanistan.

But what we do in this town is when we increase spending on the global war on terror, we don't count it as an increase; but when we cut spending on that same thing, we do count it as a cut, and that is simply not right. It's not fair, and it's not honest with people back home. We should tell people how we spend their money.

To sit here and say that the cuts that the Defense Department has incurred already are real cuts is not accurate. The sequester is. This is not a debate about the sequester, because I am as opposed to the sequester as anybody in this room. I have voted several times to replace it with spending reductions in other places. That's not what this discussion is about. This is about whether or not the $518 billion that was good enough 6 months ago is good enough today.

With that, I ask once again for support for the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I have an amendment at the desk.

This is a follow-up amendment to an amendment that I had offered and we had a chance to debate, and once again I thank the chairman for the opportunity yesterday to discuss the issue before the amendment was ruled out of order.

As you recall, very briefly, $5.6 billion this year has been moved out of the base defense budget and into the war budget. It violates a policy that we have tried to follow in this House since 9/11, and actually violates a policy that the bill, itself, says we should not violate going forward, beginning in 2014.

I simply tried to draw attention to that in yesterday's amendment which was ruled out of order.

This amendment deals with the exact same thing, and it simply takes that $5.6 billion out of the budget and puts

it right back in, which sounds like a strange thing to do, but it's the only way within the rules to draw attention to the fact that this $5.6 billion is in the war budget when it actually should be in the base defense budget.

This is not a spending amendment; this is a good-governance amendment. This is not a spending amendment; it is an accountability amendment. It is a bipartisan amendment. Mr. Jordan from Ohio and Mr. Welch from Vermont are amongst those joining me in sponsoring this particular amendment.

Again, this is a good-government amendment, and I would think that it would have bipartisan support. I ask for its support.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, I thank the chairman and also the ranking member for the opportunity to present this amendment.

Madam Chair, the amendment is something different for me. It is not an amendment to reduce spending, and it's also not an amendment to increase spending. In fact, this amendment is outlay neutral.

Similarly, consistent with what the chairman and the ranking member discussed when introducing the bill, this amendment is not a partisan amendment. I do not seek to lay blame on either party or on the President or on the Congress for the circumstance in which we find ourselves.

This amendment regards simply a policy, a policy that traditionally has had bipartisan support in this House, and that policy is that we keep separate spending on the base defense budget, and spending on the Overseas Contingency Operations, or the war budget.

It has come to our attention, and both the CBO and the GAO have confirmed, that there is $5.6 billion in the Overseas Contingency Operation budget, in the war budget, that should be in the base budget. We have taken things such as the base salaries for men and women in uniform who are not deployed and are charging that spending this year to the war budget.

Madam Chair, since 9/11 we have had a policy in this House of keeping those two items separate so that we know the real cost of the war against terror. We have taken the base defense spending and accounted for it in one fashion, and accounted for the war budget in an entirely separate system. This year, for the first time, Madam Chair, we are blending those numbers. We take $5.6 billion of what should be in the base budget and move it to the OCO budget.

Madam Chair, the committee itself recognizes that it is not good policy. If you look at the bill, you will see that the committee itself says let's make sure not to do this next year and the year after that and the year after that. And indeed, we have not done it since 9/11. But we do it this year, this year only in this particular bill, and I think it's important that we continue to abide by the policy that accounts correctly for the cost of the war overseas.

So, Madam Chair, what I say to you is, this amendment is not about spending more money. It's not about spending less money. It is about accounting accurately for the spending that we do so that we can tell folks back home exactly what we spend on the base defense of this Nation and what we spend in the wars overseas. And for that reason, Madam Chair, I would ask for a ``yea'' vote on this particular amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Point of Order

I ask to be heard on the point of order.

Madam Chair, it is true that a new point of order was created under the Budget Control Act preventing any legislation from being considered in the House that would cause discretionary spending to exceed the caps established in the Budget Control Act. Under that part of the act, Madam Chair, the entire bill is technically out of order because the entire bill exceeds the BCA caps by $7.5 billion.

Ironically then, if this point of order is sustained, then we will effectively keep within the shadows a nonpartisan policy, something that everyone has supported in the past, a good governance issue, while allowing the entire bill, which also violates the same point of order, to proceed.

My amendment is outlay neutral. It does not increase spending, it does not decrease spending. It simply moves spending from the war budget to the base budget, and vice versa. If the amendment were agreed to, the budget authority in the bill will be exactly the same as it is if the amendment fails, $608,213,000,000.

Accordingly, the amendment does not violate section 302(f)(1) of the Congressional Budget Act, and overruling the point of order gives us the chance to abide by the precedent established long ago and embraced by both parties.

I respectfully ask that the Chair overrule the point of order.

Offered By: Mr. Mulvaney

Amendment No. 9: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following: