Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 841, I call up the bill (H.R. 6684) to provide for spending reduction, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 6684, the Spending Reduction Act.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

This is what we should be doing almost every day here--cutting spending. In particular, this cuts $236 billion over the next 10 years in net spending cuts to pay for 1 year of the sequester. It sets aside the sequester on defense and nondefense discretionary spending. It cuts $218 billion in mandatory spending and $19 billion in discretionary spending by lowering those caps. The result of this is we believe it's better to identify specific spending cuts, waste, fraud, and abuse in the Federal Government in order to prevent the sequester from occurring. This sets aside this question for 1 year. But in exchange for that, it has a net spending reduction of $236 billion. We think the path forward is even lower spending, which is what this achieves.

I yield 5 minutes to the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Mr. McKeon.

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

My friend started off by saying this is a farce, this is not real. This is what Congress is supposed to do.

Let's review what this legislation is or is not.

Number one, six congressional committees went through their areas of jurisdiction to look for areas where spending can be reduced--to look for areas where there was government duplication, to look for areas where there was government waste and fraud--reported out of those committees savings, spending cuts, and we package it together here. We ought to be doing this each and every year.

More to the point, Mr. Speaker, this package of spending cuts are built on top of the fact that we actually passed a budget to pay off the debt. We actually passed a budget to make sure that nobody gets a tax increase. That's a lot more than the President can say.

The President's budget was voted down unanimously in the House and the Senate. The Senate, they haven't passed a budget in 3 years. We don't just have a fiscal cliff, we have a fiscal abyss in front of us, and that is the debt crisis that is on our horizon.

Failure to address this debt crisis means not just 47 percent of Americans, but every American gets hurt. Every American gets a lower standard of living. Every American, especially the next generation, receives a lower standard of living if we don't fix this mess.

So what is this we're doing here today? We're saying we don't think the crude across-the-board sequester is good policy. We think it will harm our national security--the first and primary responsibility of the Federal Government--and we want to replace next year's cuts with even more spending cuts that we think are smart spending cuts.

The gentleman is talking about all these people who will lose food stamps and free and reduced lunches. Let me say it really clearly: Every single person who qualifies for food stamps will get food stamps. Every single child who qualifies for a free and reduced lunch will get their free and reduced lunch. What we're saying is you actually have to qualify for these benefits to get these benefits, and that's not the case today. We are spending so much money from this government that people who don't even qualify for these benefits, who make more than they should to qualify for them, are getting these benefits.

There is a lot of waste. There's a lot of fraud. There's a lot of abuse in how our Federal tax dollars are being spent, and we're beginning to rein that in with this down payment of spending cuts.

With respect to taxes, what we are trying to do here is limit the damage to the taxpayer. There's not a single tax increase that we're proposing here--not a single. What we're saying is prevent as many tax increases as possible from hitting anybody in this economy. Because you know what? It's not a very good economy. Look, elections have consequences. We understand that. I, of all people, understand that. The consequence of this election is we have a President who in every proposal he has given us has called for net spending increases along with tax increases.

He used to say we ought to cut $3 of spending for every $1 of tax increases. He's not even doing that. The latest proposals say let's raise taxes and then raise spending. Mr. Speaker, that's what got us in trouble in the first place.

With that, I'd like to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus), the chairman of the Financial Services Committee.

I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, I, too, want to add my congratulations to the fine gentlewoman from New York on becoming the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee. She has our respect and our congratulations.

With that, I'd like to yield 1 minute to the distinguished majority leader, Mr. Cantor.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself 30 seconds to say, Follow the President's lead? I wish he were leading.

The gentleman from Michigan said he's offered all these specifics. I wish it were so. Where are they? We hear numbers, we hear platitudes, we see budget gimmicks and accounting tricks; but we don't see specifics. We have yet to see a specific solution from this President to deal with his debt crisis.

He's claimed he wants to cut $3 of spending for every $1 of tax increase. We've seen a lot of specific tax increase proposals come from the President, but we haven't seen a specific spending cut proposal from the President. That's the problem.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Lucas).

Will the gentleman yield?

I meant ``net.''

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton).

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

The food stamp program has grown over the last 10 years by 270 percent. That's far in excess of the recession. With these kinds of reforms, it will have grown by 260 percent. Hardly the kind of draconian cuts the gentleman seems to suggest. What we're saying with these programs is that you need to be eligible for the actual benefit to receive the benefit. That's not asking too much. If we can't put commonsense reforms like this in place, we'll never get anywhere in dealing with this debt crisis.

The gentlelady from the Financial Services Committee says it's just wrong to submit the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau agency to the appropriations process. I find that an amazing critique.

I yield myself another 30 seconds.

This is an agency that gets its money from the Federal Reserve without ever having to go through Congress. When we uphold the Constitution to take office, let's never forget that the power of the purse lies in the legislative branch. All of these executive agencies should have to go through the appropriations process. That's not gutting a program; that's bringing accountability to a program.

With that, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, let me just say, over the past decade Medicaid spending increased by 150 percent. Over the next decade it's projected to increase by 225 percent, and an effort to slow the increase is called a cut. That's our problem.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa), the chairman of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee.

May I inquire as to how much time remains?

I'll reserve the balance of my time since we have no more speakers for closing, and leave it to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. Speaker, let's take a step back to remind us where we are.

On January 1, if we do nothing, every American taxpayer will see a massive tax increase. That will dramatically hurt our economy and families. Then, on the next day, we'll face a 10 percent cut in our defense budget.

Americans chose divided government, whether it was intended or not. The President won. The House is still a Republican House. We're going to have to find a way to make this work. This is what we're attempting to do today. We want to avert this crisis, this cliff, but that means to begin to get spending under control, that means to prevent as many tax increases from hitting Americans as possible.

My friend--and I mean this sincerely--my friend from Maryland says we need a balanced approach. The President, in all of his latest proposals, says more taxes and even more net spending. Hardly a balanced approach.

Here's the problem: Our problem is not balanced. Even if all the current tax rates are extended, those taxes still go up. The problem is spending goes way up. Spending is our problem.

The size of our government will double over the course of this generation as a share of the economy. The President has shown no leadership on dealing with the drivers of our debt. We have. We have passed our budget. We put the specifics out there.

Let's avert a fiscal cliff and let's get on to the business of preventing the fiscal abyss, which is the coming debt crisis that will not be resolved until we have real leadership; and that, unfortunately, is sorely lacking.

With that, I urge passage of this. Let's prevent taxpayers from tax increases, get a down payment on spending cuts, and let's pass this bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion.

Mr. Speaker, I enjoy this. It's good reading. It has a very rich irony, ``Title VIII. Disclosure of higher beneficiary costs from provider cuts under Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP cuts.'' Where was this when they passed ObamaCare? Where was this need for disclosure on the beneficiaries of Medicare when they took $716 billion from Medicare to spend on ObamaCare? Where was this concern when they raised $1 trillion in taxes to pay for ObamaCare? Where was all of this need for disclosure when they were hitting providers and beneficiaries in Medicare to pay for their vaunted ObamaCare program?

The gentleman talks about cuts to food stamps and Medicaid. Food stamps will have grown by 260 percent instead of 270 percent under this bill. Medicaid has grown by 150 percent over the last decade, and it is projected to grow by 225 percent over the next decade. Slowing the growth of spending isn't a cut, it's slowing the growth of spending. This is our problem, Mr. Speaker. If we lambaste these commonsense ideas as draconian cuts, we're never going to fix this problem. If we keep this kind of language and definition, heaven help us.

The other part on oil companies, all these taxes. Look, I've been a member of the Ways and Means Committee for 12 years. A number of years ago we put in place a policy that says: We want more manufacturing in America. We want to reward manufacturing jobs. So if you manufacture something in America, you will pay effectively lower tax rates than if you make something overseas. The idea would be more U.S. manufacturing jobs. Here's what they do. They say ah, ah, ah, not if you're in the oil industry. So, if you're working in the oil fields in North Dakota or the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania or the Woodford in Texas, we don't want your jobs, because if you manufacture oil in America, we're raising your taxes. We're not going to raise your taxes if you manufacture oil overseas, but if you create American-made energy jobs, this raises your taxes. Not only does it raise our taxes and costs American energy jobs, it raises our gas prices. How is that good for consumers and families?

So, it's an anti-American energy job, pro-high gas tax bill that all of a sudden calls for the kind of disclosure that they weren't willing to disclose when they jammed ObamaCare through. This is not serious and I reject this motion.

I urge all Members to vote against the motion to recommit.

I yield back the balance of my time.

The previous question was ordered.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I missed rollcall votes 629 and 630. Had I been present, I would have cast the following votes:

Rollcall 629--On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass--``yes.''

Rollcall 630--On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Agree to the Senate Amendment--``yes.''

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to recognize the career and the retirement of Jay Pierson. We've been hearing from both sides of the aisle accolades for Jay. Jay has been the floor assistant to the Speaker, and I want to thank Jay for his 34 years of service to this Congress.

He began his career in Congress in 1978 by joining the office of Republican Leader John Rhodes, and has served three Speakers of the House during his career. I've had the opportunity to see Jay's contribution to the House during my nearly 14 years as a Member of Congress; and while he may work in the Speaker's office, he helps us all with our essential duty as legislators and he makes this place run well.

As the chairman of the Budget Committee, I have a responsibility to manage the budget legislation on the House floor. That can be a little tricky sometimes. You can always count on Jay to greet you with a smile on the House floor and to make sure things go well. In addition to his demeanor and his dedication, his institutional knowledge and expertise on floor procedure will be sorely missed. It's irreplaceable, that kind of experience that we've benefited from.

For all of the outstanding work that he has done in his 34-year career, we deeply appreciate Jay Pierson's long service to the United States House of Representatives, to Congress, and to the American people. We wish him the best in his retirement and his new opportunity to spend more time with his family. We are all better served by his service.

Mr. Speaker, during the course of the week, I was absent for legislative business; had I been present, I would have cast the following votes:

Rollcall 585--H.R. 5044--On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass, as Amended--``yes.''

Rollcall 586--H.R. 5912--On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass, as Amended--``yes.''

Rollcall 587--H. Res. 788--On Ordering the Previous Question-- ``yes.''

Rollcall 588--H. Res. 788--On Agreeing to the Resolution--``yes.''

Rollcall 591--H.R. 5987--On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass, as Amended--``no.''

Rollcall 592--H.R. 3409--On Agreeing to the Amendment--``no.''

Rollcall 593--H.R. 3409--On Agreeing to the Amendment--``no.''

Rollcall 594--H.R. 3409--On Agreeing to the Amendment--``yes.''

Rollcall 595--H.R. 3409--On Agreeing to the Amendment--``no.''

Rollcall 596--H.R. 3409--On Agreeing to the Amendment--``no.''

Rollcall 597--H.R. 3409--On Agreeing to the Amendment--``yes.''

Rollcall 598--H.R. 3409--On Agreeing to the Amendment--``no.''

Rollcall 599--H.R. 3409--On Agreeing to the Amendment--``no.''

Rollcall 600--H.R. 3409--On Agreeing to the Amendment--``yes.''

Rollcall 601--H.R. 3409--On Agreeing to the Amendment--``yes.''

Rollcall 602--H.R. 3409--On Motion to Recommit with instructions-- ``no.''

Rollcall 603--H.R. 3409--On Passage--``yes.''

Mr. Speaker, during the course of the week, I was absent for legislative business; had I been present, I would have cast the following votes:

Rollcall 557--H.R. 6122--On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass-- ``yes.''

Rollcall 558--H.R. 2139--On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass, as Amended--``yes.''

Rollcall 559--H.R. 6186--On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass-- ``yes.''

Rollcall 560--H. Res. 773--On Ordering the Previous Question-- ``yes.''

Rollcall 561--H. Res. 773--On Agreeing to the Resolution--``yes.''

Rollcall 562--H.R. 4264--On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass, as Amended--``yes.''

Rollcall 563--H.R. 5544--On Agreeing to the Amendment--``no.''

Rollcall 564--H.R. 5544--On Agreeing to the Amendment--``no.''

Rollcall 565--H.R. 5544--On Agreeing to the Amendment--``no.''

Rollcall 566--H.R. 5544--On Agreeing to the Amendment--``no.''

Rollcall 567--H.R. 5544--On Motion to Recommit with Instructions-- ``no.''

Rollcall 568--H.R. 5544--On Passage--``yes.''

Rollcall 569--H.R. 5949--On Passage--``yes.''

Rollcall 570--H.R. 3857--On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass, as Amended--``yes.''

Rollcall 571--H.R. 5865--On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass, as Amended--``no.''

Rollcall 572--H. Res. 778--On Ordering the Previous Question-- ``yes.''

Rollcall 573--H. Res. 778--On Agreeing to the Resolution--``yes.''

Rollcall 574--H. Res. 779--On Agreeing to the Resolution--``yes.''

Rollcall 575--H.R. 1775--On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass, as Amended--``yes.''

Rollcall 580--S. 3245--On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass-- ``yes.''

Rollcall 581--H.R. 6213--On Agreeing to the Amendment--``no.''

Rollcall 582--H.R. 6213--On Agreeing to the Amendment--``no.''

Rollcall 583--H.R. 6213--On Motion to Recommit with Instructions-- ``no.''

Rollcall 584--H.R. 6213--On Passage--``yes.''

I thank the Chair for yielding. And I enjoyed listening to the stories of lore from my colleagues who hearken back to the good old days when we had smoke-filled backroom deals where laws were written. That's not what we are interested in achieving here. What we want to achieve is a process done in plain view, transparent to the public, that maximizes the opportunity for Congress to actually fix the mess that has become the United States Tax Code.

At the end of the day, Mr. Speaker, I think there's a difference in philosophy here. One side likes to think of the idea of everybody sending their money to Washington, then we go into a backroom and we slice up the money and then we send it out to favored groups, favored constituents, and people that we want to be as winners versus those who might be losers.

We've got to get out of the game of Washington picking winners and losers

in the Tax Code. Because what we do is we stifle that entrepreneur who has an idea, who might not have connections, but can actually have an idea and make a business grow. We want to remove those barriers to opportunity. We want to remove those barriers to upward mobility. We want a system of entrepreneurs where we have true entrepreneurial capitalism, not this crony capitalism.

Mr. Speaker, both political parties are guilty of this. Republicans and Democrats for decades were party to the process of tucking into the Tax Code all these various special interest loopholes which end up rewarding a few while raising tax rates on the many. Well, we've got to get through those days, because if we haven't noticed, we're in global competition. Ninety-seven percent of the world's consumers live in other countries. If we want to have a good, strong growing entrepreneurial economy, we need to make things here in America and sell things overseas. But if we keep taxing our successful small businesses, our businesses all around at much higher tax rates than our foreign competitors tax theirs, they win and we lose.

I come from Wisconsin. We're a manufacturing State. That's how we survive. We grow things, and we make things in Wisconsin. Our chief competitors right over Lake Superior are the Canadians. Canada just lowered their tax rate for all of their businesses to 15 percent last January. Well, the substitute that the gentleman brought to the floor, the substitute that the President is asking for, will bring the effective top tax rate for those most successful small businesses in Wisconsin to as high as 44.8 percent.

Mr. Speaker, how on Earth are our businesses, our manufacturers, our successful small businesses going to compete when we're taxing them at a Federal level almost as high as 45 percent and our competitors are at 25 or 15 or lower? We won't. That's why we want to reform the tax system.

The difference in philosophy is this. Some here like the idea of bringing more money out of people's paychecks, more money out of our successful small businesses, and then parceling it out in favors. We prefer the opposite. Let people, let families and let businesses keep their money in the first place so they can decide what they want to do with it.

By having high tax rates with lots of loopholes, all we end up doing is we say, you can have some of your money back if you do what we approve of in Washington. Even with the best of intentions behind such ideas, it gets corrupt. The powerful and the connected are the ones who call the shots.

So, yes, we need to clear the brush out. And, yes, there are popular provisions in the Tax Code, and that is why we want to have a process in front to debate those things. There will be fiscal space left for things like charities and such the like. Let's have a clear--in public, not a backroom--process where we debate just how best to go forward. And what we want is a clean up-and-down vote so that we can get this country going again, we can get this economy back on track, and we can look at our children and know that we left them better off.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to section 404 of H. Con. Res 34, the House-passed budget resolution for fiscal year 2012, deemed to be in force by H. Res. 287, and sections 503 of H. Con. Res. 112, the House-passed budget resolution for fiscal year

2013, deemed to be in force by H. Res. 614 and H. Res. 643, I hereby submit for printing in the Congressional Record revisions to the budget allocations and aggregates. The revision reflects the budgetary impact of H.R. 8, the Job Protection and Recession Prevention Act of 2012, which would extend for one year through 2013, certain tax policies enacted in 2001, 2003, and 2010 and would provide relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax. A corresponding table is attached.

This revision represents an adjustment pursuant to sections 302 and 311 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, as amended (Budget Act). For the purposes of the Budget Act, these revised aggregates and allocations are to be considered as aggregates and allocations included in the budget resolutions, pursuant to sections 101 of H. Con. Res. 34 and H. Con. Res. 112.

Mr. Speaker, in response to the recession and financial crisis, the Federal Reserve had to take a variety of unorthodox measures to stabilize our credit markets and resuscitate the economy. Many in Congress have felt unease as the Fed took emergency actions to rescue individual companies and launched a variety of new credit facilities for an increasing number of banks, financial institutions and even investors. I share this unease and I believe that Congress should have the ability to gather information about the Fed's actions. That is why I voted in favor of H.R. 459, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act.

However, I do want to register my caution about opening up the Fed's monetary policy deliberations and actions to a government audit as it could erode the Fed's political independence. Even the appearance of politicians gaining some measure of influence over monetary policy decisions could have disastrous consequences. Political independence is not simply a luxury for our central bank. It is a core principle of good economic policy that yields real benefits for the American people. A number of empirical studies have shown that countries with independent central banks tend to have steadier economic growth and low and stable rates of inflation. This is not surprising. Just as politicians involved in fiscal policy have a bias toward greater spending, monetary policy influenced by politics would have a bias toward looser credit over the short term and therefore higher rates of inflation over the longer term. Financial markets would immediately recognize this and push up our borrowing rates and weaken our currency.

Congress should strive for robust oversight of the Fed, but it must guard against political interference. In the end, an independent Federal Reserve with a clear and focused mandate is the best way to achieve the desirable ends of sustainable economic growth, job creation, and low inflation.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5872) to require the President to provide a report detailing the sequester required by the Budget Control Act of 2011 on January 2, 2013, as amended.

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.R. 5872, currently under consideration.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Madam Speaker, here's basically why we are here today with the Sequester Transparency Act. As a background, under the current law, because the supercommittee was unable to agree on a deficit-reduction package, the Office of Management and Budget will implement a $110 billion across-the-board cut--which we have referred to as a sequester or a sequestration--on January 2, 2013. This comes half on defense, half on domestic discretionary--in other words, a $55 billion cut, which is a 10 percent cut to defense immediately, and then an 8 percent cut to domestic discretionary--but we do not know the actual reductions that will result from this sequester.

As we debate this bill today, we will probably not be able to avoid the contentious issues on the sequester, but let's not lose sight of the fact that the bill before us simply directs the Office of Management and Budget to tell us how they will implement the sequester. So we're just asking for more transparency and more details. Within 30 days, they should give us the plan on how they will do this.

This bill is essentially about transparency. It's not re-litigating the budget fight; it's about making sure that we have as much information as we can to make the right decisions. It's about carrying out a constitutional duty to ensure that laws are faithfully executed and that we fully understand the Budget Control Act sequester, how it's going to be implemented.

It has strong bipartisan support. The House Budget Committee voted 30-0 to report this bill here to the floor, and the Senate has passed similar legislation on a bipartisan basis.

With that, Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, at this time I'd like to yield 5 minutes to the author of this bill, the chairman of the House Republican Conference, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds simply to say that when we hear the words ``balanced approach,'' what that means to taxpayers in this country is, You give us your checkbook and we'll balance it the way we think it ought to be balanced here in government. Government first, taxpayers second. That's what the so- called ``balanced approach'' means. It means keep feeding higher spending with higher taxes.

The problem is, Madam Speaker, the arithmetic just doesn't add up. You literally cannot tax your way out of this mess. Spending is the cause. We need to address our spending. The sooner we do it, the sooner we can get back on to a path to prosperity.

With that, Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon), the distinguished chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and ask unanimous consent that he be allowed to yield that 5 minutes as he chooses.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to a distinguished member of the House Budget and Armed Services Committees, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Young).

I yield 2 minutes to a gentleman who serves on the Budget Committee and who also, I believe, serves on the Appropriations Committee, the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole).

Mr. Speaker, I believe they have the right to close, so let me inquire of the gentleman from Maryland whether or not they have another speaker.

With that understanding, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Lankford), a member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining?

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, if all this borrowing, taxing, and spending was the secret to economic success and prosperity, we would be on the verge of entering a golden age, along with Greece.

The so-called balanced alternative plan by the other side is balanced in that it does have deficit reduction of $30 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office, but only because after the $55 billion spending increase scored by CBO, it has an $85 billion tax increase. If we keep going down this road, Mr. Speaker we're going to get the same results.

What did we start with in this Congress? We passed a budget that cuts spending, that reformed government, that reformed the taxes and gets back to economic growth to puts us on a path to prosperity to pay off the debt.

The Senate hasn't passed a budget for 3 years. Then we engaged in negotiations on the debt limit to try to get a down payment on deficit reduction and the Budget Control Act resulted.

Therefore, the supercommittee failed, and the sequester is about to kick in. So again we took action in the House, and we passed the reconciliation package that replaces the sequester, which resulted in a net $242.8 billion in additional deficit reduction. We put specifics on the table, passed them through the House again. The crickets are chirping in the other body in the Senate. No leadership from the President, no leadership from the Senate, no leadership.

What this is is simple. Since there is an absence of leadership on these critical fiscal issues from the President of the United States, from the Senate of the United States, at the very least show us how this is going to work. If you're not willing to replace the sequester, tell us how it's going to be implemented.

That is simply a matter of transparency. We're not judging the debates or the merits or the each other's ideas and how to replace it; we're simply saying to OMB tell us how it's going to go down, because this seems to be your only plan.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I encourage all Members to follow the bipartisan example that has been set in the Budget Committee and let's have a nice bipartisan vote on behalf of transparency from the legislative branch.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, due to a delay of my flight to Washington, D.C., I missed rollcall vote 452. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes'' on the motion to suspend the rules and pass H.R. 4155, a bill to direct the head of each Federal department and agency to treat relevant military training as sufficient to satisfy training or certification requirements for Federal licenses.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

Let me say it this way, Mr. Speaker. This bill barely passed into law. It was the biggest social legislation to pass into law in over 40 years. Seven votes in the House, no votes to spare in the Senate, Christmas Eve, backroom deal, and it was based on three promises by the President of the United States. One, if you like the health insurance you have, you can keep it. That's a broken promise. Two, this will bring down our health care premiums. That's a broken promise. Three, there's no tax on people making less than $200,000 in this bill. That's a broken promise. Well, the President said, to get it passed, there was no tax. Then, he sent his lawyer to the Supreme Court to argue that it was a tax so he can keep it on the books.

If any of these three broken promises were known to the public and to Congress at the time they were passing this law, the law would have never passed in the first place. We now have this information. Let's revisit this.

With that, I look forward to a hardy debate with my good friend from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas, a member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Flores.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oklahoma, a distinguished member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Cole.

Mr. Speaker, let me yield myself 30 seconds to simply comment.

We know the CBO is going to give us a score perhaps in a couple of weeks, and it's going to be more expensive. That much we know. We know States will probably put more people on ObamaCare instead of Medicaid, which will cost more dollars. The only reason this bill ``on paper'' saves money is because they told CBO to score 10 years of tax increases of Medicare savings to pay for 6 years of spending.

You can contort, distort, and torture statistics long enough, and eventually they will confess. That's what happened here. In reality, I have no doubt that this will be a budget buster.

With that, I would like to yield 1 minute to the distinguished member of the Budget Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock).

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oklahoma, a member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Lankford.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the vice chair of the Budget Committee, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).

I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Rokita), a member of the Budget Committee.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

I yield at this time 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Young), a member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished lady from Wyoming (Mrs. Lummis).

I yield myself the balance of the time.

Mr. Speaker, here's why we're doing this. If the facts that we now know today about this law were available when this law was being debated, there's no way this would have become law. This is effectively a government takeover of 17 percent of our economy, the health care sector. It was sold on a number of promises by the President that are now broken promises.

Taxes? There are 21 tax increases in this law, 12 of which hit people who are low- and middle-income earners.

Do you remember the line: If you like the health care plan you have, you can keep it? Completely not true.

What about the idea that this is going to lower health care premiums? They've been going up ever since the law passed. They're going up next year. They're going up even more.

Here's the fear. What we worry is going to happen, what is happening, is you're going to have what we call BUCAA, about five health insurers left: Blue Cross, United, Cigna, Aetna, and Anthem. That's the big joke in Washington. You'll have about five big, massive health insurers who are de facto public providing government extension companies like your utility company, except they're going to be controlling your health care.

People say we should focus on jobs instead of this bill. This is about jobs. The CBO is telling us it could cost us 800,000 jobs.

I remember talking to an employer in southern Wisconsin not too long ago, family business, a big family business, a private business. The woman who runs this business, whose grandfather founded it, had tears coming down her face because she provides health insurance for her employees at about $17,000 per year for a family plan. She's proud to do it.

Her competitors notified her at one of her trade association meetings--they're publicly traded--that they're going to have to dump everybody in ObamaCare and just pay the $2,000 per person fine; $15,000 difference, per person, between herself and her competitors.

She was telling me that she felt she had no choice but, when the time came, to dump her people into ObamaCare.

That's what's going to happen in this country: People will get dumped into ObamaCare; ObamaCare will underpay providers; providers will go out of business; they'll overcharge the private sector; and we'll get a vicious cycle.

Here is the awful irony about this. We can have affordable access to health insurance for everybody in America, including people with preexisting conditions, without this government takeover. That's why we do believe in replace. That's why we advocated then, and we continue to advocate today, for patient-centered health care reforms.

Deal with the discriminatory tax treatment on health care. Get transparency in price, quality, and outcome so people can really shop. Have pooling mechanisms so people can bulk buy health insurance.

Help those with preexisting conditions. Save Medicare and Medicaid by harnessing the power of choice and competition. Have the providers compete against each other for our business as patients, instead of hoping that the whims of some government bureaucrat will favor us when they make their next price controlling and rationing decision.

We can do better than this.

Here's ultimately why we're doing this, Mr. Speaker. A few weeks ago we had two chances to repeal and, therefore, replace this law. Now we have one. The Supreme Court upheld this law. That doesn't make it good policy.

The one chance left--and yes, this is the 31st time. And I fear we're going to have to do it the 32nd time, because the one chance left is that the American people, through their elected representatives, through the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the President, has one more chance before this law is actually implemented in 2014 to repeal this law and replace it with true patient-centered health care reform, and that is why we're doing this today.

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

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to section 404 of H. Con. Res. 34, the House-passed budget resolution for fiscal year 2012, deemed to be in force by H. Res. 287, and sections 401 and 503 of H. Con. Res. 112, the House-passed budget resolution for fiscal year 2013, deemed to be in force by H. Res. 614 and H. Res. 643, I hereby submit for printing in the Congressional Record revisions to the budget allocations and aggregates set forth pursuant to the budget for fiscal years 2012 and 2013. The revision is designated for H.R. 6079. A corresponding table is attached.

The applicable concurrent resolutions on the budget allow adjustments pursuant to sections 302 and 311 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, as amended (Budget Act). For the purposes of the Budget Act, these revised aggregates and allocations are to be considered as aggregates and allocations included in the budget resolutions, pursuant to sections 101 of H. Con. Res. 34 and section 101 of H. Con. Res. 112.

H. Con. Res. 34 and H. Con. Res. 112 both included the budget impact of repealing the Affordable Care Act in their original budget aggregates and allocations. For enforcement purposes, however, sections 404 and 503 of H. Con. Res. 34 and H. Con. Res. 112, respectively, set their revenue aggregates at Congressional Budget Office baseline levels and provide for downward adjustments for certain enumerated policies, among which is the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. The attached table shows a revenue adjustment to H. Con. Res. 34 and H. Con. Res. 112 for H.R. 6079 only; the spending impact is not shown since it is already assumed in the original budget resolution aggregates.

Madam Speaker, I commend the Speaker, Chairman Mica, Chairman Camp, the conferees and their staffs for their work on this surface transportation reauthorization conference bill. With a history of short-term extensions and bailouts of the highway trust fund since the last highway bill was enacted, to the credit of Chairman Mica and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, they acted at the beginning of this year to report legislation to fundamentally reform this program to put it on a sustainable basis. While H.R. 4348 does not ultimately achieve that goal, it makes progress and the Chairman, the Committee, and the leadership are to be commended for that effort. For the first time, it offsets general fund transfers to the highway programs to keep the program operating through September, 2014. The bill also is at current level funding, earmark free, reduces the federal bureaucracy by consolidating transportation programs, and cuts red tape to institute significant reforms to complete major infrastructure projects. Relative to the Senate highway bill that irresponsibly relied on taxpayer bailouts for highway spending and past funding practices, the conference bill before us today is an improvement.

Despite this bill's progress, it does not address the structural problems in our transportation programs and I have some concerns with some aspects of the legislation.

First, though the Highway Trust Fund was intended to be financed at the level of gas tax revenues, Congress has increased spending for the program well beyond gas tax revenue levels. As a result, the fund has increasingly operated in the red by relying on general fund transfers to pay for annual funding shortfalls. The trust fund has required three large general fund transfers, or taxpayer contributions, totaling $35 billion since 2008. Over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) anticipates the Highway Trust Fund to run cash deficits in total of $105 billion, even upon enactment of today's bill. Through a budgetary loophole, these transfers of general taxpayer revenues are not captured for budgetary effects, allowing Congress to bail out the program without being recorded as a net increase in spending or deficits.

The FY 2013 House budget resolution, H. Con. Res. 112, included a reform to close the budget loophole for general fund transfers to ensure future transfers are fully offset and assumed potential funding streams in the form of new oil and gas revenues for the Highway Trust Fund. Congress needs to continue to reform the critical highway program to put it on sound financial footing without further bailouts with borrowed money. H.R. 4348 makes an important effort to offset the $18.8 billion in general fund transfers contained in the bill. But, instead of continuing to rely on general fund transfers going forward, we need to address the systemic factors that have been driving the trust fund's bankruptcy.

In terms of the bill's cost estimate, according to CBO, the unified budget impact of the entire bill is $16 billion in net deficit reduction over ten years. However, under traditional budget scoring, this does not include the cost of general transfers to the highway fund nor the flood insurance reforms' net income. When considering the bill under House budget enforcement per its budget resolution, if we include the costs of higher spending under scored general fund transfers and the flood insurance income, it leads to a small deficit reduction over ten-years.

Second, I am concerned with H.R. 4348's use often-year savings to finance two years of spending. We need to be reducing spending and deficits and when we increase spending, we should be offsetting the cost in as short a timeframe as possible.

Based on CBO scoring, the bill produces ten-year savings from pension law changes, but some of these changes come with long-term costs. It appears possible that any savings gained in the ten-year window may be offset by greater federal obligations in the future. I expressed my concern over a similar `smoothing' provision when used in past legislation.

Finally, this bill extends the current interest rate on certain student loans for another year. This is another example where Congress established a temporary subsidy with sudden expiration dates and no plans for next steps. I believe it is imperative that we work toward responsible, long-term reform in this area. Congress must stop playing games with students' interest rates to score political points. A well- educated population is critical to higher incomes and stronger economic growth, but our current education programs have serious problems. The right question is not should the interest rate be 3.4 or 6.8 percent. The focus should instead be on how developing an effective, fair and sustainable process for providing capital to students one that ensures access to higher education without fueling tuition inflation and exposing the taxpayer to unacceptable levels of risk. I look forward to working with my colleagues to achieve such reforms.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to section 503 of H. Con. Res. 112, the House-passed budget resolution for fiscal year 2013, deemed to be in force by H. Res. 614 and H. Res. 643, I hereby submit for printing in the Congressional Record revisions to the budget allocations and aggregates set forth pursuant to the budget for fiscal year 2013. The revision is designated for the Health Care Cost Reduction Act of 2012, H.R. 436. A correponding table is attached.

This revision represents an adjustment pursuant to sections 302 and 311 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 (Budget Act). For the purposes of the Budget Act, these revised aggregates and allocations are to be considered as aggregates and allocations included in the budget resolution, pursuant to section 101 of H. Con. Res. 112.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to section 503 of H. Con. Res. 112, the House-passed budget resolution for fiscal year 2013, deemed to be in force by H. Res. 614 and H. Res. 643, I hereby submit for printing in the Congressional Record revisions to the budget allocations and aggregates set forth pursuant to the budget for fiscal year 2013. The revision is designated for the Health Care Cost Reduction Act of 2012, H.R. 436. A corresponding table is attached.

This revision represents an adjustment pursuant to sections 302 and 311 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 (Budget Act). For the purposes of the Budget Act, these revised aggregates and allocations are to be considered as aggregates and allocations included in the budget resolution, pursuant to section 101 of H. Con. Res. 112.