Paul Mitchell

Mr. Chairman, I thank Mr. Thornberry for yielding me time.

It has been a pleasure to be on two committees that have historically been bipartisan, the House Armed Services and Transportation and Infrastructure. As was indicated, historically this has been a bipartisan bill. Last year it passed out of committee with one ``no'' vote. The Senate achieved it. It passed the Senate Armed Services Committee unanimously, and it passed the Senate 86-8.

Yet, here we stand because, Mr. Chairman, bipartisanship is not simply counting percentages of amendments that were brought to the floor and passed.

There are significant issues that we are not dealing with in this bill. While we give people an additional pay raise, a significant raise to military, we cut funding that impacts modernization, readiness and training, and cuts military funding $1.2 billion.

Further, the bill neglects to address something that has had bipartisan support for a long period of time which is nuclear readiness, our nuclear triad. Here we take a hatchet to it as well.

I stress that we must make a bipartisan effort to bring a bill to this floor that supports our military consistently and not have partisan politics take over our military. I support that, I reject this bill, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table H.R. 3401, with the Senate amendment thereto, and concur in the Senate amendment.

Madam Speaker, it is nice to know that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle now recognize it as a crisis.

The President asked 58 days ago for a supplemental appropriation to deal with this issue. It was ignored. We have tried 18 times to bring up a bill on the floor to deal with supplemental appropriations for humanitarian aid at the border, and it was ignored.

My friends on the other side of the aisle said they want to improve the bill. They want to ignore the fact that the Senate took up the House bill and overwhelmingly rejected it on a bipartisan basis.

Then they passed a bipartisan bill 84-8, which doesn't happen over there very often. We have gone through a list of those who voted in favor, including Senator Schumer and Senator Durbin, yet somehow the House wants to ignore it. At least the majority in the House want to ignore it.

How they want to improve the bill, you may ask? Well, let's start by simply reducing or eliminating border security, that appears to be optional to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. They want to take a hatchet to ICE. These are law enforcement personnel.

My son is a police officer. He puts on a vest every day. If you told me we were going to withhold payroll or overtime when they are doing the job, I would be offended, I would be disgusted, and I am, at this moment in time.

Let me ask how many over there would put on a vest, go out and do the job, and then hear, we may or may not pay you? Do I see any hands raised? I doubt it.

Law enforcement is struggling to do a job, an extraordinarily tough job, and we want to make it harder. So let me suggest, as the UC request was made, that we take up the bill that was passed by the Senate and we pass it.

And I ask for your attention over there, sir, unless, of course, you decided that policy is being made by a fragment of your conference, unless you decided that you are going to turn over the gavel to a fragment of your conference to make decisions for you, which may well appear to be the case. But let's be honest to the American people and tell them that a fragment, a small portion, of your conference is now functioning as a Speaker of the House.

Madam Speaker, I thank the budget action team chair for this fine work and for yielding time.

We should be debating right now in Congress a budget. We should be debating ideas from the Democrats, ideas from the Republicans, the RSC budget. We should be doing that to develop a road map for the current year and for future years for appropriations, what our priorities are.

You will note that we are talking about it, but it is pretty quiet down here today. Why? Because, unfortunately, the leadership of the Democratic Party has been unable to produce a budget. They can't agree, even among themselves, what a budget should be.

I spent 35 years in private business. Budgets are pretty basic. Without them, I don't know how you operate. Apparently, we are going to try, and that is unfortunate.

My focus tonight is on the Federal budgeting and appropriations process and what we need to do to fix it. We can fix individual items in our budget, but long term, we need to fix the process, or we are, in fact, as noted earlier by Mr. Cloud, doomed for some pretty dire outcomes.

The Federal budget and appropriations restraints under current law are totally ineffective. They simply do not work. And you know what? We can fix this.

Virtually all Federal spending right now is mandatory. Two-thirds of what we spend every year is called mandatory spending. It is on autopilot.

Let me give you some examples of what that means. $2,523 billion is mandatory. Our interest payments in 2018 will be $325 billion. I want you to stop and think about what a massive number that is.

The Federal debt crossed $22 trillion last year. It now exceeds the entire annual production of the United States and equates to more than $67,000 for every American in this country. Over the next 10 years, interest alone on the Federal debt will be the third largest Federal expenditure.

Now, at home, if that was what you were dealing with, you would be calling a debt counselor. If your interest payment alone was the third highest expenditure you had--never mind principal, just the interest-- you are in serious trouble. Here, we call it government.

This process robs the American people of their voice, their representation. Long term, it will rob them of the basic opportunity for services if we don't get this under control.

The RSC ``Preserving American Freedom'' budget proposal and what I propose address that issue.

First and foremost, we must address what is called mandatory spending. Mandatory spending has taken on this huge component. As I said, it is two-thirds of Federal expenditures.

We need to move everything except Social Security, Medicare, and TRICARE to discretionary spending and require everybody in this room and this building to vote, to put their priorities forward, rather than have it be on autopilot.

The second thing we need to do is not have it simply be whatever we spent last year. How much more are we going to spend? We need to require zero-based budgeting of all agencies every few years--maybe 3 years because they are so big, frankly--where they have to justify down to the penny what they are spending money on. Because you know what a budget cut is in Washington? A budget cut in Washington is you get less money than the increase you asked for and they tell you they took a budget cut.

I spent 35 years in private business. A budget cut means you actually spend less than what you spent last year. You

spend less money, less real cash, not that you didn't get as much as you asked for.

Frankly, that is like my teenagers and allowance. Well, you cut my budget. No, I didn't give you as much as you asked for.

Second, the next thing we need to do is we need to use a 51-vote requirement for budgets, 51 votes to pass a budget, a simple majority. We need to say 51 votes to make any change in discretionary outlays. That way, in fact, we can manage our budget appropriations and not have the system manage us, not have the Senate decide no, we need 60 votes, and we just go along our merry way, putting out money hand over fist.

Additionally, we need to change a few rules about how we manage ourselves. We need to require there be no recess until budget appropriations are completed. Everyone stays here. Frankly, I think we just lock the doors and stay here till we get it done because, far too often, we will just do a continuing resolution.

You would be disgusted at the number of continuing resolutions that happen for a week, 3 days. All these continuing resolutions, all we do is spend the same money. So, sorry, no recess until we get it done.

Additionally, we need to withhold the pay for all Members of Congress until we get the job done, until there are budget and appropriations resolutions done for the year.

When we hit the time that we should be funded already for the year, if it is not done, everyone on the payroll here that is a Member of Congress doesn't get paid, because I know how to get folks' attention after 35 years in private business.

There is one way to put it: Follow the money. Other ways are not appropriate on the floor of the House, but you have the idea.

We have to address this issue. The only way to address this is to get our appropriations under control.

One of the things I proposed, in conjunction with another Member, is the Protecting Our Children's Future Act, which talks about these changes that must be made in how we do budgeting and appropriations in a process. Otherwise, we just do the same thing over and over again here in Congress, and that, Madam Speaker, is the perfect definition of insanity.

I appreciate the time to talk about something I think is so urgent because, without this fundamental change, we are tilting at windmills. We need to make this change sooner than later.