Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I come to the House floor today to honor an amazing public servant in my community, public servant and a role model, a Gwinnett County police officer by the name of Antwan Toney.

Mr. Speaker, Officer Toney was a California native, but he adopted my local community at the age of 30 and knew that he could change the world from that location. He was working not just to make the world better, but to make us better as individuals--one community, one family, one officer at the time. And, Mr. Speaker, with the infectious smile you see here and a tireless work ethic and boundless energy, he was doing exactly that in my hometown.

Mr. Speaker, I wish I was here just to honor Officer Toney today, but on the afternoon of October 20, when responding to a call, Officer Toney was killed. Mr. Speaker, I am appalled and pained by the senselessness of this young man's murder.

Mr. Speaker, while our community aches over the loss of Officer Toney, we also celebrate the life that he led and the role model that he provided for all of us. Those who have been fortunate enough to know Officer Toney are forever changed for the better by that experience. Of all the places Officer Toney could have served, I am honored that he chose our home to be the place for his incredibly proud work--again, not just to make us safer, but to make us better.

Mr. Speaker, today, I pray for all of those who loved Officer Toney and those whom he loved. I pray for all of his brothers and sisters in uniform who, even in the face of this loss, wake up every single morning and agree to serve once again.

May God bless all of them, Mr. Speaker, and may we give thanks to God that He shares with each and every one of us heroes in our lives, difference makers in our lives, difference makers like Officer Antwan Toney.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 5 o'clock and 27 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, November 15, 2018, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for his leadership on the committee.

Mr. Speaker, this is probably the most important bill that most members of the United States of America citizenry will never have heard of.

When I go back home, folks ask me to make smart and prudent investments that will make a difference in people's lives. They ask me to repeal unnecessary regulations that stand in the way of making those improvements. They ask me to pay for those things rather than passing the bill on to our kids and our grandkids.

The bill that the chairman and the ranking member have brought before us today fulfills every single one of those challenges.

In my district, Mr. Speaker, we are talking about preserving water quality in Lake Lanier, the sole water source for most of the metro Atlanta area. We are talking about funding the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project, a project of economic significance for the entire southeastern United States. We are talking about offering local officials the financing tools they need to bring projects to bear faster and cheaper than ever before.

Mr. Speaker, median household income has never been higher. Small business optimism has never been higher. Unemployment is at its lowest point in decades. Job openings are at a record high. Manufacturing jobs are at a record high. This does not happen by accident. This happens when you create an environment in which success can breed.

I want to thank the ranking member from Oregon. I particularly want to thank my chairman from Pennsylvania. Chairman Shuster said he was going to bring three bills to the floor. He said we are going to get back in the business of doing the people's business, not sometimes but always; and here, at the end of his third term as chairman, we are bringing our third WRDA bill to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 918 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the ranking member of the Rules Committee, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I am excited to be down here with my friend from Massachusetts today, Mr. Speaker. You heard the Reading Clerk work her way through this rule. It is a big one today, and it is a big one because we have got a lot to talk about today. I am going to try not to go over. I appreciate the Speaker starting proceedings a little early today so that we have time to get through all of the material that we have to work through.

In this rule today, House Resolution 918, we are providing for three separate appropriations bills to be considered as a single package in addition to two other bills that are very important.

First of all, the rule today, Mr. Speaker, provides for concurrence in the Senate amendment to the House-passed bill, H.R. 3249. It is the Project Safe Neighborhoods Grant Program Authorization Act.

Mr. Speaker, our colleague from Virginia (Mrs. Comstock) has been working so aggressively on this bill. You will remember the House passed this bill by a voice vote back in March of this year. It went over to the Senate. The Senate amended it. They, too,

passed it by unanimous consent. House Resolution 918 today provides for the consideration to approve those Senate amendments, send this bill directly to the President's desk, and let it begin to make a difference in these communities right away.

The bill supports Federal, State, and local law enforcement efforts, Mr. Speaker, to combat gang-related violence throughout our communities and to get involved in other prevention techniques.

We have all seen street gang activities increasing in our communities. If you are from a community that has not yet seen that impact, consider yourself fortunate. According to the House Judiciary Committee, Mr. Speaker, we have these crimes on the increase. We have all been hearing about transnational gangs, such as MS-13, as they are becoming increasingly organized and increasingly more violent.

Giving our Nation's law enforcement authorities the ability to keep Americans safe and to have the tools they need to fight these gangs is a priority of all of us in this institution, and approval of this rule today will allow us to bring that bill to the floor and send it to the President's desk for his signature.

House Resolution 918 also provides for a structured rule, Mr. Speaker, for consideration of the first of our fiscal year 2019 appropriations bills. As I mentioned, there are three bills in this package. H.R. 5895 combines the Energy and Water Development bill with the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill and with the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs bill. It puts them all under one umbrella, maintaining our commitment to the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 spending caps.

The House Appropriations Committee, Mr. Speaker, has already passed 6 of the 12 annual appropriations bills. I will say that again. Six of the 12 annual appropriations bills have already moved through the House Appropriations Committee.

I look forward to the remainder of those bills being on this floor very soon. In fact, the Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies is marking up their bill today, and the Defense Subcommittee is marking up their bill tomorrow.

So before the end of the week, I would expect we will have 7 of 12 appropriations bills ready for the floor, and we will be well on our way to having an eighth ready for the floor soon. This is only the first week of June, Mr. Speaker, and this is already the progress that the House Appropriations Committee has achieved. I am very proud of their success, and I want to talk a little bit about the bills they have before us today.

You will remember, Mr. Speaker, the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill was approved unanimously by the Appropriations Committee. Republicans and Democrats came together to support that bill. You will recall that we decided early on, Mr. Speaker, that thrift would begin here in this House.

With this Legislative Branch Appropriations bill, not only are we funding the shared priorities across the Capitol, we are also at a funding level still below the level at which this House was funded the year I was first elected to Congress, Mr. Speaker. Thrift does begin at home. We have avoided being penny-wise and pound-foolish. We funded important priorities and were again able to pass this out of committee on a unanimous, bipartisan vote.

The Military Construction and Veterans Affairs bill also came out of committee on a unanimous, bipartisan vote, 47-0 in both cases, Mr. Speaker. And, clearly, this type of collaboration, this type of bipartisan activity is something we would like to see more often in this Chamber, but we have it in these two bills today.

The third appropriations bill that is bundled together here, Mr. Speaker, is the Energy and Water bill, a bill that is tremendously important to my part of the world there on the Georgia coast, involving Georgia's water infrastructure. It passed the Appropriations Committee on a slightly less powerful vote. It was 29-20, still a bipartisan vote, but not as big a majority--in fact, not unanimous, as the others were. But it is critically important to so many of our States, Mr. Speaker, and I am confident we will be able to move it across the floor.

I will just give a couple of examples. I know everybody has their own story to tell about the importance in their State.

In my State, it provides $49 million as a Federal partnership to the more than $300 million that the State of Georgia has already put into deepening the Port of Savannah. The Savannah Harbor Expansion Project is one of the largest economic development projects in the Southeastern United States. It has a Corps of Engineers report authorizing this construction. Georgia put all of its money in up front, and now the Feds are coming through with $49 million of their own.

Mr. Speaker, the bill includes millions of dollars for operations and maintenance of the Corps of Engineers. If you live in the Southeastern United States, as I do, odds are, the Corps controls your water supply. More than 80 percent of the people who live in the multimillion-person metropolitan Atlanta area, Mr. Speaker, depend on Corps of Engineers facilities for their drinking water. Eighty percent depend on Corps of Engineers for their drinking water. It is tremendously important to families across the district.

I am heartened that the Appropriations Committee, even though they could not be unanimous, persisted in moving this bill through committee in a bipartisan way, and I am optimistic of what it is going to do for water and energy infrastructure for years to come.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, to a committee that is almost as near and dear to my heart as the Rules Committee is, this bills brings to the floor a bill from the Transportation Committee, H.R. 8, the Water Resources Development Act of 2018.

Folks often think of the Veterans Affairs' Committee as being one of the most bipartisan committees on Capitol Hill, and, candidly, I think it makes us all proud to know that is true; but the House Transportation Committee sits a very close second.

Infrastructure projects, whether it be safe drinking water, whether it be roads and bridges, whether it be airport facilities, these are issues that we all confront, and these are issues that bring us together in an also unanimous fashion, Mr. Speaker. The House Transportation Committee reported the Water Resources Development Act of 2018, and we have that before us today.

If you haven't gotten to see a good committee chairman and ranking member working in partnership, Mr. Speaker, I would recommend Chairman Bill Shuster of Pennsylvania and Ranking Member Pete DeFazio of Oregon to you any time. To suggest that these two men agree on everything would be folly, but to suggest that they find a way to work through everything would not be too much said. They never take no for an answer. They always work hard together. In the case of the Water Resources Development Act, Mr. Speaker, that doesn't just exist at the committee chairman level; it exists at the subcommittee level.

On the Republican side of the aisle, we have Chairman Garret Graves from Louisiana; and on the Democratic side of the aisle, we have Ranking Member Grace Napolitano from California--again, two Members who work incredibly closely together. They produce a superior work product that you are going to be able to see in the line items in this legislation.

We are talking about America's ports. We are talking about inland waterways. We are talking about locks and dams. We are talking about flood protection. We are talking about water infrastructure and ecosystem protection. Line item after line item, we were able to come together in a bipartisan way.

I would argue this is going to be one of the most important bills that the Congress passes in 2018, Mr. Speaker. And, again, it took a lot of hard, bipartisan work to get here.

Our Nation's ports, Mr. Speaker, process about $4 billion in product a day, imports and exports. About 11 percent of everything we buy in the State of Georgia has come through one of our ports. Nearly 440,000 jobs, Mr. Speaker, in my State alone are dependent on ports and waterways, and there is $25 billion worth of State income from that.

And that is just a State like Georgia, Mr. Speaker. If you go to Florida, North Carolina, Louisiana, California,

or Washington State, you are going to hear those same stories told time and time again.

Now, I would like to believe, because we passed this bill out of the Transportation Committee where transportation experts sit, that we produced a perfect work product out of the Transportation Committee. But wearing my Rules Committee hat, I recognize that other Members of this Chamber may have some good ideas of their own that they would like to make in order for the debate on the Water Resources Development Act.

To that end, the rule today, Mr. Speaker, passed by this body will make 52 additional amendments in order to be considered for this bill. That is 19 Republican amendments, 20 Democratic amendments, and 13 bipartisan amendments.

I will say that again, Mr. Speaker. Fifty-two amendments were made in order by this rule for the Water Resources Development Act: 19 Republican amendments, 20 Democratic amendments, and 13 bipartisan amendments.

All amendments are intended to make this bill better. This body will decide, if this rule is approved, whether, in fact, they do.

We had four subcommittee meetings on WRDA this year, this cycle, Mr. Speaker--two roundtable discussions in Florida and Oregon, and two hearings here in Washington, D.C.--all seeking to involve stakeholders.

You may not recall, Mr. Speaker, but there was a while that this Congress was unable to pass WRDA bills. We went through 7 years of this Congress failing to pass any WRDA bills at all. I was not in Congress at the time that began, but I am in Congress at the time that that comes to an end.

Beginning with Bill Shuster's leadership there on the Transportation Committee, we have gotten back in the habit of moving a water resources bill every single Congress. This will be the third in that cycle, and it matters: It matters for certainty to stakeholders back home; it matters for certainty to constituents back home; and it matters that we don't have to do it all in one giant omnibus bill every single time. We are able to break it down into smaller chunks because we are taking care of it as challenges arise, again, in a bipartisan fashion.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to sit on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee where the kind of collaboration and mutual respect that you have heard me talk about exists every single day.

I want to thank, again, Chairman Shuster and Ranking Member DeFazio for making that environment one that can exist.

I think we brought a very fair rule to the floor today to try to bring not just the Water Resources Development Act to the floor, the Project Safe Neighborhoods Grant Program Authorization to the floor, but also the first three appropriations bills in our annual cycle to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I hope all my colleagues can support the rule, I hope they will support the underlying bills, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I didn't come to the floor today to tell anybody that the process was perfect, and I didn't come to the floor today to tell anybody that the pieces of legislation before us are perfect. I am certain that they are not perfect, Mr. Speaker, because I didn't write every line of every one of them. That is my indication that they didn't turn out exactly right.

What I did do, however, because I serve on the committees of jurisdiction, is I worked with my Democratic colleagues to get to a bill that we can all be proud of.

Understand what we are talking about here today, Mr. Speaker. We can go back and have a series of recriminations and talk about all the injustices that have happened to each and every one of us over the years or we can celebrate the fact that in a really difficult budget environment we found a way to get the appropriations bills out--two out of three of these bills today unanimously--to the floor. The third one that didn't come out unanimously still came out with a bipartisan vote, Mr. Speaker. We should be celebrating that, not pretending that we are not making an honest effort with one another to get things done.

The Water Resources Development Act, Mr. Speaker, the largest water infrastructure bill that this Congress will produce, and we produced it on a committee that has members from the far left to the far right and produced it unanimously, Mr. Speaker, because we did not take no for an answer and continued to work shoulder to shoulder until we found a place that each and every member could live with.

No, these bills are not perfect today, which is why, in the case of WRDA, for example--again, the best work product the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee could produce--we allowed more than 50 additional amendments--more Democratic amendments than Republican amendments, bipartisan amendments as well--to try to improve that language.

How does this WRDA bill come to the floor? It comes after a long period of time where this Congress was controlled by both parties where no WRDA bill was produced at all. I will say it again, Mr. Speaker: it comes after a time when this Congress, controlled by both parties, produced no Water Resources bill at all. No bill for ports, no bill for inland waterways, no bill for water infrastructure, and no bill for locks and dams. No bill, Mr. Speaker, at all.

Fast forward to today, Mr. Speaker. We are talking about the third consecutive Congress where we have come together and gotten it done-- not gotten it done for one party or another, not gotten it done for one Member or another--but gotten it done on behalf of all of our constituents who sent us all here, not to find excuses, not to find things to complain about, but to find a way to make it happen.

Support this rule today, Mr. Speaker. I urge all my colleagues to support this rule today, Mr. Speaker, because if they do, we will bring that bipartisan work product to the floor. We will bring that unanimously approved gang violence prevention bill to the floor. And we will bring those three appropriations bills all passing in a bipartisan way out of committee to this floor. It is a day we can be proud of, Mr. Speaker, and I am proud to be here with you to talk about it.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I appreciate the words of my friend from Vermont. He is absolutely right. Fiscal conservatives, as a rule, are out there trying to save money. Occasionally, we find ourselves in those spaces where we end up being penny wise and pound foolish.

The flood mitigation projects that my friend from Vermont referenced saved countless dollars, but, more importantly, countless lives. As some of these aging infrastructure projects look to be on the brink of failure, the time to act is now, not later.

I am glad to see that we were able to come together to invest needed resources today in a water resources development bill so that we are not spending dollars tomorrow in a disaster relief bill. This is the right time to do it, and I appreciate my friend from Vermont making that point.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would advise my friend that I am prepared to close when he is.

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

Mr. Speaker, first things first. I mentioned earlier I don't think any of these bills are perfect bills; I just think they are the best we were able to work out together.

I do want to mention that in the Rules Committee report in the summary of Mr. Nolan's amendment, we did describe that amendment incorrectly. We have now corrected that for the record, that has been submitted, but I just want to highlight that for the purposes of transparency.

I think my friend from Massachusetts is exactly right, Mr. Speaker. It is time for us to decide how we want to run this institution. I don't question his numbers. He is very good. When he says this is the most closed Congress in American history, I am sure he has some set of numbers that backs up that attestation.

But what I know is, when I was running for Congress and Democrats were leading this institution at the time, for the entire cycle that I was running, Democrats allowed less than 1,000 amendments totally for the entire session of Congress.

Mr. Speaker, this Congress, we have considered more than 1,000 amendments before the month of May got out. We haven't even gotten into the appropriations cycle yet. That doesn't include the 30 amendments made in order on the appropriations bill today. It doesn't include the 50-plus amendments made in order on WRDA today.

We have already done more to allow Members to be heard in this Congress than was happening when the other side led this institution. I don't think that should be the measure of success, Mr. Speaker. I don't think that should be the measure of success. My friend from Massachusetts was right when he said we are going to get bigger votes and better votes when we bring better bills and a better process to the House floor.

Let me tell you what I have brought today, Mr. Speaker. I will tell you what I brought today. I brought a bill that passed this House unanimously before it went to the Senate to be passed unanimously after a few amendments--and I brought it back here so that we can again pass it unanimously--a bill to protect communities, to empower law enforcement to fight gang violence on the front lines. I want to send that bill to the President, Mr. Speaker. And if we pass this rule today, we will be able to send that unanimously agreed-upon legislation to the President. That is in this rule.

Also in this rule is the Water Resources Development Act, which passed the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee unanimously. Unanimously. Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals, everyone working together to bring a bill out of committee. We brought it out of committee unanimously.

The Rules Committee still made another 50 amendments in order in case folks want to improve upon it--50-plus--but we made those amendments in order to a bill that had already been agreed upon unanimously.

What else does this rule do?

It brings a third piece of legislation to the floor as a part of our appropriations package, the legislative branch appropriations bill, which passed out of committee how, Mr. Speaker? Unanimously, Republicans and Democrats working together to bring that bill out of committee.

We include the Military Construction-Veterans Affairs bill in this package, Mr. Speaker. It came out of committee how? Don't tell me.

Unanimously, as Republicans and Democrats came together to move that legislation forward.

And then we have a fifth part of this package, the Energy and Water appropriations bill, which I confess--I want to be clear; I want to be transparent--did not pass unanimously. It just received a simple bipartisan vote to come out of committee.

So I challenge my colleagues who want a better process, who want to see better bills come to the floor. We are already making more amendments in order than my friends on the other side ever dreamed of doing. We are already bringing bills to the floor that have passed in a collaborative, in fact, unanimous way.

If Members support this rule, they will be supporting five things, four of them that passed unanimously, and one that passed with a bipartisan vote. Is that going to get everybody what they want here today? I doubt it. It is a tall order, but is it worth supporting? Is it worth saying it is a step in the right direction? Is it worth celebrating because you know it could have gone a different way, but we committed ourselves to the excellence that we have here? It is.

I will finish where I began, Mr. Speaker. I am proud to be down here carrying this rule today. I am the luckiest guy in the world to be able to come down here and talk about it, because folks don't get to hear it, they don't get to read about it, they don't get that around the water cooler back home, Mr. Speaker, that we are working together; that we are working together not only on the easy problems, but on the hard problems; that we are doing things here together that we have not done before, but we are doing them now because we have serious men and women on both sides of the aisle who want to make it happen.

Support this rule. Support this rule. Let's show the American people the work product that has gone into this legislation: the rule and those five underlying provisions. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes.''

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that, during consideration of H.R. 8 in the Committee of the Whole pursuant to House Resolution 918, the amendment by Mr. Moulton of Massachusetts now at the desk be considered as though printed as the last amendment printed in part A of House Report 115-711 and be debatable for 10 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 11 o'clock and 28 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, May 23, 2018, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

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

I think that the gentlewoman from Illinois speaks on behalf of a lot of Members in this Chamber. Nobody wants to see a trade war. Nobody is advantaged by a trade war.

I think so many of the provisions that are in this underlying bill, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2, are designed to create more stability for farm families.

The gentlewoman is absolutely right when she references the instability trade war conversations create. So much more important, then, that we come together now to provide that safety net and that stability that is included here in H.R. 2.

I appreciate the gentlewoman's encouragement that we get to the other end of these trade negotiations, and I do believe that is something that we all share.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman just spoke about one of the amendments that is going to be offered today. In total, there are 51 different amendments that have been made in order both in the rule that we did yesterday and this rule that we hope that our colleagues will support today, 51 different amendments proffered by Members of this Chamber to try to make this bill better. If we pass this rule today, we will be able to move to the underlying bill for consideration of those amendments.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to associate myself with the gentleman from Florida in his commitment to public service. He is a relatively new Member to this Chamber, but he has been fighting for his constituents since he arrived, and I admire him for that.

There are lot of men and women in this Chamber who fit that bill, Mr. Speaker. I wish we spent more time celebrating those good public servants among us.

Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure at this time to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Poliquin), a gentleman who fits exactly that mold. The gentleman from Maine has come time and time again to this floor, to committees, every single opportunity he has, to build bipartisan support, to work together with his colleagues, to work not just on behalf of the citizens of Maine, but on behalf of all Americans. He really is a model for energy and partnership on something that everyone in this Chamber would agree on.

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

The farm bill is a little different this year than what we have seen in years past. We would ordinarily have more bipartisan support here on the floor. We got sideways on a couple of issues early on in the process, but the arguments that we are hearing aren't different than the arguments we traditionally hear in a farm bill, as if we are pitting those families in need of food against those families who produce the food. We are not.

This bill is H.R. 2 for a reason, Mr. Speaker. A lot of folks don't understand how bill numbers get handed out in this institution. They get handed out by order of priority.

H.R. 1 was the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. That bill has brought unemployment down to the lowest levels in my lifetime and economic growth to the highest levels we have seen in decades.

H.R. 2 is the farm bill, because if you want to know who benefits from American farm policy, it is anybody who eats--anybody who eats.

I tell folks, Mr. Speaker, we don't need to give every child a laptop. We need to send every child on a mission trip around the globe to see how other families live, to see how other countries do it. We are so blessed in this country, and we take it for granted oftentimes.

For example, I can put up charts about the distribution of farm policy until the cows come home, but the largest 15 percent of farms in this country produce almost 90 percent of all the food.

I will say that again. Those folks who are doing it bigger and better than anybody else, those 15 percent of farmers produce almost 90 percent of American food. And I will tell you something, Mr. Speaker, we can't afford to lose those 15 percent of farmers.

What keeps food in this country available and affordable is a consistent farm policy, which is why, time and time again, Republicans and Democrats come together from across rural America to try to provide certainty to American agriculture.

It is the largest part of the Georgia economy, Mr. Speaker: agriculture. That is true of so many districts, so many States across this land.

This ought to be a partnership. It is not today, and I regret that. We are going to have opportunities to make that change going forward, but just understand, for folks who are here seeing this debate for the very first time, go back and see the farm bill debate from 5 years ago. You will see the same accusations. You will see the same recriminations. You will see the same fear and scare tactics used. Then you will see a huge bipartisan vote because this bill is so important to so many Americans.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

My colleague has gone through some really challenging times in her community, and this Chamber has stood with her in those times. She has been a great advocate for her community in the face of some really extraordinary disasters.

We can make accusations on this floor all we like, but we could also spend some time bragging about those things that bring us together. There are already disaster provisions in law--disaster provisions that provide specifically disaster SNAP, for example, when communities are so hard-hit. We do have these conversations, we do have these concerns for one another and our communities, and we do work together to address those concerns.

We are not always successful, Mr. Speaker, but I promise you we are less successful when we don't work together than when we do.

My understanding--I don't sit on the Agriculture Committee, but my friends across the aisle do--is that not a single Democratic amendment was offered in committee.

It is my understanding--and, again, I don't sit on the committee. I don't mind being corrected. I won't be embarrassed at all to have the Record corrected. But my understanding is there were 5 hours of markup in the Agriculture Committee, and not one idea for improving the bill was offered.

Now, that is a legitimate, strategic position to take if folks want to take it, Mr. Speaker. I just don't understand it as someone who wants to get the job done and make a difference in a collaborative way on behalf of the American people.

This bill is getting better every single day. It has gotten better through every conversation. As you heard my friend from Washington say in his opening statement, so many farmers with real-world experience-- we heard yesterday from Members who have real-world labor and workforce development experience. This bill is getting better every time.

If we support the rule that we are discussing at this time, Mr. Speaker, it will make 31 additional amendments in order so that we can improve the bill even further.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

I would be happy to answer the inquiry, or we could just leave it as an inquiry.

Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, we do have additional speakers remaining, and, of course, if we make this rule in

order, if we pass this rule, we will have 31 different amendments and speakers coming down on each one of those as well.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Georgia is a rural State, like so many jurisdictions represented in this Chamber. Sometimes you have a big city in one part of the State and the rest of the State is rural. The conversations we have in Georgia are often not Republicans against Democrats politically; it is Atlanta against the rest of the State politically.

Folks often don't connect the dots between the food that they are buying on the shelf at Kroger being directly related to whether or not farmers are producing that food in the field.

We have made huge strides in terms of trying to bring more fresh produce not just into our school systems but into our local farmers markets, huge strides into making sure that electronic benefits aren't just able to be used at the local convenience store but are able to be used in farmers markets so that higher quality produce can end up on families' tables.

Again, Mr. Speaker, we can find disagreement in every bill that comes to the floor, but we can also find progress. There is a lot of progress in this bill. We will support this rule, we will get to the underlying bill, and we will spend the rest of the day discussing exactly that.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, we feel very passionately about issues on this floor. I want to give my colleague from Alabama an opportunity to retract the accusation that this is a mean-spirited and cruel bill. I know the men and women who serve on the Agriculture Committee, and they don't have a mean-spirited or cruel bone in their body. They care about farmers, and they care about families.

We can argue about whether or not if you are a working aged, able- bodied, childless man in this country whether or not we ought to try to get you a job while you are collecting Federal benefits. We can talk about that. I don't

think that is mean-spirited at all. I don't think that is cruel at all. I think that is exactly what we ought to be doing to lift families up out of poverty.

But I would say to my colleagues with their passion--which I know is heartfelt--feeding hungry children is a shared priority, and we see that every single day in the bills that are passed here; and we do damage to this institution and we do damage to the very honest and needed debates we have in this Chamber when we characterize one another in ways that we know are not accurate.

I know the men and women on the Agriculture Committee. I know why they chose to serve on that committee. I believe in the work they are doing. I regret that we are having this disagreement today, but we don't need to question each other's motives or integrity in order to make this debate of value.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Hartzler), who is one of my classmates in the class of 2011. We were once Budget Committee mates together back in the day.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan. He actually spent a good deal of his time just the other day in a Budget Committee hearing trying to help get us some bipartisan solutions.

He got grilled by both the Republicans and the Democrats. Everybody wanted their ounce of Michigan flesh in that day. But at the end of that conversation--and I don't say this flippantly--I felt more optimistic about our coming together and doing some very difficult infrastructure investments in this country than I did when I walked into that room.

Those things don't happen without people investing the kind of time and energy that Representative Kildee has invested over his career. I want to tell the gentleman how much I appreciate that.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would advise my friend I am prepared to close when he is.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friends on the Agriculture Committee for the work they did on this bill. It is not easy to do big pieces of legislation. We do a farm bill every 5 years. It is always a hard thing to do, and my friends on the Agriculture Committee have taken the slings and arrows. You have heard the accusations that have been made just here on the floor today.

The unemployment rate in this country, Mr. Speaker, is as low as it has ever been in my lifetime, and the number of childless, working-age men who are sitting it out is as high as it has ever been in my lifetime.

We can argue about how to care about people more, we can argue about how to love people more, but I will tell you, helping someone to find a job matters.

Historically, Mr. Speaker, it is one of those things we agree on. For whatever reason, we have made it the topic of something we are going to pretend to disagree on today.

There are more jobs available in this country than ever before. I think we owe it to families that haven't been able to connect themselves with that job market to help them to do better.

Mr. Speaker, so often, we talk about all the lawyers in Congress, all the lawyers who are bureaucrats, all the folks who are working on policy that they just don't understand. I want to close with where my colleague from Washington State began. Of course, he is a former agriculture commissioner from Washington State. He said this.

He said he is not the only farmer in this House. There are 20 farmers, ranchers, and producers serving here in the people's House: an almond farmer from central California, a blueberry farmer from Maine, a rancher from South Dakota, a cattleman from Kentucky, a rice farmer from Minnesota, and a hops farmer from the Yakima Valley in Washington State.

Mr. Speaker, this body really does reflect working Americans, folks out there trying to be the breadbasket to the world, trying to put fresh produce on the shelves for every American family to benefit from. This bill continues our commitment to serving the hungry, and it continues our commitment to being the finest agricultural production nation that this planet has ever seen.

Vote ``yes'' on this rule. Let's consider some amendments to make this bill even better, and then let's send it to the Senate and give the American people a bill they can be proud of.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

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

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the House Republican Conference, I offer a privileged resolution and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 891 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I claim time in opposition to the point of order and in favor of consideration of the resolution.

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

Mr. Speaker, I don't claim to know as much about the farm bill as my friend from Massachusetts does. He has the privilege of representing his constituents both on the Rules Committee and on the Ag Committee.

I represent my constituents on the Rules Committee and on the Budget Committee. I work with CBO day in and day out, as my colleague knows.

CBO is absolutely charged with being the nonpartisan scorekeeper in all of these budgetary matters. But as the gentleman recalls, having worked for a former member of the Rules Committee himself, when Republicans passed and President Clinton signed the unfunded mandates point of order, it was designed with one goal and one goal only in mind, and that was to make sure that when Congress acts, it considers the impacts of folks back home. It considers whether or not it is shirking a responsibility in Washington and shifting that responsibility to State and local governments back home.

I will tell you with certainty, Mr. Speaker, that not a single Member on this side of the aisle has wavered in that commitment from when this bill passed in 1995 until today.

What my friend from Massachusetts references are programs that are implemented by the States in order to receive a Federal benefit. We see this happen all the time, day in and day out. You get all the transportation money that you want, but you need to alter your speed limit if you want to receive that transportation money. You can get all the transportation money you want, but you need to deal with your drinking age if you want to get that money.

What we are talking about today at its core, Mr. Speaker, is whether or not, at a time when we have the lowest unemployment rate in my lifetime, at a time when we have more jobs available to be filled in America than ever before in American history, whether it is a burden to say if you want to receive a Federal benefit, that being food stamps, that you should try to find a job first. If you can't find that job, we should get you enrolled in a job training program so that you can find the job.

At the end of the day, the farm bill aims to do two things with the SNAP program: number one, is continue to provide a safety net for families in need. But number two, to make sure it remains that net and tries to lift folks

out of poverty instead of trap them in poverty for generations to come.

Mr. Speaker, this unfunded mandates point of order, I was in Congress at the time that it passed, has been a speed bump, a needed speed bump in the consideration of legislation time and time again.

Now, sadly, more often than not, we see it as a dilatory tactic on the House floor. We see it raised as something just to try to slow down the process and gum up the works.

That is not what is happening here today. I want to stipulate that that is true.

My friend from Massachusetts raises a legitimate concern, but what I would say to my colleagues is this is a task, an obligation that has been placed on the States in consideration of receiving a Federal benefit. Folks are not mandated to do anything at all, but if we are to participate in the program, if folks are to continue to work through the program, if we are to get people back to work, if we are to provide this safety net, if we are to succeed on behalf of our constituents, as we all want to do, then we are going to have a partnership between the Federal Government and the State governments to make that happen.

Again, I respect my friend from Massachusetts, Mr. Speaker. He is an authority on the farm bill and an authority on the SNAP program. But as far as the unfunded mandates point of order goes, I would encourage my colleagues to reject that request today and to vote in favor of proceeding with consideration of the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, again, I recognize my friend's passion. I tell you, this is not going to be the end of my friend's passion. We are going to be here for another hour, together, talking about the farm bill, and I suspect we will see even a new degree of passion because my friend from Massachusetts is incredibly committed to his point of view on the SNAP program.

What I would tell you, Mr. Speaker--and I will speak on behalf of my Governor from the great State of Georgia; I will speak on behalf of my legislators and my administrators in the great State of Georgia--folks want to be a part of lifting people out of poverty. Nobody wants to be a part of trapping people in a cycle of poverty, and there is absolutely, Mr. Speaker, a degree of complicity that this Chamber has often been involved in by saying: This is the best we can do. We can't do any better, and we are just going to resign ourselves to the fact that generational poverty will continue. I say nonsense, and this bill is a step in the right direction.

I share my friend's frustration that what should have been a bipartisan farm bill, what traditionally is a bipartisan farm bill, went off the rails somewhere in the process and folks walked away from the table. We can assign blame however we choose to do it; but in this case, Mr. Speaker, we are talking about a bill that is going to take a major step forward in lifting folks out of poverty, a major step forward in putting people back to work, a major step forward in making sure that folks who receive Federal benefits are those who need Federal benefits, but those who have opportunities to do more and to do better for their families have partners in both their Federal and State governments to make that happen. I think that is what all my colleagues here want.

I encourage my friends to reject my friend's point of order and to vote to consider this bill today.

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

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), an Ag Committee member and my fellow Rules Committee member, pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

I thank my colleagues for standing with me to consider this rule and then these three underlying measures today.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, the rule before us today, House Resolution 891, makes in order three pieces of legislation. The one that you heard discussed already today is H.R. 2, the Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018. Two other measures included in this rule are H.R. 5698, the Protect and Serve Act of 2018, and S. 2372, the VA MISSION Act of 2018.

Mr. Speaker, as you know, this week is Police Week, and police officers serving our communities every day with distinction get this 1 week a year that we all take a moment to pause and say thank you. President Trump made that point yesterday just outside the Capitol talking about these heroes who put their life on the line absolutely every day.

To quote the President, he said: ``Your moms and dads were among the bravest Americans to ever live'' when he was talking to the children of fallen officers. Of course, he was absolutely right.

For that reason I am particularly pleased that the rule today brings up the Protect and Serve Act of 2018. It brings it to the floor under a structured amendment process. The bill makes it a Federal crime to intentionally cause or to attempt to cause serious bodily harm to any law enforcement officer. I say that again, Mr. Speaker. It makes it a Federal crime to attempt to cause or intentionally cause serious bodily harm to any law enforcement officer.

Mr. Speaker, we are trying to speak in the absolute strongest terms when we speak on behalf of our men and women in law enforcement uniforms. In fact, just last night in the Rules Committee, my friend, Mr. McGovern from Massachusetts, said there is virtually no disagreement between the parties and the Chambers on this legislation.

Another bill we can agree on, Mr. Speaker, is the VA MISSION Act. In fact, I was with one of The American Legion chapters in our district just Monday talking about the very provisions in this bill and how they can make a substantive difference for our men and women who have served us in the Armed Forces.

This is a four corners agreement bill, Mr. Speaker, and by four corners, I mean the chairmen and the ranking members on the House side and on the Senate side have agreed on this legislation. They have worked together on this legislation, and they have put it together in a way that we can all be proudly supportive of that final product.

Let me tell you what this bill will do in specifics, Mr. Speaker.

It consolidates seven duplicative community care programs into one program that is easier for our veterans to understand and to access. It ensures that the Veterans Choice Program has enough funding to continue working for our veterans for yet another year as the committees continue to perfect that program. I am sure you hear the same constructive counsel that I do, Mr. Speaker. Good for Congress for letting us opt out so that we can get the services we need quickly. But the Veterans Choice Program still has work to do to get those agreements approved promptly and get those doctors reimbursed promptly.

The VA MISSION Act, Mr. Speaker, also creates a fair and transparent process for a comprehensive audit of the VA's physical facilities. Where are those regions of the country that are underserved? Where are those regions of the country where consolidation would better serve?

The VA can transform its aging infrastructure. This bill provides a comprehensive audit process so that we can modernize the VA for today's veterans. It expands the caregiver program, Mr. Speaker, to provide the benefits to pre-9/11 veterans so that they are in parity with those benefits of post-9/11 veterans, and it provides VA provider recruitment and retention efforts so that our veterans have access to those medical personnel that they desperately need.

These reforms aren't just supported by those four corners that I mentioned, the Republicans and Democrats who lead the Veterans' Affairs Committee in the House and who lead the committees in the Senate, but they are also supported by over 30 veterans' service organizations from across the country, Mr. Speaker, as Chairman Roe highlighted in the Rules Committee just last night.

I don't pretend that these measures do everything for everyone, Mr. Speaker. They do not. But it is another in a long step of bills making progress on behalf of the American people. Whether we are talking about our men and women in law enforcement uniforms, Mr. Speaker, or whether we are talking about our men and women who have worn our military uniforms, it is another example of how Chairman Roe

and Ranking Member Walz and our colleagues in the Senate are taking steps forward to repay our debts.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, as we have already heard discussed, this rule would make in order H.R. 2, our Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018. It doesn't just make in order the base text, Mr. Speaker, it also makes in order 20 amendments that have been offered by both Republicans and Democrats in this Chamber who would like to try to make that bill even better. Twenty amendments have been made in order already, and when we finish debate here on the floor, my colleague from Massachusetts and I will return to the Rules Committee upstairs, and we will consider yet another round of amendments this afternoon so that we can continue to perfect this bill throughout the week.

Mr. Speaker, one rule, three bills--three bills that have the ability to make a difference for families across the country north, south, east, and west. I hope my colleagues will support this rule, get involved in that underlying debate, and support those bills on final passage as well.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to say I agree with my friend. Asking single, working-age, healthy, nondisabled men to go to work is going to make their life harder. Going to work every day is hard. But I would also say to my friend that it is going to make their life better. It is a value that we should share, not a value that we should repudiate.

This happens to be an area of disagreement, Mr. Speaker. There are so many areas of agreement we could be focusing on.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

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

I agree with my friend. I think, as a general rule, partisan approaches are the wrong way. This is certainly not what my chairman desired. It is certainly not where any of us wanted to end up. When folks walk away from the table, it is where we do in fact end up.

This is the start of the process. This is not the end of the process. I regret the way that this has sorted out for my ag friends. But we can't do nothing because folks have gotten up and walked away from the table. We have to continue to do what our constituents have asked us to do, and this is a good step in that direction.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, the farm economy is the biggest contributor to Georgia GDP. Georgia families wake up every day back home and go out and often, in some cases, are working land that their father worked before them and their grandfather worked before them.

We have had the Georgia Farm Bureau in town pleading with us to bring some certainty to ag policy.

There are two parts to a farm bill, for all the reasons that folks who got here long before I did can explain: why it is we do a food stamp half of a farm bill and an actual farmer half of the farm bill.

It is so often true that the SNAP program gets all the conversation, Mr. Speaker. But as you heard from my friend from Colorado, while the money is not where the farmers and those farm families are, that is certainly where the policy is.

It has been true time and time again that, in a collaborative, bipartisan, bicameral way, we have come together as a House and a Senate and moved policy forward to provide market certainty for those farmers.

You don't always appreciate the farmers in your community, Mr. Speaker, when you can go to the grocery store and grab anything you want

at absolutely any time you want. Those things don't happen by accident. They happen with a whole lot of sweat equity, a whole lot of risk- taking, and, candidly, with a whole lot of prayer going on across farm communities in this land.

This bill responds to some of the marketplace needs that we are finding in the 21st century. You are going to see those collaborative veins throughout this measure, Mr. Speaker. I hope my colleagues will look not just at the SNAP program, but also at the certainty that we will provide to the very hardworking farm families across this country.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is my first time on the floor with our new colleague from Pennsylvania. I appreciate not just his service here, but his service to our country in general. I feel his pain.

It is a good bill, but it is not a perfect bill, and we have got ways to do it. I have been here 7 years. I come down here time and time again to find good bills, Mr. Speaker, and I am always frustrated that we can't get it there.

What I have determined, Mr. Speaker, that I will share with you and with my friend from Pennsylvania is that the reason is because you folks don't agree with me. That is what I have decided is why I can't get to those perfect bills, because try as I might, I cannot get 434 other people to agree with me on everything all the time.

I will tell my friend from Pennsylvania, Mr. Speaker, the most discouraging day I have had in this institution was after we passed the Budget Control Act and we picked four of our finest Republicans and four of our finest Democrats from the House and also four from the Senate--Republicans, Democrats--and we locked them in a room together for 3 months. We said: Look at some of these mandatory spending programs like you have talked about. Look at the discretionary programs. Across-the-board budget cuts are nonsensical. They don't reflect American priorities at all. So get together, talk to one another, work through it, and figure out a way that we can make the books balance so we don't mortgage our children's and our grandchildren's futures but so that we also keep the commitments that we have made to families today.

They met for 3 months, and they walked out of that room having looked at hundreds of trillions of dollars in Federal spending and agreed on not one penny of change together. I cannot tell you, Mr. Speaker--well, you remember how discouraging that day was.

Moving these dollars from mandatory spending to discretionary spending is absolutely going to put additional pressures on the budget process--I see my friend from Minnesota nodding his head; he is a true champion for our veterans--but, by golly, we have got to stand up and say yes to those dollars.

I got excoriated back home for voting in favor of raising the nondefense discretionary limits, but I have to go home and tell the story of how I am meeting promises to veterans that were not going to get met otherwise. I have got to go home and tell the story about how I am meeting promises for children that weren't going to get met otherwise. And I have got to go home and tell the story of how I don't have 218 votes to do it my way, and the only way to get anything done around here is in partnership.

Candidly, Mr. Speaker, we don't have a better example than the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Mr. Walz' leadership, Dr. Roe's leadership. Time and time again, I see these two men go and not follow their own hearts and passions but try to do what is best for everyone, try to find a way forward when folks had bet against them and said you couldn't find a way forward.

I hear the concerns of my new colleague from Pennsylvania, Mr. Speaker, and I believe he is absolutely right; we are going to run up against that conversation next year. The question is will we have the courage to stand up together and fund those priorities next year.

I am looking forward to the great outpouring of bipartisanship we are going to see in support of the VA MISSION Act today, and I will look forward to the great outpouring of support when the funding time comes to make sure we are as committed to those promises tomorrow as we are together this afternoon.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I do not have any further speakers remaining, so I am prepared to close when the gentleman from Massachusetts is, but I will reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, my friend from Minnesota mentioned folks who might be watching this debate from their offices or from their homes. I think it is a shame that we don't often get to the core of what some of our disagreements are.

As we sit here today, it is a fact that there are more job openings in America than at any other time in American history. That is a fact.

It is a fact that, as we sit here getting ready to move further into the new millennium, there are more able-bodied single men out of the workforce than ever before--that is a fact--folks who have decided not to work.

Now, there is no disagreement in this body about providing food assistance to hungry kids--none. None. The disagreement in this body is whether or not, with more job openings than ever before in American history, with more employers saying they cannot find workers, with more employers saying ``we need to find new visa programs to get unskilled labor into America because we don't have enough unskilled workers to do the work here in America''--should the working families who pay the bills in this country support able-bodied, childless, healthy men?

That is part of the question, and I would think that is something on which we can agree. But we are not going to have that pointed conversation, Mr. Speaker, because there are more sympathetic targets to go after.

If you walk in to a USDA facility or your State facility that is administrating and you apply for food stamps, Mr. Speaker, if you qualify for food stamps, you will get them. You heard my friend from Massachusetts reference categorical eligibility. That means if you qualify for a different benefit, not food stamps, we will throw in food stamps, too.

Well, now, to be fair, that idea came about in some conservative circles, as well, to say let's eliminate some of the paperwork requirements. Let's make it easier for folks to apply for a whole host of benefits. But categorical eligibility, as it exists today, Mr. Speaker, says you don't qualify for the benefit on your own, but you do if you--if you qualify for a second benefit, we will give you this one as well.

Mr. Speaker, saying that you are going to eliminate categorical eligibility is to say you are going to give food stamps to people who qualify for food stamps. You are going to give

SNAP benefits to people who qualify for SNAP benefits. If one wants to expand the pool of people who qualify for SNAP benefits, that is a debate that we can have.

But time and time again, Mr. Speaker, there are things on which we agree in this Chamber. Programs should follow the rules that programs have. People who qualify should get benefits. People who don't qualify shouldn't.

We are going to continue to have this conversation in the next couple of days, and it is going to continue to be highlighted as a source of vast disagreement among us. But if we were having this same conversation back home around the dinner table, if we were having this same conversation back home at a local park or veterans organization, we would say the very same thing: Hungry kids should have access to food, on this we agree; and healthy, childless working age men should have access to a job, on this we agree.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I agree very much with what my friend had to say. She may be a freshman, but she has got a lot of experience working in departments of labor putting people to work, and I think that is a goal that we all share.

And, again, it is a missed opportunity. Undeniably, that is true, and there is lots of blame to go around about why it is a missed opportunity. Again, my friend from Massachusetts and I, we are going to go back up to the Rules Committee this afternoon. We are going to make some more amendments in order. We are going to work harder to try to perfect this bill.

But walking away from the table has consequences. Setting lines in stone has consequences. We are not going to get the best work product in this Chamber when anybody walks away from the table. I am just going to stipulate that is true. We never ever will.

But while my friend identified that the program benefits the elderly, the disabled, and children, and she is right, and it does, and I support that, she didn't mention those able-bodied, healthy, childless men who also benefit from the program. And we do those men a disservice, not a service, when we make that benefit available in the absence of job searching.

Categorical eligibility--we talk about it today like it is a word that we are hearing for the very first time. As my colleagues who were here remember, we have already been to the table

on categorical eligibility. As my friend from Massachusetts referenced, States that have nothing to lose by giving away Federal money were gaming the system by giving away a dollar in State benefits so that folks could qualify for hundreds of dollars in Federal benefits.

Well, we came together in a bipartisan way and said: Hey, that is not right. That is not right. Folks should have skin in the game. We should be working at this together. It shouldn't be a giveaway program. It should be a helping program. We should be making a difference in people's lives.

We did that in a collaborative way. We can come back and tell the story differently today, but we remember coming together and doing that, and we can come together and do that again, Mr. Speaker. This isn't going to be our last opportunity. We are going to have another opportunity.

Nothing goes to the President's desk unless we get 10 Democrats in the United States Senate to get on board and do it. Collaboration is not the exception. It is the rule to get things to the President's desk and to pass new laws of the land.

I wish we could talk more about what those successes are, how we found those successes in the past, and how we remain committed to finding those successes again in the future.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

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

I told you when we started this debate, Mr. Speaker, you were going to hear some passion from my friend from Massachusetts because he is, in fact, passionate. He is a public servant, and he serves his constituency well.

But I want to read to you from Politico, one of our Washington, D.C., newspapers, that follows what goes on here

in politics. I don't sit on the Agriculture Committee, as my friend from Massachusetts does, but Politico reported this, as talks around the farm bill broke down in March:

Bipartisan negotiations over the farm bill stopped--

There were bipartisan negotiations. Those negotiations stopped, Mr. Speaker.

Thursday afternoon, after House Agriculture Committee

ranking member Collin Peterson--

The ranking Democrat.

--faced pressure from fellow Democrats, who complained that

discussions about changes to the food stamp program were

being kept secret.

My friend from Massachusetts mentioned that. I have that same frustration on committees that I serve, Mr. Speaker. Very often, the chairman of the committee, who is a Republican, and the ranking member, who is a Democrat, and their subcommittee chairmen very often they get together and have negotiations before rank-and-file Members get involved. It happens, and I am frustrated about it, and my friend from Massachusetts is frustrated about it.

The development--

Politico goes on to say.

--is a considerable blow to the sweeping bill, which was seen

by many as one of the only real chances for bipartisanship in

this Congress. Congress is supposed to reauthorize the farm

bill every 5 years, but political wrangling has threatened

its fate. Current law expires September 30.

Peterson's decision--

Collin Peterson is the ranking Democrat.

--to pause talks comes after House Democrats demanded that he

stop negotiations until the text of the bill is made to

everyone.

The Democratic Members have made clear that they unanimously oppose the farm bill's SNAP language as it has been described to them or reported in the press.

Well, Mr. Speaker, if when you hear things you don't like, or see things you don't like, you leave the negotiating table, I promise you we are going to get a worse result every single time.

I go up to this Rules Committee, right up here on the third floor, and we debate and talk and debate and talk and debate and talk hour upon hour upon hour, late into the evening, often into the next morning. I hear things I don't like. I hear people say things I know are not true. But I don't pick up my toys and go home. I stay at the table, I debate the issues, and I work through the issues. If it was easy, someone would have done it before this Congress got here. All that is left is hard.

My friend from Massachusetts is absolutely right, Mr. Speaker. He is absolutely right. He is absolutely right. If we are to reform the social safety net, we are going to have to expand benefits, not restrict them. He is absolutely right. But if we can't stay at the table to have that conversation, we are never going to bring people together to get that done.

You can't blame people who follow their self-interest. If the rule says you don't have to work, you don't have to work. If the rule says if you work too much, you will lose your benefits, then you don't work too much. That is crazy to encourage people to stay home.

You ought to be encouraging people to seek that next promotion, take on those extra hours, work that overtime. That has always been who we are and what we have done, and we have not taken on that challenge in welfare reform. I believe we can. I believe we can.

I need my colleagues to support this rule today. I need them to support the rule so we can bring up not just the farm bill, so that we can bring up the VA MISSION Act, a bipartisan, bicameral bill that will go to the President's desk and change the lives of veterans.

I need my colleagues to support this rule, not just so we can bring up the farm bill, not just so we can bring up the VA MISSION Act, but so that we can make the harming or threatening the harm of a law enforcement officer a Federal crime, to give the men and women who wear blue across this country the protections they deserve.

This is a bipartisan bill, Mr. Speaker, that is going to make a difference for our constituents back home. These are going to be issues that get folks exercise, Mr. Speaker. The most difficult issues we take on always do.

But if we pass this rule and take up this legislation, we will be one step closer, not just to succeeding for our veterans, not just to succeeding for our law enforcement officers, not just to succeeding on behalf of our farmers, but one step closer to taking on what is a collaborative challenge of how to return the incentives to work to the American people, while keeping the social safety net strong for all of the families that depend on it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to reclaim the time that I have yielded back. I would be happy to yield a portion of it to my friend.

Mr. Speaker, could I inquire how much time is remaining?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for granting my unanimous consent request to reclaim my time. I do believe that we advantage all of our causes, rather than disadvantage them, by promoting debate.

But I want to take issue, Mr. Speaker. I didn't mischaracterize anything. I read the media reporting. I will be the first--when you want to have the fake news conversation--there is too much fake news in this country--I will be happy to join you and have that debate with you. But I didn't mischaracterize a thing.

I agree with what my friend had to say about Collin Peterson from Minnesota. He is a fabulous Member, who works as hard as he can on behalf of his constituents to get work done. Nothing in the article I read said Collin Peterson walked away from the table. Everything in the article I read said he

was pressured by his Democratic colleagues to walk away from the table.

I will not yield again to my friend. I am going to close.

I take umbrage at the fact that we would have an opportunity to use each other's time, and you would use it to continue to say I mischaracterized, that we would have an opportunity to have a discussion, and you would continue to use it to say that folks just aren't as well informed as you are about those issues.

We have opportunities in this Chamber to make things better, and we have opportunities to make things worse. And I will say to my friend, Mr. Speaker, if we take advantage of our opportunities to make things better, I believe that we will. If we take advantage of our opportunities to make things worse, I am absolutely certain that we will.

I choose the latter. I choose the latter. A vote in support of this rule is a vote for the latter.

I am sorry, I am choosing the former. I am choosing the former. My colleagues out there are saying: Hey, I know Woodall; that is not right. He is not choosing to make things worse.

I choose the former, Mr. Speaker. I choose the former. A vote for this rule is a vote for the former.

Mr. Speaker, I apologize to the Chair for my confusion.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the proceedings had during the recess be printed in the Record.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Republican Conference, I offer a privileged resolution and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 839 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Torres), the newest member of the Rules Committee, pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, today's rule provides for the consideration of two bills: H.R. 4, which is the FAA Reauthorization Act, and a closed rule for H.R. 3144, which would adjust operations at the Federal Columbia River Power System.

We are lucky today, Mr. Speaker, in that we will have Mr. Newhouse, who is an expert from Washington State on H.R. 3144, come down to the floor and talk extensively about that measure and why it is important for Washington State. But before we talk about Washington State, I want to talk about the FAA reauthorization bill as well.

I would point out, Mr. Speaker, it is not every rule in every case we are able to make every Rules Committee member's amendment in order, but we are fortunate today that, during Mrs. Torres' very first rule on the House floor, we are making her amendment in order, which, again, Mr. Speaker, is one of those prerogatives of Rules Committee members.

I know that in the first few moments of the FAA bill, Mr. Speaker, we are going to want to talk about the good work that went on in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. It has really been my pleasure as not just a Rules Committee member, but as a Transportation and Infrastructure Committee member to be able to work on this bill now in two committees.

You may recall, Mr. Speaker, that we went not only through our initial hearings in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee; we went through a summer markup last year. We have gone through five short-term extensions on FAA, and we are now here prepared to consider a full 5-year reauthorization on the floor.

It has not been the easiest process. There have been a lot of folks who haven't gotten everything they have wanted in this process, but it has been a collaborative process, Mr. Speaker, and I am glad that we have it here today.

I would be remiss if I didn't thank our committee chairman on the authorizing committee, Mr. Speaker, Chairman Shuster, for all the work that he has done. As you know, he has been a long champion of reforming the FAA, believing that we could get even more value for the American taxpayer dollars out of the FAA. While he did not achieve everything that he wanted to achieve in this bill either, Mr. Speaker, we have a dramatic step forward in H.R. 4 today.

These things never happen by accident, Mr. Speaker, as you well know, and I want to thank all the folks who have been toiling behind the scenes in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee day in and day out. I am thinking of folks, Mr. Speaker, like Chris Vieson. I am thinking about folks like Naveen Rao. I am thinking about Hunter Presti and Brittany Smith.

Mr. Speaker, even though he has left us to go, now, serve in the article II Federal Railroad Administration, I want to thank Matt Sturges, who was the former staff director there at the committee, for all he has done over 2 years to get us to this place.

Mr. Speaker, as you know, getting this work done requires a collaborative working relationship, Members and staff across the aisle, from committee office staff to personal office staff, and it has really been a rewarding process. I am very proud of the product that we have on the floor today, but it wouldn't have been possible without all of the staff working and the collaboration that went on. I am grateful to folks for that. That is the authorizing committee side, Mr. Speaker.

On the Rules Committee side, we had an equal amount of work going on. These past few days, moving this bill through the Rules Committee, the staff has had to work tirelessly, in large part, because of all the amendments that were offered to the bill. We now, in this rule, today, Mr. Speaker, made in order 116 different revisions to this bill.

Let me say that again. We went through a complete, full, and open markup in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, as you know, Mr. Speaker; but then, in the Rules Committee, we made in order an additional 116 amendments through this rule today: 56 of those are amendments sponsored by my Democratic colleagues; 36 of those are amendments sponsored by my Republican colleagues; and 24 of those are amendments that have bipartisan support here in this Chamber. That is just over 50 percent of all the ideas that were brought to the Rules Committee last night, Mr. Speaker.

I hope that my colleagues are as proud of that as I am. It reflects the commitment that Speaker Ryan made to having a more open and transparent process. Here, again: 56 Democratic amendments, 36 Republican amendments, and 24 bipartisan amendments.

Mr. Speaker, this FAA bill is a good step towards bringing more value to the American taxpayer from the FAA, and this rule is a good step to making

that possible. With the passage of this rule today, we will be able to move directly to that debate.

Mr. Speaker, don't believe the headlines that say Congress has packed up its bags and gone home. I hear that day in and day out that folks think this 2018 is not going to be a particularly productive legislative session. I reject that. I reject that with no reservations whatsoever.

I see the passion my friends on the Democratic side have for continuing to make improvements for the American people. I see that same passion on our side. Now, I am not saying we are not going to have some challenges keeping people focused on the process at hand, but this FAA bill is a good example of the fact that we are still hard at work, and there is still much work that we can do together.

This bill, Mr. Speaker, finally delivers on the regulatory reform to the FAA certification process.

Now, if you have any companies in your district that are involved in FAA regulations in any way, shape, or form, you know exactly what I am talking about. This certification process is going to allow companies all over the country, including many in my district, Mr. Speaker, like Meggitt in Suwanee, like Universal Avionics in Duluth, like Siemens in Cumming, Gulfstream in Savannah, and many others, to get safer, more innovative aviation products to market faster.

Let me say that again, Mr. Speaker: safer products, more innovative products, more value to the American taxpayer to market faster.

This bill also provides a pathway to regulatory certainty for unmanned aircraft systems. That allows companies like L3 Technologies and Colonial Pipeline in Alpharetta, like UPS in Sandy Springs, like our electric utilities in Gwinnett and Forsyth Counties, Mr. Speaker, and many other companies in my home State of Georgia to get their technologies out faster, to make environments safer for their employees and for my constituents.

We all know that the transformative power of unmanned aviation is upon us. We have got to regulate that in a safe and responsible way to make sure that the rules are in place for certainty, for safety, and for opportunity for innovation. I believe we have that in this bill.

We have a choice, Mr. Speaker. We are either going to lead the world in unmanned aviation or we are going to cede leadership to countries like China. I say we seize leadership, and we are seizing it here in this bill.

The bill also commits that our airports--from the busiest airport in the world, Mr. Speaker, my hometown airport of Hartsfield-Jackson, the fourth busiest airport in the State; and also in my district, Mr. Speaker, is Briscoe Field in Lawrenceville--that these airports have access to long-term funding sustainability. We all know that yanking the pendulum back and forth on Federal funding does not serve any of our constituents' cause. Funding stability--knowing that they can count on the Federal Government to be their partner in providing innovation and improving the overall experience of those men and women who travel through these airports--is of vital importance.

And finally, Mr. Speaker, this bill ensures that our American airlines--like my hometown airline of Delta--can compete and win against anyone on the planet in terms of the service, reliability, safety, and customer service that we have come to expect. Again, aviation is a partnership in this country, Mr. Speaker, between private sector actors and public actors. We need to do all that we can, from our end of Pennsylvania Avenue, to be the very best partners that we can.

Of course, we can always do more, and I hope that we will continue to do more. I am expecting a very robust Transportation Committee cycle here over the next 9 months. But this bill today is a significant downpayment on our commitment to the American people to make our aviation infrastructure continue to be the very finest on the planet.

Mr. Speaker, this rule that, again, will govern debate of both H.R. 4 and H.R. 3144 is a fair rule. These are both commonsense measures that will benefit the American people. I hope my colleagues will see that, I hope my colleagues will come to the floor and support this rule, and I hope my colleagues will also support the two underlying measures.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I say with no levity that we are absolutely thrilled to have Mrs. Torres on the Rules Committee, as she has already made a contribution. She is going to continue to make a wonderful contribution.

I would say, Mr. Speaker, to my friend from California, that sometimes setting expectations is the right way to find success in the things that we pursue in our lives.

This FAA bill, I recognize her concerns that not every amendment was made in order. She is absolutely right. However, this bill did go through the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, where all of our transportation subject matter experts are supposed to be, and absolutely every amendment was considered in that transportation committee.

Now it leaves the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, where the subject matter experts are, and we have now made in order over 100 additional amendments brought from all across this House, more Democratic amendments made in order than Republican amendments made in order, but over 100 additional amendments made in order to try to perfect this bill.

It may not be everything that folks would like to see, but I would share with the gentlewoman, Mr. Speaker, that from my brief Rules Committee experience, we are getting close to a high-water mark here, and I am going to try to take credit and share enthusiasm when we have an opportunity to do it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Montana (Mr. Gianforte), for his insights on this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 10 minutes to the gentleman from Washington State (Mr. Newhouse), a member of the Rules Committee and a subject matter expert on the Columbia River bill before us.

Mr. Speaker, with great optimism that we will return to the bill at hand, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would advise my friend from California I do not have any speakers remaining, and so I am prepared to close when she is. I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I had a wonderful closing statement but, against that backdrop of collegiality, I will say only this. I did mention earlier that subject matter experts were assigned to the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. My friend, Ms. Titus, is on that committee; I am on that committee.

As a subject matter expert, my mom and dad come to me regularly to help them with their airline reservations, Delta Airlines, of course, being an Atlantan. But just recently, they were heading out to California; demanded that I make those reservations going into Ontario instead of LAX because, why in the world would anyone want to

battle LAX when they could be in the Torres district there in Ontario?

They were treated wonderfully and had a wonderful visit, so I recognize the gentlewoman's passion for her airport.

Mr. Speaker, if you have an airport in your district, if you have aviation travelers in your district, you want the FAA to be reauthorized. This bill, this rule makes that possible. This bill gets that job done in an open, collaborative, and bipartisan way. I urge my colleagues to support this rule, support the underlying bills.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 9 o'clock and 51 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, April 25, 2018, at 9 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, I rise, unexpectedly, on tax day. You probably woke up on Monday morning this week thinking Tuesday was going to be tax day, as most of America did, but, lo and behold, when the IRS' payment system crashes, suddenly we are now deeming today tax day rather than yesterday. While it is a surprise to be speaking on tax day, that collapse of the website sort of makes my point.

I want to talk about the great successes that we have had working together, collaboratively, over the last 14 months to move the American Tax Code in the right direction, and then I want to talk about what we can do together to do even more.

You may have seen some of the headlines in the Washington, D.C., tax rags today, Mr. Speaker, folks talking about the House Ways and Means Committee and how we are prepared to begin to do more. The Senate may be a little bit reluctant to do more. At some point, it is going to require an outpouring of public support to do more.

Let me tell you what I mean by ``more.''

When we began the process of tax reform here in the House, Mr. Speaker, we were talking about tax reform first and tax cuts second, reform being that everyone knows that they have to pay taxes. Taxes are certain. But it doesn't have to be complicated. It doesn't have to be an additional burden.

Writing the check is burdensome; figuring out how to calculate how much to write the check for doesn't have to be. But it has grown that way in this country, Mr. Speaker, and we set about trying to change that in the House.

Now, I have a bill in the House called H.R. 25. It is the Fair Tax Act. It would

actually take the American Tax Code and shift it, for the first time in 100 years, away from an income tax-based system and return it to the consumption tax-based system on which this country began.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, I don't know if you have looked at the numbers recently. We are the only OECD country that doesn't have a consumption tax.

As you know, the power to tax is a power to destroy. If we want to get rid of something like cigarettes, we tax them in the hopes that there will be less of it.

Well, by the same token, when we tax income, guess what. We send the incentive that there should be less of it. We tax productivity. The harder you work to feed your beautiful family, Mr. Speaker, the more that the American Government takes from you.

You look at these young people coming out of college. They are trying to save for their future. They are trying to pay back those student loans. They are trying to make it all work by themselves for the very first time. The harder they work, the more hours they put in, the more we decide we are going to take right off the top.

It doesn't have to be that way.

Now, the tax cuts that we passed in December, Mr. Speaker, as you know, lower the American tax burden for the first time in a long time. In fact, a poll out recently said that fewer Americans believe they are overtaxed today, matching record low levels.

I think that is a step in the right direction. I think that speaks to kind of the collective sigh of relief that you feel across the country among entrepreneurs and those who want to start their own business and families trying to put food on the table. I am glad that we have that collective sigh of relief, but can we do more?

Today, we were talking about reforming the IRS, Mr. Speaker. I have got a list here--H.R. 5444, H.R. 5445, H.R. 2901, H.R. 5440, H.R. 5438, H.R. 5446, H.R. 5437, H.R. 5439, H.R. 5443--all bills that this House has considered this week designed to make the IRS serve the American taxpayer better. That is a long list of bills, Mr. Speaker, and that is worth celebrating. We took a big step this week in trying to make the IRS more responsive to the American people.

Not to be a pessimist, Mr. Speaker, but when you have to share with this agency every penny you earn, everyplace that you earned it, share with them how you spent it, the places that you gave it, when you gave it, sometimes why you gave it, what you purchased with it, right on down the line, Mr. Speaker, I would argue that your wife may know less about your family finances than the IRS does. If not in your family, certainly in many families, we tell the IRS things we would not tell members of our family.

We place an incredible amount of power and responsibility in the IRS' hands. And I want to be clear: This isn't an IRS institutional problem. The IRS didn't ask for this authority. This is a 435-Members-of-the- U.S.-House problem. We put this authority in the IRS' hands. We gave them an untenable task of wielding this power without abuse. That is why you have almost a dozen bills, Mr. Speaker, today to reform them.

Making those reforms is important, but is there a better way? Do we have to have the IRS involved in every aspect of our financial life? I am here to tell you that the answer is no.

H.R. 25, the Fair Tax Act, Mr. Speaker, moves us to a consumption tax, which says that we are going to tax you based on what you spend, not on what you earn. So I no longer need to tell the IRS what I earned, where I earned it, and how I spent it.

When I get taxed on what I spend, I am not sending that information to the IRS. I am getting taxed while I am at the store. I am getting taxed at Home Depot. I am getting taxed at Kroger. I am getting taxed at Publix. I am getting taxed at Macy's. I am getting taxed on amazon.com.

When we tax based on what people consume instead of what they earn, we end that disincentive to earn, and we begin to ask that people ask more serious questions about what they purchase.

Mr. Speaker, today, as American workers are going off to produce high-quality American goods, they are doing so at a disadvantage. Most nations, as I mentioned earlier, have a consumption tax, which means that, when the Germans produce an automobile and they send it to America, they have a consumption tax--a value added tax, in their case--that had been taxed on that car that had been sold in Germany. Since they are shipping it to America, they remove that tax and send that car to America tax free. We pay taxes on it when we purchase it.

Not so when the American car goes to Germany. The big BMW plant in South Carolina producing BMWs, when that car is produced, all of the embedded taxation of the corporate taxes BMW is paying and the payroll taxes BMW workers are paying, all of those taxes are built into the price of that BMW. When we ship it out for sale to the rest of the world, the price of that car is higher because Americans built it.

That is just nonsense.

Why in the world have we chosen to disadvantage ourselves relative to the rest of the world?

Well, when you choose to have an income tax and when you choose to have a payroll tax, you then choose to bury those costs in the price of your goods and services. It is a competitive disadvantage of America.

I mentioned payroll taxes, Mr. Speaker. You may not know, but payroll taxes are the largest tax that 85 percent of American families pay. Let me say that again.

We just had this whole long debate over reforming the income tax system, and it was an important debate to have. We had this whole debate about how it is we can provide more money in workers' paychecks by changes to the income tax system. It was an important debate to have. But 85 percent of American families pay more in payroll taxes-- that FICA tax you see, it is 15.3 percent of everything that you earn-- pay more in payroll taxes than they do in income taxes.

So the time is going to come that we are going to have to gather here, Mr. Speaker, in this Chamber to have a debate about how we reform the payroll tax system.

The payroll tax system is very important. It funds Social Security and Medicare. We want those programs to be successful. We know that as we sit here today, the revenue streams are not sufficient to make those programs successful. So if you believe in those programs, we need to have those conversations today about the Fair Tax, Mr. Speaker, the only tax bill in Congress that examines the payroll tax as the lead reform mechanism of tax reform.

We went in and we changed the corporate tax system in the tax cuts bill last year, Mr. Speaker, and we did a good job there. We took it from being the absolute worst Tax Code on the planet in terms of competitiveness and we moved America to about the top five. That is good news. Not worst to first, but worst to top five. I will take it.

When Ronald Reagan and the Democrats did tax reform back in 1986, they then moved America from worst to first. In the intervening 30 years, the rest of the world caught up with America, surpassed America, moved us back into last place. We moved ourselves last December into the top five.

My question is, Mr. Speaker, when did it become an American value, when did American exceptionalism begin to be defined by being in the top five, one of the folks out in front?

My definition of American exceptionalism is being number one, being the very best, setting the standard, letting the rest of the world follow.

The Fair Tax encompasses that by recognizing that businesses don't pay taxes. They just collect taxes. They collect them from their employees in the form of lower wages, they collect them from their customers in the form of higher prices, they collect them from the owners of capital in the form of lower returns to pension plans for American retirees, but businesses don't pay taxes. There is no secret drawer that a business dips into to pay its tax bill. It is lower wages, higher prices, or lower rates of return.

Well, recognizing this, and we did a lot of recognizing of that during this tax reform debate, we have now lowered the corporate tax rate to the lowest rate in my lifetime.

The question is, now that we are seeing the benefits of that, we are seeing money plowed back into workers' paychecks, we are seeing wages rise--and we are not having the discussion of minimum wage here anymore, Mr. Speaker, because businesses across the country can't find enough employees, they are raising wages on their own, they are putting bonuses out there on their own. Those businesses have more money in their pockets and they are putting it in the pockets of their employees.

There is not a business in your district, Mr. Speaker, that doesn't recognize the most important asset that business has is a motivated and loyal workforce. Employees are the most valuable asset that a business has. Those employees are rewarded when the business succeeds.

Why is it that now that we are seeing that, now that we are recognizing that, we see the reality that when you put more money back in the business, that business puts more money back in a paycheck, why don't we go the rest of the way? Why don't we move America back from worst to first one more time, abolish that corporate income tax, recognize that businesses don't pay taxes, they just collect them from their employees?

That reduction of corporate income taxes so far, Mr. Speaker, has led to bonuses for more than 4 million American workers, wages rising across the board at the highest level in years, unemployment at a sustained level lower than ever before recorded.

Mr. Speaker, the Tax Code is one of those things that people can use to pick winners and losers, and an income Tax Code particularly lends itself to pick winners and losers.

The Fair Tax says let's not pick winners and losers; let's have one rate that everybody pays on everything that they buy. Let's recognize that consumption is a better form of taxation than income is, again, as the only OECD country that does not have a consumption tax, and let us recognize that there is even more economic growth that we can squeeze out of the American economy today.

You have seen the capital investment that comes from the immediate expensing that was included in the last tax bill, Mr. Speaker. Well, immediate expensing is the same as not taxing that investment at all. It is what I am saying. Instead of just being for some purchases, for some investments, it would be for all purchases, for all investments.

We gave businesses that benefit in December. Four million workers and counting have received bonuses, wages rising faster than they have in years.

What about repatriated earnings, Mr. Speaker? How are we advantaged as a Nation by trapping earnings overseas?

If a company can't bring its earnings back to America to invest in America, what is it going to do? If those earnings are trapped overseas, they are going to get invested overseas, they are going to build that next plant overseas, they are going to make that next purchase overseas. How in the world are we advantaged as a Nation by trapping earnings overseas?

Well, we recognized that we are not. We recognized that by lowering the repatriation rate, we have brought back trillions of dollars. That return to America is continuing, but we can do more. That corporate rate going to zero does more.

The Tax Code is the only regulatory action we take, Mr. Speaker, that disadvantages America relative to the rest of the world for no benefit whatsoever.

Let us concede that we have bills to pay as a Nation and we are going to raise the revenue to pay those bills.

Now, having conceded that we are going to raise the revenue to pay those bills, let's raise that revenue in the simplest, least economically destructive way possible: a consumption tax. Milton Friedman would tell it. If you don't believe Nobel laureate economists, you can look at State experiments across the country. If you don't believe those State experiments, you can look at changing tax codes in our neighboring countries around the world, our allies around the world.

We have a choice in how we collect revenue, and H.R. 25, the Fair Tax Act, is the most comprehensive recognition that we can do away with the income tax, we can repeal the 16th Amendment that even made the income tax possible in this country. We can return to a consumption tax so that we all have skin in the game in how this government is run and operated. We can ensure the solvency of Social Security and Medicare by changing the way we collect the revenue stream for those programs.

We can put more money in workers' pockets by eliminating the largest tax that 85 percent of American families pay in eliminating that FICA tax. We can put America back on top economically, as we tried to do in 1986, as we saw happen during the 1990s as a result of those Tax Code changes, and we can return America to being an exporter to the world, not just an importer from the world.

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have that debate. If someone believes that disadvantaging the American worker is valuable in some way, let's talk about it. If someone sees a hidden benefit to making it harder for the rest of the world to buy American goods, let's talk about it and let me understand those benefits with you.

But if you share my vision of American exceptionalism, that being in the top five isn't good enough, that being number one, being the leader, being the definer of success is the only thing that is going to be good enough for the families that each and every one of us represent, then go back and look at H.R. 25 one more time.

I understand, having just passed tax reform, the largest tax reform in a generation, folks wonder if we are able to do even more. We can.

I understand that having this tax day to be the very last tax day that any American family has to deal with the old, complicated code, folks wonder, can we do even better for next tax year. We have already done better for next tax year, Mr. Speaker, but we can do even more.

Take a look at the Fair Tax. Dozens upon dozens of your colleagues have already recognized its merits. Dozens upon dozens of your colleagues have already recognized our opportunity to stop fighting the economic battle with one arm tied behind the American worker's back.

I celebrate the success that we achieved together, Mr. Speaker. I celebrate the coming together in the name of making a better economy possible for American workers and their families. Let's take that success and let's build on that success, and let's not have this be the last tax day that we celebrate.

Let's celebrate today that we will never have to deal with the old Tax Code again, and let's anticipate that day where we will never even have tax day again, because in the absence of an income tax, the American family need never deal with the IRS again.

Let's eliminate April 15 as tax day. Let's make it just another beautiful spring day. Let's relieve the American family of the burden of complying with the Tax Code. Let's free the American family and American businesses to do what is in their own family's and their own business' best interest.

Make tax day just another day, Mr. Speaker. Support the Fair Tax.

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