Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Rokita), my colleague.

ObamaCare

Thank you, Mr. Rokita.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about an issue that maybe is unknown to many Members and many citizens but should be known, which is the reduction of forces--the reduction in the capability of our military services across all branches, across the whole spectrum-- and how that process is going. It has been my studied opinion at this point that the process is what we should discuss at this time--a process that has lacked transparency, a process that has lacked deliberation.

Now, while it is this Member's belief that the chiefs at the DOD are under significant pressure from an administration to defend this Nation, they are also under significant pressure to make cuts, not only to make those cuts, but to make those cuts in a very particular way. That is part of the discussion today--the cuts to the reserve forces.

Before I recognize some of my colleagues, I just want to provide from the Joint Chiefs the definition of the operational reserve, which is your Guard and Reserve:

As such, the services organize, resource, equip, train, and

utilize their Guard and Reserve components to support mission

requirements----

This is important:

--to the same standards as their Active components.

To the same standards, which is interesting to me because

some of the recent reports and quotes that I have heard are

things like it is structured to be complementary, and

capabilities in its three components are not interchangeable.

So that statement flies in the face of the original

definition of what Guard and Reserve forces do.

And things like saying that Guard and Reserve members only train 39 days a year, which, again, I think the

Chiefs are under considerable pressure. DOD is fighting for its life-- not among its members but, in my opinion, against an administration; and they are doing what they have to do.

I am an Army soldier. I joined an Army of one, not an Army of some of us get this and some of us get that. We all do the same work together at the same level; and that is the expectation, as it should be. But that is what we are going to discuss for the next hour.

At this time, I yield to my colleague and friend from Pennsylvania (Mr. Dent).

Thank you, Representative Dent. I appreciate your comments and I appreciate your support for our Guard.

Again, that is the discussion--a discussion about a process that should be open, that we should have a part in. What we would ask at this point is that the DOD not proceed with the plan until they have had input from everybody involved, which includes our Nation's Guard and Reserve and includes hometown heroes that serve right in every single town, every city, every hamlet, every village across the country, and serve their Nation well.

In this Nation's wars in the last 10 to 15 years, they have been 50 percent of the fighting force. Why haven't we included them in the conversation in a meaningful way?

With that, I would like to again yield to another colleague of mine from Pennsylvania (Mr. Rothfus).

I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

At this time, we are going to talk a little bit about aviation, and Guard

aviation in particular, because it is something I have been familiar with since the mid-1980s, when I first went to flight school. It is one of the issues that has become the forefront of this discussion and this argument.

Mr. Rothfus noted the drawdown and the cuts to Guard aviation and the claim, or the charge, that the Guard is not trained, accessible, or ready. With that, I just harken back to my short time in Iraq when I served with some of the finest aviators on the planet from Alpha 106 from Indiana, a group of fine people under my command in the task that had been to Iraq, many of them, before. They told me the stories of their time there before.

They were just above reproach, and they were the most professional and well-trained individuals that were competent to do the mission from the day they showed up on the ground; and they proved that every single day for a year.

With that, I yield to my friend from the great State of Illinois, who also served with those fine individuals from that very company and has sacrificed greatly for our Nation. She would like to discuss this issue as well.

Congresswoman Duckworth.

Thank you.

At this time I would also like to yield to my colleague from Mississippi (Mr. Palazzo), for a few comments.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Mississippi for his comments.

Again, we are not saying that the Guard and the Reserve aren't willing to do their part. It is my belief, it is this Member's belief, that the DOD and the Chiefs are under significant pressure from the administration to do what they are doing.

We are asking for an open process and to be involved in the conversation because we want to do our part. But we can't watch the investments that have been mentioned here today be eviscerated, be thrown away, be cast away like so many things.

We understand very clearly over the course of this last 5 years this administration's tenor and attitude towards our Nation's fighting forces, but we must continue on for the sake of what we have invested in and the sacrifices that have been made by members of our hometowns in the Guard and Reserve.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the fine gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Enyart).

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Enyart for his service to our Nation, both in the military forces as well as here in Congress. I would like to just reflect upon his remarks as well. It is my intent to bring a different standard of decorum and bearing to the discussion.

Again, we understand that DOD is under significant pressure and fighting for its life. We would like a place at the table to have a discussion, because we don't think that a proportional cut--if you are cutting 100 percent, and you say 50 percent to the active component and 50 percent to the reserve component is the same thing, it is not the same thing if the reserve component costs one-third, yet you yield the same results when you have those servicemembers on the battlefield.

We are going to continue the discussion, but at this time I would like to yield to my friend, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Yoho).

Thank you, Mr. Yoho.

And to continue the conversation, I would like to yield to the gentlewoman from the great State of Arizona (Ms. Sinema).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlelady from Arizona and would also like to commend her on her comments regarding the Guard.

Specifically, for me as an Army aviator, one of the main topics of discussion in the reduction of forces in the Guard is Army-Guard aviation. The comments that, quite frankly, that are disappointing and hit my heart are that Guardsmen train 39 days a year, and that is 2 days a month and 15 days a year of annual training. I would suggest to you that I know very few--as a matter of fact, I don't know one single Guard member that trains only 39 days a year.

As a commissioned officer who was on flight status, I spent the bulk of my time during the 2 days a month, and 15 days in the year, commanding, doing administrative things, leading my troops, planning for the future, planning their training.

The other time that I came in at least once a week, if not more often, was to get my flight time because I had the exact same requirements. It is important to note when folks say, well, they are not as trained, they are not accessible, and not ready as Active components, it is not to take anything away from the Active component, because they train every single day.

I will tell you this: I have the same standards, require the same amount of flight hours, the same check rides, flight evaluations, the same physical requirements every single year as an Active Duty aviator. If I am a gun pilot, I must do gunnery. If I am a utility pilot, I must do sling loads, I must fly with night-vision goggles so that I am ready to go. Indeed, we are ready to go every single time.

People say, well, why do we need attack assets? Why do we need the AH-64 Apache in the Guard? I am not sure, quite honestly, from the standpoint of are you protecting your State that we need that AH-64 Apache in the Guard, but I will tell this: most Guard units are replete with former members of the Active component. They did their time on Active Duty, whether it was 6 years, or whether it was 15 or 18, and then they came to the Guard, and they enhanced their skills.

As a matter of fact, on Active Duty when you are downrange, when you are over the wire, and you are serving with Active Duty members and Guard and Reservists, oftentimes if given a choice to fly with members of the Guard as opposed to Active Duty, many Active Duty components will choose to fly with the Guard members.

There is one simple reason. It is because the Active Duty component, even though they are serving all day long, every day of the year, as a captain you are administering your administrative duties. You are leading your troops. You are planning their training, but you are not flying. So the bulk of the experience in doing the job of flying the aircraft is actually in the Guard. If you have a choice between flying with a captain and a lieutenant who have 800 hours between them or flying with a Guard CW-4 and a captain that have 35 to 4,000 hours between them in difficult terrain, in difficult conditions, what would you choose?

The mechanics who work on these aircraft don't work on them just a little bit and then move on to something else. They work on these aircraft for 20, 30 years at a stretch. They know every single thing about them; they live with them, they sleep with them. Oh, by the way, many of these folks are active Guard and Reserves. So it is not just 39 days a year, and not only more than that, it is every single day of the year. That is why the Guard and the Reserves are ready to go when called upon, and people will say, well, you are not ready to go. You have got to go to a MOB site and train before you can go.

As a task force commander, a battalion commander who went through that, I was ready to go. I met my minimums, and I met every single requirement that the Active component met. So did all of the members of my unit, men and women who had served for years and years. When they send you to a place like that they give you a unit from Illinois, they give you a unit from Alaska, or a unit from Oregon, a unit on Active Duty, a unit from the Reserves. You haven't worked together. You have got to spend a little time figuring out your SOPs, your standard operating procedures, so that you can work together, and that does take some time.

I would also say that sometimes the Guard and Reserve, things are placed upon them for training purposes that the Active component says we need, when we would argue we don't need, and they slow us down from getting to the fight.

As an aviator, I wondered why I had to get into the heat trainer. I had to do rollover drills in a Humvee. I am not driving a Humvee around the streets of Iraq or Afghanistan. I am flying an aircraft, and that is where I should spend my time, but the Active component says, no, you all are going to do this and it takes some time. We get that. They want us to be safe and they want us to have that training. Okay, we get it.

Our core mission, the things that we do, the things we train for, the things the taxpayers pay for is exactly the same for an Army aviator in the Guard as an Army aviator serving on Active Duty. Now, it might not be the same for artillery men or an infantryman or a medic or something like that, it might not be. I don't know because I don't serve in those branches, but I know my branch.

I would say that each of us have our strengths and we recognize that. We recognize the Active component strength. I think in my heart that the Active component, DOD recognizes the strength of the Guard, but again, it would be my contention that DOD is fighting for its life, not against its brethren who have served in an Army of one, but against an administration who arguably doesn't have the same view as many of those who serve and many Americans that support the armed services of the armed services. So they are in a difficult position.

I think about when they say that we are not ready to go, the Eastern Army Aviation Training Site, located at Fort Indiantown Gap where I serve, the folks that serve there work every single day, and they train Army aviators. That is what they do there. When you leave Fort Rucker and need to get an advanced aircraft, you come to EAATS many times-- Eastern Army Aviation Training Site--and learn to fly a Chinook, learn to fly a Black Hawk. They don't do that in Fort Rucker in many cases. Your advanced training happens in the Guard. That is where that experience is.

Not only is it the same aircraft that many times the Active component is flying, but the EAATS folks oftentimes train even more advanced aircraft than the Active component's flying. I think that those EAATS guys are out training the special operations guys in the F model Chinook. These are Guard folks, training the Active component to go do their mission, and not just any Active component, special operations, the best of the best. Guard folks are training them. I don't want anybody to lose sight of that argument and that discussion.

You know, I am not saying, again, that the Guard shouldn't do its part. We are ready to do our part. We understand that the budget is tight and that changes must be made. But we are asking again for an open and a transparent conversation that meets the standards of decorum and bearing that we have so come to love, and one of the reasons why many people serve in our Armed Forces. I want to be an army of one that doesn't fight with his brothers and sisters in the Active component.

As a task force commander, I was privileged--and I mean well privileged--to command a task force of 800 to 1,000 souls that included National Guard, Active component, Reserves from the continental United States, from places in Europe, all fine individuals working under one commander, one mission, with one standard. I am concerned when I hear that the chiefs are being put into, in my opinion, a position to say that the Guard and the Reserves are lesser, because it is my experience that they are not.

It is my experience when soldiers are serving side by side that they don't see, and they don't recognize, and they don't notice any difference. They do their jobs. I don't want the chiefs to be put in that position. So we are asking, we are pleading, through this, with the administration. Let's have an open process. Let's have one that is transparent. Let's have one that we can engage in a conversation, because if the Guard costs 30 percent of what the Active Duty costs are, then a proportional cut really isn't proportional. If we offer things that are important to the Nation, as is evidenced in the last 10 or 15 years of war by our presence, where 50 percent of the component is fighting those wars, not only in just logistics, but in kinetic activity, engaging the enemy in close combat, with the tools of the trade, with what you have offered and have sacrificed greatly, greatly, your Guard and Reserve, those men and women, they go, and some of them don't come home. Their sacrifice is just as important as those in the Active component.

It would be my contention, Mr. Speaker, that we need to slow this process down. It needs to be opened up so that everybody can see, and so that everything can be evaluated and that the Guard and Reserve can do its part but shouldn't have to do more than its part.

The Nation's investment in this readiness that you find in your States that comes into play when you have storms, when you have natural disasters, comes to play right there; that that readiness isn't lost, and that the days of the strategic Reserve are long in the past and that we don't go back to that failed model, and that we don't draw down so significantly that when we have a new administration, the American taxpayer will be asked, well, we are not ready to fight. We are not ready to meet our constitutional obligation to defend this Nation. Now we must spend more money to get back to where we were. We don't have to do that.

This administration's actions right now, we are making a conscious choice to reduce our readiness without cause, without reason, without justification, without a conversation. So, while some will say that it is too expensive, we have an obligation. It is expensive. Training and equipment is expensive. There is a great deal to be had in the Guard and Reserve. Again, I would like to have a discussion that honors the decorum and bearing that all servicemembers are bound to.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I appreciate the time that the Nation has taken to listen to this argument. I would ask that you call, that you write, that you email, that you correspond with your Representatives in this House of Representatives, and in the Senate, and with this administration to talk to them about having an open process by which we have to make changes to our fighting forces and to the defense of this Nation.

Well, let's have it open, let's have an open process, let's have a candid discussion, let's not pit one brother, one sister against another in this fight. We are all on the same team. Let's not do that. Let's have an open conversation and let's make the best arrangement we can that serves both the Guard, both the Reserve, both the Active forces, and in particular, the necessary defense of this Nation.

General Leave

With that, Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge my colleagues to support passage of H.R. 1513, a bill to revise the boundaries of the Gettysburg National Military Park to include the Lincoln Train Station which is an important part of our Nation's history.

President Abraham Lincoln arrived at the Lincoln Train Station the day before delivering his historic Gettysburg Address. The station also served as a hospital during the Battle of Gettysburg and transported wounded soldiers after the battle. The Lincoln Train Station currently is operated by the Gettysburg Convention and Visitors Bureau and is owned by the Borough of Gettysburg.

The Gettysburg Foundation and nonprofit partner of the park secured the necessary private funds to purchase the train station from the Borough of Gettysburg. The foundation will donate the train station to Gettysburg National Military Park, where it will be used as a downtown visitors center and meeting place.

H.R. 1513 also allows the boundaries of Gettysburg National Military Park to include 45 acres of land along Plum Run in Cumberland Township. This property currently abuts land already owned by the National Park Service and will be donated by the Gettysburg Foundation to the National Park Service.

The Gettysburg Foundation and Gettysburg National Military Park recently commemorated the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg and the dedication of the Soldiers National Cemetery. In addition to preserving our heritage, such historic preservation and tourism efforts remain a critical part of the regional economy. More than 235,000 visitors took part in the 10 days of the 150th anniversary events and contributed about $100 million to the local economy.

Once the Battle of Gettysburg ended, both Union and Confederate armies moved on, leaving this small rural town to deal with the bloody and chaotic aftermath. Citizens were forced to care for the wounded, bury fallen soldiers and animals, rebuild their town, and begin the process of preserving this hallowed ground.

Like the residents of Gettysburg 150 years ago, a group of dedicated individuals, 18,000 to 20,000 from across the country and across the world, have come together to preserve this battlefield and increase public understanding of the causes and consequences of the Battle of Gettysburg and its place within the context of American history.

At a time when Federal and State budgets are tight, the great partnership between the Gettysburg Foundation, Main Street Gettysburg and the Borough of Gettysburg, and the National Park Service has led to the construction of a new visitors center, the preservation of the Cyclorama painting, the restoration of the battlefield to its 1863 appearance, and now the preservation of the historic Lincoln Train Station.

This legislation simply is the latest significant piece of that puzzle. All interested parties are fully supportive of the boundary revision, and because the land is already owned by the Gettysburg Foundation and to be donated to the National Park Service no--I repeat, no--Federal funds will be used to purchase these properties.

This legislation is good for Gettysburg, the National Park Service, and the American taxpayers. I urge my colleagues to join me in support of H.R. 1513, the Gettysburg Battlefield bill. I would also like to thank Doc Hastings, the ranking member, and the committee for the unanimous support.

Mr. Speaker, given the geopolitical history of the region, the U.S. fully understands Israel's need to be better armed than its neighbors.

Potentially threatening Arab countries surrounding Israel have superior numbers, which is the reason why Israel needs to maintain a qualitative edge.

As Iran creeps ever closer to obtaining a nuclear weapon, this qualitative edge has become all the more important

As our closest ally in the region, we should do all we can to prevent Israel from being put in harm's way.

I believe the legislation before us today does precisely that and I thank the gentleman from Georgia and my colleague on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr. Collins, for authoring this bill.

This legislation improves our policy of ensuring Israel's safety by better reflecting the security environment of its potential adversaries.

Israel is mostly attacked by unconventional weapons and those weapons should be considered into the QME.

As cyber-attacks are increasingly being used as a means of warfare, Israel needs to maintain a competitive edge, while countries such as Iran attempt to increase their cyber capabilities.

Mr. Speaker, the President has offered Iran what he describes as a ``very limited, temporary, reversible sanctions relief.'' In this case, limited means $20 billion in sanctions relief.

What was the world promised for the $20 billion gift to the Iranian regime? A promise that Iran would pause, not dismantle, its nuclear weapons program for 6 months while we betray our allies and compromise Israel's ability to defend itself.

Let me tell you what this deal is like. It is like going to an auto mechanic you can't trust to fix an oil leak on your car. The mechanic says it will take 6 months to fix the leak and charges you $1,000 up front. When you come back 6 months later, you will find that not only is the leak not fixed, but your car was stripped down and sold for parts.

As we speak, Iranian centrifuges are continuing to spin, continuing to enrich uranium, and continuing to threaten the safety of the United States and our allies.

Whether it is at your local auto shop or at the nuclear negotiating table, the American people know when they are getting a bad deal.

I would like to thank Chairman Hastings and Mr. Flores for bringing H.R. 2728 to the floor for this opportunity.

Mr. Chairman, I would just like to remind everybody that, although they might say, Why do we do this? Why is the rhetoric important? I mean, if we don't counter the kind of alternate reality that the other side often touts, people will think that that is reality. I will remind everybody in the room that the Federal Government and every State government has said that there has been not one accident--zero-- referring to the aquifer regarding hydraulic fracking--not one.

People in Washington have never been to Dimock; they have never been to Renovo or to Tidioute or to Warren, Pennsylvania. They don't know anything about these places and what happens here, but yet they want to regulate us. The people who live there are the ones who are working there, and they have the greatest stake in protecting the environment.

Let me tell you what it has done for Pennsylvania: $750 million in road and infrastructure and improvements since 2008 has been provided by the gas industry. The average income is up $1,200 because of it; $1.8 billion in tax revenue has been generated by responsible shale development.

Ninety-six percent of the employment comes out of the Appalachian basin. That is in Pennsylvania. That is where we live. There has been a $650 savings per household per year because of it, and there are 232,000 associated jobs with an average pay of $83,305 a year.

Mr. Chairman, there is a list of agencies that these people must comply with for every single portion of this. I am going to run out of time, but I am going to run out of time just going through them, all right: the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the County Conservation District.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, the Pennsylvania Game Commission, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, the Susquehanna River Basin Commission, the Delaware River Basin Commission, the Pennsylvania Historic Museum Commission, and the Pennsylvania Public Utility Council.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, all of those chemicals that were noted on every job site are listed on a material safety data sheet, which is required by law.

Mr. Speaker, I was visited today in my district office by an individual who is one of my constituents--and one of my bosses--who told me about his disappointment with me and our government here in Washington and our inability to positively affect his life.

He told me a story about how he and his wife lost their health care policy. What is worse, he told me about his diagnosis of cancer, which has wracked his body and is spreading throughout his organs. He told me how he felt Washington didn't care at all about him and how he had been lied to. He wanted someone to fight for him and the other people in the middle class.

I just wanted to come to the floor today, Mr. Speaker, and echo that account so that he knows that someone is here fighting for him. I dedicate myself to fighting on his behalf and for the other millions of Americans just like him.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 2655--Motion to Recommit; I was off-site and my staff was unable to contact me regarding the vote due to a inoperative telephone. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by saying that I am exceptionally privileged to be here on the House floor of the United States Congress this evening to speak on behalf of my constituents and in front of the Nation. It is an honor that few people realize, and it's worthy of mention.

I just want to also thank the fine gentlemen and ladies from the other side that were here this evening. I appreciate your impassioned pleas. That's what this place is all about. I might disagree with many of them, but I appreciate your passion and your willingness to serve.

I just want to talk about a couple of things and, at least from my side, Mr. Speaker, set the record, or at least kind of balance the record--maybe not set it straight in some people's minds because I'm sure some folks will disagree. But when the one gentleman said that he opposed the Iraq war and folks were here paying for it with a credit card and he was opposed to that, well, I wasn't here. So I can't really atone for the sins of the past, and there's a good chance that I would disagree with many of them, but one of the reasons I wasn't here was because I was in Iraq at that time.

And even though I think it is morally wrong to have spent this Nation into such debt over those conflicts, when you are attacked, you must respond, number one; and, number two, I think it kind of belies the fact that the current administration has nearly doubled that spending in half the time. So with all due respect, I think it's fair just to point that out.

And regarding another gentleman who talked about the interest of the other side to negotiate and agree to a compromise and to compromise, in looking at the numbers, the sequester came from the President of the United States out of another supercommittee that was created, and the President demanded the sequester, demanded the number. So this Congress has given it to him, and this Congress has held that number. It was demanded out of that negotiation. So by saying that they've compromised, they haven't compromised on anything. That's where we all agreed to be at the end of that negotiation.

Now, there's been a lot of impassioned talk and yelling and wailing, and I don't really think that's helpful to the narrative here. We're all going to have to work together at some point and figure this thing out, and blaming one side or the other side, I just don't know where that really gets us.

I want to just talk a little bit about some of the facts. And these aren't my facts; they're not Scott Perry's facts. I've got The Washington Post here, because some people say this is unprecedented, it's never happened before, and only one party does this.

Well, there was a shutdown in 1976. Gerald Ford was the President. The Democrats held both Houses. It was ended by all sides coming together and working towards a continuing resolution.

The next one was in 1977. Jimmy Carter was the President. Democrats held both Houses. Amazingly, it was resolved by both sides coming together and working on a Medicaid ban.

Then there was the shutdown of 1977. Jimmy Carter was the President. Democrats were in charge of both Houses. They signed a temporary bill because they came together and worked something out. The 1977 shutdown under Jimmy Carter, Democrats were in charge, and they were doing what they thought they needed to do. They're elected by their people to do the work of this House, but they came together after 8 days and they resolved it.

The next one, 1978. Jimmy Carter was the President. The Democrats controlled both Houses. Eighteen days--eighteen days--but they resolved it after they got together. The President, the Senate, and the House, they got together.

1979, Jimmy Carter was the President. The Democrats were in charge of both Houses. Eleven days. What resolved it? They got together and they talked. Nothing happens here, and nothing will happen here, if we're not going to be willing to be civil with one another and get together and talk.

1981, Ronald Reagan was the President. The Republicans had the Senate. The House was controlled by the Democrats. After 2 days, they resolved it. Again, Reagan came down and signed a bill extending the current spending limit.

And then again, in September of '82, Ronald Reagan was the President. Republicans held the Senate. Democrats held the House. Tip O'Neill was the Speaker. But they resolved it in just 1 day because they got together. Both of them were out that evening having fundraisers, both parties. They let the government shut down, but they got together and moved beyond it.

1982, Tip O'Neill again the Speaker. Republicans were in charge of the Senate. Ronald Reagan was President. Over the MX missile, they shut it down, but they figured out a way to get past it because they negotiated.

And for 3 days in 1983, Ronald Reagan was the President. Republicans were in charge of the Senate. The House was controlled by Democrats, with Tip O'Neill Speaker. And they resolved it, again, over about a $100 million discrepancy.

1984, Ronald Reagan was the President. Republicans had the Senate. The House was controlled by the Democrats. Over a Supreme Court ruling, they shut it down, but they resolved it after all sides came together and negotiated.

This is from not a right-wing paper in town here. These are not my facts.

1984, Ronald Reagan was the President. Republicans had the Senate. The House was controlled by Democrats. Tip O'Neill was the Speaker. And they shut it down again, but they opened it back up.

The 13th one happened in 1986 under President Reagan. Republicans controlled the Senate, Bob Dole. Democrats in the House by Tip O'Neill. And they resolved it by getting together--each side gave up some of their demands--and they expanded welfare in return for the appropriations necessary to reopen the government.

Ronald Reagan, in 1987, was the President. Democrats were in control of both Houses. And again, they found a way to get together on the fairness doctrine.

In 1990, George H.W. Bush was the President. Democrats controlled both Houses. They figured it out and signed a continuing resolution and reduced the deficit.

And then the 16th time, Clinton was the President and Gingrich was the Speaker of the House. The Senate was controlled by Republicans and so was the House. But even then, they worked it out. Even then, they worked it out. When both Houses of Congress were against the President, Mr. Speaker, they found a way to work it out.

And then for 21 days in 1995, with Clinton as the President and the House was controlled by Republicans and the Senate was controlled by Republicans, again, what resolved it? They worked it out. They got together, and they worked it out.

So let's go to the debt limit, because we've also heard this is a historic time, it's unprecedented, it's never happened before, Mr. Speaker.

So 1970 is where we found out the practice of attaching nongermane provisions to the debt limit began in earnest. In 1971, Social Security changes; 1972, the spending cap and impoundment of powers on the proposal to increase the debt limit.

And I'm just skipping because there's a pile of them here.

In 1980, Congress repealed an oil import fee. President Carter vetoed the bill. Both Houses of Congress were Democrat and President Carter was a Democrat. But he vetoed it, and they

overrode the veto by wide majorities, but they worked it out. They worked it out.

1985, 1990, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2010, 2011, 2012. The debt limit is the appropriate place in this divided government to find some fiscal sanity, and that's what's happening here right now in this town.

Now, of course, like I said, I don't want to get into the blame game here. I'm really going to try to stay out of it. Whether we agree with ObamaCare or not is not the issue. It might be a great law. And there are other laws that some people think are great laws or are not great laws. The question really should be and really is: Can we afford it? Can we afford it?

We are running a trillion-dollar deficit every single year. We take in $1 trillion less than we spend. So if you are a household that brings in $100,000, you are spending $25,000 more every single year as a ratio more than you bring in. I ask the American people, Mr. Speaker, how long can this be sustained?

So even if we agree that it's a good law--and many of us don't. That's fair. But even if we agree that it's a good law, how are we going to pay for it? That's the question.

Now Congress' job in this House and this Senate is to craft legislation and to determine our spending priorities and our spending levels. That's our job. The other gentleman said, We haven't read the Constitution or--it's in the Constitution. It's very simple. That is our job.

With all due respect to the President, I've got to tell you, it does not help. Again, we are going to have to work together. It's for the sake of our Nation. It does not help to be lectured to about what we must do here, according to the President, when it's exactly what he would not do and did not do when he served in this building. It does not help.

Now, our constituents elected us. The citizens of our districts elected us. They elected us to come here and do something, to do something. And we keep on hearing from the other side, Just pass a clean CR. Just pass it and everything will be fine.

I came here to do something. We are spending $1 trillion more than we bring in every single year. We are $17 trillion in debt. The bill that's being implemented, the law that's being implemented right now is going to cost us $2 trillion or $3 trillion. We don't know. And the President, I understand--I'm not sure of the number--is going to ask in a week to raise the debt ceiling another $900 billion. So that is $100 billion short of $1 trillion, which are still all numbers that are staggering to my mind.

So if we add that up, okay, so at the minimum, we're at $20 trillion, and that doesn't include Social Security and all the other obligations that we have. And the clean CR that we're being beseeched to just vote on so everything will be fine says, That's okay, just keep going. Don't change a thing. Everything's fine. Nothing to see here.

Everything's not fine. The constituents that elected me had three concerns when I ran, and I hear about them every single day at the grocery store, at the gas station, on my telephones, in email, and in the letters they send to me. Do something about this debt. Do something about this deficit. Do something about this spending. Do something about ObamaCare. That's what they send to me. That's what they tell me.

Maybe the world doesn't understand where this is going to end, but a lot of us do. When our dollar isn't worth anything, when we have to take a wheelbarrow of dollars to the grocery store to buy just what we need to survive, that's where it will end. We don't have to go there. We are choosing to go there. And it doesn't have to be that way.

Another one of the gentlemen said, Well, we need to move on so we can make investments, investments in education, investments in infrastructure. And he's right. The world is leaving us behind. He's right. But we only have so much money. So we have to prioritize, Mr. Speaker. We must prioritize. And that's what this is about. We said, We've only got so much; and if you want to spend a bunch more on education and on infrastructure so we can compete, then you are not going to have as much money to spend on some other things.

But nobody wants to make that distinction. Nobody wants to choose in this place.

Some of us, reluctantly, because it's unpleasant, but reluctantly we know it is your duty and so we are forced to choose, and we are ready to choose. I say it's doing nothing because passing a clean CR will do nothing to fix our $17 trillion debt and our $1 trillion annual deficits. It will do nothing.

So I will go home to my constituents, to the people that elected me, and they'll say, What did you get accomplished? And I will say nothing?

I won't say nothing. No, I will say I tried. I might fail. I might fail, but I'm not going down on my knees, Mr. Speaker. I'm going down, if I go down, I'll go down fighting, because I can't do nothing.

I don't want to see a government shutdown. Nobody in this place wants to see it. It's not good for this side, it's not good for that side, it's not good for the American people. It is not good. We acknowledge that.

But why should anyone believe the concerns about debt and deficit will be discussed when they haven't been discussed in the 5 years?

And to be clear and to be honest, they haven't been discussed really ever. Republicans, Democrats, nobody wants to touch it.

I've got a mother on Social Security, Medicare. I don't want to see her out on the street. I will take care of my mother. That's what we do in our family. We will not let that happen.

But some people don't have that option. I don't want to see it go bankrupt. But right now, Social Security Disability, that portion of Social Security, the last report I saw, will be bankrupt in a year and a half. In a year and a half.

Social Security, 10, 15 years behind it. Medicare, Medicaid, bankrupting our Nation. And we're doing nothing. We're doing nothing.

We can't do nothing. And so we must discuss it. We must get to the issue.

So we can't agree to this thing where the other side says, just pass it. Let us spend as much as we want to, and we promise you that we'll come to the negotiation table and talk to you about the things that are important to you.

With all due respect, they haven't been important enough in the last 5 years or the last 20 years; and so we have no reason to believe, I have no reason to believe that they will.

And those who say that one side is doing this for partisan reasons, for political gain, I ask, what political gain?

What is the upside?

What is the upside for me, any of us?

There is none. The Representatives in this body who disagree with passing a clean CR are putting themselves at peril for love of country and love of the future.

I've got two little girls, two little girls that I'm desperate to have the same opportunities that I had. When I grew up, our house didn't have electricity. We didn't have running water. My parents were often unemployed. Me and my brother ate some strange things just to eat because we didn't know any better. We did okay. And we made a life for ourselves, but we had an opportunity in America.

But that opportunity is going to slip away from us because of the way we are handling our fiscal house.

Look at what will happen if we continue without adjusting course. I would argue that the first people that would lose their jobs under this situation are government workers.

When we can no longer borrow from the Chinese, when we can no longer borrow from ourselves, Social Security, the Social Security trust fund, part of that $900 billion that they're going to ask us to raise the debt ceiling so we continue to borrow is coming out of the Social Security trust fund. Who agrees with that?

I don't know one American that says that's okay. And somehow this is the only place in the world where it would be okay.

But government employees, just like in Greece, when they ran out of money, when they ran out finally, the first ones to go--not for a week, not for a couple of days, gone. The job is gone. You are no longer working. You have no job. There's nothing to come back to.

We don't have to do it. We don't have to. We can make a choice now. We're

saying turn the ship around on a dime. We're saying turn the wheel a little bit, just a little bit, and let's start heading to the course of correction.

But voting for a clean CR says just keep going, just keep going. Don't worry about the torpedos, don't worry about the iceberg, just keep going.

So just like in Cyprus, we'll come home to find out the banks under Federal control and Federal order will have removed the money from our savings account. They'll just do it. That's what they did in that country because they ended up where we're going.

Why would we do it?

Now, those who say they want a clean CR, they are patriots. I know that. They are hearing from their constituents. I've had constituents come in, crying, literally crying in my office, and we talked about the situation.

Those folks that want a vote on a clean CR, they are patriots too. They want to fix it; they just want to do it now.

But I would say that it is time to do the hard right because for too long the easy wrong has been done. I don't know when they want to do something, but I want to do it now because I don't think we can wait.

Now, we have offered our ideas and we have asked for their ideas. We have offered them. We understand and respect the other side disagrees with our solution.

We had four votes in this House before this government shut down, four bipartisan votes. People on both sides of the aisle voted four times for something.

But the Senate disagrees. The President disagrees. I respect they disagree. I respect that they don't like our solution. It is their prerogative, and maybe it's their duty.

All we're saying is okay, fine. You disagree. I get it.

What's your idea?

What's your solution?

The solution should not be nothing. The solution from them has been no. Now go about your business and come up with what we want.

It just seems like not negotiating--if I had a fight with my wife, if I had a dispute with my daughter, I never want to go to bed angry at my family, and I never want my family to go to bed angry with me. Before the day's done, we're going to sit down at the table, and we're going to talk about it.

We might go to bed a little sore with each other, but we love each other and we love this country, and so it's imperative that we stay with each other to work through it.

We understand and respect the other side. We understand that they don't want to do anything with ObamaCare, but ObamaCare adds $2 trillion to $3 trillion to our national debt. So if you don't want to do anything about that, fine. What do you want to do?

That's all I'm asking. That's all we're asking. What do you want to do?

Some say, well, you need to raise taxes. ObamaCare raised taxes; I think it was the largest tax increase in history.

Okay. So we did that. And that wasn't enough, so just last December, when I wasn't here, another $650 billion in taxes on an economy that's struggling to get through, 1 to 2 percent growth.

We're choosing this, and I don't think we have to.

Do you know, Mr. Speaker, that we're taking in more tax revenue right now, right now, than ever before in history?

There's more money coming in now than ever before, and we're $1 trillion apart every year. I mean, how much more can we take?

Should we just take it all?

I mean, that's another form of government. It's been done. It doesn't work out real well.

Well, some will say, well, cut the military. Well, this place cut the military about $1.2 trillion over the last year and a half. And for me, the Constitution says provide, it uses that word, provide for the common defense, Mr. Speaker.

The line below it is promote the general welfare. Words mean things. We have a duty to provide for it.

Certainly, there are inefficiencies. I've been in the military. I've served, and I know they're there. And it's right to take a look. Everything needs to be on the table.

But how much more, and how much do we enfeeble ourselves and disable our ability to do our constitutional requirement, which is to protect the citizenry?

It is our requirement.

Now, we passed a bunch of bills in the House here; and, to tell the you truth, I kind of like it. We're moving towards the CR one piece at a time, so I don't have to vote for things that I don't think we should spend money on for the sake of the things that we must spend money on.

Mr. Speaker, it's not optimal, but it's a way to get there. But, like, for cancer research for kids, we passed that out of the House, and the leader of the Senate says, when asked, well, why won't you pass it? He says, well, why would we want to do that?

My goodness, why wouldn't we want to do that?

That's where we have consensus. We have some consensus.

And another gentleman questioned why Congress has the right to pick and choose what gets funded. Isn't it astounding that someone in the Senate doesn't understand that not only is it the right of Congress to do that, but it's our duty. That's what we're here to do. That's what we're supposed to do.

We have offered numerous ideas. The Senate says no. They don't say no--but. They just say no.

Refusing to negotiate is, to my mind, irresponsible. I mean, I don't know if they're here for themselves or the greater good of Nation when I hear reports--I don't know if they're true--but they're reported in the newspapers that the park rangers are told make it as difficult as possible.

And when I see the World War II Memorial, when I went out on the Mall this morning, the World War II Memorial barricaded up. It costs more money to close it than it does to leave it open.

I saw a cone out on one the streets with barricades all around the cone in the middle of the street. I mean, why are we renting barricades?

And on the Mall adjacent to the street that's closed because it's a Federal park area, there's an immigration rally that's being supported by the Park Police.

What's happening, Mr. Speaker?

The Grand Canyon, closed. I guess you can't walk up to the rim and look over. The State offered to pay the bill, and the Federal Government said, no, we don't want your money. We want to close it.

Is that reasonable?

I don't know. It's not reasonable to me.

It was The Washington Post that reported employees were to make it as inconvenient as possible.

Now, some are characterized around here as being extreme, an extreme faction. The four bills that we passed to avert the shutdown were passed by this side and that side together, four bipartisan bills.

And they say the House is being held hostage by a few Members. I don't know. Bipartisan votes on both sides seems less than extreme to me.

And I've got to ask, since when are Americans who want to see the government act within the constitutional bounds, that is, the House and the Senate, the Congress figuring out our spending level and our spending priority, when is that extreme?

Why is that extreme?

That's our job. That's the division of powers. That's the checks and balances. That's what we do. That's why we're here.

How is that extreme?

How is spending trillions of dollars more than you have now viewed as responsible?

How is talking about trying to save some money and be responsible with the taxpayers' money on our future, how is that seen as extreme?

Why is it okay to think that spending that money is okay and acceptable to most Americans?

Who gets away with that kind of behavior in their own households?

Well, you do, but not for very long, I guess.

With that I'd like to yield some time, if I could, to the fine gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert).

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.

We're talking this evening about a continuing resolution, continuing to fund our government. I find it odd that the other side is complaining about our plan, yet their plan is pass it clean. That's the Senate and the President: Pass it clean. I'm not going to negotiate. Pass it clean.

We're $17 trillion in debt, spending an average of $1 trillion more in the last 4\1/2\, 5 years than we take in. And so the answer is just continue. That's a plan.

So we've offered a plan. And we get it; we get it that you don't like it. We

don't like your plan, but we're here trying to compromise, and this amendment is part of that compromise. Yet you say work with us to make ObamaCare better, Mr. Speaker. Work with us. Yet on this, you want to complain. We're saying work with us to make the CR better. Make sure our troops and contracts, kinetic activity, are paid. Make sure that we take care of the one thing in the Constitution, the one thing that says ``provide''--because words mean things, Mr. Speaker--``provide for the common defense.'' ``Provide.''

The other phrase is ``promote.'' So we're here to make and set priorities. So we're saying as the House of Representatives, paying our military is a priority, as it should be.

Mr. Speaker, I have embarked with those soldiers, men and women overseas, and watched them leave their families, watched them leave their babies behind. I have watched them. Theirs, as we say, is not to question why; theirs is to do and die.

Please work with us. Please do not argue. Please join us and pass this amendment.

I would like to thank the gentleman from Tyler, Texas, for yielding to me.

I would just like to talk about what many Americans hear talked about in Congress but maybe can't put a face or a name to, and that is access to care. What does that mean, ``access to care''? And our claim is that ObamaCare reduces access to care. ``Access to care'' is your ability to have a doctor take care of you or some kind of practitioner take care of whatever your health care need is. I think it's important that we show examples of that.

So, as of right now, on January 1, thousands of Americans are at risk of losing their lifesaving dialysis treatments which they need to survive. We're not talking about, I need to have my bunions reconfigured. We're not talking about, I've got a skin tag or I have an upset stomach. We're talking about dialysis. People who are on dialysis must have it on a regular basis to live.

I visited a dialysis clinic with 25 machines that operate 6 days a week in the Fourth Congressional District. Mr. Speaker, 6 days a week, 25 machines, all day long people come in, and it serves primarily the underprivileged population of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which is the capital. That's its primary clientele. And the gal there that was running the place told me that on January 1, if ObamaCare continues to go through, they will cut their operating hours from 6 days to 3, 3 days a week from 6. So those 25 machines will be idle half the time that they're currently being used. That's 50 percent.

Now, Medicare payments already fall very short of covering the entire cost of this, but this clinic makes up the difference by the other paying customers. And I would ask the folks that support ObamaCare, do they really think that the rich in this Nation are going to go without access to care? We've heard about concierge medicine. The rich are going to continue to receive care one way or another. But it's the poor, it's really the abject poor that are going to suffer under this.

I just want to put some names to this. I met a Vietnam veteran named Johnny. You know, people think, Oh, if you have dialysis, you've got diabetes. You didn't take care of yourself. This man is fit, doesn't smoke, and does take care of himself, but he just happens to have diabetes. And he comes into this clinic, and he needs to come in more than once a week. So when you go from 6 days to 3 days, Johnny is going to have to look for some other way to get his dialysis.

And then there's Amy. Amy comes in a couple times a week and hooks herself up. She comes and knows it so well that the people there that are actually administering the service and the care don't have to do that work for her. She comes in and takes care of that herself so she can literally stay alive.

And then there's Chris, 34. People think, Oh, if you need dialysis, you didn't take care of yourself. You are an old person who didn't take care of yourself. Chris is 34 years old. When you go to dialysis, it's 4, 5 hours, sometimes, and more in the chair. That's a day away from work, away from family. And it's hard to sustain employment when you are gone 4 or 5 hours a day, two or three times a week to stay alive. But that's what these people must do. Chris supports himself. He is a chef in a local restaurant. He has got type 1. He's had kidney failure. So he's going to have to find another place to get his dialysis, because this place will no longer be there.

So that's what ``access to care'' means, and that's putting a face and a name to it; and that's what ObamaCare is going to do in the community that I represent, literally taking this lifesaving care away from people.

I would urge my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, to really take a look at the upcoming votes both in the Senate and in the House regarding this bill, regarding this law. It is not ready to roll out. There are significant failures of it and shortcomings. We understand it was laudable trying to find a way for every American to receive care. That is a laudable goal, and we support that.

We have a plan here in the House of Representatives. We would like the plan to be aired, but none of that is going to happen. None of that is going to happen if ObamaCare is fully implemented as is planned for in the upcoming days. None of that is going to happen. And these people that are receiving their dialysis on the west shore in the Fourth District of Pennsylvania are going to have to find some other way, literally day by day, to stay alive thanks to ObamaCare.

Madam Speaker, I rise again to sound the alarm about the train wreck that is ObamaCare. Yesterday, we learned that the world renowned Cleveland Clinic will cut 5 percent to 6 percent of its $6 billion budget and cut jobs to prepare for ObamaCare. The report said that they will cut at least $330 million from their annual budget.

Madam Speaker, I don't represent Cleveland, but I'm concerned about every single American job. At a time when we have the lowest labor- force participation rate in 35 years, does the President really want to encourage needless job loss? The Cleveland Clinic accounts for nearly 8 percent of the economic output of northeast Ohio, and we've got to wonder if sticking with a failed policy that puts these hardworking people on the street needlessly is the best we can do.

Madam Speaker, this is devastating Cleveland now, and it's going to happen in the district I represent and all other Members' districts tomorrow and in the days to follow. This isn't a partisan issue. This is an American issue. These people, they're not wondering and worried about whether they're registered Democrat or Republican. They're worried about how they're going to pay their bills, their mortgages, and education for their children. It is no way to live, and it is unnecessary.

Madam Speaker, we cannot afford to lose any more jobs because of a well-intentioned and failed policy that is ObamaCare. We need to stop this train wreck now before it costs any more American jobs.

Mr. Speaker, Under Secretary Kennedy made this statement at the House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting today:

The Department has demonstrated an unprecedented degree of

cooperation and engagement with the Congress on these issues,

especially following the attack in Benghazi. To date, the

Department has provided to the Congress the classified ARB

report and more than 25,000 pages of documents.

Secretary Kerry, testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in April, also pledged coordination with the Benghazi investigation when he stated:

I'm determined that this will be as accountable and open

State Department as it has been in the past and we will

continue to provide answers.

So the question I have for each of them is this: Why do I have to hold in my hands a handwritten transcript of an email?

Why is it that congressional investigators must hand-copy them under supervision from the other side, so to speak?

Why can't we get the documents and copy themselves?

Why must we subpoena everything?

And why are they not in compliance with any of the subpoenas?

Thank you for yielding, and I want to begin by thanking our colleague from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) for his leadership with House Resolution 36.

It should not have to come to a select and special committee to investigate this, but it's very apparent that the administration operating on point on this is doing everything they can and expending all resources to obfuscate, stonewall, and keep the truth and the facts from the American people.

And so, while we appreciate the fact that there are numerous committees in the House investigating this simultaneously, but individually, one concerted effort is probably what it's going to take, at the end of the day, to answer the call of this administration who would rather this information not be let out to the American people.

I just want to start out by saying that, you know, a year ago, a year ago on this day, Americans were waking up to or hearing about on their lunch hour that the first Ambassador in over 30 years, a United States Ambassador, had been killed on foreign shores.

And as a person who's operated in the military and as just a citizen who thinks that, look, some of this would make common sense, on the anniversary date of such a historic event and shameful event in America, that we would increase our security posture, especially overseas.

And as a person who has served overseas during 9/11, the anniversary of 9/11, I know very well that we did increase our security posture. So the fact that this happened really leads to questions as to what the heck was going on at the State Department regarding the security in Benghazi and who was making decisions.

It's disgraceful that an entire year later, despite the fact that a number of terrorists have been identified who have participated in this attack, not one of them has been brought to justice, not one.

And it's also interesting that this administration has the information, the intelligence information that it has regarding Syria. Yet while we were in Benghazi, while we had boots on the ground in Libya, a year later we don't seem to have the facts about the intelligence that occurred there.

Some questions that I have--it's my understanding that Under Secretary Kennedy will be testifying in front of the Foreign Affairs Committee on which I serve next week, and we have some questions for him.

I think the American people want to know why this administration politicized national security during an election cycle regarding the talking points, and who made that order. Who decided that? Who was at the top of that?

The reduction in security forces, again, on 9/11, it's my understanding, with an outpost like Benghazi, that it could only have come from one person. There's only one person in the State Department that is authorized to issue that reduction in security posture, and that is the Secretary.

We want to know whose signature is on the authorization. We want to know who authorized not sending help.

In the military, we don't have a stand down order. But somebody said, no, and somebody didn't contingency plan. Somebody wasn't prepared.

Now, the boots on the ground, the fine soldiers, the airmen, the men and women who would have gone into help, they were ready to go. The United States military was ready to respond. It's the chain of command that wasn't, somewhere along the line. And we want to know who made that decision.

We don't know yet what the Ambassador was doing there. Do we really know?

We've asked the question, but we don't know what his purpose was. Sure, we hear that he was there to solidify that location as an operations point for diplomatic actions and show that everything was normal in Libya again. But on 9/11 you're really going to send him there with a reduced security posture?

Folks, ladies and gentlemen, these Ambassadors don't roll in a car by themselves out to these outposts. They don't even go to their consulates by themselves. They have a security detachment of highly trained people. The vehicles they ride in are not something that you buy on the lot. These guys are loaded up, and they're ready to handle contingencies.

This is abnormal. What was he doing there?

Why does this administration continue to stonewall?

You're hearing that they're giving us everything that we ask for, the emails and so on and so forth.

Why is it that the emails come in a box, to a SCIF, a secure location, our people in the Congress, we're allowed to look at them, our investigators are allowed to look at them, transcribe information, and then the emails go back into the box under armed guard and they're taken away.

We're not allowed to copy them. We're not allowed to get them all at one time. They're meted out to us. Why is that?

If there's nothing to hide, why not have the information so we can all know what it is within the confines of security postures and operational security and security clearances?

Finally, or maybe not finally, who's accountable?

Has anybody been held accountable?

Sure, there were some four employees at the State Department that were excused from their duty for a year, or nearly a year, with pay, and then brought back in. And this is not to disparage those employees.

It's my understanding, since we haven't talked to any of them yet because we've been disallowed to talk to them, that they didn't even know they were held responsible until the day it happened, and they still haven't seen the report that says they were responsible for the reduced security posture. Nobody's been held accountable.

Why wasn't the Secretary involved in the questioning of the ARB, the Accountability Review Board?

The person at the top, not even questioned. That's like having a murder investigation in a family where the husband was having an affair and having strained relations with his wife, the wife was murdered, and he was the only one in town at the time, and not questioning that. That's what that's like.

Nobody questioned the Secretary. Really?

Was there real-time video information via drone, unarmed aerial vehicle?

We heard originally--I was in the questioning, in the hearing with the Secretary, Secretary Clinton, when she originally came earlier this spring, and she said that there was no real-time information.

Yet, on national radio, I heard a guy call into national radio who was the payload operator. And to be clear, the payload operator is not the individual flying the unarmed aerial vehicle. The payload operator is the individual that handles the camera or the weapons system.

So the individual handling the camera called into a national talk show and described what he was seeing as it was occurring. So if we had the real-time information, why weren't we acting on it?

Where is that real-time information?

Why haven't we seen it?

Finally, where was the President during this?

I mean, this is a crisis of national proportion and national security. And I know the President hasn't come before Congress to ask a question, and every time we ask anybody else the question, the answer's going to be, well, I don't know. I don't keep the President's schedule.

Why can't the American people know the facts?

We just want the truth. We just want the facts. The facts will lead us to the truth. We're not on a witch hunt. The American people deserve to know. The families of the fallen, they deserve to know what happened here.

And I know the administration is hoping that time will go by, debt ceiling, continuing resolution, ObamaCare, Syria, anything will get in the way of finding out what happened here. But we are duty-bound, ladies and gentlemen, Madam Speaker, we are duty-bound to find out this information on behalf of the American people.

I applaud you, Mr. King. Thank you for yielding the time.

I have not seen the list.

I do not.

Well, I certainly haven't seen anything that I have confidence in. There's been numerous ones put together, mostly by the side that wants to investigate, that's trying to piece it together based on open-source information.

We have no knowledge of anything in the Situation Room in the White House.

Sure. The whole world saw that, and rightly so.

That's exactly right.

Well, there's been some conflicting reports between, again, open source, between the rebels, and

then he went to the hospital and was picked up by some of the folks from Tripoli; but then he wasn't there, and they--there's nothing congruent in that.

I'm not sure the custody, the chain of custody regarding the Ambassador's body. We're pretty sure we know what happened to it, and it's very unpleasant. But again, without an autopsy we can't even be sure of that.

Well, in the interest of national security, you're in a dilemma. You've taken an oath and you do have a confidentiality requirement. However, I would also say there is a compelling reason for you to provide information to the American people and certainly to the Congress.

I know that the Foreign Affairs Committee has set up hearings with some of these folks and they have said they were coming, and then, miraculously and mysteriously, they declined between the time they said they were coming and the time they were supposed to appear. And so we're not sure why they would agree to it at the onset and then decide to change their mind hence. I think it's a very compelling question. But I think in the interest of finding out the truth, they would be compelled to testify under oath.

There's no doubt in America's mind, the world's mind. Libyan intelligence knew it within 24 hours.

And we have the fact that our Ambassador, which--by the way, I must say that it besmirches her credibility, the President's credibility, the administration's credibility, including the recent activities regarding Syrian foreign policy and decisionmaking, to go out for weeks on end, including the President, and issue talking points that they clearly knew were false. They knew they were false, and the world knows they're false now. Most of the world knew they were false then.

This was not a spontaneous eruption of violence, including RPGs and a coordinated attack. Coordinating the attack requires planning. It requires resourcing. That didn't happen in a few moment's time over a video, which maybe that gentleman is still in prison to this day. The only person held accountable for this, I think, is arguably somebody who had absolutely nothing to do with this.

Since the Ambassador himself and his deputy both reported it was a real-time, coordinated attack, not a spontaneous demonstration, I'm very certain in my heart and my mind that the administration knew what was happening.

Again, we want to know who changed the talking points. I don't want to indict her if she was given the talking points. But at the level she was operating, she either should have known or corroborated the talking points. And so, to a certain extent, I think she's culpable, and it's reasonable to expect that she did know the talking points were changed and she was misleading the public.

I did.

Again, I suggest that the administration has a trust and confidence issue not only with this Congress but with the American people, and that is one of the reasons. You can't send somebody out at the top levels of government to provide information on such a sensitive issue as potentially going to war or an act of war whose credibility has been diminished by her own actions and the actions of this administration. So I think that that trust and confidence has been eroded because of prior actions, particularly with Benghazi and Libya.

We've seen no evidence. We've been given no evidence. We have asked the questions directly and been denied.

Denied any answers.

He may be. I'm not sure. He may be out of jail. But I know he was held accountable at some point, and he literally did go to jail. And I would say it's arguable that he had absolutely anything to do with this or anything else.

Like I said, you don't just bring heavy weapons like RPGs and things of this sort to a spontaneous eruption and demonstration. Like I said, it requires resourcing, ammunition.

This thing went on for hours and hours with heavy weapons. You just don't show up with a belt-fed weapon and the ammunition to support it on a whim. This is something that's heavy to carry. The ammunition is heavy to carry. It requires vehicles and people and coordination and what we call fields of fire, so you don't shoot the friendly; you only shoot the enemy. This coordination takes effort and time. It doesn't happen in a minute or two.

Absolutely. A mortar is what we call an indirect fire method weapon. You don't necessarily have to see the target. You lob the round into the target. So it requires coordination and known points of where the mortar is located versus where the target is located. You have to shoot the right angle and the right azimuth.

It's not just something that's done capriciously or quickly. There's a thing called a baseplate, which holds this mortar tube. It has to be carried. It usually takes several men or a vehicle, depending on the size of the mortar. And then there's the ammunition that comes in cases. It's not something that you just carry around in your pocket. It's heavy. And you're not just shooting one, so multiple cases.

Again, logistics and support for this, planning for this. Of course, like you said, the planning on multiple locations of attack. They would have to know that. They would have to know the location of where it is, of course, and where their firing point was for the best field of fire and security from opposing fire.

Of course, I think the Ambassador described all this in his phone calls. Our troops on the ground, some of them who perished, lasered the target, expecting support from the United States, from what they knew. You never go without knowing who your support is going to be, what your backup plan is. These folks fully expected some guided munitions to come take out the assault, but it never came.

And so there's no doubt in my mind that this was a coordinated, well- prepared attack, and there's also no doubt in my mind that the administration knew this very early on. Maybe if they didn't know it within 24 hours, they certainly knew it within the span of a week. But the misleading of the American public went on for weeks.

Well, a mortar is what we call an area weapon, so you're not going to shoot a mortar into a window. But what they fire on, they sometimes shoot long, they shoot over, or they shoot short. So they bracket it. They adjust the tube back and forth until they get it to range. But if you have a known point that you're firing from and a known point that you you're firing to, you can do that with much greater accuracy in much less time.

I would suggest that they had that all figured out when they showed up, which is how they were able to deliver rounds on the target immediately.

Absolutely. You must know that it takes multiple, what we call, registration rounds and so on and so forth to bracket a target, multiple iterations of firing the tube or the mortar to hit the target. I'm talking half a dozen, a dozen times, and it's very precise.

So they knew exactly what they were doing. They had this planned well in advance, in my opinion.

Well, you are absolutely right, Mr. King. As you already stated, the American people deserve to know.

Scarcely 6 weeks ago, I talked to some of the families of the fallen who have not, since that fateful day nearly--well, it's a year ago now; then it was just nearly a year--have still not gotten any answers from the administration. As a matter of fact, the administration doesn't talk to them at all. They're coming into Congress asking us to find answers.

I would ask the American people: Is that how you want the people that serve this country overseas in very dangerous situations to be treated? Some of these are former military members serving in this capacity as security detail for the Ambassador, or that just picked up and went to the fight, even though they were told not to, and gave their lives. Their lives were taken from them. And this is how their families are being treated. They're dead, and their families are getting no resolution. They're getting no closure on this thing. And it's at the hands of this Federal Government and this administration. It's reprehensible. And it can be stopped immediately if they would just answer the questions that we have, that all Americans have.

I would ask, Mr. King, we were told that there wasn't adequate time, that reinforcements and help were too far away. How did the administration know how long this was going to take, how long this attack was going to go on for? Because when the calls came from the Ambassador, it was hours and hours later until he perished, until others perished. During that period of time, we could have sent people on the way. Maybe they would have never gotten there in time, and maybe that's still a failure in planning, but I think the American people could forgive the mistake with the effort. But the effort wasn't made at all.

And I wonder who made the determination that this is going to end in 2 hours or 3 hours or 10 hours or 10 minutes and said, No, we're not going to send anybody because it's going to be over. How did they know that? I would suggest they never knew that because they never had any intention of sending anybody because they never had any plan. They never expected this, they never wanted this, and they hoped it would go away quietly into the night. That's what I would suggest.

I would like to pose a question to you based on what you've seen regarding Syria and Benghazi and Libya, the classified briefings and your travels.

This administration reported to us that Syria had used chemical weapons 11 times previously. On the 12th time, we want to send a message that that's not okay--and it's not okay, let's be clear about that. But why didn't we send a message and why haven't we sent a message that it's not okay to kill a United States Ambassador? When is that message going to be sent?

I would just like to get your thoughts on that and the dichotomy and the lack of parallel in some kind of strategy and foreign policy that is congruent and makes sense to our allies and our adversaries.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 1, rule I, I demand a vote on agreeing to the Speaker's approval of the Journal.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, I remember the morning of September 11, 2001, like it was just yesterday. The horror affected everyone in different ways, and each of us remember where we were and whom we were with on that fateful day.

I remember trying to get home from work. I remember turning on the TV. I remember the second plane hitting the second tower. And I remember my rage.

While America has begun to heal from the wounds of those cowardly and terrifying acts over the last decade, the scars remain. With each passing year, this anniversary serves as a moment for reflection and a time to remember the brave and selfless acts of our first responders and the ordinary citizens who committed extraordinary acts of heroism. Most importantly, we will never forget the thousands of innocent people who died in New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

So today, I join my fellow Americans in prayer in remembrance of those who lost their lives on that fateful day. I also will pause to remember the selfless men and women at home and abroad defending our freedoms and liberties to prevent such a horrific day ever again from occurring.

Today--and always--Americans will not forget.