Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to a Maryland hero and my dear friend, Chief William `Bill' Goddard III of Huntingtown, Maryland, who passed away September 1. I was fortunate to meet Bill many years ago, when he was serving as Deputy Chief at the Prince George's County Fire Department, and it was a privilege to watch him take on so many roles in public service over the years and to work closely with him on matters critical to the safety of Fifth District residents and all Marylanders.

He began his life of contribution at the age of seventeen, serving in the Navy during the Vietnam War. After returning home, Bill became a volunteer firefighter at the Glen Dale Fire Association. From there, he moved on to the Prince George's County Fire Department, where he rose to the rank of Deputy Chief before leaving to serve the people of Maryland as Executive Officer for the State Fire Marshal. In the years that followed, he held various positions in our state government, from Deputy Secretary of State, to Director of the Governor's Board of Public Works, to Chief of Staff at the Maryland Department of Transportation. As we continue to mark the twentieth anniversary of 9/ 11, I would be remiss not to acknowledge Bill's key role as a state safety official on that fateful day and in the months that followed, providing guidance and expertise on preventing terrorism and ensuring public safety.

Bill had wanted to be a firefighter since he was fourteen years old, and his commitment to the job and the responsibilities it held never wavered. He said the saddest day of his life was when he retired from the fire service, and he didn't stay away long. When he got the call to serve again in 2009, Bill donned his uniform once more as Fire Chief and Emergency Manager for Howard County. In 2018, after retiring once more, he accepted an appointment as the City Administrator for Laurel, Maryland, returning again to public service.

In each of his roles, Bill was a tireless advocate for others. Wherever there was need, he never hesitated to give of himself and encourage others to do the same. He was a true public servant in every sense of the term, and an irreplaceable community leader.

More than that, Bill was a loving husband and father, and he was a cherished friend to me and so many others. All of us who served Marylanders alongside him and who knew him well share our deepest condolences with his beloved wife Marie, with his children--Kellie, Jordyn, Emily, and Stephen--and with his stepdaughter Brandi. We are grateful that they shared Bill with us all those years. Marie was truly a partner to Bill in public service, and she continues to give so much of her time and energy to their community.

I am grateful to have known and worked with Bill, and I hope that all of my colleagues will join me in paying tribute to his life and legacy. Keeping him in my thoughts, I will continue to fight for the health and safety of firefighters in Maryland and across our country, on whose behalf he advocated so tirelessly and effectively.

Madam Speaker, I thank the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee for yielding. As you can tell, he is a good friend of mine, and he uses hyperbole in introducing me. I appreciate that.

The ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee just made a comment. I don't think anybody has clean hands on this issue. I tell the ranking member, I don't think anybody has clean hands. I don't know the exact voting pattern of the ranking member. I think he probably has been on both sides of this issue himself. I think I have been.

But I will tell the ranking member, if I am here when there is a Republican President--and I do not wish for that end, of course. But if I am here, I want to guarantee you that I will vote to lift the debt limit--guarantee you.

I said 3 years ago, I would never vote against raising the debt limit and keeping America's creditworthy status, never. In my view, it is intellectually dishonest to do so.

This is a phony issue, and anybody who is intellectually honest with themselves knows it is a phony issue because it has no relationship to what the debt is. The debt relates to when we cut revenues or spend money, not some arbitrary limit that we theoretically put on our debt. We ought to be honest with the American public because too many people demagogue about this issue.

Madam Speaker, on Monday, Senate Republicans voted against keeping the government open and paying the bills that our Nation has already incurred. That was not a reflection of responsible opposition in a democracy.

We talk about the loyal opposition. The loyal opposition ought not to be loyal to the majority, but they ought to be loyal to the country. Instead, their vote is a reckless and irrational action that signaled very clearly to the American people, the financial markets, and the international community that Republicans would choose to precipitate an economic catastrophe for American businesses and families to score political points against President Biden and Democrats. That is what is happening here today.

Three times over the past 4 years, House and Senate Republicans voted to suspend the debt limit when President Trump asked them to do so. I have no idea what President Trump is asking people to do at this point in time, but my experience is it is not the responsible thing.

Madam Speaker, when they asked Democrats for our help taking that needed step in order to prevent a catastrophic default, we joined with them to vote for it.

When Speaker Boehner could only get 78 of his colleagues to vote with him to maintain fiscal responsibility in this country, only 78--I guess 77 because he was the 78th--would follow. And how did those bills carry? Because we, in the minority, joined with Speaker Boehner.

When Speaker Ryan did the same thing, couldn't get the majority of his own colleagues to back him, we gave the necessary votes to pursue and to ensure fiscal responsibility. Why? Because it was the right thing to do, because it was the necessary and responsible thing to do.

Treasury Secretary Yellen told us yesterday that we will run out of extraordinary measures to forestall a default on October 18. That is fewer than 20 days from today.

Yet, we talk about partisanship, and we accuse others of not doing it one time or not doing it another time. This is the one time. This is our time. This is the time that the vote presents itself to us to keep America's creditworthy status and to prohibit a national and international crisis.

There is an urgency to our action, and we twiddle our partisan thumbs.

Leader McConnell, I am sure, has been quoted frequently. I haven't heard all the debate, but frequently. ``Let me make it perfectly clear. The country must never default. The debt ceiling will need to be raised.'' That is his quote.

Now, what he didn't add was: But I am not going to help. But I am going to ask my party to be irresponsible. But I am going to ask my party not to do what I say should never happen and allow the country to default.

I don't know how you rationalize that. I don't know how anybody with intellectual honesty rationalizes that, Madam Speaker, that you think we must never default, but by the way, I won't vote for it.

What does that mean? What kind of language is that? What kind of lack of principle is that?

In order to give him and his fellow Republicans one last opportunity to prevent a default at a time when our recovery from the pandemic is not yet complete and still quite fragile, today, we are considering a clean debt limit suspension, not a number, just a date, which is, by the way, what both Republicans and Democrats have used in the past.

The bill before us simply says the United States of America will pay its bills on time. What a radical proposition.

Yet, our Republican friends cannot summon the intention to do just that. If Senate Republicans still cannot be consistent with their own votes from the past 4 years, they can stand aside and, as Leader McConnell has suggested, vote for cloture to allow Democrats to pass the bill with 51 votes. At least do that. At least have the courage to allow others to display the courage of standing up and voting for what they know is absolutely essential and what they have said is absolutely essential.

But if you believe that the full faith and credit of our country is worth safeguarding, that our businesses and working families deserve to be spared unnecessary economic pain, then vote ``yes'' on both sides of the aisle.

This is not a partisan vote. This is an American vote. This is for our country. This is for our fiscal responsibility. This is for fiscal stability. This is for families.

Don't twiddle your thumbs and say it is a partisan vote. It is not.

A ``yes'' vote on this bill is not a victory for Democrats or for the President. It is the responsible thing to do and a victory for our country. Although we ought never to get to this place, we get to it all time, because we

play these silly, partisan, pedantic, weak, meritless arguments.

Everybody knows we have to do this. To sit there and say, ``Well, I am not going to do it'' is not fulfilling the oath to defend and protect this great Nation and this great democracy.

Mr. Speaker, first I want to thank probably the most knowledgeable Member of Congress about infrastructure in this country and our needs, Mr. DeFazio, the chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

He and his committee, Mr. Speaker, and members of his staff have worked very long and very late hours over the past 2 years--and, frankly, longer than that, going back to the 116th Congress and the 115th Congress--to produce the legislation that served as a basis for this bipartisan bill. I also thank Chairman Pallone and the members and the staff of the Energy and Commerce Committee, who contributed a great deal as well.

Mr. Speaker, during the course of the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump said he was going to invest a trillion dollars in infrastructure--a trillion dollars. In 2017, he became the President of the United States, and in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, no trillion-dollar infrastructure bill was offered to this House or to the Congress.

Mr. DeFazio, myself, the Speaker, and other leaders went down and met with President Trump. Mr. DeFazio was talking about the trillion dollars that the President talked about. He really thought there was probably more needed, but he was talking about the trillion dollars. The President said dismiss that, that is too little. It is not enough. We need at least $2 trillion--President Trump, 2019.

What we have before us today, Mr. Speaker, is a product that reflects the needs of our economy, an infrastructure system in dire need of upgrade and expansion, and addresses some, but by no means all, of the realities of the climate crisis we face.

In fact, a bill which did a much better job passed this House, led by Mr. DeFazio. Unfortunately, it was not subject to conference, which is what the process ought to be.

However, this bill would enable our businesses to seize on the opportunities presented by those challenges and to create millions of good, new jobs in the process.

And I thank Mr. DeFazio for his leadership and advocacy.

We have before us legislation that will invest more than $1 trillion in transportation networks--half of what President Trump said we ought to be doing, but a very significant step nonetheless--in expanding broadband access, in addressing climate change, and in helping our communities build back better and more resilient.

It would enact a major component of President Biden's Build Back Better agenda. This is part and parcel of the whole. This is a segment of what the President has rightfully called generational, transformational change.

I hope we can come together and pass this legislation, Mr. Speaker, with strong support from Democrats and Republicans. The Republicans have been browbeaten into opposing this bill, not because of substantive reasons, but for political reasons so that President Biden will not have a victory. But that perspective is incorrect. The people who will not have a victory are the American people.

I hope we come together, as I said, to pass this legislation in a bipartisan fashion to help our businesses and working families make it in America. I use those words on purpose because I have been talking about making it in America for over a decade.

I have been proud, for many years, to lead House Democrats' Make It In America plan for jobs and opportunities, a plan with three core components: infrastructure, this bill; and education, the bill to come, although this has significant training in here for workers to get good jobs and good-paying jobs. It is a plan with also another core, and that is entrepreneurship.

Infrastructure has been central to our Make It In America plan since I first put it on the table in 2010. That is because momentum has been building for these investments in infrastructure for many years. As a matter of fact, then-candidate Joe Biden called me up and said: I want to talk to you about Make It In America.

We talked about it, and it is in our Democratic platform, Make It In America.

I don't know anybody who is not for making it in America, either manufacturing, even if it is zeros and ones, or succeeding, making it in America.

Businesses, labor, economists, and State and local leaders have been clamoring for Congress to do exactly what we are about to do today with this vote. And when I say ``exactly,'' they would like more. I think they would have liked the House bill, Mr. DeFazio's bill, much better. But none of us get perfect, and this is a bipartisan bill.

Our Make It In America plan has called for multiyear, fully funded authorizations to address the backlog of projects both for transportation and for water infrastructure, and that is what Mr. DeFazio has been leading on.

This bill includes a 5-year, $110 billion authorization for highways, roads, and bridges; $39 billion for transit; and $55 billion in water infrastructure to literally get the lead out and make our water safe to drink.

It calls for making our electricity grid more resilient and more reliable, which we included in Make It In America. This bill invests $78 billion to do exactly that and creates a new grid deployment authority to promote innovation and smart-grid technologies. That is about our national security. That is a national security demand on us.

In the Make It In America agenda, we challenged Congress to promote a modern energy infrastructure that reduces waste and incentivizes storage and alternative forms of energy for vehicles. That is what Mr. DeFazio did in the bill that we passed. It is not as good, I think, but that is what is in this bill.

The $7.5 billion included in this legislation for building an electric vehicle charging infrastructure in America, particularly in rural, disadvantaged, and hard-to-reach communities, meets that challenge. That is why 40 percent of the Republicans in the United States Senate voted for it.

When House Democrats traveled across the country listening to the American people over the last few years, we heard what they need to make it in America. We heard about the need to expand access to high- speed internet, including deployment of 5G wireless infrastructure. That is what Mr. DeFazio did, and that is what this Senate bill does. This bill achieves those goals by including $65 billion to bring broadband access to nearly all Americans by auctioning new spectrum for 5G wireless. That is what Whip Clyburn was talking about, making sure that all of us can make it in America because we have access to the internet.

It is also about education, and we have called for reforms that allow for stackable credentials for students preparing for the workforce as well as those already in the workforce looking to get ahead by learning new skills.

This bill before us today includes provisions that provide States with flexibility in how they use funding to strengthen workforce development. We all talk about that. It helps more people train for in- demand skills, such as engineering.

In so many ways, the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is a product of House Democrats--Mr. DeFazio, Mr. Scott, Mr. Pallone, Mr. Neal--and, yes, many Republicans who have also talked about making it in America.

We have been united in promoting this agenda for 10 years, and now we have the chance to effect a large portion of it.

Mr. Trump talked about it; he just didn't do it.

This legislation, of course, is just one-half of an even larger effort, as I said, by President Biden and Democrats to achieve that objective of helping our people make it in America.

The other piece is the Build Back Better Act. That legislation, which is progressing steadily toward consideration on the floor, would enact the remainder of President Biden and Democrats' domestic agenda, including major efforts to address the climate crisis and reforms that will help millions of American families achieve economic security.

We all talk about being pro-family. That is pro-family. Childcare is pro-family. Earned income tax credit is pro-family. Expanding Medicaid is pro-family. So much. And if we are pro-family, we need to support those items.

While the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act makes investments toward tackling the climate crisis, the Build Back Better Act will take the steps needed to transition our economy to clean energy in line with the President's commitment to the Paris climate agreement and Mr. DeFazio's bill that we passed through this House.

Where this legislation today invests in our Nation's physical infrastructure, the Build Back Better Act makes investment in America's human infrastructure.

When I go to a building and cut a ribbon at some base or whatever, I say that is very nice, this physical structure, but if we build great bricks and mortar but don't have people who can do the job, we build in vain.

In our working families, in our communities, that is what we invest in, in opportunities for hardworking Americans to get ahead.

We are moving steadily ahead with that bill, and I am hopeful that we are nearing the finish line. I look forward to bringing that bill, the Build Back Better Act, to the floor soon.

Mr. Speaker, I believe Democrats will demonstrate unity on both pieces of legislation as we put President Biden and congressional Democrats' agenda into action. Let's get it done. Vote ``yes.''

Madam Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding.

This is a serious issue. Some would say it is an issue about freedom, about individual integrity, as to who makes choices. I hear a lot about freedom, about government not interfering.

Madam Speaker, millions of women across our country and the men who stand with them are in shock and outrage at the new law in Texas and the Supreme Court's refusal to block it from taking effect. Texas senate bill 8 bans any abortion after 6 weeks. That is, of course, before most women know that they are pregnant.

It includes no exceptions for rape or incest. What do you think the psychological impact on the health of a woman is if you don't think this is about the health of women?

As many as 90 percent of women seeking reproductive care in Texas do so after 6 weeks, meaning that this law effectively bans women in the State from accessing the full range of reproductive care that they are guaranteed under Roe v. Wade. Now, my presumption is, of course, most speaking against this are not for and didn't support and would like to see Roe v. Wade repealed.

Also deeply disturbing is the way senate bill 8 is enforced. The law gives any private individual the authority to police any of their fellow citizens whom they suspect may be providing for or receiving reproductive care. How draconian, how communistic, how authoritarian such a scheme is.

This vigilante system is at odds with the values of American democracy, reminiscent of the kind of tactics previously used behind the Iron Curtain and still employed by totalitarian regimes.

The bill before us today would enshrine in statute the rights women are guaranteed under Roe v. Wade that the majority of Americans support at a time when they are increasingly under attack.

Statistics released in June by the Guttmacher Institute showed that over 500 bills restricting women's healthcare access had already been introduced since the start of this year in State legislatures; and as of last month, nearly 100 of those had been enacted.

The policies enacted by senate bill 8 and similar measures in other States under Republican control not only have the effect of eliminating access to reproductive choice, but also to a range of lifesaving healthcare services for women, particularly for low-income women.

This will probably not affect many wealthy women who can get in their car or get on the airplane and go wherever they might go. So opposition to this bill is directly discriminatory to women of less means to their healthcare. These range from cancer screenings to prenatal visits; from treating injuries to referring patients to counseling after trauma like sexual assault.

According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, nearly 90 percent of American counties do not have a single reproductive care provider.

For many women, the health clinics that provide these services are their primary source of healthcare. Measures like senate bill 8 are forcing many of these clinics to shut down.

Our country ought to be working to expand these resources for women, not make the healthcare harder to access.

We know that S.B. 8 and similar laws being enacted across the country will not stop women from seeking the full range of reproductive care. You know that. Back to the hanger, perhaps, and the death of scores, thousands, perhaps, of women who see no alternative.

The Women's Health Protection Act is a necessary response to Republicans' efforts to make it harder for women to access healthcare across the country. I thank Judy Chu for leading this effort. I am grateful to Congresswoman Chu for authoring this legislation and championing this cause.

I am the father of three daughters, the grandfather of two granddaughters, and the great-grandfather of three great- granddaughters. I, frankly, do not want any of us making decisions for their healthcare.

Democrats are committed to taking action to secure Roe v. Wade and to protect women's access to reproductive healthcare no matter where they live.

The Women's Health Protection Act is a critical step in securing that ability for millions of American women, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at 12 p.m. for morning-hour and 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m.

On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning-hour and 12 p.m. for legislative business.

On Friday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business.

Mr. Speaker, the House will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. The complete list of suspension bills will be announced by the close of business today.

Mr. Speaker, the Budget Committee has announced a markup for the Build

Back Better Act for tomorrow and Saturday. It is my intention to bring it to the floor next week.

This legislation will help move tens of millions of Americans closer to economic security while also making transformational investments in making childcare more affordable, helping Americans access healthcare, and addressing climate change with the seriousness that it deserves and demands.

On September 27, pursuant to the rule passed on August 24, the House will consider the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. This legislation passed the Senate on a bipartisan basis last month and would create millions of good jobs all across America by investing in critical infrastructure.

That bill and the Build Back Better America Act are the essence of the vision and program that has been proposed by President Biden, which, as I said, will grow millions of jobs and make the lives of Americans more secure and safer.

Mr. Speaker, if time allows, the House may also consider three bills from the Committee on Education and Labor:

H.R. 3110, the PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act, which amends the Fair Labor Standards Act to provide workplace protections for mothers to pump breast milk in the workplace.

H.R. 3992, the Protect Older Job Applicants Act, which allows applicants to bring a disparate claim under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 when they experience age discrimination while seeking a job.

In addition, H.R. 2119, the Family Violence Prevention and Services Improvement Act of 2021, which modifies, expands, and reauthorizes the fiscal year 2026 Family Violence and Prevention Services program, which funds emergency shelters and supports related assistance for victims of domestic violence.

Mr. Speaker, lastly, there may be additional legislative items as possible and as necessary.

The Budget Committee is going to take it up tomorrow. They don't need a CBO score for that. The Budget Committee chairman is seeking a CBO score as soon as that can be attained, but I don't know that particular date that that will occur.

Clearly, this bill has been under consideration for a very long period of time, and the President proposed it a very long time ago, in the early part of this year. So it is something that the CBO has been considering, that the committee has been considering. Hopefully, the CBO can produce a score relatively quickly. But I don't, in answer to the gentleman's question, have a specific time or date.

Mr. Speaker, it is my expectation that we will be getting a score. I want to tell the gentleman it is also my understanding that the expenditures that will be proposed will be paid for.

New revenue.

As I said, the Committee on Ways and Means and the Committee on Finance have worked on revenues to pay for what we are going to buy so that we do not create additional debt. That is my view, that they continue to have that intention.

There are use taxes on a lot of things, and there are also corporate taxes in that bill. There are some additional revenue items in that bill as well. But I can't tell you exactly because they have not offered a manager's amendment, which I expect to have offered at the Committee on Rules. That does not come out of the Budget Committee, as the gentleman knows.

The Budget Committee is going to put together the 12 bills and send them to the Committee on Rules, and then the Committee on Rules will act on them. I expect a manager's amendment, but I cannot predict for the gentleman what that manager's amendment will be at this point in time.

It is possible.

Well, we have to see what the Budget Committee does tomorrow.

We all will.

We will have to see how the debate goes on Monday, see how long that takes.

I have advised Members that, obviously, we have a lot of work to do and that we have scheduled a number of workweeks, committee workweeks--which, by the way, I think have been very successful. We started those in June of last year, and I think they worked out very well, giving the committees an opportunity to meet uninterrupted by having to come to the floor.

With votes, as we know, we continue to have the challenge not only of COVID but the variant, an additional illness spike, so we are still having votes longer than we otherwise would have. So I think that those work periods have worked very well, and there are some scheduled for October.

But I have also advised Members that we have a lot of work to do, and if we need more legislative time, we will provide for that, and Members will get sufficient notice for that. But I did want to put them on notice that we may have to have more floor time than is currently provided for by the committee workweek schedule.

But as soon as we have a sense of when those days will be needed, we will let Members know.

Well, obviously, the government funding authority ends on September 30 at midnight, the end of the fiscal year, and it would be our intention to deal with whatever bill the Senate sends back to us-- if, in fact, they do not take our bill--as soon as it comes to us.

We believe that it is absolutely essential not to shut down government, which is costly, disrupts the lives of the American people and those who are expecting services, and is irresponsible.

Even more irresponsible is not increasing the debt limit. I have been saddened on a regular basis that our Republican colleagues are prepared to vote for debt limits when you have a Republican President and not when you have a Democratic President, as if somehow it is the President that creates the debt.

The President doesn't create the debt. The Congress creates the debt. This is not for debt that we may create in the future. It is for debt that we have already created, either by cutting taxes, therefore cutting revenues, or by spending money.

As you know, the debt limit was substantially increased under the Trump administration in a bipartisan way. But unlike this year, Democrats joined with Republicans to ensure that the full faith and credit of the United States of America was not put at risk. And the President of the United States signed that legislation, a Republican President.

So it is, I think, very sad that our Republican friends did not join every Democrat in saying we will not put at risk the full faith and credit of the United States for debts that have been incurred.

Now, I have been here for some time, and just in terms of the public debt going up, under Bush 1, it went up 55 percent; Clinton, 37 percent; Bush 2, 86 percent; Obama, 88 percent; Trump, 39 percent.

Now, obviously, those figures all are based on a lower base than their successor had, but it is interesting that under Ronald Reagan, the debt went up 189 percent, and he signed every one of those. And he also urged us not to put the credit at risk.

In addition, on September 8, 2017, the Republican-controlled House voted 316-90 to suspend the debt limit through December 8, 2017, under a deal endorsed by President Trump. The ``yea'' votes included Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady, and Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers.

Again, on September 8, the Republican-controlled Senate voted 80-17 to suspend the debt limit through December 8, 2017. The ``yea'' votes included Majority Leader McConnell, Majority Whip Cornyn, Finance Chairman Hatch, and GOP Conference Chair John Thune all voting in favor of that.

In addition, on February 9, 2018, a year later, the Republican- controlled House voted 240-186 to suspend the debt limit through March 1, 2019. Voting ``yea'' were Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Majority Whip Steve Scalise, Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady, GOP Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, all voting for the measure.

Leader McConnell has stated that it would be irresponsible not to extend either the date or the amount of the debt limit. The business roundtable has said this: Failure to let the U.S. Federal debt limit to meet the U.S. obligations would produce an otherwise avoidable crisis and pose unacceptable risk to the Nation's economic growth, job creation, and financial markets. Goldman Sachs has essentially said the same thing, the American Bankers Association, and numerous other organizations that I can mention.

So I am sorry that earlier this week the Republicans voted unanimously against keeping the government open and making sure that we did not compromise the full faith and credit of the United States of America. But I will assure the gentleman, as soon as a bill is sent back from the Senate, that we will take that up. I hope it is a responsible bill.

I hope it does what Senator McConnell, under President Donald Trump, said ought to be done. Perhaps now that we have a Democratic President, somehow the fiscal responsibility does not seem as important as it did when Donald Trump was President, and I think that is unfortunate.

I, personally, by the way, think that the debt issue is a phony issue. There are only very, very few countries that have a debt limit. The debt limit is decided when we spend money or cut revenues, not in some other venue. And once we do that, the assumption ought to be, and I think has been, that we are going to pay our debts as a country.

And the only time we came close to not doing that was about a little less than 10 years ago, and for the first time since I have been a Member of Congress, which is over 40 years, the rating of the United States was reduced, minisculely, but nevertheless reduced. A shocking consequence of playing games with the debt limit.

So I would hope that my friend would urge his party to not treat this as either a political issue or partisan issue, and would treat it as the issue it is, an issue of the fiscal responsibility and full faith and credit to the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.

It is hard to respond, Mr. Speaker, to a not-responsive issue on why we are not voting to extend the debt limit. McConnell said he wasn't going to vote for the debt limit long before there was anything about Iron Dome. In fact, we passed Iron Dome. We passed it overwhelmingly with over 420 votes. It is now over in the Senate, and I hope they pass it immediately, which would, by the way, be faster than they would have done the CR.

Having said that, the gentleman voted for $5 trillion of debt in 2020. It wasn't paid for. We were confronting a great crisis called COVID-19. And in a bipartisan way, we passed $5.4 trillion of spending, the largest amount of spending, I think, in any year that I have been in this Congress.

We did it in a bipartisan way with the expectation that we would borrow that money to meet the emergency that confronted us, and that we would pay for that debt. It didn't have anything to do with politics. It didn't have anything to do with who was President of the United States. And all that verbiage was to mask the fact that, frankly, my Republican friends don't like voting to pay the bills.

They do like to cut revenues, whether or not they balance the budget. And the good news, from their standpoint, was they inherited an economy that was going up incrementally every year.

The gentleman talks about jobs on his tax bill. Under President Obama, who inherited a tanking economy from George Bush, not withstanding the tax cuts that they had effected, during the Obama administration we created 10,838,000 jobs. During the Trump administration 6,688 net jobs. About 35 percent less. But that is irrelevant, it is a smokescreen. It is to distract.

The fact of the matter is we have incurred debt, we have incurred it in a bipartisan way. Whether the objective was defense or whether it was domestic or tax cuts, we created the debt on behalf of the United States of America. We borrowed money and we said to our creditors: we will pay you back.

It had nothing to do with Iron Dome. The Republicans had said if the debt limit was in there, they weren't going to vote for it. They were not going to take responsibility for the debt that they, in a bipartisan way, $5.4 trillion last year, incurred, signed by Donald Trump.

Donald Trump could have stopped every nickel of that money from being spent. He did not. It was a bipartisan agreement.

I believe, although I don't have the figures in front of me, that Mr. Scalise voted for every one of those bills. He can correct me if I am wrong on that.

But the debt limit is a pretense that somehow if you vote against raising the debt limit you will somehow, Mr. Speaker, solve the debt problem of the United States.

No. The way you solve that is paying your bills.

I would urge the gentleman--I don't know what is going to come back from the Senate, but I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, my experience has been, particularly over the last, about 15 years, it has been Democrats who have responded to the fiscal responsibility call of Republican Speakers--Mr. Boehner and Mr. Ryan--who couldn't get the majority of Republicans in their own party to vote for their bill exercising fiscal responsibility. I am proud to say that Democrats were there on behalf of bills sponsored, essentially--I don't know the name of the sponsor on the bill--but supported by both Speaker Boehner and Speaker Ryan. I don't have those figures in front of me, but I can bring them up perhaps next time we talk.

So I would urge my friend, let's get off this political Biden this or--I don't even know if any of those bills have passed because I don't know what list he is reading from, but, Mr. Speaker, he lists the names of bills in Congress.

We passed the rescue plan but got no Republicans on that.

Why?

Because we were over having a Republican President. So now a Democratic President was trying to make

sure that this country didn't fall through the floorboards, that our small businesses didn't fall through the floorboards, that our families and individuals didn't fall through the floorboards, and that our childcare providers didn't fall through the floorboards. So they were through voting for those bills. They were voting for them when Trump was President but stopped voting for them when Biden was President. I get that. But the debt limit is about all of us. It is about our country.

Very frankly, as Goldman Sachs and the Business Roundtable and others have said, it is about the global economy. It is about jobs. It is about working men and women having jobs and America being competitive with the rest of the world. That is what the debt limit is about, and that is what the Business Roundtable is saying, not one of our spokes- organs. That is what the Chamber of Commerce is saying.

So, yes, we can argue the specifics, the 4 million less jobs were created under Trump than were created under Obama. We can talk about that. We can talk about a larger debt under Trump in terms of actual dollars. I am not going to talk about that.

Why?

Because we incurred them together because we needed to do so because our country was in trouble and our people were in trouble.

So I will tell the gentleman we are going to--his question was, in case we all forgot it, we probably did--that we are going to deal with the bill that comes back because we are absolutely committed to making sure that the full faith and credit of the United States is not put at risk.

I have different facts.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I will not characterize the substance of that argument. However, I believe it has no merit, Mr. Speaker, none, zero, zip.

It is as if we Democrats, when we voted three times to assure that we didn't violate the debt limit under Donald Trump, as if we would say: Well, this is not our debt, this was, after all, the debt of the tax cut of 2017, so we shouldn't pay this.

In fact, the debt, of course, like family debt, is not necessarily for the car, for the mortgage, or for the clothes that we bought for our children to go back to school. It is a cumulative debt, a cumulative debt that--by the way, under Democratic Presidents since President Truman--were increased 24 percent; under Republicans since Truman, 45 percent.

It would be ridiculous, Mr. Speaker, for me to say: Well, I am only going to pay for this debt, that debt, and this debt that I agree with.

Of course, the $5.4 trillion that Mr. Scalise and I voted for in 2020 is a part of the debt that we need to have to service now. In fact, what we of course did, we didn't increase the debt limit per se because politically that was very controversial because people demagogue it. So what we did was we changed the date, which is a ruse, which is a political sleight of hand. It has the same exact effect.

So, Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, the argument that it is not my debt and your debt and this--in fact, most of those bills haven't passed and haven't created any debt yet. I don't know the list, so I don't know whether they have been passed or some have passed. I presume, obviously, the rescue plan did pass, it wasn't paid for. Of course, it was approximately 30 percent of what Mr. Scalise and I voted for in 2020.

But, nevertheless, the debt is the debt; and not to support making sure that America legally can pay that debt is irresponsible.

I don't know the status of those bills. I will check on the status of those bills.

Let me say, Mr. Speaker, there is a tragedy occurring at our border. There are people in grievous circumstances and in unbearable danger in their home countries. That has been a case for some period of time, and we have some very bad people taking advantage of that and promising them a free route to America, taking advantage of that pain, that suffering, and that fear that so many people have, in this case Haitians who fled their own country, presumably many of them after an extraordinary earthquake and they are living in places that are not their homes.

We all talk about it, and we all believe that America is the greatest

country on the face of the Earth. It is. Therefore, it is not surprising that people who are in pain and grieving and are concerned for the future of their children want to come to the United States of America. But, clearly, we cannot take all of the people who would like to come to America.

Therefore, we need a system because America is made up of immigrants. It has been made strong by immigrants. It has been made successful by immigrants. It has been made a great country by immigrants.

My own father came from Denmark at the age of 32 in 1934. Almost everybody who serves in this House, some are immigrants themselves who came themselves to the country. Some at 2 years of age and some at other ages.

The gentleman is correct. We need to deal with this. We need to deal with it in a humanitarian way, in a way that honors our values and respect for individual lives and individual persons. That is one of the great, great differences that we celebrate in America, the importance that we put on the individual.

We said that we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal--today we clearly would say all men and women--and endowed not by us, not by our Constitution, and not by our laws, but by God. We have some of God's children who are fearful, scared, and running, running to a safer place. And that place for almost all the world is America.

So we have a responsibility, Mr. Speaker, to adopt a rational, comprehensive immigration reform regime where people will know the rules of coming to America. They will know the rules of how you apply, how you are processed, and how you are vetted. Whether you are coming here because you just want to come to America to succeed and to make your family live in a better neighborhood called America, or you are coming because your family and your are unsafe in the country in which you then reside, we need comprehensive immigration reform.

I would be glad to work very closely with my friend, the Republican whip from Louisiana, on seeing if we can get to that place because we have all been talking about it, all of us.

I think there is not a person in this room--I don't know about in this room, but over the years--who hasn't said our immigration system is broken, who hasn't said we need secure borders, who hasn't said we need secure borders and reveled in the fact that we are a nation of immigrants who have made us stronger so that we can get to a place where we pursue a rational policy for implementing that concept.

So I will tell my friend, I will look at those two or three pieces of legislation he mentioned and talk to the committee chairs about their status and let the gentleman know.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, this is not a partisan issue. Very frankly, the CR that was brought to the floor the other day would have said we are going to pay the debts of the United States because we don't welch, and we are going to fund Iron Dome.

Unfortunately, because, to a person, our Republican colleagues would have refused and said they would not vote for that resolution, and because, yes, there were a very, very few who said they wouldn't vote for it on our side, because all of you would not vote for it, and we had just a handful who would not vote, we could not pass it. So, the debt limit was at risk, and Iron Dome was at risk.

The chair of the Committee on Appropriations, Rosa DeLauro, said that won't stand. And I stood on this floor and said we are going to bring an individual bill that I hope all of us will support. Now, obviously, all of us are not supporting it. There are some few who will not support this. But the overwhelming majority of this Congress, not in a partisan way, but in an American way, will support defending the democratic State of Israel created by the United Nations of the world to be an independent, sovereign, secure nation.

Very frankly, in a bipartisan way, no nation on Earth has been more important for the survival and security and sovereignty of that nation than the United States of America. Today continues that commitment.

Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, I said we will deal with Iron Dome without delay to help defend Israel against Hamas' rocket attacks. Today, I am proud to bring this legislation to the floor and thank not only Chair DeLauro but I also thank many who have spoken, certainly, my friend Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Mr. Deutch, Mr. Schneider, and others who have talked to me about this issue.

We bring this bill to the floor with the expectation that it will be overwhelmingly passed because we will put behind us partisanship.

Support for Israel has traditionally and must always be a bipartisan issue. That is because we overwhelmingly recognize the fundamental right of the Jewish people to live independently in their ancestral homeland and to do so in peace and security.

Since its founding--a millennia ago, in some respects--more particularly, politically, 1948 to today, Israel has been under constant threat and attack from those who would deny its right to exist--not about offensive actions that they took, not about this action that they took, to deny their very right to exist.

As we continue to stand up for a two-state solution that achieves peace, security, hope, and opportunity for both Israelis and Palestinians, we vigorously, strongly, unshakably, stand for Israel's right to defend itself against terrorism.

Make no mistake: Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations bent on murder and genocide and eliminating Israel from that map of which Mr. Deutch talked. Supported by Iran, one of the most prolific supporters of terrorism in the world, and avowing not only the destruction of Israel but also harm to America, Hamas and Hezbollah continue to rain terror down on innocent Israelis.

In May, Hamas showed the world, yet again, why these terror organizations remain a threat to peace to the future of both Israelis and Palestinians. The rocket attacks that launched from Gaza, a territory it rules with a draconian iron fist, sought to kill innocent Israeli citizens indiscriminately.

Sadly, Hamas's attacks compelled a defensive response that led to the deaths of innocent Palestinians trapped in harm's way or used as human shields by the terror organization's brutal rule.

Mr. Speaker, much of the reason why so many innocent Israeli lives were saved was because of something we have done here in Congress since 2010, which is to fund and support and jointly develop the deployment of the defensive anti-rocket system called Iron Dome.

Iron Dome has saved countless lives since 2010, including during the conflict in May, protecting schools, hospitals, synagogues, and family homes. The system continues to do its job, with a rocket from Gaza being intercepted less than 2 weeks ago.

During a period of 10 days in May, Hamas fired more than 4,400 rockets; 10 days, 4,400. Over 400 rockets a day fired into Israel, and Iron Dome extraordinarily intercepted 90 percent of those rockets. That number, in just 10 days, was a dramatic escalation over the number of rockets fired at Israel by Hamas and Hezbollah over the previous 10 years, which was around 10,000, or 1,000 a year. 4,400 rockets in 10 days.

Hezbollah, by the way, and we all recognize this, is estimated, by published reports--I don't have the classified reports--to have 130,000 rockets aimed at Israel from southern Lebanon.

The number of interceptors Israel needs to deal with these escalating attacks is going up dramatically as well.

I talked to Mr. Lapid just 2 days ago, and he said to me: Congressman, I really don't know. We know how many rockets they have, we just don't know how many they will send at one time. So that we need to make sure that there is sufficient supply, and the resupply after the rockets, confronting the 4,400 rockets, were used. Israel needed 2,400 interceptors for 10,000 rockets. In May, it needed 2,000 interceptors to take down the 4,400.

As a result of May's unprecedented barrage and the use of Iron Dome to defend against it, the system needs to be replenished and strengthened.

Mr. Speaker, I was proud to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support the development and deployment of Iron Dome as part of the broad, bipartisan support for Israel in Congress, as well as to support the joint American-Israeli development of the David's Sling long-range missile system.

Why do we do that? Why do we ask the taxpayers of the United States of America to do that? We do it because we believe it is in their best interest. Yes, it is in Israel's interest. And, yes, it is in the interest of Israelis. But it is in the security interest of the United States of America. And that is why we proudly stand up and support this funding, and other funding that we give to Israel, so that it can remain the democracy that honors human rights.

Does everybody honor human rights every day? America? We can look in the mirror. Every country can do that. But Israel, unlike any other country in the Middle East, has a supreme court that says to the government: You cannot do that.

This is the right thing to do. And then Israelis do it. A nation of laws. A nation of morals. A nation that is committed to the democratic process.

This House will today reflect overwhelming support in a bipartisan basis. Today, I believe that we will again evidence our broad and bipartisan commitment to Israel's security, the safety of its people, and its right to self-defense.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Chairwoman Rosa DeLaura for introducing this legislation and our appropriators who worked on it, as I said, including Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Mr. Speaker, I trust that we will pass this today in just a few minutes. I trust the Senate will take it up immediately, and that we will send it to the President of the United States. He supports this. He urges that we pass it. He will do the same in the Senate. This is the right thing to do. It is what America does. It stands up for countries who stand up for freedom.

Mr. Speaker, I urge the House on both sides of the aisle to overwhelmingly support the passage of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut for yielding, and I want to congratulate her for the job that she has done not in only passing 9 of the 12 appropriation bills that are over in the Senate, which, unfortunately, have not been considered, and the other three bills I know she is working very hard on, which would obviate the need for another CR. But we have not done that yet, so we must pass this bill.

There is no job, Mr. Speaker, more critical for Congress to perform each year than to fund the government.

Again, I want to thank Chairwoman DeLauro and the members and staff of the Appropriations Committee and the ranking member for their work earlier this year to ensure that the House pass 9 of the 12 appropriation bills.

As we continue to work with the Senate to finish that work, it is imperative that we adopt this continuing resolution to keep the government open and serving the American people during these challenging times.

The continuing resolution also includes much-needed emergency funding for disaster relief. Communities along the Gulf Coast were hard hit by Hurricane Ida, and western States are continuing to deal with the devastating wildfires.

At the same time, Mr. Speaker, this legislation also includes additional funding to facilitate the resettlement of our Afghan allies and their families.

It is also essential that we suspend the debt limit to prevent a default that would trigger an economic catastrophe not only here but around the world. And this continuing resolution includes such a suspension.

In my career over the 40 years that I have spent here, Republican and Democratic Secretaries of the Treasury and

administrations have urged us not to allow the credit and faith of the United States of America to fail.

In years past, Democrats and Republicans came together to address the debt limit because we all know how dangerous it would be for America not to pay the bills it has already incurred. This is not for additional spending, this is for what we have already spent either by spending it on objectives or cutting revenues.

Let me remind everyone what we are talking about. This is about paying for what we have already bought. A family can't just decide not to pay its credit card bill for purchases already made. Their credit would suffer--rightfully so--making them a risky bet for lenders, who would be justified in charging higher payments.

Now, we played chicken with the debt some years ago. It was in the early 2010s. The credit of the United States for the first time in 100 years was put down a notch--the credit of the United States of America. In much the same way, our country will suffer greatly if we do not act now to stave off this unnecessary and preventable crisis.

During the previous administration, every time the President asked Congress to take this same vote, Democrats did the right thing and joined with Senator McConnell, Leader McCarthy, and other Republicans to suspend the debt limit. We did it three times under a Republican President, the previous President.

Now Congress is being asked to make that responsible choice again, but there is a Democratic President. Notwithstanding Senator McConnell's observation that it would be unwise not to extend the credit of the United States, there apparently is a commitment on the other side of the Capitol not to vote for a debt limit extension.

I hope Republicans will be consistent and will do as they did before: vote to prevent a default and spare the American people from yet another damaging economic crisis right as we are coming out of a pandemic.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members, Republican and Democrat-- this is not a Democratic debt; it is not a Republican debt. It is our debt. It is the debt of the United States of America. We don't welch on our debts. We pay our debts. That is all this bill does.

The debt limit is an absolutely phony issue. There is less than a handful of countries that have a debt limit, and none who come to a crisis of not paying their debt or extending that debt limit.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to join me in voting for the continuing resolution to keep government open--probably our primary responsibility--and prevent an economic disaster.

Mr. Speaker, now, I heard the remarks of the gentlewoman, and she will be happy to hear that it is my intention to bring to this floor a suspension bill before the end of this week that will fund fully Iron Dome. I was for that. I am still for it. We ought to do it.

I talked to the Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr. Lapid, just 2 hours ago and assured him that that bill was going to pass this House. I hope that my colleague on that side of the aisle would join with me.

I thank Chair DeLauro, with whom we just talked. She indicated she wanted that to be done. I intend to bring it to the floor, and it will be done. It is absolutely essential.

There were 4,400 rockets in 10 days that rained down on Israel, one of our closest allies and friends. Luckily--no, not luckily. Because they had Iron Dome, very few lives were lost and very little property was lost. Too much, but nevertheless, Iron Dome saved lives and property and held Israel secure.

The President wants this bill passed. Mr. Schumer wants this bill passed. The Speaker wants this bill passed. The chair of the Committee on Appropriations wants this bill passed. I want it passed. And I believe scores of others on both sides of the aisle want to make sure that Israel is secure and that she can replenish the assets of Iron Dome, which are defensive only--not offensive weapons, defensive only-- so that if somebody sends a rocket toward either people or places in Israel, they will be able to intercept that rocket and save lives and save property.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chair for her leadership. I thank the Members of this body who are going to stand up, in my view, and are going to vote not only to keep government funded but to ensure that the United States of America does not fail to pay its debts.

Madam Speaker, I rise to congratulate my constituent Christopher Martin on

his retirement this month after a career of more than thirty years as a distinguished Master Cabinet Maker for the U.S. House of Representatives. We depend so greatly on the talented carpentry staff to ensure that House offices are properly equipped to perform the people's work, and I want to thank all of those employees, like Chris, who are working hard to restore, maintain, and upgrade the furnishings of this historic building of more than two centuries.

Chris aspired to be a woodworker from a young age, and he attended the St. Mary's County Technical Center, now called the Dr. James A. Forrest Career and Technology Center. After working on his family's tobacco farm and in several other jobs, including house-building, Chris applied for a job opening in the House cabinet shop. His father had worked for the Congress before serving in the U.S. military, and his mother, also previously in Congressional employment, drove him to the interview. Indeed, Chris grew up in a home steeped in public service and love of country.

Impressing the manager with the breadth of his woodworking knowledge and his hands-on skills, Chris was hired on the spot, and he began serving as an Apprentice Cabinet Maker. He started out running service calls and soon advanced to the position of Journeyman. Chris honed his skills on the job under the tutelage of his former Managers--Art Baltrym, Peter Shipman, and Anthony Thompson--all distinguished furniture makers. One of his most memorable tasks included redesigning the furnishings in the historic office used by Rep. James Clyburn, now the Democratic Whip. This included constructing a custom desk, glass cabinets, and a matching credenza, all still in use today. The cabinet shop was often called to perform other tasks in the historic Hall of the House, and Chris and his co-workers spent many hours refurbishing the seats on the House Floor and installing safety measures to protect Members in the years after the 9/11 attacks. He also worked on the Floor of the House and on the Speaker's dais and podium.

Chris has been the cabinet shop's Design Specialist for over ten years and has been responsible for designing every piece of constructed furniture during that time. He is considered an exceptionally valuable Master of the Trade. When reflecting on his achievements, Chris has cited countless committee-room renovations and his involvement in completing the equipment consoles on the daises in each of the House's committee rooms.

Chris was here twenty years ago during the tragic 9/11 attacks and the evacuation of the Capitol complex. He was at work when an earthquake struck the District of Columbia, ten years ago, causing structural damage and cracks to the Capitol Building. Chris was also on campus during the fatal shootings of U.S. Capitol Police Detective John Gibson and Officer Jacob Chestnut on July 24, 1998, as well as, earlier this year, during the attack on the Capitol on January 6, when he and so many others had to shelter in place. Like so many others serving in House employment, Chris has been a firsthand witness to history and to the challenges and threats facing the Capitol and all who work here.

During the COVID pandemic, Chris has taken a lead role in the shop. He has continued to demonstrate high standards with respect to building and design, and he has been assigning work, answering calls, attending meetings, and handling shop attendance during these trying times and while working to protect the health and safety of his co-workers. I continue to express my admiration for all of those, like Chris and his colleagues, who are working here during the pandemic to keep Congress operating and to help Members perform their jobs for the American people.

Chris is retiring after an illustrious career in House employment, and I am told that he plans to spend more time pursuing his passions of fishing, hunting and drag racing while continuing to work part-time in electrical and woodworking. I hope all of my colleagues will join me in extending congratulations to Chris Martin for his many years of dedication, superb craftsmanship, and outstanding contributions to the U.S. House of Representatives, many of which we literally sit in today on this Floor. I join in wishing him a very enjoyable retirement and thank him for all of his hard work in service to this House and to our country.

Madam Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to a dear friend and a great Marylander who passed away on July 31. Gerald Wesley Donovan was not just the former Mayor of Chesapeake Beach in Calvert County, Maryland. He was the heart and soul of the town and the center of its community for decades. Gerald dedicated his life to preserving the memory of Chesapeake Beach as it had been generations prior and working to reinvigorate it with a new energy for the twenty-first century and as a place where future generations of Marylanders and visitors could enjoy all the best the town and it surroundings could offer.

Having grown up in the county and attended Calver High School, Gerald was raised with a love of service, a love of learning, and a love of country. In addition to attending Baltimore College of Commerce, Prince George's Community College, and the University of Maryland, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in

1968 and served on active duty until 1971. After serving on the Chesapeake Beach Town Council for seven years, Gerald was appointed the town's mayor in 1983. The following year, his neighbors elected him to continue in that office and returned him again and again for a total of thirty-four years and six consecutive terms. During that time, he oversaw major projects that renewed Chesapeake Beach as a tourist destination, including its Water Park, Railway Trail, Veterans Memorial Park, Bayfront Park, and the annual fireworks show. Each winter, he expressed his joy for the holiday season by securing funding from the council to illuminate the town in festive lights.

Over those same years, Gerald developed a vision to revitalize the old Chesapeake Beach Resort built by Otto Mears in 1900. The rededication of that property in 2004 as the Rod 'N' Reel resort was the culmination of years of work for Gerald and his local business partners. It has become a major destination in Maryland's Fifth District, attracting vacationers from across the country and around the world and helping to grow tourism and support jobs for the local economy.

In addition to serving as Mayor, Gerald also gave back to his community and his country by helping to lead the fight against cancer. Over thirty years, the annual Celebration of Life gala dinner he hosted with his brother, Fred, in memory of their father Fred Donovan, Sr. raised more than $4 million for the American Cancer Society. Having attended these dinners year after year, I can attest that Gerald's passion for curing and treating cancer and helping those afflicted only grew over time.

Early on, Gerald also joined the North Beach Volunteer Fire Department and later was chosen as its lifetime president. He also served on the executive committee of the Maryland Tourism Board, as a member of the Maryland Restaurant Association's board, and as Chairman of the Calvert County Democratic Central Committee. Gerald was also a pioneer in the creation of the Chesapeake Beach Railway Museum.

As he got older, Gerald recognized the importance of preparing the next generations to carry on the work of making Chesapeake Beach and Calvert County a wonderful place to live and work and preserving its heritage. He became a mentor to so many young people active in public service in the town and in the county, making time to help them find their own ways to give back to their community and run for local office. Gerald worked to pass on his unparalleled knowledge of the town and its history, and when he retired and left office in 2008, he passed the torch to a new generation now carrying on his work.

In retirement, Gerald loved to drive around Chesapeake Beach and revel in its splendor and success, proud of the work he and so many others had put in over the decades to breathe new life into the town. After he passed away earlier this summer, his friends and neighbors gathered on the sidewalks to pay a final tribute as Gerald's funeral procession made its way through those same streets, escorted by the Calvert County Sheriffs Department and North Beach Volunteer Fire Department vehicles.

Gerald will be missed by so many of us who were fortunate enough to call him a friend. I join in offering my condolences to his wonderful wife and partner Mary, to his children Wesley, Ryan, Roger, Mary, and Veronica and their families, including his thirteen grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. May Gerald's memory always be a blessing to them and to all the people of his beloved Chesapeake Beach and Calvert County.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this rule. This rule allows the Congress of the United States to do the people's business in two critical areas--actually, three.

Number one, it provides for us to receive from the Senate the budget and to do what the Republicans did on their tax bill: act on a budget reconciliation bill.

You did that. You, of course, didn't pay for it. We are going to pay for this.

Secondly, this rule allows us to proceed on a piece of legislation which seeks to make sure that the Voting Rights Act, protecting the most important asset a citizen has, and that is their right to vote or, as our Speaker has said, the voice of those not empowered. That is not exactly what it was, Madam Speaker.

Two of these items are critical, and when we talk about saving lives, the reconciliation bill and the budget, the Build Back Better Act is going to save lives and enrich the quality of lives of our people.

Thirdly, this rule will allow us to proceed to adopt the bipartisan-- 69 Senators voting for it--infrastructure bill. It is not a perfect bill. It is not our bill, and it is limited in some respects in terms of its addressing one of our most important challenges and enemies, and that is climate change. It nevertheless is a very, very substantial investment in America, its growth, people, and jobs.

Vote for this rule. It is a good bill for the people.

Madam Speaker, how pleased our friend would be that Nikema Williams is presiding, his successor. He was one of her mentors.

Madam Speaker, how proud you must be to preside at this critical time in our history.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Selma, Alabama, Terri Sewell. I have been with Terri and her church, worshipped with her, prayed

with John Lewis in her church, walked down the streets of her town and over a bridge called the Edmund Pettus Bridge. And unlike John Lewis, when we walked across it, there were Alabama troopers to protect us rather than prevent us from voting.

Madam Speaker, I have heard a lot of discussion on the floor today about how there is no problem in America; people have full access. Too many people that I talk to throughout the country have told me that is not the case.

The Supreme Court passed a ruling and said, Oh, everything was fine. And as soon as they did, as soon as they took this preclearance off, State after State after State enacted legislation to make it more difficult to vote; like that.

Justice Ginsburg made an analogy in Shelby that the Supreme Court was saying, Oh, well, there is no problem left. She said it was like the man with the umbrella who had the umbrella up; wasn't getting wet. It was raining, but he wasn't getting wet. So he gave the umbrella away and said, I'm okay. I am dry. And then immediately, of course, he got all wet.

Madam Speaker, I am proud to join my sister, Terri Sewell; John's sister. John called me brother, and he called all of us brothers and sisters, in this, the beloved community that he envisioned. That was King's vision, as John was his disciple.

Today, we are honoring the legacy of a historic Member of this House. In my view, I have served with two historic Members of the Congress of the United States and the Senate and the House. There were a lot of famous, but two historic figures: One was John Lewis. And the other is Nancy Pelosi, the first woman Speaker and, in my view, the most effective Speaker with whom I have served in the 40 years that I have been here.

John Lewis was my dear friend, and he was your dear friend. I called him the most Christlike person I have ever seen, our dear Saint John, who preached to us the gospel of getting into ``good trouble'' and creating a beloved community; the gospel of John Robert Lewis.

He would be proud of us today for bringing this bill to the floor. He worked hard on this bill. I can remember sitting-- Jim Clyburn and I, and John Lewis and others--sitting in my whip's conference room, working on voting rights' legislation.

So let us honor his memory today with strong support for its voting rights' protection, for its reversal of the damage wrought by the 2013 Shelby v. Holder ruling, and for its recognition that our democracy is imperfect if it is not open to all eligible to vote.

In that ruling, Shelby v. Holder, the Supreme Court erred in its assessment of how necessary the Voting Rights Act's preclearance section was for protecting Americans' right to vote. You are not protecting Americans' right to vote if the relief that you can seek is after the fact, after the governor or the President or the Senator or the House of Delegates or representative, Member has been elected. It is too late. That is why preclearance was so critically important to reform and to protection of voters' rights.

In her powerful dissent, as I said, Justice Ginsburg pointed out that throwing out preclearance when it has worked and has continued to work to stop discriminatory changes is like that gentleman giving away his umbrella.

Indeed, since 2013, we have seen a veritable downpour of discriminatory and exclusionary voter suppression measures. I hear people arguing--I heard a Texan argue on this floor about how it is so easy to vote in Texas. Yet, we see them fighting for legislation, which half of their body--or not quite half, unfortunately--but a big number of their body who represents minority citizens says, No, you are wrong. You ought to walk in our shoes and find that they are making it more difficult for me to vote.

Since 2013, we have seen a veritable downpour, as I said. The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, sponsored by Terri Sewell, would confront this tempest head on. We have seen a campaign of voter suppression efforts in Republican-led jurisdictions that have changed their laws and voting rules to make it harder for eligible Americans to vote.

Their leader, Donald Trump, says there was fraud, there was theft. The problem is the Republican judges to which they appealed said no. The problem is Attorney General Barr, who covered up almost everything that Donald Trump said, even he couldn't say that there was fraud.

And so they justify these laws by somehow there is fraud out there, they are stealing our elections. That is baloney. It is the same kind of lie that Donald Trump continues to parrot. And if you say, like Liz Cheney did, he is lying, you are kicked out of your party.

We have seen a campaign of voter suppression over and over and over again, making it harder for eligible Americans to vote, disproportionately targeting African Americans. I am not an African American. It is hard for me to walk in those shoes.

I try to empathize, but I know if I am not Black, I can't really be as knowledgeable as I would be if I were Black, and I was every day subjected to discrimination, or if I were another person of color.

They have reduced early voting opportunities that help working people cast ballots. They want to eliminate--they haven't in every place--mail balloting, because they feel somehow if I don't see them when they fill out that form and attest that they are who they are under penalties of perjury that somehow----

Now, I can understand, from a party that in the last seven elections, in the last quarter of a century, have elected a number of Presidents, only one got a majority; only one, but they won the electoral college vote. That is why some Republicans said: Are you crazy? You confirm the electoral college, because it is what is protecting us against the majority.

They purged voter rolls so that people who believed themselves to be registered because they had registered and voted in the past, showed up to vote but were turned away.

I sponsored the Help America Vote Act with a guy named Bob Ney, who was from Ohio and a Republican, and a dear friend of mine. Unfortunately, he got in trouble, but he is a good man, still a good man. And we provided for provisional ballots, which simply said, if you made a mistake and came to the wrong precinct, fill out the ballot, we are going to check it tomorrow or the next day and make sure you are eligible to vote, and if you are, we will count it. That made sense; efforts to eliminate those.

These are real and pressing challenges facing our elections and our democracy; not imaginary fraud, but active and visible voter suppression. We have a duty, my colleagues, Democrat and Republican colleagues, we have a duty, a responsibility, a moral responsibility to make sure that people can vote and that we facilitate their vote, not impede it. Not make it more difficult. Facilitate it. Encourage them. Lift them up and let them vote.

And we owe it to John Lewis and the other heroes of Selma, and all the other small towns and byways and big cities and big States, where people fought, demonstrated, were bruised, battered, beaten, and yes, some died, so that their brothers and sisters could have the vote.

My colleagues, it falls to us now, today, to continue their march forward, and to carry on their work. There are no Alabama troopers waiting on the other side that are going to beat us or batter us or prevent us. We are not at risk. Whatever way we vote, we are going to walk out of there today and we are going to be fine.

But we have a moral responsibility to those who fought here and around the world to protect the vote, to protect democracy.

I urge my colleagues, Madam Speaker, to join you, to join me, to join our fellow colleagues in voting for H.R. 4, and for the protection of voting rights in our country. H.R. 4 the people.

Parliamentary Inquiry

Madam Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.

Madam Speaker, is it appropriate on the floor of the House to tell the truth?

Madam Speaker, I rise to congratulate the U.S. Naval Academy's Class of 1970 on the fiftieth reunion that it celebrated over the past year. It has been an honor to support the U.S. Naval Academy as the Representative from Maryland's Fifth Congressional District and to nominate outstanding candidates for admission each year from our communities. With the Academy located in our neighboring district, bright and talented students from Fifth District high schools have long been drawn to Annapolis for the next step in their education and service to country and community. The Naval Academy has a proud history of developing excellence in education and shaping the character of its past and present graduates, and it continues to train future leaders of the Navy and of our country. The Class of 1970 exemplifies the high- quality standards of the Academy and of the Navy, and I know that many of its alumni had been looking forward to celebrating its fiftieth reunion in 2020. Because of the pandemic, however, they could not gather in person last year; thankfully, they are planning to convene this Labor Day weekend.

The U.S. Naval Academy Class of 1970 began its journey as midshipmen in 1966, during the height of the Vietnam War. They stepped up, knowing that after graduation many would be sent into combat as Navy and Marine Corps officers. That it was such a challenging time for our nation and for our military did not deter them; instead, it made them more determined to graduate with honor and serve with distinction.

From their graduation day onward, this class has set a very high standard, with impressive accomplishments and careers. Members of this class fought valiantly in the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and other conflicts over the past half-century. They served in the air, on land, at sea, and beneath the sea. Members of this class have served at the very highest level of our military, including twenty-seven flag officers--one of whom was Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The class includes six who were appointed as deputy assistant secretaries or above in the federal government. Members have served their local communities as elected officials, and the class also boasts chief executive officers for major corporations, many of which we are all very familiar--such as Pepsico, General Motors, and Amgen. The class also produced a Member of this House, former Rep. Ronald Machtley, and a Member of Congress in the Philippines who later served that country as its National Security Advisor. The Class of 1970 also produced five Academy Distinguished Graduates, tied for the most from any single graduating class.

The U.S. Naval Academy Class of 1970 exemplifies the Navy ethos of ``Honor, Courage, and Commitment.'' These values have defined its graduates' contributions to our country and their dedication to public service. Like many others before and who have followed, they sacrificed through long deployments, separation from loved ones, challenging trials, and tests that most Americans cannot fathom. Some even sacrificed their lives carrying out their missions. I know that new generations of midshipmen and future Navy and Marine Corps officers will be inspired by the rich heritage of service passed down to them by the Class of 1970.

As the U.S. Naval Academy Class of 1970 gathers to mark fifty-one years of service to our nation and to the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Army, and Naval Academy, it is with great pride and pleasure that I offer my congratulations and my thanks for their contributions to the safety and well-being of our country. I hope my colleagues will join me in wishing continued fair winds and following seas to the U.S. Naval Academy Class of 1970.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Commerce be discharged from further consideration of the bill (H.R. 4791) to extend the moratorium on residential evictions, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Madam Speaker, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for making that point, although I am somewhat sorry because I was going to make the same point. But I am going to make another point.

First of all, let me say to those who may be watching, the gentleman who just spoke from Arkansas is one of my best friends in the Congress. He is a wonderful, wonderful person. He is dead flat wrong, however, in this assertion.

His motion will not give a single cent to the National Guard, not a single cent to the police, not a single cent to anybody.

All it will do is send the bill back to committee. It will delay this bill to do all the other things that it does from being enacted.

It is sad that the Republicans in the Senate haven't passed a single appropriation bill. And, golly day, it took a long time to get them to some agreement on the supplemental, and then, when they agreed on the supplemental, they left the money for the National Guard out.

So, I say to my friend from Arkansas, who is my dear, dear friend and a wonderful person, your amendment, with all due respect, first of all, as you know, is not going to go anywhere. All you will do is return the bill to committee and slow this process down and not give a single cent to the National Guard or policemen, either Capitol Police or any other police. That is the reality.

Now, I wanted to rise and speak on behalf of this bill. I want to thank the chairman, Mr. Ryan, and I want to thank my good friend, who is also another dear friend of mine. Unfortunately, sometimes people think everybody dislikes one another. I happen to like the gentlewoman who is the ranking member, who is, I think, one of our best Members in the House on your side of the aisle.

I know that this is a difficult bill in some cases for your side of the aisle.

I have been here a long time. We just honored Jerry Lewis, who was the gentleman from California who had your position and had the chairman's position. He was back and forth. They came to this House in a bipartisan way to say, let's build this institution into the kind of institution that Americans want.

That is what this bill does. This bill gives us the opportunity to hire, retain, and pay competitively our staff, who are extraordinary people. The American people are getting more than their money's worth with our staff, because they are extraordinarily able people, well- educated people, experienced people, who make a difference for America. This bill seeks to compensate them, not as much as they get in the private sector, but competitively, at least with the executive departments, so the executive departments are not taking all of our people. That is reason enough to be for this bill.

Now, there is something in this bill I don't like, and no other Member probably will come to this floor and say it. Members of the Congress of the United States have not received a cost of living adjustment--forget about a raise--a cost of living adjustment since, I believe, 2009, for 11 or 12 years. And this bill says, oh, we are not going to take one this year either.

Now, let me tell you something. The result of this irresponsible demagogic action--and I don't say any personal aspersions on anybody-- is that only rich people will be able to serve in the House of Representatives.

Now, very frankly, I live alone. My wife died. I am in good shape. I don't need the COLA. It will make no difference in my life. But there are a lot of people who come to this Congress with three or four children, and they have got to open a second residence, either rent or buy here, and keep a residence at home, and they are struggling.

I know it doesn't sound like you are going to struggle at $174,000. I don't blame people who are making $60,000, $80,000 who say: What do you mean you are struggling?

But the fact of the matter is, all I ask is, keep us even. Don't give us a raise. Just keep us even. As the cost of living goes up, just keep us even in terms of our purchasing power.

I am going to vote for this bill, but I sure don't like that provision. Now, we Democrats have put it in; the Republicans have put it in. I get it. I get the politics of it.

But I will tell you, for a long period of time I worked with Trent Lott, with Tom DeLay, with Roy Blunt, and with other Republican leaders--I seem to be the one that has been here consistently working on this--to make sure that at least 50 percent of us on each side voted to give us a COLA, to keep us even, so that we did not expect people who had their housing costs go up, their healthcare costs go up, their educational costs for children go up, to be frozen.

It is tough on families. It is not tough on me, so I am not arguing from a personal standpoint. Very frankly, I am just fine.

But I say this because I want the public to know that there is at least someone who is saying: Look, the job is worth it. You may not think we are worth it, but the job is worth at least keeping even.

But this is a good bill. I am going to vote for it. There are provisions in other bills that I don't like, but I vote for them, because on the whole, I think this is an excellent bill for this institution and for the American people.

I urge everybody to vote ``yes.''

Madam Speaker, as everybody knows, I had the delightful opportunity of serving on the Appropriations Committee as an active member for 23 years. I am on leave, and I may be on leave forever, who knows, but I care a lot about these bills. These are the only bills that have to pass. They are the only bills that if they don't pass, the government shuts down.

They are the bills that used to bring us together. It is relatively easy to compromise on figures, but it is difficult to compromise on other issues. Although, I will say, as I begin my remarks--and I am not going to be that long, but as I begin my remarks, I voted for, in the 1980s and 1990s and over the last 20 years, for appropriations bills in which there were contained issues that I severely disagreed with, and I know Ms. DeLauro has as well.

But I know that overall we had to pass the bills, and that I thought then, and I think now, that the bills were largely dealing with what the American people wanted us to deal with.

So I rise today, Madam Speaker, in support of these bills, the seven in this package, and hopefully, three to come, and the two thereafter, whenever we bring them to the floor.

Last Congress, after Democrats took control of the House majority, we passed legislation to fund nearly all of government before the end of the summer. I was very proud of that. We passed it in June of 2019, and we passed it in July of 2020. We have done that 2 years in a row now. What we haven't accomplished, however, is the passage of these bills prior to September 30. That is what we should be doing.

I know the chair feels that way, and I think the ranking member feels that way. I haven't talked to her specifically about that, but I think she does.

Moving the appropriations process along on time made it easier to forestall shutdowns and fund the government for the American people.

Now we are doing so again and with a Democratic-controlled Senate and White House, we are passing bills of which every Member of this body can be proud. And I predict that every Member of this body will go home and claim credit for something in these appropriations bills, whether you voted for or against.

The appropriations bills we are bringing to the floor in this minibus package deliver for all of our constituents. They invest in economic growth; they expand infrastructure; they care for our veterans; they make college more affordable; advance research into combatting the next pandemic and curing rare diseases; protect America's public lands and keeping our air and water clean.

They help farmers, small business, and large business. They help farmers and invest in rural communities, and combat hunger and provide housing, among other things.

These investments in the American people will help us build back better from the pandemic and enable our businesses, workers, students, and farmers to get ahead in the global economy.

One of the provisions I want to highlight in particular, of which I am very proud, is the major increase in funding for full-service community schools. I have been proud to advocate for this program since we first launched it in 2008.

Full-service community schools help the youngest Americans and their families--that is the key, ``and their families,'' the whole family. Critical services are accessible all in one place, not only early childhood education but also nutrition assistance, dental exams, financial literacy courses, and more.

When children and their families have easy access to these resources, it means greater success for students throughout their later years in school, better preparing them for college and careers and helping us close the achievement gap.

In my State of Maryland, we have had tremendous success with our network of Judy Centers. Judy Centers are named after Judith P. Hoyer, my wife, and in her memory. She was an early childhood educator in Prince George's County and a pioneer in the development of this type of program.

Like full-service community schools, Judy Centers are proving their worth by narrowing achievement gaps and preparing more and more students for success in kindergarten and later grades.

The minibus on the floor today would invest $443 million for this critical initiative. Now, that is not a lot per child, but it is a lot of effect per child, which will help States launch and expand their full-service community school programs and serve many more children and their families.

I thank Chairwoman DeLauro, not only for her strong support and her leadership in making sure that funding was included, but also for her leadership of this committee. She has been a very faithful steward, and a steward who has acted in a very transparent, inclusive way so that every Member knew what they could have and honor their initiatives and their priorities.

All the members and staff of the Appropriations Committee for their hard work should be thanked as well by all of us. These are tough bills to put together, tough bills to move forward. I thank them for their efforts together to ensure that the House is doing its job for the people.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this package of appropriations bills.

Now, some may say, ``Well, the Senate hasn't acted,'' and that is a lamentable fact. The Senate has not passed a single appropriations bill out of committee, nor had they passed a single bill out of committee by the end of the fiscal year last year.

I would hope that our colleagues in the United States Senate would not keep treating the appropriations process as a backwater because where we put our money is where our heart is, where our priorities are. This bill, these bills--this bill, but these bills, all 10 of the ones that we are going to consider hopefully this week--show where our priorities are.

I hope that the Senate will begin its own appropriations process so that we can complete our work together, perhaps not before the end of the fiscal year but certainly before the end of the year, so we do not have some either CR or omnibus, which is the product of just a few as opposed to the many in this House and in the Senate.

I urge support of this minibus. I urge support of the three bills to come, the State-Foreign Operations bill, the Commerce-Justice bill, and the Legislative Branch bill. I thank all the cardinals and the ranking members for their help and their work.

Mr. Speaker, I repeat my admiration for the chair and the work that she has done and the staff has done. I thank them very much.

I might say that the ranking member, who is speaking on this bill, is, A, a dear friend of mine, and, very frankly, a gentleman who has added real quality to this institution and real collegiality to this institution. And I want you to know, Mr. Simpson, how much I appreciate your service in the House of Representatives. You are my friend and a great Member of the Congress.

Mr. Speaker, the amendment that I have offered is a result of my sponsorship of the Help America Vote Act, in which I created a program that we called the Help America Vote Act. However, when we got to the end of the write-up of the bill, Bob Ney, who was the chairman of the House Administration Committee, at that point in time I was the ranking member, suggested that we use that phrase for the bill itself.

However, originally, the Help America Vote Act was a program which would encourage colleges to have programs for their students so that they would work on election day in polling places. No generation knows these new electronic devices for voting better than the younger generation.

And my thought was then, and is now, that we ought to encourage young people, knowing not only the partisan politics that go on, but how America runs its elections. So that is what I am trying to do here. I have been encouraging, and we have appropriated money in the past for this program.

I want to thank my friend from Illinois (Mr. Quigley), who is not on the floor, but a good friend of mine for his leadership on this subcommittee. I thank him and the rest of the subcommittee members for ensuring that the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act contains robust funding for the Election Assistance Commission. Bob Ney and I worked on creating that commission. It has relatively limited powers, but it is a very important ally of local election officials.

This funding for the EAC is critical to ensuring secure elections for the American people. My amendment would take a portion of that funding, some $4 million, and use it for the purpose of supporting the Help America Vote Act College Poll Worker.

This program has been a top priority for me for two decades. At a time when our elections are under stress from record turnout, the deployment of new technologies, and the realities of the pandemic, we need to recruit more young Americans to volunteer as nonpartisan poll workers.

I think any of us who go to the polls--of course, all of us in this room go to polls on a regular basis--we see an aging coterie of poll workers. This would add, I think, a real component to the volunteers that are available to our local election boards.

I know my election board has a tough time recruiting sometimes. You are there a 14-, 15-hour day, and it is not necessarily the most glamorous job in the world.

Traditionally, many poll workers in this country are older Americans. We continue to benefit from their experience and expertise, of course. They have much to teach younger Americans about how best to staff polling places and oversee ballot counting. But with COVID-19, many have taken a step back and are looking to train the next generation in these skills.

The HAVA College Poll Worker Program is a critical tool, in my view, in helping communities bring more young Americans into this public service. Very frankly, I expect them to go to their dorm or their neighborhood with their peers and say: Hey, I am going to work the polls. You ought to come down and see me.

That would be a way to encourage younger people to get out and vote.

As poll workers, young Americans will bring their energy, their enthusiasm, and their technology know-how to help our elections run smoothly. It will also instill a love of democracy and voting in a new generation of Americans who will see firsthand--and I am a big proponent of in-person voting. I am a big proponent of mail ballots as well, but I think going to the polls, seeing others there, seeing them exercise their democratic franchise is an exciting and, frankly, enriching experience.

Last year, I met with the presidents of colleges throughout the University of Maryland system and worked with them to encourage students to sign up as poll workers and to have programs which may be either a half of a credit or part of a democracy course or a history course or some sort of social studies course saying: This is how we technically run elections, not partisan. This is how we just do it technically, how Mike Simpson, Steny Hoyer, and Rosa DeLauro actually vote on election day.

We don't know exactly how many more students volunteered in 2020 because there isn't funding for tracking that data and coordinating these efforts. So, my concept is a college may

get a $20,000 grant to run a program for students on how to run an election. It may be 3 hours in 1 week or something, not a long course.

With this program, more college students will have an opportunity to learn how to get involved as nonpartisan poll workers so they can step up and help make our country and our democracy stronger for years to come.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Quigley, Chair DeLauro, and Ranking Member Simpson for their help in this effort.