Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend, the majority leader, Mr. Cantor, for purposes of inquiring of the schedule of the week to come.

Madam Speaker, I thank the majority leader for the schedule, and I sincerely hope that we can reach compromise next week.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, it is with great sadness that I rise to remember three of my constituents who tragically lost their lives in Monday's shooting along with nine other innocent victims at the Washington Navy Yard. The entire Washington metropolitan area is still in shock at the horrific news.

In Maryland's Fifth District, home to many who serve or who have previously served in military and civilian roles at the Navy Yard, communities are grieving the loss of Sylvia Frasier, Frank Kohler, and Kenneth Proctor. In addition, Michael Arnold, Kathy Gaarde, John Roger Johnson, Vishnu Pandit, Martin Bodrog, Arthur Daniels, Mary Frances Knight, Gerald Reid, and Richard Michael Ridgell also lost their lives in this senseless attack.

I, along with all my colleagues, offer my condolences on behalf of all who live in the Fifth District and in our country. And I wish to take a moment to reflect from this floor on their lives of hard work and dedicated service.

Sylvia Frasier had been an information assurance manager at the Naval Sea Systems Command since 2000. Because she loved interacting with people so much, Sylvia took a night job at the Walmart in Waldorf, Maryland, where she was beloved by her coworkers and members of our community. Sylvia is survived by her parents, James and Eloise, and six brothers and sisters.

Frank Kohler. Frank was a defense contractor at the Navy Yard. He and his wife, Michelle, who works at Pax River Naval Air Station, also in my district, lived in Tall Timbers, Maryland, and loved to go boating and fishing on the Chesapeake and in Florida. He was a past president of the Lexington Park Rotary Club and served as King Oyster at the St. Mary's County Oyster Festival, welcoming visitors to the annual celebration. I live in that county. It's a wonderful celebration. Frank will be missed. Frank also leaves behind two college-aged daughters, Alex and Meghan.

Kenneth Proctor worked as a civilian utilities foreman at the Navy Yard and was in building 197 on Monday morning to get breakfast on his way to work. He had been a Federal employee for 22 years; and his eldest son, Kenneth, Jr., just recently enlisted in the United States Army. He is also survived by his former wife, Evelyn, with whom he was still very close, and their younger son, Kendull, who is in high school.

I want to thank the first responders. I want to thank them for quickly and courageously answering the call on Monday morning and putting their own lives on the line to stop the shooting and prevent further loss of life. They demonstrate the best of America, along with all the dedicated men and women who serve in the Navy Yard and in the Navy, in uniform and civilian. They

continue to enrich our Nation through their outstanding service.

Mr. Speaker, it is particularly poignant for me because my father-in- law and my mother both worked at the Navy Yard during the course of their careers. I've been on the Navy Yard numerous times. It should be--and we thought was--well protected. Twelve people found that it was not protected enough.

My thoughts and prayers are with the families of those who lost their lives and with all who are recovering from their injuries.

Mr. Speaker, I need that hour to correct so much misinformation. But I've got to say something to my friend from Texas, who has now left the floor, or is about to leave the floor, and just remind him: during the last 18 months of the Bush administration, we lost 4,491,000 jobs. Over the last 42 consecutive months, in the private sector, we have gained 7,452,000 jobs. That, my friend, is an 11.5 million turnaround to the benefit of workers. Have we done enough? We have not.

Now, let me speak to this perverse rule. Let me first say to my friend, Mr. Cole, who like so many of his Republican colleagues continues to say the President signed this cloture bill. He did. Why did he sign it? Because our Republican friends threatened, as they are doing today, to put the United States of America into default for the first time in history if he did not. That was the threat. It's the threat again today.

Mr. Cole, my friend, would not really support that policy, I am convinced. He does not have to have a colloquy with me, but he would not support that.

The sequester, however, he did support in the cut, cap, and balance bill that was totally voted on by Republicans, a few less than my hand of Democrats, who said that they wanted the sequester as the fallback position. They got it. They got it because that's the only deal they would make.

The President doesn't want sequester, I don't want sequester, and the chairman of his committee doesn't want sequester. Let me assert, without undermining his credibility, I don't think Tom Cole wants sequester. By the way, I have a quote here which indicates that Eric Cantor, the majority leader, doesn't think sequester is so hot either.

Here is what Hal Rogers said, however--and I would like to debate this for some period of time, but I don't have the time: With this action, we pulled the transportation bill. The appropriations process is broken, irrelevant, dismissed.

By the way, when they marked up their first three bills that they passed in the House, they didn't use their sequester number. They used the number that the Senate is marking to because they knew their number doesn't work, their number that is included in the bill that would be the result of this rule.

Mr. Cole, you are my friend and I have great respect for you and I think you believe that, but here is what Hal Rogers said: With this action, pulling the transportation bill, the House has declined to proceed on the implementation of the very budget it adopted just 3 months ago.

Mr. Rogers--conservative, Kentucky, Republican, chairman of the Appropriations--said: I believe the House has made its choice.

Sequestration and its unrealistic and ill-conceived discretionary cuts must be brought to an end.

He then went on to say: The House, Senate, and White House must come together as soon as possible on a comprehensive compromise.

This bill represents zero compromise.

Come together on a comprehensive compromise that repeals sequestration, takes the Nation off this lurching path from fiscal crisis to fiscal crisis, reduces our deficits and debt, and provides a realistic--realistic--top line discretionary spending level to fund the government in a responsible and attainable way.

I've been here for some period of time. I know about compromise. My side needs to compromise. There is no compromise yet on the other side of the aisle, ladies and gentlemen--none, zero. And I say lamentably, and I say this with great sadness, in my view, there are only about 60 on your side of the aisle who want this hard-line approach, this unrealistic approach, this approach that the Senator from North Carolina who served in this House and on the Appropriations Committee said was unreasonable.

Now, let me tell you what the chief executive of The Heritage Foundation said: We are pushing back on these gimmicks.

Who are the gimmicks? Mr. Boehner and Mr. Cantor, saying we'll pass it, we'll get a vote on health care. If they reject it, we will still fund government.

Your side wants to defund government. It may not want to shut the door on government. It wants to defund it badly and undermine our national security, our economy, and the operations of the government. Every member of the Appropriations Committee knows that to be the case. No member of the Appropriations Committee, in my view, Republican or Democrat, believes that the sequestration levels that are in this bill that this rule provides for are viable. They will not work. They will hurt Americans.

But what does Michael Needham say about these gimmicks and about pursuing this? He says: I think it's exciting. It's a game.

It's a game that will hurt America.

Reject this rule, reject this bill, let's have real compromise.

Will the gentleman yield?

I thank my friend for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I might say not only have I read Bob Woodward's book; I invited Bob Woodward into my office and we discussed this assertion that you and others like to refer to ad nauseam, very frankly. Does the gentleman agree that before that was ever suggested by Jack Lew to Harry Reid as a possible way to getting us not to default on our debt that you and the overwhelming majority, all but eight of your colleagues, voted for your cut, cap, and balance bill which had within it in July of 2011 a sequester so that this was a proposal that you put in legislative action?

Will the gentleman yield?

Does the gentleman agree with me that the sequester is irrational?

And we ought not to continue with it?

I am glad the gentleman agrees.

I thank the gentlelady, and I thank her for her leadership on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I lament with Mr. Lucas that we don't have a bipartisan bill, because I know that's what he wanted, that that's what he forged and that that's what has been abandoned, unfortunately, by his party. I think that's sad for the country. It's even sadder for the people who will be so adversely affected.

Mr. Speaker, several weeks after House Republicans broke with longstanding practice and cut nutrition program funding out of the farm bill, they are now bringing a nutrition-denying bill to the floor. Shockingly, their version of nutrition assistance is to cut $40 billion over the next 10 years from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, called ``SNAP.''

What does this mean for the 14 percent of our fellow citizens? Luckily, 86 percent of us are doing pretty well--we can put a meal on the table, and we can feed our children; but 14 percent of our fellow citizens can't have confidence that they can do that.

Has America fallen so low in its moral compass that we are not prepared to make sure that, in the richest country on the face of the Earth, they have food on their tables? Have we fallen that low?

It means 210,000 children dropped from the school meals program. It means 170,000 veterans in need losing some or all of their food assistance. It will affect Americans of all ages, and it will especially harm seniors, students, and individuals with disabilities.

Tuesday's Census Bureau report confirms that too many Americans remain in poverty as a result of lingering effects from the recession. This is reflected in the rise over the past few years in the number of Americans who rely on food assistance to eat a decent meal from day to day. In the wealthiest country on Earth, there is no reason why so many Americans should have to go hungry, and now is certainly not the time for Congress to make it harder for them to feed themselves and their families.

Do we need to bring down the deficit? We do. Do we need to do it on the backs of the poor? We do not.

Instead, we ought to be helping Americans find jobs and access to opportunities so they will no longer need SNAP assistance. We should go to conference with the Senate, as I know my friend Mr. Lucas wanted to do, which passed a bipartisan farm bill in June by a vote of 66-27. Two-thirds of the Members of the United States Senate, a majority of the House Agriculture Committee, and, in my view, a majority of this House wanted to do this, but we did not do it. Of course, we should have gone to conference weeks ago, but, sadly, this Congress remains dysfunctional.

I urge my colleagues to defeat this punitive legislation, and I call on the Speaker to appoint conferees for the farm bill so we can see a compromised version reflecting the compassion and wisdom shown by bipartisan-acting Congresses over the last four decades.

I thank Mr. Lucas for his leadership, and I regret that it is not being followed.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

He is absolutely correct, of course. The Maryland flag, which I think is one of the more distinctive State flags, has four quadrants, two of which represent the Baltimore family to which the Royal charter was given, as the gentleman observed, and two represent the Crossland family, which was the wife of Lord Baltimore. So I appreciate the gentleman referring to that. And of course all of us live in States that were started by immigrants.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to join my friend, Representative Cardenas, and other distinguished Members who are here tonight to pay tribute to the immigrant heritage of our country.

``From her beacon hand glows worldwide welcome,'' wrote the poet Emma Lazarus. She went on with her poem to say:

``Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp,'' cries she with

silent lips. ``Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled

masses yearning to be free, the wretched refuse of your

teeming shores. Send these, the homeless, the tempest-tossed,

to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.''

That iconic image we see so often is a symbol of America's welcome to those who would participate in making it better. But the poet was wrong. It was not the wretched refuse of the teeming shores that came to America. It was some of the most risk-taking, courageous, entrepreneurial people. It took courage to leave their land, to leave their language, and to come to America. But because they had ambition and vision and hope, they came. And they helped to build the greatest Nation the world has ever seen. Those words engraved on the Statue of Liberty are a creed of which our Nation must always keep faith.

For Americans, citizenship means more than belonging to a place. It represents a sacred bond not only between those who carry it, but a sacred duty to make sure others can earn it who share our devotion to liberty and justice for all. Yes, those immigrants, they believed that declaration intoning pursuit of happiness. What a wonderful concept that ``we hold these truths to be self-evident.'' Pursuit of happiness is one of those values that we hold forth to all the world.

You know, we hear a lot of talk, Mr. Speaker, on this floor and in our national discourse about what makes America exceptional, about what makes us unique and special among the nations of the world. The answer, I believe, is that we have brought together the best of all the nations of the world. Those who come seeking shelter on our shores do so because they want to work hard to succeed. They're willing to take the risk of leaving all that they know just for a chance to make it in America. That is why the Congress must pursue, Mr. Speaker, comprehensive immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship.

Mr. Speaker, 40 percent of all the Nobel Prize winners in America were born on foreign shores. They came here, contributed here, excelled here, and made our country better. Those who have come here to build a strong America--and those who were brought here as children and have known no other home--deserve a chance to keep contributing to this country through their hard work and their service to our communities.

Mr. Speaker, I am the son of an immigrant, an immigrant from Denmark. Serving with me in this Chamber are the sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, great-grandsons and great-granddaughters, and yes, even more generations before. Grandsons of immigrants from Mexico, from Italy, from China, from Africa, from Eastern Europe, from the Caribbean, from Asia--indeed, from every land in this world.

In marking Citizenship Day, which was yesterday, it is up to us to make sure that our exceptional American idea of citizenship continues to manifest itself as an extended hand to all who love freedom, are committed to justice, and wish to build a strong America for all its people. Comprehensive immigration reform will enable us, as it has in the past, to keep that hand extended and bring into our society and economy those who believe in the power of the American Dream.

Mr. Speaker, let us work together, not as Democrats and Republicans, but as fellow immigrants. First, second, third, fourth, fifth, however many generations, we are the children of immigrants. Let us work together to fix our immigration system and ensure that the lamp beside the golden door continues to shine its light to enrich our Nation and continue to offer hope and inspiration for all the world.

I want to thank my colleague, Tony Cardenas, from California. He is a new Member, but an extraordinarily experienced Member. He knows about immigration firsthand. I want to thank him for taking this Special Order because it is important for America to keep that lamp lifted. And to do so, Mr. Speaker, we need, as Mr. Cardenas has said, to pass a comprehensive immigration bill. And, Mr. Speaker, we ought to pass it this year.

I thank the gentleman for taking the time. I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the majority leader, Mr. Cantor, for the purposes of inquiring of the schedule for the week to come.

I thank the gentleman for that information. I would reiterate to Members, in case they weren't listening, that the majority leader has said that we ought to be clearing our calendars for the week of the 23rd of September. That's the last week of the month. Originally, we were scheduled to be off that week, but in light of the fact that we have been unable yet to pass a continuing resolution or appropriations bills to fund the government's activities after the end of the fiscal year on September 30, I am pleased to see the majority leader is putting the House on notice. I have been telling my Members for the last 2 months to reserve that time in the contingency of which the majority leader speaks.

Mr. Majority Leader, before we left in July, we had a bill on the floor to fund Transportation and the Housing and Urban Development Department as well as other items. That bill was pulled. Subsequent to that bill's being pulled, Hal Rogers, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, sent a notice out to a lot of people. I presume the gentleman had an opportunity to read it.

It read:

I am extremely disappointed with the decision to pull the

T-HUD bill--as it's referred to--from the House calendar

today. The prospects for passing this bill in September are

bleak at best given the vote count on passage that was

apparent this afternoon.

He then made this statement, Mr. Leader:

With this action, the House has declined to proceed on the

implementation of the very budget it adopted 3 months ago.

Thus, I--Hal Rogers speaking--believe that the House has made

its choice. Sequestration and its unrealistic and ill-

conceived discretionary cuts must be brought to an end.

Mr. Leader, as you know, he went on to say this:

The House, Senate and White House must come together as

soon as possible on a comprehensive compromise that repeals

sequestration, takes the Nation off this lurching path from

fiscal crisis to fiscal crisis, reduces our deficits and

debt, and provides a realistic, top-line, discretionary

spending level to fund the government in a responsible and

attainable way.

That was his statement--the chairman from Kentucky, a conservative Republican--on July 31, 2013.

I want to tell my friend, the majority leader, that I agree with Mr. Rogers. The sequester level is unattainable and unrealistic. That's the chairman of your Appropriations Committee, who is responsible--and has been for many years--for judging what are the appropriate expenditures for our government to maintain programs important to our country, to our economy, and to our national security.

Mr. Leader, we have another issue beyond the continuing resolution which will also, as the gentleman knows, have a very substantial effect on the fiscal credibility of America, on the fiscal stability of America and on the growth of our economy, and of the confidence of our people and of people around the world, and that is the extension of our debt limit. This is going to be a shorter colloquy than we usually have because the issues that confront us are so very, very important.

I want to tell the majority leader that we have not had any discussions about a possible compromise; nor have we had any discussions with Mr. McCarthy about a possible compromise; nor have I or the leader had any substantive conversations with the Speaker about a substantive compromise, in our view, consistent with what your chairman of the Appropriations Committee rightfully, in my

view, observed of the fiscal realities confronting our country. You have said and Mr. Boehner has said--I believe and Ms. Pelosi believes-- that not extending the debt limit is unthinkable; and if we fail to do so, it would have very, very serious, adverse consequences on our country.

So rather than discuss other further scheduling issues, except to the extent that the gentleman wants to respond, let me say to the gentleman that, with these two items in particular, I stand ready to work with your side, and my side stands ready to work with your side on a compromise; but I will tell the gentleman, with all sincerity, that we will not pursue what Mr. Rogers correctly observed is an unsustainable and damaging process. To that extent, we will not compromise on that issue because your chairman is correct--it's harmful to our country.

So, in that context, Mr. Leader, I am hopeful that, as we move forward, as you've just been required to have another week added to the calendar because we've been unable so far to do our work--and this week, of course, is 1 of 2 weeks that we were supposed to meet in September, and we haven't done much. That's unfortunate. So we have used 50 percent of the time that we had for not much. I would ask the gentleman if he thinks that there is a possibility to compromise. I have observed and the world has observed the difficulty the gentleman and Mr. Boehner, the Speaker, have had in getting agreement in your own party, but we need to get agreement between the two parties and the Senate and the President of the United States so that this country can be funded and can meet its obligations and stabilize our economy.

I yield to my friend.

The problem has again been expressed. We have a single focus of the majority party, Madam Speaker, on defunding the Affordable Care Act.

So many Republicans have said it is an unreasonable and irrational expectation to expect, after an election has occurred in which that was one of the principal issues in the election, for the President or, frankly, the Senate, to agree to the objectives of the Republican Party that lost in America on this issue. There was a poll taken November 2012. The President of the United States won that poll. Your myopic focus on that one issue threatens to shut down government and put at risk the creditworthiness of the United States of America. That is not what the American people expect.

Unless the gentleman wants to respond, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

What a perfect bill this is. Our Republican friends don't like taxes, they don't like the collection of taxes, and, of course, none of us do. And they don't like affordable care for our citizens, quality care for our citizens, accessible care for our citizens. So, with this stroke, they can attack both.

The gentleman who just spoke asserts that the American people know. Republicans have made an assertion about the oversight of taxpayers to see whether or not they are committing fraud, i.e., claiming to be social welfare organizations when everybody in America knows they are solely political organizations; and the Republicans never mention it was across the board, not targeted. And the Affordable Care Act, they don't like that either. They would, as my friend from Texas said, still like to have the insurance companies in charge--not the patient, not the doctor, but the insurance companies.

Mr. Speaker, less than 2 weeks ago, Republicans were on this floor for the 38th and 39th times to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the accessible care act, the quality care act. Now we have the 40th time we've been at this.

The American people, of course, want to see us working on jobs. They want to see us working on investment and education. They want to see us being able to compete with the world. But what do we do? We continue to beat this horse. And contrary to my Republican friends' assertion, Americans say, overwhelmingly, when asked do you want repeal or do you want a fix, make it better, do things better, make it more efficient, they opt for the latter overwhelmingly.

But as the gentleman from Texas just said, you go to the Web site-- and not 2\1/2\ years; not 2\1/2\ years, I tell my friend from Texas, it has been 7 years, since 2006 when we started working on this--but there's no fix, no fix on the Web site, no fix on this floor.

Today, their newfound populism is nowhere to be seen as they vote to repeal tax credits and subsidies designed to make health care more affordable for those same people--working families and small businesses--who haven't been able to get insurance and are left at risk without the security of it.

Suddenly, the party that never met a tax break it didn't like is pursuing a tax increase of more than $1 trillion on small businesses and the middle class. As a result, they are making health care more expensive, and millions of Americans will no longer be able to access affordable health care.

Mr. Speaker, this bill makes all those folks pawns in Republicans' single-focused quest to undo health care reform at the expense of every other pressing challenge we face as a Nation.

It's shameful, Mr. Speaker, that this House continues to waste the American people's times on health care repeal votes that won't go anywhere, and they know it. The Senate will not pass this bill and the President will not sign it.

We have pressing business before us that needs immediate attention: finishing appropriations bills, completing our work on the budget that provides a balanced alternative to the sequester, ensuring America can pay its bills, and taking action to create jobs. That's what we ought to be doing, not this continued foolishness.

Mr. Speaker, as the Speaker knows, I am also the minority whip. As the minority whip, at the close of the week we normally have a colloquy between the majority leader and myself. That colloquy is to discuss the schedule for the week to come; it is to discuss the priorities that each side believes ought to be considered by this House. We do not have that colloquy when the week to come does not have a session.

We have now adjourned, or will soon adjourn, for a period of 5 weeks when we will not be in session. We have adjourned without doing the people's

business. We have adjourned without resolving some of the most vexing challenges that confront this Congress and confront our country. We have adjourned without addressing some of the priorities that the Senate has acted upon and sent to this House, or if they haven't sent them to this House have passed them and are ready to respond to our initiatives. Mr. Speaker, that's unfortunate.

Mr. Speaker, I will be talking about in this hour--and I probably won't take the whole hour--but I will be talking about some of the things that we have not done that we ought to be doing, some of the things that we ought to be doing rather than taking a 5-week break.

But let me quickly add: I'm one of the Democratic leaders. I do not criticize the Republicans for this 5-week break, because we normally take a break in August so that Members and their families can take some time, so that Members can be home to talk to their constituents, seek their advice, seek their counsel, explain what is happening here in Washington to, at this point in time, a rightfully angry group of Americans who see their board of directors that we call the Congress of the United States not working very well, not attendant to the significant issues that confront us.

The House passed a budget. It passed a budget about 125 days ago. The Senate passed a budget about 123 days ago. The way the process is supposed to work is the way it works in your families, Mr. Speaker, and in my family. When we have a dispute, we sit down, we talk about it and we try to come to a resolution. Some call that resolution a ``compromise,'' a recognition that you have a perspective, I have a perspective; if we are going to move forward, we need to harmonize those perspectives. That is what democracy is all about--bringing together disparate views from various geographic locations with various interests at heart and try to resolve those differences and move our country forward.

Notwithstanding that, Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding the fact that the Speaker says that--and said during the campaign--he wanted to make sure that: a) the House worked its will; b) that we pursued regular order; and c) that he wanted the Senate to pass a budget, they did so. But the House has refused to go to conference. That's unfortunate, but it is not unique in this House.

The Senate also passed an immigration bill. That immigration bill tries to deal with one of the most vexing challenges that confronts our country. It is an issue that has a large amount of agreement outside this institution. The United States Chamber of Commerce, representing much of business in America, and the AFL-CIO, representing organized labor, have agreed that this immigration bill should be supported. The agriculture community from California to Florida to Maine to Arizona have essentially agreed this is a bill which will move us forward. Essentially, there is a broad-based agreement that the Senate bill is something that will create jobs, grow our economy, and make our country more stable.

There is a general agreement--I would say an almost unanimous agreement--that we need to keep our borders secure, that people whom we do not authorize should not be allowed to come into the country. We all agree on that. So we are working to make sure that our borders are even more secure. There is unanimity on that issue. In fact, the Senate appropriated a large number of dollars to accomplish that objective. We have not taken up an immigration bill in this House; and, certainly, because we have not, we haven't gone to conference.

Then, Mr. Speaker, we took up a farm bill on the floor of this House, significantly, after the Senate had passed a bipartisan bill dealing with agriculture and dealing with assistance to those in America--the richest country on the face of the Earth--who are going hungry, a large number of whom are children who live in America. The Committee on Agriculture passed out a bipartisan bill in the last Congress, and it was never brought to the floor by my Republican friends. This year, the committee also passed out a bipartisan bill that was brought to this floor. It could have and should have been passed with a bipartisan vote, not because I agreed with all of it, but because it was appropriate to have a bill to go to conference with on this important subject. Our Republican friends added three amendments which we thought were clearly harmful to those in need in America.

As a result, we didn't vote for it, but that's not why it failed, Mr. Speaker. It failed because 62 Republicans voted against the bill reported out with every Republican voting in committee for it; but as Mr. Lucas, the chairman of the committee observed, it apparently wasn't good enough for those 62 Republicans. Compromise seems very difficult for some people in this House, but I again remind us all it is absolutely essential.

We then passed a farm bill which said, unlike the last half a century, we would drop food assistance to the needy in America. Mr. Speaker, my faith tells me to try to feed the hungry, house the homeless, clothe the naked, attend the least of these. The bill that we passed for the first time in a half a century left out the neediest in America.

In the course of passing that bill, the chairman of the Rules Committee, Mr. Speaker, said we are passing this bill so that we can go to conference with the clear implication at that point in time--because the Senate bill does take care of the neediest who are hungry, adults and children, along with the needs of our farmers, who produce our food and fiber on which all of us rely--that, with this bill, we can go to conference. Mr. Speaker, you and I both know we haven't gone to conference. So we leave here with much of the business of America undone, unattended, without an effort to reach compromise.

Mr. Speaker, additionally, as you know, on September 30, the authorization for the operations of government and the funding thereof will come to an end, so it will be necessary for us to come to an agreement. I hope--but I know of none--that there are being plans made to utilize these next 5 weeks to try to reach a compromise, an agreement, a way forward to ensure the funding of our government and the operations so critical to so many millions not only here but around the world.

Mr. Speaker, we began the July work period with a measure of optimism. With 4 full weeks of session in July and the first few days of August, we have not met that optimism. There was much reason to hope that this House could make serious headway on appropriations bills and reach a compromise on student loans. Now, we passed that student loan compromise this Wednesday. That was a good thing to do, and it was along the lines that the President proposed some months ago. My Republican colleagues would rightfully say it was along the lines that they had proposed and passed this House, and of course our Senate colleagues will say it is the compromise that the Senate formed and that we passed.

But in this time, the majority's strategy for moving appropriations bills through this House has utterly and completely failed. The Ryan budget--or the ``Ryan retreat,'' as I call it--has failed. With 4 full, consecutive weeks in which to get things done, we have not enacted a single appropriations bill that was consistent with either the Budget Control Act of 2011 or this year's Ryan budget.

In fact, we haven't enacted a single appropriations bill--period. Now, we've passed bills through this House, but we haven't been able to get to compromise, and that's not unusual. We've found the appropriations process difficult over the past few years, but it is still an indication of failure to attempt to reach compromise that we have not gone to a budget conference to determine what numbers we will use, because, if you can't agree on a number or numbers, it is impossible to agree on legislation.

Frankly, Mr. Speaker, I sadly note that my friends in the majority have not even had the courage or, in my opinion, the intellectual honesty to go to conference on the budget to resolve these differences. Why? Because I believe that Mr. Ryan believes that any compromise he would make would not be supported by his party because they don't want to compromise, which is anathema to many of our Republican colleagues. ``Regular order,'' it seems, means simply ``their order.''

Now, as I've said, we are leaving for the August recess with just 9 legislative days remaining until the end of the fiscal year--9 days. That's what is scheduled for legislative business between now and September 30--9 days. As I said, not a single appropriations bill has been sent to the President's desk. A bill that we were considering this week, which was supposed to be the principal item of business this week, was taken from the floor because it did not have the support of the majority party. This is not a recipe for responsible governance by the majority. It is a recipe for another manufactured crisis and threat of a government shutdown.

Mr. Speaker, our economy, our businesses, and our middle class families cannot and ought not endure further uncertainty as a result of this Congress' failure to do its job. The most egregious manifestation of the majority's failure to govern has been the irrational sequester policy that they not only refused to prevent but have now fully embraced. Why do I say they've fully embraced it? Because it gets to their number included in the Ryan budget without their having to make one single choice of cutting a single item. It simply says, This is the number. Meet it--no prioritization, no choice, no decision. The Ryan budget passed this House in March without a single Democratic vote--an endorsement, in theory, of this Republican Congress of cuts even deeper than the sequester imposes.

Now, let me say parenthetically that a lot of my Republican colleagues will stand at that podium or at one of these podiums and say, This is the President's sequester. Mr. Speaker, America needs to know that is not true, and I believe too many who make that statement know it not to be true. We passed legislation in this House in the middle of July of 2011 which said we're going to reach certain numbers, and if we don't, we're going to have a sequester. Mr. Speaker, you may recall that that was the Republican Cut, Cap, and Balance bill, whose policy was to have a sequester if the numbers set forth were not reached. That was before it was included in the bill which was a compromise to reach resolution so that America did not default on its bills.

I was not for the sequester. The President was not for the sequester, and we Democrats voted overwhelmingly--almost unanimously, perhaps unanimously--against that Cut, Cap, and Balance bill and its sequester. Why? Because cutting across the board the highest priority and the lowest priority by exactly the same percentage is an irrational policy. No family in America would do it.

Mr. Speaker, the example I use is that somebody in the family loses his job. The family income goes down. They have a budget. They have a budget for food, and they have a budget for movies. The sequester says take 10 percent from food and 10 percent from movies. There is no rational family in America that would do that. They would say, This month or this 6 months or this year, we're not going to the movies, but we're going to keep food on the table. That's the rational judgment that we would make, but that's not what the sequester says.

Having said that, we have offered amendments seven times in the last 6 months to set aside the sequester while, at the same time, reducing the deficit by the same amount. Seven times we were refused by the majority party the opportunity to even offer that amendment to have, as the Speaker says he wants, the House work its will. If they didn't agree with our amendment, they could have voted against it; but they didn't want to deal with our amendment because they like the sequester, because the sequester gets them to their number without their having to make a decision on cutting a single thing.

As I predicted then, when theory turns to practice in the Ryan budget, even Republicans, themselves, cannot live with the policies. Their own chairman of the Appropriations Committee characterized just the other day--this was Chairman Rogers of Kentucky, a conservative Republican, my friend with whom I've worked for many, many years as a member of the Appropriations Committee--he characterized the cuts included in the Ryan budget as ``unrealistic and ill-conceived.''

That's the Republican chairman of the Appropriations Committee saying of the Republican budget, known as the Ryan budget, ``unrealistic and ill-conceived.'' Their policy of sequester remains, Mr. Speaker, an albatross around the neck of the American people and of our economy.

If there were not a single Democrat in this House or in the Senate, not a single Democrat, Mr. Speaker, it is my belief that the Ryan budget could not pass this Congress.

The Republican pro-sequester spending-cuts-only approach simply does not work, and this week's Transportation-HUD appropriation debacle proves it. I want to quote again the chairman of the committee:

With this action, the House has declined to proceed on the

implementation of the very budget it adopted just 3 months

ago.

Let me make it clear. No Democrat had the opportunity to vote on this; no Democrat voted against this. We weren't for it--make no mistake--but the decision was made completely on the majority side of the aisle that they didn't have the votes for their bill. They could not implement the very budget that was adopted just 3 months ago.

``Thus, Mr. Speaker, I believe the House has made its choice,'' said Chairman Rogers. ``Sequestration and its unrealistic and ill-conceived discretionary cuts must be brought to an end,'' so said Hal Rogers, Republican, conservative from Kentucky, chairman of the Appropriations Committee. ``Sequestration must be brought to an end.''

As I've said, Mr. Speaker, those are the words of Hal Rogers. Not my words, his words. I know that Chairman Rogers is not the only Member of his party who is fed up with the Tea Party faction and their extreme agenda. As we prepare to go home to our districts over the month of August and hear their concerns about jobs and our economy and the pain of sequester's senseless cuts, I have spoken to hundreds of employees who work in our defense establishment who are lamenting the fact that not only are they being forced to take off 1 day a week for no pay and they can't even volunteer to work, who are lamenting the fact that those at the point of the spear in Afghanistan and other troubled parts of the word, they cannot take off Friday. They need the support that we give them from here in this country and, indeed, around the world in the civilian workforce, in DOD, the Department of Defense, all the time, not just 4 days a week.

As we prepare to go home to our districts over the month of August, as I said, and hear their concerns and the pain of the sequester's senseless cuts, I hope that we can turn the page of the July work period and return in a different spirit. See, September need not be July's second act.

In the short time we have left, just 9 legislative days before the fiscal year ends, I would urge the Speaker to take a different path. Instead of taking the familiar road of partisanship, posturing and spin, let us embrace the path of compromise and shared accomplishment, one we in this Congress might call, as the poet Robert Frost said, the road less traveled by. It's a wonderful poem by one of America's greatest poets. He said:

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--I took the one less

traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

We have difficult and pressing challenges to address in a short time: passing a budget; replacing the sequester with a balanced alternative; and averting a default on our debt, a default which would be catastrophic for America, for its people, for its economy, and would have ramifications throughout the world.

We can begin, Mr. Speaker, by going to conference on the budget and allowing both sides to sit down and start working on an agreement. That seems to be, Mr. Speaker, the road less traveled by; a road forward; a road that leads to positive, constructive, supportable results, not backward; a road to constructive compromise, not destructive confrontation; and to results that benefit our people and our economy. Mr. Speaker, such a road would surely make all the difference for this Congress and for this country.

Mr. Speaker, we need to work together. Newt Gingrich, a former Speaker with whom I served, reached a compromise with President Clinton. There were a lot of people on his side of the aisle that didn't want to see an agreement between President Clinton and Speaker Gingrich. It was on the funding of government, the basic responsibility this Congress has, or any board of directors of any enterprise has.

Mr. Gingrich stood at that podium, Mr. Speaker, and talked to what he referred to as his perfectionist caucus, people who wanted it their way and were not prepared to compromise from a road other than their way. He said, Mr. Speaker, to that perfectionist caucus, Look, I know this is not exactly what you want, but the American people have elected a President of another party, Bill Clinton, and they've elected a Senate with a lot of Democrats in there who don't agree with us, and, yes, some Republicans who don't agree with us. They also elected a lot of Democrats to the House of Representatives. He said, Obviously, a majority of the Members of the House were Republicans. But if the country was going to move forward, if there was going to be a positive resolution to the conflict that existed between differing points of view, that there would need to be compromise. He admonished that perfectionist caucus to understand that this was a democracy, not a dictatorship, and that agreement and compromise was the essence of what democracy meant.

Mr. Speaker, I hope that over the 5 weeks that are to come that Members will reflect, communicate with our citizens, and come to an understanding of the necessity to act not just our way or my way, not just to reflect what I want, but to reflect what we as a country working together can accomplish. Mr. Speaker, if we do that, America will continue to be the greatest country on the face of the Earth, providing opportunity for our children and our families, our workers and our seniors, and continuing to be that shining city on a hill of which Ronald Reagan spoke so glowingly

Mr. Speaker, let us hope in these 5 weeks we learn how to work together. That's what our people want. As importantly, that is what our people need.

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

I thank the ranking member of the Rules Committee, my friend, Ms. Slaughter, for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I want to say that I have a great deal of respect for the gentleman from Oklahoma. But I say that this House is not working. And the American people are angry with all of us, 100 percent of us.

The gentleman from Florida just said ``surely we can find common ground.'' The gentleman talked about shutting down the government being an unreasonable response, although many in his party promote that. The President's not promoting it; the President is against it. You know our side is against that. Surely, we can reach common ground.

Yesterday, we had eight bills on the floor on suspension. The public doesn't know process, I understand that--they're not too interested in hearing about process. But suspensions make for short debates and no amendments, no ability to make changes in those bills. That's why they were offered on suspension.

Apparently, three of those bills were pulled because they didn't think they had the votes. I don't think they had the votes either-- ``they'' being the majority.

So what did they do in their pursuit of a transparent ``let the House work its will'' pledge that they had made to the American public when they sought control, being in the majority? They've gone to the Rules Committee. One rule, five bills. How can you debate five different bills with rules, whether the rules are correct? And what are those rules? Closed, no amendments, limited discussion.

Yesterday, we had an appropriations bill on the floor. It was pulled. It was pulled, as I predicted it would be, because the Republican majority cannot get its act together. It disagrees with itself. It is a deeply divided party.

I was just on television, and they played a clip of Rush Limbaugh before that, and Rush Limbaugh said ``we ought not to compromise because we don't have anything in common with them''--meaning Democrats. My response was: ``Oh, I think Rush Limbaugh is wrong.''

We are all Americans, and we are all elected here by Americans to serve

them and to serve their country, to serve our communities and our neighbors, and to try to do things that make sense. Americans elected all of us from different places, different interests.

I say this because, Mr. Speaker, the American people need to know what's happening.

They pulled the Transportation-Housing bill. I wasn't for that bill as it came out of committee, nor were any Democrats that voted on it in committee, but they brought it to the floor and then pulled it. Nine days from tomorrow, nine legislative days from tomorrow, we are going to have that issue of how we are going to fund government and keep it running.

The Senate just a few minutes ago refused to allow the Senate-- because the Republican Party voted ``no'' on bringing debate to close after days of debate and discussion, and they voted ``no'' to take the HUD bill up for discussion.

So in both Houses the Republican Party has abandoned the appropriations process. Now, I've just said that.

Hal Rogers, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, a conservative Republican, says this:

``I am extremely disappointed with the decision to pull the bill from the House calendar today. The prospects of passing this bill in September are bleak at best, given the vote count on passage that was apparent this afternoon. With this action, the House has declined to proceed on the implementation of the very budget it adopted'' without a single Democratic vote.

He went on to say--Mr. Rogers, conservative, Kentucky, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Republican:

Thus, I believe that the House has made its choice:

sequestration--and its unrealistic and ill-conceived

discretionary cuts--must be brought to an end.

The Ryan budget was unrealistic when it was considered on this floor. Mr. Rogers voted for that budget. He knew then it was unrealistic. He knew then it could not be implemented.

I predicted then that if you took every Democrat out of the House and every Democrat out of the Senate, that that budget could not be implemented through the appropriations process and through the Ways and Means process, and I was right.

Yes, we need to seek common ground. We are hurting the economy, we are undermining the confidence of the American people and, indeed, we are undermining the confidence of our international partners.

Tom Cole sits here representing the Rules Committee. I want to tell everybody in America Tom Cole is a reasonable Member of this House. He's been a leader of this House. He wants to see common ground, in my view, so I do not criticize him.

But I say, Mr. Speaker, as you tap the gavel, time is not only running out on Steny Hoyer, time is running out on this House, time is running out on America, time is running out on the patience of Americans that their House is not working.

Mr. Speaker, we are witnessing on full display the utter failure of Republicans to govern as the majority.

Yesterday, after the Speaker and Majority Leader pulled the Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development appropriations bill from the floor, because they didn't have the votes to pass it, chairman Hal Rogers of the Appropriations Committee--that is, Republicans' top appropriator--issued a scathing rebuke to his party's own sequester strategy.

He wrote:

With this action, the House has declined to proceed on the

implementation of the very budget it adopted just three

months ago. Thus, I believe that the House has made its

choice: sequestration--and its unrealistic and ill-conceived

discretionary cuts--must be brought to an end.

Not my words, Mr. Speaker, but the Republican chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

What a shame that we are now harming our national security and limiting our ability to protect the most vulnerable people in America through this sequester process.

It is also hurting our economic recovery, as the nonpartisan CBO has estimated it could cost us as many as 1.6 million jobs that would have been created by the end of the next fiscal year--and 1.3 percentage points of added GDP.

The sequester is a result of Congress stalling on tough decisions and an insistence by tea party Republicans on divesting from America and dismantling the foundations of the American Dream.

And it has been embraced by the Republican leadership as their singular approach to deficits.

But the sequester is not a rational or responsible solution.

It was never meant to be.

The mere threat of sequester was intended to be so severe that it would compel both parties to cooperate and find a balanced alternative.

Now, like Chairman Rogers, many Republicans are growing tired of the sequester and are ready to compromise.

But not the Republican leadership, and that is very sad.

The complete implosion of their appropriations strategy demonstrates that, in order to pass appropriations or any substantive legislation, Republicans will have to compromise and work with Democrats in a bipartisan way.

It is sad and shameful that we are about to adjourn for a 5-week district work period, leaving critical business to create jobs and tackle deficits unfinished, while Republicans waste this Congress's time on a 40th vote to repeal ObamaCare.

When we return in September, I hope Republicans will see this week's appropriations debacle as their own appropriations chairman has--and abandon their reckless support for the sequester.

Let us focus now on seeking bipartisan compromise and the big, balanced solution that will restore fiscal sanity and give American families and businesses the certainty they deserve.

I thank the gentleman.

Will the gentleman yield?

I used to be the majority leader, and the thing that I hated losing most was my magic 1 minute, because as the gentleman will recall, it was an unlimited 1 minute.

If the gentleman will yield, I say respectfully to my friend, we think the President sent down a piece of legislation similar to yours, correct. But we both worked together; you're right.

Will my friend yield on that point?

The gentleman is correct. Both sides have done it. But you will recall, your side criticized us very substantially and said you would not do it. That I think is the difference. But both sides, you're absolutely correct, have brought rules that have been closed and limited in their scope.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I was not going to speak. I was constrained to speak, to come to the floor, when we had this chart about 2 million employees.

But only adversely affecting just a small sliver. The premise seems to be you can undermine--as long as they're a small minority--the rights of people.

And those Capitol policemen of which the gentleman spoke, and the people at the desk of whom the gentleman spoke, people who serve in our committees of whom the gentleman spoke, people who serve as nurses--not necessarily in VA hospitals because they're exempt--zero COLA 4 years in a row. All 2 million have been affected.

Every new employee has been affected--everyone--not just that small, little sliver that apparently the SES is. They don't get rights. If it were 1.98 million, well, then, that's a different story, but as long as it's only a small sliver, undermine their rights.

I came to the floor to say that, if we undermine the rights of one, frankly, the rights of all are soon at risk. We have learned that throughout history. So I would hope that we would reject this bill, which was seven or eight bills to start out with, which were put up here in a way that you could not amend them--suspension--in this transparent, open, ``let the House work its will'' process, and we now come back with a closed rule, putting all the bills in one--a rule covering all seven bills--and the chairman shakes his head and shows pictures and believes those are facts.

My friends, we ought to reject these bills because they are about all employees. They may affect only a small few at this juncture, but they are about all employees; and it's about undermining their rights and the respect we ought to accord to them for the service they give to the people of the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, there is so much I would like to say, particularly as to the extraordinary discrepancy between those folks who make far less than their counterparts in the private sector and those who work in the private sector, who, perhaps, have less responsibility on their shoulders. Look it up. See the statistics. That's the case.

The other thing I want to say to my friend is that the law now provides for procedures to remove bad actors. Do we have some bad actors in the Federal service? We do. That's human life. That's the human experience.

I don't have anymore time, but if the gentleman from California will yield you some time, I will be glad to yield you some time.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I'm going to only speak once, even though there's seven bills. Time is short. We have just a few days left in the legislature until we shut down the government if we don't act. We passed three of the appropriations bills. My understanding is that the one we've had under consideration is not going to be brought to final passage. I may be incorrect in that, but that's the understanding. At least there's some talk about that.

This Congress has been the worst Congress for Federal employees that I have ever served in. The gentleman who spoke before me says he ran a business. If you treated your employees as we're treating our employees, they would have all quit. They would have all walked out. They would talk about the epithets that are used and that ``bureaucrats'' spit out as a pejorative term to the people who make this government run.

I don't know whether the gentleman read this in the paper today, but two of our largest financial institutions were fined very heavily for misconduct. Do people do things wrong? They do. They do them wrong in the private sector. They do them wrong from time to time in the public sector. Should we be concerned about that? We should be. Should we excise that kind of behavior from private and public sectors? Absolutely.

But I will tell you that these bills--and some of them are okay; they're somewhat redundant. The bill the gentleman speaks of--I just got on the floor when the gentleman was speaking so I don't know exactly what the circumstances are in terms of his being, obviously, from his perspective, threatened by the fact that somebody was going to record him. I understand his concern about that. Frankly, if they'd called me and done that, I would have said, very frankly, I'm going to hang up, and I'll talk to you later with my lawyer, and you're welcome to meet with me. I'm a lawyer so I would have advised him to do that.

That does not explain the torrent of antigovernment workers that we have seen from this Congress and, frankly, to some degree, from the last Congress. They can't strike. And because they have to support their families, they can't walk out. They don't have many tools. They have us, of course, who represent many of them, to stand up for their rights. But much more importantly, for respect from their employer, which they're not getting.

I would tell my friend that he can come with me. I was down at Pax River, a big naval base, talking about the 20 percent cut that we've asked people to take. They perceive it's because of our dysfunction and because we can't get our job done here, not because of anything they did wrong, not because of a lack of performance.

And I will tell my friend, Mr. Kelly, that an awful lot of my folks are saying, We want to be at work. We've got guys at the point of the spear relying on it, and we're not able to work on Fridays. But they're still fighting on Fridays. They're still at risk on Fridays.

And so when they see these bills, I tell my friend, it's a ``gotcha'' reaction they have. We'll get 'em. You didn't like being recorded, so your response is to do what you didn't like to them. Now my response, if I were them, is to say, Sorry, Mr. Kelly, I can't talk to you. If you're going to record me, I'm not going to talk to you. We'll put it down on paper, we'll do whatever. As you were concerned about that effort, understand their concern as well.

As I said, out of eight of these bills, four of them aren't too bad. Three of them, obviously, go to undermining due process. The gentleman talks about being concerned. One of the bills says: no due process. You're fired because I think you did something wrong. Not because I proved you did something wrong, not because maybe you did do something wrong. But because I think you did something wrong, you're off--and you're off with no pay.

Maybe the gentleman is asking Mr. Issa whether in fact that's one of the bills, but I assure him it is.

Mr. Speaker, I would suggest we're the employer, we're the board of directors. And I think, frankly, in the IRS case, we haven't proved

any wrong yet. There's been a lot of assertions but not much proof. We shouldn't go head-over-heels denigrating those folks on whom we rely to carry out the very policies we adopt.

Do we need oversight? Of course. Do we need honesty in performance of public duties? Absolutely. But we also need respect and consideration shown for those who work for America--the best civil service in the world. It's the most competent, best-educated civil service in the world, and we treat them as second-rate citizens. We ought not to do that.

We ought to reject this bill and a number of others of these bills. Let us think of our Federal employees. Because if we don't, we won't have the kind of government that America deserves and wants.

Will the gentleman yield on that?

I didn't think you would.

I didn't think you would.

I thank the gentleman.

Her lawyer, or the lawyers, because there was a criminal investigation underway, did what lawyers do in an abundance of caution. That, by the way, is provided for in the Constitution of the United States--I know the gentleman's read it. I've read it as well. So they were availing themselves of their constitutional right.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I rise in support of this legislation, but I also thank my friend Keith Ellison for his perspective on this, and I want to speak to that as well. I want to thank Chairman Royce and Ranking Member Engel for their leadership on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I believe the most dangerous threat to peace and stability in the Middle East continues to be that posed by Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, which would launch this turbulent region into a nuclear arms race that no one can afford to risk, including our troops in the region. Time and again, Security Council resolutions after Security Council resolutions, Iran has refused to heed the international community's warnings, and it has, instead, continued along a path toward the bomb, choosing isolation over integration.

We are here today to talk about how to stop Iran's pursuit. As a government, we have many tools to use. Diplomacy is one and diplomacy must continue. Indeed, many feel the time is right to test President- elect Rouhani's sincerity, and I agree, but he must expect us to turn his positive talk of a policy of reconciliation and peace into action. We should welcome and pursue his willingness to come to the table to negotiate. We need to test that, but delay has been too long for us not to pursue concurrent approaches. That tool of economic pressure, which is working, should also be pursued additionally. That is why I support this resolution.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank him for his thoughtfulness.

Hopefully, negotiations will prove successful and such pressure can be either moderated or removed. President-elect Rouhani campaigned on a promise to ease the burden of sanctions on the Iranian people, and he won. We would welcome a second victory for him and the United Nations in seeing that objective of denuclearization realized.

I support today's bill because I believe a robust sanctions regime could help encourage Iran to abandon its pursuit of the bomb and to end its support for terrorist groups and human rights abuses. President- elect Rouhani is uniquely positioned, I believe, to show leadership on this and achieve early success in his new administration.

However, our skepticism about the Iranian leadership's action in the past has been more than justified, but we must nevertheless continue to work for a resolution of this challenging issue. Engaging President- elect Rouhani in our quest for early resolution is appropriate, but these sanctions are also appropriate. Therefore, I rise in their support.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Let me start with the fact that I choose to believe that Mr. Latham does not like this bill. Mr. Latham's not listening to me. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to say that I start my debate, that I choose to believe that you do not like this bill. I know you. I've worked with you over a long period of time.

This bill is insufficient to meet the obligations of this subcommittee. It is unworthy of the support of this House.

Mr. Chairman, there are many things wrong with the 2014 Transportation-Housing and Urban Development appropriation bill, but perhaps none more egregious than its severely painful cuts to the Community Development Block Grants.

Now, let me start with this observation. This is not about a poor people's program. It helps some poor people, but it helps communities-- rich, moderate, and poor.

This is not about the 47 percent. This is about the 100 percent.

The Community Development Block Grant program was enacted on a bipartisan basis in 1974 and signed into law by the President, Gerald Ford, former minority leader of this House, President of the United States. From its beginning, it has served as a model of how bipartisan compromise in Congress can help tackle important challenges on the local level.

For nearly 40 years, these grants have been awarded on a formula basis to State and local governments for infrastructure development, the creation and maintenance of affordable housing units, anti-poverty initiatives.

It makes communities better. It empowers Members of Congress to be able to help their local communities who elect them. These grants save lives in our largest cities and in our smallest towns, in Alaska, in Hawaii, and in Maryland.

The cuts in this bill would reduce Community Development Block Grants by more than half. America is not bankrupt. America need not claim defeat and retreat. America has the resources, if it has the will, to grow our economies, to grow our communities, and to make them better.

We appropriated around $3.8 billion for these grants in fiscal year 2012, while this bill would cut that figure to just $1.6 billion. To put this into perspective, in 2001 we spent $4.7 billion under George Bush II on Community Development Block Grants.

After years of whittling away at those critical grants which empower our States, counties, and cities to help the most vulnerable have a chance at finding jobs and putting roofs over their heads, it would be devastating to communities whose budgets are already pushed to the limit and rely on these grants to serve all of their residents.

Our friends on the other side of the aisle talk a great deal about fiscal responsibility. But what about social responsibility?

Now I'm a strong proponent of fiscal responsibility. But if fiscal responsibility is not coupled with social responsibility, it is not worthy of this House or this country.

Community Development Block Grants are an instrument of our common citizenship and, yes, our common humanity. In this case, however, they are a poignant example of the Republican strategy of disinvestment in America and abandonment of our communities and their people. Surely we're better than that, Mr. Chairman.

When we considered the Veterans Affairs, military construction, and Defense appropriations bills that included robust funding, we knew those funds had to come from somewhere. Here it comes.

Like our Republican friends, we believe we must invest in a strong, national defense, as Chairwoman Mikulski has been doing on the Senate Appropriations Committee. But we do not share the Republican majority's view that we ought to abandon our domestic priorities in the process. We're better than that.

None of us are surprised that their strategy to deal with the sequester is to ignore its consequences and impose cuts even deeper, even deeper, even deeper than the sequester calls for. In fact, I know of a number of our colleagues on the Republican side who see the folly in such strategy but cannot or will not speak up, for fear of the political consequences from the radical right. This bill is proof that such a strategy is underway.

It's not only an abdication of responsible leadership, it is a recipe for gridlock, as Democrats in the House and Senate could never agree to it. Reject this bill. We can and must do better.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman from Virginia for yielding.

He and I spent literally a decade working together, shoulder to shoulder, in a bipartisan way because this is America's subway. This is a subway that is used by almost all of the visitors who come to visit their capital. It is for that reason that the Federal Government has participated in building this extraordinary system.

The gentleman is correct. We have an agreement. There is a compact that has been signed by Republican Governors and Democratic Governors, by Republican Members of the House and Democratic Members of the House, by Republican members of the Senate and Democratic members of the Senate. I would hope that the House would reject this amendment.

I adopt the remarks of the gentlemen from Virginia. My colleagues Mr. Moran and Mr. Wolf, I think, speak for all of us, and, of course, Mr. Connolly has spoken very strongly for himself, but I would hope that the House would continue to keep the faith with the agreement that has been made for what is America's subway, used by all of our people when they come here to their Nation's Capital.

I want to thank the chairman, and I want to thank the ranking member for their efforts on behalf of the Metro as well as for keeping the faith of the agreement that we have reached. I thank the gentleman for his leadership and his remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Dr. Burgess and Mr. Butterfield for their leadership on this bill, but I certainly want to thank my friend, Dr. Phil Roe, who has been a delight to work with. It has taken us a little bit of time, but we stayed after it. We stayed after it because, as Dr. Burgess and Judge Butterfield have observed, this will save lives. This will save the lives of children. This will save the lives of children who do not know that they have an allergy which is life threatening.

I'm the grandfather of an 11-year-old little girl. I've been with her twice in the emergency room when she was but an infant and when she was slightly older than an infant. I want to tell my colleagues a story about my daughter who took Alexa to Disney World.

They were walking down the pathway, one of the walkways at Disney World, and all of a sudden my granddaughter started wheezing heavily and stated having an allergic reaction. She is extraordinarily allergic to peanut butter and peanuts. But she'd had no peanut butter and she'd had no peanuts. As a matter of fact, this little girl is extraordinarily careful about what she eats. She comes to my house, she makes sure that I read the labels and she reads the labels. She brings with her her EpiPen in the little case that is always with her.

But as they were walking down that pathway, she started to wheeze heavily, and they had no idea why. My daughter turned around and retraced a few of their steps, and they saw popcorn being made--popcorn being made with peanut oil. And the mere breathing in of that peanut oil air caused her to start wheezing heavily. Now, she didn't have anaphylactic shock at that point in time, and she did not need to go to an emergency room at that time, but it shows how extraordinarily vulnerable people can be to these food allergies.

So I'm very pleased to stand here in support of this bill. I'm very pleased to stand here as a cosponsor of this legislation with my friend, Dr. Roe from Tennessee, and I want to thank him. I want to thank him for his work. I want to thank him as a doctor and as a Member of Congress and as a parent. He shared my concern and we worked together.

There were some difficulties to overcome, but he and I together, working together with Fred Upton--and I want to thank Fred Upton and Henry Waxman, the chair and ranking member of the committee, as well as Dr. Burgess and Mr. Butterfield for their help. They have both said, and I'm sure Dr. Roe will say, this will save lives. It is not a mandate, but it is a suggestion. It is an urging to make sure that, given the fact that we have this lifesaving capability, that that capability be deployed and be present so that no child will have to die because of a reaction to one of these allergies.

So I thank them again and thank my friend for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the majority leader, Mr. Cantor of Virginia, for the purpose of inquiring as to the schedule for the week to come.

I thank the gentleman for his information.

I don't see on the schedule, Mr. Speaker, that we are going to a budget conference. At least there's no notice from the majority leader of that fact. Mr. Speaker, as you know, we are facing a number of critical deadlines. It has now been 125 days since the House passed a budget and 123 days since the Senate passed a budget. On issue after issue, our Republican colleagues, Mr. Speaker, have passed bills and then refused to negotiate. Mr. Speaker, it's past time for action. We should go to conference and reach an agreement. I would urge my friend, the majority leader, Mr. Speaker, to go to conference.

One of his colleagues, Mr. Speaker, from Virginia said this: ``I am proudly on record about this. I believe we need to go to conference,'' speaking of the budget. This Member went on to say, ``I have listened carefully to the argument that we should not go to conference, and frankly I do not find it compelling.''

Mr. Speaker, that was Representative Scott Rigell of Virginia.

I would ask my friend, the majority leader, does the gentleman expect that we will go to conference at all on the budget?

I yield to my friend.

I thank the gentleman for his comment.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman's premise is absolutely incorrect, and the American people ought to know that. The Senate hasn't voted to go to conference because the Republican Members of the United States Senate won't vote to go to conference. There was nothing in that motion, however, that said there was a prerequisite that the House agreed to anything, Mr. Speaker. Nothing.

Now, my friend, the majority leader, Mr. Speaker, has said repeatedly that we have a prerequisite. We have a difference of opinion. That's what democracy is about. There's no prerequisite. There's no precondition. There's no condition precedent, as we lawyers say, for going to conference. Number one, the Senate couldn't make us agree. That's what conferences are about, Mr. Speaker. They're about coming together and understanding there are differences. There would be no need for a conference if there weren't differences. There are differences.

We're $91 billion apart, Mr. Speaker, on our budgets. We are 14 days away from the end of this fiscal year, Mr. Speaker, in terms of legislative days available to us to get to a compromise, to get to a number, to get to some understanding of how we are going to ensure that government operations continue. There's no prerequisite. There's no precondition. I don't know where that comes from, Mr. Speaker. I've heard it a lot. I have no idea where it comes from.

Nothing the Senate does can force this body, Republicans or Democrats, to do something. What they have asked is come to the table and talk. There has been a refusal to do that, Mr. Speaker, and it's bad for the country.

A $91 billion difference between us on budgets has to be resolved somehow, some way. And the way democracies do it and the way the legislature does it, Mr. Speaker is to meet and try to resolve those differences. Now, you can divide the differences in half. The Senate comes down 46, we go up 45. My own view is Mr. Ryan believes there's nothing he will agree to. I'll get to that a little later, Mr. Speaker. That's why we're not going to conference, and he said so in the paper. He didn't say it about the conference, but I'll get to his quote in just a second.

Mr. Speaker, the majority leader mentioned that the T-HUD appropriation bill is on the floor next week. So far, Mr. Speaker, we are now essentially going to be at the end of the session before the August break coming next week on Friday, and we've done four appropriation bills. The House T-HUD bill of which the majority leader speaks, Mr. Speaker, is 17 percent below the Budget Control Act that we agreed on. Not only that, Mr. Speaker, it's 9 percent below the sequester level.

Now, we're not going to vote for it, Mr. Speaker. We believe it badly underfunds, transportation, housing, and infrastructure in this country, but this performance makes some sense considering the lack of regular order. We talk about regular order, but we don't follow it. Going to conference is regular order. It doesn't change the fact, however, that we just have 14 days left to go and that we need to reach agreement.

I will tell my friend, the majority leader, Mr. Speaker, that we are willing to work together. We have been willing to compromise. We have compromised. In every one of these agreements we've reached, we've compromised. My friend, the majority leader, would say, yes, and they have, as well. But you cannot compromise if you don't sit down.

I will tell you nobody has called me to ask me how I believe we can get to the end of this year with a continuing resolution. Nobody's asked me that. I talked to Mr. Ryan and Mr. Van Hollen. Mr. Ryan has not talked to Mr. Van Hollen. With all due respect to this discussion about their talking, they're not talking. I talked to Senator Murray. No discussion of how we resolve the differences. I talked to the chair of the Appropriations Committee, both the ranking member here, Mrs. Lowey, and the chair on the Senate side, Senator Mikulski. Nobody is talking to them about how we resolve the question at the end of next month. And we won't be here at the end of next month. We're in session 2 weeks in September.

I want to use a quote:

But we should not pass a continuing resolution, and I will

not vote for a continuing resolution unless we talk about

preconditions for going to conference.

Talk about preconditions. Talk about demands and ultimatums:

I will not vote for a continuing resolution unless it

defunds ObamaCare for the period of time of the continuing

resolution.

Nobody in America believes that's going to be done. A lot of people, I know the majority leader would tell me, want it done. But we had an election. The President won. He won't sign the defunding of ObamaCare because he believes it's in the best interest of the health of our people and the welfare of our country, and, yes, even job creation and economic growth. But Marco Rubio says he won't vote for a continuing resolution unless it does something that's not going to happen. The majority leader, Mr. Speaker, said they weren't going to go to conference--another ultimatum--unless the Senate abandoned its point of view. The Senate has a right to its point of view. We have a right to our point of view. We need to discuss it. That's the way you get things done in a democracy, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the majority leader, Does the gentleman expect that we will go to conference at all, at any time on the budget?

I yield to my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's recitation of history. Let me remind him, the first year I was majority leader, all 12 appropriations bills passed the House prior to the August break--all 12. That also happened the third year. It didn't happen the second year when we had a lot of political delays. And the reason we went to structured rules, as the gentleman I'm sure recalls, because we had filibuster by amendment. We had delay and obstruction in 2007, just as we have delay and obstruction today, just as there is a refusal today to go to conference. Over 120 days after both Houses have passed their budgets, we still have refusal to go to conference. That is why you can't get agreement.

The gentleman characterizes, I think Mr. Ryan has talked to Senator Murray, and I will tell you that Senator Murray does not believe it was a very long discussion or a very substantive discussion because--and you talk about Mr. Ryan. I've got a quote of his I know you'll like that I want to get to because it makes the point I'm making. I was going to make it a little later.

Paul Ryan, when asked about Senate Republicans' plan to work with Democrats to address the debt ceiling, said:

It doesn't matter. We're not going to do what they want to

do. It doesn't really matter what they do. It doesn't matter

what John McCain and others do on the taxes and the rest. If

they want to give up taxes for the sequester, we're not going

to do that. So that doesn't really affect us.

But, oh, it does affect us because, Mr. Speaker, if we can't get agreement, those American folks of which the majority leader just spoke who are looking for jobs, who want to see this economy grow, who are suffering because of gridlock, who have a lack of confidence because this Congress does not work--the most dysfunctional Congress in which I have served, and I've been here 33 years, the least productive Congress in which I've served. Mr. Speaker, that's what we need to be doing.

Mike Lee, another Republican in the Senate talking about trying to get to agreement: ``If Republicans in both Houses simply refuse''--and this is their strategy, Mr. Speaker. ``If Republicans in both Houses simply refuse to vote for any continuing resolution that contains further funding for further enforcement of ObamaCare''--and I understand the gentleman is opposed to it. He was opposed to it before the election. Mr. Romney was opposed to it. We had an election, and you didn't win that argument at the national level. I say that Mr. Obama won that argument. But Senator Lee says he will not vote for a CR if it includes ``further funding for further enforcement of ObamaCare. We can stop it. We can stop the individual mandate from going into effect.'' How? By shutting down government.

That's their strategy. We don't think that's a good strategy, Mr. Speaker. We think that's a bad strategy. We don't want to see that. We're prepared to work together to compromise. Nobody believes, just as the gentleman has said he's not going to agree to tax increases--I understand what he's saying, so we'll have to compromise on that somewhere along the road when we sit down. But nobody believes that either we on this side are going to compromise or the President's going to compromise after an election, after being reelected on a health care program that is benefiting millions and millions of people right now, nobody believes we're going to compromise on that. Thirty-nine times they've tried to repeal it in one form or another. It's failed. We've got to come to grips on that.

Now, one of the House Members, Mick Mulvaney from South Carolina, said:

It is completely appropriate to use the debt ceiling or the

CR to ask for some changes that reduce the burdens of this

law on Americans.

Now, they've offered that 38, 39 times. It's not going to happen. But apparently their strategy is: We're prepared to shut down government unless they will be bludgeoned into agreeing by doing it our way; if we don't do it our way, apparently we're not going to do it any way.

That's what the budget conference is about, and that's what this debate is about.

Now, Pat Toomey, Senator Toomey, on the other hand, said this, Mr. Speaker:

This has been the way we've been operating for a couple of

years now.

This is Senator Pat Toomey, former chair of the Club for Growth, said:

It's a disaster. It's a terrible way to run government.

Senator Toomey and I don't always agree, but we agree very emphatically on that.

Congressman Tom Cole, former chairman of the Republican Committee, described the latest shutdown threat, which is what the previous three speakers had indicated--not Pat Toomey, but the three before that. Tom Cole described the latest shutdown threat as:

The political equivalent of throwing a temper tantrum.

That's Tom Cole, chairman of the Republican Campaign Committee, Mr. Speaker, not me.

We need to get past this ``you won't do this; I won't do that'' and figure out what we will do, I say to my friend, the majority leader, and we have 14 days to do it. We haven't gotten it done yet; and, frankly, we have nothing on the calendar for next week that shows that we're moving toward that end.

I would hope very sincerely that we could come to an agreement. And we're not going to come to an agreement on something that was so hard fought for the last 5 years, and we know that. We know you're probably not going to raise taxes, I tell my friend, the majority leader, Mr. Speaker. But the fact of the matter is that we need to come to an agreement. Americans expect us to come to an agreement.

With so few legislative days remaining before the fiscal year ends and the fact that we must address it in mind, I hope the gentleman can give us some clarity as to what Members can expect on the floor in September for the 9 days we're here in September since we're so far off course from regular order on the budget and the appropriations schedule.

Can Members expect to see a CR? And if so, does the gentleman have any idea what the CR will look like, what it will encompass, and what we can expect?

I want to say to my friend that we Democrats are prepared to cooperate in that effort. We're not going to--and the gentleman clearly knows that we're not going to--repeal the health care act. The election, we think, decided it. As a matter of, Speaker Boehner said that it decided it after the election. He said, well, the health care law has been confirmed. But I want to make it clear that we are willing to do some things.

We are not willing, however, to see the sequester cripple policies that this Congress has adopted. We're not willing to defund the Affordable Care Act. We're not willing to sacrifice our economic recovery to push the cost of deficit reduction onto those who can least afford it. We are not willing to shift more of the tax burden onto the backs of the middle class. We're not willing to target Medicare or Medicaid and education, or the deep cuts that were in the Labor, Health bill which has now been pulled. Apparently, we're not going to consider the Labor, Health bill. It's not on the schedule. It was supposed to be marked up today. It was pulled.

So I say to the gentleman, Mr. Speaker, that he and his colleagues should be willing to compromise on the few legislative days we have remaining; and if he is, he will have a willing partner in me and in Democrats because we believe we need to come to an agreement.

Now, lastly, let me speak on the debt ceiling. The majority leader, Mr. Speaker, has made it very clear he thinks not resolving the debt ceiling would be a bad policy for our country. In fact, I believe it would be disastrous for our country, for the economy, for every American, and for people around the world. We all know what happened last time; we were downgraded. It's the majority party's responsibility in each House to make sure that America's creditworthiness is not put at risk, that we pay our bills.

I'm hopeful, and I want to tell me friend that I'm prepared to work in tandem with the majority leader, Mr. Speaker, to pass a debt limit extension, and we will do so in an equal way so that whatever political consequences there are, we will take them together to do what the majority leader, Mr. Speaker, and the Speaker, and Mr. McConnell, the leader in the Senate, have said is the responsible thing to do. We're prepared to take half of that responsibility with them. We would hope that they would join us in that effort.

Senator McCain has said that some of my Republican colleagues are already saying we won't raise the debt limit again unless there is repeal of ObamaCare. Senator McCain said, ``I'd love to repeal ObamaCare.'' He agrees with the majority leader. He goes on to say, ``But I promised you, that's not going to happen.'' That's on the debt limit.

The President has made it very clear it's not going to happen. We've made it very clear it's not going to happen.

Going on with Senator McCain's quote:

So some would like to set up another one of these shut down

the government threats, and most Americans are really tired

of those kinds of shenanigans here in Washington.

That's Senator McCain.

I've quoted Senator Toomey, Senator McCain, who both believe we need to come to agreement. I have also, unfortunately, quoted Congressman Ryan, who says he doesn't care what Senator McCain thinks; who, of course, was a candidate for President on the Republican ticket just a few years ago.

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the majority leader whether he expects we will take an up-or-down vote on a clean debt limit extension when we return in September.

I yield to my friend.

I have heard that answer, I think, more than the President has given the speeches that Mr. Cantor refers to.

This party has always been, is now, and will be focused on the working people to which the majority leader refers.

The President asked us to pass a jobs bill. No jobs bill has been brought to this floor. I know that there are some bills that the Republican Party leader wants to say, Mr. Speaker, are jobs bills. But there's been no comprehensive jobs bill. There's none scheduled for next week.

But what the American people are really concerned about is their board of directors is not working. This isn't about Washington. This is about people who voted all over America. And the leader and his party made their point, and we had an election, not here in Washington, all over America. And America voted. And it hasn't made any difference on this floor.

Politics as usual. Confrontation as usual. Refusal to compromise as usual. Talk about regular order, but not going to conference, not going to conference on a budget, not going to conference on a farm bill, not going to conference on a Violence Against Women Act. We finally passed that.

So when the majority leader repairs to the fact that we want to focus on working people, he's absolutely right. We do want to focus on that. And the working people of America voted. They didn't all vote for my side. But as I told the majority leader last week, 1,400,000 of them more voted for our side than voted for his side.

But his side's in charge. We understand that. And we know we need to compromise. We know we need to work together. But we haven't been doing so.

And he can talk as much as he wants. That's what the American people believe as well, I tell my friend, the majority leader.

I asked him about the debt limit and he said no.

I want to clarify what he said no on was that a clean debt limit extension was not coming to the floor.

I appreciate the majority leader's comment. Can he tell me whether there might be a possibility of having a clean debt limit extension after September?

Because I tell the gentleman again, I want to repeat so that he knows, his party knows, and America knows, we're prepared to work with the majority party to do, in a bipartisan way, what every leader believes is the responsible action to take.

One of his predecessors, Senator Roy Blunt, in responding to whether we ought to risk default by not passing a debt limit, he said this: ``No, I don't support that. I think holding the debt limit hostage''-- in other words, if you don't do the debt limit, we're not going to do this, that or the other, or, said another way, if you don't repeal ObamaCare, we're going to let the country default. Senator Blunt, again, one of his predecessors: ``I don't support that. I think holding the debt limit hostage to any specific thing is probably not the best negotiating place.''

Now, I thank my friend for his comment, Mr. Speaker, and I would again ask him, could we expect a clean debt limit extension at some point in time between September 30 and November 15?

And I yield to my friend.

I thank the gentleman for that response, which I took as a no, which didn't indicate that we could expect to see bipartisan work on making sure that the government pays its bills that have already been incurred. No, it was a lot of rhetoric.

And there was a lot of recitation, Mr. Speaker, about bills. All those bills have something in common: do it my way or no way.

Now, we had an election, I tell the gentleman again. He knows that. They thought they were going to take the Senate. They didn't. The majority in the Senate is Democrats. And the President of the United States was reelected. And the House, Republican majority, was returned. But that didn't mean the American people didn't expect us to work together.

I tell the gentleman, I'm not sure what error he thought I made. We did not go to conference on the Violence Against Women Act. We did not go to conference yet on the farm bill.

I will be glad to yield to my friend.

I thank the gentleman.

I didn't talk about intentions. I talked about fact. I talked about fact.

Pete Sessions, chairman of the Rules Committee, Republican, said this when we passed the farm bill: ``I believe that this is an honest attempt to

get us to go by passing part of the farm bill, to go to conference.''

I asked the gentleman last week, I asked him again, there's nothing on here about going to conference. The gentleman's told me we're not going to conference until we pass something on the nutrition part. We want to see something on the nutrition part passed.

Pete Sessions said, in addition to that, when talking about why they brought the farm bill to the floor in the condition it was, dropping all reference and provisions for poor people to have nutritional assistance, said this:

We're attempting to then separate, bifurcate, offer today a

rule and the underlying legislation which hopefully will pass

which would go to conference and the Senate, because they've

passed their own farm bill, has included in its provisions

where they discuss the nutrition program.

This is Pete Sessions, Republican chairman of the Rules Committee speaking, Mr. Speaker.

As a result of that, that should be in their bill on a

conference measure. The House simply, at this point, if we

pass this part, could go to conference.

So the gentleman is not accurate when he reflects there's nothing to go to conference on. The Senate has amended their bill into the House bill. We could clearly go to conference on that under the processes.

I think the gentleman must know that. And that was the expectation that Pete Sessions says was the purpose of passing the farm bill.

But let me go back to the point I was making before the gentleman wanted to correct me on what I think were accurate representations on all the pieces of legislation I mentioned. Certainly that's the case on the budget. My opinion, it's the case, certainly on the budget.

I don't know what the intentions are, but the fact is we haven't gone to conference on the farm bill and we didn't go to conference on the Violence Against Women bill.

The fact is, what those bills that he mentioned did have in common, Mr. Speaker, is--and he said, we've got no Democratic votes for it. There was no work to get Democratic votes. There was no work for compromise. That's, I tell my friend, why the polls reflect of working people such concern.

The majority, Mr. Speaker, talked a lot about confidence, talked a lot about building confidence if we were going to grow the economy. I agree with him. We need to have individuals confident.

And the gentleman knows, because he talks to a lot of business leaders, as I do, every one of them says that if they had confidence that we could work together and get things done, not put the debt limit at risk, not put the ongoing operations of government at risk, not continue to have fights--I talked to a major leader of one of the health insurers in this country and said, look, we may not like some of this bill, but we think it's the law, and we're going to work to try to make it work for all Americans.

We're not doing that, Mr. Speaker. We're trying to repeal. We're not conferencing. We're not cooperating. We're not trying to come to compromise.

And we can talk about working people, as is appropriate for us to do, and that's what the President is out doing, not here in Washington, not talking to all of us. He's talking to the people and saying, look, this is my program. This is what I want to do, and I'm not getting cooperation from the Congress of the United States.

I think he's absolutely right. And he's talking to the people, not to us, not here in Washington, but he's criticized for doing that by the majority leader.

Mr. Speaker, I think that's what he ought to be doing because the American people ultimately are going to have to make a decision as to who is looking out for their interest and who is just simply confronting and not listening to the people in the last election, just a few months ago, or right now.

When the people are saying, board of directors, work together, stop obstructing, I would hope we could do that, Mr. Speaker.

Unless the majority leader has something further he wants to say, I yield back the balance of my time.