Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Brady) for the purposes of inquiring of the schedule for the week to come. Mr. Brady, as I understand, is the designee of the majority leader, and I welcome and appreciate his participation.

I thank the gentleman for that information and, again, I want to thank him. I know that the majority leader could not be here and he's filling in, and I appreciate the fact that he is doing so.

Mr. Brady, I notice that there is not on the notice for the schedule for next week any reference about a motion to go to conference on the budget. As you know, the Senate has now passed a budget, which it had not done for some years. Your side, in particular, but all of us wanted the Senate to pass a budget. They have now passed a budget. We passed a budget. We would hope on this side of the aisle that we would now go to conference.

I'm wondering whether the gentleman can--in light of the fact that it is regular order that two sides pass, now try to compromise the differences that exist between the two Houses--can the gentleman tell me whether or not there is a plan to go to conference and, if so, what that schedule might be? And I yield to my friend.

I appreciate the fact that you're encouraged. Frankly, our side has not heard an encouraging word. In fact, we continue to hear discouraging words, as the song says.

I'm very hopeful we can bridge the gap that exists, which is about $100 billion, as the gentleman knows. The Senate marked $1.058 trillion, which of course was consistent with the Budget Control Act that we agreed upon, we voted on, and passed. The President signed the Budget Control Act, including that figure for the fiscal year '14 budget. The Ryan budget, as you know reflects a $966 billion 302 allocation; that is, general discretionary spending levels.

I'm wondering when you say you're encouraged, do you know whether there's been any progress toward trying to bridge that gap? Obviously, as a former appropriator, many times it's 50/50 you come to the middle, which would be about $1 trillion or a little more than that. I'm wondering whether or not the gentleman knows whether any progress has been made on that? And I yield to my friend.

I thank the gentleman.

Just let me observe that on our side we think it would be useful if the American public had the opportunity to, in effect, see the discussions in a conference. I've been here long enough to remember when we had conferences on the Appropriations Committee. They were open to the public. They were reported on. We had discussions about the differences that existed, as one would expect, from people elected from different parts of the country and with different views. But we think it would be very helpful if those discussions were held, because the differences are pretty profound and pretty significant, that it would help the public to have a better understanding of the process.

In addition, as the gentleman knows, of course, there was some discussion about the President's coming down late with his budget. We should have been through the budget process by now so that the Appropriations Committee could proceed with its allocations to its 12 subcommittees.

In that context, I would ask the gentleman, does the gentleman have any idea when the appropriations bills might be marked up and brought to the floor? As you know, under regular order, for the most part, we have brought appropriations bills to the floor starting in mid-May or the last week in May so that we could get through that process in June and July and send those bills to the Senate so that we might have conferences and complete our work by October 1.

And I yield to my friend.

Well, I appreciate that and I look forward to the consideration of the appropriations bills on the floor.

I want to say that for the most part you have followed open rules, which we did as well in 2007 until we just couldn't get the bills done in a timely fashion. Hopefully, we can do that, because I think that, again, it gives the public the opportunity to see the priorities of not only each Member but both sides moving forward. I think that's appropriate in a democracy. I appreciate the fact that the majority leader intends to bring those bills to the floor starting in June. I'm not sure whether we can finish all 12 in June, but perhaps finish those in July.

We did not bring, as the gentleman knows, the Labor and Health bill to the full committee in the last cycle, much less to the floor. That bill will be tough.

Chairman Rogers--I know the gentleman is on a committee that he believes is more important. He and I may differ in that perception. He's a member of the Ways and Means Committee, I was a former member of the Appropriations Committee. But, nonetheless, Mr. Rogers has made the observation, in terms of the dollars allocated in the Ryan budget for discretionary spending, both on the defense side and nondefense side:

I suspect there will be some who will be shocked. I don't

think people yet understand how severe the numbers will be.

Those numbers refer to the $966 billion in discretionary spending, which will require deep cuts in almost every program on the national defense side and on the discretionary side.

So, the sooner we get to that, because I think it's going to be a difficult process, the better. And I appreciate your information with reference to the majority leader's intent to bring them to the floor.

Now, I also did not see on the schedule, Mr. Brady, anything that deals with the sequester. I do see the Affordable Care Act repeal on the floor next week, which has been, of course, on this floor some 33, 34, 35 times before, to repeal it. We're having another repeal vote coming up. I think honestly you believe, as I believe, that that bill is not going to go anywhere, other than perhaps through the House of Representatives, but, beyond that, it won't go anywhere.

However, the sequester continues to be an ongoing challenge to our country, to our government, and to our people. We dealt with it in a sort of surgical fashion dealing with the FAA, but we have not dealt with any of the other concerns. As the gentleman knows, I have concerns about the fact the sequester may result in 70,000 children not being on Head Start. They are only 3 or 4 years of age once.

The Social Security Administration may have to furlough payments, which will slow down payments of Social Security. There are 4 million fewer Meals on Wheels for seniors. There are 600,000 people who have been dropped off the Women, Infants, and Children program. There are 125,000 fewer HUD rental assistance vouchers for people who are homeless or who are struggling to keep a home. Unemployment insurance has been cut 11 percent for 2 million out-of-work Americans. We now have no safety net for them. The FDA will have 2,100 fewer food safety inspectors--that's down 18 percent--obviously, putting at risk our food safety; and we will furlough an equivalent to 1,000 fewer Federal agents, FBI--we know from the Boston Marathon bombings how critical the FBI was--and border security. One-third of combat air units have been grounded.

I mention all of those simply in the context of those consequences of the sequester. I see it's not on next week, and we have a week after that that we'll be in session. Does the gentleman have any information with reference to whether or not we will deal with trying to ameliorate these adverse consequences of sequester before we leave here for the Memorial Day break?

And I yield to my friend.

I thank the gentleman for his comments; but I do want to observe that the President of the United States has offered a budget which eliminates the sequester and gets to a budget deficit reduction and fiscal sustainability in an alternative way which we think is much more positive.

I would also remind the gentleman that Chris Van Hollen, the ranking member of the Budget Committee, offered an alternative which gets rid of the sequester, which all sides agree is an irrational process in that it cuts the highest priority and lowest priority the same. The sequester, as the gentleman knows, was put in a bill to force action with the specific belief and premise that the sequester was so bad, so irrational, so lacking in common sense, so negative in its impact that it would never be adopted. Sadly, it was adopted.

I want to say also that the gentleman and a lot of his colleagues like to mention that this is the President's suggestion. With all due respect, Jack Lew brought it up with Mr. Reid, and everybody has read about that in Mr. Woodward's book. He brought it up, however--and the gentleman probably recalls this--days after sequester, as a policy, was included in the Cut, Cap, and Balance bill for which 229 Republicans voted for as a policy. I want to

tell the gentleman just for his future information, on our side, we are opposed to the sequester. We want to see the sequester changed.

Mr. Van Hollen not only offered a budget, but he offered four amendments. Each time we considered the CR and other legislation, four times he offered an amendment to substitute the same savings so we would get to those budget deficit reductions to which the gentleman spoke, but would not do so in the irrational, across-the-board fashion that sequester requires.

So I want to make it clear, if there was any confusion on your side of the aisle, we are not for the sequester. I voted for the CR to keep the government open, but I voted against the CR, when it left this House, which had sequester in there. I, frankly, thought shutting down the government was even worse than the sequester, but I think the sequester is having a harmful effect, not only on government, but a harmful effect on our economy. I think it's a drip, drip, drip. It wasn't a ``shut the door.'' It wasn't black and white. It wasn't overnight, but it is a drip, drip, drip that is harming our economy.

I understand what the gentleman has told us, but I would hope that we would seriously consider trying to see if we could reach agreement either outside the context of the budget conference or inside the context of the budget conference that would give us an alternative which would be more rational, more positive, and more helpful to our economy.

The next subject is simply the debt ceiling. We just passed a bill on the prioritization. We unanimously opposed that on our side. We think that is not a good policy. Obviously, there is a disagreement on that. May 19 is the date that the debt ceiling extension expires.

Can the gentleman tell me whether there is any proposal to act in the near future other than on debt prioritization, which will have no chance in the Senate and is roundly opposed by many Republican economists, as the gentleman knows, and by the former economic adviser to the Bush administration, who said that it would not work, should not work? Can the gentleman tell me whether there is any alternative plan, before we leave here for the Memorial Day break, to give confidence to the economy and to creditors and to the American people that we will deal responsibly with the debt limit extension?

And I yield to my friend.

I thank the gentleman. Of course, we did have a balanced budget, as you'll remember, for the last 4 years of the Clinton administration. Now, there was a Republican-controlled Congress; but in the next 4 years, there was a Republican-controlled Congress, a Republican-controlled Senate, and a Republican President, and we went deeply into debt.

We escalated the debt during the Bush administration by 87 percent of GDP more than this President has escalated the deficit. In nominal terms, as Mr. Camp observed before, the dollars are higher. That's true. It's because we are bigger, spending more money, making more money as a country. GDP is up.

During the Reagan administration, we increased the debt as a percentage of the national GDP by 186 percent; 55 percent under George Bush; 37 percent under Mr. Clinton; and some 40-plus percent under this President today.

So I think the gentleman and I agree that we need to get a handle on the debt and the deficit, but we disagree on how this happened. It happened because we didn't pay our bills, and we jettisoned PAYGO in 2003. As a practical matter, we jettisoned it in 2001.

Not paying for things is what creates debt, not buying. If I buy things and I pay for them, I don't have a debt. If I buy things and don't pay for them, I have a debt.

So it's not a question of what I buy, although clearly we need to restrain buying and we need to constrain spending, as I've said, all across the board--the gentleman has heard me--including entitlements, including discretionary defense and nondefense spending. But what we ought to do is manage our finances in a way that does not give pause to the American people or to the economy.

I want to just read for you a quote. Keith Hennessy was George Bush's National Economic Council director who disagrees with your proposition that this prioritization will in any way stabilize--I don't think the gentleman disagrees with me that that bill is not going to pass the Senate. Here's what Keith Hennessy said:

Payment prioritization doesn't stop payments; it just

delays them. Then the aggrieved party sues the government and

probably wins, and it turns into a bloody mess.

Tony Fratto, who was the spokesman on economic policy in the Bush administration said this:

Prioritization is impossible. Is the government really

going to be in the position of withholding benefits,

salaries, rent, contract payments, et cetera, in order to pay

off Treasury bondholders?

We refer to this, of course, as the Pay China First bill. And China ought to be paid. We borrowed money from them; we ought to pay them.

Here's what he concludes of the prioritization bill:

That would be a political catastrophe.

I suggest it would be an economic catastrophe, as well, to say to our armed services personnel, We're not going to pay you, but we are going to pay China for our debts.

The fact of the matter is the United States is the most creditworthy Nation on Earth. We ought to pay all of our debts and not on a priority status. If we owe you as the United States of America, we're going to pay you. That's our proposition. We should not prioritize paying simply bondholders, but paying smaller contractors we are doing business with who offer us services and products and we don't pay them until after we pay our bondholders. We ought to pay everybody. That's what America is about.

So I would hope that we could revisit this because your debt prioritization is not going to pass. You know it's not going to pass. We need to get to a responsible way of dealing with the debt-limit extension.

Both parties, I will tell my friend, have demagogued on this issue. We demagogued on it when we had a Republican President; you've demagogued on it--not you personally. I cast no aspersions. But both sides have demagogued on it when the President was of the other party. It's a shame. It's not been good for our country.

Ronald Reagan said that Congress continues to run us up. And we ran us up so close last time that for the first time in history, the United States of America was downgraded by one of our

rating agencies. I would hope the gentleman who serves on the Ways and Means Committee and I and others could work together so this doesn't happen again, that we make sure that the American people and that all of our creditors and people around the world know that the United States of America can and will handle its finances in a responsible fashion.

If the gentleman wants to say anything further, I'll yield back to him; if not, I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mrs. Roby and I are friends, but we have a very substantial disagreement about this bill.

I call it the Pay Working Families Less bill because what it will result in is a cut in pay for almost everybody. Yes, there will be those who will volunteer who can afford to do comp time. Others will not be. And so they will not be able to earn overtime because the employer will invariably--not because they're bad people--but will invariably go to the person that will, in fact, do it for free.

I understand it's comp time, but they won't get paid. Most workers at this level need the pay. They need to pay their mortgage, they need to pay their car payment, and they need to send their kids to school. It would, of course, be cheaper to run a business if we didn't pay people at all. But it wouldn't be America.

Mr. Speaker, today in the House it's deja vu all over again. This bill has been here before. In 2003 it was pulled

from the floor. Why? Because at that point in time, there were a significant number of Republicans who thought this was a lousy idea and thought it would undermine the Fair Labor Standards Act and the pay of working people. Unfortunately, there aren't that number of Republicans left in this House.

It's deja vu all over again not only because this bill would send American workers back to the days before the 40-hour workweek, but we've also seen this same bill introduced and then, as I said, withdrawn. That's because it would eliminate the 40-hour workweek as we know it.

Now, I know my friends on the Republican side disagree with that premise. I've been an employer. I've seen employers. They're not bad people, but they're trying to maximize profits, and they wouldn't be paying minimum wage if they didn't have to; and very frankly, the minimum wage is way below what it ought to be.

This bill says that we would provide the workers with comp time, but permission as to when a worker could take accrued comp time would be entirely in his or her boss' hands.

So that that letter, while a very nice letter, doesn't take that into consideration. The result would be longer hours for workers with no overtime pay and only the hope that their bosses will let them take their earned time off when asked. How we have skewed the rules and play against the middle working class of America. You ought to read the book ``Who Stole the American Dream?'' by Hedrick Smith.

Workers wishing to collect their overtime pay would be forced to wait until the end of the year, essentially granting employers an interest- free loan.

Mr. Speaker, this isn't fair, it isn't right, and it isn't going to become law; and everybody on this floor knows that--everybody. All 434 of us that are here today know that this bill is not going to become law. But we're wasting our time on it. Instead of wasting time on a partisan measure that would never make it through the Senate, we ought to be working on creating jobs and restoring fiscal discipline, not a partisan rollback of workers' rights, but a bipartisan compromise to help put more Americans to work.

Again, I say, if those Republicans who were Members of this House in 2003 were still here, this bill would not be on the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I rise once again to call on Congress to replace the dangerous and irrational sequester with a big and balanced deficit solution.

Ten weeks after the dysfunction of this Congress led to the sequester taking effect, our economy and the most vulnerable in our society are continuing to experience its effects. On a macro level, the sequester has added to the uncertainty businesses and markets were already facing, making it even more difficult to plan for the future and discouraging private sector investment and development that creates jobs.

Just this past Wednesday, the Federal Reserve issued a statement that ``fiscal policy is restraining economic growth.''

But the ill-effects of the Republican sequester policy have been most devastating to those who are in the greatest need and rely on Federal assistance. 70,000 children who will be 3 once and 4 once will be kicked out of Head Start. $115 million in subsidies that help low- income parents access child care while they work will be eliminated. Over half a billion dollars is being taken away from children and family service programs. Because of the sequester, our most vulnerable children are at risk of losing their shot at the American Dream.

It's not only our youngest citizens who are being hurt by sequestration. Low-income seniors will see 4 million fewer Meals on Wheels deliveries this year, putting at risk seniors who are sick and homebound.

The National Institutes of Health will have to reduce life-saving medical research, and 600,000 women, infants, and children could be dropped from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's nutrition program. What an extraordinarily perverse version of ``women and children first''--an admonition to save first, not abandon first.

Congress, Mr. Speaker, must act to replace this stupid sequester. I tell people that sequester starts with ``s,'' which stands for stupid. Congress needs to replace it with a big, balanced agreement that every bipartisan commission that has looked at our fiscal challenge has recommended. Restoring financial discipline sets America on a fiscally sustainable path and enables us to invest in education, innovation, and infrastructure that will grow our economy, create jobs and keep millions out of poverty and lift millions of others from poverty.

In order for that to happen, of course, Mr. Speaker, I think you should appoint budget conferees so that negotiations on such a rational solution can begin in earnest.

Sadly, it's becoming increasingly clear that Republicans are in no hurry to complete the work on a budget as a result of the draconian, unrealistic, and damaging spending levels they set forth under the sequester. Simply put, they cannot implement the budget they adopted, neither through the appropriations process nor through the Ways and Means Committee.

Sequestration, of course, was meant to be so unacceptable that we surely would not allow it to come into effect. But it has. It has because it reflects the spending levels Republicans have long sought.

Now, when I say that, some Republicans say, oh, well, the sequester was the President's idea. Not only is the President opposed to sequester, Democrats in the Senate and Democrats in the House are opposed. Most Republicans--that is to say, 229 Republicans--voted for H.R. 2560, Cut, Cap, and Balance. And what this bill that 229 Republicans voted for--and, by the way, 181 Democrats voted against-- was to say that we set numbers. If we don't meet them, what do we have? A sequester.

Sequester was their policy; the across-the-board, irrational cutting of the highest priority and the lowest priority the same was their policy that they voted for, an unfortunate policy because it is so irrational and so harmful. Now they won't say how we can get there, of course, because it just isn't possible without gutting some of the most important programs that have a positive impact on our communities. The Republican Appropriations chairman, my friend, Mr. Rogers from Kentucky, said, on April 25:

There will be some who are shocked. I don't think people

yet understand how severe the numbers will be.

That's the Republican chairman, my friend, with whom I served for many years on that committee, Hal Rogers from Kentucky. ``How severe the numbers will be.'' They're the numbers that were in the Ryan budget; they're the numbers that will be affected by sequester.

Republicans are setting up, in my view, a dangerous game of hide-and- seek in which they will hide what sequester levels actually mean and try to mitigate the ones they believe will have political backlash, very frankly, as we did just about 12 days ago regarding the FAA.

They know they can't achieve cuts their caucus can agree on and that the American people would support. And they seek, in my view, to blame the President and Democrats for what has been a wrong-standing Republican policy which I referenced in their Cut, Cap, and Balance legislation for which 229 of them voted for on July 19, 2011.

To do so, Republicans proposed shifting the defense portion of the sequester--``to do so,'' meaning to get to the numbers that they proposed--by shifting the defense portion of the sequester on to domestic programs. In other words, the cuts that would normally be across the board, their solution is to simply shift them to some of the programs that I mentioned earlier in terms of Head Start, Meals on Wheels, and other programs that are so necessary to make sure that some of the least of ours are taken care of.

Of course, this is a breaking of the agreement reached in the Budget Control Act of 2011. We all know the likely outcome of these partisan games, Mr. Speaker. House Republicans will once again be divided, as they were a week before we left, and prevent the adoption of a budget that includes a balanced approach.

Now, balanced approach, I won't like all of it. My friend, Mr. Jones, won't like all of it. None of us will like all of it because it will be balanced and we'll have to take the good with the bad. But what it will be is an effort and a reality of getting America on a fiscally sustainable, credible path. Democrats are ready to make tough choices necessary to reach a compromise, and both sides have a responsibility-- my side, their side. Very frankly, we ought to be one side, the American side. Both sides have a responsibility to work together to meet our challenges in a sensible way, not a senseless, irrational way, which is what the sequester does, but in a smart way, worthy of our role as the American people's representatives.

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I rise in opposition to this piece of legislation.

The Editorial Board of USA Today was scathing yesterday in its assessment of where the blame for this sequester should lie, and I quote:

No Members of Congress should be surprised at the havoc

wrought by the sequester. After all, they caused it, and

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood repeatedly warned them

about its sentences.

But flight delays are just the tip of the iceberg visible above the water line for most Americans. As time goes on without a big, balanced deficit solution to replace the sequester, more of that iceberg will surface. More Americans will be negatively affected.

While I want to end these delays for passengers in Maryland and across the country, I will oppose this bill because it fails to address the whole impact of the sequester.

Let me share just a handful of examples of how the sequester will affect Americans:

Education: Head Start--70,000 children will be kicked out of Head Start. Nothing in this bill deals with them.

Furloughs to cause delays in processing retirement disability claims. Nothing in this bill deals with them.

Nutrition for Vulnerable Populations--4 million fewer Meals on Wheels for seniors; 600,000 people dropped off WIC. Nothing in here for them.

Housing--125,000 fewer HUD rental assistance vouchers. Nothing in here for them.

Unemployment Insurance--emergency unemployment insurance cut 11 percent for 2 million out-of-work Americans. Nothing in here for them.

FDA--2,100 fewer food safety inspections, an 18 percent cut; longer waits to approve new drugs. Nothing in here for them. Nothing in here for them.

Defense and Homeland Security--furloughs equivalent to 1,000 fewer Federal agents, FBI, Border, et cetera, on the job; one-third of combat air units are grounded. Nothing in here for them.

IRS--89,000 agency-wide furloughs up to 7 days, including taxpayer-assistance centers. Nothing in here for them. They serve 89,000 taxpayers trying to find help.

We ought not to be mitigating the sequester's effect on just one segment when children, the sick, our military, and many other groups who will be impacted by this irresponsible policy are left unhelped. Instead of dressing this serious wound with a small Band-Aid, let's get to work on a real solution. Let's go to conference, let's get a big deal, let's deal with all the adverse consequences of sequester, not just those that affect the powerful air travelers of America. We ought to help them, but we ought to help everybody else as well.

Will the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Let me inform my friend from Iowa that he absolutely misstates my position. I have been against the sequester every year I was on the Appropriations Committee for 23 years, these across-the-board cuts. I opposed your Cut, Cap, and Balance bill, which you supported, which had sequester as the alternative.

The President is against sequester, the Senate budget is against sequester, and you would not allow us to offer an amendment four times, which would have precluded sequester, not only for air travel, but for those Head Start children, for those senior citizens, for basic biomedical research.

So I tell my friend, if you are going to state the facts, state them correctly.

Will the gentleman yield?

The Republicans offered their bill. It was called ``Cut, Cap, and Balance.'' They voted on that bill before we ever got to sequester. In Cut, Cap, and Balance, your alternative, if you didn't reach your numbers, was sequester. Sequester was your policy.

And in the CR that you had Mr. Rogers bring to the floor, which I voted against when it went from here to there, as did every Democrat, it said it was going to be subject to the sequester or nothing.

Mr. Speaker, sequester starts with ``S.'' That stands for ``stupid.'' It is an irrational policy with no common sense attached to it, and it is a policy that we are headlong pursuing as a result of the actions of the majority in this House. It is a policy that the President of the United States opposes, it is a policy that the majority in the United States Senate opposes, and it is a policy that all of the Members of the Democratic Party in this House oppose.

My friend on the floor here shakes his head, but he voted for a bill. It was called Cut, Cap, and Balance. And Cut, Cap, and Balance said we have a target, but if we don't meet it what happens? Sequester happens--sequester happens.

The Republicans passed that through this House long before any deal was made not to default on our national debt, which included a provision for sequester so that we would achieve Speaker Boehner's objective articulated March of 2011 on Wall Street that we would cut dollar for dollar the increase in the debt. That's why we have a sequester. It starts with ``S.'' It is a stupid policy. It is a negative policy. It is a policy that is hurting America.

Chris Van Hollen, the ranking Democrat of the Budget Committee, offered an amendment four times to replace the sequester and achieve the same savings. It was rejected, not once, not twice, not three times, but all four times by the Republican majority. They wouldn't even allow it to be made in order to be put on this floor to have a debate on and a vote. This transparent new leadership that we were supposed to have wouldn't even allow a vote on this issue.

Now the Senate has passed a budget which the Republicans have been crying wolf about forever. The Senate passed a budget. It replaces sequester. It achieves the savings that we need to achieve over time. The Ryan budget was passed, which is tantamount to sequester. So now we're asking to go to conference, but we haven't gone to conference.

This week has been a lost week. You've heard about a lost weekend. This week, this House has done practically nothing. Now we're going to take 2 days, today and tomorrow, to consider a bill about helium that could be passed in 10 minutes, which is noncontroversial and passed out of committee by a voice vote.

Will we deal with sequester, which is causing America such grief right now? We will not.

It is a shameful performance by the Congress of the United States. It is an irresponsible performance by the majority leadership of this House that we will not have the opportunity to replace this irrational, stupid, noncommonsense policy we call ``sequester.''

Some Republicans say, well, this is the President's policy. That's baloney. It's not true. It's a fraud. The President is against this policy. The Senate Democrats are against this policy, and House Democrats are against this policy. If I were the majority leader, as I once was, this policy would not have gone into effect, and I want the American people, Mr. Speaker, to know that.

There were some who pretended, oh, it will have no effect. Well, it's having an effect on the flying public right now; and on the Food and Drug Administration, in overseeing food safety, it's going to have an effect. There are 70,000 children who qualify for Head Start who are not going to have a seat in Head Start.

Ladies and gentlemen of this House, we ought to be doing some real work this week, not putting bills on the floor and then taking them off the floor because, very frankly, the majority party can't get its act together. We're now having a helium bill on the floor for 2 days. We're not even going to vote on the helium bill today--we're going to vote on the rule--and at about 2:30 today, we're going to adjourn.

My, my, my. What a hard workday.

We're not dealing with the budget. We're not dealing with the budget conference. We're not dealing with getting this country on a fiscally sustainable path. We're not dealing with getting

rid of the sequester. We're dealing with a noncontroversial helium bill that could pass in 10 minutes in this House.

America, Mr. Speaker, is angry, and I don't blame them. I'm angry, too. America is disgusted with us. I don't blame them. I'm disgusted with us as well. I don't blame Mr. and Mrs. America for saying that Congress is not doing its work. They're right. We're not. We were sent here to serve the American people and our country and make it stronger, and we're not doing that. We're failing to come together and reach compromise and consensus for positive action in our country.

How sad, Mr. Speaker. How sad for our country. How sad for our people. How sad for our families. There are good people on both sides of this aisle, but we're not coming together to do our duty for America. How sad.

Mr. Speaker, 7 weeks on, Americans have already begun to feel the effects of the Republican policy of sequestration.

Sequestration defies common sense and is irresponsible. It is happening because the Tea Party faction of the Republican Party is hell-bent on cutting spending, no matter what the consequences, no matter how irrationally it is done, and no matter how adverse the consequences of these cuts.

These arbitrary, across-the-board cuts to Federal programs without regard to our priorities was never meant to be a solution, but rather, a deterrent to Congress failing to reach one.

Since coming into effect on March 1, Americans are seeing why sequestration is not a policy we should follow or continue. This week, the FAA began furloughs for 47,000 employees. I've talked to the Secretary and I've talked to the Deputy Assistant Secretary. They do not have an option under the policies that this Congress has adopted. Thirteen thousand air traffic controllers are among those 47,000.

Already, delays of up to 2 hours at major airports are disrupting travel, which impacts business and produces major headaches for American families trying to get to where they need to go. Some flights have been diverted because the air traffic control system is being overwhelmed with limited personnel.

In addition to its effects on the FAA, sequestration is also placing a heavy burden on small business. According to an article in Politico on April 16--just a few days ago--small businesses are being hit the hardest by sequestration's cuts. The Small Business Administration is being forced to cut $16.7 million in loan subsidies; those are guarantees. That means $16.7 million in loans--capital--not available to small businesses. At the same time, the article goes on to report as many as 956,000 small business jobs could be at risk from sequestration as employers lay off their workers in anticipation of further cuts.

We ought to abandon this stupid policy.

Also at stake are critical research programs in medicine and science research that fuel American innovation and advance lifesaving treatments. They're at risk because of sequestration. Cuts to the National Institutes of Health are already leading to a reduction in research grants, including tens of millions of dollars that will halt innovative genomics and cancer research at some of America's top universities, including Harvard, Penn, and Johns Hopkins in my State. And the National Science Foundation will have to award 1,000 fewer grants this year to researchers who are helping keep America on top of technology and innovation. How irrational.

This is a stupid, harmful, future-hurting, and America-undercutting policy. It must be changed.

Sequestration is also reducing our military readiness and putting civilian defense employees at risk of being furloughed and, more to the point, putting at risk our own national security. Communities in my district across Maryland and throughout the country whose economies depend on a strong military are going to be hard hit.

But the good news is there is an alternative. Congress has the power to end sequestration by reaching a big and balanced solution to deficits that can replace these irrational cuts. But to do so, Democrats and Republicans will have to work together in a bipartisan way. We ought to go to conference on the budget, adopt a fiscally responsible and balanced plan, and eliminate the sequester for this year and the 8 years to come.

We offered an alternative to sequester four times in the last month, and four times we were not given the opportunity to have it voted upon on this floor. This was supposed to be open and transparent, and we would consider alternatives. We did not. But I believe we can do it. Our economy, our ability to create jobs, and the success of our country in the decade ahead is dependent on our jettisoning these irrational cuts we call sequestration.

Too many jobs, lives, and livelihoods are at stake for Congress to engage in partisan games. As the weeks and months continue without turning sequestration off, its effects will only get worse.

Let's act now. Let's act together. Let's act in a bipartisan way before our people and our businesses feel the full effects of this irrational and senseless sequestration policy. Let's work together to achieve the big, balanced solution the American people deserve from their Congress and that we owe to our country.

I will submit an article for the Record written by our colleague, Representative David Price of North Carolina, entitled: ``Lawmakers' sequestration double-talk.''

[From the Charlotte Observer, Apr. 23, 2013]

Lawmakers' Sequestration Double-Talk

(By U.S. Rep. David E. Price)

Double-talk is never in short supply in Washington. But as

the axe of ``sequestration''--the across-the-board spending

cuts triggered by Congress' failure to pass a long-term

budget plan--begins to fall, self-contradiction and hypocrisy

have reached heights unusual even for the Capitol.

Indeed, many of the same Congress members who welcomed

sequestration as a way to force the president to cut spending

are now protesting loudly when their pet programs feel the

pain. Members who voted for the package that Speaker John

Boehner said included ``90 percent'' of what Republicans

wanted now claim that sequestration does not need to hurt

very much and accuse the president of imposing cuts for

political effect.

The reality is that sequestration was designed to cut both

deeply and indiscriminately. Although it barely touches the

two main deficit drivers--tax expenditures and entitlement

spending--it was supposed to be sufficiently draconian and

unacceptable to

force action on those fronts, to compel agreement on a

comprehensive budget plan along the lines of the 2010 Bowles-

Simpson Commission proposal or the budget agreements that

produced four years of surpluses under President Bill

Clinton.

Congress failed to produce such a plan, however, because

Republicans refused to consider increasing revenues or

closing special-interest loopholes. Today's Republicans value

their anti-tax ideology far more than the defense cuts that

were supposed to drive them to the bargaining table. As

sequestration approached, more and more of them said, ``Bring

it on.''

Now that the cuts are coming, members are scrambling,

sometimes to apply Band-Aids, sometimes to insist that the

president spare programs they favor. One day there is an

outcry about reduced meat inspections, on another an

insistence that tuition benefits for military personnel be

restored, on another that air-traffic controllers be kept on

duty in little-used airports. The latest uproar started two

days ago. Federal Aviation Administration furloughs of air

traffic controllers at large airports kicked in, delaying

flights across the country--at Charlotte Douglas

International Airport 31.2 percent of flights were delayed.

My North Carolina colleague, Rep. Renee Ellmers, recently

introduced a bill to reverse Medicare cuts for cancer

treatment, calling the cuts an ``unintended consequence'' of

sequestration. In fact, the 2 percent cuts were an intended

and easily anticipated consequence of sequestration.

Congress has now passed appropriations bills for the

remainder of 2013, locking in place the sequestration

spending levels. Scattered provisions mitigate specific

sequestration impacts, but the result often is to shift the

cuts to equally important areas that aren't in the news at

the moment. Fort Bragg, adjacent to my district, now faces a

furlough of civilian employees and a 34 percent cut in its

operating budget. And sequestration comes on top of $1

trillion in cuts to domestic programs already adopted.

Together, these cuts have driven major disease research off a

cliff--fewer than 10 percent of proposals to fund heart

disease, cancer and diabetes research are being funded--and

slowed road and bridge construction to a snail's pace.

I want to mitigate the harm as much as any member of

Congress. But damage control is not a viable budget policy.

Sequestration is a self-inflicted wound, unworthy of those

who profess to govern. It is hypocritical and misleading,

having imposed indiscriminate cuts on the administration, to

pretend that the president can fix the problems with a flick

of the wrist.

The remedy lies in a comprehensive budget agreement that

puts revenues and all categories of spending on the table.

The president's budget reflects such an approach, going

beyond the comfort zone of many of his political allies. A

similar offer was spurned by Speaker Boehner and House

Republicans in December, and sequestration ensued. It is a

failure of historic proportions and it must be reversed.

I thank Congresswoman Sewell for her leadership and for yielding this time, and I thank my good friend Spencer Bachus for his leadership as well, and I congratulate him and his family for the courage they showed at a time of great stress that this Gold Medal reflects.

Mr. Speaker, the recognition for the victims of this terrible tragedy that befell our whole country on September 15, 1963, is absolutely appropriate, and it is an opportunity for us to say once again the respect we have for these young girls, the respect we have for their families. I say ``our whole country'' because a wound opened in the soul of America that day from a heinous act of racism and terror.

Those who set a bomb inside the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church that Sunday did so because they believed in a Nation where not all are created equal, where not all are entitled to life and liberty. On that day, many Americans who had turned away with indifference could no longer look away.

Since that day, we have forcefully declared to future generations that America will not be that Nation that looks away. In America, we strive to protect our children from hurt and harm no matter the color of their skin, their faith, their national origin. We hold fast to the values and memory of these four little girls who were killed that day, not the twisted, warped, hateful ideals of their killers.

Their names have been mentioned but warrant re-mentioning: Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Denise McNair--four of God's children, four beautiful assets of America.

If you go down into the basement of the church, you see their pictures, you see the memorial--and your heart cries. They were brutally murdered while attending Sunday school, as the leader, Spencer Bachus, and as Terri Sewell have related.

My colleagues, let us honor their lives and their faith in the face of the evil of segregation and prejudice and hate. Let us remember the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., from the funeral of three of those four little girls. He said this:

They have something to say to each of us in their death.

Their death says to us that we must work passionately and

unrelentingly for the realization of the American Dream.

That fight began with the Declaration of Independence: that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men--and, surely, Jefferson meant mankind, women as well--are endowed by God, not by the Constitution and not by our votes on this floor, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

These four little girls had those robbed that day. Let us recommit ourselves. Let us recommit ourselves to that proposition and to unrelentingly and courageously ensure that that dream, that that promise is fulfilled for all of the little children of this Nation and for all the adults as well.

Let us pass this bill, Mr. Speaker, and send a message that we will never, ever forget their memory.

I thank the gentlelady, the ranking member of the Rules Committee, for yielding.

I rise in opposition to the underlying bill and in opposition to this rule and for a ``no'' vote on the previous question so that we can substitute Mr. Connolly's bill for this bill, which will mean we will substitute something that will grow jobs from something that will waste time, not because those with preexisting conditions aren't worthy of our consideration--and, in fact, were considered in the Affordable Care Act and will have, as of January 2014, some real protections, not just high-risk protections, some real protections for them and their families.

The previous speaker said ``this train wreck.'' This train wreck has already benefited millions of people: millions of seniors, millions of women, millions of people with preexisting conditions, millions of students, millions of young people who couldn't get insurance but can stay on their family's policy, millions of people who didn't have their benefits capped. Millions of people have already benefited.

The Republican Party continues to oppose. They want to see this bill be a train wreck and are doing everything in their power to destroy the tracks, everything in their power to make sure it doesn't work, make sure that hundreds of millions--yes, hundreds of millions--of Americans won't be benefited by bringing down cost and making insurance available to millions of people.

Just like the little boy who took the lives of his two parents complained to the court, ``Give me mercy because I'm an orphan,'' they are destroying the tracks that have been constructed to give Americans health care assurance.

Now, let me say, if we vote against this previous question, we will have an opportunity to consider Mr. Connolly's bill. That bill will be consistent with the Make It In America agenda--job creation, not wasting time.

We're going to do a bill on Thursday and Friday that we could do in 10 minutes--totally noncontroversial; it's about helium. We're going to take 2 days to do that bill; it could be done in 10 minutes. We are spinning our wheels, as the gentlelady suggested.

One bill that will be something that we can do for America and jobs as part of the Make It In America agenda is H.R. 535, the Put America Back to Work Now Act, sponsored by my friend from Virginia (Mr. Connolly). It would permanently extend the Build America Bonds program to help State and local governments leverage private capital to finance infrastructure projects--jobs.

Build America Bonds have been strongly supported by mayors, city managers, county legislators, and State officials from both parties--a bipartisan support for this bill. At the local level, it is a bipartisan solution that we know works because these bonds were used effectively in 2009 and 2010 before they expired.

When it comes to making investments in our Nation's infrastructure, we should be able to support local governments that want to attract manufacturing and invest in making their communities safer, cleaner, and more secure.

By the way, if we create these jobs, the probability is these people who get these jobs will have health insurance and will be served, as the doctor would like, as I would like--hopefully.

But let us not continue to waste time on a bill that we know has a deeply divided Republican Party--as we're going to see on this vote, I'm sure--and will not get through the Senate and will not be signed by the President. We're just wasting our time here--political messages.

By the way, you've garbled your message pretty badly, as I understand from Club for Growth and Heritage Foundation and FreedomWorks.

So vote against the previous question. Vote for building America and growing jobs.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the long and influential career of Judith Frazier-Thompson as she retires after 45 years of Federal service, with 40 of them years spent at the Congressional Research Service.

Judith was born and raised in Washington, D.C., and graduated from Eastern High School in 1967. While in high school, she began her service to the local government working part-time for the District of Columbia Recreation Department. While an undergraduate at Howard University, Judith worked part-time for the Library of Congress, variously as an order clerk, deck attendant and issue desk assistant. During that time she met and came to know the author Alex Haley, who frequently used the Library of Congress for research. After graduating from Howard University in 1973, she accepted a full-time position working for the Congressional Research Service, where she has worked ever since. Judith began pursuing a Masters Degree from the University of Maryland at College Park while rising through the ranks at the Library of Congress, where she was accepted into the CRS Crossover Program.

During her tenure in the Congressional Research Service, Judith has worked closely with the House of Representatives, assisting Members and staff with all manner of tasks. She has worked on the Government and Law Team of the Congressional Research Division, helping various organizations perform research on such issues as voting rights, and campaign finance reform. Through her years of dedication, Judith has been recognized for her work with many awards, including numerous Library of Congress Special Achievement Awards, and a Congressional Research Employees Association Presidential Certificate of Merit.

Judith plans to retire from her current position as a liaison between the CRS and the House of Representatives on May 3, 2013, and hopes to spend more time with her husband golfing and traveling.

I am honored to pay tribute today to Judith Frazier-Thompson and her long and distinguished career in service to his great Nation. She will be greatly missed on Capitol Hill, and I join in wishing her the best in her retirement.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield to my friend from Virginia, the majority leader, for the purposes of inquiring about the schedule for the week to come.

I thank the majority leader for the information on the business for next week.

I would observe that he and I cochaired, the honorary cochairs, with John Lewis, of course, the chair, our leader, along with Terri Sewell, Spencer Bachus, and Congresswoman Roby, a delegation to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge to recognize the Voting Rights Act and the acts that led up to that. I thank the majority leader for bringing the gold medal bill to the floor, sponsored by Congresswoman Sewell, recognizing those four little girls who at the Birmingham church lost their lives to what could rightfully be referred to, I think, as a terrorist act, a bomb going off, with no specific objective in mind other than to kill people inside that church.

The little girls were the closest to that explosion, and they lost their lives. And as the majority leader has pointed out, that event and the events that occurred in the square just across the street from the church led to this country living out its principles better than it had done to that date. But some lost their lives, these four little girls, and some gave dearly to accomplish that objective. So I thank the majority leader for facilitating that bill coming to the floor.

Mr. Leader, I noted on the schedule, however, that there is no motion to go to conference on the budget. As the gentleman knows, the House has been requesting for some years now a budget, which the Senate has passed. That budget has now been sent to the House and it is ripe for us to go to conference.

The gentleman, the Speaker, and others have been talking about regular order for some period of time. I agree with them. Regular order leads to better results. Regular order leads to an ability to sit down and try to come to compromises on where there are differences and to make progress. I would hope that we would follow regular order now that the Senate has acted.

Speaker Boehner said, in January of this year, ``Regular order works best.'' I think he was absolutely right. There was a headline in Politico just a couple of days ago where it says, ``GOP Clamors for Regular Order.'' Speaker Boehner said on December 8, 2011, regarding a bill we had passed:

The House has passed its bill. Now the Senate has passed

its bill. And, you know, under the Constitution, when we have

these disagreements, there could be a formal conference

between the House and Senate to resolve our differences.

You said that same year:

We have committed and the Speaker has committed to make

sure that our committees will go through regular order.

Paul Ryan, the chairman of the Budget Committee on November 29, 2011, said:

We're going to restore regular order.

I think you were correct in all those instances, and I want to associate myself with those remarks.

Now we have an opportunity for regular order, and we're going to be meeting next week, and then we'll be taking off a week. That is all time that a conference could be working to try to get us to an agreement so, frankly, we could not only have an agreement, which I think the country would welcome, but we could also, I think, substitute that agreement for the sequester, which is currently having and will have a very negative effect on our economy, on jobs, and on the confidence that Americans have that we're pursuing rational policies. The gentleman and I both have agreed that sequester is not a rational policy in that it deals with high-priority and low-priority items in very much the same way.

So my question, Mr. Leader, is there a possibility--it's not on the calendar and you didn't announce it, but I would urge you that we go to conference, preferably the first day we're back after this weekend, so that we could get to work on trying to get to an agreement on one of the most pressing problems confronting this country, and that's getting ourselves on a fiscally sustainable path.

I yield to my friend.

I thank the gentleman for his comments.

I want to say I have a lot of respect, as the gentleman knows and I have expressed on this floor, for Mr. Ryan. I think Mr. Ryan is a very able and dedicated and conscientious Member of this House. I have equal respect for and confidence in Senator Murray, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee.

And while I'm appreciative of the fact they're having discussions, frankly, the American people need to have a

transparent view of discussions that would occur in a conference committee. So not only would the chair of the House Budget Committee and the chair of the Senate Budget Committee--now, that implies, therefore, that in the Senate there are no Republicans participating in those discussions and in the House there are no Democrats participating in those discussions.

In light of the fact that we have 315 million to 320 million people who are represented by both Democrats and Republicans, Mr. Leader, I think it would be very useful and would accelerate--not impede--the process of getting to an agreement so the American public could weigh in with their views as they saw a conference committee debating and discussing the alternatives between the Ryan budget and the Murray budget and, indeed, the President's budget.

I've seen press reports that Mr. Ryan wants to have discussions and he wants to have parameters, but, frankly, you and I both know that if we wait to have Mr. Ryan and Ms. Murray agree, we're going to be probably waiting a long time. Senator Murray participated along with Jeb Hensarling in the supercommittee which met for many months and ultimately came to no conclusion. That's not good for the country; it's not good for our economy; and it's not good for jobs and growth.

As I understand, Mr. Ryan has said he's having discussions with Senator Murray; but I would urge us to have the ability to go to conference, move to go to conference, appoint conferees, and pursue regular order.

If the gentleman wants to respond to that, I yield to the gentleman; if not, I'll go on to another subject.

Mr. Leader, I don't think it was on the announcement, but I do know there is discussion in your memorandum and you've been quoted about a debt ceiling, a debt prioritization piece of legislation that would be considered. I would hope, as I said last week, that we could deal with, in a nonpartisan, bipartisan, nonpolitical fashion, the protection of the creditworthiness of the United States of America and to the maintenance of America's credit rating. It was reduced for the first time in history when we had a debt cliff debate in 2011, and we were reduced by one point in the creditworthiness of our country. That was unfortunate, and I think it hurt our country.

President Reagan said in 1986:

Unfortunately, Congress consistently brings the government

to the edge of default before facing its responsibility. This

brinkmanship threatens the holders of government bonds and

those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits.

Interest rates, et cetera, would skyrocket if we did that, and he was urging the then-Democratic Congress and Republicans to support an increase in the debt, which, as you know, was done.

In addition, Keith Hennessey, who was George Bush's National Economic Council Director, said on January 14:

Payment prioritization doesn't stop payments; it just

delays them. Then the aggrieved party sues the government and

probably wins, and it turns into a bloody mess.

That was Keith Hennessey, who was Bush's National Economic Council Director.

Tony Fratto, Deputy Press Secretary for President George Bush, said:

Prioritization is impossible. Is the government really

going to be in the position of withholding benefits,

salaries, rent, contract payments, et cetera, in order to pay

off Treasury bondholders? That would be a political

catastrophe.

I suggest not only would it be a political catastrophe, with which I agree--and I presume he's referring to the Republican Party, as he's a member of the Republican Party--but also a disaster for our economy and not, I think, something that would be helpful in growing jobs and expanding confidence, which the gentleman has talked a lot about and with which I agree with him on. We need confidence.

This constant utilization of the debt limit for political leverage, I think, is not in the best interest of our country or the people we represent, and I would hope that bill would not be brought to the floor but that we could together, in a bipartisan fashion, resolve that the debt limit will not be put in question by this Congress.

I yield to my friend.

I thank the gentleman for his observation. If I can, there is some irony in the gentleman's response.

We've been talking about two items: one, the going to conference on the budget, which does, in fact, deal with prospective spending, a prospective increase in debt or deficit, because we buy more or spend more or cut revenues more. The debt limit, as the gentleman so well knows, deals with what we've already done. It doesn't have anything to do with increasing what we're going to spend. The budget does that.

Now, we're not dealing with the budget, but there is discussion about dealing with this prioritization. Frankly, we should have made that determination when we spent the money, and both sides have spent a lot of money. Our country is determined to spend a lot of money. Two wars cost us a lot of money we didn't pay for. I'm not going to go through the litany--the gentleman knows that litany--but it is somewhat ironic when we're not dealing with going to conference on the budget deficit, but we're talking about a prioritization of the debt that we've already incurred.

I think the American public will understand that raising the debt limit is simply a recognition of what we've already done and that we're going to pay our bills--that we're not going to welch, that we're not going to default--that the most creditworthy, greatest Nation on the face of the Earth is going to pay for what it bought.

So I would urge the gentleman to not do prioritization, but let's deal with raising the debt limit so we pay our bills, and let's go to conference so we can make sure that, in fact, we keep that debt from going higher and, in fact, decrease it through reforms that we can adopt in a budget conference. I would hope the gentleman would agree with that.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Preliminary, however, to my remarks, I want to say I thank the previous speaker for his remarks, and I would hope that with the Senate's having passed a budget, our having passed a budget, and the President submitting a budget that we will now, hopefully as soon as this week, go to conference so that we might discuss the differences and get that budget to which the gentleman addressed himself.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a wonderful individual who has served our country in government service for many years and has spent the last four in overseeing our Federal workforce as the Director of the Office of Personnel Management. I am speaking of my dear friend John Berry, who retired last week as Director of the Office of Personnel Management.

America, Mr. Speaker, is blessed with a Federal workforce composed of hardworking, talented, and dedicated men and women. Too often, however, their contributions are overlooked or are even denigrated by those who would use our Federal employees as an easy target to attack the institution of government.

John Berry made it one of his central missions at OPM to stand up for Federal workers' achievements and remind the American people of the true value we get from recruiting and retaining the best public workforce in the world. He came to OPM with plenty of experience in fighting for Federal employees and their families. When he served for 10 years as my legislative director, John was instrumental in crafting the Federal Employee Pay Comparability Act and in making sure Congress passed it into law. Mr. Speaker, that was a bipartisan law, and it was President George Bush I who signed that piece of legislation into law in 1990.

In that undertaking and in many others, John Berry made a real difference for the more than 62,000 Federal workers and everyone else who calls my district home. Just as we look to our Federal workers to watch out for us, our Federal employees have looked to John to watch out for them--to make sure that they have a safe work environment, that their paychecks will arrive on time, and that the benefits they earn are the ones they receive.

Under President Clinton, John served as deputy Assistant Secretary and acting Assistant Secretary for Law Enforcement at the Treasury Department, overseeing the United States Secret Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. He later moved to the Interior Department where he was Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget, essentially the manager of the Department of the Interior.

Before coming to the Office of Personnel Management, John spent nearly a decade working on conservation as Director of the Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Then, arguably, the job he perhaps enjoyed most was that of Director of the National Zoo. At the National Zoo, he was so successful at turning around a faltering institution that after he left they named a lion in his honor.

John, indeed, was a lion--a lion on behalf of the Federal employees, a lion on behalf of good government, a lion on behalf of integrity. Those who know John can attest that he is not only a true leader and an effective manager but also an incredibly warm person with an unfailingly positive outlook.

John Berry will be greatly missed by all who serve our country in its civilian workforce, and I wish John and his partner, Curtis, all the best as he begins the next phase in his career.

I hope my colleagues will join me in thanking John for his service, for his leadership, for his insights, for his inspiration, and for being an example to all of us of a positive, constructive, supportive, and successful career in Federal service.

Mr. Speaker, our country has been the beneficiary of his character, integrity, and extraordinary ability. We wish him well in all that he will be doing. I'm sure it will be extraordinarily productive and of service to our country as he moves on from Federal service at the OPM to a new challenge and a new career.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I adopt the remarks that were made by Ms. Norton. The delinquency rate of Federal employees is far below what it is for other employees on a general level throughout this country. I adopt the gentlelady's remarks that, yes, this is April 15, and my own staff has said, oh, I had to pay this, that, or the other.

The implication here is that we brought a bill dealing with Federal employees this day. Why? Because Federal employees are very easy to target. For people who don't like government: Well, the Federal employees, look at what they're doing. You're having to pay your taxes today before those deadbeat Federal employees. That's the message here.

Now, if this were a problem that you really wanted to deal with, it wouldn't have to be April 15. It could have been February 15 or it could be June 15. But, no, that's not the message here.

The message is that somehow Federal employees need to be targeted. I understand they work for us, and so they're easy to get at. And we are getting at them almost every week. We're furloughing them. We're suggesting they pay more, that they're not paying enough for retirement. We are suggesting that somehow they're less than stellar employees.

But before I conclude, let me take a second look at this.

We had a tragic event happen in Boston today, and the President was quick to call Governor Deval Patrick and say we're going to send some Federal employees from the FBI, the ATF, and other agencies to make sure that we look at this and protect America.

We extend our sympathies, of course, to all the victims and their families.

We express our sympathies to all of them, and we recognize that they have some employees in Boston and around this country at the municipal and State level, and, yes, at the Federal level, who are going to try to respond and make sure America is safe.

Let's send a message to those Federal employees, because they're our employees, that we respect them, their contribution. Let us not bring a bill to the floor--by the way, the gentleman is correct that it passed here not with my vote last year, because I thought it was a message that was incorrect. I thought that there were processes in place today which allow us to act against those, yes, who are tax delinquents. But very frankly, this is not a discussion today about huge tax delinquents, huge tax frauds, people who are not paying taxes to this country in which they're being so successful.

So, Mr. Speaker, first of all, we send our regrets to those who have been the subject of a terrorist act, whether it was a domestic terrorist, a foreign terrorist, but a terrorist act this day.

Secondly, we say to those Federal employees who time after time, week after week, month after month are being disparaged by their board of directors, that we understand the quality of their service and contribution. And, yes, we understand there are some who don't do what they ought to do, and we demand that they do so, but this is not the way to do it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend from Virginia, the majority leader, for the purpose of inquiring about the schedule for the week to come.

I thank the gentleman for that information. I want to share his view that the cybersecurity legislation is critically important legislation. I know that there are still continuing differences with reference to the protection of individual citizens' privacy on this legislation, but I also know, as the gentleman has indicated, the critical nature of providing access and exchange of information so that we can protect Americans, protect our country, and protect our intellectual property and commercial property. So I would hope and expect that we would be working together in a bipartisan way to make sure that we can reach consensus so that we can see a bill signed.

I want to say that I know that both you and I are pleased that Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Ruppersberger have been working so closely together in a bipartisan fashion to accomplish this objective.

Mr. Leader, I hope you've noticed that earlier this week I gave a speech with reference to Make It In America. In that speech, I want you to know, if you missed it, I mentioned the jobs bill. I made a little fun of the jobs bill, as you recall, when you put it on the floor, but we all voted for it because it was a good bill. We put together five or six bills that had bipartisan support as they passed the House and Senate.

We put them together, the President signed that bill, they were a step forward, they were part of our Make It In America agenda on our side and your jobs expansion, growth expansion on your side.

What I said in my speech on Make it in America, which refers to manufacturing in America, growing things in America, selling them here and around the world, and doing what Americans are hopeful that we are focused on, and that is creating jobs, in that speech, Mr. Leader, I said that we needed to focus on four particular priorities.

Number one, adopting and pursuing a national manufacturing strategy. As I'm sure you know, Mr. Leader, last Congress we passed the Lipinski bill, which came out of committee in a bipartisan fashion and passed this House in a bipartisan fashion. Unfortunately, it did not pass the Senate.

You and I both know that if you're going to win, if you're going to succeed, you're going to have to have a plan to do so. This speaks to the coming together of business, labor, entrepreneurs, investors, as well as government, in terms of the partnership that we can play in ensuring that we are making things in America and that goods around the world have on them ``Made in America.''

Secondly, we want to promote U.S. exports. You and I, Mr. Leader, have worked on that. We worked on that in a bipartisan fashion. This was another part of what we call Make It In America, the Export-Import Act. Your staff and my staff worked very diligently together to get that done, and we passed it in a bipartisan fashion.

The third part of the Make It In America agenda focus would be encouraging manufacturers to bring jobs home. I think we have, Mr. Leader, an excellent opportunity, given the context of where we find ourselves, where salaries are going up overseas, where it is more expensive now to ship goods back to the United States because of transportation costs, the largest market in the world.

And, fourthly, as the gentleman knows, while there have been some differences, the President has expressed, you've expressed, I've expressed, our need to expand our energy supply, and particularly as we see the natural gas technology advancing, that the United States of America is going to be one of the least expensive energy venues in the world and have one of the best supplies in the world, which perhaps no one would have predicted 20 years ago but is a fact, all of which ought to go to helping us reinvigorate, expand manufacturing, and create middle class jobs, paying good wages and providing good benefits.

Lastly, we want to ensure that we invest. And I notice the gentleman sent out a memo to your Members. I don't think we purloined a copy, but we did get a copy. You talked about investing and making sure that the quality of life and jobs were available for working Americans. We need to make sure that we invest, as you pointed out, as we believe strongly, in education and infrastructure and innovation, to make sure that we have the training necessary for people to be able to perform the jobs that are going to be required in the growing economy and the global marketplace.

I say all that, Mr. Leader, to suggest that I would like to sit down with you so that we can talk together about how we mutually can move forward on what, as I say, we call a Make It In America agenda, but a jobs agenda, a growing the American economy agenda. I know you've been focused on that, we're focused on that. I'm hopeful we can do that, I think it will be positive for our country, and I think Americans will feel good about it.

I yield to my friend.

I thank the gentleman for that.

Following on his observation, clearly what he says is we need to focus on priorities. I think he's absolutely right on that. I think one of the sad things is we have passed a fiscal posture in this country presently that does not focus on priorities, unfortunately, and that's called sequester, which, in effect, looks across the board at cutting both the highest priorities and the lowest priorities in similar ways.

I would hope that we could obviate the sequester. I think it's bad for the country, I think it's bad for our future, I think it's bad for the growth in our economy. I would hope that we could also work on that.

And towards that end I would say, Mr. Leader, you have talked about, and, in fact, we passed legislation that was designed to encourage and to require the passage of a budget by the Senate. The Senate has now passed a budget, we have passed a budget, the President has now presented a budget, so that we have three alternatives on the table now.

I would hope that as soon as the Senate passes its bill to us, which I expect to be shortly, that we would go to conference in pursuance of an agreement which will give us a fiscally sustainable path for this country, give us confidence in this country that Congress can work, that the Nation's board of directors can work, in coming to a balanced compromise with respect to how we move forward with the finances of America. Now that we have, as I say, a Senate-passed budget, a House- passed budget, a budget presented by the President of the United States, obviously, there are things that each person in the country can disagree with and agree with presumably on each one of those budgets.

I would hope that we would be going to conference as soon as possible so that we could address this critically important objective.

I ask the gentleman if he has any information with respect to the intention to go to conference as soon as we receive the Senate bill, which, as I say, I think will be shortly.

I yield to my friend.

I would simply observe--and he knows this as well as I do--that there will be an agreement on things that he perhaps does not agree with and there will be things in the agreement that perhaps I will not agree with. The secret, in my view, of getting agreement is going to be to have a comprehensive agreement that accomplishes the objective of bringing our finances to a fiscally sustainable path that's credible and believed by not only the economy, by investors, by the American people, but also by the international community.

We've talked a lot about confidence, as I've indicated, in the past. You've talked a lot about confidence in the past. I think we all agree that our economy needs confidence to grow as robustly as we want it to create the kinds of jobs we want.

Toward that end, can the gentleman tell me what plans we have at this point in time for the debt limit extension? I know there's some discussion of bringing a bill to the floor which will deal with that issue. Can the gentleman perhaps elaborate on what the

plans are with respect to the debt limit that confronts us that will hit sometime around May 19?

And I yield to my friend.

I certainly agree that defaulting on the debt is an extraordinarily irresponsible thing to do, and, in fact, we shouldn't do it. In fact, we shouldn't use it as a leverage point, in my view, to pretend that somehow going over the debt limit without extension is an acceptable political leverage point for either side.

Both sides have sort of blamed the other for the deficits as we've confronted these debt limits. We've never come close, except in August of 2011, to defaulting, which was the first time, as the gentleman knows, when we were downgraded by 1 point by S&P. That's an irresponsible policy. I agree with the gentleman.

Let me say that the advantage of a conference on this issue will be that transparently the American public will see the debate. The gentleman indicates a 10-year objective of balancing the budget without revenues. I personally believe that's impossible.

I've said on this floor that if there were no Democrats in the Congress of the United States, either in the Senate or the House, that, frankly, your side of the aisle could not pass either the appropriation bills or the revenue bills or tax cuts that are suggested in Mr. Ryan's budget, which would accomplish your objective. I think we'll never know that, which is, I think, a happy circumstance on your side that that will never be put to the test.

Having said that, I would hope that we could get to a place where we say the debt limit is not going to be subject to political maneuvering.

Furthermore, let me say that the bill that we've been hearing about-- in The Wall Street Journal there was an article that appeared just yesterday, I think:

Fitch Ratings, a credit-rating firm, said Tuesday it wasn't

clear whether the Treasury legally could prioritize bond

payments over other government obligations.

And it went on to say:

If it did so, Fitch added, it was very likely the firm

would downgrade its AAA rating of the U.S. debt.

In other words, even if we say we're going to pay the debts or, as some people have said, even if we say we're going to pay the Chinese first and not invest in those things such as basic biomedical research--to which the gentleman referred, and I share his view of that being a priority of our country--and cut those as we pay the Chinese or other creditor nations back for what we borrowed, that would not be in the best interest of the United States.

I would say that in both instances, either pretending that we're going to go over the debt limit and avoid it by simply paying the debt first and then cutting other things in some sort of order, neither of those policies is consistent, I think, with our responsibilities as Members of Congress.

I will tell you that we will do it on a bipartisan basis, Mr. Leader. I use a very simple example for my constituents. You go to Macy's. You take out your Macy's credit card and you buy $200 worth of goods. You go home. Next week, you and your wife are sitting around the table or you and your husband are sitting around the table, and you say, You know, we're really in debt too much. We're going to limit it to $100. So Macy's sends you the bill for 200 bucks. You send them back a check for $100 and say, Sorry, we have a debt limit of $100. Macy's writes you back and says, We're sorry, too. We're not going to give you any additional credit and we're going to sue you. That's our debt limit.

The debt limit, you and I both know, is not realistic. It's much more a political and demagoguing way of dealing with one another and dealing with the finances of this country.

I would hope that you and the Speaker--both of whom I know have said not extending the debt limit is not a viable or a responsible option. I would hope that we could make that clear, that we're not going to do that and, in a bipartisan way, extend it, and perhaps extend it early enough so that it doesn't become even an item of consideration by any of the rating agencies or the international community.

I yield to my friend.

I thank the gentleman.

The way to do that plan of how to amortize our debt and invest in the priorities of this country--education, innovation, infrastructure, other basic biomedical research to which the gentleman referred--is to have a budget. That's the plan that the gentleman refers to. The way to get to a budget is to go to conference and come to an agreement.

However, I will tell my friend what the problem we've had is: reaching compromise, and it's going to be necessary to compromise. As the gentleman observed and as I know, we have very substantial differences, but if the differences continue to create gridlock and no action, those children of which you spoke and I speak are going to suffer, so I would hope that we could move forward.

The President's budget, I will tell the gentleman and as he probably knows, has about an almost 3-1 ratio between cuts and additional revenues, which is essentially, approximately, what most on the bipartisan commission--some have been 2-1, some 2.5-1--have recommended. I know the gentleman disagrees with that ratio, but it is certainly the President's view, which I share, that he has made a very positive proposal whether you agree with it or not, and a number of your Members have observed that it's a useful document.

Given that context, hopefully, we can go to conference. Hopefully, we can come to agreement. Hopefully, we can see compromise reached, and hopefully put our country on the fiscally sustainable path that it needs to be.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Rev. Roderick McClanahan, and the dedication of the First Missionary Baptist Church's newest house of worship. For over 20 years the Reverend has served as Pastor of the First Missionary Baptist Church, and has lead this congregation in the Building project which resulted in this church.

Rev. McClanahan was born in Louisiana where he received a calling from God at a young age, preaching his first sermon on September 4, 1984, and eventually becoming ordained at the New Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church, under the leadership of Rev. Willie Minor, on September 21, 1985. He was brought to Maryland shortly thereafter, and has officially served as pastor of the First Missionary Baptist Church since March of 1990.

The First Missionary Baptist Church has a rich history in Maryland. The church was started as a Prayer Band in October of 1945 by Martha Hickenbotom, as a way of giving the African Americans of Lexington Park a place of worship. Service was initially held in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Lester Colson, but as the congregation grew, so did their need for space. For a brief time the Prayer Band made their home in the then USO Building, until on April 19, 1947, at the suggestion of Brother Ivory Moore, then the prayer leader for the Prayer Band, they purchased the first acre of land the church calls home today. Since then, through segregation and beyond, the church has continued to grow and faithfully serve the African American community of Southern Maryland.

It is truly my honor to pay tribute today to Rev. Roderick McClanahan, and the First Missionary Baptist Church, a shining beacon for all of Southern Maryland.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor and congratulate an extraordinary team of young men from Maryland's Fifth Congressional District. The Bowie State University Bulldogs won the CIAA Men's Basketball Championship on March 2, 2013. This is their second conference championship in team history and second NCAA Tournament berth in three seasons. This incredible achievement was made all the more significant given the caliber of their competition.

Once in tournament play, the Bulldogs emerged victorious over Chowan University, Lincoln University, and Winston Salem State University to ultimately meet Livingston College in the conference championship game at Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Bulldogs prevailed, overcoming the Livingston Blue Bears with a final score of 85-74.

This victory demonstrates that with determination, willpower, and discipline we can work to overcome any obstacle in the path of achieving success. After entering the tournament as a fourth seed, the Bowie State

Men's Basketball team has gone above and beyond expectations. The Bulldogs end their 2013 season not only with a conference championship, but also a berth into the NCAA Division II Tournament.

Fifteen student-athletes contributed to this triumphant season, remaining focused and determined to continue the success of Bowie State Men's Basketball.

Mr. Speaker, I offer my heartiest congratulations to the members of the championship team--Julian Williams, Ray Gatling, Trawn Rogers, Cameron Knox, Dameatric Scott, Najee White, Tyrone Lawson, Jr., Carlos Smith, Byron Westmorland, Justin Beck, Bryan Wilson, Julian Harrell, David Golladay, Joel Clemmons, and Branden Doughty--on their victory. And, I also want to applaud Head Coach Darrell Brooks and his coaching staff--Larry Stewart, Sedric Baker, Darius Wilson, and Delmar Carey-- for their dedication and commitment while guiding these talented student-athletes.

Like all Marylanders, I am very proud of these young men and I congratulate all of those involved in bringing home a conference title. I ask that my colleagues join me in applauding this great accomplishment.