Floor Statements

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Ryan, who is an outstanding Member of this body and my friend, and who is one of the most able among us, as well as Mr. Van Hollen, who has been my close friend for many years and one of the most able among us,

have just spent time thanking our staffs for the work that they have done. I share their view that our staffs have worked mightily. And, indeed, there has been much debate.

Tragically, the product we will produce today is far less than the sum of our parts in this body. It is, I would suggest to you, a product unworthy of the intellect that has been applied to it. It is a product, indeed, that I think will hurt America, not help America. It is a product that is too much politics and too little policy. It is a product of which I think this House can not be proud.

It is a product that relies on substantially undermining the security of seniors. I say that as one who has said repeatedly that in reaching a fiscally sustainable path we must deal with entitlements. We need to do so together, and we need to do so in a balanced way.

But there is no balance in this proposal. Seniors, middle class, the vulnerable, and working Americans are asked to pay the price of this agreement. And, indeed, not only are they asked to pay the price, but the best off among us is asked to do the least.

That's not the America of which we're all proud--that has worked together and sacrificed together at times, to come together to make a joint contribution to the welfare of this country.

This product is less than the sum of its parts. This product would undermine the guarantee of Medicare.

Again, we need to deal with entitlements, but not in a way, I tell my friends in this House, that undermines the guarantee of senior security as well as family security, so their children will know their parents are secure.

Ladies and gentlemen of this House, we had an agreement. I think that the gentleman from Wisconsin is an honorable man. He is my friend. I like Paul Ryan. But I am sorely disappointed, I tell my friend.

We came to having a difference of opinion on what the number ought to be for this year's budget. You had a lower number. We had a higher number. We almost took the Nation to the brink--as a matter of fact, we took it to the brink--of default.

We came to the brink of default in this great Nation, the most creditworthy Nation on the face of the Earth, and were downgraded as a result of failing to get to an agreement. But when we got to an agreement, it was an agreement. And if we are able to rely on one another's words, we ought to keep our agreements.

It simply said that 302(a), which simply means, for the public, that the dollars we were going to spend on discretionary spending this fiscal year coming would be $1.47 trillion. That's a lot of money, no doubt about it. Your side didn't like it, my side didn't like it, but we agreed on it.

That agreement is not carried out in this budget. How can we rely in the future on such an agreement? It asks seniors to pay the bill, the vulnerable to pay the bill, but not the wealthiest in America. It puts Medicare at risk and does not get us to where we want.

In fact, it adds $10 trillion, and then some magical formula that's somewhere out there, like waste, fraud, and abuse, we're going to find the money to pay for the $10 trillion in tax cuts. That's by the extension of the Bush tax cuts and the 35 to 25. Some magical way, we're going to eliminate preference items. It doesn't say which ones. It doesn't say who's going to pay the bill.

Ladies and gentlemen, we can do better. The parts in this body are very good on both sides of the aisle--good intellect, good instincts, and a love for this country. We can do better.

Let's reject this budget. Let's do some real work. Let's come together and put this country on a fiscally sustainable path without harming our people.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Before I start my formal presentation, let me say the gentleman from Arizona is correct. We do need to take responsibility on both sides of the aisle. Very frankly, I will tell my friend we had an opportunity to take responsibility when the Bowles-Simpson Commission voted. There was a vote in the Senate. It was divided somewhat, but mostly they voted for it in the Senate. We had one of our people from the House vote for it, a Democrat. None of your representatives voted for Bowles-Simpson, I guess, because it wasn't perfect. That was a missed opportunity--it was a doggone shame--because that would have made 14 votes, and we would have had that on the floor in the Senate and in the House. I think this is a missed opportunity because I don't think this is a real document.

Now, frankly, I also think that we had a deal. We had a deal as to what the discretionary number was going to be, or as we call it in the jargon of the House, the 302(a) allocation, which the gentleman as a member of the Appropriations Committee knows about. We had a higher number and you had a lower number, and we made a deal in between. We haven't kept that deal. We haven't kept that deal because you couldn't get the votes in your committee, in the Budget Committee, for that deal.

So here we are, Madam Speaker. The chairman of the Budget Committee has spoken of a choice between two futures. He is correct in framing it this way. The budget he proposes would end Medicare's guarantee, cut taxes for the wealthiest, and place our economic recovery at risk.

Robert Greenstein, head of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, described the Republican budget this way, and I quote:

It would likely produce the largest redistribution of

income from the bottom to the top in modern U.S. history and

likely increase poverty and inequality more than any other

budget in recent times.

Now, that is not a budget on which we proceed where you have a Senate that is chaired by the Democratic Party, majority leader, and a Democratic President. You're not going to get consensus on that kind of a budget.

So this is essentially a statement of purpose and vision by one party, not a document that anybody thinks is going to pass. However, that is a future we simply cannot afford.

In fact, the Republican proposal is not a realistic budget at all, I would suggest to you. Nobody believes in its premises that we, as a Nation, are suddenly going to decide to savage our domestic programs and leave the most vulnerable out in the cold. That's not America. That's not the values that we share as a country.

This disastrous budget ends the Medicare guarantee, increasing costs for seniors. It cuts Medicaid by a third. That's the most vulnerable in America, the poor in America.

My faith doesn't teach me that's the kind of policy I am going to support. I don't think anybody's faith teaches that. We want to take care of those who need the most help.

It will jeopardize access to affordable health and nursing home care for seniors, the disabled, and low-income families who depend upon it.

Furthermore, it repeals the critical patient protection and cost containment policies of the Affordable Care Act. That will cost us dollars.

Their budget slashes funding for programs that help the vulnerable, enable our children to afford college, and provide health coverage to those with long-term disabilities; and it puts millions of jobs and our economic recovery at risk as a result of drastic spending cuts.

At the same time, the budget extends the Bush tax cuts, including $1 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthiest among us, and cuts an additional $4.6 trillion in taxes on top of that. In fact, you can get tax cuts up to $10 trillion with the Bush extension and the reduction from 35 to 25.

And, oh, yes, we're going to eliminate preference items. We won't tell you what those preference items are. We don't know when we'll eliminate them, but we're going to eliminate them.

I happen to agree we need to look at preference items. I agree with Mr. Ryan on that proposition. I'm just not very confident that, given what happened in Bowles-Simpson, that anybody has the courage to do so.

It does all that without saying how it will be paid for; but presumably, as I said, by eliminating the deductions that middle class families rely on to send their kids to college and afford their homes.

Let me say this: I have said in the past and I will say it again today, we must have a big, bold, balanced deal. That will affect entitlements, it will affect revenues, and it will affect expenditures.

I will tell my friend of my deep disappointment, because I think the chairman of the Budget Committee certainly is one of the individuals in America who could be a part of the solution but is not being part of the solution, is proposing something that is clearly unacceptable to this side of the aisle, to the President. We need to come together and come to an agreement.

Democrats have proposed a different future: one where we invest in a strong

economy and ask everyone to contribute their fair share; a future where the Medicare guarantee is preserved and seniors' health security is protected; a future where students who work hard, take responsibility for themselves, and get accepted to college won't have to worry about whether they can afford to go; a future where we help businesses create millions of jobs here at home that won't be shipped overseas; a future, ladies and gentlemen, where the deficit is reduced in a balanced way-- that's the key, we all know it's the key--with everyone pitching in.

Any of the Democratic alternatives, in my opinion, will be better than this Republican budget. And I don't agree with everything in each one of those budgets, clearly.

We have a choice today, tonight, tomorrow of two futures, and that choice couldn't be clearer.

Ladies and gentlemen of this House, I urge you to stand together in defeating this budget and passing one that will bring our middle class and working families not a grim future but a bright future.

And in conclusion, let me say this:

Whatever happens to this budget, any of these budgets on the floor, is not going to be the final word. It perhaps will not even be the beginning word. We need to solve this issue, and we need to do it not by pointing fingers at one another, not by pretending that it's going to be simple, not by pretending that we're going to be able to make happy all of our supporters. We won't be. The hole we've dug is way too deep. The decisions we will make are way too tough. And the only way we will make them is to join hands and look the American public in the eye and say, We have to have a balanced deal. We have to do all that is necessary to put this Nation on a fiscally sustainable path for the chairman's children, for the ranking member's children, for my children, my grandchildren, and, yes, my two great-grandchildren.

I thank the gentleman.

Will my friend yield?

I thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan, but certainly also my friend from Ohio, both of whom have served here for a long period of time and who love this institution and know how critical the functions are of the Parliamentarian. I want to thank them both.

Mr. Dingell has had the privilege of serving alongside all four of the men who have been the modern Parliamentarians in this House. I've had the privilege of serving with three of them.

When the Framers of the Constitution wrote article I, section 5, clause 2, they probably had little idea of the volume of precedents that would accumulate in the 224 years since the House convened and adopted its first rules.

Today, the job of the Parliamentarian is probably one of the most difficult in Washington. A thorough understanding of the rules of precedents is a prerequisite to be an accomplished Parliamentarian. John Sullivan has that. One must also, however, have the respect of every Member of this House. John Sullivan has that.

That is what John Sullivan achieved over the course of his 17 years in the Parliamentarian's Office. As our Parliamentarian for the last 8 of those years, John has sat beside the Speaker's rostrum through some of the most heated floor debates I've ever seen, indeed perhaps in which I've participated.

Throughout, he preserved the impartiality of and the high regard for his office in the eyes of both Democrats and Republicans--when Democrats were in charge and when Republicans were in charge--and he demonstrated his keen and incisive command of precedent issuing his rulings.

Hearing of John's decision to retire, I was among the many Members who felt that they were losing a respected colleague and friend. Because after his tenure here, John Sullivan has left his mark on the House no less than any of us who were elected to serve here by our constituents. He, no less than ourselves, has served the American people well.

As we wish him the best in retirement, we also welcome as our new Parliamentarian a man who is eminently qualified to succeed him in office. Tom Wickham has been at John's side throughout his tenure in the Parliamentarian's Office, and I know John is leaving us in very capable hands.

Mr. Speaker, I join you and my colleagues and everyone else who has come to the floor this evening celebrating John's service to this House and to our Nation.

I wish him well and thank him for all he has done to preserve the order--and with it the honor--of the people's House.

John, you have been a great public servant in the best traditions of that term. You have been someone, as I said earlier, who has been respected by every leader of both parties, an individual who has listened intently, who has judged fairly, and whose judgments have made this House better.

John Sullivan, well done, the House's good and faithful servant. Well done as a friend and colleague and adviser.

Many of us are better Members of this House because of John's counsel through the years, and this House is certainly a better place for his service. I congratulate him and wish him Godspeed.

And I thank the gentleman from Michigan and the gentleman from Ohio for leading this Special Order to praise and give testimony to the outstanding service of our friend, John Sullivan.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield to my friend from Virginia (Mr. Cantor), the majority leader, for the purpose of inquiring of the schedule for the week to come.

I thank the gentleman for his information with respect to the legislation that is going to be considered next week.

I would note that he talks about the highway bill, the infrastructure bill that is pending. Obviously, we had expected to consider that bill on the House floor. On our side, at least, our expectation was that it was going to be considered a number of weeks ago. It has not come to the floor here. As I understand it, we are now talking about an extension of some period of time. We are concerned that you rightfully, personally and as a party, made it very clear that certainty was an important aspect of growing our economy. That's a proposition on which I agree. I think you are absolutely right. I think that we need to create certainty and, clearly, we need to create jobs.

I said this morning, Mr. Leader, to the press--and I'm sure you get it as well--that the public says to me: When are you guys going to start working together? When are you going to get something done in a bipartisan way?

The Senate has done that, I will say to my friend. The Senate has done it in an overwhelming fashion. They had 74--it would have been 75, but Mr. Lautenberg was absent but was for the bill. So 75 percent of the Senate, three-quarters of the Senate voted for what was a very bipartisan bill. And, as a matter of fact, half the Senate Republicans essentially voted for that bill.

As you know, it had a technical flaw in the bill in that it had revenues which need to be initiated in the House of Representatives. Representative Tim Bishop of New York has introduced the Senate bill, which has overwhelming support in the United States Senate and, very frankly, in my view, would have at least 218 votes in this House if it were put on the floor.

The Speaker has said in the past that he is committed to letting the House work its will, obviously referring to the open amendments process. But if a bill doesn't come to the floor, we have no opportunity either to amend or to vote. That's been one of our problems, of course, with the jobs bill that the President proposed that we had hoped would have been brought to the floor which has not been to the floor.

But I ask my friend, rather than continue to delay--and both sides have done that on the highway bill--to give that confidence, of which you have spoken and others on your side of the aisle have spoken I think absolutely correctly, in order to give the confidence that we can, in fact, act, that we can work in a bipartisan fashion, I would ask my friend whether or not he, as the majority leader, would be prepared to bring the Bishop bill to the floor, which, again, is the Senate bill, supported by 75 Members of the United States Senate, half of the Republican caucus in the Senate, and which will give some degree of certainty for a highway program which clearly is also a jobs bill and will have an impact on almost 2 million jobs and maybe another million jobs along the way.

We think that's the way that would be good for our country to proceed, and it would send a message--because I think it would get bipartisan support if you brought it to the floor--that it would send a good message to the country that, yes, from time to time, we can work together. And, very frankly, Mr. Leader, if we did that, it would be consistent with every transportation bill that we have passed since 1956 under Dwight Eisenhower, where we worked together in a bipartisan fashion. This is the first time that I have experienced a partisan divide--I mean, people have had differences of opinion, but a partisan divide on the highway bill.

As you know, Senator Boxer and Senator Inhofe came together to agree. I think that's a pretty broad ideological spectrum of the United States Senate. They came together, they agreed, and they led the effort to pass that bipartisan bill.

I would very much hope that, Mr. Majority Leader, that you could bring that bill to the floor and see whether or not, in fact, it could pass. I think that would be good for the country.

And I yield to my friend for his comments.

I thank the gentleman for his comments. But I will say again to the gentleman, we've been down this path before. We've been down this path before where the Senate was able to reach a bipartisan agreement on legislation very important to jobs, to the economy, and to the confidence of America.

That bipartisan piece of legislation would have enjoyed the support, I think, of certainly the overwhelming majority, almost the unanimous support on our side on a bipartisan agreement. I don't mean a Democratic proposal from the Senate, but a bipartisan agreement that came from the Senate. That dealt, of course, with payroll taxes and extending those, and ultimately we did that. We took that bill.

But I would say to my friend that the Speaker indicated he wanted a bill on this floor. I've been asking you for approximately a month now if it was going to come to the floor. That bill hasn't come to the floor. We all know it hasn't come to the floor because there's very substantial disagreement within your party about that bill. The papers report that. Everybody talks about it. We understand that.

I say to my friend that he and I do have a disagreement. I think it would enjoy bipartisan support on this floor if you brought the Bishop bill, the Senate bipartisan bill, to the floor. But the only way we're really going to be able to find that out--it's not by me saying, I think it would and you saying, I think it wouldn't. There's a very easy way to see whether it would, and that is to bring it to the floor next week.

I don't think there is anybody, hopefully, that wants to disrupt and have literally hundreds of thousands of people thrown out of work or not have opportunities for work. We know the construction trades in particular have been very badly hit by the lack of construction that's going on.

You can have your opinion and I can have my opinion, but there is a way to determine whether or not, in fact, we can get bipartisan agreement; and that is, as I said, and as the Speaker has indicated, let the House work its will. The only way the House can work its will-- having been majority leader--is for the majority leader to bring the legislation to the floor for a vote. Then you may be right, I may be right, but we will know and it won't have to be speculation. We will know.

If I'm right and we do pass that bill, then next week, before March 31, before the expiration of the current highway authorization, we can send a bill to the President of the United States, and he will sign the Senate bill. We don't know that he will sign a bill that's still languishing in your committee because we haven't seen the final parameters of that bill because it is obviously pretty controversial on your side of the aisle.

Again, if you want certainty, we have an opportunity for certainty. We have an opportunity with a bipartisan bill that the Senate has passed. I don't know why we're rejecting that bipartisanship. The gentleman says, well, this is a unique economic time. He's right. It seems to me that's a greater argument for trying to embrace a bipartisan agreement and move forward with giving certainty to the construction industry, to States, to municipalities, and to counties on what is going to be available to them to plan and to pursue infrastructure projects critical to commerce and to their communities.

I regret that the gentleman has indicated that's not an option that he will consider, but a short-term extension seems to be the continuation of uncertainty, not the allaying of uncertainty. I don't know whether the gentleman wants to make another comment on that or not.

Well, I won't pursue it any further, Mr. Leader, but you've been unable to get agreement within your party on this side of the Capitol for well over a month. I hope you can get there. I would hope you would get there in a bipartisan fashion so that Mr. Rahall and Mr. Mica could agree on a bill, which has been my experience in the 31 years I've been here. It's not my experience this year. That hasn't happened. But almost invariably--and I think for the years you've been here, you've experienced that as well.

Let me ask you now with respect to the budget. Do you expect the budget to come to the floor? You indicated that. If so, would that be Wednesday?

Normally, as you know, we've had alternatives made in order. We, of course, want to make in order an amendment which will guarantee that Medicare will be available to our seniors and that we will not decimate Medicaid, which we think is appropriate for our seniors. We also want to make sure that we have revenues that can sustain health care for seniors, education for kids, help for our communities.

Will the gentleman be able to tell me whether or not, in fact, alternatives will be made in order by the Rules Committee that would be offered either by the minority ranking member of the committee and/or others as historically has been the case?

Was there a bipartisan vote in the committee on that? I thought it was a totally partisan vote in the committee. Was I incorrect?

I thank the gentleman for his comment.

The last thing I would ask the gentleman: Am I correct that the agreement that was reached between our parties, which led to the passage of the Budget Control Act in a bipartisan fashion, does not reflect the substance of that agreement as it relates to the discretionary spending number for fiscal year 2013? Senator McConnell is quoted, as you know, as saying that that was an agreement that was reached and that he expected it to be pursued.

I want to make it clear that he was not referring to the action of the Budget Committee, but he was referring to the agreement on the discretionary number.

Am I correct that the agreement that was reached, in order to get a bipartisan vote on the Budget Control Act, which we passed, which made sure that this country did not default on its debts for the first time in history, am I correct that that number is not the number that is reflected in the budget?

I yield to my friend.

I thank the gentleman for his comments, but I will tell the gentleman that if we're going to have negotiations, and we have one number and you have another number, and we agree on a number, and then we pass a bill which reflects that number, put it in law--it doesn't say it's a cap; it says that will be the number. As we pass the budget, we said that will be the number. Now this is the law. And as was observed by others on the other side of the Capitol, but I will observe it here as well, if we're going to have those kinds of negotiations, it's sort of like the guy who comes up to you and says, look, I've got something to sell you, do you want to buy it? And you say, yes, let's negotiate on price. And you come to a price of $100. And then you come to settle, and the guy says, well, that was my top number. I'm going to give you $92 for that item. You don't have a meeting of the minds as a contract requires.

Very frankly, nobody on our side, and frankly I don't think anybody on your side that negotiated the deal--I don't mean that didn't vote for it--and as a matter of fact, I know for a fact the Speaker, and I believe yourself, have been quoted that that was the number and we ought to stick with it. Clearly, Mr. Rogers believes that's the number that was agreed to.

Now, we're not going to be able to agree on things if all of a sudden it becomes, well, that was a notional thing that we did, not an agreement. A lot of our people voted on that to make sure, A, we didn't go into default as a country, and, B, that was not the number we wanted. It clearly was not the number your side wanted. But it was a number we agreed upon. And it seems to me that if we're going to try to keep faith with one another and with the law that we passed that we should stick with what we agreed to.

I understand that we want to bring the budget deficit down. As a matter of fact, on this side of the aisle, I've made those comments, and I've been criticized by some on my side, as you well know. Yes, we do need to get a handle on the budget. We're going to have a real debate on the deficit and debt, and I've been working very hard on that. We're going to have a debate, a fulsome debate, hopefully, on whether or not your budget does that. We've had disagreements all the years I've been here on that, and performance has not reflected, from my standpoint, that the representations made have always worked out, perhaps on either side.

But I regret, I regret deeply, Mr. Majority Leader, that we've reached an agreement, and based upon that agreement, this House took an action, it took a bipartisan action, and it passed a piece of legislation that was critically important to make sure that America did not go into default. And now we see 7 months later, crossed fingers, well, we really didn't mean that, it was a cap. Nobody on our side-- there was no mention in the law nor was there any mention in the negotiations that that was a cap, not a number.

Unless the gentleman wants to say something further, I yield to my friend.

I look forward to next week debating how we bring that deficit down, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, today I urge all Members to join in commending William J. ``Bill'' Boarman, who honorably and skillfully led the Government Printing Office, GPO, as the 26th Public Printer from January 3, 2011, to January 3, 2012.

Bill slashed agency spending dramatically by eliminating nonessential hires, cutting needless travel, restricting use of overtime and reducing the GPO's annual spending plan for 2011 by 15 percent. He held the line on salary increases consistently with the President's government-wide pay freeze. Bill created a specialized task force to collect funds owed to GPO and within months collected over a third of the money due, some outstanding for seven years.

To avoid potential lay-offs in the future, Bill authorized a buyout of up to 15 percent of his workforce, but excluding from eligibility employees in mission-critical positions. Together with his restrictions on new hires, the buyout plan achieved 94 percent of its goal and reduced the GPO's staffing to its lowest level in a century. This achievement will save GPO and taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in future years.

Bill also worked with the two appropriations committees to provide GPO with funding 15 percent below the prior year but which nonetheless assures GPO's ability to perform its essential functions. To address questions about the work GPO performs for Congress, Bill provided persuasive testimony on the value of the printing services that the GPO performs while at the same time ordering the first-ever survey of Congress's printing requirements. This precedent-setting work, which was commended by the House Appropriations Committee, resulted in the largest single-year percentage reduction in the number of printed Congressional Records delivered to Congress since the GPO began to transition to online versions in 1994.

As a result of these and other efforts, Bill's annual report to Congress reported that the GPO ended the year with a net income of $5.6 million, a positive result validated by an external auditor. Yet Bill's leadership at the GPO was about more than cutting costs and improving financial returns. He made customer service GPO's primary strategic goal, a direction that earned the agency applause in a government-wide agency survey. He put GPO on Facebook and ordered the development and release of the GPO's first mobile Web application. While continuing the development of GPO's online Federal Digital System and the GPO's plan for a new automated composition system, he emphasized efficiency and agency control over the GPO's digital systems rather than ceding operations to contractors. He devised and won approval for a new annual investment and spending plan for the GPO that is 6 percent less than his previous year's plan, and which puts the GPO on a path finally to begin retiring several presses that are more than 30 years old.

In other areas of the GPO, Bill's achievements were equally impressive. For example, he pushed forward with aggressive plans to make more GPO space available for lease to other agencies, and at the end of the year the GPO was in active negotiations with several organizations. As a former proofreader at the GPO, his return to the agency restored confidence and bolstered employee morale. Under his watch the GPO observed its 150th anniversary, opening an exhibit of its history to the public and issuing a new book on its past, Keeping America Informed. Last month Bill made GPO history by appointing a highly qualified senior manager, Ms. Davita Vance-Cooks, as Deputy Public Printer, the first woman ever to hold that post, and with Bill's departure, she is today the first woman ever to head the agency.

Mr. Speaker, Bill Boarman's tenure as Public Printer set a new standard of achievement for his successors to emulate. In my judgment, the actions of a handful of Senators to block an up-or-down vote on the President's nomination of Bill Boarman deprived Congress, Federal agencies, and the American public of his faithful service during this time of difficult transition when most needed.

Regardless what may come next, Bill Boarman can leave the Government Printing Office confident that GPO is better than when he found it, and that he has left it in good and capable hands. Please join me in offering the thanks of a grateful Nation to a dedicated public servant. We wish Bill only the best.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New York for yielding time. I'm proud to stand with her and with other Democratic Members in support of women's access to comprehensive, affordable health care, access that was greatly expanded by the Affordable Care Act which passed 2 years ago this week and which my Republican colleagues want to repeal.

Thanks to health care reform, over 13 million previously uninsured women will gain access to health insurance. Thanks to health reform, insurance companies will no longer be allowed to discriminate against women by charging them higher premiums than men for the same exact policy or by denying them coverage altogether simply because they are women. Thanks to health care reform, millions of women with private insurance will no longer have to pay for preventive services like mammograms, cervical cancer screening, contraception, and a host of other services.

As a dad of three daughters, as a grandfather of two granddaughters, and as a great grandfather of one great granddaughter, I am glad we did that. And thanks to the Affordable Care Act, preventive services are already free for Medicare beneficiaries.

If I had the time, I'd say the other benefits of this bill that we ought to keep, and I will not join my friend from New Hampshire in trying to repeal a provision of this act.

I want to speak about this bill, but I also want to respond to the chairman of the Republican Conference, who apparently fails to realize that we've created 4 million jobs, 3.96 million to be exact, over the last 24 months. We've had 10 quarters of growth in America. As opposed to losing 786,000 jobs the last month of President Bush's term, we added 257,000 last month in the private sector.

So to say that the President's program is not working is simply inaccurate.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is a wolf in sheep's clothing. They don't like the health care bill. That's what the chairman of the conference just said. He wants to vote to repeal that. We understand that. They want to pick it apart piece by piece.

Let me talk about it. Two years ago, we passed a comprehensive health care reform package that is already lowering costs, expanding access, and contributing to deficit reduction. The Affordable Care Act was a significant moment when Congress once again took bold action to constrain the growth in health care spending and make insurance more accessible and affordable for all Americans. As the wealthiest country on the face of the Earth, we ought to make sure that people can get insurance and have affordable, accessible health care.

Insurance companies can no longer deny coverage to children with preexisting conditions. I bet they think that's a benefit, a protection that will be extended to all Americans by 2014. I've had a lot of people talk to me about that provision. They like it.

Insurance companies can no longer drop Americans from their policies when they get sick or impose arbitrary and unfair caps on coverage. You buy insurance to make sure when you get sick you have coverage. If you get very sick and need more coverage, it says you can't cancel because you're really sick. I think Americans like that.

Since the Affordable Care Act was signed into law, over 32 million seniors on Medicare have access to free preventative services. The Medicare part D doughnut hole is on the path to close completely by 2020. Seniors who fall into this coverage gap are right now getting a 50 percent discount on their brand drugs. They like that.

Now 360,000 small businesses have already taken advantage of tax credits that are helping them provide more affordable coverage to over 2 million workers. Lifetime limits on over 105 million Americans with private insurance have been eliminated. Over 2,800 employers have already received financial assistance that helps them provide affordable insurance to 13 million retirees who are not yet eligible for Medicare.

The CBO continues to project that the Affordable Care Act will reduce the deficits by tens of billions of dollars by the end of this decade.

Despite all of these benefits, today Republicans will take yet another vote to repeal part of the Affordable Care Act. But what they want to do is repeal the act. That's what the chairman said of the conference. I take him at his word. I appreciate his honesty.

Today their focus is on the Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB, which couldn't be a less timely issue. IPAB is a backstop mechanism to ensure that the Affordable Care Act's savings and cost- containment provisions will be achieved. But CBO has already said they don't expect it to be triggered at all over the next decade. That's because the Affordable Care Act's cost-containment provisions are already having a significant impact on slowing the growth of health care and Medicare spending.

This proves that the Medicare spending can be constrained without turning Medicare into a voucher program as the chairman has said. That forces seniors to spend more and ends the Medicare guarantee. Americans don't want that.

The Republican plan does exactly that and tries to mask the end of Medicare as we know it by talking about choices and competition.

But both competition and choice already exist in the Medicare program.

Of beneficiaries, 99.7 percent have access to at least one Medicare Advantage plan, and in the majority of counties, they have an average of 26 private plans to choose from. In spite of all these choices, about 75 percent of all seniors still choose to remain in traditional Medicare.

The Republican budget, released just yesterday, paints a clear picture of their priorities, showing once again they stand for ending the Medicare guarantee, shifting ever-increasing costs on to our seniors and repealing all of the Affordable Care Act's patient protections.

I stand behind the cost-containment provisions, the delivery-system reforms, the improvement to Medicare, and the new benefits and protections that were enacted under health reform. And I stand with my fellow Democrats and America's seniors in support of preserving the Medicare guarantee and ensuring that Medicare remains available and affordable for generations to come.

I appreciate the ranking member's leadership on this issue and all of those who were critically responsible in ensuring that Americans have access to affordable quality health care.

I thank the gentlelady for yielding, and I rise in strong support of these six pieces of legislation which have been put together and called a jobs bill.

I think they have a positive effect on economic growth in our country. I think they are good bills. I particularly support the Himes bill, currently called the Quayle bill; but I'm pleased to support it by whoever's name it might have on it.

Four out of the six components of this legislation have been previously passed overwhelmingly. This is a recycle, but doing a good thing twice is not bad. So I'm going to vote for it, and I'm going to be enthusiastic about voting for it. As a matter of fact, I suggested a number of these ideas on our side of the aisle.

This bill makes it easier for small businesses to go public and raise the capital they need to expand and hire new workers by reducing regulatory burdens. It also raises the SEC registration thresholds for community banks, which will free up bank capital for lending to small businesses and individuals. That's an important step we ought to be taking.

A number of my Democratic colleagues worked hard on these provisions, including, as I said earlier, Representative James Himes of Connecticut, who introduced one of these bills months and months and months ago, and it passed 420 2 in this body. He has been a leader on this issue of small business access to capital, and I congratulate him for his efforts.

I'm glad the Republican leadership is bringing this bill to the floor, and I hope it signals a new willingness to work with us to create jobs.

This bill is called a JOBS bill. Catchy title. I sort of refer to it as the ``just old bills'' bill, but they are good bills. As I said, we're doing a good thing

twice in hoping the Senate will pass it; and I hope the Senate does pass all of these bills and this bill as a package.

But make no mistake about it, Madam Chair--and America should make no doubt about it--this is not the jobs bill America needs, one with tweaking around the edges and pretending that we've put something together that's going to create a significant number of jobs. This will help and in the longer term it will create jobs. I'm for it. I think it's a positive step forward. But make no mistake about it, this is not the jobs bill that the President asked for. This is not the jobs bill that America needs. This is not the jobs bill that millions who are unemployed and can't find employment are crying out for in America.

America needs a comprehensive jobs plan to help get the millions who have lost jobs and are still looking for work. This bill alone simply is not enough. We must do more. And I will tell my friend--and he is my friend--from Texas, I'm prepared to work with him on a real jobs bill. This is a real jobs bill, but you and I both know it's a small-bore jobs bill. That doesn't make it bad. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't pass it. I thank you for bringing it to the floor. But let us not delude America or deceive ourselves that this is the jobs bill that we need to be passing.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

This is a sad day for America. It's a sad day for the Congress. It's a sad day for our African American brothers and sisters who have lost a real leader and an extraordinary friend.

I first met Donald Payne when I was in my mid-twenties. He was active in the Young Democrats in New Jersey, and I was active in the Young Democrats in Maryland, and that's how we first met. Don was about 6 years older than I am. When you're in your middle twenties, somebody in their thirties is really old. But we all saw him as a very serious individual, serious about his activities, serious about his objectives, serious about the people.

He had an extraordinarily productive career. As the leader has mentioned and as I know other speakers before me have mentioned, he was a teacher. He was a teacher in the tradition of Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass, a fellow Marylander, said that it is easier to build strong children than it is to repair broken men. Donald Payne was focused on that concept as a teacher.

Then throughout his life, he was focused on making sure that America kept the faith with people around the world; that its values, that its hopes, its visions for ourselves were also our hopes and visions for others.

Donald Payne, before he came to the Congress, I think had traveled to more countries than perhaps any other Member of Congress. He cared about people, and particularly people who lived in Africa. I think there was no Member who knew Africa better than Donald Payne, no Member who risked more for the welfare of those who lived on that continent.

My first trip as majority leader, I went to Sudan and to Darfur. I made that my first trip because, at that point in time, it was one of the most troubled--and still remains--lands in our globe. Donald Payne, unfortunately, could not go on that trip. He had another thing to do.

But we had a briefing before we went, and Donald Payne was there. It was clear from those who briefed us that Donald Payne was obviously the person they looked to for knowledge and insight into how we could get from where we were then to the plebiscite, to what is now the independent South Sudan, and hopefully it will remain so, notwithstanding the violence of Sudan itself.

Donald Payne was an extraordinarily conscientious Member of this body, but more than that, he was a man who cared about his fellow man and fellow woman. Donald Payne was a serious Member of this body.

That does not mean he was always serious. He had a sense of humor. He was a wonderful, engaging person, but he was serious about what he did, and it reflected how deeply he cared about those whom he served and about his country.

We could all speak for Special Order after Special Order after Special Order and still not reach the magnitude of praise and thanks that he deserves. Suffice it to say that this body was a better place for his service. As Reverend Cleaver so eloquently intoned, we were better people for having been his friend and his colleague and his coworker.

I am pleased to join all of you who, like me, knew Donald Payne as a Member of Congress, yes, but as a human being, as an individual, as someone who cared about us, and we cared about him.

I join Leader Pelosi and all of you and our friends on the other side of the aisle, because Don worked across the aisle. Don was not an observer of partisan differences, although he understood they existed. His objective was to work with all for the betterment of all.

So, I'm pleased to have this opportunity to join all of you in thanking God that He gave us Don Payne, that He gave him sufficient years to make an extraordinary mark here in this country and around the world.

I thank my friend John Lewis for yielding.

I thank John Lewis for his service to our country, to its principles, to its values, to its people. I thank John Lewis for being my friend, and I thank John Lewis for allowing me for the ninth time to walk with him across that bridge. As I do, I will be holding the hand of John Lewis and holding in my other hand the hand of my 10-year-old granddaughter Alexa.

This coming week marks the 47th anniversary of the fateful Bloody Sunday march for civil rights. I want to say to Dan Lungren, my friend, I thank him for the remarks he just gave. They were heartfelt and on target, and the letter from the Birmingham jail to which he referred is certainly one of the great epistles, as he referred to it, to the American people, to people of conscience, to the fierce urgency of now, which he referenced in that letter.

On March 7, 1965, our friend and esteemed colleague from Georgia, John Lewis, was among the leaders of that march. It says he was among the leaders. He was the leader, he and Hosea Williams. Two-by-two they walked, some 600, with John and Hosea at the front of the line. That day, in an extraordinary practice of nonviolence, he and other marchers were brutally beaten while trying to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. They were on their way to Montgomery, the State capital, to protest the murder of a young man, Jimmie Lee Jackson, who had been shot and killed while protecting his mother during a voting rights drive. They were marching to Montgomery to say, in a nonviolent way, every American deserves the right to be able to register and to vote.

Every moment has its darkest hours when the exuberance of hope yields to the reality of difficult and painful struggle. Selma brought that reality into homes across the country. News of that Bloody Sunday awakened millions of Americans to the horrors of Jim Crow. It opened their eyes to the injustice that had cut off so many of our people from participation in their government. It made clear that while we said in our Declaration of Independence that we believed in equality, that we believed that all men, and hopefully we would now say of course all women, all people, are endowed by God with certain unalienable rights.

We were not doing that in this country. That's what that epistle from Birmingham jail was about. That's what this march was about. That march led to another march 2 weeks later that could not be stopped, one that saw 8,000 Americans from a diversity of backgrounds join together in solidarity and with a faith in the enduring promise that America provided.

John Lewis, our colleague, our friend, our brother, was one of the compelling figures of that time and of this. I've been blessed with the privilege of traveling to Selma, as I said, nine times with John Lewis, to worshipping in Terri's church. The visit this weekend will be, I know, another instructive lesson for me and for others on how we need to be continually aware of the discrimination and prejudice that exist today; the attempts at exclusion that exist today; frankly, the attempts to not empower people to vote even today.

What happened in Selma 47 years ago ought to be remembered as a moment when America chose to fight hatred with love and put their faith in the values of our Constitution. In his memoir, which I hope all of you have read, ``Walking with the Wind,'' John Lewis explains:

If you want to create an open society, your means of doing

so must also be consistent with the society you want to

create. Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. Anger

begets anger, every minute of the day, in the smallest of

moments as well as the largest.

I thank the gentleman.

Ladies and gentlemen, we remember the difficult path we trod as a Nation to ensure the participation of all, and we ought to do everything we can to preserve it in our own day. It is not just history that we want to learn; it is the lesson for today that we must remember and learn.

I thank John Lewis for his leadership. I thank the thousands, black and white, young and old, rich and poor, who joined together to make America a better place.

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

I thank the gentleman for his information, and I would say with respect to the bills that he will be offering, we have, as the gentleman knows, considered four of those bills on the floor. They passed overwhelmingly. I think they're good bills, and I look forward to supporting them again.

There are two bills which are new. One of the bills was considered when it was sponsored by Mr. Himes. It was a good bill then, and it's a good bill now. I believe our side certainly is going to join in supporting these bills, which we think will have some positive effect on small business entrepreneurs, business formation, and capital formation. I have had the opportunity of talking to Mr. Steve Case, a good friend, and I want to thank Steve Case, as I know you do, for his role working with the White House and working with us on moving these bills forward. I think they are a positive contribution, and as

the gentleman knows, four of the bills received over 400 votes when they were first passed on the House floor not too long ago. We think those are positive steps.

So, I look forward to next week being a week in which we can vote together on something. I'm sure America does as well. Again, I want to congratulate Steve Case for the work that he has done with respect to this package.

I do want to, however, say that we do look forward to additional legislation dealing with jobs creation. We've talked about the President's jobs bill or other jobs bills that might be offered. We would look forward to those coming forward, as well.

Let me ask the gentleman: one of the jobs-related bills that we're talking about, of course, is infrastructure, in this case, the highway bill, the infrastructure bill. The gentleman did not mention that for next week. And I know he's concerned about it. We're all concerned about the March 31 date on which the highway program will run out of authorization. As the gentleman knows, there is a severe funding shortage, and it is our fear, our concern, that literally hundreds of thousands of people will lose their jobs if we do not act.

Can the gentleman tell me when he thinks we might be acting on either a big bill or an extension? I'll yield to my friend.

I thank the gentleman for that information. I want to assure him that our side of the aisle looks forward to working with his side of the aisle towards hopefully coming together with a bipartisan bill which will certainly keep the program going. But from our perspective, it is more than an investment in infrastructure, which this country needs to remain competitive, but it is also an investment in job creation, which we think this bill will do as well.

The Export-Import Bank authorization, as the gentleman also knows, will be coming to a close, and Financial Services has shared jurisdiction with that. Can the gentleman tell me what the status of the Export-Import Bank is? As the gentleman knows, I think we have a joint agenda, because I think a lot of things on there are supported by both sides of the aisle, what we call a Make It in America agenda. We believe this is very important for Make It in America--encouraging manufacturing and job creation here in America. Can the gentleman tell me the status of the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank? I yield to my friend.

I thank the gentleman for those comments, and we look forward to continuing to work together.

The next question I would like to ask is, clearly, we're coming up on March 15 in the not-too-distant future. It's my understanding from Chris Van Hollen, who is the ranking member of the Budget Committee, that he believes that the committee will markup a budget on the 19th with the possibility of reporting a budget to the floor on the 26th of this month.

Can the gentleman tell me, is that a schedule that he contemplates, and is that information accurate? I yield to my friend.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, let me say that Mr. Cantor and I had the opportunity to speak on the floor today. We spoke on behalf of a resolution that was passed overwhelmingly, unanimously, that spoke to commemorating the march that both the majority leader and I have participated in in the past, and I'll be participating in again this weekend, a march commemorating the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge from Selma to Montgomery.

Today was a day of unity on the floor of this House in which Mr. Lungren and Mr. Lewis and others expressed their thoughts, as did so many of the rest of us, about how this is a great lesson on the fact that we have not always been where we promised to be as a Nation, but that we've made progress, and a reminder that there is still progress yet to be done.

I want to thank the majority leader for his comments that he made on the floor today and for his focus on this issue.

I yield to the gentleman.

I thank the gentleman for his comments, and as he observes, House Members have participated in this.

There is a wonderful organization known as Faith & Politics. We believe strongly in the separation of church and State, but as I tell people, we do not believe in the separation of the values our faiths teach and the policies that we pursue. There is that discussion, and multifaiths are represented in those discussions.

As the majority leader and I are of different faiths, we are of one mind with respect to ensuring that the values of our respective faiths are realized in our public policies.

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

Madam Speaker, I would inquire of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin) whether or not he is opposed to the conference report.

Madam Speaker, in that event, I claim the time in opposition to the conference report.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

I have taken the unusual process of claiming time in opposition to this bill. I have done so so I would have sufficient time to place in context the bill that we're considering. I do not rise to necessarily defeat this bill. I'm going to vote against this bill. I'm for almost all of this bill. What we are funding this bill with was unnecessary, unfair, and ought to be rejected.

I want to say at the outset that my friend Mr. Camp and I had a very positive discussion. I believe that Mr. Camp and I could have reached an agreement, which would have put me in support of this legislation. We didn't get there. We tried late in the game, and we didn't get there. I regret that. I think Mr. Camp tried.

I know that everybody on my side would have supported the agreement that Mr. Van Hollen and I put forward. That agreement would say, as the current agreement, that the only individuals paying for this bill out of 315 million Americans are the 2 million civilian workers who work for us, who work for all of us, who day after day, week after week, month after month make sure that we give services to the people of the United States, protect the United States, ensure that our food is safe, ensure that we have FBI agents on the job, make sure that at the Defense Intelligence Agency we know what other people are doing. These are all our civilian employees, highly skilled, highly trained, highly educated, and, yes, highly motivated. Every day they give outstanding service to the people of the United States. We talk here and we pass laws here, but none of that talk and none of those laws makes a difference unless somebody implements what we say and the policies that we set.

This Congress is on the path to being the most anti-Federal worker Congress that I've served in. I'm going to place that in context for you, which is why I wanted the time.

What is the context we find ourselves in? First of all, we have a very struggling economy. The good news is the economy is coming back, but not fast enough. We need to create more jobs, expand opportunities, and make sure that the American Dream is alive for all working Americans, working Americans like our Federal employees, working Americans like the folks at GM who have just done very well, working Americans who work in the hardware store, the grocery store, the gasoline station, hardworking Americans. And we don't have enough jobs for them. As a result, we have high unemployment.

I congratulate my friend from Michigan (Mr. Levin) for his leadership in making sure that the unemployment provision in this bill is sufficient to try to reach those folks and make sure they don't fall off the ledge. We walked away from them in December. I'm glad that we're not walking away from them today.

We also have, as all of us know, a struggling economy; and, therefore, we put into effect giving $1,000 more to each and every worker. Now, many of your leaders did not support this 2 percent reduction, and I understand that. I won't go into their names. Some are in the Chamber. But the fact of the matter is, it puts an additional $1,000 into average working Americans' pockets--people who pay FICA, that is, people who are making less than $106,000. That's an important thing for us to do to try to keep this economy growing. I'm for that. I was for it in December. I'm for it in February. I'm glad that we're going to have consensus on that today.

In addition to that, we are playing a silly little game with the doctors and with Medicare patients; and this silly little game pretends that we're going to extend SGR for 10 months. That's baloney, and everybody knows it. We're going to continue to extend SGR over and over and over again. We should have done it permanently in this bill. We should have done it last year and in the last Congress, the Congress in which I was the majority leader. We should have done that.

I yield myself 2 additional minutes.

So with respect to SGR, ladies and gentlemen, we're playing a game, and the doctors all over this country and the Medicare recipients all over this country know we're playing a game. We're giving them no certainty, no confidence that, come this September, October, November, we won't have another one of these silly little debates.

Now we also, in that context, have a deep deficit and debt that confronts this Nation that we have to deal with. And we had two commissions that said we had to deal with it. One was Bowles-Simpson-- my friend from California (Mr. Becerra), who sits in the Chamber here with me, sat on that commission--the other was Domenici-Rivlin. And we've had others, including the Gang of Six in the United States Senate. And all of them had as a premise that we needed to deal with the fiscal problem that confronts us. And the other premise was all of us need to contribute to that solution. All of us.

Now what do we see that's being proposed in this Congress, partially in this bill, but only partially in this bill? We have either on the floor proposed or passed over the last 2 years--listen to this, ladies and gentlemen--we are about to cut or propose to cut $134 billion out of our Federal employees over the next 10 years. Nobody else in this bill--not a millionaire, not a billionaire, not a carried-interest beneficiary, not an oil company--nobody in this bill, other than Federal employees, is asked to pay.

I understand we have hospital cuts. By the way, how do we have $5 billion of that? Because we just increased by 1 year the cut that they know they got. It's the same for some other things. No individual, other than a Federal employee, is asked to take a cut in this bill.

I yield myself 2 additional minutes.

Now, you will say to me, Oh, it's future Federal employees, so it doesn't really matter. That's $15 billion of the $134 billion that has been proposed. They've already paid $60 billion, $60 billion. And by the way, your side of the aisle is not going to give them that 0.5 percent that the President asked for, so that will be $30 billion. So in 3 years--Mr. and Mrs. America ought to know, Madam Speaker--Federal employees will have paid $90 billion in contributions to help bring this deficit down. And by the way, Federal employees, as a percentage of our population, are down by a third over the last 20 years. It's not that the bureaucracy has grown. Yes, our population has grown. We are trying to serve them. They are down by a third in numbers.

Now, I know something about Federal employee pay. I represent 60,000 Federal employees. And you could say, Well, Hoyer is up there defending his people. You would be right. You would be very right. But most of the Federal employees don't live in the Washington metropolitan area. They live in your districts, all over this country, serving your farmers, serving your drugstores, serving everything that you do.

Do I think it's the private sector that makes this country great? Absolutely. Do I believe they need an energized, high-morale, highly educated Federal workforce as their partner? I do. And you will not have that, ladies and gentlemen, if we keep along this path of every time we come to a bill that's a little bit of trouble, the pay-for is to reach into the Federal employees' pockets. They're pretty much going to say, I'm not with you any longer.

And I want to tell you: in terms of recruiting and retaining, you will not do it. Forty percent of the Federal workforce, ladies and gentlemen, can retire in the next 5 years.

I yield myself 1 additional minute.

Ladies and gentlemen, you are going to be able to recruit those folks only if you have a competitive workforce.

Let me give you a figure that you might find interesting. There are 33,300 employees at Goldman Sachs. Average salary, ladies and gentlemen: $367,057, the average salary of 33,300 people. You won't be able to compete. You won't be able to get NSA employees, as opposed to Siemens or Microsoft or some of those other corporations, many of which are in Ms. Eshoo's district. You won't be able to recruit them, and you won't retain them to have the best and the brightest defending America and making America the strongest and greatest country on Earth. Do you want America to be an exceptional country? Then you'd better have the best civil service on Earth, as well as the best private sector.

I yield myself 1 additional minute.

Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know whether most of you know this. I saw a gentleman from Florida who's been here for a couple of months pontificate that I didn't know anything outside of the Beltway.

I was the sponsor of the Federal Employee Pay Comparability Act. And George Bush Sr. signed that act, and we worked with his OMB to get it. And what does it say? Federal employees cannot get a raise unless the private sector gets a raise. We're precluded from getting a raise unless the private sector gets a raise. And what does it further say? That the private sector--which is the economic cost index, by the way, in case you want to know exactly what the statistic is--says, we're going to take a half a point less.

So what have you done in this bill, unnecessarily? Because you're going to freeze their salary for a third year in a row. Bowles-Simpson said do it for three. But Bowles-Simpson said, Everybody ought to share, everybody. We ought to get $1 trillion in revenues, $1 trillion in cuts. Everybody.

I yield myself 1 additional minute.

But nobody but Federal employees, nobody is targeted in this bill other than Federal employees. You can tell I'm angry about that because that's not fair, and that's not how you ought to treat our employees, America's employees. America's public servants, we call them. We ought to stop dissing

them. We ought to stop demagoguing them. We ought to stop using ``bureaucrat'' as an epithet. America needs them.

I will have some other things to say in a few minutes, Madam Speaker. But we ought not walk away from our Federal employees any more than we ought to walk away from those 160 million people who need this tax cut or walk away from those 2.4 million who need that unemployment insurance or walk away, as we have, from the doctors who need certainty, long term--not for 10 months, but long term.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I now yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), the ranking member of the Budget Committee.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly).

I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished ranking member of the Government Reform Committee, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings).

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

I reserve the balance of my time.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself 1 minute.

I thank my friend the Speaker. I'm glad that he's in the chair. He and I have worked together because we understand what needs to be done in order to meet the fiscal crisis that confronts our country. All of us need to participate--not just our Federal employees, but all of us.

In the short term, we need to do what this bill does:

160 million people will get an extra thousand dollars that hopefully will help build our economy, create jobs, and expand opportunity for our people;

The unemployed will make sure that they've had that safety net that is critical for them and their families;

The doctors will have a short period of time to have some confidence that they will be compensated to serve Medicare patients over the next 10 months.

The only people asked to pay for that, as I said before, are Federal employees. That is why I took this 20 minutes, to say to each and every one of us in this House, first of all, Federal employees ought not to be the piggy bank out of which you pretend that we're going to be able to pay the deficit. That's wrong. It's not been recommended by any of our groups.

I've had the opportunity of working with Mr. Camp, who, in my view, is a very conscientious Member of this body. I'm glad that he's the leader. Actually, I wish Mr. Levin were the leader, because he's of my party. But since my party is not in control, I'm glad that Mr. Camp leads it, a reasonable person.

Ladies and gentlemen of this House, America must know that we all need to contribute. The Federal employee has paid $60 billion over the last 24 months, over the next 10 years already. This year, they will have their pay reduced from what the law requires another $30 billion. That's $90 billion. Forget about this bill. Forget about the highway bill which says $44 billion in additional reduction in benefits. It's $134 billion that's on the table. It hasn't passed, but it's on the table.

Let us, as conscientious Members of this Congress, as representatives of our people, come together and have a plan that does not require nickel-and-diming of Federal employees, nickel-and-diming of doctors, nickel-and-diming of Medicare patients, and nickel-and-diming of America. Let us come together and do what America knows what needs to be done.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I thank the gentleman for that information with respect to the two pieces of legislation and the suspension bills.

If I might inquire, Mr. Leader, of the timing. The conference committee has met, as all of us know, a few times since being appointed on December 23. They were supposed to have a meeting today, but apparently that meeting was cancelled. We adopted a motion to instruct conferees on January 18, with only 16 Republicans opposing and just a few Republicans opposing this time on a similar motion to instruct, urging the conferees to report back by February 17.

You know as well as anybody, we will be off for the President's week work period, and we will not be back until the night of the 27th, which only gives us the 2 days and that evening to pass this bill if we do not pass it before the 17th.

In December, we almost, as you well know, did not extend the payroll tax holiday or the unemployment or the SGR package. That would have resulted, as the gentleman knows, in 160 million Americans having a tax increase, benefits lost for many unemployed Americans--almost 2.3 over the next 3 months--and we only have 3 full days left before the February break. Of course, the gentleman, Mr. Camp, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, chairs that conference.

Can the gentleman tell us whether or not there is a reasonable expectation that we will be able to act on this bill and have the conference committee report on the House floor?

I thank the gentleman for his comments. I am pleased to hear that.

As the gentleman knows, Mark Zandi just a few days ago said that failure to extend the payroll tax and the unemployment insurance benefits ``would deliver a significant blow'' to our fragile economic recovery and could cost our economy 500,000 jobs and raise the unemployment rate by at least three-tenths of a point and lower economic growth by seven-tenths of a point.

Now I'm pleased to hear what the majority leader has said, but of course we still have some concern. Representative Paul Broun, one of your Members from Georgia said, This payroll tax holiday is just a gimmick to try to get Obama reelected. This is bad policy. Representative Chaffetz from Utah, one of your colleagues, said, Tax holidays just are bad policy. A year is pretty short. The chairman of your campaign committee, Pete Sessions, was quoted in the L.A. Times. Representative Pete Sessions of Texas, who heads the House Republican campaign committee, called Obama's plan--that is, the extension of the payroll tax--``a horrible idea.'' He said GOP candidates would have no difficulty explaining to voters why they want to let the tax break expire. And then, of course, the chairman of the conference committee, my good friend, for whom I have a great deal of respect, apparently does not agree with what the majority leader just said in wanting to extend this tax cut, because he said, I'm not in favor of that. I don't think that's a good idea.

Now that was, admittedly, back in August, so it was some months ago when he said that. But it gives us some concern that the leadership of the conference committee, Mr. Camp and others, are in the position where they don't really think, as seemed to be reflected in the last year, that this tax cut ought to be extended. They do, however, believe--very strongly, as I understand it--that the tax cut for the wealthiest in America, the Bush tax cuts, ought to be extended, and they ought to be extended without paying for it. And, in fact, you provided in your rule that you adopted in this Congress that they could be extended without paying for them.

I don't think that's your position, as I understand it, with respect to tax cuts for middle class Americans. Would the gentleman like to comment on those observations?

I thank the gentleman for his recommitment to that proposition.

Let me ask the gentleman, therefore, given the fact, am I correct that you do not believe the extension of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts need to be paid for? Is that still your position?

I appreciate the gentleman's answer. It doesn't surprise me, but he didn't answer my question.

My question was: you amended your rules in this House so that the extension of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts did not have to be paid for. I'm asking, is that the gentleman's position now? It's a very simple question. Yes or no? It is, or it is not.

I don't necessarily think it needs to be paid for for exactly the reason you pointed out. What you pointed out was, you don't want to depress--either by increasing the taxes on small business, as you point out--we're not for increasing taxes on small business. We are for asking those who have made the best in our society over the last 10 years, make the most, make $1 million or more, we do believe, yes, a greater contribution is in order because our country has a challenged situation that we need to respond to.

Having said that, I believe that it ought to be consistent, in terms of your application of not paying for tax cuts, for it to be also applicable to middle income, hardworking Americans who find themselves in a real pinch in this present economy, that we would take a similar position.

All I'm asking the gentleman, is your position on the middle class tax cut, which we are talking about, and it is in conference, the same as it is on the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003? That's all I'm asking.

The gentleman goes off in about seven directions on that question, in my view. What I believe is that it ought to be a consistent policy, as it relates to keeping taxes down on hardworking Americans, that we apply to the wealthiest in America. Now whether they're temporary or permanent, it makes an economic difference to the people in question. And hardworking Americans--160 million of them--are hoping that their taxes will not go up on March 1. The only way they're going to not go up on March 1 is if we pass--as we had a great struggle doing in December--if we pass a conference report that will be reported out of the conference committee headed up by Mr. Camp which in fact makes sure that those taxes don't increase.

You say you don't want them to increase. I say we don't want them to increase. We seem to have an agreement on that rhetorically, although I have quoted a number of your leaders who say they think it's a bad idea.

But having said that, my question to you is: is your position consistent with both the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts and these tax cuts? That's all I'm asking.

Your President, who you supported very strongly, of course, as I recall, when he wanted to raid the Social Security trust fund said there was no trust fund. Now, I believe there is a trust fund, and I think we have a moral responsibility to make sure that that trust fund is kept whole. And, in fact, as you well know, we will keep it whole. We will sign the proper IOUs so that that trust fund is intact. There will be no reduction in the Social Security tax, and the gentleman knows it. The gentleman knows that that trust fund will be as secure tomorrow as it is today, and I presume that both of us have a commitment to that end. Yes, we will have to make whole the trust fund money that does not come in on the tax cut, just as we had to make money for the war, for the prescription drug bill, and the Bush tax cuts whole by borrowing from somebody, usually China and other nations around the world.

We went from a $5.6 trillion surplus to a $10-plus trillion deficit. Why? Because we did things and didn't pay for them. So if the gentleman is asking me do I believe the Social Security trust fund ought to be kept whole, the answer is an emphatic, absolute yes.

Well, the gentleman has talked a lot but hasn't answered my question. And the question was a simple one: Do you believe the same principle applies to the '01-'03 tax cuts as applied to the middle income working people's tax cut that we're talking about?

And I'll tell you this, my friend, if we were talking about the taxes that you're talking about, they would go through like greased lightning and there would be no question but, oh, of course, we've got to continue those tax cuts. But when it comes to average working Americans, and the only way we can get them a tax cut--this is the first time we've really talked about real tax cuts for middle-income working Americans. It has got a logjam that

has hit. It hit in December, and we came that close to not having that tax cut, and we're about to come that close again. I'm just telling the gentleman that if he applies the same principle, we could get this done.

Now I'm for paying for, frankly, the middle-income tax cut. I'm for paying for it, as the gentleman well knows, by a surtax on those who have done the best, not because I want to penalize them, but because all of us in this room, maybe not all of us, but most of us in this room, have done pretty well. There are some people in this country who haven't done pretty well. And as Clint Eastwood walked down that road that we saw during the Super Bowl, he said at half time, ``We can do better.'' And I'll tell you what they said in the locker room: Every one of us, according to our ability to get it done, needs to get it done. That's what I'm saying to my friend.

I think the position you would be taking would be radically different and that that conference committee would have had a report out on this floor if we were talking about tax cuts for millionaires that would have passed like that. Absolutely, that's my position. I believe it. And, very frankly, I think the American people believe it.

I yield to my friend if he would like to comment on that, and then we will go to the infrastructure bill, which I know you'd like to talk about as well.

I thank the gentleman for his comment.

The gentleman has a habit that, frankly, disturbs me, I'll tell my friend. I didn't say that at all. As a matter of fact, my last comment was I think it ought to be paid for. Now, let me explain what that means.

I think it ought to be paid for. I have been consistent on that position. Frankly, I was consistent on that position on all of the bills that we passed through this House, including your two tax bills of '01 and '03. I thought they ought to be paid. You thought they ought not be paid for. And the gentleman talks about looking at the past; they didn't work out so well. They were supposed to grow our economy. They were supposed to explode jobs. We lost jobs in the private sector. The only reason we had a plus 1 million over 8 years was because we grew in the public sector. We lost jobs in the private sector on that economic program. It didn't work, in my opinion. Paid for or not paid for, it did not work. But it did blow a hole in the deficit.

What I'm saying and will say again, yes, I think it ought to be paid for. What I think it ought not be paid for with is by taking it out of the hide of average working people in this country, which is part of the way you want to pay for it. I don't think that is good policy because I think that will further depress the economy and take dollars out of the hands of hardworking people.

Yes, I think it ought to be paid for, and paying for things is tough. And we didn't pay for things in the last decade, and that's why we dug this deep, deep hole we're in.

Now, if we want to go on to the infrastructure bill, I'd like to do that unless the gentleman wants to make an additional comment.

On the infrastructure bill, you indicate that it may come to the floor. Can you tell me under what kind of a rule that will come to the floor? Will it be an open rule, as has been projected?

I yield to my friend.

It's my understanding, Mr. Leader, this bill is over 1,000 pages long. It was marked up just shortly after it was introduced and finalized. Is the gentleman concerned by the length of that bill and the short time that Members have to review it? And the very short time that the public, which will essentially have almost no opportunity to review it, is the gentleman concerned about that?

What I was confusing was your rhetoric now and your rhetoric as it related to a bill that was longer in pages but had 10 times a greater period of time for debate and discussion, considered by an extraordinarily large number of committees in both the Senate and the House, town meetings all over this country about that bill. What I'm confusing is your rhetoric as it related to the Affordable Care Act and your rhetoric related to the transportation bill, which has had probably one-twentieth or one-thirtieth of the time to be considered by the public. I don't know that anybody has had a town meeting or had the opportunity for the public to have input on this bill as it is now written. Very frankly, I may be confusing it with the bill that we just adopted on suspension of the calendar without any opportunity to amend it, which was filed less than 24 hours ago.

I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman says full time, but very frankly there wasn't participation

by everybody in this full discussion. In fact, as I said last week and I will reiterate this week, because he hasn't changed his position, Ray LaHood, Republican, former chief of staff to the Republican leader in this House, former chairman of an appropriations subcommittee on the Republican side of the aisle, says:

This is the most partisan transportation bill I've ever

seen, and it is almost the most antisafety bill I've ever

seen. It hollows out our number one priority, which is

safety; and, frankly, it hollows out the guts of the

transportation efforts that we have been about for the last 3

years. It is the worst transportation bill I've ever seen

during 35 years of public service.

Ray LaHood, Republican, Secretary of Transportation.

Whatever time the gentleman has spent that he thinks exposing this bill, he didn't expose it on our side and he apparently didn't expose it in a way that reached bipartisan agreement from the Secretary of Transportation.

I will tell you, I lament the fact, Mr. Leader, when I was the majority leader--the gentleman likes to refer to that--the transportation bill passed with an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote. Every transportation bill that I've seen in the 30 years I've been in the Congress of the United States has passed on an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote, and it came out of committee almost unanimously. This bill, as the gentleman knows, came out on a purely partisan vote. Actually, it was a bipartisan opposition because Mr. Petri, long-time member of the Transportation Committee, and, of course, Mr. LaTourette are not too happy with the bill either, as the gentleman knows, who is a senior Member on your side, one of your leaders on your side of the aisle. So I will tell my friend that unfortunately we have a situation where you're going to bring a bill up next week which clearly is a partisan bill, which does not enjoy bipartisan support, contrary to every transportation bill that I think we've passed in this House in the 30 years I've been here.

I yield to my friend.

I thank the gentleman for that comment.

I think the American people apparently don't think we're accomplishing that objective that you want to accomplish by virtue of their response to the polls about what they think of the job that we've done over the last year.

Let me say in addition to that, the bills I was referring to, my friend--yes, while I was the majority leader, we had the House and the Senate. I said 30 years. Of the 12 years that your party had the chairmanship of the Transportation Committee, we passed bills on a bipartisan basis, and we respected transparency.

As the gentleman knows on earmarks, you quadrupled the number of earmarks under your leadership--not your personal leadership, but under Republican control of the House of Representatives. When we came in, what we did was said they all had to be online. Members had to put them on their Web site, and committees had to identify where those came from. Now, personally, we made them very transparent. You've eliminated them temporarily. We'll see whether that holds.

But we will move on to the question of whether or not, when you say we're going to have open amendments, whether or not the amendments that are germane will be made in order so that, in fact, we can impact on the bill.

The gentleman says he is interested in seeing my amendments. I think most of the amendments will come from our committee members. They are the ones that are struggling to find out exactly what this bill does. And we don't believe it is paid for, by the way, as I think the gentleman probably has seen in the CBO report.

Let me ask you this: do you believe this bill is a jobs bill?

I thank the gentleman for his comment.

Am I to take it, therefore, he disagrees with Speaker Boehner when Speaker Boehner said, just a few days ago, We're not making the claim that spending taxpayer money on transportation projects creates jobs. We don't make that claim.

So, this would not be a jobs bill from that standpoint; am I correct?

I'm not playing gotcha. I want to figure out whether this is a jobs bill. We haven't had a jobs bill in over 400 days.

I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

These are all scheduling questions. These are scheduling questions as to whether or not we're going to have legislation on the floor that can get us from where we are to where we want to be.

The gentleman knows that the Senate has passed a bipartisan bill out of committee with Senator Inhofe, a Republican, and Senator Boxer--not exactly ideological soul mates--coming together and agreeing on infrastructure. Why? Because they believe it creates jobs.

What I'm trying to figure out from you, you go from other aspects of the bill that create jobs, and you say infrastructure is necessary for growth. My

reading of that is, as the President's pointed out, investing in infrastructure does, in fact, grow jobs.

To the extent that we can pass a bill, scheduling a bill that has bipartisan support here and bipartisan support there, and the support of the President of the United States, is what we ought to be doing. Doing it in a partisan fashion undercuts our scheduling of moving that forward. That's my point. I think the gentleman understands that point.

But I would hope that, as we work on this bill, we could do what the Senate's done, which they don't do very often, and come together in a bipartisan way, as we have historically done in this House on Transportation and Infrastructure bills, so important for the growth of our country and the creation of jobs and the moving forward--as you say, and I believe as well, we ought to come together and accomplish.

Unless the gentleman has anything further, I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Speaker.

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

I thank the gentleman for his information and would ask him on the timing.

The conference committee has met twice on the payroll tax cut, the unemployment insurance, and the so-called ``doc fix,'' or to ensure the fact that doctors are compensated and will be available for Medicare patients. The conference committee, Mr. Leader, has met twice since December 23. We adopted a motion to instruct, overwhelmingly, through the House to make sure that they reported back by February 17.

I think you may have read my comments in the press that if we do not do it by the 17th, then we're off for a week and we will be back the 27th, 28th, and 29th, come back the night of the 27th, and we'll be jammed at the end on Wednesday, the 29th. We only have 6 full days left before the February break. Now, that does not include our 6:30 start times.

House Democrats, Mr. Leader, stand ready to, frankly, I think, work through the weekend if that were necessary. But I'm very concerned that something that we all want to get done--and I've made the suggestion to my Democratic conferees, and they were equally amused as you are. I understand that.

I will tell you that I have great concerns that we're going to get to the 27th, 28th, and 29th and be in the same kind of confrontation and debacle that we found ourselves in in December. That's not good for your party. In my opinion, it's not good for our party. It's not good for the House and Senate; but it is certainly not good for the 160 million people who are going to be concerned about whether or not, in fact, their tax cut is going to continue, or the Medicare people who are going to be concerned about whether their doc is going to be available, or the unemployed who are going to be concerned.

Now, of course, for the unemployed, we had some very good news. You didn't mention it in your opening comments, but I'm sure you were as excited as I was about the 257,000 new private sector jobs that were created last month; showed real progress.

But I will tell you that I'm very concerned about the timing and would be delighted to hear the gentleman's thoughts on the success and the progress of the conference committee.

I thank the gentleman for his comments.

Of course we have long been a supporter of small business. We believe small business is the engine of our economy. We believe we need to grow entrepreneurs. We need to expand, frankly, small business and the middle class.

It was interesting what the gentleman referred to in response to my question. Yes, we understand that cutting the pay of average working Americans--who happen to be Federal employees, but they're average working Americans--is the way you want to pay for what we do. We, of course, want to pay for it with some of the wealthiest people in our country just contributing a little bit more as opposed to average working people who are struggling by. And, by the way, the sponsor of that piece of legislation to which you referred indicated he was having a tough time getting by supporting his family on the salary that he makes here in Congress.

Now, frankly, we offered, as you know, to have a vote on freezing Members of Congress' salary straight up--not hidden in another bill, but straight up--which I would have supported and my side would have supported overwhelmingly, I presume your side would have supported overwhelmingly. We, of course, didn't get that opportunity because, frankly, our priorities do, in fact, differ.

Average working people as opposed to the best off in America, that's the choice in this conference committee, apparently; because you want to pay for it with average working people taking a hit, and we want to pay for it by just asking just a little more from the wealthiest in America to help us through this tough patch that we're in.

Things are getting better. The gentleman--I haven't seen his release, but I will certainly look at his release. He says we ought to do better. I will tell the gentleman we're doing a lot better.

The gentleman knows that during the last 5 months of the Bush administration, we lost 3,192,000 jobs. The gentleman smiles because, oh, that's history. Well, it is history, and we ought to learn from it because we were following the economic policies the gentleman still continues to press upon the American people. We lost 3,192,000 jobs in 5 months. In the last 5 months, however, we have gained now over 1 million jobs. That's progress. In fact, over the last 22 months, we've gained over 3 million jobs so that we are making significant progress. Not enough. We dug a very, very deep hole and we're trying to get out of it, but the fact of the matter is losing 3 million jobs in 5 months and gaining 1 million jobs in 5 months is about a 4 million job difference.

So I tell my friend both in terms of who ought to pay for the investments that we have agreed we need to make. We don't want to raise taxes on these folks as the economy is still coming back, obviously showing great progress, but we don't want to pay for it with average working people having to pay the price.

I will tell my friend, I was disappointed that we didn't have a separate vote so that Members of Congress could vote straight up on their being frozen. And I will tell my friend that I will work with him, perhaps towards that end.

Now having said that, I am sure the gentleman has been in conversations with the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp). Is the gentleman expecting a relatively early report back from the conference committee, hopefully prior to the 18th of February when we might be voting on this?

I yield, certainly.

I thank the gentleman. And we all look forward to working together in a bipartisan way. We sure have found great difficulty doing it, however, because we have trouble having a meeting of the minds.

I will tell my friend that what I advocate over and over and over again is paying for what we buy. That's what I advocate. And if you don't want it, don't buy it.

You controlled this town for 8 years from an economic-policy standpoint. I know we were in charge of the Congress for the last 2 years. We couldn't pass anything over George Bush's veto. You and I both know that. So for 8 years, we didn't pay for what we bought; and we went from surplus to deficit. We went from a debt of $5.6 trillion to a debt of almost $11 trillion.

Have we added to the debt? Yes, we did. Why? Because we went into the deepest depression, starting in '07, that this country has been in in your lifetime and my lifetime; and I'm a lot older than you. So that's what I advocate: paying for what we buy and having the courage to make decisions on doing exactly that. And very frankly, on your side of the aisle, when you go and say, look, we need to pay for elections, who do you go to? You go to your Members, and you go to people who have some resources that they can contribute to an effort you think is very important.

I think America's efforts are very important. And I think those of us who have done better ought to pay a little more than those who are struggling, as the gentleman refers to. Yes, that's the difference. I believe it's the difference, and I will continue to advocate paying for what we buy. That's why I was for statutory PAYGO, which George Bush abandoned and which essentially is not being followed today, as I think all of us should do.

So I will tell my friend that I think we ought to do better. I agree with him. And we did do better. We did do better under policies that I supported. We grew 22 million jobs in the nineties. We lost jobs in the 2000s. We went backwards. And the stock market went up 216 percent in the nineties. Under George Bush, it went down 26 percent. Yes, I think we can do better, and we ought to do better. And we ought to do better by investing.

Let me talk a little bit about the bill that the Speaker's talked about, you've talked about, it's been in the news: infrastructure and jobs. The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee marked up a controversial highway bill--the gentleman says we want to work together. I agree with that. He and I try to do that. We don't always succeed, but we try to do it. They marked up the bill yesterday for 17 hours and finished around 3 a.m.

I don't know whether the gentleman knows this, but at the start of that debate, the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall), the ranking member, asked all the members of the Transportation Committee, when the bill was put on, to raise their hand if they had read the bill. You know how many people raised their hand--that's a rhetorical question because I think the gentleman probably hasn't inquired of this--none. On an 800-page bill, not one person raised their hand that they had read the bill. There was a lot of discussion about reading the bill.

There was, of course, as you know, a bipartisan ``no'' vote. One of the senior members voted against it. This is in stark contrast to the unanimous vote that occurred in the United States Senate on the bill.

The Committee on Natural Resources also completed a controversial markup on opening ANWR to drilling--as I understand it, you are going to put that in the infrastructure bill--with the clear knowledge that that is a very controversial item that will not pass the United States Senate. You may have the votes here. That is similar to what happened on the payroll tax cut just last December.

If you are going to work on a bipartisan basis, we ought to understand that we are going to have to not try to push on one party or the other things that are unacceptable and won't pass and don't have the votes.

The reason that George Bush signed so many bills that we passed in the Congress in '07 and '08 was because we worked with the administration, and we worked with the Senate. The Senate and the House were controlled by Democrats; President Bush was in office. He signed more than twice as many bills that we passed. Why? Because we worked with him. We would urge you to do the same.

Is the gentleman planning to bring up the infrastructure bill to the floor

soon? And can he tell the Members if it will be considered under an open process? Furthermore, is the majority leader expecting there to be bipartisan cooperation on the infrastructure package so that we do not have to go up against another deadline? As the gentleman knows, on March 31 the highway authorization bill ends. We temporarily included it.

And let me end with this before you answer your question, because Ray LaHood was a leader in this Congress. Ray LaHood was a leader on your side of the aisle. Ray LaHood and I served together for a long time. I don't know whether you've seen his quote, but I think it bears consideration by your side of the aisle of a Republican from middle America--Peoria, Illinois--who your minority leader, Bob Michel, had as his chief of staff.

Here is what he said about the infrastructure bill that was marked up: ``This is the most partisan transportation bill that I have ever seen, and it is also the most anti-safety bill I have ever seen.'' This is a direct quote from Ray LaHood, Republican, former Member of this House for many years, and former chief of staff to the minority leader Bob Michel. ``It hollows out our number one priority, which is safety; and frankly, it hollows out the guts of the transportation efforts that we've been about for the last 3 years. It's the worst transportation bill I've ever seen during 35 years in public service,'' Ray LaHood, Politico, February 3. That's today. He said it today, in realtime. This is real breaking news from the Transportation Secretary: the worst transportation bill he has seen in 35 years.

That does not, I tell my friend, bode well for bipartisan cooperation on a piece of legislation that nobody in the committee had read. So I'd ask my friend, do we expect to bring that bill up under those conditions in the near term?

I thank the gentleman.

Wonderful, wonderful logic. A Republican leader in this House is appointed to include bipartisan--and the Secretary of Transportation, who was a leader in this House, and the chief of staff of the minority leader of this House, says that the bill you have drafted, that your Members didn't read before they passed it out of committee--and the public, I'm sure, is glad that at least we're going to read it before we pass it. I hope that's the case. I've heard a lot of talk about reading the bills. Nobody read it before they passed it out of committee. And the Republican Secretary of Transportation, former chief of staff of the minority leader, says, my friend, it's the most partisan bill he has ever seen in 35 years.

And then you say, well, I know we passed the most partisan bill in 35 years, but, gee, the administration won't work with us. You don't accept that premise. I understand that. But it's ironic that you say the administration won't work with you.

You and I both know Ray LaHood happens to be one of the more bipartisan people with whom you and I have served. I've worked frequently with Congressman LaHood when he represented Peoria, as a Republican in the House of Representatives. He and I worked together on a lot of issues. Why? Because he wanted to get things done. He wasn't just simply interested in making political points.

Now, you bring up ANWR in terms of pay-for. I'm for paying this. You didn't hear me say anything about offshore drilling, this and that. I did about ANWR because you and I both know, in a bipartisan way, many of your Members have voted against opening up ANWR, and we have, as the gentleman knows, millions of acres, millions of acres currently available for drilling in Alaska right now as we speak.

So we want to have a bipartisan--but putting an 800-page bill on the table, no chance to read it, passing it in a 17-hour marathon session, and then having clearly no--having not worked at all with Ray LaHood, and if you're telling me that Ray LaHood won't work with Republicans, I simply do not accept that premise. I think that's a disservice to Ray LaHood if that's what you are saying. He is the Secretary of Transportation. And there is no doubt in my mind, none, zero, that if Mr. Mica wants to work with Ray LaHood on a bipartisan bill, Ray LaHood will be here as many hours, days, and weeks as Mr. Mica needs him here, and I think you would, hopefully, agree with that proposition.

Ray LaHood is a Republican, but he is a bipartisan American who wants to get things done for our country and create those jobs of which you speak, which all of us want to do.

We have a jobs bill, by the way, that you have not brought to the floor. What's one of the aspects of that jobs bill? Infrastructure, investing in infrastructure. That bill has languished for 5 months now, not brought to the floor by the majority leader, who has the authority to bring it to the floor, and I've, of course, been urging him to do so.

Now, if he'd like to comment--I have another point, but if he wants to comment on what I have said, I yield.

The gentleman knows that a number of those proposals had bipartisan support in this House, I think have bipartisan support over in the Senate. But they need to be paid for, and that's where the contention comes, as the gentleman knows.

Let me ask you, on another subject, if I might, the STOCK Act.

Yet, before I do that, I appreciate the gentleman's observation with respect to those bills that the President has suggested we do that we have done.

The individual bills. You're right.

We could make some progress if, frankly, the majority leader could get 60 votes to enact the legislation and transact business on the floor of the Senate. Unfortunately, as the gentleman very well knows, the majority leader, Harry Reid, has had very great difficulty getting 60 votes to proceed with business on the floor of the House of the United States Senate. I think that's unfortunate.

But let me move on because the gentleman went from an infrastructure bill, which, as Secretary LaHood said, was the most partisan bill he's seen in 35 years, and shifted to the jobs, on which we agree. The fact of the matter is that I want to talk about another piece of legislation that the Senate has worked on. We have a bill here. We've asked that it be taken from the floor, from the desk and put on the floor, and that's the STOCK Act. The gentleman has expressed support for the STOCK Act. I'm hopeful that we can pass a House bill and then go to conference with the Senate on a bill in the near future.

Would the gentleman comment on that.

I thank the gentleman for his response, and he says the earliest day possible. I tell my friend that Tim Walz of Minnesota has had a bill, as the gentleman probably knows, of the STOCK Act--also, Louise Slaughter, ranking member of the Rules Committee, has worked on for literally a decade or more--so we have legislation which is available to take, frankly, from the desk, pass that, and go immediately to conference with the Senate.

The gentleman indicates he wants to change the Senate bill. I think that that may be appropriate; but if he does, we're going to have to go to conference in any event. So my suggestion is you take Tim Walz's bill, act on that, a House bill, and we go to conference on that bill. That seems to me that's the most expeditious way to accomplish what the gentleman says he wants to accomplish in a very quick fashion.

I think Tim Walz of Minnesota would be happy to hear that and available to work towards that end, along with Louise Slaughter.

Mr. Speaker, I think that all of us, hopefully, agree with what the leader has just said. We clearly want to make sure the American public has confidence and trust in the actions we take in that they are not driven by personal interests but by public interests, by a concern for the welfare of the people we represent in our country.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Would my friend yield?

I thank Mr. Van Hollen for yielding.

If Members in fact, not for political gamesmanship, want to vote to restrain and eliminate their COLA this year, they have an opportunity to do that segregated from any other issue on the previous question. I would urge Members, if they want to cap congressional salaries next year at current levels, they vote against the previous question when it is called.