Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I voted against H.R. 4031, a bill named the ``Department of Veterans Affairs Management Accountability Act of 2014'', because I don't throw babies out with the bathwater.

Let me explain. When our fellow Americans put on our country's uniform in service to our nation, we owe it to them to repay that service. When these Americans retire the uniform, as veterans they deserve everything a grateful nation can offer--our love, respect, gratitude and, just as importantly, the care and attention they may now need upon coming home.

Reports that the Department of Veterans Affairs failed to provide many of our veterans the care and service they have earned are more than disturbing, and if true, warrant decisive action. With facts in hand, our government must be prepared to move swiftly to right the wrong and hold people accountable.

H.R. 4031 is a bill which is being portrayed as a fix to the troubling reports of mismanagement and mistreatment at VA facilities. It is hardly that. H.R. 4031 would go well beyond giving the Secretary of Veterans Affairs the authority to fire personnel in this particular case of potential mismanagement. This bill makes permanent and reactionary changes to longstanding rules governing the hiring and firing of people holding positions of public responsibility. It would paint responsible, hard-working public servants with the same brush as those who may have recklessly mismanaged VA services.

If H.R. 4031 became law, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs could hire or fire someone based on a whim. It would forever and irreparably damage our ability to hire and retain the best and brightest based on merit and experience. This bill would bring back the dark days when hiring and firing decisions within our federal workforce were driven by political influence and patronage.

The vast majority of veterans will tell you that they have received the quality of care that they have earned and deserve at VA health centers. But anything less than 100 percent satisfaction for our veterans is not good enough. That's why we must swiftly and decisively investigate these alarming reports of mismanagement at the Department of Veterans Affairs. I will do anything and everything I can to live up to that standard. But I will not lump truly dedicated, hard-working public servants together with those who have failed in their fundamental obligation to serve and care for our veterans. I will not throw the baby out with the bathwater--and I do not believe America's veterans want us to do that either.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the Nicaraguan Cultural Committee ``Jose de la Cruz Mena,'' and salute them for the wonderful cultural efforts they are producing for the residents of the City of Los Angeles.

Founded in 2010, the Nicaraguan Cultural Committee ``Jose de la Cruz Mena'' is a small but dedicated organization committed to raising awareness on the traditions and customs of Nicaraguans who reside in the City of Los Angeles.

Since music is fundamental to Nicaraguan culture and spirit, the committee opted to be named after Jose de la Cruz Mena, a pioneering artist who was the first to introduce classical music to Central America. Although he suffered from various illnesses that left him blind at the age of 22 and led to a premature death at the age of 33, de la Cruz Mena's special talent allowed him to participate in composing the Nicaraguan national anthem. The committee is honoring his legacy by sharing his story and music with Angelinos.

To increase appreciation for Nicaraguan music and culture, the committee successfully encouraged the City of Los Angeles and the State of California to officially recognize May 3rd as ``Dia del Nicaraguense'' (Nicaraguan Day). The Nicaraguan Cultural Committee celebrated this distinct recognition on May 4 by hosting the first Nicaraguan Folklore Festival in Pico Union where many Americans of Nicaraguan descent have lived since the 1980s. The festival highlighted special Nicaraguan traditions and featured artisan crafts from Nicaragua. To foster cultural exchange, the committee plans to host the Nicaraguan Folklore Festival annually.

I wish the Nicaraguan Cultural Committee ``Jose de la Cruz Mena'' continued success in its efforts to preserve and highlight Nicaraguan traditions!

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and missed rollcall votes 188 through 193. If present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall votes 191, 192, and 193, and ``nay'' on rollcall votes 188, 189, and 190.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Today's vote on H.R. 4438 and on five other Republican bills to come that would permanently extend other tax breaks without paying for them will increase the deficit by $310 billion and

lead to Republican cuts to services like Medicare, health research, and school funding.

How much is $310 billion?

That is five times what we spend on services to our veterans. We have over 21 million Americans who have served in uniform who are veterans of this country.

That $310 billion is three times what the Federal Government invests in education, job training, and social services for an entire year. It is over 10 times what we spend annually on medical research to come up with the innovations and the lifesaving treatments that Americans rely upon.

We hear from our colleagues on the Republican side that they are fiscally responsible, that they are fiscal hawks, but they pass these severe budgets that would cut schools, that would cut medical research, that would cut Medicare funding for our seniors, that would cut Social Security, but they have to do it because we have to get rid of that deficit.

Here we have the fiscal pretenders.

In this bill, H.R. 4438, our Republican colleagues propose to blow the deficit wide open by adding $310 billion to that deficit by passing these unpaid-for tax breaks. Yet when it is time to make the tough choices, when it comes to providing the services that our middle class families want for their children to go to college, they can't do it. But there is a free pass for these corporate tax breaks.

What American citizen and taxpayer would trust this Republican math from our colleagues?

I urge colleagues to vote against this budget-busting legislation and turn our focus to building an economy that works for all Americans, not just a select few.

I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time.

Mr. Speaker, let me say in advance that I appreciate the work that has been done by any number of Members with regard to this legislation. Many people have engaged in a good faith effort to try to find an acceptable solution that resolves issues which are legitimate and have raised a concern for a lot of us with regard to how we move forward with the Affordable Care Act and make sure that not only Americans are covered, but that our companies can continue to offer insurance coverage for those Americans that are not only affordable but have high quality.

And many of us have recognized that in the case of Americans who are out of the country for more time than they are in the country in a year, that we may have to make some exceptions for them so that the company that is offering them health insurance can offer a policy that is competitive. We don't want to price out our American companies that offer health insurance coverage simply because they are trying to meet domestic care standards for health care that are required as a result of the Affordable Care Act but that may not work as well abroad.

So you take a look at the name of this bill, the Expatriate Health Coverage Clarification Act of 2014. You think, okay, that is what we are trying to do. We are trying to help expatriates, Americans who work abroad more time than they are here at home. But when you take a close look at the bill, that is not what it does.

We are told by the Congressional Research Service that there are probably about 285,000 Americans who have expatriate health care coverage. This bill wouldn't impact just those 285,000 Americans. This bill impacts millions because it impacts U.S. citizens who are here in the country, not abroad for more than half of the time, and it could have an impact on every single legal immigrant who is in this country.

So I think all of us agree. We want to make sure that the Affordable Care Act and its patient protections work, and if we could tweak things to make it work better, we should. But this is not a bill for expatriates. This is a bill that goes way beyond.

So let's not fool ourselves. We have to take care of trying to deal with the narrow exception that we are looking at for expatriates, not create a giant loophole by which we can now remove the protection against discrimination for preexisting conditions that right now all Americans and legal immigrants can now know that they have.

We want to make sure that all of those people who now have protection from the plans that don't provide coverage after a certain amount of money, where all of a sudden, boom, you go bankrupt because you didn't know that your insurance company would only

cover $50,000 of your health care costs, that protection might be gone. What we don't want is to create a giant loophole in trying to help a narrow band of Americans and companies that offer these Americans health insurance coverage.

The White House has said there is a fix here. And I know the White House has been trying to work with the proponents of this bill to come up with a fix. But as they said the last time this was up, this needs work, and it should not come up for a vote.

But what are they saying now? The administration issued this today:

The administration does not support House passage of H.R.

4414 in its current form because it would reduce consumer

protections and create even more loopholes in the Tax Code.

There is a fix, but this is not it because it goes way beyond. And what we also have to do is recognize that there are other things involved.

This bill will cost the American taxpayers money. How much? We are told by the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Tax Committee, $1.4 billion. Is it paid for? Are the $1.4 billion that we would take away from--or have to take from other taxpayers covered so that we won't have to have other Americans pay for this? No. This bill is unpaid for.

And so for any number of reasons, we should sit down and get this resolved the right way because the White House says there is a fix. Those of us who oppose this bill say there is a fix. But to create more loopholes which allow American citizens and immigrants who are lawfully here, working hard, to all of a sudden be deprived of their protections----

To deprive American citizens who don't know about this, to deprive those immigrants who came to this country legally and are working in this country and today have the same protections to make sure they are not discriminated against for a preexisting condition, who also have a chance to get offered a plan that has those protections against that fine print we used to see in the health policies, to all of a sudden tell them that they are going to be denied that because we were trying to fix a problem for Americans who work abroad for more than a half a year, that is not what we should be doing.

There is a fix. This should not cost the taxpayers more money. And I believe we could do this pretty quickly because it is a narrow issue.

If we really want to help expats, take out the language in the bill that talks about legal immigrants who are in the country. It talks about workers who come to this country to work under worker visa categories, like in the high-tech field or in agriculture. We can do this very simply. And I just appeal to my colleagues and friends on both sides of the aisle: Let's not open up bigger loopholes that cost the taxpayers money simply to try to fix a narrow version of this that we know we can do.

So with that, I hope that sanity will prevail before this goes too far.

I thank the ranking member on the Budget Committee for, first, all the work he has done over the years in trying to get America back on track when it comes to what it should do with its budgets.

Budgets are a testament to our values and our priorities, and I believe Mr. Van Hollen has made it very clear what the values and priorities of Members of this side of the aisle are. It is

about making sure that we invest the taxpayer dollars to help our economy grow, help grow jobs, and help our kids grow up and get to college.

But let me remind everyone here of something. Remember those brainless, autopilot sequester cuts which had been scheduled for last year that led to the Republican shutdown of our government? Well, the Republican budget of 2015 is sequester on steroids.

Remember last year's autopilot sequester cuts that would have kicked over 50,000 children out of Head Start classes? Well, the 2015 Republican budget kicks 170,000 kids out of Head Start classes.

This Republican budget would kill jobs, with 1.1 million Americans likely to lose their job as a result of this budget and probably 3 million more the following year are the estimates.

This budget would cut seniors' Social Security benefits by changing the way we calculate their cost-of-living increases so that they would get less each year, even though we know the cost of living for seniors keeps going up.

They would continue to reduce our investments in very important projects that include Medicare, because this Republican budget would voucherize Medicare. It would turn it into a privatized version of what we have now, without the guarantees, so that seniors will be paying more for their prescription drugs.

This Republican budget would close not one single wasteful corporate tax loophole and, instead, it actually offers billionaires a $200,000 tax cut at the same time that it is increasing taxes for the middle class by about $2,000.

It should surprise no one that, while we are not closing any tax loopholes in the Republican budget and while we are increasing the taxes for middle class Americans, this Republican budget excludes things that we should do.

Through this budget we could, right now, move to increase the economy's capacity, increase the number of jobs, and decrease our deficits by finally fixing our broken immigration system.

Our Democratic budget does that; the Republican budget doesn't. And as a result, we give up, through the Republican budget, an opportunity to reduce our deficits by close to a trillion dollars over the next couple of decades. We give up the opportunity to create close to 3.5 million jobs over the next 10 to 20 years by doing immigration reform, and we give up the chance to strengthen Social Security by doing immigration reform. The Democratic budget makes those investments.

The Democratic budget actually invests in early childhood education. The Democratic budget makes it possible for more middle class families to afford to send their kids to college.

The Democratic budget makes those investments because we do close corporate tax loopholes. We do go after those who are evading paying their fair share of taxes. And we can make those investments in early childhood education, in fixing our broken immigration system, in investing in our roads and bridges because we go after those who are evading paying their taxes. We could do that.

But, again, I remind you, this is a budget being presented on this floor from our colleagues on the other side that actually put the brainless cuts under the sequester on autopilot. And we need to defeat that.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, let me first acknowledge the work that has been done by so many of our colleagues here bipartisanly, the gentleman from Delaware, the gentleman from California, the committees of jurisdiction, and leadership, I suspect, on both sides of the aisle. I, too, have been involved in trying to deal with this.

If you take a look at the title of the bill, it tells you what they are trying to do. The bill is called the Expatriate Health Coverage Clarification Act, so the bill tells us that it is to deal with the issue of expatriates.

Well, who are expatriates, and how are they impacted by the Affordable Care Act?

An expatriate, I think most of us would acknowledge, is an American who is told by his or her employer, we need to send you abroad to go work--whatever the task is--but I need you to go; so that expatriate, now living abroad, will be told that he or she must have an insurance policy that abides by the Affordable Care Act's protections for Americans who get health care here.

The insurers will say: well, we may have to deal with different standards in that other country, so give us some flexibility.

That is very fair. We should make sure that any company that has to send a worker abroad has the flexibility to make sure that they are providing good coverage, but that they are not strapped by the regulations that apply to coverage here in the U.S. Everyone agrees with that.

Here is the problem: this bill doesn't do that. It doesn't do that, and I say that with all due respect to my colleague from Delaware. It doesn't do that.

Let me ask you this: Is someone who works in this country 365 days of the year someone who we would consider an expatriate? Is an American who spends most of his time--three-quarters of his time working in the U.S. an expatriate?

Should the family of that American who goes abroad, but the family never leaves the U.S., be denied the protections of the Affordable Care Act, so that a preexisting condition can now be used to discriminate against the child of that American worker?

That is the difficulty with this bill. This bill talks about expatriates, but the reality is a lot of Americans who never leave this country and a lot of foreign workers, including green card holders who are on their way to becoming citizens, who have every lawful right to be here because they have gone about it the right way, they are just waiting their time so they can qualify to become U.S. citizens--many of them could be denied the protections that we all now have.

We cannot be discriminated against based on a preexisting condition. We must be provided minimal protections. We have a right, now, to make sure that an insurance company doesn't use what we are paying in premiums to put in the pockets of executives and big salaries. That money has to now be spent, by law, on health care coverage.

This bill would say no, those who are expatriates would qualify for different plans that don't have to meet those Affordable Care standards.

Why should more than 13 million people who are in this country legally and are on their way to becoming U.S. citizens--who today have the same protections you and I have to not be discriminated against for preexisting conditions--because this bill that is supposed to be for expatriates, now be told no, you might be offered a policy that doesn't have to meet the Affordable Care standards?

Why should an American family that sees one of its breadwinners, father or mother, be sent abroad to work for 90 days be told no, we no longer have to offer you an Affordable Care health care policy that prevents discrimination against your child because he or she has asthma?

If this were a bill to focus on the issue of expatriates who go work abroad, where I think it is a legitimate concern of the insurance company to not impose upon the insurance company costs that are beyond what are paid here, I would agree that this goes well beyond that, and I would urge my colleagues to think twice before voting for this bill this way.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, first the facts--not the facts from this side of the aisle, not the facts from the other party, but the facts that we get from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which is in charge of telling all of us--Congress and the rest of the country--what does legislation that is proposed by Democrats and Republicans actually cost, and what will it actually do. They are the nonpartisan referee that we are supposed to rely on to sort of give us the facts without getting into these political battles.

What do the folks at the Congressional Budget Office say about this bill? One, it will increase the deficit by $75 billion; two, around a million American workers will lose their health insurance coverage that they get through their employer today; and three, around five times as many workers in America will be at risk of losing hours at work as a result of this bill should it become law. Okay, so those are the facts not from Republicans, not from Democrats, but from the nonpartisan CBO.

So let's now talk a little bit about those facts a bit more, because I think a lot of folks are very confused. What the heck is going on? We are going to lose hours at work? We are going to gain? What is going on? Essentially it is this. We have got to figure out how we make sure that employers who currently offer health insurance to their employees don't say, hey, I don't want to do it anymore, so I am going to stop offering it. How can I do that? I can make sure I keep my employees employed for less hours than is required by the law.

This bill says if you have that threshold that the number of hours you have to work is 30, well, a whole bunch of employers are going to say, hey, I can game the system if I drop the number of hours my employee works at the job to less than 30. That is true.

The problem is this. The vast majority of Americans don't work 31 hours, 32 hours a week. They work 40. A lot of Americans, in fact, work 42, 44. They work overtime. So what the Affordable Care Act did was made sure that most employers who currently offer employer-covered insurance to their employees continue to do it because very few employers are going to say, I can game the system by dropping my 40- hour worker to 29 hours. That is 11 quality hours, unless you were just letting these folks just sit on a couch.

What happens if you raise the number of work hours to qualify for the affordable care coverage to 40 hours? Well, that is why the CBO says about 1 million Americans will lose their insurance coverage, because if you are working a 40-hour workweek, an employer would say, gosh, it would be tough for me to drop you to 29 hours, it would be a lot easier to say, I will drop you to 39\1/2\ hours, in which case I no longer have to offer you insurance.

That is why the Congressional Budget Office said that over 1 million Americans would lose their health insurance coverage and why it would cost about $75 billion to do this legislation, because guess what? If the employers are no longer offering you insurance and you still have to go to the doctor for your child and you can't afford it anymore because you don't have insurance, guess who gets to pay? The folks up there in the audience in the gallery and those of us here who pay taxes, because guess what? They will go to the emergency room, and now they will use the Medicaid program to help cover that bill they can no longer afford because the employer cut them back a little bit.

If we all really want to make sure Americans get to work, then let's separate the myth from the fact. Remember 4 years ago death panels? If the Affordable Care Act, this new health security law, takes effect, death panels are going to decide if your grandmother gets to live. How many death panels have you heard that have told your family member he or she will have to die? Okay, I ask anyone in this audience, do you have a doctor? Do you have insurance? Do you know your doctor? Ask yourself this question: What is the name of your government doctor? You have a doctor. Did you know your doctor works for the government? You are going to say, no, I have known my doctor for a long time. He or she doesn't work directly for the government. If you believe the myth, yes, your doctor does because, remember, this was a government takeover of health care. It was a myth.

In fact, this Affordable Care Act's law requires you to use private health insurance coverage to get your health care through private doctors and private hospitals. But what it does is it requires you to do it, and it requires employers to do it, as well. That is what the law did. It didn't say, you are going to go to a government doctor or a government hospital.

I thank the gentleman.

So once you separate the facts from the myth, it becomes pretty clear what we have to do. We have to make sure if you are an American we reward you for your work. If you are an American and you get health insurance through your employer, we don't want your employer to game the system and put the burden on you now. And so what we

want is to make it affordable for the employee and affordable for the employer.

This bill makes it unaffordable for the employee moving forward, and it makes it, quite honestly, for the employer, as well, because you are losing your good workers. We need to defeat this bill and try to make the Affordable Care Act work for everyone.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Democratic Caucus, I

offer a privileged resolution (H. Res. 537) and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Democratic Caucus, I offer a privileged resolution (H. Res. 531) and ask for its immediate consideration.

I thank the gentleman from Colorado for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to bring up H.R. 15 to demand a vote on the bipartisan immigration reform bill that has been held up for more than 733 days to honor our American values so that I can wear this tag later on in the future with great pride.

Mr. Speaker, millions of Americans pay into Social Security every week, knowing that when they need Social Security, it will be there for them. Without Social Security's dedicated, highly- trained workforce, we would not be able to stop fraud and errors and guard those contributions until they are needed.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) recently stopped two large fraud conspiracies, one in Puerto Rico and one in New York. I want to commend the hundreds of Social Security employees, investigators, and state disability determination services employees, as well as state, local, and federal prosecutors and law enforcement officers who worked tirelessly to detect, investigate, and prosecute these crimes. I would also like to particularly acknowledge some of the hard-working public servants who played especially key roles.

DDS Medical Consultant Dr. Ascisclo Marxuach; DDS Medical Consultant Dr. Vicente Sanchez; DDS Systems Manager Juan Ocasio; DDS Systems Manager Javier Ortiz; District Manager and former Disability Processing Unit Manager Diane Maldonado; Disability Program Administrator Annie Malave; Program Analyst Susan Palais; and Program Analyst Maria Lora.

Area Office Supervisor Awilda Montalvo; Assistant Regional Administrator Yvonne Bastide; Lead Disability Processing Specialist Kathleen Fitzpatrick; Lead Disability Processing Specialist Michael Warner; Deputy Assistant Regional Commissioner Frank Barry; Center for Disability Deputy Director Jose Colon; Special Agent-in-Charge Edward Ryan; Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge John Grasso; Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge Anthony Piazza; Resident Agent-in-Charge Sharon McDermott; Special Agent Peter Dowd; Special Agent Manuel Rivera; CDI Team Leader Angel Rodriguez; Management Support Specialist Jaimie Arce; CDI Specialist Amanda Rios; and CDI Specialist Karen Velez.

Mr. Speaker, I commend these patriotic Americans for their work to protect Social Security for American families.

Mr. Speaker, for 77 years, Social Security has been the bedrock of economic security for American families. Generations of Americans have contributed to Social Security with every paycheck, knowing that they and their families will be protected if they die, become disabled, or retire. As a result of their contributions--$14.6 trillion over Social Security's lifetime--Social Security currently has a $2.7 trillion surplus.

Social Security benefits are modest--about $15,000 a year for an average senior and even less for a disabled worker--but for most recipients, their Social Security paycheck is more than half their monthly income.

As a representative of those Americans and the Ranking Democrat on the Social Security Subcommittee, I believe we have no more important responsibility than to make sure that Americans receive their earned Social Security benefits on time, and in full. That means protecting Social Security against fraud and errors, and it means doing so in a way that does not delay needed benefits for honest, hard-working Americans.

Social Security's overpayment rate is 0.22 percent. Most of these overpayments are because of errors, but a small part of it is fraud. But Social Security employees believe--and I agree with them--that we could do even more to safeguard Social Security.

Recently the Social Security Administration has uncovered several fraud conspiracies where Social Security contributions made by honest Americans were stolen to pay benefits to people who didn't earn them. In one of the conspiracies, the ringleaders even instructed people to pretend they were disabled as a result of the tragic events of September 11.

The good news is, when you invest in developing quality, well-trained employees to protect Social Security, it pays off. Social Security's front-line employees detected the fraud, and with the help of Social Security's trained investigators, the ringleaders have been charged with felonies and Social Security has begun the process of recovering the money stolen from the trust fund.

But the bad news is that these conspiracies show that Social Security is a tempting target for those willing to break the law, and Social Security's hardworking staff need more tools to fight them and to make sure Social Security only pays benefits to those who should receive them.

That's why my colleagues and I are introducing the Social Security Fraud and Error Prevention Act of 2014. Our bill gives Social Security new tools to find fraud and errors, recoup money that should be in the trust funds, and throw the book at people who steal from Social Security.

First, our bill makes sure that if you break the law, Social Security has the resources to make sure the crime is investigated and prosecuted. We would require SSA to have special fraud-busting investigative units covering all 50 states, provide the resources needed to staff them with the right people, and increase prosecutions of people who steal from Social Security.

Second, our bill makes sure the penalty is equivalent to the crime. Because Social Security requires applicants to prove they are eligible for benefits by providing extensive medical and vocational evidence, cheating Social Security usually requires collusion from trusted people like doctors, beneficiary representatives, and judges. Our bill would increase the monetary penalties for fraud, but most importantly, as Social Security's Inspector General recommends, we would significantly increase the penalty for fraud by those who know better. We'd make it a felony to conspire to defraud Social Security, so prosecutors can nail fraud ringleaders, and we allow prosecutors to ask for a long sentence--up to 10 years--against those who violated a position of trust to breach Social Security's defenses.

Third, our bill makes sure Social Security can afford to use the tools that have been effective in detecting and preventing fraud and errors before a single penny is paid out of the Trust Funds.

Over the years, Social Security has developed a number of proven techniques that significantly reduce fraud and errors.

What's holding them back?

To be frank, money.

Despite a growing number of Americans applying for and receiving Social Security, SSA's budget is lower now than it was four years ago. They've lost one out of ten front-line workers to budget cuts. And Republicans in Congress blocked hundreds of millions of dollars that the Budget Control Act authorized for SSA's most cost-effective methods of preventing waste, fraud and abuse.

Our bill would change that, providing SSA with guaranteed funding for their most effective strategies to prevent fraud and errors. The bill will also provide additional resources to recoup benefits that shouldn't have been paid, along with penalties, if the payments were the result of fraud.

We'd demand something in exchange for the guaranteed money: complete transparency and accountability. Social Security could only use the dedicated funds for the most important and effective strategies. They would have to report annually to Congress how much they spent and what savings their efforts generated for Social Security's trust funds. And the new funds would only be available for additional fraud and error fighting--not to replace what they're already spending out of their regular budget.

Our bill isn't the complete answer to protecting Social Security's trust fund. As we consulted Social Security employees, managers, experts, and beneficiary advocates, they all told us the same thing: The best defense against fraud and errors is a well-staffed, well- trained SSA. And for that to happen, Republicans in Congress have to agree to fund SSA's overall budget.

But providing guaranteed funding to fight fraud will at least spare SSA from having to choose between preventing fraud and processing applications so that Americans receive the benefits they earned on time and in full.

I hope we can work together in a bipartisan way to enact this bill and protect Social Security.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I think the best way to describe this bill is to call it the ``prevent secret money from disclosure act,'' because that is what we are really talking about.

What matters today to most Americans? If you talk to folks back home or on the street, they will tell you: Are you working on making sure the private sector is creating jobs? Does this bill help create jobs? No. They will say: Then at least make sure, if I am paying taxes, you are using them the right way. Does this bill help taxpayers save money? No.

So why are we doing this?

You are hearing folks talk about the Constitution. The Constitution doesn't guarantee campaign donors get special tax treatment or protections. The First Amendment protects speech, not secret contributions.

So what is the problem?

The problem is that the IRS has finally figured out that a whole bunch of folks are funneling a lot of dark, secret money into organizations that under the Tax Code are permitted and that they are using this to influence our American campaigns.

We have no idea who is making these contributions of millions of dollars--secret dollars--to influence campaigns here in America. Is it foreign governments giving these millions of dollars? We don't know. Is it money launderers trying to influence elections? We don't know. We have no idea who is giving this money because, under the Tax Code under which these organizations are filing, they have no obligation to disclose who has given them one red cent.

That Tax Code section, 501(c)(4), is very similar to the 501(c)(3), the charitable organization we are very familiar with. 501(c)(4)s are classified as ``social welfare organizations.'' Guess what? Do you know how much those social welfare organizations spent doing campaign and political work in our elections? How much do you think the political campaigns spent, the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee combined? $255 billion in the 2012 election. That is what the two political parties spent together. How much did social welfare organizations spend on campaign and political activity? More than the two political parties combined--$256 billion. Can you tell me where one penny came from? No, you can't, because it is all secret money.

What are the proponents of this bill trying to do? They are trying to hide the names of those who gave the money. Why? We don't know.

But it sure would be nice to know who is getting all this money, when just 8 years ago, those same social welfare organizations gave a total of $1 million for political purposes. It was $256 billion in 2012. Eight years ago, it was $1 million.

Something is going on in America. Someone is trying to buy elections. And we can't figure it out because those donors don't have to be disclosed. It is time to make sure that those donations are disclosed. That is all the IRS is trying to do.

It is cloaked as something different by proponents of this bill. Let's not hide the money. It is time to disclose those contractors.

Vote down this bill.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Democratic Caucus, I offer a privileged resolution and ask for its immediate consideration.