John Garamendi

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, it has been a most interesting day here in Washington, D.C., this last week in which we have seen the battle royal over the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. I want to really speak about the Affordable Care Act, what it has managed to do for Americans. Much of the conversation over these last several days has been on the other side of it: how it could be repealed and how, somehow, that would be good for Americans. But the Congressional Budget Office has made it clear that the bill that passed the House of Representatives some time ago, about a month and a half ago, was bad news for Americans. Some 18 million people would lose their health insurance in very short order within a year or so, and some 24 million would lose their health insurance over the next 5 to 7 years. That is a terrible situation. When you take a look at what has happened in the recent period since 2014 when the Affordable Care Act was actually in full force, we have found many millions of Americans with insurance. In my own State of California, we now have over 5 million Californians with insurance that they previously did not have. About 1.5 million of those Californians are in the exchange--the California exchange, which we call Covered California--and another 3.5 million are covered in the expanded Medicaid program. That is good news. It is also good news that people who previously were unable to take care of their medical issues found coverage. I remember a woman, actually, my wife's beautician, who came to her as the Affordable Care Act was implemented in California and told her: At last I can get insurance. My husband and I are going to have a baby--or we want to have a baby. We couldn't afford it before. But now I have insurance. I am on the exchange. I have the subsidy, and I can afford it--family values. In the last 6 months, as the new administration has taken hold and as the repeal of the Affordable Care Act has become the talk of the Nation, in a more recent visit, she said: We have delayed getting pregnant because we are not sure if I can have insurance. If they repeal, if they kill ObamaCare, I won't have insurance, and we won't have a baby. Family values. I want to talk about values: family values and others. I used this last week, and I am going to use it over and over again, because this is a statement of values. This is from Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the midst of the Great Depression. President Roosevelt said this: ``The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.'' That is a statement of values. That is a statement of purpose. That is the reason why he and the Democrats, during the Great Depression, took the actions like, for example, Social Security. For those who have little, Social Security. Then, again, in the sixties, for those who have little, this same statement of value came into place. During Lyndon Johnson's Presidency, the Democrats created Medicare for seniors--men and women over 65. All you needed to do to get health insurance was to live until you were 65 years of age. They also added Medicaid for the poor--principally, children and mothers. It is a statement of values. It is a statement of purpose. It is a statement of where their heart lies and what they thought was important. Today, we are working on the Affordable Care Act, sometimes, often derisively, called ObamaCare. But many of us proudly call it ObamaCare, where 5 million Californians have health insurance. Across this Nation, there are 20 million in all States, although some States chose not to extend the method of buying insurance on the exchanges. And so the Federal exchange exists. This House went the opposite direction. So what did it mean? The uninsured rate in America declined down to the lowest number ever in our history, as men, women, and families were able to get health insurance. I think of a farmer, a single woman in my district, who never had insurance, never could get health insurance, couldn't afford it until the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare, came along. She was able to get insurance. She was able to get cancer treatment. If she didn't have insurance, she surely would have died. We have countless examples. When I was the insurance commissioner in California, we would always fight the insurance companies over their denial of insurance. They used to call it preexisting conditions. Since the Affordable Care Act went into place in 2011 and 2012, preexisting conditions were no longer legal as a mechanism for denying insurance in the United States of America. Insurance companies could not rate people on preexisting conditions. I remember those lists. It was two pages. As insurance commissioner, people would come to me and say: Why do I have to fill out this form of everything I have ever done in my life? A broken leg playing football in high school had to be listed--asthma, coughs, contagious diseases. Even mundane things like: Are you a pilot; are you into dirt bikes and dirt bike racing? These were all reasons why insurance would be denied. But with the Affordable Care Act, no more. That history was gone. So, today, the President of the United States, perhaps proudly, stood before the American people and said: I will let it die. I will let it die. I will let the Affordable Care Act fail. What is the message to the American public? What is the message that the President of the United States, Mr. Speaker, has said to the American public? Mr. Speaker, he has said: I will work to deny the American people health insurance. Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States has, in so many words, said that he will take action to deny the American people health insurance--not all of them, just 20 million. You proactively take specific actions. And what are those actions? To tell the IRS to not enforce the mandate so that people will be able to go without insurance until they have an accident or sickness and wind up in the emergency room so that everybody else can pay for their care. He will not allow the payment of the cross-subsidies for those insurance companies that have enrolled an excessive amount of very sick people and other insurance companies that have enrolled a healthy population. That cross-subsidy is critical. He will create more uncertainty so that the insurance companies do not know how to price their insurance. He has already removed the ability for the Federal and State exchanges to advertise. There is no insurance company, I can tell you from my own experience, that can survive without advertising. They have got to talk about what it is they are offering. They have to sign up people, and they have to have a cross subsidization of healthy, sick, and not so sick people in their pool of risk. But he set up a system so that those exchanges that are in existence in the States and the Federal exchanges will not have the money to advertise. California is a big State. We can get along without President Trump. So we have set up our own mechanism of providing money for advertising Covered California. A couple of other States have been able to do the same, but not every State. There has been discussion that the market is collapsing. I want to read to you an analysis done by the Kaiser Family Foundation that just came out a week ago that would counter the arguments that this is a collapsing market. I am going to read this. It is a little long, but I think it is worth understanding. ``Early results from 2017 suggest the individual market is stabilizing and insurers in this market are regaining profitability. Insurer financial results show no sign of a market collapse.'' Perhaps I should read that again and perhaps the President might also want to read, although I understand he doesn't. Perhaps if he did, he would read the Kaiser Family Foundation report coming out July 2017. ``Insurer financial results show no sign of a market collapse. First quarter premium and claims data from 2017 support the notion that 2017 premium increases were necessary as a one-time market correction to adjust for a sicker-than-expected risk pool.'' I am going to come back to that after finishing reading this. ``Although individual market enrollees appear on average to be sicker than the market pre-ACA, data on hospitalizations in this market suggest that the risk pool is stable on average and not getting progressively sicker as of early 2017. Some insurers have exited the market in recent years, but others have been successful and expanded their footprints, as would be expected in a competitive marketplace. ``While the market on average is stabilizing, there remain some areas of the country that are more fragile. In addition, policy uncertainty has the potential to destabilize the individual market generally. Mixed signals from the administration and Congress as to whether cost sharing subsidy payments will continue or whether the individual mandate will be enforced have led to some insurers to leave the market or request larger premium increases than they would otherwise. A few parts of the country may now be at risk of having no insurer on exchange, though new entrants or expanding insurers have moved in to cover most areas previously thought to be at risk of being bare.'' Not my words, but rather the words of the Kaiser Family Foundation. So, Mr. Speaker, the President apparently intends to destroy the Affordable Care Act by saying that it doesn't work. In fact, his actions may make it a situation in which it would not work. I suppose if he has his way, we are going to see, in 2018, the number of uninsured rise back to where it was before the Affordable Care Act. That is about 22 million Americans without insurance. Well done, Mr. President. Well done. If that is what you want, I want to know what your values are. What are your values? Mr. Speaker, I would ask the President: What are your values, Mr. President? You have been supporting the Republican legislation to repeal and replace. It happens to do much for those who have much. The largest single tax break for the wealthy ever in this Nation's history was in the legislation that passed the House of Representatives with the repeal and replace legislation, so much so that Mr. Trump's Cabinet, made up of the wealthiest Cabinet perhaps ever in America's history, would receive huge tax breaks of well over $4 million a year, and quite possibly a much higher number. Those are not the values of the Democratic Party, those are not the values of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and those are clearly not the values of Americans who care about each other, who are concerned about those who have little. Ask the American public if they want to do away with Social Security. Ask the American public if they want to do away with Medicaid. Do away with Medicaid? Yes, 60 percent of the Medicaid money supports seniors in nursing homes. You want to do away with that? I don't think so. But that is what it would do. The Affordable Care Act does need to be improved, and the Democrats have been trying to do that for some time. How can we do it? Many ideas have been proposed. When the legislation was heard in committees here, the Democrats proposed several amendments to improve the Affordable Care Act. The first amendment was to do away with the repeal, but, of course, that didn't pass in committee and certainly wasn't on the floor. So how do you deal with improving the Affordable Care Act? Let's start with drugs. We know that for the Medicare system, that the Federal Government cannot negotiate the price of drugs. And for the exchanges--the Federal exchanges, we cannot negotiate the price of drugs. It was a law that was written with Medicare part D back in 2002 and 2003. So why can't we negotiate the price of drugs? We ought to be able to do that. You want to reduce one of the cost factors, let's negotiate the price of drugs. How about another one? How about consumer services? Increasing the risk pool, increasing the number of men and women that are in the pool by advertising? I talked earlier about the President removing the money for advertising on the Federal exchanges and State exchanges. You want to improve it, improve the risk pool. A broad risk pool is a fundamental fact of any insurance program that is successful. But to take overt action, to diminish the risk pool, and to put into the risk pool less healthy people, and to keep people who are healthy out of the risk pool--please keep in mind that any of us at any particular day may find ourselves in need of very serious medical attention, perhaps a car accident, perhaps a contagious disease, Zika, who knows what it might be, or a pregnancy. So expand the risk pool by advertising, by enforcing the mandate, which is the third element that could be done. The President has already taken action to tell the IRS not to enforce the mandate. So the young healthy invincibles shirk the law knowing that they don't ever have to pay a penalty because the IRS is not looking. Okay, if that is what you want to do. However, if you want to improve the healthcare of America, if you want to hold premiums stable and perhaps even declining, expand that risk pool. How about a few other things? When the Affordable Care Act passed the House of Representatives in 2009, there was a public option in it. Unfortunately, the Senate wouldn't stand for a public option. But bring the public option back so that there would be a national public option insurance company available to everybody. Bring that back. That is another idea that ought to be the improvement of it. Another thing: States can and have successfully modified the Medicaid programs in their State. Expand the ability of States to experiment with different ways of providing services under the Medicaid program. Not by eliminating it, as the Republicans would do--that is, eliminating the expansion, as the Republicans would do in their repeal and in TrumpCare--but, rather, allow the States to experiment with different ways of providing the medical services in the Medicaid program. And there are some great ideas out there. We know that many of the people in Medicaid have long illnesses, high blood pressure; perhaps they have other illnesses that require constant care. We know that there are examples of programs that provide ongoing services so that these illnesses are constantly being able to be monitored and dealt with. You want to deal with blood pressure, take a couple of cheap pills and you keep the blood pressure down and you avoid stroke and diabetes and the like. Those programs should be existing in most States, in most Medicaid programs. So we ought to provide the opportunity for the States to experiment with different ways of keeping down the cost of medical services. There are many other things that we can do with regard to the delivery systems. California has been a leader in creating various delivery systems that do keep down the cost of care--comprehensive delivery system, preexisting conditions being taken care of. So we can do this with a variety of ways. All of these should be on the floor of the House of Representatives and the Senate and presented to the President as we have the Affordable Care Act in place and we have ideas on how it can be improved. Programs such as mandatory care, all of those can be taken into consideration. But, no, we are not going to do that. We are just going to let the Affordable Care Act die, so says our President. It is unbelievable that you sign on, presumably to provide more opportunity for Americans, to provide better medical care for Americans. But, no, that is not what is going to happen here. The President of the United States said he is going to let it die, let it collapse. How cruel, how harsh, and how unlike previous Presidents. I pray future Presidents who say: My job as President of the United States is to carry out, yeah, the preamble to the Constitution, to form a better union. But apparently that is not the case with this President. So the Affordable Care Act is the law of the land, and it is the responsibility of the President to carry out the laws of the land, and that includes things that he thinks may be discretionary, such as the IRS mandate, such as the advertising, the cross-subsidization for those insurance companies that have higher risk pools than other insurance companies. We live in a very important moment where at risk are 22, 23, 24 million American lives. Thankfully, four senators stood strong and courageous and said, no, they were not going to support the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. It is not over. This fight is going to go on for some time, and as it goes on, I would hope the American people understand what is at risk. It is the well-being of their neighbors, it is the health of their communities, and, indeed, in some cases, it may be their own life. We will see. But today, a good thing happened--actually it was yesterday a good thing happened. The Senate was unable to pass a repeal of the Affordable Care Act and a replacement that was in every way a terrible blow to Americans. So we are thankful, and we look to the future and we look to the fight ahead. I can tell you this: My colleagues on the Democratic side are absolutely determined that the Affordable Care Act be improved and that it continue to be the law of the land. And the millions upon millions of Americans that have had the opportunity to purchase health insurance, to be covered in health exchanges, to be covered under the expansion of the Medicaid program, we are there for them and we are going to fight this. And we will succeed because Americans know what is at risk in the legislation that passed the House of Representatives with the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and the legislation that almost passed the Senate. This isn't over. Our determination to stay the line remains. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Chair, may I ask how much time I have remaining.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Larsen).

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Chair, just a couple of things. First of all, there is a thing called the National Sealift Fund, which has been in existence for a long time, and it has been used to build non-Navy ships. That is exactly what we intend to do here is to use the National Sealift Fund, not the Navy shipbuilding fund. Secondly, you may notice or you may want to know that the U.S. Coast Guard is, in fact, a defense as well as a civilian vessel; it has both obligations. We also need to understand that we are not stealing money from the Navy. This is simply a mechanism in which the Navy acts as a fiscal agent to carry out the task. The Coast Guard is not well suited to build ships of this type. We are looking for the most efficient and effective way to carry out the task, and the use of the National Sealift Fund, together with the U.S. Navy as the fiscal agent, is the best way to accomplish that. I would end by simply saying the U.S. Navy is toothless, useless in the Arctic unless it has an icebreaker. So if you care about the Arctic Ocean and the role of the U.S. Navy in carrying out our national defense functions in the Arctic, then you must help us find a way to build the icebreakers. We will do so without, in any way, taking funds away from the U.S. Navy shipbuilding. Indeed, it would be up to the appropriators to appropriate money quite hopefully from the Department of Homeland Security for this purpose, putting the money into this National Sealift Fund so that it can then be used to build the icebreaker, with the Navy acting as the fiscal agent. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chair, this amendment facilitates the construction of badly needed icebreakers. The United States does not have any heavy icebreakers that are available all year round. We only have one, and that is used in the Antarctic and, therefore, unavailable in the summer in the north. Joining me on this amendment is the ranking member and others from the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. We need icebreakers; in fact, we need six icebreakers. We need to build the first one immediately and get it underway. Language in the underlying bill provides a mechanism for us to fund that icebreaker using the authorities of the Department of the Navy, specifically, one of their sections. This amendment clarifies the language and makes it clear that the Navy can act as the fiscal agent to carry out the icebreaker task. It does not require in any way that the Navy shipbuilding account be used in any way to pay for the icebreaker. The money for the icebreaker will have to come from other sources. But it makes it clear that the Navy can expend money as a fiscal agent using the special account that was designated, that has been in existence for some time. I can go into great length about why we need icebreakers, but the very short story is that Russia has over 40 icebreakers, probably closer to 50, many of them heavy icebreakers capable of operating in very thick ice in the Arctic. The United States really has none. We have some light icebreakers, but they will not suffice during the Arctic spring and winter. Therefore, we have to get with it. We do know that in the future--well, today and this year, this summer--the Northwest Passage will be open for shipping, and the East Passage, which is along the Russian coast, is also open. So the Arctic is a navigable ocean. The U.S. Navy cannot operate there without an icebreaker. We cannot conduct civil and maritime as well as military exercises without a heavy icebreaker. This allows us to do that. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Chairman, may I ask how much time I have remaining.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Chairman, every year Congress receives a very important and very helpful report regarding our nuclear weapons enterprise. It is sometimes referred to as the 1043 Report because it is mandated by section 1043 of the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2012. It requires the Department of Defense, in cooperation with the Department of Energy, to submit a detailed 10-year plan and budget estimate for our nuclear weapons enterprise, that is, the bombs, the weapons themselves, the command and control, the national lab infrastructure, the delivery systems, et cetera, et cetera. That report is then reviewed by the Government Accountability Office for completeness and accuracy. Finally, the Congressional Budget Office then reviews it and submits an independent report. Terrific, all good, we all agree that it is a good thing. I know that the chairman of the subcommittee wanted that to happen, and indeed we do have it. This amendment simply deals with the reality that this is not a 10- year program. This is a program that will go on for at least the next 25, probably the next 30 years, with extraordinary costs that actually occur beyond the 10-year time horizon. Therefore, it is important that the United States, as we get into this long-term effort to recapitalize our entire nuclear arsenal, that we encounter today and take into account today the most expensive years that will occur beyond the 10- year horizon. This amendment that I am proposing simply requires that the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy consider a 25-year time horizon for the 1043 Report. We really do need to know, and, in fact, we have some of that information today. The Department of Energy, that is in the National Nuclear Security Administration, does do a 25-year report, and they apparently think it is accurate enough to present to the committees here. The Department of Defense provides the equipment, the means for delivering the bombs, that is the submarines, the various ballistic and intercontinental ballistic missiles, the ground-based ballistic missiles, the new bombers, and, quite possibly, new long-range strike LRSO. So let's find out. Let's consider that. The reason we need to consider it is that it is a pile of money, well over $1 trillion that we will be spending in the next 25 years. This is not just my words but if one were to consider the people who deal with this on a regular basis; for example, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, Mr. Kendall, on April 14, 2015, said that we have a problem with recapitalizing the strategic deterrent. We do have a huge affordability problem with that basket of systems. So it is a problem that we are going to have to face up to. Well, who is we? We is us. We are going to have to figure out how to pay for all this, and we are going to have to make some tough choices. So this is simply a matter of trying to figure out how we can get detailed information. I know that our esteemed chairman for whom I have tremendous regard has a little different view, and when he picks up his amendment, I will speak to that. In the meantime, I would ask everybody to support this wise amendment so that we actually have good information upon which to make some decisions today that will then be paid for in the next 15 to 25 years. That is what this amendment is. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Chairman, this is a commonsense amendment. I have great esteem for the chairman, but I really don't think we ought to be mushrooms. I don't think we ought to be kept in the dark. We really are in the process here of making decisions today to spend a vast amount of money not just in the next 10 years--and we do have estimates of what that would cost--but in the out-years. Those out-years, we know from information that has been delivered to us, that it will be a bow wave--to use the military term--of extraordinary dollars, well into the hundreds of billions of dollars that would be spent in the out-years beyond the 10 years. We need to know today because that will bite into the money that we have available for all of the other things that we must do for our national defense. Mr. Chairman, I would ask for an ``aye'' vote on this commonsense amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Chairman, we have a serious case of legislative amnesia here. Apparently, the sponsors of this bill and those who are speaking in support of it have totally forgotten what we did last year. The WIIN Act last year addressed every single problem that has been presented here this afternoon: new reservoirs, four were authorized in the WIIN Act, which became law less than a year ago--7 months, to be exact; all of the issues of the outflows of water to the delta were addressed so that additional export of water from the delta could occur. I am wondering: What are we doing here with this piece of legislation, aside from totally eviscerating the protections for the largest estuary on the West Coast, of the Western Hemisphere? The environmental protections are eviscerated. What are we doing with this legislation besides--oh, you wanted to talk about private water rights? Those private water rights are set in place by the laws of the State of California, which are overridden by this piece of legislation. Yes, that is true. This legislation removes the water rights that the State of California has given to individuals as well as irrigation districts, but they are stripped away. What is this all about? Last year, a 2-year effort was completed and the WIIN Act was passed by this Congress, signed into law. It is in existence. Reservoirs can be built. Water conservation will take place. All of the things that we need to do are in place today. So why are we fighting this fight? Because we don't know how to stop fighting? Because we don't know how to actually implement a law that we passed last year? And, by the way, where is the funding for all you want to do here? There is no money in this. You want to do these things. You want water; you want reservoirs--put up the money. Don't just sit here and regurgitate what we have done for the last 5 years and totally ignore the progress that was made with the WIIN legislation. We ought not do this. I am opposed to this, and, hopefully, we will find some sensible action.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I look forward to this hour, although I will probably take something less than that. I want to bring to the attention of the House and, more beyond that, the citizens of the United States what is happening here with all this talk about the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. I want to spend some time on that issue. I want to review exactly what the Affordable Care Act has done for Americans and what the repeal would do to Americans. Those are really two different ways to look at this. I want to start someplace else that has been a very special part of my thinking about government issues, about policies of all kinds, and it was something that Franklin Delano Roosevelt said during the height of the Depression as the American government and Mr. Roosevelt were talking about the various policies that were being discussed at the time. He laid out a test to which he would apply his judgment of a policy. It reads this way: ``The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is rather we provide enough for those who have too little.'' I see this as a profound and extremely important criteria upon which to judge many policies that come before us in bills, but it is also, I think, an extremely valuable way to judge the question of the Affordable Care Act: Has it added much to those who have little? I will try to answer that in a few moments. Similarly, in looking at the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, the test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much. When we consider the repeal of the Affordable Care Act--ObamaCare--does it add to those who have much? Does it add to those who have little? I will try to answer these questions in just a few moments. So does the Affordable Care Act add much to those who have little? The answer is: Categorically, it does. There is absolutely no doubt that the Affordable Care Act has helped those who have little. I will give a couple of examples. Just a couple. One, a beauty salon operator in Sacramento, California, around the age of 30, married, wanting to have children but not able to do so because she had no insurance. A small-business operator, herself, maybe one part-time employee, unable to get insurance prior to the Affordable Care Act. My wife visited her after the Affordable Care Act went into place, and she was able to purchase private insurance through the subsidized market, and she happily, excitedly told my wife: And now my husband and I, we are going to have a baby. At last I have the insurance. And I want you to tell your husband ``thank you.'' That thanks is not to me. It is to the men and women of the Congress in 2010, myself included, and the Senate, and President Obama that signed the Affordable Care Act that set up a situation in which, through the California exchange, similar to other State exchanges, she was able to purchase insurance. Subsidized to be sure, but nonetheless, she was on her way to having a baby, or at least thinking about having a baby. I will come back to her in a few moments. A second person, small family farmer in my district unable to have insurance throughout her entire adult life. In and out of hospitals for everything from an accident on the farm to some more serious things. Facing bankruptcy. The Affordable Care Act gave her the opportunity to have insurance, to stabilize her life, her healthcare, and, importantly, be able to avoid the financial disaster of a major medical bill that would have clearly bankrupted her and put her out on the street. That is what the Affordable Care Act did to two constituents in my district. And that story is repeated over 20 million times around this Nation. More than 20 million Americans have been able to get health insurance as a result of Affordable Care Act. And 6.1 million young Americans have been able to stay on their parents' insurance policies, not thrown off at the age of 18, but able to stay on until the age of 25. And 27 percent of Americans who have preexisting conditions--27 percent of us have some sort of preexisting condition--no longer a bar to being able to get insurance. I was the insurance commissioner in California for 8 years, and I saw the forms that the insurance companies would require be filled out. Everything in their life from the moment of their birth--in fact, before their birth, they needed to disclose every single event. Did you have pneumonia? Did you have an illness of this or that? All the way down the line. And if you answered ``yes'' to any one of those, you would probably not be able to get insurance. And 27 percent of the American public unable to buy insurance because of preexisting conditions, no longer the case in America today. It is gone. That is history. This is my experience. Thousands of times I saw this. If a person went through that entire checklist and there was some inaccuracy in the way they answered those questions and they went to the hospital with a serious illness that was supposed to be covered, it was common for the insurance companies to go back and do medical underwriting after the event and deny the coverage. Common practice. Something as mundane as: I did not have mumps when I was a child. Check, check, check. Oh, you had mumps? I am sorry, we are not going to pay for this operation. Those days are gone. The Affordable Care Act did that. In my own State of California, 3.7 million Californians are now insured due to the Medicaid expansion program, which we call Medi-Cal in California. And 1.4 million people now have insurance through the exchange. The two examples I gave are but two of 1.4 million Californians that have insurance. So it works. And it is not just that. There are other things. Seniors, the infamous doughnut hole in which, under Medicare part D, the first couple of thousand dollars of drug expenses would be covered. And then serious illnesses, you blow through that quickly, and then you faced the doughnut hole, and it was out of your pocket. So you found seniors all across this country unable to afford the continuation of the drugs that kept them alive. It is gone--or will soon be gone. The Affordable Care Act collapses that doughnut hole so that in another 1\1/2\ years, 2 years from now it would be gone and the Medicare part D would provide the drugs that are necessary to keep seniors alive. The repeal of the Affordable Care Act would end that and send those seniors back where they were before, facing the ominous doughnut hole. It goes on and on. Medicaid expansion, 20 million Americans covered; 3.7 million in California. The drop in insurance rates. Due to the Affordable Care Act, the uninsured rate is now the lowest in history. Consider this: 16 percent of Americans in 2010, before the Affordable Care Act, did not have insurance--16 percent of the 380 million of us. Today, it is down to just about 8 percent--excuse me, that is in 2016. There has been continued improvements since then, 8 percent. That is where those 22 million Americans are. So we have seen this over time. As a result of the Affordable Care Act, the uninsured in America have steadily decreased as the Affordable Care Act has taken hold. Hospital-acquired infections significantly reduced. Under the Affordable Care Act, unnecessary hospital readmissions due to infections, have fallen for the first time on record, dropping 8 percent between 2010 and 2015. Why has this happened, you ask? Because in the Affordable Care Act, there was a serious financial penalty to hospitals when there was a readmission as a result of a hospital- acquired infection. Is that important? It certainly is, for those who are not readmitted for infections. The annual lifetime benefits, you have heard about this. You know somebody in your family, in your community, who had a limit on their insurance policy, $100,000 a year, or maybe a lifetime exclusion or limit of $200,000, or $300,000, or some number. If you have a serious illness, you blow right up through that barrier, and your coverage, it is on your account. Hospital coverage and expenses are no longer covered by the insurance policy. That is gone. It is over. It doesn't exist any longer in the United States. So the end to annual and lifetime limits is a direct result of the Affordable Care Act. Slower premium growth and a cap on out-of-pocket expenses. Due to the Affordable Care Act, all health policies now have a limit on out-of- pocket costs, which benefits all Americans. Free preventative care. Have you talked to any seniors recently? If you are on Medicare, you have an annual free checkup. What does that mean? It means that your high blood pressure that you didn't know about, your onset for diabetes and other illnesses, you find out about it, deal with it, live longer, reduce the costs. In part, that is the reason that we have now seen that the Medicare viability, the financial viability of Medicare has been extended by nearly a decade as a result of the Affordable Care Act and the kind of policies that were built in it--for example, free preventative care. I have already talked about young adults being able to stay, and that is 2.3 million young adults. Lives saved from reductions in hospital-acquired conditions. Eighty- seven thousand Americans are alive today because of better healthcare in the hospitals. Public satisfaction. Eighty-two percent of the consumers in the marketplace plans or newly insured under Medicare due to the ACA, the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare, have expressed satisfaction with their coverages. Tax credits. Seven in 10 consumers in the marketplace got coverage through their tax credits. I already talked about preexisting conditions. Mental health and maternity care. Family values, well, we hear that all the time here on the floor. Family values, this is a family value. This is a family value, yes. And the Affordable Care Act is a family value because maternity coverage is guaranteed. The most basic element of family, babies are now covered. Maternity care is now guaranteed coverage under the Affordable Care Act. And from the moment that baby is born, through their life under the Affordable Care Act, they have a guaranteed coverage, regardless of any illness that they may have at birth. I can give you story after story that I found when I was an insurance commissioner in California. The family had coverage. The family actually had maternity coverage. The baby is born with a serious defect of some sort. There was no coverage for that baby because of a preexisting condition from the very moment of birth. That is not the case any longer in America as a result of the Affordable Care Act. We can go on and on, and probably we ought to. We have heard a lot. I am just going to keep this up here to remind all of us about a test of what good public policy can and should be. There has been a lot of talk now about the collapse of the insurance market. We have heard the President talk about the collapse of the insurance market. Any time he brings up the issue of the repeal of ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act, he always prefaces it or follows his comments with: The insurance market is imploding. It is collapsing. We have heard that discussion here on the floor from the leaders of the majority party. The Affordable Care Act is collapsing. The insurance markets are collapsing. Oh, my, my. Interesting. Let's see, this is the 10th of July. A report was issued by The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation--not a liberal organization, not a conservative organization, but one of the best-known research organizations on healthcare in America. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation issued a report on July 10, 2017, by Cynthia Cox and Larry Levitt. I won't read it all to you, but I will read the discussion point. Early results from 2017 suggest the individual market is stabilizing and insurers in this market are regaining profitability. Insurance financial results show no signs of a market collapse. Hello. Anybody listening? Early results from 2017 suggest the individual market is stabilizing and insurers in this market are regaining profitability. Insurer financial results show no sign of market collapse. First quarter premium and claims data from 2017. First quarter premium and claims data--this is from the insurance companies--from 2017 support the notion that 2017 premium increases were necessary as a one-time market correction to adjust for a sicker than expected risk pool. Although individual market enrollees appear, on average, to be sicker than the market pre-ACA, data on hospitalization in this market suggests that the risk pool is stable, on average, and not getting progressively sicker, as of early 2017. Some insurers have exited the market in recent years, but others have successfully expanded their footprints, as would be expected in a competitive market. Now the caveats. While the market, on average, is stabilizing, there remain some areas of the country that are more fragile. In addition-- and here is the important point for any policymaker in Washington, D.C., from the President to the rest of us. In addition, policy uncertainty has the potential to destabilize the individual market generally. Mixed signals from the administration and Congress as to whether cost-sharing subsidies under the Affordable Care Act and cost-sharing reduction payments will continue, or whether the individual mandate will be enforced, have led some insurers to leave the market or request larger premium increases than they would otherwise. Few parts of the country may now be at risk of having no insurers. If you don't mind, I would like to go back over that again. Mixed signals from the administration--hello, President Trump and Congress. Hello, my colleagues--who have voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, mixed signals from the administration and Congress as to whether cost-sharing subsidy payments will continue, or whether the individual mandate will be enforced, have led some insurers to leave the market or request larger premium increases than they would otherwise. So who is responsible for the collapse? Well, we can do some finger- pointing, but then I would be admonishing--Mr. Speaker, I should do some finger-pointing, but I am not going to do it right now. I am going to go back here. ``The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much.'' Okay. Let's look at the repeal. Let's judge the repeal based on that criteria. Maybe you don't believe Franklin Delano Roosevelt was correct, but maybe we ought to just see what we are talking about here. The repeal of the Affordable Care Act, the legislation that passed this House, the tax provisions in the Affordable Care Act, it is somewhere north of a $700 billion to $800 billion reduction in taxes. That is a lot of tax reduction. That was in the legislation. I have argued repeatedly here on the floor and other places that it is the largest single transfer of wealth from the poor and the middle class to the super wealthy. That argument is factual because, what are the benefits? Who wins in the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, the poor, or the 22 million to 24 million people who will lose their insurance as a result of the repeal of the Affordable Care Act? That was in the House bill. In the Senate bill, they are talking about similar numbers, 23 million, 24 million, 25 million people. That is a lot of Americans who are going to lose their insurance and are going to be personally, physically harmed as a result of the repeal. So who benefits? The other side of this piece of legislation is one of the largest tax reductions ever--not for the poor, small for the middle class, but oh, my, for the wealthy, the top 1 percent of Americans--excuse me--the top one-tenth of 1 percent of Americans would have their taxes cut, on average, by $197,490 per year. That is the top one-tenth of 1 percent. How about the top 100 wealthy families in America, five of whom are in this administration, the super wealthy, what does it mean to them? $4 million to $6 million a year reduction, on average, in their taxes. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much. Need I stand here on the floor for hours driving home the point that the repeal of the Affordable Care Act is more than a taking away of healthcare benefits in which, if we were to believe the Senate and the Senate bill were to become law, 18 million Americans next year would lose their health insurance, and then beyond, another 5 million Americans in the years ahead. It is a test of our progress. It is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. It is pretty easy, a pretty easy criteria when applied against the repeal. Are we providing anything for them? No, you are taking away their healthcare, their health insurance, and, undoubtedly, their health and their lives. It doesn't meet this test at all. On the tax side, oh, my, the bottom 80 percent of taxpayers in this Nation would receive the awesome, extraordinary benefit of a reduction of $160 a year in their taxes. That is what our Republicans have offered us with the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Eighty percent of American taxpayers would receive the awesome, extraordinary benefit of a $160 annual reduction in their taxes, while the superwealthy, the top 100 families, a $4 million to $6 million annual reduction, and the top one-tenth of 1 percent of Americans--wealthy--would receive a $197,490 reduction, on average. Mr. Roosevelt, President Roosevelt, laid out a clear criteria. So where are we? Where are we? We have the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation report yesterday. The insurance market is not collapsing, and where it is is the result of what this administration and Congress are doing. They are destabilizing the market. That is what is happening. That is why these insurers are leaving certain communities and certain States because they simply do not know what is going to happen. Insurance companies have to plan now--actually, a month or two ago-- for the insurance policy that they will be selling in the fall and in the early winter, October, November, December, for the next year, the 2018 year. And they do not know because of what this Congress is doing; they don't know how to price, and therefore market instability is the result. There is more to it than that. Under the law today, the Federal Government is supposed to be providing money for the exchanges. That money has been withheld under this administration in numerous ways, actively and proactively taking steps to undermine the insurance market so, presumably, they can say: ``Oh, my, it is collapsing.'' Well, if it is, it is the President's fault, and it is the fault of this Congress in passing such legislation. Now, I hear a lot of talk, and it is correct, a lot of discussion about what we can do together. Let's not fight. Let's work together. Let's improve the Affordable Care Act. We ought to, and we can. There are many ways it can be done. So what can we do? Well, we could immediately end the efforts to destabilize the market. That would be a good start, wouldn't it? All that takes is an end to this effort to repeal and, rather, to do what the President asked us to do, and that is to work together as he drives forward policies that destabilize the market as he continually talks about repeal. But he also says, ``Let's work together.'' I agree with him. Let's work together. I ask the President to please stop his efforts to destabilize the market. So what can we do? How about if we allow the Federal Government to negotiate the price of drugs? We can't do it now, but what if we did? Would that help stabilize the market? It would certainly help reduce the cost. That is not a bad idea. So idea one. Let's allow the Federal and State governments to negotiate the price of prescription drugs and allow individuals to buy certain medications in Canada, for example, which they cannot, now, legally do. We might think about expanding programs that are proven to enhance quality and reduce costs, such as streamlining care coordination. Coordinate the care and medical services that an individual has, particularly for those with chronic conditions, where most of the healthcare dollars are spent. It has been proven. There are programs out there, pilot programs, and some are more permanent, that allow for coordination of benefits--that is, services-- for those who have chronic illnesses. Part of that is found in the current Affordable Care Act. It is being done. It needs to be expanded. And we can dramatically improve the care and the health of individuals by coordinating their care, making sure, for example, that people with diabetes are able to get the drugs, get the treatment, work on their healthcare, work on the food they eat, and work on exercises, coordinate all of that. If you want to drive down the cost of healthcare, take the six chronic illnesses and coordinate the care. Keep people healthy. Keep them out of the hospital by being healthy. We can do that. We do, but not everywhere. Allow States greater flexibility in administering the Medicaid program. Our Republican colleagues talk about this. We should do it. I am in favor of it. I know from my experience as insurance commissioner in California that there are many things that can be done by the States as they deal with the peculiar and individual circumstances of the citizens of their State in altering the Medicaid program so that it can meet the needs of the State. Let's do it, but not with the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and stripping out of the program billions upon billions of dollars so there really is no money to do anything. That is flexibility in the Medicaid program. We have a national health insurance exchange program. It is there, but it has been reined in. It has not been allowed to grow as it could by the actions of Congress. Since the Republicans took control of Congress, they have withheld, they have reined in, the national health insurance exchange program. This is in States that refused to establish their own exchanges. Individuals can then go to the national exchange. But they don't even know it is there because the advertising for the national exchange has been eliminated. So we can do that. It is pretty simple. Hey, folks across America, you don't have a State exchange? You can come to the national exchange. You haven't heard about it? I am not surprised because there is no advertising. There is no knowledge available to individuals. It is a pretty simple thing we can do. As that exchange grows, we begin to spread the risk across a wider population. In the early version of the Affordable Care Act here in the House of Representatives, we passed and I voted for what was known as the public option, a national public insurance option. The Senate removed it-- mostly Republicans, but some Democrats didn't think that was a good idea. I thought it was a good idea in 2009 when the issue came before us because I saw an advantage in a national insurance program. So there are five things that we can do right there, and there are many, many more. When the repeal of the Affordable Care Act passed through this House on the floor, my Democratic colleagues offered 22 amendments to improve the Affordable Care Act, to improve ObamaCare. They were all rejected. So much for working together. But let me make a baseline statement: Don't repeal the Affordable Care Act; improve the Affordable Care Act. If you are determined to repeal the Affordable Care Act, there is not much we can work with. That is why I took the time to talk about the Americans that are now covered, the seniors that now have drug coverages, the end of discrimination based upon preexisting conditions. That is why I talked about those things. In a repeal--and the President called for a flat-out repeal--that is gone. It is gone. If you want to do that, don't count on me. I won't be there. But if you want to take the Affordable Care Act and if you want to deal with the problems that we know are there, then let's work together. I just laid out five things. There are 17 more that have been suggested by my Democratic colleagues. We can improve the well-being of Americans. We can help those people. As for my wife's hairdresser, I don't know if she is going to get pregnant because she doesn't know if she is going to continue to have coverage. For that farmer, that woman who is running her own family farm, she doesn't know either. There are 23 million Americans who are in that position--23, and quite possibly more--who don't know if a year from now, 2 years from now, they will have health insurance. So, President Roosevelt: ``The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.'' I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Tej Maan, an upstanding citizen and Councilmember in my district. Mr. Maan has been the Director of Environmental Health in Yuba County since 1998, where he has created vital safeguards to protect the environmental health and wellbeing of the Yuba County community. Additionally, Mr. Maan is a member of the Punjabi American Heritage Society, the California Conference of Directors of Environmental Health, and the Yuba City Chamber of Commerce. He is the host of a local television show called ``Punjabi Waves,'' which features discussions and in-depth interviews on current events and issues in the Punjabi community. Mr. Maan is also the founder of the first Sikh School in the United States, which is located in Yuba City, California. Tej's love for America and selfless dedication to his community have made him a well- respected and treasured member of the Yuba City region. I offer my utmost appreciation and gratitude for Tej Maan's many contributions to society.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Tej Maan, an upstanding citizen and council member in my district. Mr. Maan has been the director of environmental health in Yuba County since 1998, where he has created vital safeguards to protect the environmental health and well-being of the Yuba County community. Additionally, Mr. Maan is a member of the Punjabi American Heritage Society, the California Conference of Directors of Environmental Health, and the Yuba City Chamber of Commerce. He is the host of a local television show called ``Punjabi Waves,'' which features discussions and in-depth interviews on current events and issues in the Punjabi community. Mr. Maan is also the founder of the first Sikh school in the United States, which is located in Yuba City. Tej's love for America and his selfless dedication to his community have made him a well-respected and treasured member of the Yuba City region. I offer my utmost appreciation and gratitude for Tej Maan's many contributions to society.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, H.R. 1726 is a noncontroversial bill to reorganize the Coast Guard's permanent authorities under title 14 of the U.S. Code in order to improve the clarity and the coherence of the title. I would like to thank my assistant, and counsel, Dave Jansen, and John Rayfield, on the other side, for recognizing that there is confusion, and so this legislation, while it makes no substantive changes to the Coast Guard's existing authorities and policies under title 14, does save for some conforming changes to create a new chapter for all of the Coast Guard national advisory councils and execute a handful of other minor transfers. It just simply ends a lot of confusion as people try to figure out where it is in the code that they must look. Accordingly, I am comfortable with supporting this legislation, although I do note that it will impose some additional administrative costs on the Coast Guard as they set about implementing it. I want to commend the chairman, Mr. Hunter, for the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee, for his initiative and for his staff's initiative, in taking on this important little bit of housekeeping that is going to make all of our lives easier. I will certainly urge all of the Members to support it. I also appreciate Chairman Hunter's work with me in an effort to try to solve another problem. This is only one piece of our effort to try to improve the maritime industry. While we are trying to move H.R. 1726 today, we have more work to do. And to that end, I look forward to working with Chairman Hunter on bringing H.R. 2593 to the floor before the August recess, together with the full committee chairman, Bill Shuster; and ranking Democrat, Peter DeFazio. H.R. 2593 deals with the Federal Maritime Commission Authorization Act of 2017. This legislation would update and strengthen the Shipping Act to address the current upheaval in the global shipping markets that affect U.S. foreign trade. The formation of three large ocean carrier alliances has raised legitimate concerns among U.S. port service providers, maritime terminal operators, and tug operators. By virtue of the sheer size and volume of trade that these alliances carry, they will have a decided advantage in determining ports of call, negotiating contracts, and shifting costs, all at the expense, possibly, of our domestic port service providers. I know Chairman Hunter shares my concerns, and neither of us are indifferent. We are going to have to deal with this, and that will be our next piece of legislation on the floor. The chairman is on top of it with his staff, and we look forward to that bill, H.R. 2593, being reported out of the Transportation Committee as it clarifies the Federal Maritime Commission's authority to oversee and aggressively deal with competition. So what we have today is one of two pieces of legislation that we intend to move forward dealing with the overall well-being of the maritime industry. I highly recommend H.R. 1726 to the floor. It is noncontroversial and should pass. The other piece of legislation will be here shortly, and we will take that up at that time. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in memory of Mayor Steve Hardy, a beloved member of the Vacaville community, who passed away this May. Mr. Hardy was born in San Francisco, and served six years in the Navy from 1960 to 1966 as a radar operator on a destroyer. He then returned home and worked as a San Francisco police officer for five years before leaving that position to become a public policy specialist in Sacramento. He served as the Staff Director for the California State Senate Committee on Governmental Organization for 19 years. From 1980 to 1985, Mr. Hardy was an advocate for the California State Employees Association, the union of California's state workers. Mr. Hardy served as Chairman of the Solano County Drug Abuse Advisory Council in 1978 and 1979, and as a member of the Vacaville Human Services Commission from 1977 through 1979. He also served as a Vacaville Unified School Board Member from 1987 through 1991 where, among other positions, he served as its President. Mr. Hardy was elected to the Vacaville City Council in 2002, where he served two terms. In 2007 he was appointed director of the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control by then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, which led to his stepping down as a city council member. He was elected Mayor of Vacaville in 2010 and served one term. Mayor Hardy was an excellent representative for the Vacaville community. He helped lead the city through the Great Recession, improve local surface transportation, and was always able to take a principled approach to the most critical challenges and decisions the Council faced. Steve Hardy's loss leaves a major void in the community. Mr. Hardy's wife of 46 years, Jerri Hardy, passed away in March 2012. He is survived by a son, Stephen; and a daughter, Shannon. The Vacaville community mourns Steve's passing and remembers his selfless commitment to the community.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the memory of Mayor Steve Hardy of Vacaville, California, a man who dedicated his life to service, first in the U.S. Navy for 5 years, then as a policeman, and later in the California State Senate, where I had the privilege of working with him when he was the staff director of the Governmental Organization Committee. During his tenure as mayor, he led the city through a very difficult period--the Great Recession--revising the city's finances, bringing it back to vitality, and also continuing the role of Vacaville as one of the major cities in my district. It was a great pleasure working with him during those years. His marriage of 46 years to his wife, Jerri, is a testament not only to his service to the community, but also to his family. He is survived by his children. I look forward to his memory and to the future of Vacaville.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues who, for the last hour, have talked about an extremely important part of America's social fabric: the Scouting programs of America. I thank them for bringing to Congress and to the American people the importance of Scouting at all levels. And for those of us who have achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, much was discussed. Equally important are the men that enter and only spend a couple of weeks and do not pass beyond the Tenderfoot level because they, too, have achieved, at least in part, the opportunities that Scouting presents. I will talk about that more in the future, and I will look forward to that discussion. In the meantime, let's see if we can now talk about other things that are before Congress and the American public. Mr. Speaker, almost unnoticed as a result of all of the issues--all of the controversies surrounding the President here in the United States, the controversies of Russia and Russia's involvement in the election, the firing of Comey and the investigations now conducted by a new special counsel, and, of course, the President's foreign travels, with all of that, we have basically not heard much about another extremely important and quite possibly a much longer lasting thing that has happened. Today the President presented his budget. A budget presented by the President is often just waved aside by the Congress and considered to be dead on arrival, and surely this one should be. But I want to back up for a moment and I want us all to ponder exactly what it is that the President has proposed. Because, you see, the budget, whether it is a Democratic budget or a Republican budget, an Obama budget or a Trump budget or a George H.W. Bush budget, those budgets are a statement of priorities. They are a statement of the value, the values that is what it is that the President thinks is important and how that fits into the American society. We need to really understand and value the statement that the President, President Trump, has made in presenting to us his priorities. We ought not just wave it aside and say it is of no consequence because, after all, we are going to rewrite it and we are going to write our own, which is the tradition. However, it would be a gross mistake not to analyze what it is that the President of the United States of America, the strongest, the wealthiest country in the world, has proposed. Take a careful look, America. Don't just brush it aside. This is what the President wants. This is what he wants us to be. This is his vision of America. I must tell you, it is awful--not my words only, but the words of many Republican leaders, of, obviously, the Democrats. Take a look, America, at what it is he is proposing. I am going to run through some of this because we need to understand, Members of Congress, we Americans need to understand what it is that this President wants us to be, what it is he sees as America. I am going to go through just some things very, very quickly, and then we want to go into it perhaps in a little more detail. Medicaid is a program that has been in existence for some 60-plus years. It is a program that provides healthcare to the poor. It is a program that provides care to seniors. It is a program that is relied upon all across this country by families so that the children and adults can get medical care. The President has proposed, in his budget, a $610 billion reduction in Medicare on top of, in addition to, an $800 billion cut in what we know now as Trump and RyanCare, the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. A $1.5 trillion reduction in medical services to the poor. And they are not all kids. They are not all families. More than half of that money goes to seniors in nursing homes. This is the vision of the President of the United States: $1.5 trillion reduction in medical services over the next 10 years to working men and women just above the poverty level, to seniors who are in nursing homes, and to women and children who are below the poverty level. This is his vision of healthcare in America. And that is not all. That is not the end of the story. In the 1990s, we knew that children not covered by Medicaid or, in California, Medi-Cal were not getting medical services; and so the American people, through their representatives in Congress and the Senate, created what we now know as the Children's Health Insurance Program, CHIP--Children's Health Insurance Program. And so what is the vision? What is the value? What is the moral purpose of our President? He would cut $3.2 billion out of that program and effectively deny medical services for the 6 million children that are currently covered by the Children's Health Insurance Program. For the aged, blind, and disabled--the aged, blind, and disabled Americans--that receive supplemental Social Security programs, $64 billion would be cut from those aged, blind, and disabled who receive supplemental Social Security insurance. Students? How many times on this floor of the House of Representatives have we heard Democrats and Republicans talk about the terrible problem of student loans, the huge cost of providing educational services? So what is in this budget? Student loans, financial aid, and repayment, $143 billion reduction. How does that help our educational program? How does that help students who are suffering under the cost of higher education? I don't know what the answer is except it does not. For men and women who are working at minimum wage or below minimum wage across the United States, there is a program that was established by Richard Nixon called the earned income tax credit to encourage people to work. Men and women that are out there working but at a low wage, minimum wage, the earned income tax credit was established to lift them up to a liveable amount of money and encourage them to continue to work. What does the President propose? Well, let's cut, by $40 billion, the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit. It goes on and on. This is President Trump's statement of what he values in America. I think it is immoral. I think it is terrible public policy, and, when coupled with the rest of the story, it becomes an abomination. The rest of the story, the rest of the story is the most massive tax cut ever for the wealthy in the United States. You take that tax cut that has been proposed in the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare, and you couple it with the tax cuts that are embedded in the President's budget, and we are talking somewhere north of $3.5 trillion tax cuts, 80 percent of which goes to the top 20 percent of America's income earners. All the discussion last year about income inequality from President Trump, from Hillary Clinton, from everybody else about income inequality and the problem it presents to America was somehow forgotten. Because, when you take the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which some call the American Health Care Act now, and you couple it with this budget, the tax cuts that are embedded in both of them amount to the largest transfer of wealth ever in tax policy from the poor, from the working Americans, to the top earners in America, to the superwealthy. If you are concerned about income inequality, this is exactly backwards. It is from the working men and women, the middle class of America and the poor to the wealthy. That is exactly what is happening here. Is that a rational vision of America? Is this a sense of value of what America is all about: more for the wealthy, less for the working men and women, the middle class, for the families that presumably-- presumably--were at the heart of last year's election? Yes, we heard Mr. Trump and we heard Ms. Clinton go around the Nation talking about how we need to raise up the middle class, how we need to deal with this income inequality, what a problem it was for our society and our economy, months and months of political rhetoric. And now we see what is actually--actually--taking place: the greatest transfer of wealth from the middle class and the poor to the wealthy that has ever been found in any piece of legislation proposed. God help us if it is enacted. Watch carefully, America. This budget, the repeal of the Affordable Care Act together with the proposed tax cuts, will devastate, seriously harm, personal lives in America by taking away their health insurance, by taking away their money that they depend upon to pay their rent, to put food on the table, to care for their children. This is not the America that I want to see, and I don't think this is the America that the American public voted for. Whether they were a Democrat or a Republican, whether they voted for Trump or Hillary, they did not envision an America that would take $1.5 trillion out of the Medicaid program, of which 50 percent of that money goes to seniors in nursing homes. I don't think that is what they had in mind when they voted last November. That is not what they were promised. That is not what either of the two candidates promised. They promised to deal with this income inequality issue. They promised, both of them, to provide more healthcare, not less. That is just on this one side of it. Neither promised massive tax cuts for the superwealthy. In fact, both railed against the way in which we have seen those at the top of the heap benefit while the rest were stagnated. Both candidates did that. And yet the proposal that has been put before this Congress in the last 127 days has been quite the opposite. The repeal of the Affordable Care Act, ripping away healthcare benefits for 24 million Americans, and now on top of it, this budget proposal that the President has given to us. I want to take just another moment because this one ought to be close to every American. In the President's budget proposal, there is a $7 billion reduction for research in the National Institutes of Health. What does the National Institutes of Health do? It does research. It does research on disease. Over the years, Democrats, Republicans, both sides of the aisle have put forth proposals to advance and increase the research in healthcare. And the result? The result of that is this. I have used this many times on the floor. As I looked at the President's proposal to cut $7 billion out of the National Institutes of Health, I thought we ought to come back to this. Deaths from major diseases over the years. Because we have invested in research, we have seen breast cancer deaths decline by 2 percent, prostate cancer decline by 11 percent, heart disease decline by 14 percent, stroke by 23 percent, HIV/AIDS by 52 percent. That is what happens when you invest in research. That is what happens when we take the taxpayer money and we put it into research on healthcare and medical issues. Today, the National Institutes of Health has $5 billion of valuable research projects that cannot be funded, research projects on all of these. Instead of adding an additional $5 billion, the President proposes to give that $5 billion to the wealthiest of Americans. The top 40 families in America, under his proposals, would receive a $7 million reduction in their taxes. And I daresay that four or five of those families are either the President's family or in the Cabinet. This purple line here, this one, over the last year, we have increased the funding for Alzheimer's from just over $500 million to just under $1 billion. This one is out of control. Every family in America is experiencing the effects of dementia and Alzheimer's. My family. My mother-in-law spent her last 3 years in our home and died of Alzheimer's. It is not unusual. In fact, it is common. Incidentally, cancer is some $6 billion a year for research; heart disease, $5 billion; HIV/AIDS, about $3 billion; Alzheimer's about $900 million. We know that if we were to spend the money, we could delay the onset, dramatically improve the lives not only of the individuals but of the families. So what does the President propose? Not adding $5 billion for research that we know would provide benefits, extend the lives of Americans. He proposed to cut by $7 billion. Is this a statement of his values, of what he thinks is important, of his morality, of his administration? On the floor of the House, in the cloakrooms, what is argued and often said is that each and every bill that passes here, each and every proposal that we introduce, is a statement of our own personal sense of morality of what is right and what is wrong, of values. Today, I looked at the Hill papers, what we fondly call the Hill rags, three of them. The top story is not the President's budget. The top story is the President's scandals. But I will tell you this: This budget is the real story because this is going to live on. This is what we will be fighting about. All the issues of the scandal in Russia and everything else will be dealt with by others and some of our committees, but this is what is going to affect the American public in their homes, in their lives, in their healthcare, in their education, and in their jobs. The President proposed a budget, and it is a reflection of what he believes to be important. That is a scandal. I can go on and on here, and I suppose I promised some that I wouldn't. There is much that we can do. There is much that we need to do. We have great needs in the United States. We need an infrastructure program. We need a healthcare system that provides benefits to all in which the costs are controlled. We have a military and we have national security, and we will debate these things, but I cannot let a day go by without contemplating what it is that the President has proposed to America. Not to us but to America. And it is not good. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, this is Infrastructure Week. Infrastructure. Can you imagine Congress actually talking about building things that America needs, like roads, high-speed internet, and maybe a few ports and ships and high-speed trains from here to there? It is Infrastructure Week. Mr. President, you promised us a trillion- dollar infrastructure bill; however, you seem to be occupied on a few other things. So we will be understanding and just kind of take up the issue here and talk about it and see if we can move this issue forward since we really haven't heard from the administration on your trillion- dollar program. Let's talk about some of the elements of it today. I am going to start with a really old placard that we have used now for 7 years. We call this the Make It In America agenda, and it has been something that Mr. Hoyer of Maryland and I and many others on the Democratic side of the aisle have been talking about for some time. We talk about trade; tax policy; energy policy; and labor issues, such as the Davis-Bacon Act that guarantees that we are not going to have a rush to the bottom, but that we are going to hold up the working men and women that are making things in America, like roads and bridges; education; research; and not at the bottom, but always important, infrastructure. So today we talk about infrastructure. As we do so, I want us to always keep in mind that infrastructure offers an incredible opportunity for America to do more than just lay down concrete, more than just putting asphalt on a road or a pipe in the ground. Infrastructure offers an opportunity for us to rebuild the American manufacturing sector. There are many different ways we can do that. For example, if we are going to build locomotives for the eastern corridor of the Amtrak system here in the United States, new electric locomotives. Way back when, some of us do remember the Great Recession and the effort of this Congress--then controlled by the Democrats--to jump-start, to rebuild the American economy. In what was the stimulus legislation there was a piece of it that called for, I think, $700 million or $800 million for about 80 new electric locomotives for Amtrak. Some brilliant staffer wrote into it: 100 percent American made. Guess what. Siemens, a German company, said, Oh, a $700 million, $800 million contract to make a bunch of locomotives; we can do that. So, in Sacramento, California, they expanded their little trolly plant and made it into a locomotive plant. They have now built all of those 100 percent American made. So when we talk about infrastructure--in this case, the Amtrak system--it can be made in America. Manufacturing matters. To get down to the details here of what infrastructure is all about, international trade is critical to the American economy. Unfortunately, we are running a trade deficit. All of that trade--about 90 percent of it, actually--comes through the ports of America. So when you talk about infrastructure, you have got to talk about the ports. Harbor maintenance is a particular program that has been in existence for a long time. It is a tax on every cargo container that arrives in the United States in ports and is basically used for dredging. My colleague and I, who will joining me in a few moments from the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, made a little change here. We said that money can't just go for the support of the Treasury and the deficit, but, rather, it must be used on harbor maintenance. We expanded the definition of harbor maintenance to include on the wharf and related issues. But when we talk about infrastructure, much of that infrastructure will start at the great ports on the West Coast up in Seattle and the Puget Sound and San Francisco Bay. Don't let me forget about Oregon. They have got some great ports in Oregon. Then, of course, the busiest port in America--well, probably among the busiest ports--L.A.-Long Beach Port in California. Infrastructure. Are the American ports ready for tomorrow's international commerce? The answer is: Not really. The Panama Canal has been expanded and now we have ships called Panamax ships and super Panamax ships, all of which require that our ports be upgraded. The channel has deepened. The wharf has expanded. The number of containers that can be handled at any one time increased. So you have got the channel deepening, wharves that need to be made, docks, the rest, and all of the cranes and all of the movement necessary to handle these ships that have thousands upon thousands of containers, all of which have to be unloaded quickly. I want to begin with the infrastructure issue at the ports, but there is more to it than that. It is the ships that arrive at the ports. The United States used to have a great maritime industry. At the end of World War II, there were more than 1,500 American-flagged and American-built ships. Over the years, we have seen a continuing decline in that. We had 500 about 20 years ago, and today, less than 80 ships are American-flagged. We do have the Jones Act, which is extremely important. That is for the domestic shipping. Those are American-flagged and American-built ships, but those are all domestic. The intercontinental ships--what they call the Blue Ocean Ships--are not made in America anymore, but they could be. This is where I want to take this discussion. I want to take this discussion back to another part of the infrastructure. Remember, I was talking to you about the trains, the locomotives made in America and really rebuilding the American locomotive industry in California with a German company, Siemens, building those locomotives. Now, guess what. America is not energy independent yet, but we are on our way to that. We would expect to be the third largest exporter of natural gas in the form of liquefied natural gas by 2020 and one of the world's largest exporters of crude oil by 2025. As of today, none, nada, not any of that liquefied natural gas or oil will be on American- built ships. Don't you think it ought to be the American policy that some of it should be on American-built ships with American flags and American mariners? If you care about the national security, you should care about blue water shipbuilding in the United States. There are two bills that I am introducing that go directly to this. The fundamental question is this: Will the LNG ships be made in China, Korea, Japan, or will they be made in America? American national security depends upon the U.S. Navy and the ability to build ships in the United States. Right now, the great oceangoing ships on the commercial side are not built in the United States and our shipyards are losing the trained men and women, from naval architects to welders and steamfitters, and on and on, that can build these ships. What we need to do is to reenergize the American shipbuilding industry and the infrastructure that goes with it by passing legislation that we call the Energizing American Maritime Act and energizing the American shipbuilding industry, all part of an infrastructure package that includes the ports, the docks, the trains and trucks that arrive there, multimedia, and on the water itself-- American-built ships with American sailors providing at least some of the export potential that is in the process of being achieved. Liquefied natural gas. We would expect to have more than 100 ships moving that LNG from American ports to somewhere around the world-- mostly China, Japan, India, and Europe. But right now it will be zero unless we pass a bill--16 lines of law--that say: Build it in America; make it in America, American mariners, American ships. We can do this as part of a large, trillion-dollar infrastructure package--ships on the ocean and ports in America that are capable of handling the largest ships in the world, docks that are capable of quickly unloading these ships in an efficient, effective manner, rail yards that move the goods out of the ports and into the ports for export, and the trucks that move across the highways, all of this, part of an infrastructure package, just one piece of a much larger issue. Now, joining me tonight in our little discussion is an extraordinary Representative from the great State of Connecticut who has now taken a leadership position on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee as vice ranking member, Elizabeth Esty. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, the good news is this will probably be about 15--maybe 20--minutes, but it is a subject that is very, very important to all of us. Actually, I am going to start on a slightly different subject, and that is what is wrong with this picture. A master sergeant at one of the air bases in the United States who has served for some almost 30 years, married the last 18 years to a young woman with three children. She attempted to return from deployment in the United Kingdom, had her passport removed, and she was deported to Mexico. Her children are in the United States. She served for 18 years alongside her husband as he built and maintained America's fleet of spy planes. What is wrong with this picture, America, that a wife of a servicemember who served for 18 years alongside her husband, a master sergeant, cannot come back into the United States because of an error that was made years and years ago? We are going to follow this up. When our generals talk about taking care of their troops, may I suggest they also take care of their spouses. We have got work to do here. But the subject matter for tonight is a little different, although that issue is much on my mind. Some of you may have seen this on the news a month and a half ago. That is the Oroville Dam spillway. A maintenance problem not paid attention to over the years resulted in a massive failure of the spillway and put 188,000 of my constituents and Mr. LaMalfa's constituents at risk. This is the Interstate 5 bridge in Washington State connecting the United States to Canada. It collapsed. We could put up pictures of other bridges in Minnesota, et cetera. What we are talking about tonight is infrastructure, not just about infrastructure. The President wants a trillion-dollar infrastructure program, and we await his proposal. It would be good. We would put millions of Americans to work if we were to have that infrastructure program. But there is more to it than just infrastructure. In the last 5-year transportation bill, I was successful in working with other Members here to insert into that bill that at least 70 percent of the value in our transit systems be American made. So tonight's subject matter is really about the failing infrastructure, but it is also about making it in America. This is a subject matter that, for 7 years, I have talked about on the floor here: Make It In America. Our President wants to talk about this and, in fact, recently issued an executive order that says we ought to make it in America. He instructed his administration, as few as they are, to make sure that, in every effort, the Buy American provisions be honored. That has not been the case in the past. What we need to do is make certain that we make it in America, that we spend the American taxpayer money on American-made products. Let me give you an example of what it means when you actually do that--or maybe an example of what it means when you don't do that. Now, Californians take great pride in their State. We have the Golden Gate Bridge. We have Yosemite. We have the great industries of southern California--the entertainment, the movie industries and the rest--and we have San Francisco. We also have major policy problems. Make It In America: I want to give you two different examples. The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, now completed. It is a beautiful bridge, and it replaces an old bridge that was built in the 1930s that was seriously deficient. However, it was made with a large, large input of Chinese steel. It actually came in $3.9 billion over budget, but we did provide some 3,000 jobs in China, and we allowed the Chinese steel industry to build a new steel mill to be able to produce the very high-quality steel that was supposed to be in the bridge. However, the steel that they shipped wasn't exactly high quality, the welds weren't exactly good, and we wound up seriously over budget for that as well as other reasons. So maybe Californians don't always have the position of taking pride in all that is done. This I take no pride in. This was a serious mistake by the State government, a serious mistake by the agency that ran and put this bridge into process. What would it mean if, for example, instead of trying to save 10 percent on the cost of steel, our Californian colleagues would have actually said, well, maybe those jobs should be in America and that new steel mill should be in America? Could have, should have, but it didn't happen. Now, on the other side of the continent we have New York. Now, we Californians don't much like to talk about New York but, hey, here is something to talk about. Here is something that really worked out well. It seems as though New York wanted a new bridge over the Hudson River, the new Tappan Zee Bridge in New York, and they made a decision: it was going to be built with American steel. Wow, what a noble thought. And all of that from New York, as opposed to California that said: Oh, let's go with China. So what happened? The steel arrived. The steel was quality. The bridge was built, $3.9 billion, on budget, on time, and there was some 7,700-plus American jobs. It makes a difference when you make it in America and when your tax dollars--State, local, and Federal--are spent on American-made equipment and supplies: American steel, American jobs, an American bridge. The Oakland Bay Bridge, San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge: Chinese steel, Chinese jobs, over budget, bad quality, and the story is not a good one. So the issue of the day is: Buy American. Yes, indeed, we should and we could. Let me give you an example of what happens. My Republican colleagues like to take on the bailout. They like to talk about how bad the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was. It wasn't bad. It was actually very good. It could have been better if there had been more infrastructure and more Buy American, but there is one provision in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that really made a difference. It was for the Amtrak systems. Basically, the systems here on the East Coast, the electrification. New locomotives for the East Coast corridor. Wow. Some $700 million. I think it was 80, maybe 90 new locomotives to be built. American companies looked at this and said: We don't build locomotives anymore. We certainly don't build diesel electric or all electric locomotives, so we will let this one go. Well, there is that German company called Siemens. They said: $700 million, 80 or so locomotives. We have a manufacturing plant out in Sacramento, California. We make light rail cars out there and transit cars. You say: 100 percent American made? Everything from the electric motors to the brakes, to the wheels, to the paint, 100 percent American made? The German company said: We can do that. We could make it in America. And they did. The last train has been produced. This is the first train. Don't tell me we can't make it in America. Don't tell me that our American taxpayer dollars should be spent in China, Japan, or someplace else. No. Build it in America. Buy American. And we will put thousands--in fact, tens of thousands of people to work. I want to give you another example. The American maritime industry has been in a very steep decline for the last 4 decades. Following World War II, we had over 1,500 American ships. A decade ago we had over 200 ships on the ocean. Our shipyards were making LNG tankers 20 years ago, and they were American flagged. There were American mariners on those ships. Today, we have less than 80 American flagships, and we don't make large commercial ships in the United States, except on rare occasions. The maritime industry is absolutely critical for national defense. How do you think our men, women, and equipment get to the troubled spots of the world? You don't fly the M1 tank on an airplane. You put it on a ship. You put the trucks on a ship. You put the artillery on a ship. But where are the American ships? Oh, I know. We will call China and they will deliver our goods to the South China Sea. I doubt it. I don't think so. If you are concerned about national security, you had better be thinking about the American maritime industry. Are you thinking about it? Are you thinking what is really possible if we were to write 16 lines of law this year? It has to do with the export of two strategic national resources: oil and natural gas. Now operating in Texas is an LNG--liquefied natural gas--facility exporting American natural gas. They liquefy it, put it on a ship, and off it goes to somewhere in the world like China. That is okay. It will take 100 or more LNG tank ships to meet the full export potential of that one facility when it comes fully on line. There are five other LNG export facilities licensed in the United States, one which is being built near the Washington Capital, in Maryland. Perhaps 250--225 new liquefied natural gas tank ships are going to be needed in the next decade or so. Are any of them to be built in America? No, nada, none, unless we pass a piece of legislation that we call energizing American shipbuilding. There are 16 lines of law that say it is a strategic national security issue to be able to build commercial ships in the United States. The export of an equally strategic national asset--LNG and crude oil--should be on those ships. This is not new policy. When the North Slope of Alaska opened nearly 50 years ago, it was American steel in the pipeline, it was American ships that were taking that crude oil out of Valdez, Alaska. Over the years, we kind of forgot about that and the law disappeared. Now it is not American ships and not American sailors. We can do this. The energizing American shipbuilding piece of legislation will be introduced this week. We have some 20 or more coauthors. We want to follow what our President says about: Buy American, build it in America. How many jobs are we talking about? Well over a couple hundred thousand in the shipyards. And if that bill passes as we have written it, that would require that the engines, the compressors, the pumps, the anchors, and the electronic equipment be American made also. We are talking about a whole supply train throughout most every State and businesses that are as reflective as the American manufacturing sector used to be. There is enormous potential in public policy that actually puts in place laws that build upon the strength of America, strengthening our national security, and at the same time strengthening a critical industry in America: the shipbuilding industry. And, of course, American ships will be American flagged with American mariners. This is a good thing for America. This is a very good thing for our national security. It is a very good thing for jobs. For our taxpayers, what does it mean? Well, these are commercial ships, so no direct. However, if the American shipyards are able to reconstitute their ability to build large commercial vessels, they will also be able to compete for the naval vessels and begin to give America naval construction competition in the shipyards. It is not a bad thing to have competition. That is one. Number two. For more than 3 decades we have had the School Lunch Program, which is also the School Breakfast Program, which is a critical program that provides nutritious meals to students in our schools who would not otherwise be fed. Now, there is one genius here that said: Well, hungry kids can learn. Really? I know a lot of my colleagues that can't think if they are hungry. At least that is a good reason to assume what they are actually talking about in policy. But a hungry kid will not be able to learn. They are thinking about their stomach. They are thinking about that ache. We have had the school nutrition program for some time--lunches and breakfasts. The law says that the food should be produced in America, but the practice is different. The practice is: We will buy wherever we can. Now, I will give you an example. A school district in Sacramento, California, whose name actually happens to be similar to the city, decided that they should purchase Chinese peaches in big cans. Yet, within 10 miles of that school there were three packing plants that produced California-grown peaches. It turns out that the Chinese peaches have some label on it that says organic. Right. Now, there is a label you can believe. It turns out that they are really not too organic at all. So in terms of quality, in terms of food that is produced domestically and locally, the Buy American provisions that have been in the law for the School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program need to be observed by school districts across this Nation. So we have introduced another bill called American Food for American Schools. It doesn't change the basic requirement that the food be American-produced food by our farmers and by our packing houses and by the facilities that take that food and bring that nutritious meal to the schools. No. It simply says that school districts can no longer ignore the law. That they are going to be required to follow the law, to report and to seek a waiver if the cost of domestically-grown peaches, peaches grown within 10 miles of the Sacramento school district, are too expensive compared to peaches that are imported from California or some other part of the world. They could seek a waiver. They could prove that those peaches are nutritious and that they are not somehow contaminated. We have done the studies, and there is some question about whether there is or is not contamination. But I know that in California, we have the strictest laws concerning the quality of the food, both on the tree and in the can. I want our students to have the best. If the cost is way out of line, a waiver can be sought and granted. But no more willy-nilly not paying attention to the law, which says: American food for American schools. And now there will be somebody watching to make sure that that law is followed. I would also add that a similar bill is now being pushed through the California legislature. So, once again, it comes back to this issue: Do you want to grow the American economy? Do you want to use our taxpayer money to support American jobs and American manufacturing? Or are you willing to just not worry about it and let the jobs go wherever they may? I am still trying to find who it was; maybe one of my colleagues here in the House of Representatives or a Senator, but quite probably some staff person that when they wrote the American Recovery Act, they said: Great, we need new electric locomotives on the Eastern corridor. And they said: 100 percent American made. Hundreds of jobs in Sacramento building these. And the electric engines, the brakes, the steel, all the rest of it, all gathered from America, 100 percent American made. So don't let anybody tell you it can't be done. If we write the law, it will be done. Those LNG ships, those oil tankers that will take our crude oil and ship it around the world, those can be built in America, in the American shipyards with American welders and plumbers and boilermakers and naval architects and American businesses providing the jobs here in the United States. It is possible. But, colleagues, it takes a law. That is our business: to pass laws that support the American jobs, that support American businesses, just like the American Recovery Act. Sixteen lines of law. The export of crude oil, the export of LNG, starting with 5 percent in the first year, and then building up to 25 percent over the next 7 years. American ships will be built, American sailors will be on it, and American jobs will be here in the United States. We can do it if we want to. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I remember well the investigations that Congress undertook in the Nixon period--the Watergate investigations. Frankly, I am appalled at the way in which this House is conducting its investigations. It is high time that we have an independent investigation. The reality has changed since the sixties and seventies. We now have 24-7 cable TV, and everything seems to be momentarily disclosed. We can't continue. We need an independent investigation of this extremely important issue of Russia's involvement in our national elections.