Sander Levin

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. This year marks one hundred years since the tragedy of the Armenian Genocide. A systematic campaign of genocide against the Armenian people at the hands of the Ottoman Empire. What began with the killing of 300 Armenian leaders resulted in the deaths of one and a half million people and the forced exile of another 500,000. It is often said that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, which is why each year I call on the President to officially acknowledge this terrible chapter of history by using the word ''genocide.'' In a recent Detroit News article, a local resident said this, ``The fact that 100 years later you still have to explain and prove that what happened to your ancestors was a premeditated crime on a massive scale really incurs a lot of pain for all Armenians.'' In my home state of Michigan, 11,000 people of Armenian descent reside and may leading organizations have organized commemorative events leading up to April 24th. I have had the honor to attend many events at St. John's Armenian Church in Southfield where there stands a memorial which contains the remains of a genocide victim. We are also proud that the only Armenian research center attached to an American university is at the University of Michigan-Dearborn where the Center documents the Armenian genocide and current Armenian issues. I am always pleased to co-sponsor Congressional resolutions that shed light on the true nature of this ethnic extermination, and honor its victims and survivors. On the 100th Anniversary, I recall with deep sorrow the stories passed down through families of death marches, labor camps, entire families wiped out, years of slavery, massacre, and starvation. I respectfully request that all my colleagues join me today in honoring the victims and survivors of the Armenian Genocide.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Well, this is, indeed, a rare event. It was an event really waiting to happen because, a year ago, our committee, Ways and Means, chaired by Dave Camp, alongside the Energy and Commerce and Senate Finance Committees, reached a bipartisan, bicameral agreement to move the physician reimbursement system to one based more on quality, not quantity. This helped pave the way for the package in front of us today, negotiated with the key help of the Speaker and our Leader. The SGR has been hanging over our heads for more than a decade. We have paid close to $170 billion in short-term patches. With each patch, it becomes harder to find offsets, putting seniors in our healthcare system increasingly at risk. This is being done--and I emphasize that-- while maintaining the basic structure of Medicare. Talk otherwise is mistaken. Our approach to paying for this reform is a reasonable one. We are paying for additional benefits, but not to dig out of the hole created by the flawed budget formula. This package includes a number of improvements across the healthcare landscape. It fully funds a 2-year extension of CHIP at the increased level of funding that we included in the Affordable Care Act. It permanently extends the qualifying individual program that pays Medicare premiums for low-income seniors. It permanently extends the transitional Medicare Medical Assistance Program, which helps Medicaid beneficiaries transitioning back to work to keep their insurance. It secures $7.2 billion in funding for community health centers, ensuring that 7 million Americans who depend on these establishments for care can get it. And it makes progress in fighting fraud and abuse in Medicare. What I would like to do--it will take a little more time--is to thank the staff. We don't do that enough. So I want to thank Wendell Primus, Charlene MacDonald, Clay Alspach, and Matt Hoffmann. And, of course, the Ways and Means Committee health staff, particularly Amy Hall and Erin Richardson. And we need to thank the excellent drafters from the House Legislative Counsel Office, led by Ed Grossman, who I think is here today, along with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Office of Legislation, particularly Ira Burney, who is known for his deep knowledge of Medicare and who helped put the package together in a technically sound manner. And the CBO health team led by Tom Bradley, who worked expeditiously to meet our timetable. And I want to close my remarks by paying tribute to a Member who is not with us today, who worked for years on these issues, John Dingell of Michigan, for the years he put in protecting and strengthening Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP, including trying to fix SGR. We are fixing SGR today, and we are strengthening Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP. This is a day where there was common ground, and today we stand on it. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott), who is the ranking member on the Health Subcommittee. (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, how much time is there, please, on both sides?

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), a distinguished member of our committee.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell), a very vocal member of our committee.

Mr. LEVIN. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Danny K. Davis), another active member of our committee.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, this is an important moment. As I look back, it has been decade after decade of a struggle for health care for all Americans, a real struggle. Today, we have legislation that covers kids from infancy through seniors, for seniors throughout their years. That is the importance, really, of these provisions. I simply want to express, I think, the feeling of so many of us on this side. So we have this moment of coming together, and I hope in the days ahead that these notes of harmony will not be disturbed by notes of dissonance. We owe more, and all the bodies, all the institutions owe it to the people of this country to continue on this path so what should be a right is a reality. I don't think anybody in this institution can imagine going to bed any night worried about having health care, and the same for their families, their kids, and their grandchildren. I hope we will take these few minutes when we come together and reassert the importance in this country of joining together so that everybody from birth until their last days has the ability to have what is so precious--the ability to have access to health care. I hope that is the significance of this vote. I hope, as a result, it will be a very strong vote, and I think it is a vote for health care for every American. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I strongly support this bipartisan resolution urging the President to provide defensive weapons to Ukraine. This week marks the one-year anniversary of Russia's annexation of Crimea and it has been almost a year-and-half since the protests in Maidan where the Ukrainian people stood together demanding a democratic and sovereign state. This past year-and-half has been a somber time for all of us, as we learn of the 6,000 deaths, the millions of wounded and displaced, and the enormous suffering endured by the Ukrainian people. Now more than ever, the United States needs to stand with Ukraine by providing defensive weapons to help Ukraine counter Russian aggression and move past the current crisis. We should provide defense provisions, such as anti-tank weapons, counter-artillery radars, and ammunition to counter Russia-backed separatists. In doing so, we show solidarity with the Ukrainian people who have demonstrated their willingness to do their part, and we make it more difficult for Russia to wage a proxy war against Ukraine while publicly denying it. To be sure, there is no quick or military solution to the problem. Defensive weapons alone cannot shield Ukraine from Russia's aggression--but they can help the Ukrainian effort in continuing to build a sovereign state, free from Russia's interference. And there is much more we can do. We should provide humanitarian assistance to embattled regions, help train the judiciary and law enforcement, and share our expertise in law and medicine. I have tremendous hope for Ukraine's future. Its people have shown time and again their determination to build a democratic Ukraine with prosperity shared by all Ukrainians. Let us help them now with the defensive weapons they need.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise to recognize an eighth grade student from my district, Tanner Barndollar, for his work in designing a mission patch that was recently flown to the International Space Station. Tanner attends Wilkinson Middle School in Madison Heights, Michigan. Mission patches have been used on NASA flights since the early days of the U.S. space program. The tradition was for the astronauts to design a patch to symbolize their flight. To this day, I remember the mission patch for the Apollo 11 flight to the Moon. The patch for that mission was designed by the pilot of the command module, Michael Collins, and showed a bald eagle landing on the Moon carrying an olive branch in its talons. That patch became an iconic emblem of the first Moon landing. To this day, mission patches remain important symbols of all NASA flights. The patch designed by Tanner Barndollar accompanied a microgravity experiment designed by four other Wilkinson students. Unfortunately, the first attempt to get this experiment and the mission patch up to the international space station failed when the unmanned rocket carrying them exploded shortly after liftoff last October. Fortunately, NASA was able to find space on another rocket to the space station that launched in January, and the Wilkinson microgravity experiment and Tanner's mission patch were carried into orbit on that flight. Tanner's patch shows his obvious pride in his country, community and school, as well as his fellow students' participation in the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program. His design was selected from more than 51,000 student designs from around the country. I ask all of my colleagues to join me in recognizing Tanner Barndollar and all the other young Americans who participated in the NASA Student Spaceflight Experiments Program.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Last year, as we remember so well, Republicans reacted to the tax reform proposal from then-Chairman Dave Camp with a ``blah, blah, blah, blah.'' That reception, echoed in the overall chilly reaction of the Republicans, stemmed in part from that plan's honesty. Chairman Camp had pledged not to increase the deficit with his proposal. To achieve that goal, he played it straight--at least within the first 10 years. He proposed a tax on banks that drew cringes from his fellow Republicans. He put forward a surtax on the highest earners--essentially, a third tax rate. And he eliminated one of the most widely used provisions in the Tax Code: the State and local sales tax deduction. In the process, he paid for making permanent tax provisions like the bill before us today, this single piece of legislation costing about $80 billion alone. Like it or not, it was at least somewhat honest accounting. And so started a Republican ploy to get around the hard realities of tax reform. The gist of that ploy: take a number of provisions separately, make them permanent, and don't pay a dime for them. Not a dime. The reason? The expectation of needing to raise less revenue in tax reform would allow Republicans to more easily cut tax rates. Republicans feared that by trying to pay for their tax cuts--and they still do fear this--by shifting to the highly uncertain dynamic scoring may not be enough. So they are further trying to rig the system with baseline games and making permanent tax provisions outside of tax reform. Not having to pay for $800 billion worth of tax extenders made permanent would make it easier for Republicans to lower taxes, especially on higher income taxpayers, carrying out further their trickle-down tax policies. It would allow them to avoid having to end the abuse of tax savings and incentives to ship jobs overseas. By massively increasing the deficit--this is so important--through permanent unpaid-for tax revisions, Republicans could later cite this debt that they created as a reason to take a hatchet to programs like Head Start or fail to adequately fund the vital research at the National Institutes of Health. The President blew the whistle on that scheme--the rigging of the system and sound policy--with support from Democrats. Last year, the ploy was stopped in the Senate. But here, House Republicans are going at it again--before even hinting, by the way, what tax reform might look like; there is no H.R. 1 for tax reform this session--throwing to the wind the statement of the chairman of our committee, Mr. Ryan, about trying to find common ground on common aspects of tax reform, at the same time betraying the GOP preaching on fiscal responsibility. As chairman of the Budget Committee, Mr. Ryan never assumed tax extenders would be a permanent part of the Tax Code. Otherwise, he would never have been able to say he balanced the budget in 10 years. So what the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee is proposing now is the opposite of the approach he pursued as the chairman of the Budget Committee. The bill before us on section 179 addresses an important subject. It is primarily available to small and middle-sized businesses. It will likely be part of any tax reform. And until then, it will be renewed. That is certain. Republicans control this House, and they control when renewal would occur, absent tax reform, but this provision deserves not to be left out of a tax reform process. It should give careful and comprehensive consideration of all the tax provisions in our Code. So maybe the best way to expose this Republican gambit is for editorial writers to use their pen and for others to use social media, tweeting to Republicans this message: Stop your efforts at congressional alchemy. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from the great State of Wisconsin (Mr. Kind), a very active and distinguished member of our committee.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to myself such time as I shall consume. I say to the majority leader: this isn't about small business. We favor 179. This is about monkey business, monkeying with procedure, doing the opposite of what the chairman did when he was chairman of the Budget Committee, of trying to rig the system. I wish the majority leader would have cited the entire Statement of Administration Policy. I assume he read it all. Here is what it said on behalf of the President: ``If this same, unprecedented approach of making certain traditional tax extenders permanent without offsets were followed for the other traditional tax extenders, it would add $500 billion or more to deficits over the next ten years, wiping out most of the deficit reduction achieved through the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2013. ``The Administration wants to work with the Congress to make progress on measures that strengthen the economy and help middle-class families, including pro-growth business tax reform. However, H.R. 636 represents the wrong approach.'' That is what the President is talking about, and it is really sad when the majority leader comes here and misrepresents what the administration has said. We want to work together. We want to find common ground. The answer today is, from the Republicans: Forget about common ground, common elements; stop working together; we'll do it our way; don't worry about tax reform now, we'll worry about that later. That is what really this is all about. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. I say to my friend from Ohio, you are running this railroad. If you want to wait until December, that is your decision. It wasn't ours. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel). (Mr. RANGEL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. LEVIN. I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Neal), who heads up one of our subcommittees as ranking member.

Mr. LEVIN. I now yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), another distinguished member of our committee.

Mr. LEVIN. I yield the gentleman an additional 2 minutes.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I shall consume. Mr. Chairman, we are not suggesting you surrender your ground for 1 minute, not for 1 second. What we are saying is, let's search for common ground, and don't you come here and cut out pieces of it, piece by piece. That is what we are suggesting. In terms of a 1-year basis, we are saying, do things comprehensively like your predecessor did. This isn't a matter just of process, process, process. It is a matter of policy, policy, policy. That is what this is all about. You come forth, and you then talk about wage inequality. What have you brought up here that relates to that? We are trying to get a vote, for example, on minimum wage. You won't even allow us a vote. Give us a vote. You talk about TAA. The rules apply there. And we could go into the details in terms of whether it is authorized for a certain period of time, and after that, then if it is permanent, it becomes part of the baseline. What you are trying to do today is essentially rig the system. You want to do it with dynamic scoring. And now you essentially want to take each of these pieces, make them permanent, unpaid for, to put them in the baseline. You did not do that when you were chairman of the Budget Committee. You talk about honesty. I won't use that word because I totally respect your honesty more than that. I think it is hypocritical.

Mr. LEVIN. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. LEVIN. Well, here is the problem: you took the baseline in the budget, and you don't want to take it for this. You want to squeeze $800 billion permanently unpaid for, change the baseline, and that increases the deficit by that amount, and then you use that deficit to squeeze out needs, whether it is NIH or whatever it is. Infrastructure has been mentioned here also. We don't have the money for that. It is hypocritical to do one thing in one committee and another thing in another committee. It is not only hypocritical, it is a very dangerous approach. That is our answer. I am not suggesting you surrender for 1 minute, but don't take pieces out of ground that we want to be common. That is what you are doing, and that is why it is antithetical to tax reform. That is why Dave Camp came here with a comprehensive program, and you guys didn't like it. You said, ``Blah, blah, blah, blah.'' That was the Speaker, and others of you did not like it--the bank tax--so you don't want to do it comprehensively at first. You want to do it piece by piece. That is bad policy, it is bad for the deficit, and it is bad for the hopes for tax reform. If you want me to surrender time, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LEVIN. I say to the gentleman from Ohio, I favor 179, not doing it piecemeal unpaid for this way. By the way, this is not the worst job recovery. There has been an increase in jobs in the last month, month after month. The problem is it hasn't lifted the incomes of middle-income families. Let's get together to do that. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velazquez), who has been working on small business--maybe you will tell us how many years--a few.