Jim McGovern

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I'm glad the gentleman from Texas agrees with Harry Reid. I hope he agrees with Harry Reid on more things in the future. But the fact of the matter is this show business before us does nothing other than postpone this debate on the debt ceiling for 3 months. It doesn't require a finished product. It does not require that we actually have something that amounts to a deal that goes to the President's desk. The House will pass their extreme budget, like they always do. The Senate will probably do something. And then nothing else is required. There's no requirement for a deal in order to get your pay. This is show business. And what we should be doing is providing certainty to the business community that we're not going to default on our obligations in 3 months. And we ought to come together and figure out a way to be able to get this budget in balance without destroying the social safety net in this country. Again, the problem has always been--and let's be clear about this--as much as I get frustrated with the Senate, the problem on this is not the Senate. The problem is the rank-and-file Republicans in the House Republican Conference who, every time the Speaker of the House goes to them with a deal, they say, No. They always say it doesn't cut deep enough, it doesn't eliminate programs that help the poor, it doesn't eliminate programs that help the middle class, it doesn't eliminate programs that help create jobs. Because the ultimate goal of so many on the other side is not about a balanced budget. They don't care about balanced budgets. They're the ones who took this balanced budget that Bill Clinton had and turned it into one of the worst deficits and debt in our country. They don't care about that. They care about eliminating the public sector. That's what this is about. Three months? Please. Three months? What kind of certainty is that? I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), the distinguished ranking member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, isn't it true that no matter what happens with this bill that Members will get paid no matter what?

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. McGOVERN. We have a gimmick before us that withholds pay if we don't pass a budget, but not if you don't get a deal. It doesn't matter whether the budget is irreconcilable or partisan. Here is the other gimmick. It doesn't really withhold anybody's pay. It just delays when you get the check. The problem is not the United States Senate, I want to tell my friends. It is my friends on the other side of the aisle who do not want a deal, who want instead to basically annihilate and eviscerate the public sector. I say to my friends, if you want to balance the budget, pay for your wars, pay for your tax cuts, pay for your giveaways to the very wealthy in this country. What is before us is not a solution. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no,'' to not kick the can down the road, to deal with the problems as we see them right now. And I also urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, those especially who call for transparency, vote ``no'' on this closed rule. This is a closed rule. Nobody has an opportunity to offer any other ideas. This is not the way we should be dealing with budget issues. Vote ``no'' on this closed rule. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. Let's be clear. This House is not open to new ideas. If it was, we would not be coming to the floor with a bill that is a completely closed rule so that Members cannot offer their ideas in the form of amendments. Secondly, their gimmick even has a gimmick to it. They say that if the Senate doesn't act or the House doesn't act on a budget, they don't get paid. Really what they do is they get paid at the end of the year. So their pay is not taken away. This is show business. Instead of show business and instead of gimmicks, we ought to be coming to the House floor in a bipartisan way trying to figure out how to solve some of these budgetary problems. I regret very much that this is the best we can do, kicking the can down the road for 3 months. Mr. Speaker, at this point, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Bera).

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

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, 3 years have passed since the Supreme Court's dreadful Citizens United decision, and we have seen the dramatic increase in the amount of corporate money flowing into our elections, drowning out the voices of ordinary American citizens eager to participate in the political process. Citizens United also epitomizes the so-called ``corporate personhood'' movement in which some now say that corporations are people. The fact is, corporations are not people, and the Constitution was never intended to give corporations the same rights as the American people. Corporations don't breathe, they don't have kids, and they don't die in wars. My constituents continue to express concern about the growing influence of corporations in our political discourse. They're also demanding action on campaign finance reform because they are repulsed by the large amount of money in our campaigns. Quite frankly, they want elected officials to spend more time on policy, deliberating and debating on issues, and less time dialing for dollars. Unfortunately, the Republican leadership in the House has failed to address these pressing issues during the past 2 years. They have been indifferent. We haven't had the opportunity to vote on any legislation to curb the influence of unlimited and sometimes secret corporate money flowing into our elections. We haven't even had the opportunity to address these issues in committee hearings or markups. Recently, I joined 18 of my colleagues in a letter to Chairman Goodlatte and Ranking Member Conyers of the Judiciary Committee requesting a hearing to explore constitutional amendment proposals in response to Citizens United and related cases. I hope that we will have an opportunity to discuss these issues in the coming weeks and months. This is, after all, the people's House, and this is the place where we ought to discuss the concerns of the people. Members of the Democratic Caucus have been working to reform our campaign finance system and restore the rights of the American people that were undermined by the Citizens United decision. We have sponsored and cosponsored legislation to address the growing influence of money in our democratic process. As a member of the task force on elections reform, I'm proud to join my colleagues in working to rein in corporate spending and address unregulated money flowing into our elections. Today, I'm introducing two constitutional amendments. The people's rights amendment would overturn Citizens United and put a stop to the growing trend of corporations claiming First Amendment rights. This amendment not only addresses corporate rights as they pertain to campaign finance, but is broader in scope to clarify that corporations are not people with constitutional rights. Importantly, my amendment clearly protects the people's rights of freedom of speech, freedom of press, free exercise of religion, freedom of association, and all other such rights of the people. My second amendment advances the fundamental principle of political equality for all by empowering Congress and the States with the right to regulate political spending. It will allow Congress to pass campaign finance reform legislation that will withstand constitutional challenges. Mr. Speaker, we need to empower people, not corporations or Big Money special interests. Our current system has been corrupted. It undermines the rights of ordinary citizens, and it undermines our democracy. Surely, this is not the system our Founders envisioned. The preamble to the Constitution is ``We the people.'' Let us hope that this Congress doesn't forget that. I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting these important bills to reform our campaign finance laws and assure that corporate rights do not trump people's rights.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I missed rollcall vote No. 7 on January 4, 2013. I was attending the opening of an orphanage in Haiti established in honor of my constituent, Britney Gengel, who died in the 2010 earthquake, and I was unable to attend votes on that day. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on H.R. 41.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, after Senator George McGovern's passing last October, Colman McCarthy wrote a wonderful tribute about this man of peace. I would like to submit his article. I urge all my colleagues to continue to work for the causes so dear to Senator McGovern's heart. [From the National Catholic Reporter, Dec. 21, 2012-Jan. 3, 2013] McGovern Was a Politician Who Never Lost His Soul (By Colman McCarthy) On the Wednesday afternoon in early November 1972 after his defeat the day before by Richard Nixon for the presidency, George McGovern and his wife, Eleanor, arrived at Washington's National Airport. The loss had been nearly total, with McGovern, a liberal populist Democrat from South Dakota, winning only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. By chance, his running mate, Sargent Shriver, was arriving at the same time from another plane. They came upon each other in the main concourse. Seeing a dejected McGovern, with his wife in tears about losing even their home state, Shriver offered a powerful consoling line: ``George, we may have lost the election but we certainly didn't lose our soul.'' Within three years, Nixon, a scheming and deceitful politician who spared nothing in his depiction of McGovern as an unpatriotic ultraliberal, would resign in disgrace over the Watergate scandal. At his death in late October 2012, McGovern remained in full possession of the soul-force that marked a political career that began in the House of Representatives in 1956 and ended in the Senate in 1980. I recall a conversation once when he laughed about Republicans' portrait of him as a wild leftist, wondering how he managed to win House and Senate races in South Dakota, one of the country's most conservative states. His liberalism knew a boundary or two. He had little regard for the showmen of the 1960s anti-war movement--from Abbie Hoffman to Jerry Rubin--and saw them as ineffectual clowns. McGovern's passions ranged from opposition to the Vietnam War to advocating for nutrition programs for the hungry in this country and abroad. He advocated for small farmers as they saw their lands swallowed by corporate agribusiness. He stood with the tribal nations, a stance so firm that the Oglala Sioux of South Dakota called him ``the Great White Eagle.'' McGovern first visited South Vietnam in late 1965, a visit that confirmed his hunch that the war was doomed. The year before, he voted in favor of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave a pass to President Lyndon Johnson to escalate the war after an attack by North Vietnam on an American patrol boat--an attack that never happened. It was a vote McGovern would eventually be ashamed of missing the chance to join Wayne Morse and Ernest Gruening as the only two members of the Senate to say no. Perhaps to compensate for the lapse, McGovern became the strongest antiwar voice in the Senate. His military record of personal bravery--he flew more than 30 high-risk bombing missions in the Second World War--gave him credibility. In a Sept. 1, 1970, floor debate on his amendment, co-sponsored with Mark Hatfield, to end the war, McGovern said: Every senator in this chamber is partly responsible for sending 50,000 young Americans to an early grave. This chamber reeks of blood. Every senator here is partly responsible for that human wreckage at Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval [hospitals] and all across our land--young men without legs, or arms, or genitals, or faces, or hopes. There are not very many of these blasted and broken boys who think this war is a glorious adventure. Do not talk to them about bugging out, or national honor, or courage. It does not take any courage at all for a congressman, or a senator, or a president to wrap himself in the flag and say we are staying in--Vietnam, because it is not our blood that is being shed. But we are responsible for those young men and their lives and their hopes. The grandson of Irish immigrants and the son of a Methodist pastor, McGovern suffered tragedy in his personal life. The story is told in Terry: My Daughter's Life-and-Death Struggle With Alcoholism, Published in 1996, two years after Teresa McGovern, 45, froze to death in a snowbank in Madison, Wis., after a night of drinking, it is the most soulful of his half-dozen books: a lovingly written work blended with self- therapy and spirituality. My last visit with McGovern came a few years ago when he spoke on a Sunday afternoon to a small gathering at a civic center in the Friendship Heights neighborhood of Chevy Chase, Md. I brought Shriver to the talk. It was a touching reunion of the two former running mates. Shriver, sinking slowly into Alzheimer's disease, had no memory of McGovern, much less of their campaigning decades ago. But the two, both giants of service and goodness, embraced each other with deep affection, leaving me and other onlookers to wonder what kind of country we might have become if the election of 1972 had gone the other way. A more humane country? A country at peace with the world? A country loved globally for its generosity, not hated or feared for its belligerence? Little time was needed for wondering about the obvious answers to those questions.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the extraordinary achievements of Marine Sergeant William Soutra, Jr in Afghanistan. Sergeant Soutra recently received the Navy Cross, the second highest honor given for valor in combat. Sergeant Soutra is a resident of Worcester and a 2004 graduate of Worcester Vocational High School, where he played lacrosse, football, and hockey. Sergeant Soutra attended Becker College before joining the Marines in 2005. Over a two day attack beginning on July 10, 2010, Sergeant Soutra's element leader was mortally wounded by an improvised explosive device. With his unit disoriented, Soutra, alongside his military dog Posha, immediately took charge. Sergeant Soutra, without an interpreter, physically re-positioned each Afghan commando to fire in an accurate manner before repeatedly running through enemy gunfire to lead his 10- man commando unit across 1,100 meters of open terrain, all while ``relentlessly'' firing his rifle. Additionally, Sergeant Soutra helped carry casualties out of the line of fire while orienting air support from jets and helicopters. Simply, his actions went beyond the call of duty, saving the lives of Marines, Sailors, and Afghan commandos. Too often, heroic actions of our military's elite special operations forces, like Sergeant Soutra, go unrecognized. It is simply the nature of their job to take on the most dangerous tasks, with no hope for glory or public acknowledgement. Sgt. Soutra put his own life on the line without a second thought, not because he expected credit, but because it was the right thing to do to protect his men. Mr. Speaker, our nation is lucky to have men like Sergeant Soutra serving us. I know that all of my colleagues, constituents, and fellow residents of Worcester will join me in offering our humble gratitude for his actions, and sincere congratulations on his recognition.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Altmire).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. First of all, we have air superiority over every country in the world. We have the strongest military in the world, and I'm proud of the men and women who serve in our military. But, you know, we have to make choices here. I mean, do we really need all these troops deployed in Europe that have been there basically since World War II? I mean, I don't think Germany is going to invade France any time soon or Russia is going to invade Poland, but yet we have a huge amount of deployed American forces in Europe. Maybe we need to have a discussion about whether or not we need that, whether or not we can afford that expense, whether or not it does anything to enhance our security. Again, I want a military that is the best in the world. I want them to continue to be that way. I want them to be second to none. I want to make sure that we have all that we need, but I don't want to be investing in things we don't need. And when the Joint Chiefs of Staff and when the Secretary of Defense and all of the experts tell us that they don't need something, and we here appropriate money to keep something going that is unnecessary, that is unwanted, at the same time while you're trying to cut the benefits of some poor old lady on Social Security, there's something wrong with this equation. We have to start thinking about the security of people here in this country as well. What we're going to do right after this is take up a rule that is going to gut a whole bunch of programs that, quite frankly, keep people from falling through the cracks--everything from food stamps to child nutrition programs to education programs. Anything that helps anybody who's in need is going to get walloped after the next rule is passed, with a tax plan that is so blatantly unfair that I can't even believe that my friends are bringing it to the floor of the House for a debate. So, you know, let's talk about what we need to do to maintain the security of our people in this country. We need a strong military. We need to meet the challenges abroad, but we also need to meet the challenges here in the United States of America. We need to focus on things like jobs and affordable housing, making sure that people have the ladders of opportunity so they can succeed. So that's where I object. This bill is more than the people at the Pentagon want. We're just throwing more money at this, and I think it's a mistake. Mr. Speaker, at this time I'd like to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, it's my pleasure to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question. I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule. I would again remind my colleagues that national security and national defense also has to mean the quality of life for people here in the United States. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, this is a moment of opportunity for us to get serious about dealing with our budget deficit by eliminating the bloat and the waste in the Pentagon's budget. What we have before us has some very good provisions in it, but it also has some very bad provisions in it. The gentlelady from California mentioned the language on Guantanamo, which is unfortunate. But this bill also reflects more money--more money--than the Pentagon even wants, more money than the Joint Chiefs of Staff wants. So we're throwing more money into this Pentagon budget even though they haven't asked for it and they don't want it. At the same time, my friends on the other side of the aisle are proposing measures--which are going to be taken up in the next rule--to decimate the social safety net in this country, to make it more difficult for middle-income families, to make it more difficult to send your kids to school, to make it more difficult to get affordable housing, or to get access to food and nutrition if you are in desperate times. So it just doesn't make any sense to me. I mean, the idea that we're giving more money to the Pentagon than they want, but at the same time we're taking away from our people right here at home. National security has to mean the quality of life and the standard of living for the people of the United States of America. It has to mean things like jobs and financial security for our families. I regret very much that my friends on the other side of the aisle seem to not care about what happens to people here in this country because their budgets and their tax bills go directly after middle- income families and constitute an all-out war on the poor. There was an article in The Washington Post on December 19: ``John Boehner's Plan B Would Raise Taxes on the Poor.'' Really? I mean, is that how you're going to balance the budget, by sticking it to people who already are in vulnerable times? This is wrong. My friends talk about the debt and the deficit, but what they don't talk about is that we have fought two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and we haven't paid for it, all on our credit card. We send our young men and women into harm's way, and we ask them and their families to sacrifice, and we do nothing. We just put the bill on our credit card. A few months ago, the chairman of the Budget Committee, Mr. Ryan, said it's about $1.3 trillion--I think he's lowballing it--but $1.3 trillion on our debt, and nobody over there says a word. They all go after programs like Social Security and Medicare and food stamps. So, Mr. Speaker, I ask that we defeat the previous question. If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to this rule to make in order an amendment that will allow the House to have a chance to vote on a bill passed by the Senate to extend middle class tax cuts, which has been introduced in the House as H.R. 15. Also, the amendment would prevent this House from adjourning until we have averted the fiscal cliff and the President has signed legislation to prevent tax increases on the middle class. There is a rumor out there that my friends on the other side of the aisle are going to try to pass Plan B and C and run out of town and just leave for vacation. I want to get home for Christmas as much as anyone else, but the bottom line is that we are facing a crisis--an artificial crisis that my friends helped create, but we need to avert it. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment into the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlelady.

Mr. McGOVERN. I want to thank the gentleman from Utah for the time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in opposition to the underlying bill, the National Defense Authorization bill. I recognize and appreciate all of the hard work that went into crafting this conference report--on both sides of the aisle. I commend Chairman McKeon and Ranking Member Smith and all their staffs for all of the work that they have done. I especially appreciate that the final version of the bill includes a modified version of the Merkley amendment on Afghanistan that was approved by the United States Senate, but unfortunately, the final product contains policies that I simply cannot support. The bill increases funding--beyond the Pentagon's request--for several programs, including a new missile defense base on the east coast. The bill also denies the Pentagon the opportunity to save money with its failure to include a cut to the contractor comp cap, its failure to include a round of base closures, and its failure to implement end-strength troop reductions even though we are supposedly ending our involvement in two wars. At a time when Congress is being asked to look for savings, even considering cutting vital programs like Social Security, it is unconscionable to me that we would continue to mandate wasteful funding that the military has said it does not need and does not want. How can we look into the eyes of a senior citizen who is living off of Social Security and tell him that his cost-of-living adjustment will be smaller so that we can buy weapons that the military doesn't even want? Also very troubling to me is that this bill continues to prevent the President from fulfilling his commitment to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp by imposing unnecessary and ill-advised transfer restrictions. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to serve as the cochair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. We constantly and appropriately criticize other countries for their lack of transparency and adherence to the rule of law. The continued existence of Guantanamo undermines our standing around the world. The President has said repeatedly that he wants to close Guantanamo. There is broad bipartisan support among national security experts for him to do so. Congress just needs to get out of the way. Mr. Speaker, while I support a great deal of this bill, especially programs and services for our veterans and military retirees, I cannot support a bill this large when we are in the middle of negotiations on the so-called ``fiscal cliff.'' The Pentagon is more willing than this Congress to look at the defense budget and make thoughtful but significant reductions. This bill continues to show that, when it comes to defense spending, Congress is part of the problem, not part of the solution. I would like to insert into the Record an article that appeared in today's Washington Post by Walter Pincus, entitled, ``Military funds to spare?,'' in which he quotes Secretary of Defense Panetta in a speech. He said that the committees here in the Congress ``had diverted about $74 billion of what we asked for in savings in our proposed budget to the Congress, and they diverted them to other areas that, frankly, we don't need.'' That is from the Secretary of Defense. I would also like to insert into the Record a letter to the President that was sent to Members of Congress as well, urging that he veto the National Defense Authorization Act because it extends restrictions on transferring detainees out of the Guantanamo prison. Mr. Speaker, let me just conclude my opening here by saying that I want a defense second to none. I believe that we need to do whatever we need to do to protect the citizens of this country, but just throwing more money at the Pentagon doesn't mean that you're getting a stronger defense. Expanding the bloat and the waste in the Pentagon does nothing to enhance our national security. We need a new definition of ``national security,'' one that includes things like jobs for our citizens, one that includes access to a good quality education, one that includes a strong infrastructure, one that includes good health care for everybody in this country, an end to homelessness, and an end to hunger in the United States of America. I say this because, after we debate this rule, we're going to take up another rule dealing with the so-called ``Plan B'' and ``Plan C,'' and maybe there's a Plan D and a Plan E, who knows. What is particularly troublesome to me is that, in the tax version of what the Republicans are going to bring to the floor later, it includes things like ending programs that benefit middle-income families and poor families. Under their proposal, 25 million working families with tens of millions of children will pay an average of $1,000 more in taxes. That's not fair. That undermines the economic security of that family. Under their proposal, 11 million families would lose a tax credit that helps pay for college. How is that in our security? We're told time and time again by all of the experts that, in order for us to continue to be an economic global power, we need a well-educated workforce. So what are they proposing? That 11 million families lose their tax credits to help pay for college. Fifty million seniors and other Medicare enrollees' health care would be jeopardized as doctors face a 27 percent cut in Medicare payments under this proposal. That's just the tax version of what they're proposing. We haven't even gotten to what they're proposing in terms of spending cuts. So here we are, talking about a Defense Authorization Act that is more money than our Pentagon wants, that is more money than our Joint Chiefs of Staff want, that is more money than the Secretary of Defense wants. As we're doing this, we're telling the American people that we have to lower your cost-of-living adjustment on Social Security, that we have to lower your quality of health care, that we have to cut some money from housing programs, that we have to cut SNAP and food stamps so that you won't have enough to eat. This is crazy. This is crazy. So, yes, we're all for a military and a defense second to none, but I will tell you that some of our biggest threats are not halfway around the world--they're halfway down the block. We have to start paying attention to what's happening in this country, so I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill. I reserve the balance of my time. [From the Washington Post, Dec. 19, 2012] Military Funds to Spare? (By Walter Pincus) Congress and Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta showed this week that there are hundreds of millions, if not billions, of loose dollars in the Pentagon's budget that can be shifted around without apparent harm to national security. In a speech Wednesday at the National Press Club, Panetta voiced his frustration at changes the House and Senate armed services committees had made in the fiscal 2013 defense authorization bill. At one point he said that the committees ``had diverted about $74 billion of what we asked for in savings in our proposed budget to the Congress, and they diverted them to other areas that, frankly, we don't need.'' He spoke about ``pressure on the department to retain excess force structure and infrastructure instead of investing in the training and equipment that makes our force agile and flexible and ready.'' Without specifying programs, Panetta mentioned having to keep ``aircraft, ships, tanks, bases, even those that have outlived their usefulness, [but] have a natural political constituency.'' As if on cue, just two hours after Panetta's speech, the chairmen of the Senate and House armed services committees-- Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Rep. Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon (R-Calif.)--released summaries of the House-Senate conference report on the fiscal 2013 defense bill that contained funding changes illustrating some of what Panetta had been complaining about. For example, the conferees approved more than $500 million to continue the Global Hawk Block 30, high-altitude, long- endurance unmanned aircraft that have integrated imagery, radar and intelligence sensors. The Pentagon had decided to risk terminating this version of Global Hawk (there are others in use and being built) and noted that it would save $800 million in fiscal 2013 and $2.5 billion over the next five years. Two other congressional add-ons illustrate members' desire to keep plant production lines open--and jobs filled. They were $136 million to upgrade the M1 Abrams tank and $140 million to modify the M2 Bradley armored vehicle. And $45 million was added to funds to purchase F-18s to hold open ``the option of buying more'' in fiscal 2014. In the nuclear area, Congress added $70 million toward construction of a $3.7 billion building for research on plutonium at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico that the administration wanted to delay for two more years. Two other congressional favorites got boosts beyond what the Pentagon approved. One was an added $152 million for missile defense; the other, for $143 million, went to Special Operations Command for an imagery intelligence program its commander wanted but higher-level officials vetoed. The conferees' message: What Special Ops wants, it gets. One compromise reached over the past month involved the administration's controversial plan to reorganize military air transport assets that affected Air National Guard bases around the country, a step that mobilized opposition not just from Congress but from governors of the states involved. The solution was to halt the retirement of 26 C-5A aircraft, ``holding the strategic airlift total at 301 aircraft, until the Defense Department completes a comprehensive study of air mobility requirements,'' according to the House committee. In addition, the Air Force will maintain an additional 32 C-130 or C-27J tactical airlift aircraft, some of which were going to be retired. As he has in the past, Panetta said that health-care costs for the military were growing fast and had hit $50 billion this year. The need was for some cost controls, but the conferees blocked any increase in fees for the Defense Department's heath-care program, known as TRICARE, or any effort to establish new ones. Meanwhile, the conferees took steps to cap the rate under which the Army and Marine Corps reduce force numbers over the next five years. And somehow they found excess funds to provide provisions to ease the blow to the roughly 100,000 service personnel that are let go. Those individuals will be permitted to reside in military housing with their families for six months after their date of separation and use commissary and exchange stores for two years after separation. There was one $188 million reduction that neither Panetta nor the conferees touched--the one for military bands. The Army maintains 99 bands, many of them National Guard- based, and intends to spend $221.1 million on them during fiscal 2013. That's up $3.3 million from fiscal 2012. The Navy has 14 bands that will cost an estimated $55.6 million next year, while the Marine Corps has 12 bands that will cost $53.6 million in 2013. The Air Fe has 12 active-duty and 11 Air National Guard bands. Together they cost an estimated $58 million.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. I thank the ranking member for the time. Mr. Speaker, just when I thought the process in this House couldn't get any worse, last night in the Rules Committee the Republicans reached a new low. We originally were told that we were meeting on the Speaker's so-called ``Plan B'' tax bill, which continues the proud Republican tradition of protecting tax cuts for the wealthy at the expense of middle class families and poor people. But then we were told there would be a new bill, some kind of magical mystery bill that was introduced in the middle of the hearing. Now I'm not sure what to call this one, Plan B.2.0 maybe? Plan C? The We-Don't- Really-Have-a-Plan Plan? It turns out that the magical mystery bill is similar to the reconciliation bill the Republicans brought to the floor a couple of months ago. That bill was a bad idea then, and it's a bad idea now. It cuts $36 billion from the SNAP program, taking food off the table of struggling Americans. Millions of households would see a cut in their benefits. Millions of families would have less food tomorrow than they do today. And hundreds of thousands of kids would lose their access to free school meals. That's the Republican idea of a Christmas present. It's enough to make Ebenezer Scrooge embarrassed. The bill threatens Medicare, children's programs, education, infrastructure. In short, it threatens our economy as a whole. And at the same time, it not only protects the Pentagon budget, It increases it by billions of dollars. Does anyone here really believe there's not a single dollar to be saved anywhere in the Pentagon? Mr. Speaker, the American people have spoken. They've made it loud and clear that they want a balanced approach. They want an approach that asks the wealthiest, the most fortunate Americans, to pay a little bit more, and that protects our seniors, our children, and our most vulnerable neighbors. But the Republican leadership of this House refuses to listen. Mr. Speaker, let me say another thing about this process. I would say to my Republican freshman colleagues that you rode to power on a wave of outrage over the way the House conducts its business. I remember the lectures and the promises and the things that you said would change. I would say to those freshmen: you own this now. You have officially become part of the problem, if not the problem. A vote for this rule is a vote for an outrageous abuse of power and a vote against transparency and openness, and it's a vote against accountability. Finally, Mr. Speaker, let me just say this. My Republican friends have made it unfashionable to worry about the poor and the elderly and the vulnerable. That's crystal clear in the text of what we're debating here today. I urge my colleagues not to turn your backs on the most needy. Let's balance our budget in a way that doesn't lower the quality of life or decrease the standard of living for people of this country. We can do so much better. Instead of doing this, you should be negotiating with the President. Go back to the negotiating table and stop the games.