Mick Mulvaney

Mr. MULVANEY

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

Mr. MULVANEY

Mr. MULVANEY. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. MULVANEY. Madam Chair, I thank the chairman and also the ranking member for the opportunity to present this amendment. Madam Chair, the amendment is something different for me. It is not an amendment to reduce spending, and it's also not an amendment to increase spending. In fact, this amendment is outlay neutral. Similarly, consistent with what the chairman and the ranking member discussed when introducing the bill, this amendment is not a partisan amendment. I do not seek to lay blame on either party or on the President or on the Congress for the circumstance in which we find ourselves. This amendment regards simply a policy, a policy that traditionally has had bipartisan support in this House, and that policy is that we keep separate spending on the base defense budget, and spending on the Overseas Contingency Operations, or the war budget. It has come to our attention, and both the CBO and the GAO have confirmed, that there is $5.6 billion in the Overseas Contingency Operation budget, in the war budget, that should be in the base budget. We have taken things such as the base salaries for men and women in uniform who are not deployed and are charging that spending this year to the war budget. Madam Chair, since 9/11 we have had a policy in this House of keeping those two items separate so that we know the real cost of the war against terror. We have taken the base defense spending and accounted for it in one fashion, and accounted for the war budget in an entirely separate system. This year, for the first time, Madam Chair, we are blending those numbers. We take $5.6 billion of what should be in the base budget and move it to the OCO budget. Madam Chair, the committee itself recognizes that it is not good policy. If you look at the bill, you will see that the committee itself says let's make sure not to do this next year and the year after that and the year after that. And indeed, we have not done it since 9/11. But we do it this year, this year only in this particular bill, and I think it's important that we continue to abide by the policy that accounts correctly for the cost of the war overseas. So, Madam Chair, what I say to you is, this amendment is not about spending more money. It's not about spending less money. It is about accounting accurately for the spending that we do so that we can tell folks back home exactly what we spend on the base defense of this Nation and what we spend in the wars overseas. And for that reason, Madam Chair, I would ask for a ``yea'' vote on this particular amendment. I yield back the balance of my time. Point of Order

Mr. MULVANEY. I ask to be heard on the point of order.

Mr. MULVANEY. Madam Chair, it is true that a new point of order was created under the Budget Control Act preventing any legislation from being considered in the House that would cause discretionary spending to exceed the caps established in the Budget Control Act. Under that part of the act, Madam Chair, the entire bill is technically out of order because the entire bill exceeds the BCA caps by $7.5 billion. Ironically then, if this point of order is sustained, then we will effectively keep within the shadows a nonpartisan policy, something that everyone has supported in the past, a good governance issue, while allowing the entire bill, which also violates the same point of order, to proceed. My amendment is outlay neutral. It does not increase spending, it does not decrease spending. It simply moves spending from the war budget to the base budget, and vice versa. If the amendment were agreed to, the budget authority in the bill will be exactly the same as it is if the amendment fails, $608,213,000,000. Accordingly, the amendment does not violate section 302(f)(1) of the Congressional Budget Act, and overruling the point of order gives us the chance to abide by the precedent established long ago and embraced by both parties. I respectfully ask that the Chair overrule the point of order.

Mr. MULVANEY

Mr. MULVANEY. I've heard a lot of good reasons today to pass this bill and to repeal the law. What I haven't heard is a discussion about why we should pass it in order to help the President. We have an opportunity here to do something wonderful. We have the opportunity here to help the President keep one of his campaign promises. It's here in bright white letters on a wonderful orange background: I can make a firm pledge under my plan that no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase--not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes. By the way, politicians usually speak in language that allows us some wiggle room. There is no wiggle room in that particular promise. There is a list here of all the times that that promise has already been broken. We got the last one--the most recent addition to that list-- last week with the Supreme Court decision that told us what we've been saying from the very beginning, which is that this is yet another tax on families that make less than $250,000. What a great opportunity we have--all of us, both sides of the aisle. We have the opportunity to keep a politician to his promise, and we can do exactly that by passing this bill and repealing this law.

Mr. MULVANEY

Mr. MULVANEY. I thank my colleague. Mr. Speaker, I think something has gone overlooked here today, which is that this is a bill that has bipartisan support. So often back home, the folks want us to do things that have bipartisan support. We've seen several Members from across the aisle speak in favor of this bill and of this rule today; but I think something else is going overlooked, which is that the President should support this. This should be a bill that the President of the United States supports. After all, he was the one who said when he was campaigning--and I'm quoting now from candidate Barack Obama: I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase-- not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes. By the way, Mr. Chairman, it's very rare that we speak that boldly in politics. Oftentimes, we give ourselves space to walk things back. But that is about as unequivocal a statement as you can get. I imagine that since that statement was made in 2008, it's by accident that we have, by my count, at least 13 taxes that violate that pledge. We have a new tax on cigarettes, a tax on non-qualified HSA distributions, a tax on insured and self-insured health plans, a tax on tanning services, a tax on brand name pharmaceuticals, and, of course, this tax on certain medical devices. My guess is that was done by mistake, and we need to fix that so that the President can keep his promises. So I encourage my friends across the aisle, as well as my own colleagues, to vote for the rule and to vote for the bill to help the President out, to help the President keep his promises so that we do not raise taxes on anybody in this country who makes less than $250,000.

Mr. MULVANEY

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

Mr. MULVANEY. When I was campaigning for this job 2 years ago, one of the things that I told folks back home I would do if I ever got here was to try and roll back discretionary spending to 2008 levels. One of the things I've done since I've been here is work on the Republican Study Committee budgets--we've done two of them now--which try and make an effort to really get our spending addiction under control and lower our deficits and balance our budget in a reasonable amount of time. As encouraging as this bill is and as much work as the Committee has done on this particular bill, it doesn't accomplish those things. That's why I'm here. I also draw attention to the fact that this bill, as much as an improvement as it has made over previous bills, still spends more money than we did last year. The amendment, Mr. Chairman, is fairly simple. I seek to cut $3.1 billion from this expenditure. That represents 9\1/2\, roughly 10 percent of the overall bill. However, it only represents about one-half of 1 percent of all the discretionary spending. We're spending over a trillion dollars in the discretionary budget this year. More importantly--and what I think the folks back home would like to know-- is that it's only one-sixth of 1 percent of the overall Federal expenditures. It's only one penny out of every $6 that we spend. It is our effort to try and bring some sanity to the spending side of the equation. It is not an across-the-board cut. We have tried, Mr. Chairman, to be smart and sensible where we've cut these funds, and for that reason we do not cut the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer accounts. We do not cut the NNSA accounts. We do not cut the environmental and other defense activities, non-defense, environmental, nuclear waste disposal, Nuclear Regulatory Commission. What we've cut, Mr. Chairman, are things that need to be cut. We've cut Federal research on energy efficiency and renewable energy. We propose to cut fossil energy research and development. Yes, a Republican is actually here, Mr. Chairman, arguing that we should get rid of what my colleagues across the aisle would call subsidies for Big Oil. We're trying to get rid of all the subsidies. Imagine that, a world where the Federal Government doesn't actually subsidize energy production in any fashion, but the market takes care of the supply, the demand, and the prices for those products. We also cut spending on the Appalachian Regional Commission, the Delta Regional Authority Commission, the Denali Commission, the Northern Border Regional Commission, and the Southeast Crescent Regional Commission. Yes, sir, some of those probably are in my district, but goodness gracious, we probably have enough commissions in this government already. Mr. Chairman, this is a reasoned and a sensible approach to try and cut as much spending as we possibly can, especially in light of today's CBO report that says the debt situation, the debt difficulties that we face are even worse than we've been talking about for the last 18 months in this Congress. For that reason, Mr. Chairman, I ask for support for this amendment, and I ask that my colleagues vote ``yea.'' With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MULVANEY. Very briefly, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman from Indiana's words. I would point out to him, Mr. Chairman, that there are those of us on this side of the aisle that have encouraged us to look at defense spending as ways to cut not just a penny, but to find significant savings. I'd be curious to know, Mr. Chairman, how the gentleman from Indiana voted last year on my amendment to do exactly that, to freeze military spending at 2011 levels, but that is a discussion for another day. So with that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. MULVANEY

Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Chair, I rise today to bring to your attention a non-partisan, good governance issue--accountability and transparency. Specifically, accountability and transparency for the War Budget, which for accounting purposes is treated separately from the Department of Defense (DoD) Base Budget. The Government Accountability Office, GAO, the Congressional Budget Office, CBO, and the Congressional Research Service, CRS, have all testified before Congress about the limited transparency in DoD war cost estimating and reporting) Despite this challenge, members from both political parties have worked in a bipartisan manner to support our 43rd and 44th Commanders in Chief to ensure that our troops have the war-related resources they need to win the Global War on Terror. As we move forward, it is my hope that we will preserve this spirit of bipartisanship while also working to overcome the challenge of providing good faith estimates about what our war effort actually costs. Last year's Budget and Control Act, BCA (P.L. 112 25) appropriately recognized the distinction made by previous Congresses between the Base Budget and the War Budget. It places specific limits, or caps, on the Base Budget; the War Budget, however, has no limit. This creates a potential loophole for the President and/or Congress to evade the BCA limits by moving money for regular activities from the Base Budget to the War Budget's unlimited resources. This is the first full cycle of Budget requests, authorizations, and appropriations under the BCA. Despite the varied views on the law, the President and the Congress have a duty to abide by its letter and spirit unless an alternative law is agreed upon. This bill is not about finding an alternative replacement for the BCA; it's about making sure the men and women in harm's way have the appropriate legal authority and resources to effectively fight on our behalf. It should also be about providing for our troops in an accountable and transparent manner. The FY2013 Budget Request calls for shifting $6.1 billion in basic compensation for military personnel from the Base Budget to the War Budget. The troops associated with these costs are currently not deployed in overseas combat operations. Rather, they are part of the troop reductions set to begin next year. This means the FY2013 War Request and this bill's War Budget are overstated by $6.1 billion with basic compensation costs that have traditionally been funded through the Base Budget. As the GAO has stated, ``Costs that are incurred regardless of whether there is a [war] operation, such as the base pay of active duty military personnel, are not considered [war-related] (emphasis added).'' This new use of the War Budget for base pay was highlighted earlier this year at a House Budget Committee oversight hearing entitled The Department of Defense and Fiscal Year 2013 Budget. It is a clear circumvention of the BCA limits. As we move forward in the Budget process, we should aim to ensure our troops receive full, base salaries and benefits from their usual source--the Base Budget. After all, the primary reason we employ troops is to protect our nation, and we need to continue to use the Base Budget to compensate our troops. This bill undermines public reporting of accurate War costs by accepting the President's request to shift $6.1 billion in base salaries from the Base Budget to the War Budget. However, neither the President's request nor this bill actually funds the DoD. So, in the days ahead I urge us to work towards preserving the integrity of the law by restoring accountability and transparency between the Base Budget and the War Budget. If we fail to bring to light any potential exploitation of BCA loopholes in the law's early years of enforcement, then we simply make tomorrow's challenges greater while willfully turning a blind eye to the oversight record provided by the GAO, CRS, CBO and other credible sources. H.R. 4310 was reported out of the Armed Service Committee and passed the House on a bipartisan vote of 56 5 and 299 120, respectively. I applaud the Armed Services Committee for including report language that states, ``[Section 403] would require that the [FY2014 2017] Department of Defense budget request include amounts for the end strength of the regular component of the Army and the Marine Corps in the base budget and not through emergency, supplemental, or overseas contingency operation funds.'' I hope the bipartisan majority supporting the bill will have the opportunity this year to accelerate its call to fully compensate our troops in an accountable and transparent manner.

Mr. MULVANEY

Mr. MULVANEY. I thank the gentleman from Texas. This is not, Mr. Speaker, the most glamorous thing we're going to do in this 112th Congress. If you stop to think about it, there are not that many people who are aware of, let alone care about, what kind of security is offered on surety bonds. I can assure you, it is important to some people. It really is. If you are the person who is entering into that contract, who is counting on somebody doing that work, the quality of that security in that surety bond is of the utmost importance to you. And as you heard the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hanna) mention, in certain cases, it could be a matter of life or death for your business. So I am proud to be the sponsor of this bill. But that is not why I rise today, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to bring to light the fact that we are actually doing something on a bipartisan basis to help the country. We get a lot of criticism back home--I know we both do, the Republicans and the Democrats--for not being able to come together to fix things. And, yes, we do struggle, perhaps, to fix the big things, and maybe rightly so. We are unlikely to solve the issue of taxes versus spending here today, but it's nice to know that we're still able to get together from time to time on the small things. Face it. It used to be, before this bill, that you could take marketable coal as collateral on a surety bond. That's outrageous. With this bill, we'll fix those types of things and actually make it safer to do business on a government contract. Again, is it the big things that stand between our country and its current lack of prosperity? Absolutely not. But it does make business better in the United States of America. That's why I congratulate the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith) and the ranking member, Mr. Conyers. I also thank the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Graves) and gentlelady from New York (Ms. Velazquez) from the Small Business Committee who also took a look at this bill and also passed it on a bipartisan basis. So with that, Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I thank my colleagues from across the aisle for actually coming together today to try to do something to help the Nation advance. And with that, I encourage everyone to support this bill.

Mr. MULVANEY

Mr. MULVANEY. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, in my office, as we all do, we get emails, from time to time, from constituents, viral emails alleging, from time to time, some type of violent fraud in the system or some type of bizarre government overreach, and we actually research them in my office to find out if they are true or not. And we got this one this week--in fact, we got dozens of them this week--about a program that, supposedly, was part of an investigative report by a television station in the Midwest. It said that, supposedly, illegal immigrants were able to file paperwork every April 15 and receive a thousand dollars back from the Federal Government for every child that they had, regardless of whether or not they could prove the child existed, regardless of whether or not the child actually lived in the country. I was stunned by it, to be quite frank with you, and we gave it to my office to actually research it. And it turns out, Mr. Speaker, stunningly, it's absolutely true. Absolutely true. And it's not just the radio station or television station in the Midwest. The IRS admits that this is true. The inspector general looked into this and said we are spending $4 billion every single year--over $4 billion--on this type of program. They admit that it's true, and the IRS has asked us to act. And we have done nothing. This is an outrage, Mr. Speaker. I'm surprised to hear anybody defend this system. This is the type of waste, fraud, and abuse that undermines confidence in the way we do business in this town. This is the type of thing that gives people concern that we don't have any idea what we're doing about anything. The good news here is that, for a change, we actually have a chance to do something about it. We could pass the bill of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Johnson), but we could also do something today. We don't have to wait to fix this type of abuse. We can pass this reconciliation bill today and stop this program and at least take a small step towards restoring confidence in the way the American government provides services to its people. And I hope we do exactly that.

Mr. MULVANEY

Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Speaker, no one in this body was untouched by the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, which will stand in our history as one of the most infamous crimes ever perpetrated against the people of the United States. It not only cast a shadow of despair over America, but also thrust us into a different kind of global conflict, fighting an unconventional, adaptive enemy that has adopted the mass murder of innocent civilians as a weapon of war. More than four years ago, we apprehended the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 plot, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. He and four others are awaiting trial in the Guantanamo Bay detention facility on charges that include 2,973 individual acts of murder. That trial will take place before a reformed military commission. I believe that such commissions are the appropriate venue for this proceeding. They are modeled on the federal civilian criminal justice system. They protect the rights of the accused. They respect the rule of law. They reflect our core values as Americans. They are transparent. In short, they provide an instrument that is fair, principled, accountable, and effective, one that satisfies the imperative of justice rather than the thirst for revenge. This confidence is underscored by the fact that Brig. Gen. Mark Martins is the chief prosecutor of the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay. Gen. Martins is a lawyer of tremendous skill, and a man of great integrity, character, and judgment. Reflecting his commitment to this case, he recently declined promotion in order to see these matters through to their conclusion. As the war against terrorism moves to the legal arena, we are indeed fortunate that Gen. Martins is leading the effort to ensure that justice is fairly dispensed to those charged with the horrific acts of 9/11. Recently, Mr. Speaker, Gen. Martins and the reformed military commission were the subjects of a news report from National Public Radio. With your permission, I would like to include the text of that report in my remarks and urge that my colleagues take a moment to read this article and learn more about the man that Gen. David Petraeus described as ``one of those rare individuals who always seems to end up in the toughest assignments and always performs exceedingly well in them.'' A Prosecutor Makes The Case For Military Trials (By Dina Temple-Raston) The chief prosecutor for the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is arguing a difficult case: that the commissions are not only fair, but can take pride of place alongside the civilian criminal justice system. Brig. Gen. Mark Martins is the chief prosecutor for the commissions, the courts at the naval base that try high- profile terrorism suspects. He has been called Guantanamo's detox man largely because he has made it his mission to show that the military commissions system at Guantanamo is no longer a toxic version of victor's justice. When the Bush administration resurrected the commissions system in the days after the 9 11 attacks, it was seen as a convenient way to process the hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo. The fullness of time, Martins argues, has turned the commissions into something more: something that actually resembles an adversarial judicial process. ``Law is being applied, judges are interpreting laws, counsel are arguing for different pieces of a particular motion,'' Martins told NPR in an interview. ``Justice is being done, we're just absolutely committed to that. We've worked hard on reforms. Congress has been involved twice. The Supreme Court has ruled upon this.'' ``The current system is fair, but I understand that people will have to see that for themselves,'' said Martins, who graduated first in his class at West Point, studied as a Rhodes scholar and then went to Harvard Law School. Closed-Circuit TV Feeds Of Trials Actually watching the proceedings used to be one of the system's basic shortcomings. Proceedings were all secret. To see what was going on in the courtroom required traveling to Guantanamo and getting a bevy of clearances. Not anymore. The curious can now watch the trials on closed-circuit television feeds at selected army bases. To get in, citizens just need to show a picture ID, officials say. Court transcripts are available online. So are motions. Martins says this new transparency is part of a broader effort to convince naysayers that the military commissions aren't so different from civilian courts. To underscore the point, eight Justice Department attorneys are part of the prosecution teams working on two of the marquee trials the military commissions are hearing: the trial of Abd alRahim al-Nashiri, the man who allegedly planned the attack against the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, and the trial of the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and his alleged co-conspirators. Those Justice Department lawyers work for Martins. He assigns them to cases, and they answer to him as well as the Justice Department. Blending Military And Civilian Systems Martins himself is no stranger to the Department of Justice. For seven months in 2009, between deployments, Martins worked at Justice on President Obama's Detention Policy Task Force. Then, three years ago, he became the first soldier to have his promotion ceremony held in the Justice Department's Great Hall. The country's top civilian lawyer, Attorney General Eric Holder, spoke at the ceremony as did Gen. David Petraeus who, at the time, was the head of the United States Central Command. Petraeus and Martins have worked together for more than two decades. At the ceremony, Petraeus praised Martins: ``Above all he is one of those rare individuals who always seems to end up in the toughest assignments and always performs exceedingly well in them.'' Petraeus was Martins' first boss when Martins was a junior JAG officer with the 101st Airborne at Fort Campbell, Ky. Years later, Martins helped Petraeus during the surge of U.S. troops in Iraq. Then Martins served in Afghanistan. He was in charge of a field team that was supposed to transform lawless areas in Afghanistan into law abiding ones. Now he's being asked to transform the military commissions at Guantanamo. Support From The Justice Department Martins has some unexpected allies on this mission, including key people at the Justice Department. Just last month, Holder, the attorney general, called the military commissions ``essential to the effective administration of justice.'' And he isn't alone. Lisa Monaco, the assistant attorney general for National Security at Justice, said the reformed military commissions have the ``same fundamental guarantees of fairness that are the hallmark of criminal trials.'' This is a far cry from the grumbling that could be heard coming out of the Justice Department when Congress passed a law that essentially required that detainees at Guantanamo be tried on base. Still, critics have reservations. ``One of the biggest problems is that today's military commissions carry with them the baggage of the military commissions from the Bush era and there is no way to get around that,'' says Karen Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School. That's why Greenberg says Martins has a Sisyphean task of correcting the commissions' difficult history. For example, the Bush era military commissions allowed hearsay evidence and coerced statements--statements that might have come from torture and while the reformed commissions, as Martins calls them, no longer permit that, the old system still manages to cast a pall over the new. ``There are other problems,'' says Greenberg. ``Basic things like attorney-client privilege. Defense attorneys and their clients at Guantanamo have their mail read. This might be okay under some sort of military commission, but it carries with it the legacy that was part of the Bush administration's policy. The Bush administration treated defense attorneys as if they were collaborating with the enemy and that sense hasn't really gone away.'' Martins acknowledges the difficulty: he says the Bush-era commissions system in 2001 was flawed. But the case he is making is that today's system is something else altogether. Now commissions give those on trial a meaningful opportunity to mount a defense. ``I believe that as people watch this system and see it is sharply adversarial, it has all the protections that are demanded by our values . . . that they will see that this is a system they can have confidence in,'' says Martins. Plans To Retire From The Military Martins would like to remain in the post for two more years, but has asked the military to allow him to retire after he finishes his current assignment as chief prosecutor. ``I've decided to request that this be my last assignment in the military,'' he told NPR in an interview. ``That will afford a measure of continuity of the commissions process and it will enable me to stay at least until November 2014.'' The departure of a chief prosecutor at Guantanamo has happened before, but under very different circumstances. One chief prosecutor who preceded Martins was accused of rigging the military commissions process to ensure convictions. Another quit after he said he felt pressured to include evidence derived from torture in commissions proceedings. He later said that he left because he didn't feel he could do that in good conscience. Martins says his decision comes out of a need to make the commissions right. He says he wants to finish the job he started. That job will be under even more scrutiny in the coming weeks. That's when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men accused of taking part in the 9 11 attacks are expected to be arraigned in a Guantanamo courtroom. Martins is keenly aware that everyone will be watching.

Mr. MULVANEY

Mr. MULVANEY. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. MULVANEY. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MULVANEY. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chair, I appreciate the opportunity to rise today to speak in favor to this amendment to the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. CISPA is fundamentally based on the authority granted to Congress in article I of the Constitution and article IV of the Constitution, specifically to provide for the common defense and to protect the Nation against invasion--in fact, the only affirmative duty that this government is obligated to meet under the terms of our Constitution. This bill protects our Nation from foreign cyberthreats through the voluntary sharing of cyberthreat information. It is important for Members to understand this bill allows for only voluntary sharing of information on cybersecurity threats to the United States between the government and the private sector. It includes no mandates to the private sector. It contains no new spending and strictly limits how the government can use the information that is voluntarily provided by the private sector. The amendment that I've offered with Mr. Dicks today goes one step further to protect the private information of American citizens. It explicitly prohibits the Federal Government from retaining or using the information for purposes other than specifically specified or set forth in the legislation. Let's make it clear. The government cannot keep or use the shared information to see if you failed to pay your taxes. The government cannot use this information to read your emails. The government cannot use this information to track your credit card purchases or look at the Web sites that you've been visiting. Under our amendment, the Federal Government cannot use retained information unless it was directly related to a cyber or national security threat. Finally, this bipartisan amendment requires--requires--the Federal Government to notify any private sector entity that shares information with the government if that information is not, in fact, cyberthreat information so that it doesn't happen again, and the government must delete that information. The privacy of American citizens is simply too important to dismiss. Our amendment narrows the scope of the bill to ensure personal information is protected and that we are focusing on the true threat-- advanced, foreign state-sponsored cyberattacks against America and its private entities. With that, I would yield such time as he may consume to the chairman.

Mr. MULVANEY. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. MULVANEY. This amendment, ladies and gentlemen, is fairly simple and straightforward, but it bears discussion for a few moments. It requires the bill to expire of its own terms within 5 years. It's what we call in this business a sunset clause. And by its own terms, if the bill is passed, it will automatically cease to be, cease to be enforceable after 5 years unless this body acts affirmatively to renew it. Generally, I think this is good policy with most things that we do in Washington, D.C. In fact, several people say that one of the biggest difficulties we have in this town is that we simply create laws all the time and they never go away. So generally speaking, I think sunset clauses are to be admired and to be encouraged. Even more so is the case, however, when we deal with situations where we have concerns regarding individual liberties. We've worked very, very hard to make this bill a good bill. It is an excellent bill. I'm proud to be a cosponsor of this bill. But every single time that we start moving into the realm where the government action starts to bump up against individual liberties, it's a good idea to take a pause after this certain amount of time, in this case 5 years, and look our hands over, look over the actual implementation of the bill and make sure that we did exactly what we thought that we were going to do. Finally, I think in a case when we're dealing with technology, which moves so very rapidly--in fact, we've written this bill as well as we possibly could to try and deal with unanticipated development in technology--but when you're dealing with technology that moves so rapidly and changes so quickly, I think it's important, after a certain period of time, again, here, 5 years, to step back, look our hands over and make sure that things worked exactly as we thought they would. So, for that reason, Madam Chairman, I ask that this amendment be considered and be approved. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MULVANEY. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. MULVANEY

Mr. MULVANEY. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. MULVANEY. I thank my friend from New Jersey, for whom I have a great deal of respect, Madam Chairwoman. And what he says is correct. What he says is absolutely and without reservation correct. What this government did during the first half of this decade was wrong. Borrowing the money as we did was wrong. To continue it, Madam Chairwoman, is just as wrong.

Mr. MULVANEY. Madam Chairman, I thank my colleague from New Jersey for the opportunity. We can and will, obviously, over the course of this day, say a lot about this budget--a lot of bad things about this budget. I prefer to focus on one positive thing above all others--one thing. This budget actually balances. The budget actually balances. Five years it takes to do that. It's not easy. In fact, it's very, very hard to do that. It's easier to borrow money. In fact, the reason that we borrow so much money is because it's easier to do that than it is to go home and tell people that we have to make hard decisions in order to balance the budget, and we're afraid that if we go home and tell people that we have to make difficult decisions, that they won't send us back the next term. And make no mistake about it, the most important thing in many people's minds in this Chamber is to make sure they come back next term. This budget challenges that. This budget balances. The President's does not. We took it up last night, and it failed overwhelmingly. No one supported it. It never balances. Later today, we'll take up the Democratic budget, which also never balances. Budgets that never balance raise a legitimate moral question, a moral issue. If you borrow money with the intention of paying it back, that is debt. There's no question. If you borrow money intending to pay it back, it's debt. If you borrow money never intending to pay it back, that is theft. That is theft, and that is what the President's budget represents. That is what the Democrat budget represents. That's what so many budgets over the course of the last generations in this town have represented. We have borrowed money with no plan and no intention ever to pay it back. And too many budgets in here today will simply continue that cycle. It's wrong. It's wrong to do to our children and our grandchildren, and it's wrong to do for ourselves. You should never take something and not even have a plan to pay it back. Say what you want to about the Republican Study Committee budget, say what you want to later on about the Republican budget that Mr. Ryan and the committee are offering, but at least at the very end of the day, they offer some way to pay back the money that we borrowed, and for those reasons alone, they merit our support.