Jared Polis

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Is the gentleman prepared to close?

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I just want to note that this rule contains two completely different bills. The first is the 21st Century Cures Act, which would help address many of the health crises that we face. The other bill is H.R. 6392, the Systemic Risk Designation Improvement Act, that would weaken many of the protections that were put in place in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill. So there are two very different bills here under one rule, a very closed process which the Democrats will be opposing. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

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

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Here we are again, Mr. Speaker, discussing a bill that, whatever its merits and noble intentions are, of course, of trying to hold harmless the victims of organizations that go out of business, will meet a veto. The Statement of Administration Policy says, if the President were presented with H.R. 954, he would veto the bill. That is the strongest kind of veto message that we get. Sometimes they say his advisers say he might or he is going to consider it. It says he would veto it. So here we are again, in the precious little time that this body has before it sends everybody back to their district, when we could be addressing Zika, when we could be addressing Flint, when we could be addressing immigration reform, when we could pass a balanced budget amendment, or any of those things that I hear from my constituents every day. Instead, we are pursuing a bill that won't become law. This bill will not become law. The President has indicated he would veto it. So we are just taking up the time of this body to debate a bill that affects people in a few States. Of course, I understand Iowa and Nebraska share one of the CO-OPs that went out of business. New York and Oregon are the others. I hail from a State where the CO-OP went out of business. I would add that it went out of business, with the actions of State regulators, at the right time, namely, before the enrollment period. So the question I brought before the Rules Committee yesterday, and I think it is very important for anybody who supports this bill to answer: Why did the State regulators in those States allow those CO-OPs to fail mid-period? Why weren't they ahead of the curve in those States to make sure that, if they had to fail, they did so in an orderly manner prior to the enrollment period? It is irresponsible of State regulators to allow insolvent plans into the marketplace. Instead of discussing that and instead of launching an investigation into that, instead of having a GAO report on that, we are just doing a bill that effectively bails them out. Another Republican taxpayer bailout bill that we have before us today. I have always been a big fan of the CO-OPs. In fact, the Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan program was created to support the development of nonprofit health insurance options in the individual marketplace. They face a lot of challenges. And, sadly, in fact, we wouldn't even be dealing with the fact that 17 of them have gone out of business if the Republicans hadn't put a provision in the omnibus in 2016--which I was proud to oppose for this reason, among many others-- that defunded the healthcare CO-OPs. So they already did an attack on the Affordable Care Act by defunding the CO-OPs; and now they are saying we want to bail them out. Of course, you want to bail them out now. You are responsible for letting them fail in the first place. Look, there are a lot of questions to answer before this body moves forward with this failed Republican bailout bill, namely, where were the State regulators? Why did they let these fail mid-cycle instead of, as they did in my State, before the enrollment period ended? Number two, why did you defend them in the first place? Didn't you know that you would probably have to bail them out if you did? And the third question I brought up in the Rules Committee is, why are we even just talking about CO-OPs? What about if for-profit insurance companies go out of business? Are we going to bail out those consumers, too? Now, I haven't seen that that has happened yet, but, look, these are private companies; it is only a matter of time until some company makes bad decisions and goes bankrupt and leaves its customers in the lurch. Now, it is the job of State regulators to try to actuarially make sure that those companies are sound and solvent; and if they are going to disqualify one, to do so before the enrollment period, not midterm. But let's be honest. Bad things happen, and probably someday a company will go out of business in the middle of a term, despite the best efforts of State regulators. And what about those customers, and why would they be treated any differently than the customers of CO-OPs? Look, in the three States where the CO-OPs did close down mid-session because of the ineffectiveness of State regulators, rather than proposing a Republican taxpayer bailout, we should simply point people to alternative insurance options. In fact, CO-OPs contacted every customer over 20 times to assist with the process of finding a new plan by e-mail, mailer, and phone. And in the event the available premiums were too expensive, the Affordable Care Act already has what they call a hardship exemption, where families can avoid paying any penalty. Just as they do under this bill, they can do it without this bill as well. In the three instances where CO-OP plans were terminated in the middle of the year, the set of circumstances that this Republican taxpayer bailout bill is designed to address, it appears that individuals had ample time and options to find new coverage, even if their own State regulators were asleep at the switch, and it does not mean that the rest of us, that I have to go back to honest, hardworking Coloradans and say, sorry, you have to bail out the Republican Congress and their failure to include in the omnibus a plan to maintain the solvency of the CO-OPs. The financial penalty for forgoing coverage is one of the primary incentives for what we call RomneyCare, or some call ObamaCare. By circumventing the individual mandate, H.R. 954 undermines an essential component of what was known as the Massachusetts plan, which is now the Affordable Care Act. But as we know, over 20 million Americans have obtained health insurance, many for the first time. I am proud to say that in my home State of Colorado, while we have a number of issues with regard to the Affordable Care Act, one positive indicator that we can point to is that the rate of individuals without insurance has dropped by half. It is now a historically low 6.7 percent. It has never been that low in the history of Colorado. For Colorado children, the uninsured rate is even lower, 2.5 percent. So nationwide, as we know, there are a lot of elements of the Affordable Care Act that are very popular and important to maintain. No one should be denied coverage for having a preexisting condition. Young adults can afford health insurance by staying on their parents' plan. The individual mandate is the flip side of making sure that people aren't discriminated against because of preexisting conditions. You can't have only a high-risk pool. You have to make sure that healthy people are in the pool to keep the rates low for everybody. That is the fundamental model that went into RomneyCare, and it was later adopted as a bipartisan concept. In addition, individuals have access to preventative services, affordable prescription drugs, and are no longer subject to lifetime caps that can leave them bankrupt if they have a serious illness. I have heard from a number of constituents for whom that is very important. So, look, every law can use improvement. There is no doubt about that. I was very strongly against the language in the Omnibus in 2016 that led to these CO-OPs going out of business and led to this Republican bailout package. And the Affordable Care Act, of course, can be improved. So instead of discussing ways to roll back the successes of the Affordable Care Act or do massive bailouts, we should be discussing ways that we can make the law work better and prevent the need for bailouts moving forward. To this end, I, along with many of my colleagues, have been a long- time supporter of establishing a public health insurance plan option. A public health insurance plan option would go a long way to revitalizing the individual marketplace through increased competition. In 2010, I led an effort with my colleague from Maine, Representative Chellie Pingree, to encourage Senator Reid to consider a public option in the health care reform legislation that was being drafted. And I have continued to call for a public option even after the Affordable Care Act passed. It has been scored to have reduced the deficit by over $200 billion and it would help the constituents in my district, particularly in our mountain areas, by providing a more affordable option within the individual exchange. I am proud to be a cosponsor of Representative Schakowsky's H.R. 265, the Public Option Deficit Reduction Act, which would require HHS to set up a public health insurance option. I would point out that this Republican bailout plan increases the deficit. Right? Small amount, small amount. You have the figures, my friend from Texas. I think--was it $40 million? How much does this bill increase the deficit? 12 million? Very small amount, right; but still the wrong way. The plan that I am supporting and that many Democrats support would reduce the deficit by $200 billion. So if the Republicans continue to go down this road of bailouts, large and small, we are going to bankrupt this country. We are already $20 trillion in debt. We have a deficit of half a trillion dollars. Yes, every little bit matters. Again, the amount is small of this Republican bailout that increases the deficit; but we could be going another path which is fiscally responsible, increases consumer choice, and brings down costs. Furthermore, since this bill will be vetoed anyway and this isn't going to become law, it is hardly worth the time to discuss. What we should be talking about are the very real public health crises. Indeed, public health, health-related bill, let's talk about health. Let's talk about the fact that it has been over a year since Flint administrators first became aware of toxic levels of lead in the water of the city, which still exist; and over that time the body has sat on its hands, day after day, week after week. Exposure to lead is very harmful to children who are at significantly elevated risk of damage to their nervous system, learning disabilities, impaired development, that not only are crises for them and their families, but ultimately will cost taxpayers even more over time. Yet, Congress hasn't allocated any help to even replace the pipes in Flint while children in the community are still using bottled water to drink and bathe, at great expense, I might add. Bottled water, for those of you who drink bottled water--Mr. Speaker, I don't know if you do--you know it is quite expensive, right? Better to drink water out of your tap. Let's fix the underlying condition. Then, of course, we have the Zika crisis. Nineteen thousand Americans have contracted the virus so far this year; 1,800 of those Americans are pregnant women who have an elevated risk of having associated consequences for their children, including microcephaly. Funding is essential to reduce the building diagnostic backlog and develop a method of testing, a vaccination, and better ways to address this health crisis as it spreads across Florida, south Texas, and the Caribbean. But instead of debating Zika or Flint or even a continuing resolution to keep the government open past Friday--which we haven't spent a moment on yet even though Government funding runs out Friday--or a bipartisan balanced budget amendment or any of the other great ideas that have been brought forward in a bipartisan way, instead of doing any of that, a symbolic bill will be met by a veto, yet another Republican bailout that costs taxpayers and increases the deficit. We have a bill that does nothing, that won't become law. It is a part of a wider effort to increase the deficit and force hardworking taxpayers in Colorado to bail out the failures of State regulators in four States. Mr. Speaker, this bill adds to the deficit. It undermines a component of the Affordable Care Act. It doesn't even address the failure of State regulators. It doesn't even address the fact that a policy that Republicans put in the 2016 Omnibus has led to the need for this bailout. Simply put, this is not part of the solution. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up the bipartisan no fly, no buy legislation. It would allow the Attorney General to bar the sale of explosives and firearms to those on the FBI's terrorist watch list. Republicans have refused to act on this commonsense legislation. Some of you might have heard at the debate yesterday that both Presidential contenders from both parties support this legislation. It is common sense. If we don't let somebody fly on an airplane, if they are on the terrorist watch list, why would we let them quietly assemble an arsenal? We need to check it out. Of course, if they are wrongly put on that list, of course let's have a way to get them off that list right away. So if they have a legitimate reason to buy a gun and they are not a terrorist, they shouldn't be on that list. But not buying a gun is the least of their inconveniences. If they are on that list, they can't even fly in most cases. Yet, Republicans continue to fail to act on this commonsense legislation despite being supported by Donald Trump, by Hillary Clinton, by many other leaders of both parties. We have the opportunity, if I can defeat the previous question with this vote, to actually take action and close this glaring loophole that allows terrorists to buy firearms and explosives right now in this country. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the Record along with extraneous material immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, again, rather than have this Republican bailout bill that increases the deficit, we could be discussing making it harder for terrorists to buy explosives and assemble arsenals. Okay? That is the choice we have in this vote. It is a choice I am willing to make, Mr. Speaker. It is a choice that every Member will be called upon to make when they vote ``yea'' and they say, Let's do a bailout that increases the deficit, or they vote ``nay'' and join me and say, You know what, let's make it harder for terrorists to buy explosives and firearms, a policy supported by both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. That is the choice we will have in moments, and it is one I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to think deeply about before they cast their ``yes'' vote or before they cast their ``no'' vote. Mr. Speaker, we have three calendar days left in this fiscal year, and our limited legislative time is not being spent well. We could be devoting our last few days to addressing Zika, to making it harder for terrorists to assemble arsenals, to addressing the disaster in Flint, Michigan, to stem the tide of opioid addiction ravaging this country and so many families that I have heard from in Colorado. None of these public health crises will be addressed if we don't consider a bill to keep the government open beyond September 30; instead, we are considering yet another Republican bailout--increases the deficit, unnecessary, and lets State regulators off the hook, bails them out. H.R. 954 implements an unnecessary, uncalled-for exemption, distracts us from the real conversations we should be having about how we can make health care more affordable and how we can reduce our budget deficit. This bill is simply an irresponsible process. I urge my colleagues to oppose this rule. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Rep. Paulsen and Rep. Crowley for bringing H.R. 5719, the Empowering Employees through Stock Ownership Act, to the floor. This is important legislation that will help start-ups attract and retain employees by allowing employees to obtain an ownership stake in those companies without facing cost- prohibitive tax bills. Often, privately held start-ups provide employees stock ownership options as part of their compensation package. Under current law, employees that receive company shares as part of their compensation package must pay the taxes on the value of those shares taxes immediately, long before the employees realize the economic benefit of those shares. This bill would allow employees to defer the tax on stock shares that companies provide employees as part of their compensation package for seven years or until the company can sell their stock on publically traded exchanges. Additionally, it would increase access to company equity for lower-wage earners. Studies have shown that closely held companies that combine employee ownership with employee workplace participation programs have a positive impact on employee productivity and improve overall company performance. Employees working for businesses in my district such as Neighborland and hobbyDB--both located in Boulder--have expressed their support for this bill and will be able to take advantage of its tax benefits. Other types of employee-ownership models have helped businesses have a higher growth rate and stay in business. Employee-ownership models are good for the company, the employees, and the community. In Colorado, there are approximately 118 businesses that use employee-owned businesses that promote employee ownership through stock option plans or ESOPs. A good example of a successful ESOP is Fire Safety Services. The owner, Jeff wanted to be able to offer his employees a stake in the business and converted his business to an ESOP. This allowed him to create a succession plan so the business can remain locally owned. Jeff noted that after the conversion, employee morale was up and sales were up. The New Belgium Brewery, located in Ft. Collins is also an ESOP. From the perspective of the employees, New Belgium has a culture of personal and collective growth--the employees are concerned about the professional growth of their colleagues and also have a vested stake in the management and economic health of the company. The bill before us will make it easier for employees in other privately-held companies to participate in the growth of their company.

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 5587, the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act. A few weeks ago, I got to visit the new Pathways in Technology Early College, P-TECH, program at Skyline High School in Colorado in the St. Vrain Valley School District. P-TECH is a partnership between the St. Vrain Valley School District, Front Range Community College, IBM, and other employers. It allows students to earn a high school diploma and associate's degree in 4 or 5 years. I spoke with a number of students participating in the very first P- TECH class, and they shared with me how this program will equip them with the skills they need to get good, reliable jobs after graduation. That is the kind of innovation Congress should be supporting, and this bill allows for that. The bill also allows funds to be used for open access education resources. Open access education resources and open access textbooks are openly licensed, free to use, and often come with more flexibility than traditional or commercial textbooks. Throughout this country, open education resources are gaining popularity, save resources, and maintain high quality standards. Last year, Congress recognized the cost-saving potential and flexibility of open education resources at the K-12 level in the Every Student Succeeds Act. I am very excited that support for open education resources continues in this bill. I urge this bill's final passage today, and I call on my colleagues in the Senate to take up this bipartisan legislation as soon as possible.

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, here we are debating various issues. Soon we will be going into debate on veterans bills, on tax cut bills. Yet this body has continually failed to act on addressing the Zika health crisis that has already impacted over 3,000 Americans in States like Texas and Florida, and it will only continue to get worse until we put the resources we need into our public health to prepare vaccinations, to deal with mosquito control. This is the type of issue that doesn't solve itself. And it is amazing that, when people look to the United States Congress for leadership, rather than acting on funding Zika, months after the initial request by the President of the United States, we continue to discuss topics which are not going to become law, bills that would be vetoed if they pass the Senate, won't pass the Senate, and, obviously, don't address the immediate public health crisis that is affecting thousands of Americans and will affect even more until this body decides to address it.

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule for consideration of H.R. 3590, and to the bill. They say you can't have your cake and eat it too, but that is exactly what Republicans are trying to do with this bill. They are trying to keep the benefits of ObamaCare and repeal the costs of ObamaCare. They are saying we are going to continue subsidies for middle-income and lower-income people, every expense associated with ObamaCare, and yet we are going to reduce the funding. We are going to increase our deficit by over $30 billion. At a time when the deficit continues to add to our national debt, when many of us are calling for going the opposite direction, trying to balance our budget, I am a proud sponsor of a balanced budget amendment. Digging this $30 billion hole will make it even harder to balance the budget. If the Republicans are serious about cutting $30 billion in revenue, let's show where they are going to cut $30 billion in costs. Whether it is from the Affordable Care Act or whether it is other items, it is not intellectually honest to simply say we are going to cut money, but we are not going to tell you where it is coming from. This bill would add $33 billion to the deficit. And we all like tax cuts, Mr. Speaker. I mean, who wouldn't want to cut taxes for everybody? It is always a question of: How are you going to pay for it? The Republicans failed to pay for this $33 billion in that bill. In fact, by giving tax cuts today, they are making our next generation, our children, even more beholden to today's debt and the legacy of debt that they are leaving for the next generation. The revenue generated by this provision is an important part of trying to reduce our deficit and balance our budget. Removing that will simply create a hole of over $30 billion in a deficit that is already over $400 billion. H.R. 3590 would increase the deficit by establishing the itemized deduction threshold at 7.5 percent for all taxpayers. If Congress continues to roll back pay-fors on a law that costs money to implement, it is going to continue to increase our deficit. There have been a number of other measures that have been brought before this body that have also increased our deficit. At a time when numerous significant public health crises need to be addressed--the Zika virus, opioid addiction, the water in Flint--we are actually discussing a bill that increases the deficit by $33 billion and doesn't even deal with any of these crises, making it even harder to try to find the scarce resources that we have and divert them from existing operational programs or other revenue generators to address the Zika public health crisis, the opioid addition, or the Flint water crisis. While H.R. 3590 sets out nice tax cuts, it doesn't pay for them. The reality of this bill is that the higher a household's income, the more likely it is to get a tax cut. According to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, if H.R. 3590 were to become law, taxpayers with over $100,000 of income would receive two-thirds of this tax cut at the expense of their own children, who would then be forced to inherit a nation even deeper in debt. When you spend money you don't have, that is a future tax increase. So effectively what this bill does is it trades a tax cut today for a tax increase tomorrow. If you ask me, Mr. Speaker, this country has done too much of that already. It would be one thing if this tax cut were paid for. We could weigh the pros and the cons. We could weigh the costs and the benefits, a $32 billion tax cut. I agree with what my colleague said. It would be a wonderful thing to do. It would be a wonderful way to help families afford health care and increase the deductibility level. But what's the tradeoff, Mr. Speaker? There are tradeoffs in this world. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Where are you going to cut $33 billion because this tax cut is so justified? Maybe there is a program we can agree to cut. I would probably support it today if we decreased defense spending by $33 billion over 10 years and that was the pay-for. I wouldn't have a problem with that. I would much rather give the money to middle class families than continue to spend more than the rest of the world combined on our military. And look how cavalier this body is about adding $33 billion to the deficit. All in a day's work, Mr. Speaker. Apparently, we are impeaching an IRS Commissioner and we are adding $33 billion to the deficit. We wonder why, when the American people look at this body, its approval rating is so low. Twelve percent is what I saw last. In 1 day, we are adding $33 billion to the deficit while not addressing critical issues with Zika and Flint. In Flint, for example, a year has gone by since a doctor first raised a red flag about the city's water supply, and we have not appropriated or replaced the corroded water pipes. There is still water being trucked in. While Flint families are continuing to rely on bottled water, on trucked in water, Congress is increasing the deficit even more. Or we can examine the abuse of prescription opioids, an epidemic that is sweeping this country. Now, we passed a lowest common denominator bill, a bill, of course, I supported. It has some good statistics and good coordination, but it doesn't substantively do anything to address the fact that opioids were involved in 28,647 tragic deaths last year alone, the most on record. In May, we heard Members from both sides of the aisle come to the floor and speak eloquently about how addiction is ravaging families back home, and I share those stories from Colorado. But when the President submitted a proposal that would have provided $1.1 billion in funding to actually address this epidemic, Congress did nothing. So here we are increasing the deficit by $33 billion, where, if we simply took $1 billion of that and addressed the opioid crisis, $1 billion of it and addressed Zika, then we could simply use the rest to reduce the deficit. We are happy to spend money we don't have. The Republicans are happy to spend money we don't have when it comes to tax cuts; but when it goes to public health, when it goes to lead in pipes, when it goes to reducing prescription drug abuse, there is no money for that. Instead, this body passed a package of bills with no funding. And then there is Zika. In the pantheon of public health emergencies, Zika is particularly pressing. Almost 19,000 Americans have already contracted Zika, including 1,800 pregnant women. The numbers are likely higher because we don't know all of the diagnoses in all of the cases, and four or five people only have mild symptoms and might not be diagnosed. In pregnancies, Zika, as we know, can be especially devastating and, I might add, costly to taxpayers for the lifetime of the child. A fetus is susceptible to severe cognitive impairments caused by the virus, including microcephaly. So far there are upwards of 20 cases of microcephaly in the U.S., and that number is set to increase with the prevalence of Zika, which only Congress can act to stem. The administration declares Zika to be a public health emergency in Puerto Rico, where one in four people are estimated to become infected over in the next year. Florida is grappling with an upsurge in cases, prompting the CDC to issue its first ever domestic travel warning within our own country to our own State of Florida. We need to learn more. The virus has been around for decades, but few comprehensive studies exist as it made the transition from Africa to South America. We know very little about the likelihood a fetus will contract Zika or what the factors are that affect that and the long- term implications of exposure to the virus as an infant. This knowledge gap isn't for lack of qualified talented researchers. I was fortunate to visit the CDC's Division of Vector-Borne Diseases with Representative Buck just a few weeks ago to see firsthand the research they are doing into viruses such as Zika, but they need the ability and the resources to focus on this imminent public health crisis. At a CDC laboratory, the Division of Vector-Borne Diseases relies on Federal funding to produce cutting-edge science that saves lives. If this body were to approve the requested amount to fight Zika, it is likely we would know already a lot more about this scary virus. Relevant to my district is another recent and unprecedented outbreak of a mosquito-borne virus: West Nile. At 28 human cases, it is the highest incidence of the virus in the State. Cities such as Los Angeles, Dallas, and Phoenix are also being hit hard. That is also directly affected by the public health for vector-borne viruses. Funding will also be essential to reduce the building diagnostic backlog or develop a simpler method of testing. The testing process for Zika is cumbersome and costly. In places with local transmission like Florida and Puerto Rico, results have started to take upwards of a month to come back, leaving families in an ongoing chronic state of uncertainty and agony. Appropriating dollars to deal with this emergency is critical to develop a vaccine. With public health experts pleading for funding to combat Zika, President Obama sent Congress a $1.9 billion funding request to combat the virus on February 22. Well, now it is September 13, 204 days since the request, and thousands of victims later. While the Senate approved $1.1 billion to combat the virus, House leadership has not shown any appetite for this measure. In the meantime, agencies like Health and Human Services are desperately trying to transfer money from other accounts just to make ends meet. I am frustrated, Mr. Speaker, that here we are discussing a bill that adds $33 billion to our deficit that we don't have when we can least afford to do so, when we are not even talking about these much smaller ticket items that are urgent and that are emergencies. It is frustrating that this body continues to promulgate a double standard around offsetting the cost of legislation. Expenditures and revenues are two sides of the same coin. If you reduce revenues by $2 billion, it has the exact same impact on the deficit as increasing expenditures by $2 billion. They are the same thing. Yet here we are creating massive fiscally irresponsible holes in our deficit, moving further away from ever balancing it, when we are not even looking at these much smaller ticket items that are much more important and are critical emergencies. We are discussing a bill that adds $33 billion to our deficit. We continue to avoid dealing with Flint, with opioids, and with Zika, at a small fraction of the cost of this bill, Mr. Speaker. Just give us 10 percent of the cost of this bill--$3 billion--and think of the progress we can make on Flint and opioids and Zika. Instead, we are spending $33 billion in tax expenditures to increase our deficit by over $33 billion. This isn't the way to balance the budget. This isn't the way to run a country. Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up legislation that would allow those with outstanding student debt to refinance their existing high interest rates to lower interest rates. Mr. Speaker, every one of us has constituents who are struggling with student debt. This legislation gives us an opportunity to provide immediate relief. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the Record along with extraneous material immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I think what is frustrating in consideration of this deficit-busting, irresponsible, Republican tax-and-spend bill is a double standard. We have a bill before us that would increase the deficit by over $33 billion, yet we are not even allowed to consider these much smaller ticket items that are pressing national emergencies. Children in Flint still can't bathe or drink tap water because of toxic lead; families in New Hampshire are receiving little help for the opioid addictions ravaging their communities; pregnant women in south Florida are living in fear of the serious health consequences and birth defects related to Zika; and yet there is $33 billion for a tax cut for the wealthy. What piece am I missing here, Mr. Speaker? How is it that there is $33 billion for a tax expenditure, but there is not even $1 billion or $2 billion or $3 billion to address these pressing issues like Zika or lead or opioids? A dollar is a dollar. Whether you expend it as a decrease in revenue or an expenditure, it has the exact same economic impact. It increases our budget deficit, already over $400 billion; and here we have a bill that would increase it by over $30 billion. If we are going to move towards balancing the budget, Mr. Speaker, of course, we need to look at expenditures and we need to look at revenues. That is the only way you are ever going to get there. And it is the exact wrong direction to be decreasing net revenues without even talking about what expenditures you are going to cut. Again, it would be one thing if we knew what the tradeoffs were, if this bill had an offset for the $33 billion and we said: You know what? This is a worthy tax cut. The gentleman made a good case for it. Of course, we want to increase deductibility of healthcare expenses. I don't think there is a single person in this body who wouldn't want to do it. The question is: What is the tradeoff? Where is that $33 billion going to come from? And let's work together to find a way to pay for it. Right? I mean, let's look at spending less on our military rather than spending more than the rest of the world combined. You know what? If we cut just $3 billion a year from our bloated military budget, we could fully pay for this tax cut. Sign me up, Mr. Speaker. That would be paid for, and I would support it. There might be other areas that we could find to work together to pay for this tax cut, but when you are asking us, Mr. Speaker, to say: You know what? I want to pay for this tax cut by mortgaging your children's future, you are not going to get a lot of takers among us fiscally responsible Democrats. I guess Republicans don't care about the deficit, don't care about mortgaging the future, don't care about leaving our kids further in debt. But you know what? Democrats do. That is why I oppose this bill. Our children are already inheriting an enormous legacy of debt. The last thing we should be doing is adding $33 billion more to that. I have nothing against this particular expenditure. If there is a way to pay for it, we could do that. We could work with Republicans on it. I would be happy to work with Republicans on it. There are always tradeoffs in life. Nothing comes free. There is no expenditure that is free. There is no reduction in revenue that is free. A dollar is a dollar. Families across our country know that when they are balancing their checkbooks at the end of the month. They know that if they spend more money or they get a bonus at work, it goes into the same pot. And if they get a cut in their salary, that means they have less money to spend. That is what it should mean to this Congress. If we are going to be taking in $33 billion less, we should spend $33 billion less. We should pay for any tax cut or expenditure on the revenue side and make sure that it doesn't go to mortgaging our children's future by increasing our already bloated budget deficit and contributing to our national debt. If it wasn't so serious, Mr. Speaker, it would almost be humorous when we hear around raising the debt ceiling time from our Republican friends, Oh, we don't want to increase the debt ceiling, oh, no. The debt ceiling. The debt ceiling. We are not going to increase the debt ceiling. Well, you know why the debt ceiling reaches its cap, Mr. Speaker? The reason the debt ceiling needs to be increased is because Congress spends more than it has. It is too late to complain after the fact, Mr. Speaker. It is too late to complain after the fact. If you, Congress, spend more than you take in, yes, you are going to need to increase the debt ceiling. It is not rocket science. I think even my kindergartener could do the math. It is addition and subtraction. Yet here we are saying: You know what? Let's cut government revenues by $33 billion. Well, you know what, Mr. Speaker? If this bill were to become law, we would reach the debt ceiling even earlier. And, of course, Congress would have to blow the lid on the debt ceiling and increase the national debt. It is math. It is simple math, Mr. Speaker, and families across our country understand simple math. They balance their checkbooks. My home State of Colorado requires a balanced budget every year, just as many other States across the country do. I support a balanced budget amendment here. I think that Congress, like families across our country, like our States, should balance our budget. But even in the absence of that requirement, Congress should act responsibly to do it. And this bill is the opposite. It increases our deficit by over $30 billion. It doesn't pay for it. It mortgages our children's future for a tax expenditure today. It is the wrong way to go for our country. So while, of course, my Democratic colleagues and I share concern about ensuring access to affordable health care and would be happy to talk about tradeoffs that are involved with any reduction in revenues, H.R. 3590 is simply not the way to do it. I strongly urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question and to vote ``no'' on this restrictive, misguided rule. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. In those 2 months, why wasn't there a time for this to go through the committee process and regular order?

Mr. POLIS. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank the gentleman from Georgia. I want to point out that with regard to procedures and regular order and how this body works, there is a difference between these two bills, the one that I discussed previously under the other rule and this one. The deficit bill, the $30 billion increase in the deficit that the Republicans want to do, that came through what we call regular order, meaning it was marked up in the Ways and Means Committee. That is normally how things work around here. A bill goes through committee, then it comes to the Rules Committee, and then it goes to the floor. This bill, however, sort of magically appeared in Rules Committee. It didn't go through the committee of jurisdiction which, at the very least, would include the Veterans' Affairs Committee. It might include other committees as well. It simply appeared and was referred to the floor. So what that means is Members of Congress and a committee did not have a chance to amend it. We don't even know if it would have had a vote in committee and whether it cleared committee. Instead, it just sort of appeared right now. So, look, we all deeply care, of course, about veterans. I agree with much of what my colleague from Georgia said about the need for the VA to do better. In Colorado, I have been very involved with our long-overdue, new veterans hospital in Aurora. We have been working many years on getting this completed. In fact, delays have cost taxpayers over $300 million. It continues to leave many who served in our Armed Forces, including many of my constituents, without the convenient, quality care that they were promised. So I join my colleagues, Mr. Perlmutter, Mr. Coffman, and many others from our entire Colorado delegation, in, of course, wanting to improve the quality of services at the VA. We had issues as well with fraudulent overbilling and mislabeling of the amount of time that patients waited out of our Fort Collins facility. There are a number of problems with this bill, but one of them that I want to briefly mention is that it can actually lead to less accountability in the VA because it could lead to the punishment of whistleblowers, of employees who speak up against mismanagement. When you are looking at passing a thoughtful human resources policy or personnel policy--and I don't dispute that we need to work with the VA to come up with a better way of doing it--you want to make sure that somebody who is a whistleblower is adequately protected. If somebody comes forward and says, you know what, we are doing mislabeling of timesheets, or, you know what, I know why this project is $300 million over budget, and this might be because of X, Y, or Z, it doesn't always rise to the Federal level of whistleblower. We just want good employees to not feel that they can be fired for coming forward with the truth about misconduct. This bill does not do that. In fact, it will make those who have useful information that can lead to systemic improvements at the VA more hesitant to come forward with that information. The bill removes a due process protection for VA employees and reduces the amount of time they have to respond to a termination by two-thirds, from 30 days to 10 days. We all want to move expeditiously, but it seems like 30 days is a reasonable timeframe. There is no evidence given as to why that 20-day reduction is needed. I haven't heard any. It also eliminates a requirement that supervisors provide specific examples of poor performance when an employee is terminated--of course, there should be reasons given--opening the door for unnecessary firings and leaving VA employees with no recourse or rebuttal. In any organization, employee morale is critical. And to create an environment of paranoia in any enterprise--a company, an agency--is not conducive to furthering the mission. Creating this kind of uncertainty and chaos from a personnel perspective within the VA would likely only make our services to veterans even harder to provide and worse by decreasing employee morale, therefore, making it harder to attract the type of quality caregivers and administrators that we need to facilitate the VA program. Look, this bill is an attempt to make long-overdue reforms. I wish that it was a thoughtful, bipartisan attempt. I wish it had gone through committee. I wish the committee had worked on it, marked it up, and reported it out with bipartisan support; but that is not what has happened here. This bill appeared at the last minute, throws away basic rights of employees, reduces morale, endangers whistleblowers, and does very little to improve the quality of services of the VA or, frankly, the accountability of the employees of the VA, both at the management level and at the worker level. Like a lot of ideas that we debate here, of course, there is a kernel of an idea here. Yes, we want to work together to reform the VA. We agree with that. My colleague from Georgia gave a lot of reasons. I could give my own. I mentioned the price overrides in our hospital in Aurora. I have mentioned the manipulated timesheets in Fort Collins. I have mentioned, like my colleague from Georgia, just the individual cases where I have had constituents that we have had to help navigate an overly complex bureaucracy and they shouldn't have to go to their Member of Congress. For men and women who have served our country, for men and women who were injured in the line of duty, for men and women who are disabled from a service-related injury, we owe them our very best. They stood up and defended our freedom, and we owe them all the highest quality of care to take care of them through our VA system, or through Veterans Choice, and the other types of programs that serve our veterans' community. Of course, we need to reform and do better in the VA. Again, rather than this kind of irresponsible, appeared-out-of- nowhere magical bill that would actually penalize the very whistleblowers that we need to tell us about misconduct and would decrease morale even further in an agency where it has already been impacted, let's start fresh. Let's work together. Let's go back to committee. Let's come up with a thoughtful approach to improving the VA. And let's make this happen. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson).

Mr. POLIS

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

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

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. Mr. Speaker, over 6 months ago, the Obama administration actually identified the Zika virus as a public health crisis. It is well reported on. My constituents are aware of it. It has already affected many Americans in States like Florida, Texas, and Louisiana. The Obama administration requested additional resources to combat the virus. The White House and the CDC correctly predicted that the virus would soon spread to the Southern United States. In fact, just as Congress left for its 7-week break, there were several reports of Zika transmission in south Florida. In fact, just last week, the Director of the CDC warned that, without congressional action, they will soon run out of money for combating Zika. Now, in a moment, I will talk about the bills we are considering, but I think the American people expect Congress to react to a public health crisis. Had we reacted 7 weeks ago, perhaps we wouldn't be where we are today. I need and call upon this body to act today so that we are in a better situation 7 weeks hence. In fact, the House is only in session for 15 more days before taking at least a 6-week break in October and November. In the handful of days we have left, it is critical to provide an emergency package to fight back against Zika. That is not currently on the calendar, Mr. Speaker. Instead, we are considering these bills. I will be going into the merits and lack thereof of them; but certainly, I think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would agree with the objective assessment that these bills do nothing to combat Zika or address the public health concerns around Zika. The Senate did pass a partisan Zika funding bill to provide emergency resources. It doesn't have unrelated poison pills unrelated to Zika. Obviously, issues like where or if the flag of the rebel States, the Confederate flag, is displayed, or whether Planned Parenthood is funded, these are contentious issues here, but I think we all agree they have nothing to do with Zika. The Confederate flag does not have an impact on Zika. Planned Parenthood has at least a related aspect to it--reproductive health. Of course, one of the symptoms or one of the effects of Zika is a higher rate of microcephaly among children that are born to women who suffer from Zika while they are pregnant. So certainly the family planning aspect of it is relevant, but not central, to the issues affecting public health around Zika. We need to make sure that there aren't any of those poison pill provisions and move forward. Instead, we have different bills here. We have bills related to financial markets. The first one is the Accelerating Access to Capital Act of 2016. That one brings together several different bills that had been offered. First, it includes a bill that affects microcap companies, or pink sheet companies, and removes many of the SEC transparency regulations around how they sell stock and how they are listed. It is not a step forward for transparency. In fact, this kind of effort is likely to decrease confidence in our public marketplace. It is likely to hurt the very stock market that presumably it was designed to help. This would effectively allow microcap companies worth less than $75 million with one class of securities to issue an unlimited number of shares using shelf registration in a 12-month period, not even notifying the SEC ahead of the issuance, and permit unlisted microcap companies to sell up to one-third of the aggregate market value of their common equity using shelf registration in a 12-month period. In many ways, these provisions are at odds with the other bills that I will talk about, which provides some regulatory relief towards private equity by favoring small cap public companies. It is hard for a small company to be public. It is questionable whether small cap companies should be public. When we talk about private equity in a moment, we will see that one of the features of that is: A, they have, of course, a more sophisticated ownership; and, B, they have a more concentrated ownership. So, for instance, the issues like runaway executive pay, CEO pay, is less of a problem with private equity and a significant problem with public companies, and, again, in particularly small cap companies with diffuse ownership, which this bill would likely lead to more of. It would also remove exchange protections like corporate governance requirements. Again, these kinds of measures reduce confidence in the public marketplace, they hurt the stock market, and, in the immediate and long term, they hurt the ability of companies to go public and access public capital because of the reputation of the pink sheets and the reputation of microcap. It is a fine line. I am sure that we would probably agree on some regulatory relief around small cap companies, but this package is not it. This package would hurt the stock market, hurt access to capital, and hurt the very legitimate players that it is designed to help. The second bill in here is the Micro Offering Safe Harbor Act. It would eliminate Federal and State investor protection around crowdfunding in regulation A under certain conditions. First, I was an original sponsor of the JOBS bill. I worked with many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to get that through. I will be among the first to say that I was disappointed with the way that that has been implemented by the administration. Crowdfunding should be easy. It should not have 900 pages of regulations. The main consumer safeguard that we have in there is that nonaccredited investors are only allowed to invest up to $10,000. That is a very important protection that we have. This would eliminate that protection under several circumstances. One, if there are 35 or fewer purchasers; or, two, the aggregate amount of securities sold by the issuer is $500,000 or less in a 1-year period. It basically does away with one of the legislatively imposed consumer protections in the JOBS Act. Now, I would agree. I think there has been some regulatory-imposed inhibitions in the JOBS Act that I wish that we could strike out in a laser-like way with a scalpel. In fact, many States, including my own State of Colorado, have implemented more sensible bipartisan crowdfunding legislation that enables it to occur at least within a State in a much easier way than the very cumbersome Federal law which does inhibit both the use of crowdfunding as well as the presence of crowdfunding as part of an overall capital strategy because of the difficulties concerning other types of capital investors and capital partners. I would love to see reform of the JOBS Act or reform around micro offering, but this particular answer really undermines the entire concept of the consumer protections. It is not targeted. It removes the protections for smaller of the smallest of the small offerings. And again, what you would find and the danger here is folks--we can call them scam artists or folks trying to make a buck off of this and not build legitimate businesses--can simply set up a number of companies each raising under $500,000 to meet the criteria of this exemption. There is not any consumer protection around that. There is nothing to stop a bad actor from asking for significant investments for each of those companies, even from the same individual depleting the savings of that individual rather than sticking to the $10,000 cap, which was in our JOBS Act. So again, I would like, and many of my colleagues on my side of the aisle would like, crowdfunding to be easier, to be done quicker, to remove some of the excess paperwork and regulation A requirements, but maintaining that basic consumer safeguard and not providing exemptions just because there are 35 or fewer purchasers or $500,000 or less over a 1-year period. It doesn't even address overlapping ownership or related status between, again, multiple companies that might each raise $500,000, might substantially have the same external owners, but would get around the JOBS Act consumer protection provisions by effectively cloning a bunch of small companies and offering them up separately for individual investors. These things need to be thought through. There is a kernel of an idea in there. I agree that the administration has gone beyond the legislative intent of the JOBS Act in its implementation of the JOBS Act. There is, hopefully, a way that we can work together to empower crowdfunding to play a more central role in capital development in entrepreneurship in our country. This bill is not it. The final component of that bill, the Private Placement Improvement Act of 2016, would make it very difficult for the SEC to finalize investor protections that it proposed back in 2013. The title would require issuers selling securities under an exemption that allows companies to raise an unlimited amount of money to file within 15 days of sale a single notice of sale, which the SEC would then be required to make available to State and other regulators. This relates to some current rules that the SEC is moving forward with. I think that, again, there is a way to tweak those rules, but I don't think that this is the way to do it, to allow for unlimited capital to be raised under a single notice of sale. And, of course, this also affects the prerogative of State regulators, and there are a variety of practices there, by requiring the SEC to make it available to State and other regulators. I think that there is room for improvement in that area, but, again, the bill falls short. Now, the other bill, the Investment Advisers Modernization Act of 2016, a majority of Democrats on the committee support it. Many also voiced concerns. Some were the concerns of the Obama administration about some of those provisions. But I am glad to say that many of those concerns have been addressed by my colleague's, Mr. Foster's, amendment. First, a little bit about private equity and what this bill does and doesn't do. My State and my district, like, probably, every other district in the country, has seen the benefits and the impact of private equity investment in its providing growth capital to companies, providing stability in ownership. There are over 100 private equity-backed companies headquartered in Colorado that we know of that support close to 100,000 jobs in Colorado. In 2015, private equity firms invested $12 billion in Colorado-based companies. They are real jobs, and they have contributed to the economic growth that Colorado has seen over the last few years and that the country will see over the next few years. Private equity has helped to create and sustain thousands of jobs and has made substantial investments in every State in the country. It provides returns to public pensions, to university endowments, to many people as part of their own individual retirement plans and savings. It is important both from a capital perspective and from an operating perspective--a very important sector. Firms that are owned by private equity--at least, because, again, there could be some that are not part of this--employ over 8 million people. The private equity industry invested over $600 billion into these companies. For physical infrastructure, for additional hires, for expansion, private equity has been a source of capital for Main Street businesses across our country, in my State, and everywhere else in the country. That is why the bill passed the Financial Services Committee with a majority of Democrats--with strong bipartisan support--and I think it will pass this body with strong bipartisan support as well. Of course, there have been stories about bad actors in private equity just as there could be bad actors among any type of ownership entity. That is what private equity is. It is a type of entity that may own a local company. What are the other kinds of ownership that a company may have? It may have public ownership. It may be public. We talked about that in the microcap bill. In many ways, that is a worse form of ownership in that there is additional administrative overhead that is associated with being public. Even if the regulatory relief were to become the law, there is still significant additional overhead with being public. It is very difficult for a $20 million or a $50 million company. Two, because of the diffuse ownership, frequently, there is no one watching the shop, meaning that management runs it. We have the problems of excess CEO pay, of excess executive pay. There are horror stories of CEOs making hundreds of times the pay of the line workers. Those kinds of things don't happen in private equity-backed companies. There is someone minding the shop, and the entity that is minding the shop is an entity that is looking for long-term growth, for long-term stability. They are not in and out. There has been some confusion among Members of this body in discussing hedge funds versus private equity. Private equity is not a hedge fund. Hedge funds have liquidity, and they make transactions rapidly. They don't participate in governance and growth. Private equity is very, very different. It is more analogous to venture capital. They are in there for 5 years, 6 or 7 years, 10 years--long- term investors who are building the companies, serving on boards, recruiting others to serve on boards, providing sound corporate governance, making sure that CEOs and executives aren't paid too much, making sure that talent is in the company, making sure that growth capital is available. H.R. 5424 just takes a scalpel approach to existing regulations by focusing on aspects of SEC adviser registration that impede the capital formation in the private equity industry. For instance, there are provisions in the bill that would make reporting to the SEC more efficient and effective for their purposes and less costly and burdensome for private equity firms. Keep in mind that private equity firms do not represent, in any way, shape, or form, a systemic risk to our Nation's financial security. They are simply a type of ownership that Main Street companies have. If a private equity firm invests poorly, runs companies poorly, they will deliver a very poor return for their investors. That does not impact in any systemic way the economy in the way that a hedge fund--placing highly leveraged bets on derivatives or on some other financial instrument--can cause an entire economic meltdown, as we saw during the mortgage-backed security crisis in 2008 and in 2009. Private equity firms provide patient, stable, long-term capital to privately owned businesses across the country. In fact, they help take the emphasis off of the quarterly financial reports that are so important for public companies. One of the failures of public company governance is that there is too much emphasis on the short term at the expense of the long term--too much emphasis to pump up the quarter at the expense of medium- and long-term growth--2 years, 3 years, 4 years--in underinvestment in research and in underinvestment in long-term growth. Having a private equity ownership of an operating company addresses that kind of moral hazard that exists with regard to the incentives of the public marketplace. Private equity firms have a long-term outlook that results in lower volatility. While the public company model may not perform as well as private equity firms, it, obviously, can provide access to capital, to additional liquidity that private equity doesn't have. The two are related in that, for some private equity investors, their goal is a public offering exit in the 5-to 10-year time frame. That is not always the case, but that can be the case; and having an operable public market in addition to a private equity market is, of course, of interest and importance to the private equity industry as well, which is why the reforms in the other bill are so bad, because they deteriorate confidence in the stock market. They ultimately will result in decreasing liquidity for the good actors, meaning some of the private equity-backed or owner-operator-owned companies that want to have a public partial exit or exit through the public marketplace. Again, the bill isn't perfect. The White House identified a number of issues. But, fortunately, my colleague, Representative Foster, offered an amendment, which has been accepted and, hopefully, that will address a number of these issues. The amendment removes a provision of the bill that would have allowed certain ancillary or minor funds or entities that are affiliated with a private equity firm to also be exempt from annual audits or surprise inspections. It addresses concerns around transparency by continuing the current requirement that advisers provide information about fees and services in a brochure. It restores the transparency elements while maintaining the concept of the regulatory relief of redundant regulations with regard to capital formation and private equity. The goal is to enact this commonsense bill that will make it more efficient for private equity firms to operate and continue to grow businesses on Main Street in districts like mine and across the country while simultaneously maintaining the regulatory regime to make sure that nothing untoward is occurring. The bill does not, as some have falsely argued, allow private equity firms to escape regulation by any stretch. In fact, most private equity firms have embraced the changes that have been implemented under Dodd- Frank. They have compliance teams to make sure they are operating properly under the new regulatory scheme. In any form, they do not represent a systemic risk, but to protect investors, many of them agree with the sensible regulations that have been imposed with the exception of those that we are seeking to remove that are redundant and that create overhead. When you create overhead for private equity firms, that results in less investment in our Main Street businesses. If they have to divert funds to comply with unnecessary regulations for the sake of regulations, it is that much less money and that many fewer jobs in your Main Street businesses located in your districts. The substitute amendment makes positive changes to the legislation. It addresses many of the concerns that have been raised about the bill. I and many of my colleagues plan to support its passage and also take this occasion to make sure that our colleagues are aware of the contributions of this particular model of ownership to our Main Street businesses. It has been a growth sector, in fact, largely due to showing, over time, superior performance to companies that have a public governance model, in fact, in large part, due to their dissipated owner base and lack of concentration in ownership. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I do have a speaker, but I can't locate her right now. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The gentleman talked about the Micro Offering Safe Harbor Act. Again, I think that there is the kernel of a good idea there, if the good idea would be to streamline the excess regulation above and beyond the consumer safeguards that were put in the JOBS Act; if the bill, for instance, were to take some of the best practices from the States, including my home State of Colorado, around crowdfunding and put them into a revised version of Federal direction. To be clear, I would join my colleagues in agreeing that the administration went well beyond the expressed legislative intent and legislative language of the JOBS Act in creating barriers to micro financing across the country. Unfortunately, that is not what this bill does. It cuts back by providing gaping loopholes on the consumer protections that Congress very thoughtfully intended to put in the JOBS Act. So these are not the unintended regulatory aspects that the administration added to the JOBS Act. These are cutting away at the very consumer protections which Congress deliberately--including, as one of the coauthors of the bill along with my Republican colleagues, Mr. Issa and many others, the protections that we actually put into the bill, this would gut. So, again, a kernel of a good idea. Perhaps the inception of this bill is, hey, we messed up on the implementation of crowdfunding. Let's fix it. Unfortunately, that is not what this bill does. I wish it was what this bill does. It is something I am certainly interested in doing. I think many of my Democratic colleagues are, and we would be happy to work on a bipartisan basis to address the poor implementation of the JOBS Act. Of course, if there was something expressly provided legislatively, we would be happy to go back and look at that. But this glaring loophole that is opened is simply not it, with regard to if there are fewer than 35 purchasers, under $500,000, some kind of preexisting relationship. These loopholes are simply too broad and would effectively remove the consumer protections that we have in crowdfunding. Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up the bipartisan no fly, no buy legislation, which I am proud to support. It would allow the Attorney General to bar the sale of firearms and explosives to those on the FBI's terrorist watch list. If somebody is on the FBI terrorist watch list, they should not be allowed to quietly assemble an arsenal to commit a terrorist act. In fact, the FBI should immediately be on top of the situation, find out their intent, and see what is going on. It is a commonsense bill that would help keep America safe. My amendment would give the House an opportunity to simply vote on this commonsense bill, which so far, unfortunately, the Republicans have not even allowed us to debate. We cannot wait any longer for Congress to take meaningful action to reduce the risk of terrorism in our own country, and this bill would do that. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record the text of my amendment, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire if the gentleman has any remaining speakers.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call upon the House of Representatives to address our broken immigration system, one that serves our national security poorly, one that inhibits the ability of law enforcement to keep our communities safe and replace it with comprehensive immigration reform so we know who is here, so that people who are here illegally will be required to register and get right with the law and pay a fine, that we provide a pathway to citizenship for people who are here and playing a productive role in our economy, and that we can make sure that parents aren't taken away forcibly from their American citizen children. It has been scored by the Congressional Budget Office that immigration reform would reduce our budget deficit by over $200 billion. There are people here today working, Mr. Speaker, and we don't even know if they are paying taxes. We need to make sure that everybody who works in our country pays their just share of taxes, fulfills their responsibilities as legal residents or as citizens of our country, and the only way that we can do that is through congressional action. I am proud to support comprehensive immigration reform. I call upon Speaker Ryan and the Republican majority to put a bill forward that secures our border, reduces our deficit, and provides a way that people are required to get right with the law and have workplace authentication.