Paul Ryan

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, may I ask how much time I have remaining.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Paulsen), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Young) for the closing on his legislation.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Costello).

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Byrne).

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy), the distinguished House majority leader.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Curbelo).

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I don't know what to say. Paychecks. Guess what. It is happening across America today. Even before the employer mandate kicked in, businesses across America are cutting workers' hours down to 29. That doesn't help a paycheck. So think about what is going on in America today and look at what has already been happening, and this is before this costly employer mandate even took place. It is happening in every congressional district. We heard about cafeteria workers, firefighters, teachers, community colleges, retailers, restaurateurs, all of them being forced to cut the hours of their employees down to part-time work. If you want to help a person's paycheck, give them the opportunity to have a full-time job. That is what this does. It is really kind of amazing. I hear a lot of talk about the CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation and the costs and the costs of this bill. Here is the bulk of the costs. What we are saying is don't impose these costly, punitive mandate taxes on hardworking taxpayers. So by removing these mandate taxes, yes, I suppose it costs the government some money. It puts that money back into the paychecks and back into the pockets of the hardworking taxpayers who give us the money in the first place. It says to businesses: Go ahead and hire, add hours, and increase wages. That is the so-called cost of this legislation. Mr. Speaker, we want more people working. We want the people who are in 30- to 40-hour jobs, hourly wages, high school educations, just getting started in life, we want them to keep climbing that ladder of life. This law puts a huge roadblock in front of people working. What this motion to recommit does is it is just designed to kill the bill. With respect to the veterans issue, we solved that yesterday with our Hire More Heroes Act, which we passed in a big, bipartisan vote. So make no mistake. This recommit is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to simply kill this bill. Look, if you want to impose this mandate, if you want to knock people into part-time work, and if you love ObamaCare, then vote against the bill. But if you want more jobs, if you want more hours, if you want more people working, if you want more people having better opportunities, and if you want to give some relief on these mandate taxes, then vote for this bill. This bill is the right way to go. And I have just got to tell you that, at the end of the day, we haven't even seen the full force of this punitive move because the employer mandate is just beginning to kick in. All of these things have happened in anticipation of this new mandate. We haven't even seen the worst of it yet. That is why we should pass this now and prevent this from happening and getting worse before this mandate kicks in. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kelly), a member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Indiana (Mrs. Walorski).

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 22) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to exempt employees with health coverage under TRICARE or the Veterans Administration from being taken into account for purposes of determining the employers to which the employer mandate applies under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within to which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 22, currently under consideration.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Black), a member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This basically is how it is supposed to work. A constituent in central Illinois, Brad Lavite, approaches his Congressman, Congressman Davis, and says there is a problem with the law affecting our Nation's veterans. So his Congressman goes to work, does the research, and then writes legislation to fix the law, and here we are. This is how it is supposed to work. This is how the Founders intended the Congress to work. Here is what we are fixing. We are saying there will not be a penalty based on the health care law affixed to our veterans. We have got a new, great generation. We have all read the books and heard the stories, and it is true, of the Greatest Generation, the World War II generation. We now have a new great generation, the men and women since 9/11 who have bravely fought for this country and sacrificed for us are a generation of people who have developed the kinds of leadership skills, the kinds of courage, the experiences, the sacrifices their families made, and they are bringing that home to serve our country even further. They are bringing this great experience and talent and skills to our economy. We need to remove every conceivable barrier that exists that prevents them from sharing these talents with us. This bill takes us a big step in the right direction to removing this barrier that disincentivizes a small business from hiring a veteran and instead turns it into an incentive so we can hire our heroes, our veterans. With that, I reserve the balance of my time to close.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Speaker, at this time, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Topeka, Kansas (Ms. Jenkins), a member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, only a law as bad as ObamaCare would penalize a small business for hiring a veteran. Madam Speaker, right now, the law says if you have at least 50 full- time employees, you must give all of them health insurance even if they are already getting health insurance elsewhere. In fact, over 9 million veterans are already getting health care through the VA, but they are not exempt. Every employer has to cover them anyway. So here is what is happening. Businesses have an incentive to turn away veterans, not because they don't want to hire them, but because it is too expensive to hire them. This is serving as a penalty to hiring our Nation's veterans. Madam Speaker, nobody works harder than our men and women that serve us in our military. They fought for our country, and they sacrificed. The least we can do is remove this penalty from putting a veteran on your payroll. The way I see it is we owe it to them. We should make it as easy as possible for them to find a job. That is what we are trying to do with this legislation. What this bill says is that if you are already getting health care through TRICARE or the VA, then you are exempt from the mandate. Anyone can hire you without any fear of this penalty. I think we can all agree that more veterans on the payroll means a healthier economy for all of us. Now, I think all families need relief from ObamaCare. All of us need relief from this law that we think is going to collapse under its own weight, but I consider this bill as an installment plan, as one piece of our ongoing efforts to fully repeal and replace this law. Madam Speaker, we have an enormous generation of talented men and women who have served this country so honorably overseas in the recent years. The least we can do is make it easier for an employer to hire them and remove this penalty that puts a price tag on hiring the bravest among us. Most of all, I want to thank Congressman Rodney Davis for bringing this issue to our attention. I want to thank Congressman Davis for introducing this legislation. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. We have four additional speakers.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rodney Davis), the author of this legislation.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot), the chairman of the Small Business Committee.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time only to say that our constituents have been very clear to all of us on both sides of the aisle that they want to see us come together to find common ground to make a positive difference in the lives of Americans, particularly our veterans, and this bipartisan effort reflects that. I am very proud to be here with Congressman Davis, with Congressman Levin, to be doing this. With that, I simply ask all Members to support it, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chair. The reason I came down here is to speak in favor of this legislation, to suggest that I wish we could have gotten where we were with the bipartisan negotiations that occurred before White House involvement. This is obviously something that is necessary that has to pass. But here is the reason that I came down. I came down to say thank you to Dave Camp for being an absolutely stellar chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. This is a man who spent 24 years in this room making a difference in the lives of the people from Michigan and the lives of the 300 million Americans in this country. This country is so much better off because of the dedicated service of this man, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. He came in at a young age, reforming a lot of different programs, but one of the biggest marks he made in his early days in Congress is welfare reform. Dave Camp was one of the principal architects of that 1996 welfare reform, which did so much to move people from welfare to work, to reduce child poverty, to help single moms get back to work, to get people lives of dignity. And he went from there to trade, to tax reform, to health care reform, on and on and on. I only hope that I can do somewhat of the job that he has done in being a stellar steward of this magnificent committee and being a fantastic chairman. Mr. Speaker, I simply wish him great success in his future endeavors.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, this past week, we lost one of our former colleagues, Bill Frenzel. Bill served in the House for 20 years, during which he gained a vast amount of knowledge and an even greater amount of respect. He was a leading voice for fiscal responsibility, serving as the ranking member of the House Budget Committee. He also served on the House Ways and Means Committee, specifically the Subcommittee on Trade. He took on the work with relish, serving as a congressional representative to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in Geneva for 15 years. He was so knowledgeable on the topic that he was indispensable--so much so that after he left Congress, three successive presidents sought his counsel. Bill's hard work won him respect in the House and around the world. After he retired from the House, he kept active on fiscal issues, serving as co-chair of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. In 2000, the emperor of Japan awarded him the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star. And just this year, Bill received the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle. I think other countries saw in Bill the same thing we did--a man who loved his country and wanted it to be a force for good in the world. He understood that trade wasn't a form of competition so much as a form of collaboration--of countries working together to build a better life. He understood that the free world was stronger when we banded together, and he wanted to strengthen those bonds. We'll remember his know-how. We'll remember his wit. (He once called gridlock the best thing since indoor plumbing.) But most of all, we'll remember his character. He served his country in both war and peace. He spent his life in public service. He was a Midwesterner, a man of the House, a voice for fiscal responsibility--an American through and through.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, today, my colleagues and I will vote on the Federal Duck Stamp Act of 2014. This bill would raise the price of Federal Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamps (more commonly known as ``Duck Stamps''), for the first time in 23 years, from $15 to $25. I am a proud supporter of this legislation and ask my colleagues to vote in favor. Ever since Congress created the Duck Stamp program in 1934, hunters have bought duck stamps to help pay for the protection of wildlife habitats. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service uses the money generated from these sales to acquire new land or preserve existing wildlife refuges for water fowl. Duck Stamps also serve as an entrance pass for any national wildlife refuge that charges admission, so they are in effect a user fee for hunters and bird watchers. Today, because of rising land prices and inflation in general, the value of the Duck Stamp has fallen by 40 percent, depriving conservation efforts of crucial funds. As an avid hunter, I understand the importance of investing in our wildlife habitats. We need to pass these traditions on to the next generation, so they can learn the importance of being good stewards of the land. Since the federal government already owns nearly one third of our country's land, this bill prohibits new land acquisition and requires the funds generated from the fee increase to be used solely for acquiring easements for migratory birds. But since the funds collected from Duck Stamp sales are technically classified as revenues, increasing the fees to allow for higher spending on protecting migratory-bird habitats does not comply with the House's ``Cut as You Go'' rule (Rule XXI, Clause 10). In the past, we've made exceptions for spending increases that are offset with revenue increases for selected programs when there is a close connection between the revenues and the spending. For example, budget resolutions often include reserve funds that effectively waive the ``Cut as You Go'' rule for deficit-neutral legislation designed to achieve a specific purpose. Because the funds generated from this legislation will be user fees, not taxes, and this bill reduces the deficit, I support granting a waiver of the ``Cut as You Go'' rule for consideration of this bill.