Paul Ryan

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Paulsen), another distinguished member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Arizona (Ms. McSally).

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Smith), another distinguished member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Dold), a distinguished member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Reed), a member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kelly), a distinguished member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), the Speaker of the House.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Black), a member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds. Mr. Speaker, the oldest trick in the book, if you cannot win a debate on the merits, is to impugn the other person's motives. People who are opposing this agreement, whether they be Republicans or many of the Democrats who are opposing this agreement, are opposing this agreement because it is a terrible agreement, and there is no other reason. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Roskam), a distinguished member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Kansas (Ms. Jenkins), a member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I think this is a terrible deal. This administration has made a lot of mistakes when it comes to foreign policy. This has got to be the worst one because this deal will not stop Iran from getting a bomb. This deal will all but guarantee it. We went into these negotiations saying that Iran had to eliminate its nuclear program, all of it, full stop. Now, they are saying that was unrealistic, too unreasonable, too pie-in-the-sky. And we are handing over hundreds of billions of dollars in sanctions relief. So Iran gets billions of dollars in exchange for what? For taking apart some--not all, just some--of its nuclear program? And then, in 10 or 15 years, all of these limits expire. In other words, they are getting something for essentially nothing. It is a steal. And that is if they don't cheat. Now, the administration says that this deal will bring about unprecedented transparency. We will get regular access, they say. We will see what Iran is up to, they say. But if the inspectors think something is up, Iran has 24 days to cover its tracks and, in some cases, Iran's own inspectors will get to collect the evidence. Finally, against all of the advice from our military, we are going to let Iran buy ballistic missiles in just 8 years. Mr. Speaker, you only buy ballistic missiles if you are looking to build a bomb. I get why Russia and China like this idea. They get another big customer. But I don't, for the life of me, understand why we would ever agree to this. Mr. Speaker, the President is taking a huge gamble here. He thinks if we make nice with the Iranian regime they will change their ways. Bring them into the global economy, and they will become more like us. Now, I think the Iranian people, they want democracy, they want freedom. But we are not talking about the Iranian people here. We are talking about an extremist regime that is unaccountable to their own people. This is a regime that chants ``death to America.'' This is a regime that funds terrorism all around the world. This is a regime that has called for wiping Israel off the map. I am all for diplomacy, but I'm not for rewarding a rogue regime. I would also point out that the sanctions we are lifting will let European and Asian companies build up Iran's economy, and they will make the regime even stronger. And should Iran start to cheat--which they have a pretty darn good track record of doing so--it will be that much harder to put back in place the sanctions. Our trading partners, they will feel the pinch, and they won't want to hold this regime accountable. So I want to stress how fervently I oppose this deal. I know the President may have already lined up enough support to save his deal, but with this vote--with this vote--we need to send a message to both Iran and to the world: The regime may have bamboozled this administration, but the American people know that this is a rotten deal. And I fear that, because of this deal, the Middle East and the world at large will only become a much, much more dangerous place. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Brady), a distinguished member from the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Tom Price), the distinguished member of the Budget Committee and member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I just want to echo the comments of the prior chair. We think this is the right solution. This is very similar to the bill we passed earlier. We believe this gives us the time we need to try and put together a long-term highway solution. That is why we are in favor of this. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

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

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I disagree with the gentleman. I think we should pass this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I just want to say a few words about what we're trying to do here. We're trying to change the mindset in Washington. Right now, when we're making policy, we focus on inputs . . . on effort--like how much money we're spending, how many people we're serving, how many programs we're creating. What we need to do is focus on outcomes . . . on results--like how many people we're getting out of poverty. Creating this commission is the first step in a long-term effort. We're going to bring together the best minds on data collection and figure out how we can up our game. Let's use the data we're already collecting to improve how government works. How can we use data to evaluate policy? How can we protect people's privacy? How can we get the best results for the American people? If we do this right, we'll stop having debates over what's Republican and what's Democrat . . . or what's liberal and conservative . . . And we'll start having debates over what works and what doesn't work. Those are the kinds of debates we need to have. So I urge all my colleagues to support his bill.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 61) amending 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. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.J. Res. 61 currently under consideration.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rodney Davis), the author of this legislation, for the purposes of explaining what it does.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I, too, want to echo the sentiment here, which is this is just a no- brainer. What I particularly like about this bill is this is just the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rodney Davis) doing his job as a Member of Congress, getting a very constructive idea from a constituent veteran who pointed out a flaw in the law so he went and spoke to his Member of Congress. His Member of Congress looked at the law, saw that it needed to be changed, and here we are making this change. This is democracy. This is how this Republic is supposed to work. So I am very pleased to see that we are here doing this on a bipartisan basis. I was, unfortunately, unavoidably detained for the last bill. I wanted to make just a couple of points on the last suspension that just passed that the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Chaffetz) brought to the floor, H.R. 1831, Evidence-Based Policymaking Commission Act of 2015. Right now we spend so much of our time here in Congress and in the Federal Government focusing on measuring success of our policies based on measuring inputs, not outcomes, how many programs are we creating, how much money are we spending, not are these programs working or not. So we have bipartisan legislation that just passed to create a commission to take a look at the data that we already collect and see if we can give access to academics and use this data more effectively so we can better measure outcomes of our policies. We want to make sure that we can use our data to evaluate better policy. We want to make sure that we do it in a way that ensures people's privacy. But we want to move the kind of debate we have been having here from liberal versus conservative or Republican versus Democrat to what works and what doesn't work. Nowhere is this more crucial than in our efforts to fight poverty, to try to make a difference, to move people from being dependent, from being stuck in poverty, from being frozen in their current station of life, to reigniting the notion of upward mobility and more successfully targeting and going at the root cause of poverty so that we can actually have programs that are measured based on success and outcomes, which is, are we actually getting people out of poverty. The purpose of the bill that just passed is to reorient our entire way of looking at things so that we can focus on these outcomes. So I just wanted to lend my statement on that. I want to congratulate the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rodney Davis) for bringing this issue with our veterans to our attention. I urge adoption. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Kansas (Ms. Jenkins), a member of the Ways and Means Committee.