Louise Slaughter

Ms. SLAUGHTER

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

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

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from California.

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

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary time. Mr. Speaker, the Chamber finds itself in much the same position it was in on September 8, December 7, and December 21. Those were the other three continuing resolutions that we passed to try to get through here, but we are rushing again with one of the majority's short-term continuing resolutions with days to spare--actually, tomorrow--one day to spare until the great Government of the United States closes for business. Now, you might think that would be the most important thing on the minds of the majority and of the United States Government, but it isn't because we are not going to get to vote on this tonight until 7 p.m.-- and all the people in the country who are holding their breath to see whether they are going to be laid off, the Federal workers, and all the other things that go with that devastating thing. Let me remind you that the last time the government had a shutdown, $24 billion was lost to the economy, a lot of it to laid-off workers, and also the fact that large numbers of facilities owned by the government have stores and newspaper stands in them that were also closed. But, no, we are not in any hurry today. Nobody is concerned about it, and the President of the United States and several Members of the House have gone to a political rally in Pennsylvania. They are trying to save a congressional seat there of a person who was forced to step down. That, obviously, is of more importance to them than whether or not this government continues to function. That is a tragedy, Mr. Speaker, but that is what we have been putting up with for a long time. I don't recall a time we have had four continuing resolutions in probably a month and a half, but here we are, and I bet you that we will come back in February and do yet another one. Now, my colleagues who have gone to Pennsylvania could have gone next week--because we are taking another week off back to the district next week--and not caused this great hubbub today, which is one of the most important days in the life of the Nation as to whether we are going to continue to be the Government of the United States. It is tragic, isn't it? I remember I was on the floor the last time it shut down, and at midnight I had said: The government of the United States is now closed. I would hate to be up here to have to say something like that again. I don't know what else to call it except incompetence. That certainly comes as close to the definition as I can make. But this latest proposal that we will not vote on until after 7 p.m.--and I understand that will inconvenience some people, but I do hope that other people will be able to stand the suspense. This is the fourth continuing resolution since the end of the fiscal year in September, and it will run, as I said before, through February 16, where I bet you we do another one. If past is prologue, we probably will find ourselves back because what we do in this House now is be a standby person while the majority goes from one self-imposed crisis to the next. And much like the proposals before it, this continuing resolution is not the product of bipartisan negotiations. It was written solely by the majority without a single Democratic fingerprint anywhere on the bill. America, pay heed to that. If this government should shut down, this problem is solely that of the Republican Party. We were not asked for our input when it was written in the back room, but since its public release hours ago, the majority has being asking for our support and saying what a shame it is, what a shame that we who don't even believe in this particular thing are not out there beating the drum for it. But that is not how it works. The majority cannot craft this bill solely by itself and fail to address the matters that we agree we need to take action on and then criticize us for not supporting this partisan proposal. We had an idea we would come to this point for some time, and I think everybody will agree with me, certainly on my side, and I suspect on both, that our leader, the minority leader, Nancy Peolsi, certainly made herself clear all the way through as to what it would take to get the votes of the Democrats in the House. But there was no consideration given to that, and yet they are asking us for votes. This stopgap measure continues to just chip away at the Affordable Care Act--and I know my colleague said he was happy about that--by targeting some key funding mechanisms under the law. I suppose I probably did the rule on at least the vast majority of all the times repeal and replace was the fashion here, and I have always asked every single time: Why does the Republican Party want to take healthcare away from people? I have never gotten an answer to that, but I am totally convinced, after all this time, that that is exactly what they want to do. Since the majority waived the rules requiring the provisions to be paid for for the healthcare act, it is actually a massive tax cut for the health insurance industry. It comes on the heels of the majority's tax cut for the wealthy and corporations, which represents the largest transfer of wealth from working families to the wealthy that our Nation has ever seen. It is a bill that made tax cuts for corporations permanent. Now, the continuing resolution before us today includes a temporary reauthorization of the Children's Health Insurance Program, which provides healthcare for 9 million of America's children. That was only to be for 6 years. But, as you heard already from a previous speaker this morning, had it been made permanent, it would save over $6 billion. I fail to understand the economic benefits of what they are doing here. Mr. Speaker, why is the majority giving permanent tax cuts to corporations but it won't even give permanency to children in need of healthcare? The majority believes that a temporary reprieve on CHIP will force us to vote for this misguided plan. But what about the community health centers? What about improving healthcare for veterans? The continuing resolution turns a blind eye to victims in desperate need of help in the wake of some of the worst hurricanes, mudslides, and wildfires our Nation has ever experienced and to 700,000 DREAMers who remain at risk of being deported following President Trump's decision to end DACA. Remember what DACA was about. We asked young people who had been brought to the United States by their parents at a very young age to come out and to register and say that they were undocumented and that we would protect them as a way to citizenship. But instead, that was taken away from them, and they face deportation and are being deported daily--and it is an emergency. But it also fails to take any action, this particular CR does, on bipartisan priorities like the pension crisis, veterans healthcare, and, as I said, the community health centers. What has the majority prioritized instead of crafting a long-term spending bill that deals with these urgent issues? Ideological crusades like undermining financial reform laws and attacking women's health. We had a wonderful debate just before this bill came on the floor of a thing called Born-Alive. We passed a bill I think unanimously, and I think it was done by voice vote, in 2002, that any infant born in an abortion setting would be given every care in the world, and, in fact, we didn't even need that bill. That is a given. At the same time, though, that we are debating that on the floor today, that is to do every medical thing possible, the administration announced that, if a provider--a nurse, a doctor, or anybody in a medical setting, and they don't have to give any reason for this--if they personally or for some other reason, morality reason, decide they do not want to treat a patient before them, they don't have to. Think about that a minute. Well, you know what I am trying to say here. It is more than ironic. It is stupid. But we sort of get used to that. A separate bill on the floor today, H.R. 2954, would weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a thing hated by this Congress, their ability to respond to the problematic trends in the mortgage market. So here we go again. The CFPB has already saved over $12 billion for consumers. Another measure that will be considered this week, H.R. 4712--that was the one I mentioned a minute ago--tries to shame and scare doctors out of providing constitutionally protected abortion services. The bill this morning gives doctors and medical professionals up to 5 years in prison just for practicing medicine to the best of their ability. And all the while, the majority has been ignoring the elephant in the room and we march toward another government shutdown, and the American people and the world are once again forced to wonder whether the greatest superpower on this planet can keep the lights on. Surely, this is no way to run the Government of the United States. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. For months, the majority has been holding the healthcare of 9 million children and more than 9 million individuals, including seniors, pregnant women, and veterans, hostage while they pass the tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires. Well, the time is up, and with each day we fail to act, our constituents face uncertain futures. This is wrong. Mr. Speaker, even President Trump agrees we need to act on CHIP. Just this morning, he tweeted: ``CHIP should be part of a long-term solution, not a 30-day or a short-term extension.'' Well, here is our chance to stop playing politics, except we can't do it until 7 o'clock this evening because the President and so many Members of the House are in Pennsylvania at a political rally. I guess this wasn't as important as we thought it was. If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up Representative McEachin's bill, H.R. 4820, the Advancing Seniors and Kids Act. This bill would restore certainty and stability to so many of our most vulnerable citizens by responsibly addressing critical healthcare priorities. It permanently reauthorizes CHIP, saving us $6 billion. It reauthorizes the community health centers for 2 years and includes other vital healthcare programs that provide relief to pregnant women, seniors, and so many more. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn), the assistant minority leader, to discuss our proposal.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of my colleague if he is prepared to close? I have no further speakers.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, my good friend, Mr. Cole, seems almost to be desperate to have us vote for this continuing resolution, which says to me that the majority doesn't have enough votes to pass it. Somehow by saying that because the Democrats will not support this farce, then we are going to be responsible for it. But, frankly, my good friends are three for three on government shutdowns just since I have been a Member of Congress. Nobody is going to believe that, with all the excess numbers of votes here--I think you have 23 more Members have than we have got-- we are at fault. But, anyway, let's get to the business here. Instead of treating this like the serious issue that it is, the President is treating it like another reality show. He has suggested that Democrats would certainly be blamed for the majority's inability to keep the government running. But he is wrong about that, too. Just this week, a poll from Hart Research Associates found that the public would blame the majority by a double-digit margin. That gap grows wider when you look specifically at independent Americans. History shows this to be true. When the majority shut down the government over the Affordable Care Act in 2013, a majority of the public placed the blame on them, not President Obama. We saw similar results when former Speaker Gingrich engineered shutdowns in both 1995 and 1996 because he thought the seat given to him on Air Force One did not fit his stature. The American people then blamed the Republican congressional majority, not President Bill Clinton. That is because facts matter, and the fact here is that the majority chose a partisan approach that threatens our ability to keep the government functioning. But this discussion should not be centered on blame. It is about whether the Republican majority can even govern. Holding the White House, the Senate, and the House comes with great responsibilities, and, obviously, the most basic one--and we all understand this--to start with is keeping the Government of the United States running. Yet we are confronted all the time with this problem: Are we going to be able to pay the bills and keep things going? That is so humiliating for America. There is no other word for it. But this majority, as pointed out before, just lurches from crisis to crisis to crisis, and they lurch around from one deadline to the next without any plan. All the time, all you need to do is ask to let us work together, let Democrats in on your backroom plans. We never get to see that. We are never consulted and never a part of any plan. Let me remind everyone watching that the last Republican shutdown in 2013 cost the economy an estimated $24 billion. Federal loans to small businesses, homeowners, and families were halted, and numbers of great Federal employees were furloughed. Federal permitting was stopped. Hundreds of patients at the National Institutes of Health were unable to enroll in possible lifesaving clinical trials. Federal scientific research was also put on hold. We had five Nobel Prize-winning scientists working for the Federal Government at that time, and four of them were furloughed. The majority apparently thinks it has the votes to go it alone on this bill, but I don't think so anymore. We thought so when I wrote this. But they think we are going to prevent a repeat of all that carnage. It is a shame that they squandered a chance to work with us to craft a bipartisan bill. Frankly, I think it is tragedy, and I think it is no way to run the government. Without question, we could have kept the government running while addressing the priorities that Members of both parties agree on, like we used to. Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question, the rule, and the bill. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, we are back to the House floor today to pass another bill, the real intent of which is to harm women and limit their constitutionally protected healthcare they can receive. I need to repeat that because most people I find do not understand that the Constitution of the United States, which we revere, protects a woman's right to choose. To add insult to injury, this intrusive legislation is totally unnecessary. Killing an infant, or anybody else, has always been against the law. To reiterate the point, a bipartisan law was passed in 2002 to reinforce that medical care should be given to any infant born alive. To illustrate how unnecessary this bill is, Dr. Kermit Gosnell, who is the only example we have in America, is going to spend the rest of his life in prison without any possibility of parole for three first-degree murder convictions. But H.R. 4712 goes much further than the current law. It legislates medical standards of care and threatens the providers with civil and criminal penalties. The effects of this are best described by an OB/GYN from my district: ``I have been a practicing OB/GYN for more than 35 years, and it is my life's calling to care for women across their lifespan. Throughout my career, I have cared for patients during their highest highs and lowest lows, from healthy pregnancies to devastating fetal anomalies, to cancer diagnoses. I take my role as their trusted physician very seriously, and take pride in providing compassionate and ethical care to each and every patient. ``H.R. 4712 would take that ability away from me, inserting politicians into the patient-physician relationship and the profoundly personal healthcare decisions of my patients. ``Recently, I had a patient with severe HELLP syndrome, a life- threatening blood pressure condition during pregnancy for which the only treatment is to deliver. This meant induction of her previable fetus to save her life. ``As her condition deteriorated, and after consulting her family, spiritual leader, and several specialists, she decided to deliver''-- she should be able to consult whomever she pleases--``knowing that her extremely preterm infant would not survive. If enacted, H.R. 4712 would take away this family's choice of providing comfort care for their baby, put my patient's life at risk, and threaten me with criminal and civil penalties for providing appropriate and empathetic care to my patients.'' H.R. 4712 is just the next bill in a long line of votes that we have had here that would hurt women. But Congress is just part of the current crusade against women. This administration has done more than its share to ensure that 2017 saw an unprecedented amount of attacks against women and our ability to access healthcare. Just this morning--America, please don't lose the irony in this. Just this morning, the administration announced a rule to allow providers, hospitals, nurses, and others to refuse patients needed healthcare based solely on the religious or moral beliefs of the provider. Is it just me who thinks that is in direct contradiction to this bill they are trying to push off on us now? On the one hand, they are saying everything has to be treated, and, on the other hand, they are saying you don't have to treat anybody if your personal or moral convictions prevent you from doing so. That is really dangerous, believe me. This is an unconscionable effort to blatantly ignore the needs and the best interests of the patients.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. This silly rule will put individuals' lives and health in danger and will result in deaths, based on an undefined moral objection. It doesn't even have to be explained that they have some idea that they would not be able to treat that person who may be bleeding to death before them. Mr. Speaker, I am going to close again with the words from the OB/GYN from my district: ``The purpose of this legislation is to scare and intimidate physicians and punish them for providing abortion care, but the true impact will be on the women and families who will be denied the highest quality medical treatment they deserve. ``H.R. 4712 is a dangerous bill. I urge you to protect my patients' access to care and reject this gross interference in the patient- physician relationship.'' Mr. Speaker, without a doubt, the whole idea of this bill is a political issue. But the idea of what the administration did this morning, to completely negate this bill that we are debating right now, is irony that is just too delicious to miss.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. Mr. Speaker, it seems like only yesterday we were here. Does it not? Mr. Speaker, we are 5 days away from Christmas, but it feels like Groundhog Day. Less than 24 hours ago, the majority stood in the Chamber and passed its partisan bill to provide tax cuts for millionaires, billionaires, and one President. Speaker Ryan called it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but, apparently, by a twist of fate, he is getting that great opportunity again today, much sooner, I am sure, than he anticipated, because we are taking the bill up again this morning. Maybe in the mad dash to provide massive tax breaks for corporations and the 1 percent, the majority failed to do the due diligence and properly vet the bill. We found out, after it passed, that several of its provisions violated the Byrd rule in the Senate. Now, everybody knows about the Byrd rule in the Senate, and I don't understand why this was not found in the conference that was held for maybe 30 minutes. This is the rule that prohibits the Senate from considering extraneous matters as part of a reconciliation bill. After passing the House, provisions in this bill governing 529 college savings accounts and exempting certain universities from an excise tax were ruled out of order by the Senate Parliamentarian. The bill was so rushed that even the title of H.R. 1, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, was found to be a violation. Let me repeat that. The very first words of the bill didn't pass muster with a nonpartisan rule keeper in the Senate. Imagine what other areas we have yet to discover. This is a consequence of a process that was nothing short of an abomination. There were zero hearings on the text of this bill. Not a single expert was called in to give his or her experience. It got the votes to pass only after a series of closed-door, backroom dealings, and a conference committee between the House and Senate Republicans. Well, I think there were some Democrats there, but they tell me that none of them signed the conference report. The Senate was such a sham that an agreement was reached before the first public meeting ever took place. Now, I know this is not the last time, Mr. Speaker, we will meet here to try to fix this bill. Mark my words, we will be back here next year to make more so-called technical fixes because of this hasty consideration. The majority is rushing to pass a bill that is historically unpopular, clearly deeply flawed, and we will be forced to clean up its impacts and unintended consequences for many years to come. I think we have all got a second opportunity here, and I would wish that my friends, to whom I only wish well, would grab up all their papers and run for the door and forget about this tax bill altogether. But I know that that wish will not come true. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from the State of Washington (Ms. DelBene).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Judy Chu).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to say to my friend from Georgia that it wasn't Democrats who found that. The Parliamentarian in the Senate found those errors, and they had to be corrected. Let's put history in the right perspective. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett), who is the distinguished ranking member of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Tax Policy.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman from Texas an additional 2 minutes.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman from Texas an additional 1 minute.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Brendan F. Boyle).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the Trump White House released a National Security Strategy Report on Monday, and it pointed out: ``The national debt, now over $20 trillion, presents a grave threat to America's long-term prosperity and, by extension, our national security.'' So what do we do about that? We are going to add $1.5 trillion more. The overwhelming majority of expert analyses show that, even with growth taken into account, this bill will cause the deficit to skyrocket. It isn't just a threat to our economic security. According to the White House, it is a grave threat to our national security as well. The bill in front of us costs $1.5 trillion and includes permanent tax cuts for corporations, but temporary ones for individuals. So who do you think is going to lose those first? It is really very troubling, I think, too: the idea of looking ahead to what we are going to be dealt with. And we understand already that next year the cry will be: Oh, look at this debt. This is awful. We are going to have to cut spending. Entitlements will be the place where the Republicans prefer to go. So let's prepare all of our senior citizens on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Of course, that also hurts the ACA, that they are going to be on the line next year. Future Congresses will be pressured to reject the budget gimmick and extend many of those tax cuts, meaning the true cost of the bill is much higher. According to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the expirations and delays hide potential further costs, which could ultimately increase the cost of the bill to $2.2 trillion. I am sure that my Republican colleagues will argue that growth will prevent the deficit from skyrocketing. But the CRFB reports that even with dynamic scoring, the total cost of the bill without budgetary gimmicks would be over $1.6 trillion and up to $2 trillion with interest. And that takes growth into account. As a result, our debt could exceed the size of our economy by 2027. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget's analysis, entitled ``Final Tax Bill Could End Up Costing $2.2 Trillion.' [From the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Dec. 18, 2017] Final Tax Bill Could End Tip Costing $2.2 Trillion The final conference committee agreement of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) would cost $1.46 trillion under conventional scoring and over $1 trillion on a dynamic basis over ten years, leading debt to rise to between 95 percent and 98 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2027 (compared to 91 percent under current law). However, the bill also includes a number of expirations and long-delayed tax hikes meant to reduce the official cost of the bill. These expirations and delays hide $570 billion to $725 billion of potential further costs, which could ultimately increase the cost of the bill to $2.0 trillion to $2.2 trillion (before interest) on a conventional basis or roughly $1.5 trillion to $1.7 trillion on a dynamic basis over a decade. As a result, debt would rise to between 98 percent and 100 percent of GDP by 2027. Ignoring the expirations in this bill is particularly disingenuous given the claim that using a ``current policy baseline'' reduces the bill's costs. The (flawed) idea is that the bill should be compared to a current policy baseline that counts expired and expiring provisions as if they are continued permanently. (For more on this, see Current Policy Gimmick Would Add Half-Trillion to Debt (http://www.crfb.org/ blogs/current-policy-gimmick-would-add-half-trillion-debt)). Using such a construct does not make sense if cost of continuing future expirations contained in the bill are not included in the initial cost estimate. Policymakers are effectively claiming $450 billion of current policy savings while ignoring over $700 billion of current policy costs. This latest estimate updates our tally of the gimmicks from a previous version of the bill (http://www.crfb.org/blogs/ senate-tax-bill-could-ultimately-cost-2-trillion). The changes made in conference include both tax increases and decreases that mostly offset each other, with a net increase in the ten-year cost of $9 billion (compared to the Senate bill). With these changes, the bill now has a total cost of $1.46 trillion, or roughly $1.77 trillion with interest. While there is no new dynamic score of the bill, assuming it continues to produce very roughly $400 billion of dynamic feedback (http://www.crfb.org/blogs/official-dynamic-score- shows-senate-tax-bill-will-still-cost-over-1-trillion) would reduce that cost to about $1.05 trillion, or roughly $1.30 trillion with interest. However, this cost does not account for as much as $725 billion of potential gimmicks that the conferenced bill contains. In the earlier version passed by the Senate, we identified $585 billion (http://www.crfb.org/blogs/senate-tax-bill- could-ultimately-cost-2-trillion) of arbitrary sunsets and sunrises of certain provisions. Most significantly, nearly all of the individual income tax provisions would have expired after 2025. Additionally, the expensing provisions ``bonus depreciation'' began to phase down starting in 2022, and a number of new tax increases appeared in 2026. Some provisions were set to expire even earlier, such as an expanded deduction for medical expenses and provisions for craft beer and paid leave--clearly setting the stage for future extensions. The conferenced bill adds to the Senate bill's gimmicks, which we explain here (http://www.crfb.org/blogs/senate-tax- bill-could-ultimately-cost-2-trillion). Most significantly, it advances the start date of the bill's requirement for research expenses to be amortized, which nearly doubles the ten-year savings of the provision. Additionally, the bill tightens its limits on the business interest deduction four years in the future--a future tax hike that may not be allowed to ever occur. Other changes are smaller and move in both directions. Adding these gimmicks to the cost of the bill would increase the total cost to $2.0 trillion to $2.2 trillion. Though the dynamic effect of making the bill permanent is unknown, we estimate a permanent bill would produce roughly $450 billion of feedback, leading to a dynamic cost of roughly $1.6 trillion to $1.7 trillion. With interest, these costs would rise to $2.4 trillion to $2.5 trillion, or $1.9 trillion to $2 trillion with dynamic effects included, over a decade.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, we have urgent spending needs. This bill could keep us from dealing with infrastructure, education, healthcare, medical research, and, of course, we have to pay the costs of our military. Make no mistake, exploding the deficit to pay for this bill--this giveaway to the rich--will come at the expense of all of those priorities. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I am not surprised that we are back here fixing the bill, though I am surprised it is so soon, because we have been saying all along that we have got a long way to go with this bill. If we defeat the previous question, I am going to offer an amendment that will prohibit any legislation from being considered on the House floor that limits or repeals the State and local tax deduction, or repeals the ACA's individual mandate. We know that repealing the individual mandate will lead to 13 million fewer Americans with health insurance and will cost premiums to rise by 10 percent. Now, I know that not giving healthcare is not much of an issue for the majority of this Congress because they have been trying to do that for a long time. The bill also caps the State and local tax deduction, hurting taxpayers in my home State of New York, in California, and in other States in the Northeast, all of whom are donor States. My own State sends $48 billion a year to Washington, money that we get back nothing for. But we are not going to be able to do that anymore without this deduction. What we are doing then is risking the stability of the revenues that fund the public schools, fire departments, and hospitals in those States. Mr. Speaker, let's make things right and defeat the previous question. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.