Adam Smith

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, January 9; Friday, January 10; and Monday, January 13, 2014, I was unable to be present for recorded votes. Had I been present, I would have voted: ``yes'' on rollcall vote No. 7 (on the Sinema Amendment to H.R. 2279); ``yes'' on rollcall vote No. 8 (on the Tonko Amendment to H.R. 2279); ``yes'' on rollcall vote No. 9 (on the motion to recommit H.R. 2279 with instructions); ``no'' on rollcall vote No. 10 (on passage of H.R. 2279); ``no'' on rollcall vote No. 11 (on passage of H.R. 3811); ``yes'' on rollcall vote No. 12 (on the motion to suspend the rules and pass H.R. 1513), and ``yes'' on rollcall vote No. 13 (on the motion to suspend the rules and pass S. 230).

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor and congratulate the Weyerhaeuser Company for being recognized as one of the most community-minded companies in the United States. The National Conference on Citizenship and Points of Light, in partnership with Bloomberg named Weyerhaeuser to The Civic 50 list as one of 50 companies that have demonstrated socially responsible practices and substantial civic involvement in their communities. The Weyerhaeuser Company, based in Federal Way, Washington, began more than a century ago in the forest industry. The company currently owns and operates nearly 21 million acres of timberland with offices throughout North America and produces wood and fiber products for a variety of applications. Weyerhaeuser also makes giving back to the community a company priority. Through the Weyerhaeuser Active Volunteer Employees (WAVES) Program, the company recognizes employee volunteers who contribute their time. The organizations where employees volunteer are also eligible to apply for WAVES grants, ranging from $1,000 to $5,000. Last year, 1,357 of Weyerhaeuser's employees participated in more than 164 service projects and contributed more than 31,820 volunteer hours. Through their efforts, 164 WAVES grants were awarded last year to the community. Additionally, Weyerhaeuser has instituted an Employee Volunteer of the Quarter program to honor Weyerhaeuser employees who significantly impact their communities through their personal efforts. Recently, Weyerhaeuser teamed up with World Vision, a non-profit faith-based organization focused on fighting poverty and injustice, creating Operation Diaper Drive. Operation Diaper Drive is an annual event held by Weyerhaeuser employees where diapers are collected and donated to low-income families. In March of this year, nearly three quarters of a million diapers were distributed to families throughout the United States. Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I congratulate the Weyerhaeuser Company on their recognition. Weyerhaeuser continues to strive as a leader in the community and in the nation for their impressive philanthropic work.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor and congratulate Dr. Sandra E. Madrid, who was recently awarded the 2013 Latino Heritage Award by the City of Seattle's Latino City Employees organization and Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn. The Latino Heritage Award recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to Seattle through initiative, innovation, leadership, and commitment to the Latino community. Dr. Madrid has been an active member of her community for many years and has made it her priority to empower minority groups and promote Latino involvement. Dr. Madrid recently retired from the University of Washington School of Law and has worked diligently on issues important to diverse communities in our region. Sandra has long advocated on behalf of women and children and the underrepresented. She is also an inspirational mentor and educator to young individuals and professionals. Dr. Madrid currently serves as a board member for the United Way of King County, Seattle Children's Hospital, Seattle Art Museum, and YMCA. In addition to serving on more than 30 boards in the past 20 years, she was also the first Latina to serve on the Board of Trustees of the Seattle Children's Hospital. Dr. Madrid's dedication to the Latino community has made her a widely respected advocate and leader. Her work is commendable and we are fortunate to have her expertise representing our region. Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I congratulate Dr. Sandra E. Madrid on her contributions to the City of Seattle.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes. I want to thank the chairman and echo his words about how important it is that we pass this piece of legislation. It is critical to our national security and critical to supporting our troops, to make sure they get the pay and the support that they need to do the job that we all have asked them to do. This is never an easy process. We worked between the two of us and between our committees, and we worked with the Senate, House Republicans, bipartisan and bicameral. I am sure if any one of us were so designated as god of this piece of legislation, there are things we would change about it, but that is the nature of the legislative process. You come together, you compromise, and you put together the best product that all of you can agree on, and that is what we have done. To not pass this at this point is to jeopardize our national security and to not support our troops. I think this is an excellent compromise and something that needs to be passed. I think that we would all agree that we wish we could have done this through the normal conference committee process, but the Senate has their rules, and they had difficulty getting to that point. I want to assure everybody that this was a fully negotiated piece of legislation. We engaged the Senate, both Republican and Democrat. Chairman McKeon and I worked very closely together. Our staffs worked very closely together. This is an excellent, important bill that needs to be passed for all of the reasons that Chairman McKeon mentioned: the steps forward it makes on sexual assault, the support it gives to our troops as they are in battle in Afghanistan in trying to protect our national security elsewhere. I really want to urge everyone to make sure that they vote for this and support this. I want to use my remaining time to talk a little bit about the budget resolution, or the budget conference committee, that we are going to talk about later. I completely agree with Chairman McKeon. In the spirit of what I said about the NDAA about the necessity of getting our job done, we need to pass a budget. I know it impacts all manner of different other pieces of government, but I am most familiar with what it does to the Department of Defense to not have a budget, to not have appropriations bills, to have to go from CR to CR to government shutdown threat to actual government shutdown to another government shutdown threat. You simply cannot function as well as you should, or as well as you would, if you had a dependable budget that said here is what you have. It will never be what all of us want, but it is better to have the predictability of having an appropriations process. So it is critical that we pass the National Defense Authorization Act; it is critical that we pass the budget. We have to function as a government. We all know how low our approval ratings are. I think it is great: Democrats take great comfort in the fact that Republicans aren't popular and the Republicans take great comfort in the fact that Democrats aren't popular. But all it means to me is none of us are popular. We need to get our job done. We have two great opportunities today to do that, to show the American public that this body functions, it works, and it will, in fact, live up to its responsibilities, and in the case of the National Defense Authorization Act, one of the most important responsibilities, and that is to provide for the common defense. I urge everyone to vote for this important piece of legislation and to support the budget resolution coming later today. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from California (Ms. Sanchez), the ranking member of the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from California (Mrs. Davis), the ranking member on our Military Personnel Subcommittee.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Guam (Ms. Bordallo), the ranking member on the Readiness Subcommittee.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Ms. Tsongas), ranking member of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, how much time remains?

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney), a member of the committee.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin), the ranking member of the Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee. (Mr. LANGEVIN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Hawaii (Ms. Hanabusa).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Barber), a member of the committee.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I just want to take a quick minute again to thank all the people who worked to make this possible, our staffs on the Armed Services Committee in particular. The bipartisan majority and minority have all done an amazing job over a long period of time, and I really want to thank the chairman, as well, for his determination to get this bill done. It is never the same path twice, which always makes it interesting, but the one thing that we have very much in common is an absolute determination to get the bill done for the reasons that the chairman and I stated earlier, because of just how important it is that we do our work and make sure we provide for the troops that are serving us. But we could not do it without the incredible expertise and tireless work of our staffs. I particularly want to thank my staff director, Paul Arcangeli, for pulling all of this together as we bounced back and forth between whether or not we were going to do a formal conference or do this. That work that they have been doing over the last several months was critical in making this possible. Again, I will close just emphasizing two big points: We need to do our work as Congress because people depend on it. They depend on the United States Government functioning. Passing the National Defense Authorization Act is a critical piece of that so that we can continue to provide for the common defense as we are constitutionally mandated to do, and I urge everybody to support it. Every bit as important is the budget agreement that is coming up later on. We have all, to some degree on the Armed Services Committee and elsewhere, railed against sequestration. The vote that is coming up this afternoon is not a choice between this budget agreement and what each one of us individually would like. It is a choice between the budget agreement and sequestration, a CR and further threats of government shutdown. And I will just emphasize that the impact that that would have on the Department of Defense and its ability to do the job that we are asking them to do would be devastating. I know we have heard everybody claim that sequestration was going to be this big deal and it happened and the sun came up the next morning and everything was fine. Look, there are two things about that. Number one, it had a profound impact on a lot of people. Not everybody to be sure, but it did have that profound impact. The second big point is it gets worse. The first year was tough, but there were uncosted balances. There were things you could do. They have kind of been running on fumes for a while, and if we continue with sequestration, those fumes run out and the cuts will be devastating and we will not be able to do what it is that I think we need to do to provide for our national security, which isn't to say the defense budget can't be cut. It is being cut, and it is going to be cut. There are cuts and then there are the nonsensical cuts of sequestration. The only way out of that right now is the budget agreement. Lastly, I will say that applies to a lot of other aspects of government: transportation, housing, Head Start. We have heard all the stories about the devastating impact of sequestration on all those programs. Later this afternoon, we will have our first real opportunity to reverse that. It is critically important that we do so. I urge passage of the National Defense Authorization Act. I again thank the chairman. I very much value our partnership, given the desire for bipartisanship out there today. People always ask me if I have any Republicans that I work with. I do; the chairman of our committee, who has done a great job in that capacity. I very much value our friendship and our partnership. Hopefully, we will get the Senate to get this done and we will make it 52 years in a row. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor Bob Drewel, long-time civic, community and education leader in the Puget Sound region, on his retirement after over 20 years of public service. From his most recent tenure as Executive Director of the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC), and his more than twelve years as Snohomish County Executive, Bob's leadership and reputation serve as a model for all those who wish to pursue a career in civic service. During his time at the PSRC, Bob effectively worked to build partnerships between the private and public sectors and is well known for his leadership in promoting regional solutions to the many challenges facing western Washington. While at the helm of the PSRC, Bob guided critical initiatives including regional transportation planning, growth management and economic development. In his twelve years as Snohomish County Executive, Bob successfully strengthened partnerships among the county, local governments, and other public and private entities to create a shared vision for a prosperous community. Under Bob's leadership and prudent fiscal management, the county was able to plan, design and fund several important county facilities. In 2007, the county administration building was named ``The Robert J. Drewel Building'' in honor of Bob's integrity, leadership and ability to work across party lines as County Executive. In addition to his leadership at the PSRC and as Snohomish County Executive, Bob is the past President and CEO of Everett Community College and the former Chairman of Sound Transit. Bob also helped build community partnerships as a board member of the Economic Development Council, Healthy Communities Initiative, and United Way of Snohomish County. Bob's civic involvements extend even further to include the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, Rotary, Everett Area Chamber of Commerce and numerous other community organizations. Mr. Speaker, it is with great honor that I recognize Bob Drewel. Bob personifies the ideal of public service to his fellow citizens. I wish him the best in his retirement.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor Harriet Thomsen from Washington State, who will be recognized as an extraordinary volunteer by Friend to Friend America at this year's Volunteer Appreciation Day on November 23, 2013. Harriet has been a volunteer and supporter of Friend to Friend since it was founded in 1974. The visitation program connects volunteers to elderly or disabled persons living in nursing homes, increasing the quality of their lives and establishing long-time friendships. Harriet has since been a strong advocate for the elderly community and has worked vigorously to maintain Friend to Friend's mission. Harriet's passion for volunteerism stem from her first visit to a nursing home in her earlier years. She noticed that most homes provided dark activity rooms and were lacking sanitary equipment. Harriet immediately took charge and published an article in her local newspaper asking for donations like paint, chairs and lamps to improve assisted living facilities. She also mobilized women at her church, addressing the concerns she had about the unfortunate conditions some elderly must endure when living in a nursing home. She became invested and took it upon herself to positively change the living situation of seniors. Although Harriet is highly praised for her selflessness and dedication at Friend to Friend, she also volunteers at the Children's Hospital Boutique in Kent, Washington and regularly cooks dinners for the homeless at Grace Lutheran Church. She is currently a retiree that spends more than 40 hours a week assisting others. Mr. Speaker, it is with great honor that I recognize Harriet Thomsen. Harriet is a true inspiration and an excellent example of a community leader. Her service to Washington State will be appreciated by many for years to come.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor Mohamed Ali from Federal Way, Washington, who serves as Co-Chair of the King County Somali Health Board and Program Coordinator for the Hepatitis B Coalition of Washington at WithinReach. Mohamed was recently honored by the White House as a Champion of Change. The White House presented Ali with the Champion of Change Award for his heroic efforts during a winter storm in the Puget Sound region last year. Mr. Ali's proactive approach to the dangers of carbon monoxide within his community helped save lives and protect vulnerable families trying to heat their homes in the winter. By acting as a liaison between King County Public Health and the local Somali community, Mohamed ensured that safety warnings for carbon monoxide were translated for individuals who do not speak English and that the community was informed about the risks of burning fuel indoors during power outages. In addition, Mohamed worked with volunteers at a local mosque to establish a hotline for the community to ask questions about the storm and request aid. He was also instrumental in coordinating the establishment of a nearby aid station that offered heat and hot meals. As a result of Ali's and others' efforts, King County reported zero deaths and ninety percent fewer hospitalizations than during the region's last major winter storm. Mr. Speaker, it is with great honor that I congratulate Mohamed Ali for being honored with the Champion of Change award and recognize his service to the King County community.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, as this shutdown drags on--and I concur with the comments of my colleague from West Virginia--it is serious and having serious consequences. The American people are left to wonder why. Back here in Washington, D.C., you have all kinds of talking points and spin, and it circles around and can easily get very confusing as everyone seems to focus on the wrong things as to what caused this. And, really, it is very simple; and I think understanding it and getting Democrats and Republicans to stop talking past each other is the first step to getting out of this. We have to understand that basically when you pass a budget to fund the government, the first thing you argue about is how much money is spent on it; and we had that argument and, believe me, there are deep disagreements between the Republican House, the Democratic Senate, and the White House on that. But an agreement was reached between Speaker John Boehner and Harry Reid on the level of funding; and that level of funding, frankly, is vastly lower than Democrats want, and we were going to go forward with that until the Speaker changed his mind and decided that he wanted something else. So if you are wondering why Harry Reid, the Senator, the Majority Leader in the Senate, is upset about this situation, it is in part because he had a deal and the Republicans went back on that deal. But it gets worse than that. So instead of simply agreeing to the amount of money that would fund the government, Republicans are now saying, no, they want policy changes within the budget in order to fund the government, in order to just simply keep it open and in order to raise the debt ceiling so that we can pay our bills. Now, policy changes do occasionally happen within appropriations bills, but only when they are agreed upon between the House, the Senate, and the White House. And the problem that the Republicans have and what they have had for 3 years is they simply do not have the votes to pass the policy changes that they want because they didn't win the election last time. President Obama won the election, Democrats control the Senate, and, ironically, Democrats actually won 52 percent of the vote for Congress, but because of gerrymandering, Republicans wound up with more seats. But however we got here, they do not have the votes to advance the agenda that they want to advance, and they are willing to shut down the government and stop funding it and not raise our debt ceiling; and, by the way, every day we get closer to that debt ceiling and not raising it is a day that is bad for this economy, all because they can't pass their policy agenda through the present Congress. Which raises the interesting question, What is that policy agenda? And that perhaps is the most frustrating thing about this. We heard originally that they didn't pass the continuing resolution to fund the government because they wanted to end ObamaCare. Now editorials have been written by leaders; by the majority leader, Mr. Cantor. I have heard Paul Ryan say, no, no, no, it is not about ObamaCare; we understand we are not going to get that. Okay. So what policy change is it that you want? And this is where you get into the deficit. But, again, the Republicans haven't specified what they want on this. Now, we know if you go back through 3 years of history, what they say they want, they want tax reform, though it hasn't been specified, and they want cuts in entitlements to get us closer to a balanced budget. They are completely unwilling to consider any revenue increases. Now, the problem with this is the President doesn't agree. The Senate doesn't agree. The deficit is a problem, no question, but Democrats believe that part of that solution has to be revenue; and to this point we get $600 billion in revenue as a result of the deal that was reached last January in exchange for over $2 trillion in cuts, $2 trillion between the cuts that were made in the Budget Control Act of 2011 and the cuts that have now been forced on us by sequestration, $2 trillion in cuts and $600 billion in tax increases. But be that as it may, the Republicans don't have the votes. They don't have the support of the President, and they don't have the support of the Senate to get those cuts, and yet they insist on shutting down the government. Now, the big problem is what is it that they would want in tax reform and entitlement reform? And this is the thing that I think the American public is unaware of. The Republicans keep saying that they want entitlement reform, which means cuts in entitlements. They keep saying that they want tax reform. They have been in charge of this House for 3 years. They have not brought to the floor or passed out of committee any tax reform or any entitlement reform. They put it in their budget, which is just sort of a big-picture list of future objectives of what they want to do. Why haven't they passed legislation? If they are willing to shut down the government and cause all of the pain that we have heard because they fervently believe that we need entitlement cuts and tax reform, the least they can do is bring it to the floor and tell us what it is. Oddly, the President and Democrats have put more on the table in terms of reforming our entitlements. As part of the Affordable Care Act, we made reductions in Medicare, which the Republicans beat us up for and which has been responsible for Medicare actually going down in inflation. The only solution for this, tell us what you want and understand how this situation works. The pain is too great.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. I will gladly yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Right. But again, the communications level has fallen apart. On our side of the aisle, we don't know from one minute to the next what we are going to be voting on. The schedule has been changed at a moment's notice. I will tell you, even back in the shutdown of 1995, there was greater communication between the majority and the minority about what was going on. In fact, we had a lot of these small little bills that funded little pieces of the government. But the one thing the majority did is they granted the full House a vote on a--and what a clean resolution means is it only pertains to spending; it doesn't pertain to other policy issues. That vote was granted. The House Republicans voted it down. That was their position. But at least we had a vote. Then we also had a discussion about what we could fund during the shutdown. The complete and utter breakdown in communication between the majority party, the minority party, the Senate and the House, the White House and us is doing an unbelievable disservice to this country. I don't care if we get in a room and yell at each other for 4 hours. Let's at least have a communication. I want to really paint the picture here. We all have our talking points, and I heard all of those talking points this morning. I have heard them so much--and I am sure that the American people and I are absolutely sick to death of those talking points. They are poll tested, they are wonderful, they play to the base, they are great, and here we are on day 5 going nowhere. The basic problem here, number one, on the CR is the health care policy issue, that basically the Republicans--this is no secret--want to get rid of the health care law. The trouble is they don't have the votes to do it, and they are, therefore, willing to hold up the funding of the government in order to advance their policy agenda. That is a very important point because that plays into the larger issue. I also want to tell you that we are--what is it--12 days now away from defaulting. We are going to default at this point, because what I hear from my Republican colleagues is, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, we don't want to default. As long as we cut enough spending, as long as we do tax reform we will be fine, which, of course, is what we have been hearing since January of 2011. I just want to explain briefly to the American people what the difference in the positions are here, and I am going to be as fair and honest as I can be. The Republicans believe strongly that we should severely cut spending, and cutting spending at this point means mandatory programs, entitlements, because we have already cut discretionary spending down to the BCA level, down to the level they agreed to. That is what some of my colleagues are referencing about the CR. The spending level is down there. But they don't want to do that. The deficit is high, so they want to cut spending. The President has on more than one occasion put entitlement cuts on the table. The difference of opinion is whether or not we should also raise taxes as part of that deal to deal with the deficit. The President, the Senate, and the Democrats in the House--which I realize is irrelevant because we don't have the votes--but unfortunately for you guys they do in the Senate, and the President has the veto. If there is going to be any entitlement cuts, they have to be accompanied by tax increases. The Republicans say, absolutely not, we are not going to do that. So that is the divide. The problem is the Republicans won 234 seats in the House. Interestingly, they lost the overall vote in Congress by a count of 52 to 48--but redistricting plays out the way it does. They did not win the Presidency and they did not win the Senate. So they are trying to take those 234 votes in the House and jam their broader agenda down everybody's throat. The piece that they have is they are willing to not fund the government and not raise the debt ceiling in order to put us in a bad position to do that. I will tell you, Democrats cannot vote to cut entitlements if there are not tax increases attached to them. So I hope somebody somewhere wakes up to this reality before we default and stops insisting that somehow miraculously in the next 12 days Democrats are going to magically agree to cut entitlements with no revenue, and maybe do some big complicated tax reform bill that cuts taxes even further. Because if that reality does not set in, we are in for several weeks of great calamity that is going to cause greater damage than what has been caused here. So with that, I support the resolution. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I do not oppose this resolution--it sounds sensible going forward-- but I do want to raise a couple of process issues. We found out about this--I found out about this--20 minutes ago. I think it is just emblematic of how much this body has broken down. We have to talk to each other. I don't have an objection to this. I've got staff; the Armed Services Committee has a staff. We work together. We have worked together on the Armed Services Committee better than any other committee in this Congress. I will grant you that that isn't saying much, but we have. We just simply have to talk to each other. Why would they spring this on us at the last minute and not have a communication about it? It is not something we object to. Getting past this individual issue, it is emblematic of the entire problem. The Republicans are complaining because the Senate isn't talking to them and the President isn't talking to them about the CR and the debt ceiling. There are reasons for that. But we have reached an epidemic of not talking to each other. On something as small as this we can't even have a communication.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, first of all, again, I support this resolution. Nobody is getting arrested for praying. I really wish we could keep the debate here in the realm of reality. I believe the issue is that they have been furloughed in some instances so that they are not allowed to carry on the services. I don't want that misimpression left dangling out there that somehow we are arresting people for going to church. We are most certainly not, and I wish the debate would remain a little more accurate. I want to make just one other point. While it is true that, in 1995, President Clinton talked to Republicans, ultimately, he did not give them any of the policy items that they were asking for. All President Obama is basically saying is, Look, if you want to talk, we can talk; but we can't talk about dismantling my health care law, and we can't talk about adding policy riders to the CR or to the debt ceiling, because we need to keep the government running. And there is one other difference which I know my Republican colleagues will not address. The Republican majority under Newt Gingrich in 1995 gave this House a vote just like the Senate has given everything you've sent over to them a vote. They voted it down, but they had a vote. This House will not give us a vote on the CR that the Senate has passed. If you feel as strongly about it as you do, do what the Republicans did in 1995--bring it up and vote it down. That's democracy. That's in the Constitution, too, by the way. That would be helpful. I reserve the balance of my time.