Steve Scalise

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, that debate will go on. Hopefully, we can start addressing some of the long-term problems. Madam Speaker, I wanted to ask the gentleman, finally, about legislation to confront this BDS movement, a major threat to our ally Israel. It attempts to undermine its economy. There is legislation, and of course, there is a bipartisan resolution, the Schneider-Zeldin legislation, which I strongly support, that at least calls out the BDS movement. As we have also seen, we need teeth. We need real tools that we can provide to not just our friend Israel, but also States, many States that are also trying to confront this problem and push back against the BDS movement. The McCaul bill addresses that, similar to a Senate bill that passed with over 70 votes--very bipartisan. In fact, I believe there are amendments being put together to make the McCaul bill identical to the Senate bill. Then the question is, can we get some kind of commitment--and I know we have talked about this before--to bring that bill to the floor so that we can finally, truly confront this growing problem of the BDS movement across not only the world but within our country, and do it with real teeth, like the bipartisan McCaul bill? I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Arizona for yielding and for leading on this issue for the economy of the United States of America and for hardworking families. If you look at what getting back in the Paris accord would do, Mr. Speaker, it would wreck our economy in many different ways. The people hardest hit by the United States getting back in the Paris accord are the very people who don't need to be hit the most, those with the lowest income in our country, because it would increase energy costs. By outside estimates, this bill, complying with the unachievable requirements that they have in this bill, would cost up to 2.7 million American jobs. Those jobs wouldn't just evaporate, Mr. Speaker. Those jobs, ironically, if we were to get back into the Paris accord, would go to China and India because China and India, according to the accord, are exempt until 2030. They don't even have to comply. By the way, why don't we look at the countries that are begging us to get back into the Paris accord? Not one of the countries in the entire European Union is in compliance with the unachievable targets set in the Paris accord. In fact, France, which Paris is in, is not even in compliance with the target. Then they tell us: Hey, America, why don't you come into this thing, this disaster of an agreement that none of the countries in Europe are in compliance with? Then you look at what it would do, again, to wreck America's economy. Let's talk about carbon emissions. If this is really about carbon emissions, like the Green New Deal and other crazy ideas that would wreck the American economy, get rid of fossil fuels. You don't have to fly around on planes anymore. You don't have to worry about missing a flight because there wouldn't be any flights. That is how ludicrous their ideas are, yet they believe in them. They all do this under the guise of carbon emissions. As they say on the other side, climate action does have some cost. Let's talk about that cost: $250 billion in higher taxes, as well as lower wages for American families. You wonder why they are rioting in the streets of France. In Paris, where the accord was signed, they are having riots over this radical idea. By the way, again, they are not even in compliance with it. Then you look at where these jobs would go. The jobs would go to China and India, which are not only exempt, Mr. Speaker, but those countries actually emit four or five times more carbon than we do here because we have good environmental standards in America. We have been decreasing our carbon emissions in America. In fact, we have decreased our carbon emissions down to the level that they were at in the year 2000. We are doing it not by signing some radical job-killing accord; we are doing it through American ingenuity, something we have always celebrated in this country, something that we are the world leader at. Why would we want to give that advantage away? And not just giving it away in the name of saving the planet, giving it away to countries like China and India, who are increasing carbon emissions dramatically higher than us. This is a disaster for our economy. We need to reject this bad deal.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Oregon for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this bill that would create a government takeover of the internet. If you look at the bill, first of all, it is always interesting to pay attention to the titles of bills--the Save the Internet Act. Whom do you want to save the internet from? Many would say they want to save it from the heavy hand of government. I have asked my friends on the other side of the aisle to please show me what is so broken about the internet that the Federal Government needs to come in to save it. First of all, if you look at the growth of this great industry, this is one of America's greatest exports. It is one of America's greatest economic drivers. Some of the best jobs in America are created from the technology industry that has boomed and thrived because of the growth of the internet. How has this internet grown? It has grown because there is no heavy hand of the Federal Government slowing it down. If you go back to look, as the internet continued to grow, as applications continued to get developed on all kinds of devices, small handheld devices, the things that people are able to do, the improvements in their daily lives, because of the growth of the internet, the private money that has come in, billions of dollars of private money has come in to help develop this great superhighway. It has come in, in large part, because the Federal Government hasn't figured out how to regulate and slow it down. Then along comes this bill. Let's be keenly aware of what this bill is trying to do. The bill actually imposes what is called title II regulations of the internet. What are title II regulations? These are laws that were created in the 1930s when there was a monopoly telephone company. You would have to google it these days because most people might not remember, but they used to have these little plugs that they would push in and pull out. You would literally pick up a telephone that was plugged into a wall back then--it wasn't a remote device--and you would call an operator and the operator would patch you through. That was the series of laws that they are now trying to apply to the internet. Can you imagine these archaic 1930s laws being forced upon the internet that is growing so robustly that we are the envy of the world? Our technology, American technology, is dominant in this industry because the government doesn't have these heavy-handed regulations. Then along comes this bill, the Save the Internet Act, to save us from this growth, to save us from this job creation. I think people can clearly see what is going on here. This is a battle we are having on a lot of fronts. It is a battle of individual freedom versus government control. Should you have the choice to decide which provider you want to get your internet service from? The great thing about the internet today is there are so many different people competing for your business, and they are spending billions of dollars to do it. Take a look at 5G. Maybe you are on a 3G network or a 4G network, and now all of these private companies are spending their own money, billions of dollars, to build out a 5G network. Mr. Chairman, what we would like to see is more of this competition. Yet if you go back to look when the Federal Government did try this-- because this isn't some newly created idea. Back in 2015, when there was a different administration in the White House, a different FCC, the FCC started to impose these kinds of regulations and limit the growth of the internet. What happened during that period in 2015? You saw a dramatic drop. Over $3 billion of investment went away. Private money that used to come in to grow and expand these networks, 3G, 4G, hopefully 5G, when the government started to impose these kinds of regulations, people stopped investing because they said the Federal Government telling them how to spend their private money so that we can have a better, faster internet, they weren't going to do it. If you look at what this bill doesn't do, that is the really interesting part. When they talk about the people who are limiting content and closing off lanes to the superhighway, it is not those service providers. It is the edge providers. These big companies that are the application developers that actually do control your data, they are not part of this bill. They were exempt from this bill. So the thing that we want to do and see is a freer, more open internet, which we have already. The government is not regulating the internet today, and it is growing and expanding to the point where we are the envy of the world. We have some of the best job creation in this industry. We don't need the Federal Government to come in and save us from this great growth and expansion. Let's let the internet stay free and open like it is today without the heavy hand of the Federal Government. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I am encouraged by the conversations that both I have been in as well as the conversations that I am aware are going on on your side as well, because this is a bipartisan win for the country. This agreement would help ensure that, as we all support free trade, we also want more fair trade, and this agreement, in many different categories and many different industries, would help create more American jobs and help American workers get treated even more fairly by our neighbors to the north and south. Finally, if I may inquire of the gentleman, we have talked a number of times about the Born-Alive Act, the bill that we have made multiple unanimous consent requests to bring up the discharge petition moving through the process. There are other means to bring it up even quicker, and one would be if the gentleman would schedule the bill for the floor. I would just inquire: Is there any plan to schedule the Born-Alive Act on the floor through a direct means versus some of these other tools that are being considered? Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's candor. We will continue to pursue other tools that we have available as the growing momentum around the country builds, as people saw what happened in New York with a law ushered in that allows babies to be murdered after they are born alive, the Virginia Governor gruesomely describing what he hopes to be a similar law in his State, other States taking those same kinds of actions. So there is a growing bipartisan interest that feels very strongly that we need a Federal law to protect babies who are born alive outside the womb. So we will continue to pursue all of those tools that are available and look forward to the workweek ahead next week as we finish our work prior to the Easter recess. Does the gentleman have anything else?

Mr. SCALISE. That is correct. And I know those pieces of legislation are just resolutions, not actual policy. And, ultimately, if we are going to make the stand, it has to be legislation with teeth, with actual authorizing language and with the ability for us to give true support to our friends--not just words, but actions as well. So, hopefully, we can move both, and I would just continue to urge. And the gentleman from Maryland's support for Israel is unquestioned and has been admired by people on both sides. I would just urge that we, as a House, move those bills, one or both of the actual substantive bills, to the floor as quickly as possible, as they have already moved through the Senate. S. 1 had 77 votes in support--so, strongly bipartisan--coming out of the Senate, but still no referral in the House. Hopefully, we can get that expedited. And with that, on the idea of legislating by resolution, I know that has been a growing trend in this Congress of this majority to move, instead of substantive bills to deal with things like lowering healthcare costs or helping create more jobs. There have been a lot of bills that are just press releases, resolutions that don't actually change law or help change policy or work in a bipartisan way to get bills to the President's desk that can address the growing issues that our country faces. Are we going to see a continued trend in this majority of just resolutions, or are we going to finally get to bipartisan policy on some of these big issues? Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, opposed unanimously on our side, if I can point out.

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, if I could further inquire, S. 1 has not been referred to committee. Is there a plan to refer the bill to committee and, ultimately, to allow it to move through the process, as it has been incredibly bipartisan but also incredibly timely, that we as the United States Congress stand with our friend Israel and stand against what is a growing movement that should be of concern to all of us? I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman. It was heavily debated in the Energy and Commerce Committee, as it should be, and I am sure it will be heavily debated on the floor. A number of these other issues that the gentleman mentioned, you know, we litigated those on the floor. The ones that went over to the Senate, some with only Democratic votes, you know, H.R. 1, for example, the Senate majority leader made it very clear that bill will not get any time on the Senate calendar. There are a lot of others that we would like to see real movement on. I know there was concern of a lot of people that there were three different committees in the House this week that spent the bulk of their time going after the President personally again. We have got the Mueller report coming. The summary has already been laid out and made it clear there was no collusion with Russia. There was no obstruction of justice. We will see the report. What we talked about was that the report be filed in compliance with law, and the law makes it very clear that things like classified information aren't released. That is the law. I think we agreed that that is how it should be, that you don't release classified information. You release the pertinent date. I look forward to seeing that, and we will see that. But, then, it seemed like a continued assault in three different committees continuing to focus on harassing the President personally, as opposed to focusing on some of those policies. But one of the policies that should be coming out of the House where there is a real deadline is the budget. April 15 is the deadline. I know, over and over again, Members of the Democratic leadership, including the Speaker, herself, said: Show me your budget. Show me your values. There is no budget. And we have been concerned that the agenda doesn't follow--the priorities in the budget are really what you lay out. Those are your values. Those are your priorities. While they are moving a bill that lays out caps, it is not bipartisan. But, ultimately, when we get a caps agreement, the gentleman knows it is going to have to be a bipartisan agreement. Last night, the Budget Committee produced only a partisan, one-corner deal--barely a one-corner deal. Typically, they have what are called four-corner deals where the House, Senate--Republicans and Democrats-- come together and say: We are going to agree on what those spending levels need to be so that we can then write our appropriation bills, set the priorities of the country, and avoid a government shutdown. That didn't happen in the Budget Committee. It was a very partisan bill that was moved out; but, more importantly, it was not a budget. I would hope that with the little bit of time that is remaining to meet that legal deadline that the majority would try to actually produce a budget and follow through on those over-and-over again quotes: ``Show me your budget.'' ``Show me your values.'' Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. SCALISE. Only because we are no longer in the mix as well.

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I look forward to a robust debate on the unaptly titled bill, ``Save the Internet.'' I think a lot of people shiver at the thought of the Federal Government saving us from the internet. The title II regulation that would be imposed would allow the internet to be regulated like a utility. This is not the phone company of the 1970s. This is probably one of the greatest innovations that America has produced for the world, allowing us to be a world leader, dominant leader, in a growing technology field. Primarily because the government hasn't figured out how to regulate it, it has been able to grow so robustly. I would hope that we have that full debate and people are very aware of the negative connotations and, ultimately, the damaging effects of a Federal regulation of the internet that could slow down that dramatic innovation that we have seen with the Federal Government not regulating it. It will be a robust debate. Hopefully, we debate a number of other issues. I know we had a robust debate on the floor just a little while ago on the BDS movement. It is a growing concern for all of us who feel passionately about Israel's right to exist as a Jewish State. I know the leader has been a leader in this Congress and a leader throughout this country in an incredibly bipartisan way standing up for that unique relationship, but we have seen threats from other countries. You have seen heavy debate in Europe. You have seen debate in areas in Palestinian circles that want to undermine Israel's right to exist as a Jewish State by trying to boycott products made in Israel, to crush Israel's economy. That is why it is so important that we stand up against this BDS movement. While we weren't successful in the motion to commit, there is legislation that is incredibly bipartisan. S. 1, a bill that has come over from the Senate, unfortunately, hasn't been referred to committee, nor, also, H.R. 336, similar legislation that would allow us to help support our friends around the world who want to stand up against the BDS movement and stand with our good friend Israel. Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the gentleman, is there any plan to allow either or both of those bills to come to the floor so we can send a strong message to our friends around the world and to enemies of Israel, as well, that we are not going to support this BDS movement. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE. Hopefully, we can get a bipartisan agreement on what those levels need to be to properly fund our defense, to properly do the other things the government should do and limit the ways it can possibly be carried out, and then, ultimately, to be able to get the bills that follow it passed in time, well before the September 30 deadline. One of the areas that there is very productive movement on is the new trade deal between the United States, Mexico, and Canada, USMCA. I know there are bipartisan working groups. The White House has been in negotiations with the majority, the Speaker and your team. Can the leader give any insight into where the conversations are going in the House to get a timetable for when we can start having a plan for that? You look at Canada's House of Commons, they have their own deadline of when they rise, and, obviously, we want to be aware of our other partners that are included in this negotiation. Is there talk of a timeline yet, if the leader could share where those conversations are going. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I will be happy to yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), my friend, the majority leader of the House for the purpose of inquiring about the week to come.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the House on an important issue, and maybe the most important issue, Mr. Speaker, and that is the issue of life. We brought a bill forward, H.R. 962, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. This is a bill, Mr. Speaker, that many wonder why is it even necessary that we need a law to say that if a baby is born alive, outside of the womb, we need to give it the full protections under law. Many people ask, Mr. Speaker, why isn't that already protected? If a baby is born alive, it should have the full protections of anybody else. And yet, as we see in States like New York and other States around the country, they allow, in those States, the baby, even after it is born alive, to be killed. To me, Mr. Speaker, that is murder, and yet, in many States, they don't have the full protection that all of us enjoy. How could that be, in the United States of America, that a baby born alive can still be killed after it is born outside of the womb? This issue transcends the abortion debate. In fact, people across every spectrum--Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, even people who align themselves as pro-choice--believe it is wrong to murder the baby after it is born alive, and yet it is still allowed. There should be no reason that this is a gray issue. Today, Mr. Speaker, I will be joining my colleague, Ann Wagner, the lead author of this bill, to start a discharge petition: an opportunity for every Member of Congress to make their voices heard loud and clear that this bill ought to come to this floor for a full debate and, ultimately, for a vote. We ought to pass this law, Mr. Speaker. There should be no doubt. It shouldn't be a partisan issue. It shouldn't be an issue that we have disagreement over, and yet we do. For whatever reason, the Speaker will not allow this bill, though, to come up for a vote. We have tried time after time to move unanimous consent to bring this bill to the floor and, for months, that motion has been denied. The most vulnerable among us should no longer be denied that protection under the law. Mr. Speaker, this bill has to come up for a vote. This bill has to be debated by the people's House. Why not allow people all across the country to participate in this debate? As they find out about it, the reaction I get is not a debate on political lines, it is shock that this isn't already law. Every baby born alive, Mr. Speaker, ought to have the full protection under law that is currently provided to all of us. H.R. 962 should be one of the easiest things that we pass through this House, yet, unfortunately, it has become one of the most difficult. But that is okay, Mr. Speaker. We know that it is the difficult things that we come here to do, not the easy, because it would have already been done. So we are going to be leading the charge today, standing with people all across the country. And, in fact, we are actually bringing in people, Mr. Speaker, who survived an attempted abortion. It happens all across this country. And when that baby is born alive, that baby ought to have the full protection under the law. We will start the process today to ensure that that full debate happens and, ultimately, that the vote happens to pass the Born Alive Act. Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to sign on to this discharge petition.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his leadership on healthcare. First of all, Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this resolution, which has nothing to do with actually helping improve healthcare, the costs, especially, that so many millions of people are enduring, because the Affordable Care Act is anything but affordable. Mr. Speaker, let's keep in mind what this resolution is about. It is not about changing any healthcare policy. It doesn't do that. It has been made clear. It is attempting just to try to take cheap shots at the President while diverting attention away from what this lawsuit that you see moving through the courts is really all about. Mr. Speaker, if the healthcare law that my friends on the other side of the aisle rushed through Congress and passed is held unconstitutional, they have nobody to blame but themselves. Let's keep in mind--and they want you to forget this, Mr. Speaker--and let's go back to those days when they rammed this bill through and the infamous statement: You have to pass the bill to find out what is in it. Nobody read that bill who voted for it. We said back then that it was unconstitutional. And, oh, by the way, not only was it that, but it has actually led to dramatic increases in cost for families. So someone with a preexisting condition--whom we want to protect, by the way, Mr. Speaker. But we don't just want to protect the fact that they shouldn't be able to have costs go up. We want to help them lower the costs for health insurance and lower their premiums. So many millions of Americans are not only facing double-digit increases, but people with preexisting conditions, in many cases, are facing a $10,000 deductible, so they have no access to healthcare, Mr. Speaker. Why don't we focus on the underlying problem? We on the Republican side support protecting people with preexisting conditions, but we also want to lower their premiums and lower their deductibles. The other side wants to see their costs continue to go up. That is the biggest difference between the two sides. We ought to focus on lowering premiums. Let families make those decisions, not unelected bureaucrats in Washington. That is what we ought to be focused on. This resolution falls short.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, whether or not there is an ultimate move towards something like impeachment, which I hope wouldn't come, and with all the things we know--there are no high crimes or misdemeanors and there is not even collusion--there are still committee chairmen in the gentleman's own party who are talking about impeachment. It is not something made up. There are leaders in the gentleman's party talking about it. The chairman of the Judiciary Committee issued more than 80 subpoenas. Again, the majority can keep looking. Look at the summary of the Mueller report--2,800 subpoenas, more than 500 search warrants, and interviews of approximately 500 witnesses. So the gentleman can talk about people who were indicted who have nothing to do with the collusion and nothing to do with any ties to the President. Maybe somebody had filed a false tax return, then go throw the book at him. Mr. Cohen came and lied to Congress, and he deserves to go to jail for it. What did the majority do? They brought him back as their star witness, a man who was already guilty of lying to Congress. He came, swore himself in, and likely lied to Congress again. So, again, throw the book at him. But in terms of what the basis of the investigation was, it was to find collusion, and they found none: no further indictments; no evidence of collusion; in fact, saw the Trump campaign pushing back and even offers for help. Foreign governments like Russia trying to interfere with our elections clearly happened--not just Russia, other countries too--and we all ought to be concerned about it. We all want to make sure that our defenses are as high as we can make them so that they are not able to collude. We have seen companies in America that were taken advantage of during that campaign season, and they have taken corrective actions, too, so that Russia can't use social media companies in this Nation to try to take advantage of our electoral system. But in terms of collusion with the President of the United States and a foreign government, it didn't happen. If anybody has evidence to the contrary, then show it to the American people. Stop alluding behind some cloak-and-dagger conspiracy theory that it happened still to this day when the Mueller investigation concluded it didn't happen. We will get the full report. I look forward to reviewing it just as the gentleman from Maryland is looking forward to reviewing it, and maybe we will continue this conversation. But if all of the findings that the Attorney General gave us in his summary are accurate, which I don't discount they will be--I think they will be at the highest level of confidence that the Attorney General's summary is accurate. If it is not, then clearly we will take that up separately. But if it turns out to be accurate, then I think we all ought to celebrate, number one, the fact that there was no collusion, but then move on. The people who made accusations that turned out to be baseless ought to apologize and recognize there are people's personal lives and integrity that were being questioned. If it turned out they were wrong in making those accusations, then they ought to hold themselves accountable and to a higher standard. Those are the points that I was making. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I share the gentleman's concern about addressing those important issues. I will say, for the five people whom the gentleman referenced, anybody who broke the law ought to be held accountable. But after 500 witnesses are interviewed and over 2,800 subpoenas, all looking to find collusion with the Russian Government, not one of the people the gentleman mentioned had anything to do with colluding with the Russian Government. If they made misstatements or if they didn't pay their taxes, after 2,800 subpoenas, then make sure that they are held accountable for the things they did, but don't suggest that it had anything to do with collusion with Russia, because it didn't. Again, Mr. Speaker, go pull 500 names out of the phonebook, and if you put the full weight of the United States Government and 2,800 subpoenas into looking into 500 random people, I am sure not one of them will have done anything wrong--and hopefully not. But if they did and it had nothing to do with what you were initially looking for, let's not try to suggest it had anything to do with collusion, because it didn't. We will see the full report. We look forward to seeing that. Again, hopefully, if the full report shows what we have already seen in the summary, that there was no collusion, then people who have been claiming there was collusion will also hold themselves accountable and maybe apologize, maybe recant, but surely stop continuing any kind of witch hunt and then focus on these important issues like getting our economy even stronger; working with this President to solve big problems which we have the opportunity to do to get a real trade agreement with our neighbors Mexico and Canada, all of whom want to have better trade relationships with us and help benefit our economy, create more jobs, and have fairer labor standards; something we have in front of us, an opportunity to do in a bipartisan way, maybe get a budget agreement so that we can have, certainly well before the September 30 deadline, how we are going to fund our government in a responsible way, make sure our men and women in uniform don't have to wonder whether or not they are going to get paid while they are deployed in a foreign country; make sure we can focus on lowering healthcare costs; and immigration reform that can solve some of the big problems on border security and some of the other areas. So, hopefully, we can find agreement on that, and I am sure, in the coming weeks, we will on some, if not all, those issues. I look forward to working with the gentleman to do that. I appreciate, while we go back and forth sometimes, we can have a little fun with our hobbies, but we also have big, important tasks; and I know that the gentleman carries out his role in the most responsible way to promote the agenda that he thinks is best for this country, as do I, and, ideally, we can find a lot of intersection where we can work together to get really good things done for the American people. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCALISE. The gentleman will yield in a moment. But let's be clear, for the last 2 years we heard this clarion call that there was some collusion between the President or his family and Russia. We heard all this talk about impeachment and everything on down from the highest levels, including, now, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who went multiple times on national TV and said there was more than credible evidence of collusion. Finally, everybody was waiting on the Mueller report. Many were hanging their hat, saying it is going to show all these things. There is going to be a list of indictments. Go look at all the tapes from every national TV show you can imagine of some of the most outlandish claims that were made. And now the Mueller report comes out, and it is clear those claims are baseless. There was no collusion.

Mr. SCALISE. There was no collusion.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, as I pointed out earlier, you have two methods within which to set those caps: You can do it through the budget--which 7 of the 8 years we were in the minority we did--or you can do it through a separate caps deal, which 2 years ago we were able to do for a 2-year period, which is why we didn't do a budget last year. We passed it out of committee and at least showed what our priorities are, but we didn't need to pass a budget to get a caps deal because we had a caps deal in place from the prior year. The other 7 years there was no caps deal, so the budget laid out that number, and the gentleman's majority has done neither. You don't have a caps deal or a budget, and so at some point you are going to have to produce the number to show what we are going to start the appropriations process using. The other part of the budget, which isn't talked about as much but is equally important, is the establishment of the priorities for that majority. How do we get back to a balanced Federal budget, for example? We laid that out in our budget multiple times. We have programs like Medicare. Medicare is going bankrupt if we do nothing. It would be irresponsible for us to let Medicare go to bankruptcy. Actual reports show it could go bankrupt in the next 8 years, which we think is irresponsible. That is why we put, in our budget, a plan to save Medicare from bankruptcy. Whatever the gentleman's plan would be to save Medicare from bankruptcy, I would urge him to show it. Show the American people what the priorities are. But they haven't done that. And why? Why haven't they done that? Because they have spent the last 2 years trying to impeach the President, trying to lay out this foundation that there was collusion.

Mr. SCALISE. We will see the full Mueller report.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, last year, as the gentleman knows, we were working under a 2-year budget agreement. Typically, we don't have a 2- year budget agreement. You bring one budget, and that is the budget for that year. For fiscal year 2012, the House passed a budget. In our majority, we passed a budget to establish those numbers to then start the appropriations process. In 2013, we passed through the House a budget to establish the 2013 budget numbers to work off of. In 2014, we passed a budget through the House to establish the budget for that fiscal year. In 2015, we passed a budget through the House to establish a budget for that year. In 2016, we actually got an agreement, both between the House and the Senate, and passed the budget, of course, through the House and the Senate. In fiscal year 2017, we passed a budget through the House and the Senate and got a full agreement to do an appropriations process. In fiscal year 2018, as the gentleman knows, we actually agreed to a 2-year budget agreement to not only set the fiscal year numbers for 1 year, but for 2 years, which was tremendously helpful in making sure that our Nation's defense, which many times had been used as bargaining chips for other budget negotiations, we took that off the table. We made sure our men and women in uniform had the certainty of a 2-year budget agreement, which doesn't happen often. Frankly, it should happen more often, and we should strive toward that, so we achieved that. In 2019, as the gentleman knows, we passed a budget out of the House Budget Committee, but we already had a budget agreement to work through the appropriations process because we had done a 2-year budget the prior year. We don't have even a 1-year budget agreement right now. And as the gentleman knows, there are no fruitful negotiations to get a 1- or 2- year budget agreement, so there is no budget number to work off of, which is why you produce a budget. Last year, we did bring a bill out of committee, but we didn't need to pass a budget because we already had the budget number agreed to from the 2-year deal prior. And so with that, is the gentleman willing to engage in or come to an agreement on at least a 1- or 2-year budget agreement so that we can actually have an appropriations process that works for the country and shows the priorities of this Nation? Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I, too, am hopeful that we are able to start an appropriations process and, ideally, to complete it by summer--well in advance of the September 30 government funding deadline--because we shouldn't be operating under deadline after deadline, where we go until the midnight hour. But as the gentleman knows, you can't start an appropriations process until you actually set what are known as the 302 numbers, the 302(a) and (b) numbers, so that we know what each appropriations bill can target in terms of its overall spending number, to have that caps limit. Ideally, it would be done through a budget with the April 15 deadline, but maybe the gentleman is going to be able to work with the committee to get a budget passed out of committee before the deadline and, if not, as the gentleman urges, a hopeful desire to get a caps deal. I would like to get a caps deal as well. I supported the last caps deal because it gave us 2 years of certainty. It was bipartisan. It was an agreement that, while we may disagree on top-line numbers--and we want more money for defense, and some on your side might want more for nondefense discretionary--we finally came to an agreement. That did give tremendous certainty to our men and women in uniform. So over 70 percent of this Federal Government was fully funded for the fiscal year. Clearly, we had a difference on border security, and that remaining area of our budget wasn't funded. But at least the 70-plus percent of the people of this country who rely on those services and want a strong defense were able to see us achieve that. Hopefully, we can do something like that again well before the deadline. That is the objective.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to yield.