Paul Tonko

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Yes, they are both significant bits of legislation, so it's good to interlace the American Jobs Act and the Affordable Care Act. To the 280,000 teachers, I think it's very easy to state that the human infrastructure in our school systems across this Nation are a critical component to quality education, that personal relationship of students to teacher, the exercise of self-discovery--who am I, what are my gifts, what are my talents, what are my passions. That is exercised in the classroom. That is a spirit that prevails. It's a magic that happens in the classroom and that sense of self-discovery. Part of our goal here is not only to enable these students to understand who they are, to draw forth the soul of the individual; it's to provide the opportunity for our workforce of the future. That fourth-grader, hypothetically, that was impacted by class size or the lack of a teacher for certain subject areas, that's something that child will never gain again. What you lose in that given year is lost throughout the development. And it is important for us to make certain that every bit of opportunity, every bit of learning experience is granted our children so that they understand where they can best contribute to society, where their gifts can be utilized. And it's part of that development of the workforce of the future, the workforce of the present, training, retraining dollars, that are part of the American Jobs Act, absolutely a critical piece of the infrastructure. And the tens of thousands--this chart will say retain thousands of police officers and firefighters. We know it's tens of thousands across this Nation. An element of public safety, a quality-of-life component, making certain that our core communities have the given workforce of firefighters, of police officers that will enable us to respond to public safety measures. These are a core bit of principle, along with veterans that would be hired with benefits that are significant. That element was done under pressure, under scrutiny, under growing public sentiment. But think of what could happen if we did all of these and did even additional services with our veterans who are returning home and are in need of employment. These are the factors, these are the dynamics that are introduced through AJA, the American Jobs Act, that would allow for the deficit to be addressed and at the same time to have services responded to, essential services. We've talked about the belt-tightening, addressing waste and inefficiency and outmoded programs and fraud. And after we capture those savings from that exercise, it's important, I believe, to slide that into an investment zone so that the result is cut where you can, so as to invest where we must. The investment, absolutely critical. The investment in jobs, the investment in teachers, firefighters, public safety elements, our police officers, our veterans community, and items like an infrastructure bank bill, an infrastructure that we'll talk about in the remaining minutes of this Special Order.

Mr. TONKO. Well, what else reduces the deficit? Putting people to work. Putting people to work, the American Jobs Act. Plain and simple: It's about addressing the deficit and providing for the dignity of work and the enhancement of services that strengthens the fabric of our communities, our States, our Nation. So, the American Jobs Act, according to experts, is a phenomenal plan. We've heard the Republicans say we have some 30 bills that are about growing the economy and producing jobs when, in fact, when put under the test, when reviewed by some very sound organizations out there and professional economists and analysts, they said it would do precious nothing. That it was not the formula. It's not what the doctor called for, if we can stay on that health-care related theme. But the American Jobs Act, well, listen to some of the experts. The chief economist at Moody's Analytics--who, by the way, Mark Zandi, was the former economic advisor for Senator John McCain--what does he theorize? That anywhere from 1.9 million to 2 million jobs would be the outcome of the American Jobs Act, something that not only produces the jobs, but would reduce the unemployment rate by at least 1 percentage point. That's a major significant factor. What also happens is that, when you produce those 2 million jobs, you're addressing the GDP by at least 2 percentage points. Growth in the GDP, reduction in the unemployment, reducing the deficit, putting people to work, strengthening the economy, providing purchasing power at a time when businesses are saying the best thing you can do: Get us customers. A healthy economy, putting people into the work mode creates customers. It creates purchasing power. It creates a strength in the economy. Two million jobs. How can we walk away from a proposal? Oh, I know why: Because there were those who spoke before cameras reaching all of America saying anything this President offers, we won't do; our goal is to make him a one-term President. My friends, that is putting partisan politics-- petty, partisan politics ahead of the interests, the better interests of the American public. Where is that American spirit? Where is that sense of patriotism? Where is that sense of responsibility, of leadership in this House and in the U.S. Senate that needs to go forward with the American Jobs Act? Representative Garamendi, I know we've been joined by another colleague. It is just great to share this hour with you to talk about the progress we can taste that would lift every community in this great Nation.

Mr. TONKO. My colleague from California just indicated that there would be a favorable deficit outcome because of the Affordable Care Act.

Mr. TONKO. Well, if I might ask the gentleman from California if he would yield. I believe there's a whole lot of political posturing going on with the Medicaid decision by States. We are hearing a lot of talk about, well, we are not going to pay for that portion because, while it may be 100 percent in the near future, it may go to 90 percent into the long- distance future, and they don't want to pay anything for the new installments of the Medicaid plan. Well, today we are paying. It's not like it's against an absolute that costs nothing. If you have the poor uninsured, underinsured in any given State, there's indigent care. There is bad debt and charity that is addressed in ratepayer dollars for insurance coverage's sake because that is going to be incorporated into the overall actuarial plan, or you're paying it through taxpayer dollars and for a much more inefficient system. To have the poor, uninsured, and underinsured go to emergency rooms visiting a different doctor team every time they visit that emergency room, or perhaps a different emergency room, to not provide the stable, standardized care, acceptable notions of how to provide a predictable outcome, you're going to pay needlessly and wastefully. This is about networking people to a system that provides a stability, a standard that will enable them to have a clinic, have a contract that will cover them and make certain that all of us are strengthened by it. And guess what. The business community, we talk about competitiveness. We talk about a sharp competitive edge for America's business communities as they enter into the international sweepstakes on winning contracts. That translates into providing jobs and profitability for our business community. Well, part of their cost of doing business is to have health care for their workers. Many want the health care coverage for their workers but simply cannot afford it. So the exchange opportunities that are part of the package of the Affordable Care Act enables them to cut their cost. It's taking their experience, their actuarial experience of 10, 15, 20 workers in that small business and putting them in a pool of millions of workers. That enables them to shave the peaks and enables them to take those catastrophic situations. One person in their plan of 10 impacted by catastrophic situations can cause their premiums as a company and the copayments of their workers to skyrocket. But if they're enabled to join this pooled effort, it provides for a better outcome for everybody. So there is wisdom and thoughtfulness poured into the reform elements of the Affordable Care Act. And it's done again with that American heart, that spirit, that sense of compassion for the worker, the sensitivity toward the employer, and putting together a package that has everyone responded to in a way that speaks to a long-overdue bit of success. The last industrialized nation, Representative Garamendi, to go toward a guaranteed health plan. So, long overdue. And now to taste success and have it pulled away from the American health care consumers of this great Nation is a very troubling notion.

Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Representative Garamendi. One of the things you talked about with the influence or the focus on women's health care reminds me of the preexisting conditions that are precluded now as a rationale for denying insurance. And ``preexisting'' might mean, in youth, asthma; in our senior population, emphysema or cancer recovery or cancer struggle. But it can also mean in a gender-related bias--being a woman. That is used as a preexisting condition. Being a woman is a preexisting condition. So the benefits to women, as you outlined in the direct services, the screenings, the mammograms and the like, are a portion. The other portion is just being born a woman can deny you insurance. So, when you talk about the 30 cents on the dollar that the voucher would carry for the Medicare recipient, and they're asked to go shop, this is saying that compared to today's standards, it's the senior digging much deeper into her pocket. It's the senior digging into another pocket to be able to afford his Medicare voucher portion. And that's unacceptable. That is playing to a special interest. That's what I believe the espoused virtue of this deny, this repeal, is about. It's about playing to special interests that don't want to be told that there's a transition here, that there's a new day in America for health care consumers, and that the heart has been poured into this to be more sensitive, to address a moral compass that this Nation has always uniquely embraced, that we are a compassionate society, that we are going to make a difference out there, and that we are solutions bound. That's what the Affordable Care Act was about: presenting a new approach to health care, providing more freedom and opportunity to our seniors and to our children. If you're 26 and under, you can stay on your parents' policy. These are the formulae for success that allow us to go forward with much more dignity, much more success, cost containment, affordability, and accessibility. These are the dynamics of reform. Why would you repeal something here other than to respond to special interests?

Mr. TONKO. Absolutely. We didn't hear too much about what would be lost in their cuts or repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Representative Garamendi, you are absolutely right, there is much that has been gained by the American population, health consumers across this Nation, with the efforts of the Affordable Care Act, to close the doughnut hole, to make prescription drugs more affordable for our pharmaceutical consumers out there, for seniors who require this medication, their prescription drugs to stay well or to stay alive. Far too many were balancing their household budget by reducing their intake of prescriptions advised by their medical community. That is immoral. It's unnecessary and has been addressed by the Affordable Care Act. So 5.3 million seniors today are drawing $3.7 billion in benefits. That is something that could be taken away if the Republican majority in the House of Representatives had its way. Now, this is a wellness aspect. This is part of a formula that allows people to be cured, to be healed, to be allowed to live with a quality of life that then addresses their very needs. And so I think it's necessary to point out what would be taken away from the benefits already offered, and there are more to come. But as we know, they're staged. They are rolled into the operations of reform over the next several years. But suffice it to say, the screenings, the annual checkup, flu shots that are made available without cost, no copayment, no coinsurance, no deductible is required here. These are huge benefits to every age demographic that are offered through the Affordable Care Act. And so we heard about adding to the cost curve of health care. We have heard about repealing the Affordable Care Act. We have heard about taking away the benefits that have just recently arrived at the door steps of health consumers across this great Nation. And why would you want to play politics with the very fabric of quality of life of the people that we represent collectively by undoing progress? This is a recurring theme. They want to undo Social Security that has a 76-year- old history. They want to voucher out Medicare that came to us in the mid-1960s that addressed the economic stability, the predictability of senior households and the quality of life in those households. Why would you want to take that progress away? It is heart wrenching to listen to some of this insensitive, callous dialogue on the House floor that really renders the public that we are here to serve without benefits that have just recently arrived through the success of the Affordable Care Act. Representative Garamendi, it is something that I think needs to be echoed out there from this House floor and shared with the constituents of this great Nation in a way that allows them to better understand what is part and parcel of the Affordable Care Act, a monumental piece of success. Is it perfect? No. We aimed for perfection, we struck with progress. But there is many, many a benefit that is part of the Affordable Care Act, and we are witnessing an all-out attempt by the Republican majority to turn that success into failure.

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Chairman, here we go again. It isn't enough that the Obama administration's offshore drilling plan makes more than 75 percent of our oil and natural gas resources available for drilling; but the majority is not going to be happy until we have turned over every square foot of our public lands and our coastline to the oil and gas companies. H.R. 6082 abandons any pretense to the support of states' rights by mandating lease sales for the east coast and southern California--the coastlines of States that are on record as opposing oil and gas drilling along their coasts. Too bad New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. If your citizens want to prioritize the tourism, recreation, and fishing industries, Big Oil wants to move in, and H.R. 6028 gives them the authority to do so. H.R. 6082 requires no public comment or consultation with the States. Apparently, those steps, steps followed by the administration in putting together their plan, are too time consuming. Besides, they may result in opposition to this ill-conceived drilling plan. On the same day that the United States Chemical Safety Board has released its report on the Deepwater Horizon accident with the finding that safety lessons were not learned from the 2005 refinery accident, we're moving a bill that does nothing to improve the safety of offshore drilling for either the people who work on these rigs or for the many citizens and businesses whose coastal access, enjoyment, or livelihood would be lost if there were an oil spill. Thankfully, this bill will go no further than this House, at least in this Congress. If it passed the other body, the President has already issued a veto threat. Why are we doing this? One can only speculate. I'm disappointed that the Rules Committee did not make my amendment in order. It would have required oil and gas companies that are awarded leases to disclose their Federal campaign donations to candidates and super PACs. We are in real danger of losing our democracy. Free speech should not cost millions of dollars, and corporations are not people. Sunshine is the best anecdote to this particular brand of poison. The public should know who is funding issue ads and other campaign-focused activities, especially when those funds come from corporations that profit from public resources. The Supreme Court's decision in the Citizens United case unleashed a tidal wave of anonymous campaign donations. There are now over 600 super PACs poised to spend at least the $221 million that they have collected so far to dominate the airwaves with advertisements of the political viewpoints of corporations and wealthy individuals. According to a Bloomberg news article published earlier this year, Americans for Prosperity, an organization backed by oil interests, paid over $12 million for ads attacking the Obama administration's green energy policies. The public has a right to know how profits made through exploitation of public resources of our land and our coastlines are being used to influence elections. My amendment would have provided the public with some of that information. H.R. 6082 will not make us energy independent. It will not make us more energy efficient. It will not lower fuel prices. Energy efficiency and investment in our new energy resources are the real way to kick our oil habit. I urge my colleagues to reject H.R. 6082.

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer an amendment to the FY13 Defense appropriations bill. My amendment is a modest, straightforward reform to fix the current cap on Federal salaries paid to government contractor executives. This is part of a bipartisan reform that I and our colleague, the gentlewoman from California, have been working on for the past 2 years; and despite significant bipartisan progress in the Senate, this issue has never once been allowed so much as a vote in the House. I expect today will be no different. Nevertheless, Mr. Chair, it was once my understanding that the highest individual salary funded by the American taxpayer was that of the President of the United States at a total of $400,000; but it turns out that the leader of the free world isn't actually the highest paid executive on the taxpayers' payroll. The highest Federal Government salaries are actually earned by private sector executives who can be paid nearly $770,000 in taxpayer dollars under current law. That's nearly twice the salary of the Commander in Chief and more than three times the salary of the Secretary of Defense. In fact, gaping loopholes in the law mean that many can earn far more. Let me emphasize that these are federally funded salaries for private sector executives-- funded 100 percent by the American taxpayer. You won't find these exorbitant pay rates on government pay schedules, and they certainly aren't subject to the pay and hiring freeze. In fact, just weeks ago, top government contractors got a $70,000 raise on the taxpayers' dime for no reason other than the current law demanded it. That raise alone, $70,000, is more than the salary of most Federal employees. That raise brought the current cap on Federal reimbursements for contractor compensation up to nearly $770,000, an incredible 10 percent raise for the top echelons of the contractor workforce that is estimated to outnumber Federal civilian and military personnel by more than 2-1. To put that delta into perspective, compare the 10 percent contractor increase to the 1.7 percent raise that this bill proposes for our women and men in uniform. Compare it to the total pay freeze under which our civilian personnel are operating. If you believe that reining in personnel costs is a smart way to reduce the deficit, then you cannot possibly argue that we should maintain a blank check for the estimated 7 million contractors on the Federal Government payroll. This problem started in the late 1990s with a law that created the current, deeply flawed formula to reimburse government contractors for the pay of their top executives. The so-called ``cap'' under this law has grown by leaps and bounds each year, increasing by more than 75 percent in just the last 8 years. That is an unsustainable and unjustifiable trend that must be put to a stop. In a year where we can agree on so little, I have found that many of us can agree on this. From 2001 to 2010, spending on service contractors rose by 137 percent, making it one of the Pentagon's largest cost drivers. Given the rampant growth in contract spending, the Army estimated earlier this year that limiting contractor compensation to even the salary of the President--that's $400,000--would have saved the taxpayers $6 billion in fiscal year 2011 alone, or a savings of approximately 15 percent in contract services. Six billion dollars--that's only for the Army, and that's only in 1 year. Imagine what we could be saving government-wide. Our amendment is a modest, bipartisan proposal that reins in the most excessive government salaries by revising the cap to a set level of $230,700--or the salary of the Vice President of the United States. The cap would apply to all defense contractors and subcontractors. However, it also reaffirms the authority of the Secretary of Defense to create exceptions to the cap in certain circumstances. This authority was established in last year's defense authorization to preserve flexibility for our military in maintaining access to individuals--particularly scientists and engineers--who possess unique skills and capabilities critical to the United States' national security. To reiterate, this amendment does not grant new authority to the Secretary of Defense. It is not legislating in an appropriations bill. It merely reaffirms the current authority of the Secretary codified in title 10. To be clear, this amendment deals exclusively with taxpayer dollars spent to reimburse contractors.

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. I was going to say, too, that many people will say, well, if the option is made available, which it is, why would they choose that? Why would they want to spend even if there is a tax credit made available? Think about it. The sound business community leader is going to want to recruit, and when you recruit and get the best employees, you offer the best package, and you have, as a result, a soundness in your workforce.

Mr. TONKO. Let me do this quickly, Representative Garamendi. We're the greatest nation in the world. I believe our greatest days lie ahead of us. Let us take our golden moments in history when we were faced with heavy challenges, where we responded accordingly with the belief in the worker, belief in the American way, the pioneer spirit, and did it in an order of investment. Let those solutions-oriented moments speak to us today. We need the soundest of solutions, we need the respect for the American worker, and our greatest days lie ahead. It's a spirit of optimism that we should embrace, a history that ought to challenge, feed us, and inspire us. With that, I thank you for yielding this evening.

Mr. TONKO. Absolutely. And I see the order of progress, Representative Garamendi, that we've achieved in that private sector that you just outlined. And it's regrettable that the solution for which the President is calling to provide for the public sector side, which would speak to greater numbers of employment, because we've taken that 4 million-plus in the private sector and reduced the overall results by losing some public sector opportunities which speak to soundness of community, public safety, educating the young, and providing for public protection out there. These are important aspects of quality of life. They ought to be embraced. So we've denied part of the President's agenda. We've recognized the success and strength part of his plan, but there's been this partisan divide, there's been this holding back on progress because perish the thought if the White House should look good in this comeback from a recession. Well, you need to place--we need to place the public good, the Nation's good, ahead of partisan divide. It is absolutely essential. And to then criticize the President by restraining some of the progress that he's been trying to cultivate and saying he's not cleaning up the mess quick enough, well, there was a huge mess delivered just before he assumed office--8.2 million jobs is a tough situation from which to walk forward from. And I think that there is a solution there, and we ought to work and put America first, the needs of this Nation first so as to be able to continue to walk forward and not negate any of the progress that we're achieving.

Mr. TONKO. Let me tell you, that is welcome news to my manufacturing base. I hear it all the time. They support the efforts of the President to reward those who produce jobs here in the U.S. and where we provide benefits for returning jobs, onshoring them as you suggest. That is welcome news. That is welcome news to the manufacturing base, as is the call for action by the President for investments in advance manufacturing. And I know that's compete and compete effectively, and to allow for job growth to come via the private sector base. We need to invest in that new day of manufacturing. It is not dead. I refuse to submit to this notion that manufacturing is dead in this country. It is alive, it is well, and it needs to be retrofitted so as to be advanced in nature and in character. Let's get moving forward, and let's, again, reward those job creators, not paying people to offshore or send out of this Nation. Our hugest export was jobs in the decade preceding this administration.

Mr. TONKO. The reach that we ought to make to our history, to let it to speak to us, the reach we ought to make to the boldness that we embraced in times that preceded us ought to speak to us, ought to feed our soul, ought to feed our mindset. The courageous steps that we were asked to take that we took together as a Nation, committed to a cause, this is the sort of leadership that I think is required. The President is asking us to respond in very challenging times to these orders of investment. Now, I can tell you in my district, the birthplace of the Erie Canal, mill towns that have achieved and changed the quality of life of peoples around the world, we're watching nanotechnology, semiconductor science, advanced battery manufacturing, chips manufacturing, a growth area happening within the capital region of New York, all built upon, I think, a public-private sector partnership, government inserted in a way that provides for the priming of the pump that goes where you absorb risk which, perhaps, the private sector won't take. And we're now seen as a global center of operations in certain areas. And it's growing and it's expanding. Now is not the time to walk away from that progress. Now is the time to invest in these dreams--these American dreams that people have always seen as the nobleness of the American saga.

Mr. TONKO. Right. He proposed a canal system, in tough times, saying we need to invest our way through this. There's a way to grow a port out of this town called New York. And there's a way perhaps that there will be a ripple effect, which there was, with the birthing of mill towns, a necklace of mill towns that became the epicenters of invention and innovation. And it drove a westward movement so that it headed toward California. It drove an industrial revolution, sparking all sorts of opportunity and activity, driven by a pioneer spirit that is unique to this Nation. And our collection of stories of journeys to this Nation with people embracing nothing but this noble dream--an American Dream--that transitioned a rags-to-riches scenario, that's what it's all about. It's us in our finest moments. And why not today, as we have these inordinate needs to invest in the people, invest in jobs, understanding the dignity of work, underpinned by the effervescence of the pioneer spirit that is, I think, part and parcel of our DNA. It is within our fabric as a Nation to have that pioneer spirit. We're denying it. We're denying that spirit.

Mr. TONKO. Representative Garamendi, as you're speaking, I'm thinking of those ``golden moments'' in our history replete with those statements made by the Nation--this Nation--of investing, especially in tough times. You know my district. I've described it several times. It's the confluence of the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers and the donor area to the eastern portions of the Erie Canal. In very tough times, Governor DeWitt Clinton proposed--

Mr. TONKO. Representative Garamendi, you're offering a very powerful statement, a powerful challenge, the what-if. When you take that statement and failure to commit to our Nation's children and then contrast that with what's happening in competitor nations, where they're investing in education, investing in higher education, investing in research, investing in advanced manufacturing, these are the challenges that are facing us as a government, as a body, as a House of Representatives. And if we do not respond accordingly, we're holding back the Nation. We're actually pushing us backward. This discussion here in this House ought to be about moving us forward--moving us forward with progressive policy and investments of human infrastructure.

Mr. TONKO. But the full package could have been done, which allows for even more opportunity for our veterans if we're hiring police officers and firefighters and educators, teachers. We're building the fabric of the Nation and the infrastructure, the human infrastructure that's required to educate our young, protect our neighborhoods, make certain that we're there in response efforts when tragedy hits. These are the things that can also in a broader sense affect positively the employment factors for our veterans. That full package offered the greatest hope. The fact that we would nitpick and that we would be pushed to pressure points and finally acknowledge the work getting done is not the way to achieve what we know has to happen out there. We've seen the growth, Representative Garamendi, of private sector jobs, 29 consecutive months of private sector job growth, well beyond 4 million jobs. It is a wonderful number, but still a lot of work to do when we think of the Bush recession and the loss of 8.2 million jobs. Now people want to take us back to those failed policies that saw us losing as many as 800,000 jobs a month and say that's the way to move forward. That's moving backward. We need to move forward with efforts like the American Jobs Act.

Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Representative Garamendi. Let me also thank our military, our active forces out there as we speak who are defending us in some very far-off places, deserted deserts and mountains that extract great courage and commitment to this Nation and her cause. You know, again, so many veterans returning are looking for work. There ought not be a battlefield in their homeland to find a job, and it's why the American Jobs Act makes it possible for businesses to realize benefits when they hire our veterans, when they hire the active military that are returning, and that's a commitment that ought to be understood by all of us. That's a commitment that should be part and parcel to unanimity in this House. Let's go forward with something like the American Jobs Act.

Mr. TONKO. I just wanted to speak to the issue that Representative Altmire raised with the doughnut hole--such a sweet label thrown onto a hidden attack on our senior community, asking them to dig into their pockets when they hit the threshold of $2,930 and up till they hit the threshold of $4,700. I can tell you painful, heart-wrenching stories that many of the seniors I represent--and again, I have a huge proportion of seniors in my home county of Montgomery County, New York. Many will reach that threshold early in any fiscal year. It's a phenomenon with the prescription drugs. Those prescription drugs are their connection to quality of life. It's not only keeping them well and healthy; it may be keeping them alive. There are far too many heart-wrenching stories of people who will cut their prescription or their pills in half so that they can balance their budget. That is not the way to respond to their medical needs. They are told by their physician what that prescription drug intake is to look like for their wellness or their getting well. We ought not cause them to be pushed to the brink where they actually adjust their intake of prescription drugs just to meet a budget. This closing of this doughnut hole, making prescription drugs more affordable, where we finally in 2020 close it completely--I mean, people have realized already billions of dollars of savings. There have been 5.3 million seniors that have received $3.7 billion in savings. Is that something you want to take away? So when this House, with the majority, the three of us obviously said no, but when the majority said repeal, why? What's the replacement? We didn't hear replace, we heard repeal, and it left many stunned in this Chamber because the progress just begun to be tasted was attempted to be pulled away, and it's regrettable.

Mr. TONKO. Representative Garamendi, you cite a very awkward dynamic that can be used as a preexisting condition: age. How about gender? There are more and more small business startups that are women-owned businesses, women working in a small business situation as the employer. A preexisting condition is being a woman. It is gender penalizing. There are many aspects, and the preexisting condition is something that's getting more and more attention, especially in the weeks that accompanied the decision of the Supreme Court. There was a lot of recognition of what was in the Affordable Care Act, and preexisting conditions are now being denounced and not being allowed as a reason, a rationale for denying insurance. That's a prime aspect of the progress made here. As I've said in my district: Is it perfect? No. We aimed for perfection, and we achieved success. We will continue to work on this order of health care in a way that will continue to build the progressive nature of the outcome.

Mr. TONKO. Yes. We are, in fact, very proud of their efforts and very proud of the training they endure to be able to be the greatest force on the globe, and so we thank them for that.

Mr. TONKO. If I might add, I know that we want to get into the talk of job creation, but if I might add some of the dialogue that has been developed in the district I represent--and I'm sure it's not unique to the 21st District of New York. Again, there is this proliferation of small business that has been the driving force and that has really built our economic recovery from this painful recession. What you will hear time and time again is, if I'm a small operation of 10, 15, 20 people, one person--just one person--in that workforce impacted by a catastrophic illness will throw the actuarial science into a frenzy. That means that your premiums will be adjusted in a way that makes it difficult as the employer to continue to afford that insurance or to have the copayments from the employees. So, as you're suggesting, if you enter this large collection called an ``exchange,'' in which many more numbers than 10, 15, or 20 work in this concept together, it shaves those peaks, and the shock--the premium rate shock--that is dulled is a good thing.

Mr. TONKO. So the management style is driving that sort of benefit so that you will reach to the program so as to recruit and retain quality workers. I think that driving element will influence it more than anything, and then the tax credits will become part and parcel to that package, which, as you suggest, can be as great as 50 percent. This is a huge cost savings and a sound policy to which they're attaching. So I think it's a benefit.

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.