Chris Van Hollen

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I am asking unanimous consent to make the main sponsor Mr. Mulvaney.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I am asking unanimous consent.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, it was barely three weeks ago that the Republicans came to the floor with their ``work harder, get less'' budget. While making everyday life harder on working Americans, the Republican budget disinvests in the future of our nation by making deep cuts to education, infrastructure, and scientific research. Under their plan, Americans would face smaller paychecks and have a harder time getting ahead or buying a home; kids would have a harder time affording college; and seniors would have a harder time ensuring a secure retirement, with the end of the Medicare guarantee and immediate higher costs. The Republican plan also took budget quackery to a new level. Their budget claimed to repeal the ACA, but relied on its revenues and savings in order to claim it balanced in 2025. It made no accounting for the costs of the almost $1 trillion in business tax cuts that Republicans called for in the 113th Congress. The Republican budget also included all the revenue from the current estate tax. Today, Republicans are fully abandoning any claim to balancing the budget, and showing once again that they prioritize wealth over hard work. Instead of investing in America in a fiscally responsible way, Republicans want to give the very wealthiest households a $269 billion dollar tax cut by repealing the estate tax, while still refusing to close a single special-interest loophole to pay for it. The estate tax is designed so that it only affects the very wealthiest households. Today, you do not have any estate tax obligation as a couple if your estate is less than $10 million. That means that only 5,500 of America's richest families will pay the estate tax this year. There are cruise ships that hold more people than that. 99.8% of households will never pay it. We do have an estate tax on the amount over $10 million, because we do not believe that people should get ahead just by the wealth they inherited from others--Americans pride themselves on getting ahead through their own hard work. But instead of rewarding work, Republicans are passing a massive giveaway for just 5,500 of the wealthiest households in the country. The average tax cut will be $3.3 million. Three-quarters of the cost of this bill goes to households with estates over $20 million. For households with estates worth over $50 million, the average tax cut would be $22.5 million. And right now, the wealthy have rarely been better off. The top 1% of income-earners now hold 42% of all the wealth in the United States. Last week was the 90th anniversary of The Great Gatsby being published, and we are heading towards levels of wealth concentration not seen since then. And yet, Republicans want to give tax cuts to the very richest families without doing anything for the middle class. In fact, the Republican budget would raise taxes on American workers--it ends the American Opportunity Tax Credit for higher education, ends the expansions to the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit, does nothing to expand the EITC for childless workers, does nothing to expand tax credits for child or elderly care, and does nothing to help two-earner families. This bill also destroys any pretense of the Republicans balancing the budget in ten years. This is not just me talking--the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said, ``if the estate tax were repealed, the budget would no longer balance.'' And they did not even take into account the lost revenues from repealing the Affordable Care Act or unpaid for extensions of expiring tax provisions. If you add those altogether, in 2025, the Republican Budget is hundreds of billions of dollars in the red. Of course, this is nothing new. In the two years of the 113th Congress, the Republicans passed tax bills on the House floor and in the Ways and Means Committee that, including debt service, would have increased the deficit by a trillion dollars. The Republicans in this Congress are doing their very best to surpass even that level of fiscal irresponsibility. When you add up all the tax bills approved by Ways and Means Republicans in this Congress, the debt would grow by $700 billion--and it's only April! Just today, in addition to the estate tax, the Republicans brought another permanent tax extension to the Floor without closing any loophole to pay for it--not the loophole for corporate jets, for hedge fund managers, or for shipping jobs overseas. The House Democratic Budget is focused on the priorities of the American people--boosting the economy to create more broadly shared prosperity, making critical investments in our future, and keeping our promises to seniors. Our plan would grow workers' paychecks and provide tax cuts for the middle class and for Americans who are working hard to get by; invest in our infrastructure and transportation network; help students pay for college; support working families and reduce the cost of childcare. And we do it in a fiscally responsible way. Today is more proof that Republicans are not seeking balance. Rather, they want to cut crucial supports for children and the elderly, voucherize Medicare and cut investments in research and infrastructure, all so that they can give America's wealthiest families multi-million dollar tax cuts. We need to foster shared prosperity and reward hard work, not give a tax cut to multi-millionaires. I urge my colleagues to vote no on H.R. 1105.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chair, I rise today to oppose H.R. 1731, the National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement Act of 2015. I commend Chairman McCaul and Ranking Member Thompson for crafting a cybersecurity bill that improves upon legislation this body has previously voted on, but ultimately I cannot support it in its current form. As was the case with yesterday's bill, the Protecting Cyber Networks Act (H.R. 1560), I continue to have concerns about the ambiguous liability provisions in this legislation. Specifically, H.R. 1731 would grant immunity to companies for simply putting forth a ``good faith'' effort when reporting security threats to the Department of Homeland Security. Like H.R. 1560, companies would receive liability protection even if they fail to act on threat information in a timely manner. I was disappointed that Republicans did not allow a vote on any of the seven amendments offered to improve the liability provisions in this bill. I strongly believe that we must take steps to protect against these cyber threats while not sacrificing our privacy and civil liberties. It is my hope that many of these murky liability provisions can be resolved in the Senate, but I cannot support this bill as it stands today. THE CHAIR. All time for general debate has expired. In lieu of the amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on Homeland Security, printed in the bill, it shall be in order to consider as an original bill, for the purpose of amendment under the 5-minute rule, an amendment in the nature of a substitute consisting of the text of Rules Committee Print 114-12. That amendment in the nature of a substitute shall be considered as read. The text of the amendment in the nature of a substitute is as follows:

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Chair, I rise today to oppose to H.R. 1560, the Protecting Cyber Network Act (PCNA). While I commend Chairman Nunes and Ranking Member Schiff for crafting a bill that improves upon the cybersecurity legislation this body has previously voted on, I cannot support it in its current form. Despite addressing many of the reservations I had when we voted on the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) last Congress, I have concerns about the ambiguous liability provisions in this legislation. While companies should have some legal protection, this bill gives liability protections to companies so long as they share or receive information ``in accordance with the Act.'' It would grant immunity to companies for simply putting forth a ``good faith'' effort when reporting security threats and sharing consumer data with the government and other companies. For example, companies would receive liability protection even if they fail to act on threat information in a timely manner. The unintended effect of these murky liability provisions is that companies would not have the same incentive to report security threats and protect their consumers' privacy. I was disappointed that Republicans did not allow a vote on two amendments offered by Rep. Richmond than would have addressed these overbroad liability provisions. Our country faces cyber-network attacks each day which threaten our national security and our economy. I strongly believe that we must take steps to protect against these cyber threats while not sacrificing our privacy and civil liberties. Should this bill pass the House, I hope that many of the loopholes can be resolved with the Senate, but as it stands today I cannot support it.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I stand to commend the efforts of President Obama and our P5+1 partners to achieve a strong, verifiable agreement to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. The economic sanctions imposed through joint action from the Congress and the president, combined with the sanctions imposed by our international partners, have succeeded in bringing Iran to the negotiating table. We must maintain the unity that has succeeded in keeping the pressure on Iran. That unity helped produce an interim agreement last November that, among other things, effectively eliminated Iran's stockpile of more highly enriched nuclear material. Even the early critics of the interim agreement have now acknowledged that it was a useful step. We now have The Framework for a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran's Nuclear Program that represents another important step toward the goal of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. As the Administration has acknowledged, many important details remain to be negotiated in the coming months. I will be carefully monitoring and reviewing the ongoing negotiations to determine whether the final product meets the objectives we have established. As these negotiations proceed, it is important that Congress refrain from taking actions that could weaken our negotiating position and undermine the multi-lateral sanctions that brought Iran to the negotiating table. There is a very important role for Congress in this process. Congress will review this agreement and have the opportunity to act. Moreover, any repeal of the sanctions legislation will require congressional action. As negotiations continue, I look forward to working with the president and my congressional colleagues to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. I agree with President Obama that it would be best if we can achieve that objective by negotiating a verifiable agreement.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to instruct at the desk.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. My friend and colleague from Georgia mentioned tough choices. It is interesting that the Republican budget chooses not to cut one corporate tax break for the purpose of reducing the deficit. Apparently, that is too touch of a choice for our Republican colleagues--not to close the corporate tax break, not to cut the tax break that benefits hedge fund managers. They don't cut a single one of those tax breaks to help reduce our deficit, but they do want to increase the premiums on seniors who choose to stay in the traditional Medicare Program. They may call it a choice, but for most Americans, if I say your premium is going to go up 50 percent, yeah, you can choose to have your premium go up, or you can go somewhere else. That is not a heck of a real choice for most seniors who are struggling financially. Sure, it is a pay-to-stay plan, but you have got to pay a lot more in premiums, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It is not according to me; this is according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The Democratic budget does make the decision to close some of those special interest tax breaks to help reduce the long-term deficit, so we don't have to increase the costs and risks to seniors on Medicare, so we don't have to increase the cost on student loans and start charging students interest while they are still in college. No, we don't do that. They are right. We think those are the right decisions that we made not to increase the costs of student loans and not to increase the costs and risks to seniors on Medicare. Yes, we choose to cut some of those special interest tax breaks instead. And we certainly don't think that we should be providing another big tax break to those estates in the country worth more than $10 million. Mr. Speaker, I am really pleased now to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Yarmuth), another person who is going to be designated a conferee, a member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I do not. I am prepared to close.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Well, Mr. Speaker, I am going to continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. First of all, the Republican budget doesn't balance. You can't claim the revenues from the Affordable Care Act at the same time you claim to repeal the Affordable Care Act. You can't claim balance and then 2 days later bring to the floor of the House a bill that provides tax breaks to American estates over $10 million that is not accounted for in the budget that you claim balanced. So it doesn't balance. It actually does increase the tax burden on working families. How? Again, it gets rid of the increase in the child tax credit; it gets rid of the bump-up in the earned income tax credit; it eliminates the Affordable Care Act tax credits; and it eliminates the higher education deduction that helps families afford to send their kids to college. So, in fact, it is increasing the tax burden on working families. Who is it not increasing the tax burden on? Folks at the very, very top. The chairman of the committee talks about economic growth. We need economic growth. History has taught us that economic growth comes when you have a country where the hard work of Americans and increased worker productivity is translated into higher pay and benefits so they can go out and spend money on goods and services, and the economy and everybody can move forward together. What we have got in this budget is the same old-same old. This is trickle-down economics all over again. This is based on the theory that has been disproven in the real world, that you grow the economy by cutting tax rates for millionaires. We tried that in the early 2000s. What happened? Surprise, surprise. The incomes of folks at the very top went up. Incomes of everybody else, flat. What else went up? Deficits went up. The chairman says the Republican budget is a budget for all Americans. Two days from today they are going to bring to the floor a bill that gets rid of the estate tax for estates over $10 million, 0.15 percent, about 5,500 American families. As I said earlier, you can put more people on a cruise ship. That is who the Republican budget looks after. Now, look. The Democratic budget, it takes the opposite approach. It actually provides tax relief for working families. Yes, we do close some tax breaks for special interests to help reduce our long-term deficit. We also call for increasing the minimum wage for millions of Americans who are working hard every day, yet at the end of the year, the amount they earn still puts them below the Federal poverty level. That is not right. We also call for equal pay for equal work. Today is Equal Pay Day. Today represents the number of days since the end of last year, the number of days more that women have to work to achieve the same pay as men in the workplace. That is not right, and the Democratic budget addresses that issue. We also say it is not right that corporations should be able to cut their employee pay or cut their workforce and still get a tax deduction for CEO and executive bonuses over $1 million. Right? Pay your CEOs whatever bonus you want, pay your executives whatever bonus you want, but for goodness' sake, why should they get a tax deduction for those bonuses if they are not increasing the pay of their own workers? That is not right. That is what the Democratic budget says: we should get rid of that inequity and actually use the Tax Code not to incentivize corporate jets, but actually to incentivize greater pay for more workers. And this motion to instruct also says, for goodness' sake, let's do what the Senate agreed to do. Let's do what the Senate agreed to do. Let's call for an earned paid sick leave provision so that families don't have to say that, in order to take care of a sick loved one at home, they have to forgo the paycheck that allows them to pay their rent and the mortgage and put food on the table. And yes, we do not believe that you should turn Medicare into a voucher plan. We have put forward proposals for reform to move toward a system that rewards value over volume. By the way, Mr. Speaker, despite passing on the risks of higher health care costs to seniors through that plan, there is not a shred of evidence that that plan in this particular budget will actually do anything in the end to help Medicare other than to shift that burden onto seniors. So the Republican budget is the wrong way to go for the country. It is a budget based on a failed ideology that somehow we are going to grow our economy through trickle-down economics, top-down, trickle- down. That failed our economy. Let's have an economy based on broadly shared prosperity. Let's reject the Republican budget, accept the motion to instruct, and ultimately adopt the Democratic alternative. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would just make two points. The first, as I mentioned earlier, one of the great untold success stories of the Affordable Care Act reforms, as well as other reforms in the health care system in recent years, is that we have dramatically reduced the cost of health care on a per capita basis. In other words, the increased costs per person of health care have been dramatically slowed down, according to the Congressional Budget Office, which has helped save Medicare and other health care programs over $1 trillion. That is the right way to do it, by realigning the incentives so we are rewarding value in our Medicare system, not volume, as opposed to the Republican voucher plan, which saves money by shifting the risk onto seniors. The other point--and we have talked about this over and over--it just ain't so that the Republican budget balances. Again, it requires the revenue from the Affordable Care Act, that amount of revenue, in order to balance, at the same time they say they are getting rid of it. Two days from now, they are going to add over $268 billion to the deficit by getting rid of the estate tax for estates over $10 million. That is not accounted for in their budget. It puts their budget out of balance. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The House has passed a budget. It is a budget that is wrong for America. It does not reflect our country's priorities, and it does not reflect our values. What it says to the American people is work harder and take home less. That is the House budget. We also have the Senate budget. The Senate budget is also wrong for America. The Senate budget also says to the American people work harder and take home less. That is the message. When you have got a House budget that is wrong for America and a Senate budget that is wrong for America, both which say to the country ``work harder and take home less,'' the midpoint between the two--or any point between the two--is also wrong for America and also says to the American people work harder and take home less. Now, why do I say that both the House and the Senate budgets say ``work harder and take home less''? It is because, amazingly, they both actually increase the tax burden on working families. How? They actually phase out the increase in the child tax credit, which helps working families. They phase out the increase, or get rid of the increase, in the earned income tax credit. They entirely get rid of the higher education deduction. These are deductions that families use to help make college more affordable. They get rid of the Affordable Care Act tax credits, which help millions of Americans afford health insurance. They are squeezing hard-working, middle class families. At the same time, the House budget calls for a big tax cut for folks at the very high end of the income scale--for millionaires. If you look at the Romney-Ryan tax plan, which this budget green-lights--sort of paves the way for--it would call for a one-third cut in the top tax rate. That is a huge windfall for the wealthiest in the country in the same budget that is increasing the tax burden on working families. What else do the Republican budgets do? They disinvest in America. They slash way below the lowest historical levels in recorded history the amount that we invest in the categories of the budget that help our kids' educations--early education, K-12, special education. They devastate that part of the budget that is used to invest in innovation and in scientific research, things that have helped power our economy. Their budget assumes that the transportation trust fund will run dry in a few months. That is not accounted for within their budget numbers. So that is what the Republican budgets do, both the House budget and the Senate budget. There is no way to remedy those problems in conference because any point between those two is bad for America. The only way to remedy it would be if we were able to instruct the conferees to adopt the House Democratic budget proposal that we put forward a few weeks ago which actually provides additional tax relief to working families. It significantly increases the child and dependent care tax credit, so if you are a working family and want to make sure your child is in quality health care, you are going to get a little bit more tax relief; or if you have an elderly loved one at home that you want to make sure has quality care, you get a little more tax relief. If you are a two-worker family, we scale back the marriage penalty. So the Democratic budget actually provides more tax relief for working Americans while the Republican budget provides tax increases to working families. The Democratic budget also invests in our future--in our kids' education, in scientific research, in transportation--by closing a lot of the tax breaks in the Code that actually encourage American companies to move jobs and capital overseas. We get rid of those loopholes and say let's invest the money here in America. That is what the Democratic budget does. The rules don't permit us to instruct the conferees to do the right thing and adopt that alternative which does reflect the values and priorities of people around the country. There are two little things where the Senate budget is actually minusculely better than the House budget, but they are important things. They are important things that passed in the Senate with a large Democratic vote and some Republican Senators as well. One is a provision to say let's provide a fund, let's provide room in the budget for earned paid sick leave so that moms and dads who have kids who are sick at home don't have to choose between forgoing their income and caring for their kid at home. They don't have to choose between worrying about making their rent payment or their mortgage payment or their grocery bill payment on time and making sure their kids are cared for when they are sick. That is part of the Senate budget. So we are asking our colleagues to instruct the conferees to at least adopt that one little glimmer of good news in the Senate budget. The other difference relates to the House proposal to turn Medicare into a voucher program at the end of the budget window. What does that plan do? What it does is it shifts the risks of higher costs within the Medicare system onto the backs of seniors, and the Congressional Budget Office has shown that for those seniors who choose to remain in the traditional Medicare program, their premiums would go up significantly. That is what the House budget does. It voucherizes the Medicare program. The Senate budget does not. So we are asking our colleagues to accept the Senate version which is not good when it comes to Medicare generally, but at least on this one point is better than the House bill. Mr. Speaker, that is our motion to instruct. I wish we could instruct the conferees to adopt the Democratic budget proposal which, as I said, says to working families: We hear you; we know you are working harder than ever; we know you feel like you are on a treadmill; we know a lot of you feel like you are falling behind; and we have a budget to help you. The Republican budget doesn't do that. It doesn't help at all. But at least maybe, in these two little things, we can send a signal today that we understand that working families are struggling, and we want to make sure that we do something to help them. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would remind my colleague that when President Obama was sworn in, we were losing 780,000 jobs per month--per month. We were in a nosedive. It took a little while to climb out of that deep valley, but we have now had 61 consecutive months of positive job growth--12.1 million jobs, longest streak in history. So job growth is coming back. We have got a ways to go, no doubt about it. We need to do even better. That is why I don't understand a Republican budget that the Congressional Budget Office tells us will slow down economic growth in the next couple years. That is what the nonpartisan budget pros tell us: it will slow down economic growth. Our Republican colleagues say we don't have enough, and yet they have got a budget that the Congressional Budget Office says the next couple of years are going to slow it down just as we are continuing to grow at record levels. They also have a budget, as I indicated, that says to people who are out there working hard: You are going to get squeezed even harder on your take-home pay. You are working harder than ever, but you know what? We are going to actually increase the tax burden on working families. Now, let me say a little thing about this Medicare voucher plan. The way to reduce our healthcare costs is to move toward a system that rewards the delivery of value rather than volume in our healthcare system. And in fact, one of the great untold success stories we know over the last couple years has been because we have begun to move in that direction; we have saved trillions of dollars, over a trillion dollars, without sacrificing quality of care. The problem with the Medicare voucher plan is it doesn't improve health care by changing the incentives to move toward more value and more quality rather than quantity and volume; it actually saves Medicare money by shifting the risk of higher costs onto seniors. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office says that under their plan, those who choose to stay in the fee-for-service system would pay 50 percent more in terms of premiums. So that is the real-world impact of that proposal. Now, what are the priorities of our Republican colleagues? We keep hearing that this is a balanced budget. It just isn't so. This is a phony argument. This budget says it is repealing the Affordable Care Act, and yet it only claims balance because of the revenues generated from the Affordable Care Act they claim to repeal. That would make Enron accountants blush. What else? This Thursday in this House we are scheduled to vote on a proposal to get rid of the estate tax on estates for couples of over $10 million--$10 million. That is about 5,500 people a year. A cruise ship fits more people than that. Here is what it does. For all of the estates in the country, let's just be clear what the Republican budget looks out for and what the bill they are bringing to the floor this week looks out for. Blue, the 99.85 percent, are the estates that already are not impacted at all. The bill they are bringing to the floor of the House this week is for that teeny little sliver of red, .15 percent of estates. That is what the Republican budget is all about, and that is what they are looking out for in a budget that cuts our kids' education funding, cuts our investment in scientific research, and increases the tax burden on working families. That is what this is all about. Guess what, this estate tax cut for estates of couples over $10 million is not factored into the Republican budget. That loses $268 billion in revenue over the next 10 years. That is not accounted for in the budget they are talking about today. Two days from today, they are going to bring to the floor a bill that busts their own budget. That is pretty amazing, and the claim that it balances is just a phony claim. Finally, while it is providing those big tax breaks to estates of over $10 million, it doesn't close a single tax loophole for the purpose of reducing the deficit--not one, not for corporate jets, not for hedge fund managers, not one tax loophole closed, when they claim they want to reduce the deficit. When you dig a little deeper, Mr. Speaker, this Republican budget is wrong for the country. It is great for folks who have already climbed that ladder. Most people who climb the ladder want to keep that ladder there, so more people can climb up, but this is a budget where people who climbed it just yanked the ladder up and said: We're on the top. Forget about the rest. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore), one of the people who will be designated as one of my fellow conferees.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to salute the career of a distinguished servant of Congress in the field of international energy and national defense. Gary Pagliano, whom I am proud to represent, will retire this month from the Congressional Research Service with 40 years of continual service to his country and to Congress, having joined CRS in 1974. Gary graduated from the State University of New York in 1971 and received a Master's degree in Public Administration from Cornell University in 1974. He is a proud graduate of the National War College from which he received a Master's degree in National Security Strategy in 1997. As a CRS specialist, first in energy policy and then in defense policy, Gary wrote about a variety of issues, including U.S. energy programs and policies, OPEC and world oil markets, defense acquisitions, defense contractors, the defense industrial base, and NATO. In 1984, Gary became the first CRS Senior Fellow to spend a year at the Atlantic Council, a program that then ran for many years. In 1997, he was appointed to manage CRS's Defense Budget Section, a position he held with distinction until late last year. Over the decades, Gary Pagliano has helped set the standards of excellence for which CRS is known today. He leaves behind not only a distinguished public service career but a legacy of leadership and mentorship to colleagues, congressional staff, and defense policy analysts. I ask my colleagues to join me in expressing our deepest gratitude and appreciation to him for his four decades of service to Congress and to our nation.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2, Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act. This bill is not perfect but on its whole, it extends critical funding to ensure that kids in the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) don't lose access to health insurance and to keep community health centers open to serve hardworking American families. It funds the successful Home Visiting Program, makes permanent a program to assist low-income seniors afford their Medicare premiums, and supports families on Medicaid who are transitioning to work. On top of preventing massive cuts to these programs, the legislation replaces a flawed payment system that wasn't working for people in Medicare, their physicians, or taxpayers. In some areas--specifically in extending funding for CHIP for two years--I don't think the bill goes far enough. As a longtime supporter of CHIP, I advocated to extend funding for four years and included a four-year extension in the budget I offered in the House. House Democratic leadership fought for a four-year extension but was met with resistance from Republicans who have made quite clear that they would rather roll back coverage for kids in CHIP. Despite the two-year compromise, I'm pleased that the legislation funds CHIP at current levels and maintains the safeguards we set in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to ensure coverage for every eligible child in the nation. Failure to pass this bill and fund CHIP would cause millions of kids to become uninsured or lose access to services, or would cause their parents to face higher out-of-pocket costs. The bill also includes two years of additional funding for community health centers which provide primary care to families, seniors, people with disabilities, and veterans in Maryland and across the nation. Health centers keep people healthy and working by responding to the unique needs of their communities, create good-paying jobs, and train the next generation of the health care workforce. Without this bill, funding for health centers would be cut by 70 percent and over 7 million Americans could be at risk of losing critical health services. Not funding very cost-effective health providers is irresponsible and unfair to hardworking American families. It comes as no surprise that my Republican colleagues would have liked to hijack this bill for their arsenal in their unending assault on women's health. If you need any evidence, just look at what Republicans did in the Senate trying to use the human trafficking bill to expand the Hyde amendment to permanent funds and non-taxpayer funds. I applaud the Democratic Senators blocking that Republican anti-choice effort. Let me be clear; this bill does not do that. I worked with Leader Pelosi and the co-chairs of the House Pro-Choice Caucus, of which I am a member, to counter attempts to codify the Hyde amendment. As a result, this bill continues the current policy for funding for community health centers. Just like the Hyde language included in annual appropriations bills, the provision is limited to taxpayer funds and temporary--terminating when the funding expires in 2017. I strongly share the ongoing concerns of the reproductive health community and I remain deeply committed to protecting a woman's fundamental right to choose her health care. Finally, the bill repeals and replaces a deeply flawed physician payment system for paying physicians that basically penalizes doctors for participating in Medicare. For more than ten years, doctors have faced the threat of steep rate cuts required by a mindless formula in the law. Congress has repeatedly adopted short-term patches to prevent these cuts from taking effect. This crisis-driven approach to paying physicians makes it difficult for doctors to participate in Medicare, which ultimately is unfair to their patients--the seniors and disabled workers who rely on Medicare for access to the health care services they need. The bill rights this wrong with a smarter physician payment system that improves quality of care for people with Medicare. Mr. Speaker, today's bill is not perfect but Congress must move forward with this bipartisan agreement to protect the health of America's families, children and seniors. I urge support H.R. 2.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time remains on both sides?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, as the gentleman just recognized, this is a huge departure from the way this House of Representatives has dealt with our military spending in the past. In fact, it is a departure that the Republican-controlled Budget Committee said violated the integrity of the process. The Budget Committee specifically said it would oppose increases above the levels the administration and our military commanders say are needed to carry out operations. That is what the Budget Committee said last year--Republicans. This year, forget it. Just have some amnesia. Let's play games with our defense spending. Mr. Chairman, I want to go back to an issue that has come up a couple of times during this debate regarding economic growth. As I said, the Congressional Budget Office has indicated that the Republican budget will actually slow down economic growth in the next couple of years. Just after we are regaining momentum, they are going to slow it down. The Congressional Budget Office said something else that is interesting. It says, as you look ahead over the next 10 years, the biggest single factor with respect to growth rates that don't keep up with the past averages are demographic changes; the fact that baby boomers are going to be retiring, and they are not going to be in the workforce. You just have to look at the CBO report from this budget year. So, you would think that one way to deal with that would be to pass immigration reform. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office says that that will help spur economic growth. It will also help add to the solvency of Social Security because you will have more workers today supporting the baby boomers who are retiring over the next couple of years. If you really want a progrowth budget, you would support the Democratic approach that provides help to struggling families working every day, invest in our future by investing in our kids' education, and pass comprehensive immigration reform. There was a bipartisan bill that passed the Senate last year. Over here in the House, what happened to it? It is not that there was a vote on it and it went down. We never even had a vote here in this body on comprehensive immigration reform, one of the things that the budget pros and the economists say could help spur our economy in the years ahead, something that is supported by the Chamber of Commerce, as well as folks in the labor community. No, Republicans didn't want to do that. They didn't even allow a vote on that bill here in the House of Representatives. That would have been a progrowth effort, too. Mr. Chairman, instead of those progrowth efforts, efforts that will help shore up Social Security, all we get is the same old-same old, another budget that refuses to cut a single special interest tax break to help reduce the deficit, provides more tax breaks for folks at the top, and is based on a failed theory of top-down/trickle-down economics. We can do a lot better. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chair, as Leader Pelosi just said, this really comes down to what vision you have for what has helped power our economy. The Republican theory of the case is that our economy is powered by providing tax rate cuts to people at the very high end of the income scale and somehow the benefits of that will trickle down and lift everybody up. The problem with that theory is it already crashed in the real world. Right in the early 2000s, that is what President Bush did. Incomes for folks at the top went up even more, but everybody else was running aground, running in place, or falling behind. That is why we presented a budget based on an economy that accelerates because more Americans are able to make bigger paychecks through harder work, and that is why we proposed to change the Tax Code from one that is currently skewed and tilted in favor of unearned income and simply making money off of money and against people who make money off of hard work. Why is the Tax Code skewed that way today? Probably because a lot of people who could afford to pay a lot of wealthy lobbyists made it that way. Yet the Republican budget doesn't close a single tax break for the purposes of reducing the deficit--not corporate jets, not the tax provisions that perversely encourage American companies to move jobs and capital overseas. We proposed to close those tax loopholes and bring those jobs and that capital back here to the United States to help power our economy, not the economies of our global economic competitors. So I hope that this Congress will reject a view of the economy that is based on the idea that everyone can only do well when the folks at the top get a tax cut as opposed to an economy where we are all in it together. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, let me just emphasize a couple of specifics in the Republican budget that is before us. We haven't talked a lot about seniors in nursing homes. You know, two-thirds of Medicaid goes to help seniors and disabled individuals in nursing homes, and yet the Republican budget cuts $900 billion from Medicaid. The Congressional Budget Office says one of two things will happen: either States will increase taxes back home or seniors will get less care. The Republican budget provides less for our veterans this year than the President's budget, less by $1.9 billion, $19 billion less for the Veterans Administration over the next 10 years compared to the President's budget. At the same time, their budget plays games with defense spending. That is why we have so-called Price 1 and Price 2. Neither Price is right here. They both play games with our defense spending by using our defense overseas contingency account as a slush fund, something the Republican-led Committee on the Budget said last year they would not do. In fact, they said it was a backdoor loophole that undermines the integrity of the budget process. This is the committee report. This is the Republican-drafted committee report when Mr. Ryan was chairman of the committee 1 year ago. Tear it up. Just as they said what they are doing would violate the integrity of the budget process, it does. That is exactly what it does. It plays games with our defense spending. The President's budget, the Democratic budget, did this in a straightforward way. We said, look, Joint Chiefs of Staff, our military leadership says that they need a certain amount for funding our defense needs in our base budget and a certain amount for overseas contingencies. The President's budget and Democratic budget funded that. Republican budgets, all of them, all of the ones here, play games with that. Mr. Chairman, I hope as we consider this Republican budget that plays games with defense spending, which disinvests in America and in our future, and which squeezes hard-working Americans every day even harder, working families, seniors, students--the only people it says, ``Don't worry. You don't have to do more to help this country move forward'' are folks at the very top. They get a tax rate cut, and they don't cut a single special interest tax break. That is the wrong way for America. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition to the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment.