Rob Woodall

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Reed), a member of the class of 2010.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I don't know if you have ever tuned in the Rules Committee when my chairman and my ranking member up there are having a conversation. You get a very different look at what goes on in Congress then, because it is not everybody poking each other with sharp sticks. It is thoughtful, deliberate public servants who are really very close to finding a common way forward that is going to make all Americans proud. That is my frustration with this resolution today and why I hope my colleagues will reject it. My friend from Massachusetts, the chairman of the Rules Committee, is working very hard to open up the Rules Committee, add more voices, bring more of a constructive process to the House of Representatives. I admire him for it. I appreciate his effort, and I support him every step of the way. But we are in some bad habits here on the floor of the House, and we are in the habit of finding ways to make important distinctions instead of making important agreements. My friend from Massachusetts said just a few moments ago that not to do this resolution is to do nothing, and that is a false choice. There is unanimity on the floor of this House that we must stand up for Article I, that we must stand up against an overreaching Article II executive branch, that we must speak with one voice on issues of international affairs. Instead of bringing a bill to the floor that would have brought us together so that we do speak with one voice on behalf of 330 million Americans, we are bringing a bill to the floor that is going to pass on a largely party-line vote. We have done that time and time again in these first 45 days. We did that with veteran housing last week. We took a bill that passed unanimously in the last Congress to both provide childcare for our veterans and pay for that childcare and, instead, this year, we brought it back where we are going to have to cut some veteran accounts in order to fund that childcare going forward. It made that motion to recommit a party-line vote. We did that with recognition of Federal employees, Madam Speaker, where we are trying to recognize their service and their sacrifice. Instead of bringing a bill that we would have agreed on unanimously, we brought a bill that divided this institution and made us speak with two voices. This is another missed opportunity today. My friend from Massachusetts doesn't have control over this entire institution. He can't work his will on this entire institution. He is doing what he can on the House Rules Committee to open up the process and lead to a better product. Flawed processes produce flawed products. Divided bills on the floor of this House do nothing to unify a divided nation. We have opportunities. There are plenty of things on which we disagree. When we have things like this on which we agree, I think we need to work harder, Madam Speaker, to bring ourselves together, put our divisions behind us, rather than highlight those divisions in the name of political gain. This could have been a unifying moment, not just for this Congress, but for the global political entirety as they see America speak with one voice to say, when troops are in harm's way, the United States Congress, not Article II, controls that destiny. I hope we will get to that point sooner rather than later. We only get so many chances, and each time we waste one, it becomes harder.

Mr. WOODALL

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

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, it is troubling to me that we have those things that divide us, that permeate these conversations that could be uniting. Again, I don't think we have that many opportunities where we are able to come together as an entire institution unanimously to support legislation, so I deeply regret we have missed that opportunity. I want to encourage my friends on the other side of the aisle not to fall under the same trap that I think Republicans fell into just 8 short years ago. Every single conversation we have now in the Rules Committee, the tax cuts come into it. The fact that so many of my Democratic friends didn't want tax cuts for the American people isn't a mystery to me. I got not one Democratic vote on the entire bill. I get it. One team thought it was a good idea, one team didn't, but we cannot use that disagreement as an excuse not to do the very best that we can on each and every bill going forward. I will give you that example from the Republicans experience. I was categorically opposed to the Federal takeover of healthcare that was the Affordable Care Act. I was categorically opposed to the way that small businesses lost options. And my friends that were promised they could keep their doctor and they could keep their plan, those promises were broken. But I still came together with my Democratic friends on the floor to find additional dollars for veterans healthcare and plus-up those accounts, to find additional ways to serve veterans who had not been served through healthcare and plus-up those accounts. The fact that we disagree on really big important issues does not mean we cannot come together and do the very best that we can. And with that in mind, I want to give credit where credit is due. I have talked a lot about how we unanimously passed this bill last Congress. It is true. We unanimously passed it out of committee, and we unanimously passed it on the floor of the House. But what that means is, it came to the floor of the House on the suspension calendar, which meant no amendments were made in order. The way that my friends on the other side of the aisle have brought the bill up, amendments are made in order, and the Rules Committee made 21 different amendments in order. We passed the bill unanimously under our leadership, but there was not an opportunity to improve it. My friends on the other side have chosen a different path that does allow an opportunity to improve it, but doesn't allow the opportunities that I am seeking to pay for it. I don't have to demean my friends or their intentions because their intentions are pure, and they are thoughtful, honorable Members of this institution. The fact that we disagree about policy does not mean we have to disagree about the motives of one another. And when we have these opportunities to do not just good but better; not just good, but good in a way that we don't pass the bill on to our children and our grandchildren, we take care of that bill today. I will close with this, Mr. Speaker. Again, I can't disagree with any of the words my friend from New York tells because the half of the story that he tells is absolutely true. This is an authorizing bill where we make a new promise to veterans. If this bill passes the floor of the House today, it then goes to the Appropriations Committee to fulfill this promise that we all celebrate today, and the Appropriations Committee will have not one new penny to pay for this new promise. We have all been in this business long enough to know what happens to promises that folks don't put any money behind and what happens to promises that don't get paid for. The law prevents the Appropriations Committee from funding this new promise, unless they cut dollars from existing veterans promises today. This bill is doing all the right things for all the right reasons. Let's not make another veteran have to pay in a cut for what we are promising to one of his brothers or sisters in a new benefit. Defeat the previous question; allow us to pay for this bill; and let's put our money where our hearts and our mouths are. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I would welcome my friend to close, but, in the spirit of bipartisanship, I will be happy to begin that process. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. It is a different job in the minority. The power that Mr. Morelle has to open this debate and close this debate, it lends credence to his words. As I stipulated at the beginning, everything he said was true. It is what he didn't say that we can do better on. I will say this one more time because, again, for new Members of this Chamber, you may not understand how the Rules Committee works. If a committee does not pay for legislation, if a committee just makes promises and does not find a way to pay for it, it is not appropriate, under House rules, to then try to add a pay-for. It requires a waiver from the Rules Committee of House rules in order to include a pay-for in a bill that is not already paid for. We offered that amendment last night. It was rejected on a party-line vote in the Rules Committee. Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question today, we will offer a solution. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. It is not like me to correct the Chair because he serves the entire House, but, I will tell you, it is entirely possible that Mr. Morelle and I could yield each other time back and forth today. That is the nature of this institution's support for veterans. And, I have to tell you, that is what hurts me the most about the way this bill has come to the floor. My friend is exactly right, Mr. Speaker, when he says that the CBO says this: There is no direct spending in this bill at all. I just want you to think through that with me. We are promising veterans new benefits that cost money, and the scorekeeping institution of the United States House of Representatives says this bill will cost nothing. Now, why is that true? It is true because there are other laws on the books, the budget caps that are on the books that say: If you add one penny of veterans funding in this category, you have got to cut a penny from this category. When we did this bill last year, we all recognized that. I am not telling anybody anything they don't already know, and it pains me to see the defense of this bill as ``we didn't have to,'' ``they didn't make us,'' ``it is not required.'' All of those arguments were true last year, too. They didn't make us. We don't have to. It is not required. It is just the right thing to do. And we came together, and we did it. You have a different vantage point of this Chamber, Mr. Speaker, than I do. From your chair, it may look like that bipartisanship breaks out across this Chamber in mass quantities every day of the week, but, from my position behind this podium, we don't find that many things that both spend money and save money, those things that make new promises while revising old promises that weren't working as well, those things that make promises today but pay for them today instead of passing the bill on to our children and grandchildren. And we did that together last year. We did it together. How can folks forget? Yes, we have lots of new freshmen in this Chamber, but we came together last year, unanimously, to do this bill right, to tell veterans: We do want to serve you better; we are going to create a new benefit; and we are not going to force cuts to other benefits as a result. I am not going to give up on bipartisanship breaking out in this Chamber again and again and again, and I am certainly not going to give up on the bipartisan commitment that we have to serving our veterans. There are only so many days in a year. There are only so many weeks in a Congress. We cannot waste them doing a halfway job when we could have done the job right. In this case, it is not as if we don't have a roadmap of how to do the job right. We did it. It is not as if we thought about doing it; we voted unanimously together to do it. Yet, in this new day, we have chosen a different path, an inferior path. I just challenge my colleagues, as Paul Ryan used to say: Raise your gaze. This is a good idea. This is a good programmatic policy. But we need to pay for it, not cut veterans' benefits in order to squeeze it in. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I want to thank my friend from New York for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I am not going to have the opportunity very often, so I want to make sure I do it while the gentleman and I are together today to tell him I agree with absolutely everything Mr. Morelle had to say. It doesn't happen very often on the Rules Committee. If you are ever having a good day and you need to bring some discord into your life, I want you to head upstairs to the third floor, where there is a 9-to-4 majority-minority distribution, and you can find discord up there every day of the week. It doesn't matter whether it is Republicans leading the institution or Democrats leading the institution. Last night, we had a chance to come together and talk about something that unites us all; but I oppose the rule today, Mr. Speaker, because this is a bill that passed the Congress last year, and when we passed it last year, we passed it unanimously through the Veterans' Affairs Committee. All the Republicans and all the Democrats voted ``yes.'' Then we brought it to the House floor, and we passed it unanimously here on a voice vote. But the difference between the bill we have before us today and the bill we had before us last year is that, when we made new promises to our veterans for much-needed benefits last year, we went and we found ways to pay for those promises--not controversial ways, not divisive ways, but ways that we agreed to unanimously at the committee and the full House level. When the bill reappeared this year, those pay-fors were miraculously absent. I am concerned about that for two reasons, Mr. Speaker, and I think this body should reject this rule and give us a chance to improve this bill. We tried to improve it with an amendment last night, and the amendment was nongermane. For folks who are new to the institution, understand that, if the committee that sends the bill to the House floor decides they are not going to pay for it, then any effort to try to pay for it is nongermane. So, once a committee sends a bill that is flawed to the Rules Committee, unless there is a waiver of the House rules to allow a pay-for amendment, pay-for amendments are not in order. So what happens is we are making a new commitment of about $120 million to our veterans, a wonderful commitment. Again, I agree with absolutely everything the gentleman from New York had to say. His heart for veterans is pure, and his words were true. But that $120 million commitment we are making, Mr. Speaker, gets folded into the Veterans' Affairs budget that we don't increase by one penny, which means we now have to go cut $120 million worth of other veterans' benefits in order to pay for this veterans' benefit. That is not what anybody on this floor wants to do. In the Budget Committee today, we were talking about the caps, talking about how to deal with caps. Nobody wants to dip into the already promised benefits that we have made to American veterans. But the mystery to me is that, in this Chamber that America perceives as being so divided, in this town that America perceives as being so broken, we came together last year, unanimously, to do it the right way; and with new House leadership this year, Mr. Speaker, we have instead chosen to do it the easy way. I think our veterans deserve better, but, more importantly, I know the Members of this institution can do better. We have, and we can again. I hope my friends will reject this rule and give us a chance to go back, pay for this, make sure there are not unintended consequences of cutting other veterans' benefits that every man and woman in this Chamber supports. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, the amendment that we will offer if the previous question is defeated would add the language that, by collecting fees on housing loans that would pay for this new childcare benefit so that we don't have to go deep into the Veterans' Affairs budget, cutting other benefits in order to pay for this, so we don't have to violate budget caps and borrow from our children and from our grandchildren, so that we can make promises to men and women who deserve and need this benefit and know that we have come together and done the heavy lifting to pay for it today. I hope my friends will unite, as we did last year, in approving this funding language, unite in defeating the previous question, so that I can bring this amendment up and we can do this in the same honorable, bipartisan, collaborative way that we unanimously passed this very same language just a few short months ago. I urge my friends: Know that we can do better. Mr. Speaker, while I contemplated yielding back, I am going to reserve my time just in case there are any more speakers who have been affected by my words and want to come and join this effort that we have today. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL

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

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

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland for yielding. I would like to pick up where my friend from Maryland left off. They don't deserve to be deified, but they don't deserve to be demonized either. That doesn't just apply to our Federal workforce. That applies to so many elements of our conversation today. I hope you have a chance, Mr. Speaker, to go watch the Rules Committee debate last night on this rule. You might have thought that, with a simple two-page resolution such as this one, we might have been up and out in about 10 minutes, making three amendments in order. But, no, we spent the better part of almost 3 hours there talking with the committee experts on the issue, Mr. Connolly from Virginia and Mr. Meadows from North Carolina. You would be affected by the amount of agreement that those two gentlemen had. Now, Mr. Speaker, I don't want to say you would be surprised, because you might know those two gentlemen as I do, you might know this issue as I do, and you might know its bipartisan roots and its bipartisan future as I do. But if you don't watch that hearing, if you don't know the issue, if all you do is see a bill that was dropped in the hopper just a couple of days ago, has had no markup in committee, has had no hearings, has had no witnesses, and has had no dialogue whatsoever on it, but happened to be dropped in the middle of the week where some of the more cynical among us expected us to still be in a government shutdown before the President brought us out of it, this might just look like a messaging statement to folks who view it through that lens. It is so frustrating and disappointing to me because this is an issue on which we agree. My friend from Oklahoma, an appropriator, happens to be the ranking member up on the Rules Committee. In testimony last night, we are talking about not an insignificant amount of money in this bill; we are talking about not millions with an M, we are talking about billions with a B of dollars going out the door. The question is: Where do the dollars come from? The answer is: They are just going to come from other accounts these agencies already have. I don't know what other account that is, and I think that is worth having a conversation about. If you read through this language, Mr. Speaker, you will see no effort whatsoever to do what every single one of us knows needs to be done, and that is to find those Federal employees who make us proud at agencies every single day, reward that service, protect that service, encourage that service, and make sure retention plans are in place for those employees. There is not a line in here to target those high performers. Equally, look through this legislation, Mr. Speaker, to find those folks whom I know--because I hear it from my veterans in my district every day, and I hear it from the leadership in the VA every day--find those folks who just do not want to show up and serve. Somehow they got involved in Federal service. They are the exception, not the rule. They bring their colleagues in Federal service down instead of lifting them up. They bring the folks they are intended to serve down instead of lifting them up. There is no effort to identify those folks and no effort to reward the high performers while trying to train up the low performers. In true government fashion, it says that the definition of success is to treat absolutely everybody the same. Mr. Speaker, there is no one else doing this work other than us. The problem in the civil service system isn't that we protect employees. That is laud worthy. That is a laudable goal. What the problem is in civil service is we are the only ones who do the oversight. There is no other board of directors. It is us. Yet we bring a bill to the floor that we claim raises our Federal employees up and praises our Federal employees. We didn't even give it the dignity of a hearing or a markup. We can do better than that, and candidly, I think we will. We will never know what would have happened had we not gotten started on the foot we got started on in January as we did. I particularly regret that for our freshmen who are trying to figure out what the tone and tenor is of this place. This isn't it. Apparently, Republicans got us in bad habits in the last session of just dropping bills in the hopper and bringing them to the floor the next day, no hearings, no markup. It was wrong then, and it is not wise now either. We have a lot of choices to make going forward, Mr. Speaker. Are we poisoning the well, or are we protecting it? Are we tilling the fields, or are we spreading salt in them? We don't need to deify our ideological opponents, but we don't need to demonize them either. There is more that unites this country than divides this country, Mr. Speaker. Our Federal employees do deserve our trust, our appreciation, and, yes, a paycheck at the end of the week for the work they have done on our behalf. They also deserve a way to be recognized when they go above and beyond. They also deserve to know that folks on their team who are not up to the task today are either going to be trained up or moved out. We can do those things together. For reasons that are not clear to me, we have not chosen to try. This could have been a bipartisan effort. This could have been part of a larger package, and it wasn't. I regret that. I will tell my friend from Maryland I did not bring any additional speakers with me who would have shared that very same message, so when he is prepared to close as am I. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I am always affected by the words of the gentlewoman from Texas, but my answer is clear: No, everybody doesn't deserve a pay raise all the time; it is true on my staff, it is true in my life, it is true in every private-sector company in the country, and it is true in the Federal Government too. Now we won't be able to have that conversation because there was no hearing on this bill. We won't be able to improve that circumstance because this bill doesn't try to expand itself to that scope. We are in a new age. I won't be able to close this debate, Mr. Speaker. My friend from Maryland will be able to close as is the privilege of the majority. The other privilege of the majority is titling the bills as they are coming to the floor. This is the Federal Civilian Workforce Pay Raise Fairness Act, and the definition of fairness in this case is that civilian workers be treated the same as military workers as it relates to a cost-of-living increase. That is worthy of debate. I know many of my friends who represent the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area that have so many civilian Federal workers believe in that equity issue deeply and passionately and have worked to protect it over a long number of years. In the State of Georgia, we have many DOD employees, folks whose tempo changes regularly, folks who are called on with increasing frequency, folks who ask: Where shall I go when you send me? That is qualitatively different service. Should it be treated differently? Again, this is not the right place for that conversation. This is a debate on a rule about whether or not we will bring up a bill that the folks on the other side of the aisle absolutely have the votes to pass if they want to pass it. In fact, it is language in the bill that we could absolutely move in a bipartisan way if we had it in the conversations. It is language that could have absolutely been part of the negotiations to end the government shutdown since this was a decision that the President made back in December of last year not to institute the 2.1. If folks had gone to the negotiating table, if folks had negotiated in good faith, if folks had said that this is what we need, and this is what we think is important, then we could have solved this long before now. But this bill was dropped just days ago, again, with no hearing and no markups, and here it is before us. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the Record, as well as add any extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I intend to bring up a very simple amendment that would address just one of the questions that we would have addressed if we considered this issue important enough to have the committee of jurisdiction actually gather and hold a hearing on it; and that is the question of those who are delinquent in their taxes: those folks who have an outstanding tax bill, who have not tried to enter into a negotiated settlement, those who are not in a payment plan, but those who simply are not paying their Federal taxes, that they not be a part of this pay increase. My constituents work hard every day of the week. They expect us to be doing the oversight. They expect us to be doing performance reviews. They expect us to be looking at who is showing up and who is going the extra mile, rewarding those folks who are going the extra mile, training those folks up who are not, and not rewarding those folks who are falling well below the standards that each and every one of us expect as taxpayers and, candidly, even more so, each and every Federal employee expects of his or her colleagues. I want good work to be recognized with good pay, Mr. Speaker, but what would be better than this bill is a comprehensive plan from the Committee on Oversight and Reform to reform the civil service system so that that is not an aspirational goal but an absolute certainty that the American people can count on. The best thing we can do to respect our fellow employees, Mr. Speaker, is not to have a messaging bill come to the House of Representatives. The best thing we can do for our Federal employees is to make sure that the reputation that travels across the land is not one of underperformance but is one of overperformance. We are the only ones who can deal with the issues of bad apples spoiling an entire barrel. We are the only ones who can do it. We owe it to every agency in this land to be their partner in getting that done. By defeating the previous question and including this amendment, we will take a small step in that direction. Mr. Speaker, unless my friend is prepared to close, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, you have the benefit of being there in the chair where I used to get to stand from time to time to preside over these proceedings, and you know that feeling. You may be a partisan on the weekends when you are at a Democratic rally, but when you stand in that chair, you don't stand there as a Democrat. I didn't stand there as a Republican. You stand there as the representative of the entire U.S. House of Representatives to make sure we have a full, fair, and free debate. In fact, you have got a wonderful team there in the Parliamentarian's and the Clerk's Office to make sure that all goes unaffected from one leadership to the next. In fact, we go back hundreds of years in terms of trying to honor the precedence and the practices that this Chamber has brought together. We do that because, when you govern this institution with that mantra of fair play, we get better results in the end: we spend less time arguing about the process; we spend more time working together on progress; and we get to where it is each and every one of our constituents wants us to go. My friend from Maryland and I, we are in a tough trap here in January. Of all the things I thought we would be talking about down here as it affects a Federal employee pay increase, the President's conversations about his tax forms in a campaign 3 years ago wasn't one of them. But somehow, because of the nature of discourse today, if you have a sharp stick with the President's name on it, you just kind of have to work that in whenever the debate gives you an opportunity. It never once brings us closer to solutions, but it apparently makes folks feel better from time to time, makes their constituents feel better from time to time. We are going to have to ask ourselves sometime soon: Did we get elected to make a point or did we get elected to make a difference? I know what that answer is for me, and I want this, Mr. Speaker, to go down as a missed opportunity. This could have been a bill that we spent our time on the floor talking through together, as Mr. Connolly and Mr. Meadows did just last night in the Rules Committee as representatives of the committee of jurisdiction on this issue, of all the things we have in common from coast to coast, from north to south, as it relates to honoring our Federal workforce and improving our Federal workforce. And, for whatever reason, the leadership decision was made that we wouldn't do this in a partnership way, we wouldn't do this in a bipartisan way, we wouldn't do this in a full-throated legislative process way, but we would just craft this bill, drop it on the floor, and force a vote. We can miss a couple of opportunities, Mr. Speaker, to come together. We have already missed a few in January. We can miss a few more. But I know my friend from Maryland shares my concern. There is going to come a time--and it happened to Republicans, too-- where you miss one too many opportunities to work together and you poison that partnership well for weeks or months or, in worst case scenarios, even years to come. America can't afford that, Mr. Speaker, and each and every one of us is better than that. We haven't found our stride yet. If we defeat this rule today, perhaps that will be a step in finding our stride. If we defeat the previous question and consider my amendment, that might be a step in finding our stride. Even in the absence of those eventualities, we still must commit ourselves to one another to find that stride moving forward. It is to the disadvantage of every Federal employee in the Nation to make this conversation about the importance of the work they do look like an ``us'' against ``them.'' When it comes to folks who wear a flag on their shoulder, when it comes to folks who show up in service of their fellow man, there is no ``us'' and ``them''; there is just an ``us.'' Any opportunity we use to either distort that understanding or fail to recognize that understanding does violence to us all. Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on this rule, a ``no'' vote on the previous question, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman from Michigan an additional 2 minutes.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend from Massachusetts for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I appreciated the first 60 seconds of his comments where he went through that kind of policy work and that kind of procedural work, the work that we do. We are on opposite sides of this issue. The Rules Committee is the single most partisan committee on Capitol Hill, and, yet, we always find a way to come together and share the debate to move forward. But after that first 60 seconds of process, we went into 4 minutes of the President and accusations, one after another after another. Now, I have only been in this institution for five terms, Mr. Speaker, but that is long enough to understand that there is only one way to turn a bill into a law, and that is if Congress proposes it, Congress passes it, and the President signs it. Now, my good friend from Massachusetts knows as well as I do the President has not vetoed one single spending bill that the Congress has sent to him. The government is not shut down because the President is rejecting bills that Congress has passed. The government is shut down because Congress hasn't passed a bill. Mr. Speaker, if you would just listen to that opening statement, your blood pressure probably gets as high as mine does: failure after failure after failure, disappointment after disappointment after disappointment, embarrassing event after embarrassing event. I will remind my colleagues that we are where we are because we came together and passed more spending bills on time before the end of the fiscal year than any other Congress in 22 years. Now, we could have gotten them all done. My Democratic friends in the Senate didn't want to move those along. They had perfectly legitimate policy reasons for doing that. I am not going to question their motives; I will question their wisdom. We have got more done together than we ever have before, and we could build on that, I tell my friend. We could build on that or we could go into our corners, we could put on our jerseys, and we can throw accusations out as fast as we can invent them in our head. That is where we are. It is the month of January, Mr. Speaker, the very first month of this new Congress. We have new leadership. It has been more than a decade since I have seen a face like yours in the Speaker's chair. We have spent 338 hours in this Chamber--338 hours in this Chamber--this month working on appropriations bills. Not one has gone to the President's desk for his consideration. My friend from Massachusetts is right when he talks about pain in American families. My friend from Massachusetts is right when he talks about the expectations folks have of Congress and how we should do better. My friend from Massachusetts is right when he says that this is not what any one of us was sent here to do. We were sent here to solve problems. I promise you, unless your family is different from mine, Mr. Speaker, unless your relationships are different from mine, I have never solved a problem in my family by telling my loved ones how much it is their fault, how much they need to change, how much they are on the wrong side of an issue and we are not going to do anything until they come around to my way of thinking. It hasn't been a particularly successful method for me. Now, I look back over these last 33 days. The President sent the Vice President to Capitol Hill. He came with the OMB director, Mick Mulvaney. He said: I told you what I needed to pass the bill. I told you what I needed and what I thought was important for America and for national security. But I will tell you what; I don't have to have exactly that. I can come off that. I can negotiate down from that. I can move away from that. Let's talk about what the other options may be. No response. The President this past weekend: I want to break this impasse; I want to find a way we can move forward; it is not about who wins. We all need to win as Americans. We all want to do better as Americans. I am going to offer to do something that no President has been able to do. I am going to offer to put into statute protection for the young men and women in the DACA program. I am going to offer to put into statute protections for those men and women in temporary protected status that has since expired. I am going to put that into statute for the first time. As the press release is dated, Mr. Speaker, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi rejected that offer 7 minutes before it was made. I am not saying that that is the right answer. I am not saying that that is the best we can do. I am not saying that is where the conversation ends. I am asking my friends: When does the conversation begin? More than 300 hours we have spent talking amongst ourselves and produced nothing to go to the President's desk. Sadly, I know that this issue has elevated beyond where my friend from Massachusetts, even as chairman of the powerful Rules Committee--and it is the powerful Rules Committee, it can move absolutely any measure through this House, and the Rules Committee has been incredibly successful. The House is moving appropriations bills like nobody's business, Mr. Speaker, because when you are in the majority you can do that. You can do my way or the highway. That is the way my friend described President Trump's attitude. I will just remind my friend that is actually what we have today in this bill. My ranking member asked if we could consider some amendments to this bill, and he was told no. My friend didn't say: Let's just come down here and have amendments willy-nilly. We will have a preprinting requirement, we will do what we call a modified open rule, just so some of our new Members can have their voices heard, their constituents' voices heard in some way. The answer was no; straight party-line vote. All the Democrats said: no, we are not going to allow any other voices to be heard; and all the Republicans said: yes. I don't fault my friend for that. That is not a personal slight of any kind, Mr. Speaker. The Rules Committee is the Speaker's committee. It does the work of the Speaker. As powerful and talented as my friend from Massachusetts is, it is his job to implement the Speaker's will. Now, to his credit, he has been very bold in terms of trying to open that committee up. He has been very bold in trying to make sure more voices have been heard. But we find ourselves trapped in this appropriations cycle. We haven't actually gotten to where my friend is going to be able to do his very best work. We are still trapped in trying to do the business of last year. But my friend's pointing out that the President's my way or the highway--which is inaccurate--is not helpful. My pointing out that this bill is Speaker Pelosi's way or the highway may be accurate, but it still isn't helpful. We have got to have a conversation with one another. I can go down the list of the ways that the President has said he is willing to come to the table, but he is sitting at the table alone. I am a vote counter, Mr. Speaker. I know how to count votes in this Chamber. I have no doubt that the rule that my friend from Massachusetts is proposing is going to pass this floor today. I have no doubt that the underlying appropriations bill is going to pass this floor. This rule includes something called martial law, Mr. Speaker, which means they can bring up anything they want to any time they want to, no preprinting, and no opportunity to review it, none of those activities that we would say bring out the very best in transparency here. If any of those bills come up, they are going to pass. There is no confusion in this Chamber about who has the votes to win. The confusion in this Chamber is how it is we get from where we are to where our constituents want us to be and doing the same thing over and over and over again isn't going to get it done. It is my first time carrying a rule in the minority, Mr. Speaker. I knew when I walked down here this morning my job was to lose. I don't mind losing. But I do mind when the American people lose, and the American people are losing right now. There are no winners right now. I know the men and women of this Chamber. There are some talented orators here. We can absolutely trade insults and accusations until the sun goes down. But there are some talented policymakers here, too. There are some talented negotiators here, too. As long as the President is sitting at that negotiating table alone, we are not going to get to a solution. But he doesn't have to be there alone. I appreciate his making the invitation, and I hope, as my friend from Massachusetts said, we will learn to take yes for an answer. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I wasn't kidding when I said I was looking for the olive branch in what my friend had to say. I genuinely believe, if you lock me and the gentleman from Massachusetts in a room together for 24, 48, maybe 72 or 96 hours, we could come to a solution and get us out of this box. But it does take sitting down with people that you trust to get a hard negotiation done. I shared in the Rules Committee the other night, Mr. Speaker, and I will share with you today, the story of one of my constituents. His name is Doug Jenkins, and this is his story: Jeanette Jenkins, age 76, of Lawrenceville, Georgia, passed away on Saturday, April 28, 2018. Jeanette was a member of Hebron Baptist Church for over 25 years and currently a member of First Baptist Church of Atlanta. Jeanette had a passion for serving in many capacities of the ministry, as a Sunday school teacher and volunteering in various activities. She was an avid reader and enjoyed sewing. She is survived by her loving husband of 57 years, Doug. Jeanette didn't die of natural causes on April 28, Mr. Speaker. She was just running out to pick up some drugs at the drugstore. Her husband stayed at home. She was leaving the subdivision, waited for the light to turn green, and pulled out, when a van full of gentlemen who should not have been in this country, who were not in this country legally, ran that red light and killed her. She never recovered consciousness; died in the hospital later on that evening. We can describe the President of the United States and his commitment to border security as a temper tantrum, but it is not true. We can describe the President of the United States and his commitment to border security as some sort of political fixation, but it is not true. The stories that my friends tell about Federal employees missing paychecks, those are painful, those are hard, and we can do better. But the stories that each and every one of us have about members in our community who have lost loved ones, not for a week, not for 2 weeks, but forever, because we didn't do our job protecting American borders-- I want to do better. I was pleased to see the President talk about agricultural visas and how he wanted to expand those programs. It is important to us in Georgia. I am excited about EB visas, trying to get more investment in this country. We need more. I come from a community of immigrants. America's history is founded in immigration, and our future is founded there, too. But nobody else could have protected Jeanette Jenkins. Nobody. My local law enforcement can't do it. My governor can't do it. That responsibility falls to the national government and the national government alone. The President campaigned on it; the President was elected on it; and we have an opportunity to come together and do it. I don't want to kick the can down the road for another year. I don't want to kick the can down the road for another decade. I don't want to have another Jenkins family come into my office and say: Rob, where were you? What did you do when you had an opportunity to make a difference? I regret that we are in the box that we are in. It is a box of our own making. But we can get out of it, and we can make America better as a result of it. It doesn't have to be a lose-lose. It can be a win-win. Nobody is winning today. Nobody has benefited by the shutdown today. I cannot negotiate by myself. The President cannot negotiate by himself. We need folks to say ``yes'' to the invitation. Take the gentleman from Michigan's advice: Ask your leadership, as we have asked ours, to lock yourself in that room together and don't come out until you have an answer. My friend from Massachusetts says he has no preexisting stipulations about what the package has to look like. I hope that is true. It has not been my experience--stripping out all the pro-life provisions, for example. That was something that your conference wanted. Not working on the CFPB provisions that the Financial Services Committee had done, not including those 20 bipartisan bills, there are conditions that folks have, as they should, because they were elected to this House, and they are obligated to serve their constituents. We can get this done, Mr. Speaker, but I commit to you, we are not going to get it done by pointing the finger of blame at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. We are going to get it done by coming together right here and doing our job, the task the Constitution assigns to us, and, that is, agreeing on a provision amongst ourselves and sending it to the President for him to accept or to reject. I believe in what we can do together, Mr. Speaker, and I hope my colleagues will again take ``yes'' to an invitation to the negotiating table as an answer. Mr. Speaker, with that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I appreciate that admonition from the Chair. I was looking aggressively at all the words my friend had to say for what that thing was that was going to break this logjam, what that thing was that was going to bring people together, what that olive branch was that he was extending to succeed where others had failed. I heard that if we only come together and do it his way, that we could all just get along, and I have no doubt that that is true. That is not what a negotiation is. That is not the way this Chamber works. We have got to send a bill to the President's desk. When the President starts vetoing bills, then start accusing the President of being the grit in the cog in this legislative wheel. We don't have agreement amongst ourselves. We were up in the Rules Committee last night, Mr. Speaker, and one of my appropriator friends was celebrating the bills that were coming to the floor today and celebrating how pleased she was that so many of the pro-life provisions had been stripped out, celebrating that so many of the dollars that we would be sending overseas would no longer be encumbered by pro-life provisions, that folks would be able to use them in any way that they wanted. Well, I have no doubt that she was pleased by those things, but we are not all pleased by those things, Mr. Speaker. This doesn't represent the compromise solution that everybody is on board with, as my friend would have you believe. The financial services language in this bill, that never made it through conference. We couldn't agree, not amongst ourselves in the House and the Senate, not in a bicameral way. My friend who is the ranking member of the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Subcommittee, Mr. Speaker, shared last night that there were 20 different pieces of bipartisan legislation that were in the original bill, 6 pieces of bipartisan legislation that had been signed off on by the then-ranking member and, now, chairwoman of the Financial Services Committee that we could have moved forward, that we could have made a difference--again, stripped out for reasons beyond my understanding. This isn't complicated if folks are sincere about coming together around the table. It is impossible if folks would rather trade insults than solutions. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Mitchell), a friend who has been dedicated entirely to solutions in his short time in the House.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I remember standing in your chair over these last couple of Congresses reading out that very same card at the end. Whether the Obama administration or the Trump administration, folks come down to the floor, they get caught up in the passions of the moment, and we do have opportunities to come together. I had not planned on coming down. I was actually in the Cloakroom making some telephone calls, and I heard my colleague speaking. I heard her with sincerity implore the President to come to his senses, come to the negotiating table, and end this shutdown. Then I heard her with sincerity implore the leaders of the Senate to come to the negotiating table, to come to their senses, and to end this shutdown. Then in about an hour and a half, I will be down here leading the debate on the rule for the minority, and we will bring yet another of the exact same bills we have brought to the floor that have gone absolutely nowhere in an effort to reopen the government. I would say to my friends that the secret to finding common ground isn't to ask everybody else to come to where you are standing. That is the new definition of compromise in this town. I have seen that, that gravitate in the five terms that I have been here. The definition of compromise is: Well, why don't you agree with me? The truth is the only movement I have seen in this debate over these last 32 days is the President this past weekend when he said: Do you know what? We have called on every single Member in every single Chamber to find a solution to the young men and women trapped in a DACA status, those families who come here with temporary protective status, and they are uncertain about their future--folks on both sides of the aisle have called for that--he said: Do you know what? Maybe we can broaden this debate, Madam Speaker. Maybe we can broaden the definition of what success looks like, and maybe we can break this logjam. Madam Speaker, I would just say to my colleagues: I will come back down to the House floor as often as you all want me to come back down to the House floor, and we can do exactly the same thing every single day knowing we are going to get exactly the same result from the White House and the Senate. Or, we can try to do something different. Candidly, my constituents didn't send me here to do the same thing over and over and over again with the same failed result. They sent me here to get success. They don't care if I win. They care if I succeed on their behalf. They don't care about Republican and Democratic priorities. They care about their family priorities. And I have to believe--though I don't know all of my freshman colleagues as well as I would like--I have to believe that even with all the new Members in this institution there is still more that unites us than divides us in this country. I love that about this institution. I love that about the men and women who are here. So, Madam Speaker, I ask this: Let's try to do a little more listening and a little less talking. Here in the rank and file, golly, I have to believe if I could pick out a few colleagues here, I am pretty sure that we could sit down at the table and solve this. I confess it is beyond our reach as we sit here today. This is a White House decision. This is a Mitch McConnell decision. And this is a Nancy Pelosi decision. We ought to all as rank-and-file Members be outraged when it does rise to that level because we lose control. Our constituents lose their voice. I am encouraging my leadership to be as open and honest and to be as flexible and creative as they possibly can in finding a solution. Every single one of us bears responsibility in this Chamber of what is going on. If Senate Democrats had let these appropriations bills move last fall, then we wouldn't be in this mess. If Republicans had passed a continuing resolution in December, we wouldn't be in this mess. There are 1,000 different decisionmaking points where we could have done things differently. We cannot change those, but we can change what is happening here today. I tell my constituents back home: If you want to understand what is happening in Congress, listen to the 5 minutes in the morning, listen to the 1 minutes at noon, and find out if the folks who are coming to the floor are celebrating opportunities for success or simply condemning their colleagues for not being invested in solutions. I believe in the men and women of this Chamber. I believe in the U.S. House of Representatives. I believe in self-governance in this Nation. Failing the American people, Madam Speaker, undermines that confidence. We have an opportunity to succeed, and I hope we will say yes to that opportunity.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I come to the House floor today to honor an amazing public servant in my community, public servant and a role model, a Gwinnett County police officer by the name of Antwan Toney. Mr. Speaker, Officer Toney was a California native, but he adopted my local community at the age of 30 and knew that he could change the world from that location. He was working not just to make the world better, but to make us better as individuals--one community, one family, one officer at the time. And, Mr. Speaker, with the infectious smile you see here and a tireless work ethic and boundless energy, he was doing exactly that in my hometown. Mr. Speaker, I wish I was here just to honor Officer Toney today, but on the afternoon of October 20, when responding to a call, Officer Toney was killed. Mr. Speaker, I am appalled and pained by the senselessness of this young man's murder. Mr. Speaker, while our community aches over the loss of Officer Toney, we also celebrate the life that he led and the role model that he provided for all of us. Those who have been fortunate enough to know Officer Toney are forever changed for the better by that experience. Of all the places Officer Toney could have served, I am honored that he chose our home to be the place for his incredibly proud work--again, not just to make us safer, but to make us better. Mr. Speaker, today, I pray for all of those who loved Officer Toney and those whom he loved. I pray for all of his brothers and sisters in uniform who, even in the face of this loss, wake up every single morning and agree to serve once again. May God bless all of them, Mr. Speaker, and may we give thanks to God that He shares with each and every one of us heroes in our lives, difference makers in our lives, difference makers like Officer Antwan Toney.

Mr. WOODALL

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

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for his leadership on the committee. Mr. Speaker, this is probably the most important bill that most members of the United States of America citizenry will never have heard of. When I go back home, folks ask me to make smart and prudent investments that will make a difference in people's lives. They ask me to repeal unnecessary regulations that stand in the way of making those improvements. They ask me to pay for those things rather than passing the bill on to our kids and our grandkids. The bill that the chairman and the ranking member have brought before us today fulfills every single one of those challenges. In my district, Mr. Speaker, we are talking about preserving water quality in Lake Lanier, the sole water source for most of the metro Atlanta area. We are talking about funding the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project, a project of economic significance for the entire southeastern United States. We are talking about offering local officials the financing tools they need to bring projects to bear faster and cheaper than ever before. Mr. Speaker, median household income has never been higher. Small business optimism has never been higher. Unemployment is at its lowest point in decades. Job openings are at a record high. Manufacturing jobs are at a record high. This does not happen by accident. This happens when you create an environment in which success can breed. I want to thank the ranking member from Oregon. I particularly want to thank my chairman from Pennsylvania. Chairman Shuster said he was going to bring three bills to the floor. He said we are going to get back in the business of doing the people's business, not sometimes but always; and here, at the end of his third term as chairman, we are bringing our third WRDA bill to the floor.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 918 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the ranking member of the Rules Committee, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave