Rob Woodall

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. I thank the vice chairman of the Budget Committee. Mr. Speaker, people think these things happen in a vacuum. They don't. They happen because folks like Mr. Rokita take time away from their family and away from their constituents back home sometimes to work the long nights and the early mornings it takes to get a budget like this done. Just to give you an example, Mr. Speaker, I don't know if you have ever thought about it--$3.5 trillion is the size of our annual spending--annual spending. People often characterize--and I would tell you mischaracterize--Republicans as folks who want to shut down government. That is nonsense. You heard the gentleman from Indiana's heart as he was up here talking about his love for people, the needs that people have, and our opportunity to aid people and their families as they struggle with some of those challenges. We spend $3.5 trillion a year in that effort. It is not that we don't want to spend the money. It is that we want to spend it effectively, efficiently, and accountably. That is all folks ask for back home. They don't say, Shut the government down. They say, Spend my tax money effectively, efficiently, and accountably--$3.5 trillion, Mr. Speaker. If any of the young people who are coming to Congress to watch what goes on here on the floor of the House, Mr. Speaker, if any of those young people were born the day that Jesus Christ was born and, beginning on that day, they spent $1 million every day, $1 million every day, 7 days a week, Mr. Speaker, from the day that Jesus Christ was born until today, they would have to continue spending $1 million a day, every day, 7 days a week, for another 732 years, to spend their first trillion dollars. As a Federal Government, we are spending $3.5 trillion every year, and we borrowed from those same young people $18 trillion that they are going to have to pay back one day. These numbers are mind-boggling, and sometimes, I wonder if we as a Chamber, Mr. Speaker, are taking this crisis as seriously as we must. It is, at its core, a spending crisis. It is not a revenue crisis. It is not that $3.5 trillion isn't enough to handle the needs of this country; it is. This chart, Mr. Speaker, you can't see it, but it is a historical chart of spending, which is in the red, and revenues, which is in the green. Now, when we have had this big economic downturn here, so many families out of work, so many families in part-time work, and so many young people who couldn't find jobs, revenues absolutely went down. They went down because there were no jobs, and if folks don't have jobs, they don't have incomes, and if they don't have incomes, they can't pay taxes. We want people to go to work. You can't pay taxes if you don't have a job. Historically, Americans have been willing to pay about 18 percent of GDP in tax revenue, so I draw that line on out for the foreseeable future. The red line represents spending in this town, Mr. Speaker. The red line represents if we did nothing, if we adjourned the Congress this afternoon, we went down to Pennsylvania Avenue, we picked up the President, and we all left Washington forever--I was wondering if there was going to be a loud group of cheers and applause that broke out when I said that, Mr. Speaker, I am not actually advocating for that--but if that were to happen, the laws that are already on the books have made promises to people that spend the money on this red line, going into historical debt territory, the likes of which we have never seen, and we cannot survive as a nation. Spending is the problem. The red line is the problem. The green line is what we take from American families in taxes. It has been constant over time--not constant in actual dollars, but constant as a percent of the economy. It is the red line that is growing ever faster. Now, if you will permit me to scare you just a little bit further, Mr. Speaker, let me talk about interest rates in this country--interest rates in this country. This chart right here, you can't see it, again, Mr. Speaker, but it is charting the interest rates that America is paying on its debt. We borrow in all sorts of different instruments from short-term, week-long instruments, all the way up to 30-year instruments. I put on the 3- month bills and our 10-year notes on this chart. This chart covers most of my lifetime, Mr. Speaker. In fact, it goes a little further than my lifetime. What you are going to see, Mr. Speaker, going all the way back to 1965, it is charting the 3-month bills and the 10-year notes. This is where we are today. This is where we are today, and what you see here, Mr. Speaker, is that we are at the lowest level of interest in the history of our country. In the history of our country, we have never paid less on Federal debt than we are paying today; yet we have never had more of it. What do you think is going to happen, Mr. Speaker, when these low interest rates that we have today return to these historically high levels? In fact, The Economist, as I pointed out here in blue, projects that interest rates will return. By return, I mean that our 10-year notes are going to more than double, I mean the 3-month bills are going to more than sextuple. We are talking about an interest rate explosion around the corner, Mr. Speaker, that we are not going to be able to sustain. Now, let me take you back to what we are spending here today. As we sit here today, we are spending $229 billion in interest on our national debt--$229 billion--while we are at the lowest interest rates in American history. Now, if the rates on those 10-year notes are going to double, if the rates on those 3-month bills are going to sextuple, what do you think 229 billion changes into within the next 3 or 4 years, Mr. Speaker? It doesn't change into 300 billion. It doesn't change into 400 billion. It goes northward to $500 billion in interest. In fact, as the President lays out his budget, we are looking at almost $1 trillion a year in interest payments within the next 10 years, in a single year, at year 10. One trillion dollars, Mr. Speaker--enough money to pay for all of our national security, enough money to pay for all of the Medicaid program and the Medicare program, enough money to pay for the entire Social Security Program for a year, we are going to throw it away in interest payments because we didn't have the discipline to control spending in this bipartisan Congress that we have. The lowest interest rates in American history, Mr. Speaker, every economist projects a rise, doubling to sextupling in the next 10 years. We are only borrowing money, Mr. Speaker, because we have lots of spending going on. There are those who believe that the more we spend, the better results we are going to get. I want to tell you that is nonsense. If this Chamber were full to capacity today, Mr. Speaker, and we asked folks to have a show of hands of when was that great time in the American economy they remember, when were the cares of whether or not you could afford to pay your house note, whether you could afford to pay your car note, whether you could afford to take care of your children, when was the time that those cares were the least? I daresay most of the hands would think back to the 1990s. Whoo, the economy was on fire. You remember that. The stockmarket was on fire, you had to hide under a rook to keep from finding a good job--again, Republicans controlling this institution, Democrats in the White House. We were working together to constrain spending to grow the economy. This chart that I have here, Mr. Speaker, shows per capita spending. It is not really meaningful to talk about spending in the abstract. It all distills down to an individual man, an individual woman, an individual family, what are we spending on individuals here in this country? This is Federal outlays per individual. You will see a constant increase going back to the Truman administration. This is World War II, where we were really fighting for the future of not just the Republic, but of the world, going through the Truman administration and the Eisenhower administration. This is per capita spending. You see that it increases as inflation does, as government does. It just naturally rises little by little, year after year. What you will see, Mr. Speaker, if you look here at the Clinton years in blue, that in those years that Americans would look back on with fondness and contentment, those years where the cares of the world seemed just a little bit lighter on their shoulders, we weren't spending more from Washington, D.C. It didn't require more spending from Washington, D.C. The stimulation of the economy is not dependent on spending from Washington, D.C. In fact, arguably, it is the opposite. The more Washington sucks out of America, the less that individual Americans have to grow their families, grow their businesses, and expand their opportunities. It is meaningful to me, again, you think about the Reagan years, you think about the first Bush years, and you think about the Clinton years, the economy was on fire and spending from the Federal Government held constant. Fast forward to today, Mr. Speaker, you see spending begin to grow out of control. It happened in the Bush years. Again, this is not a partisan problem, this is an American problem. Spending began to grow. We are fighting a war on terror. Folks are beginning to worry about their families and worry about their jobs. Spending today continuing on that rise--well, continuing until I arrived here in 2010, until you arrived here in 2014, when the cavalry arrived here to say, Wait a minute, I know the challenges are vast, but we can't just push the can down the road; we can't pass our problems on to the next generation; we have to confront those problems together. That is what we have been doing in this budget. Mr. Speaker, this chart shows if we do nothing, if we do nothing, if we never make another promise--and the budget the President just sent us is full of new promises to the tune of about $2 trillion over the next 10 years--if we never make another promise, if all we do is keep the promises we already made, if we never pass a new law or a new bill to do something else, simply by the force of the laws already on the books, debt grows to levels higher than we borrowed as a nation to defeat the Nazis in World War II. Think about that, Mr. Speaker. I was down in front of the White House. I had some friends in town. I took them down to see the White House. All Americans ought to make that journey. It is the center of the executive branch here in Washington, D.C. We walked over to the Old Executive Office Building because that is a fabulous, fabulous building. On the front steps of the Old Executive Office Building, they have two cannons from the Spanish-American War, 1898, and they have a little plaque there on the fence. Of course, you can't get through the fence. In fact, they pushed you back a little further now with the new Secret Service regulations, but you can see the plaque hanging there on the fence. It says that we used to have more than 20 of these historic cannons around town, dating back to the Revolutionary War, but during World War II, we melted most of them down to be a part of the war effort. Think about that. In World War II, the situation was so dire, Mr. Speaker, we were going around to our national monuments, we were going around to our Nation's history, and we were finding anything made of iron or steel, and we were melting it down. Because World War II wasn't a fight; it was the fight for freedom on the planet. And amidst that terror, ration stamps across the land, folks standing in lines for food at the end of the Great Depression, amidst all of that turmoil, all of that crisis, arguably the greatest crisis not just this Nation has known but that the world has ever known, America borrowed about 100 percent of the size of its economy. That is a heavy load, but it was for an important cause. As we sit here today, Mr. Speaker, we have borrowed about three- quarters of that same load. And if we change no law and if we make no new promises, we will borrow not one time, not two times, not three times, but four times more than we borrowed to defeat the greatest evil the world has ever known, just to keep the lights on in the United States of America. That is dangerous and it is irresponsible. Mr. Speaker, you can count on a budget coming to the floor of this House. It is going to be here. I would guess it is going to be here on the floor by the end of March, because certainly we will have it here by April. It is going to be a budget that brings us back to balance, and it is going to be a budget that makes the hard decisions that have to be made. No one is saying don't invest in America. What they are saying is don't let growing interest payments on irresponsible borrowing push out the room in the budget to invest in America. Do you know we are investing less in America today, Mr. Speaker, than any other time in my lifetime? We are investing less. Now, we are spending more, but we are investing less because, as I showed you on that pie chart earlier, Mr. Speaker, what we are spending on isn't investments in America. It is income maintenance programs. If we do nothing, revenues continue and debt grows out of control. 2046, Mr. Speaker, about the time you are entering your retirement, dead at 250 percent of GDP. Spending $3.5 trillion today--today--at the lowest rate of interest the country has ever known, and today, in that most favorable of environments, Mr. Speaker, we are almost spending more on interest than we are on our Medicaid program, the health care program that covers children and the poor across this land. We are spending more to pay our creditors than we are to protect our children's health--and that is at the lowest rates of interest the country has ever known. It only grows, and that is if the only thing that changes are the interest rates, Mr. Speaker. That is if we stop borrowing more money. But the President projects to borrow half trillion after half trillion after half trillion after half trillion. In fact, as I said, the budget he presented never ever, ever comes to balance. It borrows year after year after year after year, as far as the eye can see. I don't argue that that is not the easier decision to make today, Mr. Speaker. It is. Doing nothing is always easier than doing the heavy lifting. Spending and borrowing more, always easier than tightening your belt and making the tough calls. Sacrificing our children's future so that we don't have to make those tough decisions today, that may be the easy call, but it is immoral. It is immoral, Mr. Speaker. We have been able to cut budgets, as the gentleman from Indiana said, 4 years in a row for the first time, for the first time in my lifetime. We are moving the needle, but there is more to do. And it can't be done alone. It can't be done with just Republicans, it can't be done with just Democrats, and it can't be done with just the Congress. It requires the House Republicans and Democrats, it requires the Senate Republicans and Democrats, and it requires the President of the United States to come together to make those decisions that matter. Mr. Speaker, we will be talking a lot more about this in the coming weeks. I want to make sure that every American has all the answers they need about how we are trying to prioritize in this budget. But I want to be clear: the days of kicking the can down the road ended when Republicans took over this Chamber in 2011. The trust and confidence that we have earned in a bipartisan way over the last 4 years, we are going to continue today, and Senate willing--going back to the obstructionist provisions I noted at the very beginning of this hour, Mr. Speaker--Senate willing, we will conference the first budget, agree on the first budget, have the first American budget in my entire tenure in Congress. The House has always done its job. This year, we have an opportunity to have the Congress do its job collectively, and I look forward to that conclusion. With that, Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to you for being down here with me this afternoon, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 5 minutes.

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I may be an unnatural optimist, but I believe these 2 years that we are about to have in this institution are going to be the finest that I have seen in my lifetime. The reason I believe that is exactly because we are responding to the plea that my friend from Florida has made to get on about the business of the people. It is hard being in the minority around here. It is hard. My friends on the other side of the aisle may feel like they are in the minority today. For the last 4 years, we had the Speakership in this Chamber, but I sure felt like I was in the minority. The Senate, held by the party on the other side; the White House, the party on the other side--and things got to be about party, day in and day out, and it wore on me, wore on me. That is not why I ran for Congress, Madam Speaker. It is not why you ran for Congress. It is not why any of my colleagues here ran for Congress. They ran for Congress to get about the business of the people. We are 1 month and a week into this new session of Congress, and the Senate has already managed to do what it hasn't been able to do for 4 years, and that is hold an open debate and move legislation where Members had a chance to have their voice heard. We have that measure in front of us today. The only thing standing between us and considering that measure, Madam Speaker, is passing this rule. I am excited about it. I am excited about it. I am proud of what is in this underlying legislation. I am proud of the process that produced this legislation. I am proud of the leadership of folks like Mr. Cramer who moved it through the House first. Now, this is the Senate version, but this is the process that folks have worked in tandem. This is a process that folks back home can be proud of. Now, that is not to say every Member of this Chamber supports this legislation, Madam Speaker. They don't, and they have myriad reasons for choosing not to support this legislation, but the majority is going to work its will. I don't mean the majority, the Republican majority. I mean the majority--let's have a show of hands, see where people stand--and Republicans and Democrats are going to stand together and say, I support these American jobs. They are going to say, I support our largest trading partner, which is Canada. They are going to say, I support finality on a process that began 7 years ago. I long for the debate we will have on this House floor, and I hope the gentleman from Florida and I get to manage the rule when we bring the surface transportation bill to the floor of this House because America needs that surface transportation bill. We need to build America, Madam Speaker. What does it say when getting approval for this pipeline consumed more time than the entire construction of the Hoover Dam? Have we so hamstrung ourselves with bureaucracy that we can no longer do those great building projects as a Nation? I hope that the answer is no, but if the answer is yes, we have the ability in this Chamber to change it to no. We are a society that does great, great things. We do have responsibilities that are great, great responsibilities, and we cannot accomplish those in a partisan way. We cannot accomplish those without partnership and cooperation. For the next 2 years, Madam Speaker, we have an opportunity to move bills out of a Republican-led Congress that get signed by a Democratic- led White House. That is kind of the way the Founding Fathers envisioned it, and I am pleased to be a small part of it today.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 100 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, at this time I would like to take the gentleman from Florida's advice and yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Harris), an expert on the appropriations process.

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I was just reading an article from the AP, which is doing a fact check on whether or not a conversation about the Department of Homeland Security is a fair and honest conversation. They say, in reality, most people will see little change if the Department's flow is halted, and some of the warnings of doom are as exaggerated as they are striking. They go on to list word after word of folks announcing those warnings. What is striking to me, Madam Speaker, is that, if we had the same open process going on in the Senate right now that the gentleman from Florida described--the great process that brought S. 1 to the floor--we would be bringing the Department of Homeland Security bill to the floor of the Senate as well; but, as you know, the Senate minority leader today is filibustering any effort to even bring this conversation to the floor, going back to the hamster wheel my friend from Florida described earlier. How often do we hear that? How often do we hear about the procedural stunts that get in the way of doing the business that every single one of us knows our constituents sent us here to do? This bill, though, is one about which we can be proud. This bill, though, is one that gets to the heart of what our constituents have asked us to do. This bill, though, has been done right from the start in a bipartisan way, in an open way, and it can make a difference for people tomorrow if we pass it on the floor of the House today and send it on to the President. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to thank my friend for his well wishes and to tell him I am sympathetic to the hamster wheel scenario that he describes. I don't particularly enjoy these opening weeks of a new Congress, Mr. Speaker, because committees haven't gotten organized, legislation hasn't started to flow, and it puts the committee in the very unfortunate situation of having to act as the legislator, as the authorizer, to begin moving pieces of legislation to the floor. That is unfortunate. But that is not the situation we are talking about today, Mr. Speaker. What we are talking about today is a bill that not only passed the floor of the House but went to the Senate, a bill that not just went to the Senate but went through that wonderful open debate process that my friend from Florida described and has now come back to us today. Four years we have been trying to move this bill forward, Mr. Speaker. It is a closed rule here today so that we can act on the same legislation that the Senate has passed, so we can send this bill to the President's desk, so we can get off the hamster wheel of futility that my friend from Florida describes. I am optimistic, Mr. Speaker. But it doesn't happen by itself. It happens with years and years of work. So with that, Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer), whose advocacy and leadership have made having this bill on the floor today possible.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings), 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. Mr. Speaker, we are here today to talk about House Resolution 100, which provides a closed rule for consideration of S. 1, the Keystone XL Pipeline Approval Act. Folks might find that a little unusual to talk about a bill that begins with the title S. 1, but there is a new day in Washington, D.C., that excites me, and it is that the ``open for business'' sign is there on the Senate side. It is not a function of Republicans doing this or Democrats doing that. It is a function of the process working the way that it should. The first vote I took on the Keystone pipeline, Mr. Speaker, was back in 2011 when I was first elected to Congress. It passed the House by a wide bipartisan margin. It was never given the time of day in the United States Senate. As we come here today, we are not just talking about approval of the Keystone XL pipeline in S. 1. We are talking about the inclusion of another bill that has passed time and time again, the Better Buildings Act. Mr. McKinley from West Virginia has language that would promote energy conservation across this land, a bill that has passed time and time again in this House but has never been passed by the Senate. It is an opportunity here today, Mr. Speaker. It is an opportunity to do those things that the American people sent us here to do: bipartisan votes, commonsense legislation for the first time in a long time, Mr. Speaker, and what I hope will be the beginning of a long trend here in the U.S. House of Representatives. As you listened to the Clerk read, Mr. Speaker, you heard that there are a lot of different points in this bill. It is not just a bill for consideration of S. 1. It is also a bill so that when the House is not in session in D.C. next week, the Speaker will have the ability to call the House back into session to continue to conduct business because the business must continue to go on. I am glad the Rules Committee was able to include that provision as well. Seven years ago is when the permit process started on the Keystone XL pipeline, Mr. Speaker. Since seven years ago, longer than it took to build the Hoover Dam, we have been trying to approve a small section of pipeline. I say ``trying to approve'' somewhat loosely. I think if we had been committed to getting it done, we could have absolutely gotten it done. Again, it is a commonsense piece of legislation that decides rather than building a pipeline across Canada to carry oil to Canadian refineries, which will provide lots of jobs for Canadians, if our partner to the north is willing, we will build that pipeline through America to deliver that oil to American refineries to create Americans jobs. This is not a bill that mandates that, Mr. Speaker. The marketplace is going to control this construction decision. The marketplace is going to control where the oil is refined, and the marketplace is going to control whether or not the oil comes out of the ground to begin with. Too often, I think we have been treating the Keystone XL pipeline approval process as if it were an environmental decision. There are those who wish the United States would reduce its reliance on fossil fuels. I am one of those. I don't think there is any advantage to be had by putting all your eggs in one energy basket. I am in favor of an all-of-the-above strategy that makes sure that America's energy security--North America's energy security--is based on multiple-- multiple--avenues for energy production. But we do not get to decide in this Chamber whether or not the Canadians bring oil out of the ground. We only get to decide whether or not, once that oil comes out of the ground, it is moved with U.S. jobs and U.S. construction to U.S. refineries, or whether or not those jobs go elsewhere. Mr. Speaker, time and time again folks come to the floor and they say: Where are the jobs? Where is the jobs legislation? I am thrilled to be carrying this rule for the Rules Committee today, Mr. Speaker, because this is one of those jobs bills--bipartisan, common sense. And if we pass it here in the House today, Mr. Speaker, headed to the President's desk, that signature will change the lives of those hardworking Americans looking for jobs today. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. I also have no further speakers.

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say to the gentleman from Texas, my heart sits where his hearts sits--with American workers and American products. We build the best products in the world. There is absolutely no reason not to purchase the best products in the world to build something particularly as important as our pipeline. The box we find ourselves in is that, candidly, some of us--in fact, I dare say all of us--are a little surprised the Senate was even able to move through this bill. I have not seen the Senate move like it has moved in this open process, in this expedient process. In the entire 4 years I have served in this institution, I have never seen it happen before. It is a good bill. I don't take issue with the work the Senate did. It looks substantially similar to what we passed here in the House. We may never get a chance to send this bill to the desk. Again, we are just trying to debate a small part of the appropriations process and the Senate right now can't even move into debate because of filibusters in the Senate. So I say to my friend from Texas, I am absolutely sympathetic to his amendment. I would like to have an opportunity to debate more amendments on the floor of this House. I think back to my early days here 4 years ago. We had a 3\1/2\-day what I call festival of democracy. We came down here and worked night and day on H.R. 1 until every Member had a chance to be heard. That is the way it ought to be done. And I regret that in this situation we did not have a chance to make the gentleman's amendment in order because it was a good amendment and it would absolutely be worthy of debate and consideration here on the floor of the House. Madam Speaker, with that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials.

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that Reid Ribble be removed as a cosponsor of H.R. 25.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I have got a heavy heart because I feel like, in just the short time you and I have been in this body, we have seen the same story play out more than once. You would like to think that we would all learn from our mistakes in this body. In fact, I don't fault any of my colleagues who make mistakes. I am one of the folks who is guilty of having made a mistake before, Mr. Speaker, and I am not going to put you in that same box; but, yes, I have made a mistake before. The question isn't: ``Do you make mistakes?'' The question is: ``What do you learn from your mistakes?'' As we go down this road of executive action, this conversation that the country is having today, I feel like we have been down this road before, and I want to try to connect a couple of those dots for folks tonight, Mr. Speaker. You can't see what I have here, but it is something that is near and dear to your heart. It is article II, section 2, of the United States Constitution. It says: The President shall have the power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their session. Now, you wonder why this is important. It is just one paragraph in a relatively lengthy and really meaty Constitution. The answer is because it defines the relationship between the article I, Congress, and the article II, White House. It says, White House, if you want to make appointments to positions of great power, of great authority, in the United States Government, you must do so with the advice and consent of the United States Senate, that the Senate must confirm all of those individuals the President wishes to place in these positions of great power. The President back in 2012, 2011, had some folks he wanted to appoint to positions of great responsibility. One of those was to the National Labor Relations Board. You will recall this, Mr. Speaker. The President made some nominations, and the Senate said, ``No, this isn't going to fly.'' Now, the President could have gone back and said: ``Do you know what? If you don't like these nominees, this is an important job, it is an important responsibility, I am going to appoint some different nominees. I am going to put some different names out there. I am going to work with you to try to find some folks we can agree on as the Constitution requires.'' It is not what the President did. In fact, there is a pattern of that not being what the President does. What the President did instead of working with the Senate--what the President did instead of offering some different names--what the President did instead of trying to find common ground was he went to this article II, section 2, of the United States Constitution and said: ``I have the power to fill these spots without anybody else's advice or counsel, without anybody else's consent, as long as I do it during recess.'' He woke up one morning, and he declared the Senate in recess, and he made these appointments. Now, that would be all well and good, Mr. Speaker, if the Senate had, in fact, been in recess, but the Senate was not in recess. I have here on a chart, Mr. Speaker, a quote from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. It is November 16, 2007, when President Bush was still the President of the United States. He, too, wanted to make some nominations. The Senate then, as in 2012, disagreed with those nominations and didn't want to appoint those people. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said this: The Senate will be coming in for pro forma sessions during the Thanksgiving holiday to prevent recess appointments. My hope is that this will prompt the President to see that it is in our mutual interests for the nominations process to get back on track. Hear that, Mr. Speaker? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said to then-President George Bush: ``I don't like the folks you are trying to nominate. I disagree with you on those nominations, so I am going to keep the Senate in, in pro forma session, to prevent you from nominating those folks during a period of recess, to prevent you from using article II, section 2. I hope that will encourage you to come and work with us together to find folks who are mutually agreeable for these positions.'' In November 2007, Harry Reid kept the Senate in session, these pro forma sessions, all through the Thanksgiving holiday. I now bring you to December 19, 2007, later that same year. Again, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said this: I could be a grinch. I could tell the President that I would not move any nominations, given his demand to make controversial recess appointments. But I am not going to do that tonight, Mr. President. I am not going to meet intransigence with intransigence. We will confirm those appointments this evening, and I will keep the Senate in pro forma session to block the President from doing an end run around the Senate and the Constitution with his other controversial nominees. Hear that: Getting ready to head home for Christmas, Senator Harry Reid said to then-President George Bush: I will not let you do an end run around the Constitution by appointing individuals to these powerful positions across the government without the consent of the Senate. I will not let you do it, and I will prevent you from doing it by keeping the Senate in pro forma session during the holidays. Pro forma session means you are in once every 3 days. That is how the law defines it. You come in once every 3 days. It doesn't count as a recess. Harry Reid knows this. It is the tool that he uses to prevent then-President George Bush from doing, and I quote, an end run around the Senate and the Constitution. I found it fairly persuasive, Mr. Speaker. In fact, President George Bush found it fairly persuasive. And this ended the argument because no President has a vested interest in making an end run around the Senate and the Constitution. But President Obama didn't see things that same way. In January of 2012, faced with the exact same circumstances, Mr. Speaker, a Senate in pro forma session designed specifically to prevent recess appointments, the President woke up one morning in January and said: The Senate is, in fact, in recess. They say that they are not, but they are wrong. They, in fact, are. I am going to make four appointments today. Now, you would think, having read what we read from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, that the Senate would have melted down with defenders of article I standing up and saying: Mr. President, we may agree with your politics, we may agree with your policy, but we disagree with this end run that you are making around the Senate and the United States Constitution. It is what you would have expected. It is what you would have hoped for. But it is not what you got. Senator Tom Harkin, when asked about those appointments, said the President ``acted responsibly'' in making those appointments. He ``acted responsibly.'' This is the National Labor Relations Board we are talking about. So, of course, the AFL-CIO commented that President Richard Trumka said the President was ``exercising his constitutional authority to ensure that crucially important agencies protecting workers and consumers are not shut down.'' The Labor Secretary is one of those Members that had to be confirmed by the United States Senate. Then-Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said: ``We can't afford to not move on very important issues that affect working class people.'' We cannot afford not to move. We cannot afford to allow the Constitution to get in the way of those things that we would like to do. This isn't sour grapes from a Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, Mr. Speaker. This case went to the Supreme Court. This case went to the Supreme Court. And on that Court, of course, sit two Obama appointees; two Clinton appointees sit there. Mr. Speaker, 2\1/2\ years later, 9-0 was the ruling from the Supreme Court that what the President did was patently unconstitutional. Unconstitutional. Now, this isn't a surprise to anyone. You will remember the words of Harry Reid when he implemented these sessions to prevent recess appointments. He said: I am not going to let the President do ``an end run around the Constitution.'' The Constitution has these requirements. Harry Reid knew it. President Bush knew it. Harry Reid knew it again in 2012. President Obama knew it in 2012, and he did it anyway, as then- Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said: because we have important things that we need to do, and we can't let things get in the way. Quoting from that 9-0 decision, Mr. Speaker, Justice Breyer wrote the majority opinion. He said: ``The recess appointments clause is not designed to overcome serious institutional friction. Friction between the branches is an inevitable consequence of our constitutional structure.'' That bears repeating, Mr. Speaker. The ``clause is not designed to overcome serious institutional friction. Friction between the branches is an inevitable consequence of our constitutional structure.'' I don't even know if that captures it, Mr. Speaker. It is not really an inevitable consequence. It is there by design. It is not an accident that we have this friction. It is there by design. This isn't the ranting of a sour grapes conservative Republican. This is the unanimous decision of a Supreme Court that is as divided as any Court we have seen in my lifetime. But they unanimously said: President Obama, your goals are not what we are litigating today. The process that you are using to achieve your goals is unconstitutional. Why? Because Congress got in your way. And instead of working with Congress, you went around Congress, and the law doesn't allow for that. Sound familiar, Mr. Speaker? Sound familiar? It took 2\1/2\ years to litigate that case. It took 2\1/2\ years to get an answer from the Supreme Court. In those 2\1/2\ years, over 400 cases were decided by the National Labor Relations Board, now all invalidated by this Supreme Court decision, lives thrown into turmoil. Not one Senator, not one Democratic Senator, not one Senator from the leadership spoke out to say: Mr. President, I may agree with your politics, I may agree with your policies, but the way you are getting them done is unconstitutional. And every one of them knew it, just like the Supreme Court did, 9-0, when they ruled 2\1/2\ years later. Now fast-forward to today, Mr. Speaker. We are talking about immigration. And we are not talking about good immigration policy, because that is what we talk about in the Judiciary Committee. We are not talking about immigration law in this country, because that is what is decided in the House and the Senate. What we are talking about is the President taking action on his own in an end run around the Senate, an end run around the House, an end run around the Constitution and implementing immigration policy all by himself. He was asked about that in a Univision town hall, Mr. Speaker. It was March of 2011, and the question that was put to the President was: ``Mr. President, my question will be as follows: With an executive order, could you be able to stop deportations of the students?'' Fair question. Fair question. A lot of folks out there have this issue on their mind. It was March of 2011, and this is what President Barack Obama said in answer to the question: Mr. President, can't you just stop deportations by executive order? The President said this: ``With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations with executive order, that's just not the case because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed.'' The President was right on that day in March. ``I can't just do this by executive order,'' he told the questioner, ``because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed.'' He says: ``Congress passes the law. The executive branch's job is to enforce and implement those laws. Then the judiciary has to interpret those laws. There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply, through executive order, ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as President.'' Those are not my words, Mr. Speaker. Those are President Barack Obama's words. ``There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear''--very clear--``in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply, through executive order, ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my responsibilities as President.'' Now, that is powerful, Mr. Speaker; but that is not even the most interesting part of that response. He went on in that question and said this: That doesn't mean that we can't make decisions to emphasize enforcement. It doesn't mean that we can't strongly advocate and propose legislation that would change the law in order to make it fair or more just and ultimately would help young people who are here trying to do the right thing and whose talents we want to embrace in order to succeed as a country. It doesn't mean that we can't work hard to change the law. It just means that I, as President, don't have the ability to do it by myself. The Constitution requires a team effort between Congress and the White House. Mr. Speaker, this wasn't just a one-time thing. This wasn't just a quote that I pulled out of thin air. I am not trying to mischaracterize the President's feelings. November 2013, he is being heckled. He is giving a speech, and he is being heckled by protesters who want him to do more in terms of changing immigration law. You have just heard his last quote, where he said, I can't do this by myself. Congress has to lead in this area. He is being heckled; and he says this: ``What you need to know, when I'm speaking as President of the United States and I come to this community, is that if, in fact, I could solve all these problems without passing laws in Congress, then I would do so.'' That is what he says to the heckler. He said: Sir, what you need to know is, if I could, I would. If I could change these laws without Congress, I would. But the Constitution doesn't allow for it. President Obama went on to say: ``We're also a nation of laws. That's part of our tradition. And so the easy way out is to try to yell and pretend like I can do something by violating our laws. And what I'm proposing is the harder path, which is to use our democratic processes to achieve the same goal that you want to achieve. But it won't be as easy as just shouting. It requires us lobbying and getting it done.'' Wow, Mr. Speaker. He is being heckled for his position on immigration policy, and he says to the heckler: If I could do something about it, I would, but I can't because America's tradition is a tradition of laws. He says: It is not as easy as just one man deciding that he is going to ignore the law or change the law. What it takes is hard work, working with Congress, lobbying in Congress, working through legislation and changing the laws. It is not as easy as one man deciding he doesn't like the law, because our tradition is a tradition of law. He goes on to that heckler, Mr. Speaker, and he says to him: If you are serious about making that happen--that change happen, changing the law--if you are serious about making that happen, then I am willing to work with you, but it is going to require work. He says: It is not simply a matter of us just saying we are going to violate the law. That is not our tradition. The great thing about this country, President Obama said, is we have this wonderful process of democracy. And sometimes it is messy, and sometimes it is hard, but ultimately, justice and truth win out. That has always been the case in this country, and that is going to continue to be the case today. Mr. Speaker, that was a year ago. That was a year ago that President Obama said to the heckler wanting him to do unilateral immigration action, he said it is not just a matter of us saying we are going to violate the law. He said we have got this wonderful process, this crazy, crazy process called democracy, where we go to the House and we go to the Senate and we work to change the law. He says it is hard. He says it is a hard process. It is a messy process. But ultimately, truth and justice win out. And he is so right. He is so right. Justice Breyer in that 9-0 decision, rebuking the President for violating the Constitution, said: ``Friction between the branches is an inevitable consequence of our constitutional structure.'' We have been down this road before. Mr. Speaker, I represent a community of immigrants, a vibrant, wonderful, wonderful community of immigrants, folks who have stood in line and paid their money, folks who have relatives overseas who have been waiting in line 5 years, or 10 years, or 20 years, and I welcome the opportunity to work with my colleagues to change the law to bring fairness and justice to them. Oh, Mr. Speaker, I have got folks in my district with big brains, big minds, strong work ethics, but the visas they are here under don't allow them to go to work. The President has proposed offering 4 million new work permits to folks who have done it the wrong way. I have got folks in my district who have done it the right way, waiting in line without the ability to work. Are there things on which we can agree? There absolutely are. But isn't the first of those things that the President cannot unilaterally change the law from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? He knew that was true in 2012. He knew that was true in 2013. What has changed about our 250- year-old Constitution today that suddenly makes it okay? The silence in this town is deafening from folks who know the right way, who know the right way to pass a law, to change a law, to implement a law, and to enforce a law in the America that you and I love, the America that we inherited from patriots before us. The President says it is sometimes messy and it is sometimes hard, but the great thing about this country is we have this wonderful process called democracy. Justice Breyer says, ``Mr. President you might have forgotten a little bit about that democracy.'' And 9-0 the Supreme Court says the Constitution was thrown by the wayside in the President's zeal to implement his policies, in the President's zeal to do, as Harry Reid described it, an end run around the Senate, and the President's zeal to do, as Mr. Reid described it, an end run around the Constitution. Mr. Speaker, I welcome a policy debate with the President. I welcome a partnership with the President to fix a muddled immigration process that we have in this country today. We are a land of immigrants. We always have been, and we always will be. And I thrive on that. I celebrate that. But we are also a land of laws, a sentiment the President has acknowledged and celebrated in years past and a sentiment that just days after the last election the President threw out the window in the spirit of the ends justifying the means. I don't think the American people are going to let that stand, Mr. Speaker. And I call on folks from the left and the right to be a part of that chorus of voices. We are not having a debate tonight. We are not having a debate tomorrow about policies of immigration reform. The discussion we are having is about process. The discussion we are having is about whether or not the Constitution matters. The discussion we are having is, who writes the laws? Does Congress craft the laws and the President signs them? Or does the President craft the laws and the President signs them? ``It is not simply a matter of our saying we are going to violate the law,'' the President said. ``The easy way is to yell and scream and pretend that I can do something by violating our laws, but the better path is the harder path,'' the President says. ``With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportation through executive order, that is just not the case because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed,'' the President says. ``There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply through executive order ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as President,'' President Obama says. Nine to zero in defense of the Constitution the last time the President decided he was going to go it alone, an end run around the Senate, as Harry Reid says, an end run around the Congress, as Harry Reid says. But it took 2\1/2\ years for the Supreme Court to sort that out. I think America deserves better, I think those trying to immigrate to this country deserve better, I think those fighting for work back home deserve better, and perhaps worst, Mr. Speaker, I think the President knows better and has chosen the path he has chosen anyway. There is still time to turn back on that decision, Mr. Speaker. There is still time to engage in that partnership, to engage in that messy, that hard, but that oh so rewarding process as the President has described it that is the Constitution-defined democracy that we live in today. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague from Illinois yielding to me. If Phil Crane were sitting here on the front row tonight, he wouldn't have any idea who I am, but when you do great things, you don't ever know who those efforts, who that toiling, that sweating, that genuine effort that goes into what you do, you never know who that is going to affect. You have heard it here tonight. It was 1973. Folks were talking about how it is that we could bring conservatism to the United States Congress. It is Paul Weyrich, it is Phil Crane, and the RSC, the Republican Study Committee, is born. At that time, they thought the Republican leadership was a little too liberal in the House. They thought we needed another voice to kind of balance that leadership out. Imagine that, the audacity that a young Congressman--he had been on the Hill about 4 years at that time, won in a special election in 1969--the audacity that Phil Crane had, as a young Congressman, was to say, ``Maybe we need some balance in the discussion. Maybe we need a place to debate.'' Now, that is 1973. Fast forward, it is 2014, and if you go and visit with colleagues today who are members of that Republican Study Committee that has survived and grown under Phil Crane's leadership and others, they will tell you that when it comes to healthy debate, that may be the single best location in the entire United States House of Representatives. I want you to think about that. Again, if Phil Crane were sitting here on the front row, he would not remember the times that we have met because I was a minor blip on his radar, but what he dreamed has become the single largest and most productive forum for the discussion of ideas that exists in the people's House in the United States of America. I always wonder about the dreams that we don't hear about, those dreams that had they materialized would have affected dozens of lives, hundreds of lives, thousands of lives, but because the dreamer did not press on and the dream was never materialized, we will never know. Phil Crane was not just a dreamer. Phil Crane was a doer, and because of the work, the sweat, the toil that he invested, not dozens, not hundreds, but thousands of Members of Congress who have followed have had an opportunity to be among their colleagues and grapple with the pathway forward. So much of what we do here on the House floor seems so scripted today. What Phil Crane wanted was an opportunity for us to discuss, an opportunity for us to challenge one another, an opportunity for us to make each other better. For all the things that Phil accomplished, for all the impact he had on his family and his friends, this may seem minor, but if you are a young Member in the U.S. House of Representatives, the legacy that Phil Crane left behind isn't something; in many cases, it is everything. I cannot imagine what this institution would be today without the groundwork that he laid those many years ago and continued groundwork he continued to lay until the day he left this institution. It is a proud legacy from the great State of Illinois, and I am grateful to my friend for allowing me to come down and talk about that tonight.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. I thank my friend from Nebraska. We are all Bulldogs in Georgia, even those folks who went to the trade school in downtown Atlanta known as Georgia Tech. We are Bulldogs at heart. I want to thank you for leading this hour tonight because, so often, when folks think about what we do here, they are thinking about Republican this, Democrat that, partisan this, partisan that. Folks get mired down in philosophical debates. What you have done here tonight is get into the core of what I think we all, as Americans, care about. We are talking about energy security. We are talking about an all-of-the-above energy strategy that lowers energy prices, puts more money in the pockets of every single family through lower prices, and creates job opportunities not just in your State or my State, but all across this country, and, Madam Speaker, that provides us with energy security. I grew up in the seventies. I remember the gas lines. I remember sitting outside. That was our great President from the State of Georgia that was presiding in those days, and I will never forget President Reagan's first inaugural address. He was talking about the challenges that we were facing as Americans. He was talking about the big dreams that it was going to take to overcome those challenges. He conceded that they were big dreams, but he said, ``Why shouldn't we dream those dreams?'' Because, after all, we are Americans, we are Americans. What my friend from Nebraska said about the oil exploration in Canada really struck me. We have this debate about whether or not we should build a pipeline to bring Canadian energy down into America to provide American jobs, American construction, American manufacturing, and there are those who say, ``Well, no, don't do it because it would be better if that oil stayed in the ground.'' That is not a choice. That is not an option that is anywhere in this House or that is anywhere within our jurisdiction. The gentleman pointed out exactly the truth of the matter which is, if we don't do it, somebody else will. If we don't do it, somebody else will. There is not a nation on the planet that is going to burn that oil more responsibly than we will, and I love that about us. Madam Speaker, I love that about us, that no one will do it better than we will. This bill is H.R. 2. We reserve those numbers for the most important things that we do. I don't know if folks know that, Madam Speaker. Those top 10 numbers in the bill calendar are reserved for the biggest and best thing that we do, but, because people think this is such a partisan institution, they might think we save those numbers for the ``Republicans are the Greatest Act.'' They might think we save those numbers for the ``It's Our Way or the Highway Act.'' Nonsense. We save those numbers for the things that matter to everyone. My friend from Nebraska can correct me if I am wrong, but we have packaged together a collection of bills that have passed this House. We put them together in H.R. 2, and every single bill in that package passed with a bipartisan vote.

Mr. WOODALL. You may not know, Madam Speaker, but my friend from Nebraska is the author of the Northern Route Approval Act. It is one of those bills that passed here with a bipartisan majority, and it is in this package. It is in this underlying package. We talk about this as if it is an energy bill. Because it is H.R. 2, it is the energy bill. But that very same language that my friend has authored and led through this House of Representatives is included in the Study Committee package known as the JOBS bill, JOBS Act, that collection of bills that will put Americans back to work, that will grow the economy, that will do those things that are on the minds of every single American family. Too often we talk about energy issues as if they are separate from those issues; and what my friend knows and what he has been leading in this hour tonight, Madam Speaker, is that energy issues are jobs issues. Energy issues are family issues. Energy issues are issues to every single American citizen. Never before in my lifetime have I had the hope that we would get the hands that have been around the American neck by those who supply us with energy. We have that opportunity. I was listening to my friend from Indiana talk about coal. We are the Saudi Arabia of coal in America, the Saudi Arabia of coal. And the administration is trying to singlehandedly tie the hands of the energy industry not to exploit--and I mean ``exploit'' in the best possible sense of the word; I mean ``exploit'' in the utilize, in the harness, in the grow sense of the word--taking that off the table. That is not an environmental decision. That is a jobs decision, and we feel that in each and every one of our districts. Madam Speaker, there are a lot of ways to run this institution. You can run this institution with the iron fist that says ``my way or the highway,'' or you can run this institution with those commonsense ideas that speak to every single American family. Folks think this is an election year, I say to my friend from Nebraska, and they think that that brings out the worst in this body. What I want to say to you, under your leadership, these bills that we see here tonight, these bills that were packaged in H.R. 2, that most preeminent number in priority here at the House of Representatives, what you are leading is that language, that bill, that opportunity that puts America first and being a Republican or a Democrat way, way down the list. I think that is what folks are looking for. I think good policy is good politics. I think doing the right thing for the right reason is better than having the right commercial at the right time. It matters, and it matters to me that we have leaders like you who carry that message. I am grateful to you for leading the hour tonight. I am grateful to you for including me in it, and I am grateful to you for yielding me the time.

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I want you to hear that. We had a chance here. Republicans run this show. If we wanted to just jam something through, we could, but, when we talk about energy independence, we are not talking about Republicans and Democrats. We are talking about Americans. We are talking about every family in this country. And what the gentleman from Nebraska has done is put together those commonsense ideas that have been agreed upon by both sides of the aisle--bipartisan votes, every one--and said let's not let this year expire without doing those things that we can do, agreeing on those things on which we can agree.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the recognition. I appreciate you staying with me into the evening tonight. I wish I could tell you I was bringing you good news, but I am bringing you some bad news. It is bad news that you have already heard. I have the most recent Tax Foundation rankings of international tax competitiveness. We talk so much about jobs and the economy. We talk about how to make a difference in the lives of middle class families. We talk about jobs that are moving overseas. We talk about whether or not we are going to grow this economy. This is the ranking of the most competitive Tax Codes in this country. I want you to think about, Madam Speaker, what those things are that we can do to be more competitive in this country. We could lower everyone's wages. That would make it cheaper to build things in this country. I think that is an awful idea. We could ignore environmental regulations. That would make things easier and cheaper to build in this country. That is an awful idea. One of the things we could do, though, is deal with our tax system, a tax system that, so says the Tax Foundation, is the 32nd worst tax system of the 34 OECD countries--32nd worst in tax competitiveness. Now, they are looking at everything. They are looking at individual taxes. They are looking at corporate taxes. You go way over here on the end, Madam Speaker, you get to the international tax rules rank. That is how well we work with the rest of the world with our tax system. America ranks dead last. Why do I bring that up, Madam Speaker? I bring it up because I am reading from our Treasury Secretary, Jack Lew, his comments at the Urban Institute last week. He's talking about American corporations moving their headquarters overseas. Not moving a factory overseas, but moving their international headquarters overseas. And he says this: This practice allows the corporation to avoid their civic responsibilities while continuing to benefit from everything that makes America the best place in the world to do business. Worst place in the world to do business, that is what the Tax Foundation tells us. I read on from Jack Lew's speech. He said: The best place in the world to do business: our rule of law, our intellectual property rights, our support for research and development, our universities, our innovative and entrepreneurial culture, our skilled workforce. Again, speaking about the practice of moving your headquarters overseas, he says: This may be legal, but it is wrong, and our laws should change. By effectively renouncing their citizenship, these companies are eroding America's corporate tax base. That means all other taxpayers will have to shoulder their responsibility. I go again to a Tax Foundation chart, Madam Speaker. It is a chart of what the rate is. And you can't see what the individual corporate tax rates are, but what you can see is the green lines here. That is the average corporate tax rate. Around the world, it is 25 percent. You see another green line, that is the weighted average by the size of the economy. That of course gives more weight to the larger economies on the planet. That goes up to 29 percent. And at the bottom of this chart, Madam Speaker, you see in red the United States of America, with the absolute highest corporate tax rate in the world. By our own design--and I say ``our own.'' I have not gotten to vote on a corporate Tax Code, Madam Speaker, since I have been in this Chamber for 3\1/2\ years, but by our design as a nation we have created the absolute worst place to do business on the entire planet. Our Treasury Secretary calls companies who observe that and make changes because of that so that our grandmothers and our grandfathers and our pension programs and everyone who relies on the success of those companies in order to meet their fixed income demands so that those companies can succeed, he calls that a shirking of civic responsibility. I am on the floor tonight, Madam Speaker, to suggest that it is not those companies that observed that America is the worst on the planet and move elsewhere that are shirking their responsibilities. It is those of us in this Chamber, those of us on Capitol Hill, those of us in Washington, D.C., who are responsible for this corporate tax road, it is we who are shirking our civic responsibilities because we can do better. I know it is getting late, Madam Speaker, and I hate to take you through the math, but when we talk about tax codes and why they are so bad, it is the math that matters. This is the tax liability for a corporation doing business in the United States of America. Let's say you earned $1,000. You are going to pay a 35 percent rate. You are going to add State taxes to that rate as well. It is going to be about 39.1 percent, on average, about $391 out of every $1,000. So at the end of the day, you are going to be able to take home $609 to pay your salaries, to invest in your business, to grow your company-- $609. That is an American company doing business in America. How about a Canadian company doing business in Canada? Same $1,000 worth of income. They are paying a 15 percent tax rate at the national level. They are also having a provincial tax rate added to that, totals to about 26.5 percent, $265. They are taking home $735. You earn $1,000 worth of income as an American company doing business in America, you take home $609. You earn $1,000 in income in a Canadian company doing business in Canada, you take home $735. I know what you are thinking, Madam Speaker. You are thinking that's apples to oranges. One is doing business in America; one is doing business in Canada. Let's look further. Let's say we take those same two companies, that one American company, that one Canadian company, and let's say they are both doing business in the United States of America. They earn $1,000. They pay $391 in taxes. They are at the highest corporate tax rate in the world. That American company takes home $609. Go to the Canadian company doing business in America. They earn that same $1,000. They pay that same highest corporate tax rate that America has, the highest in the world. They take home $609. Whether you are the U.S. company or the Canadian company, you do business in America, you pay the same tax. I know what you are thinking, Madam Speaker. You are saying, Well, what is the argument here? What is the issue that we have to come together and solve? It is this issue right here, Madam Speaker. Let's say you are not doing business in America. Let's say you are doing business in Canada. We are going to take that same American company, we are going to take that same Canadian company, and we are going to look at what happens when they are doing business in Canada. That American company earns $1,000. It pays the Canadian Government $265. The Canadian company raises $1,000, and they pay the Canadian Government $265. But it is what happens next that makes America one of the worst tax codes in the world. When you try to bring that $735 you have left over back to America, you pay American taxes on top of what you have already paid Canada. So the U.S. corporation doing business in Canada earns $1,000; they end up with $650 at the end of the day. The Canadian company doing $1,000 worth of business in Canada pays their taxes, ends up with $735 at the end of the day. That is why companies are moving overseas. They do exactly the same business in exactly the same place as all of their international competitors, but simply because their headquarters is based in America, they pay more. The power to tax is the power to destroy. And because of the way we have chosen to tax our companies, a methodology that has been rejected by most of the rest of the world, we punish every single company that chooses to stay in America employing Americans. We have been talking about it in terms of Burger King and Tim Hortons. I don't know if you are a Burger King fan, Madam Speaker. I don't know if you are a Tim Hortons fan. I love them both. I love them both. And the suggestion has been made that when Burger King and Tim Hortons are going to get together and the headquarters is going to be located in Canada instead of America, that that is somehow an unpatriotic decision being made by Burger King. I want you to see the revenue by category that this new Burger King- Tim Hortons merger is going to have. This acquisition by Burger King is going to have about 20 percent of the revenue coming from America, about 67 percent of the revenue coming from Canada, about 13 percent coming internationally. I go back to this chart, Madam Speaker, where I said, What if you are doing business in Canada? If you are an American company, you take home less, not a little less, but more than 10 percent less. If you are a Canadian company, you take home more. Same amount of business, same country of business location, but because your headquarters is somewhere different, you take home less money. Well, if you are Burger King and you are in this Tim Hortons acquisition, you are making most of your money in Canada, so what are you supposed to do? If I ask the White House, they would tell me I am supposed to stay in America and put up with the absolute worst Tax Code the country has ever seen, this country has ever seen, but also the worst tax code anywhere on the planet. This is America for Pete's sakes. We can do better. It is not that Burger King is choosing to leave America; it is that America is running Burger King out. And that, that responsibility lies with us here in this Chamber. It is an arcane issue called a worldwide tax system versus a territorial tax system. When you are in a worldwide tax system--and there are only seven countries left in the world that do this--you double-tax your companies. You charge them a tax based on the country in which they earned the money, and then if they bring that money back to America, you charge them another tax on top of that. Most nations on this planet, most nations with First World economies, they use what is called a territorial tax system. That means whatever country you raise the money in, you pay the tax in; and when you bring that money back to your home country, you are not double-taxed one more time. This is the issue we ought to be talking about. We shouldn't be talking about patriotism. We should be talking about common sense as it relates to having America compete in a global economy. I ask you, Madam Speaker, if we have the absolute worst tax code in the world, if we have the absolute highest corporate tax rate in the would, if we have the least competitive international tax system in the world, what do you think is going to happen to international businesses when they make their decision about whether or not to locate in America? They decide no. They decide no. Madam Speaker, I want to talk just a little bit about what President Obama has said. It is called corporate inversion. When you move your headquarters from America, you acquire a different company overseas, you make that your international headquarters, it is called a corporate inversion. You may have seen that in the news. Here is what President Obama's has had to say about it: Even as corporate profits are higher than ever, there is a small but growing rube of big corporations that are fleeing the country to get out of paying taxes. Fleeing the country to get out of paying taxes. President Obama goes on. He says, I say ``fleeing the country,'' but they are not actually doing that. They are not going anywhere. They are keeping their business here, but they are moving their headquarters. They don't want to give up the best universities, the best military, the advantages. They just don't want to pay for it, so they are technically renouncing their U.S. citizenship. Well, that sounds very similar to what I read from Jack Lew a little bit earlier. That is the party line coming out of the White House. I go on. President Obama says: These businesses are playing by the rules, but these companies are cherry-picking the rules and it damages our Nation's finances. It makes it harder to invest in things like job training. He says: I am not interested in punishing these companies, but I am interested in economic patriotism. As a government, we have crafted the most punishing tax code on the face of this Earth. We have created the longest list of disincentives to locate your business in our country that is available anywhere on the planet today. And the question the President is asking is: I don't want to punish these companies, but where is their economic patriotism? Madam Speaker, where is our economic patriotism? The Tax Code is something we created. Do you believe for a moment if the 435 of us in this Chamber got together to write the Tax Code today we would write the absolute worst tax code available anywhere on planet Earth? I don't think so. If we designed this Tax Code from scratch, we would have done something very different, but this is where we would have ended up. I will close with this from the President: Now, the problem is this loophole. They are using it in our tax laws, but it is actually legal. My attitude is I don't care if it is legal; it is wrong. I don't care if it's the law of the land, I don't care if it's the law, they shouldn't do it anyway. When I think about the law, Madam Speaker, I don't know where you go, but I go to the courts for answers. And it is interesting that this idea of economic patriotism--this isn't the first time we have heard it--it has been argued in court time and time again. I quote from the Second Circuit, affirmed by the Supreme Court: Anyone may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the Treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. We have had the suggestion: economic patriotism, you should pay more, you should pay more. It is not our fault, it is the Congress; it is not our fault, it is the government; it is your fault as the job creator out in America, you should be doing something different. We saw this again, another Second Circuit case: Over and over again the courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging one's affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor alike, and all do right. For nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands. Taxes are enforced extractions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant. Taxes are extractions, not voluntary contributions. Madam Speaker, I want to say to all of my colleagues, everybody in the administration: If you don't believe you are paying enough in taxes, we can give you an address to the Treasury Department where you can mail your check. Taxes are extractions. If you are interested in a voluntary contribution, I can tell you where to mail your check. Tax law exists to provide certainty, not just certainty to employers, but also to investors, also to entrepreneurs, also to families, also to employees, to those folks who show up to work day in and day out. The law provides us with certainty. We, as a government, have created the worst tax environment on the planet in which to do business, and the leader of our government wants to blame the companies that have stuck with us day in and day out for the last 50 years. The wonder isn't that companies are leaving us today, Madam Speaker; the wonder is that companies didn't leave us long ago. It is a punishing environment to do business in America. So what is the solution? Because, Madam Speaker, you know I am not going to come down here and identify a problem and not talk to you about how to solve it. But before I get to my solutions, I want to talk to you about President Obama, whom I have quoted tonight; what Secretary of Treasury Jack Lew, whom I quoted tonight, what they have to say about the solution, and it is this: the best way to level the playing field is through tax reform that lowers the corporate tax rate, closes wasteful loopholes, and simplifies the Tax Code for everybody. I am with him 100 percent--with him 100 percent. What the President has said here, I support 100 percent. That is not what he is saying on the campaign trail. On the campaign trail he is saying: any business that tries to do what is best for its employees, what is best for its shareholders, and what is best for its customers is unpatriotic. If they choose to try to improve the lot of their customers, their shareholders, and their employees that somehow there is an obligation to subject yourself to what this Congress and this White House, this country, has created, a monstrosity of a tax code. Maybe Jack Lew had a different idea as Treasury Secretary. He says: Only tax reform can solve the problems in our Tax Code that lead to inversions. I know what you are thinking, Madam Speaker. You are wondering if I brought the wrong slides to the floor tonight. You are wondering if I made some sort of terrible mistake. Because I have been talking about how President Obama said it was unpatriotic, how he said it was their fault, how he said they ought to fix it, they ought to stay. And Jack Lew said it is their fault, they have a duty, they ought to fix it, and they ought to stay. No. These are the very same men saying something entirely different. Because they know, not on the campaign trail, but in the serious rooms where they are talking about serious policy, that the only way to take America into this next century, the only way to make us the most competitive Nation on the planet, the only way to get those jobs back in America, back from overseas, is fundamental Tax Code reform. Burger King can't do fundamental Tax Code reform, only the Congress can. Tim Hortons can't do fundamental Tax Code reform, only the Congress can. Warren Buffett can't do fundamental tax reform, only this Congress can. We can and we should. In fact, our Ways and Means chairman, Dave Camp, Madam Speaker, has tried. Let me go on and just get the other side of the issue from folks here on Capitol Hill. I quoted folks in the White House and the administration. House Speaker John Boehner says this, talking about all these statements about unpatriotic behavior: Instead of dividing people for political advantage, the President can endorse our push for comprehensive tax reform or convince Senate Democrats to act. Let's solve the real problem here. Because it is the real problem here: the worst tax code on the planet. We have done this to ourselves. House Ways and Means chairman, Dave Camp: Everyone agrees that tax reform is the only solution that will both keep companies from moving their headquarters out of the United States and, more importantly, encourage more businesses to grow, hire, and increase wages for American workers. Folks, that is what it is about: grow, hire, increase wages for American workers. It is not about passing a mandatory minimum wage. That is going to kill jobs. It is going to increase some people's salaries at the expense of others. It is not about doing away with environmental protections. We support environmental protections. Obviously, there are some regulations that make no sense, but those regulations that protect us, we need those. It is not going back to the time when rivers were on fire and our environment was at risk. The answer is in fundamental Tax Code reform so that we can grow, so that we can hire, so that we can increase American wages. And over on the Senate side, Chairman Ron Wyden, Democratic Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, says this: America should not be part of a race to the bottom. It is clear that America must establish a more efficient and competitive corporate tax rate. People wonder why it is we can't get things done here, Madam Speaker. You and I wonder why it is we can't get more done. It is because when folks are on the campaign trail, they tell one story. They tell a story that divides us. They tell a story that tells us who to blame. They tell a story about the big corporations who happen to provide a lot of jobs to a lot of American families. But that is not the story they tell. They tell the story of greed and perversion in the Tax Code. But when they get down to serious policy conversations, when they get off the campaign trail and start talking about what really makes a difference, they all agree fundamental tax reform makes the difference. Now, how are we going to get there? We have seen the shenanigans that go on that prevent us from going there, we have seen the desperate need that requires that we get there. How are we going to get there? Well, Madam Speaker, the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness has been clear on this topic. This is President Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness: We have to view our corporate tax rates as part of our national package for attracting job-creating investment. I will give you a hint, Madam Speaker. If you want your corporate tax rates to be part of a package for attracting jobs in national investment, you don't want them to be the worst in the world, you want them to be the best in the world. The President's Council knows this. Our system of corporate taxation hurts business competitiveness and American workers and it cries out for reforms. The President's Council says our corporate Tax Code hurts American workers and business competitiveness. They don't conclude that businesses are evil and greedy and out to stick it to American taxpayers. They conclude that businesses are struggling and trying, but it is our Tax Code that is the albatross around their neck: A growing body of research also shows that in a world of mobile capital, workers bear a rising share of the burden of the corporate income tax in the form of reduced employment opportunities and lower wages. Madam Speaker, I am going to read that again, because we don't have that conversation enough. These are not my words, these are the words of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness: A growing body of research also shows that in a world of mobile capital, workers bear a rising share of the burden of the corporate income tax in the form of reduced employment opportunities and lower wages. The United States of America, worst international competitiveness anywhere on the planet, worst international tax code anywhere on the planet. The United States of America, highest corporate tax rate anywhere on the planet, largest disincentive to do business anywhere on the planet. The President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness: These giant corporate tax rates don't punish corporations, they punish American workers. My friends, Madam Speaker, we don't have corporations that pay taxes, we have corporations that raise prices. We don't have corporations that pay taxes, we have corporations that lower wages. We don't have corporations that pay taxes, we have corporations that lower return on capital. Corporations don't pay taxes, they collect taxes. They collect them from the people who buy their products, they collect them from their employees in those lower wages, they collect them in lower returns to capital--their shareholders, our seniors on those fixed incomes. High corporate tax rates don't punish corporations, they don't punish employers, they punish employees, they punish middle class American families. Madam Speaker, the President's Council recommended a move to that territorial tax system I talk about. They recommended eliminating this vestige of an older time where capital was not so mobile, a vestige only seven countries in the world still use. We are the largest economy to still use it. It disadvantages us more than it does anybody else. The President's Council recommends eliminating that territorial tax system, not double-taxing. It says: The current worldwide system makes investing . . . in the United States more expensive from a tax point of view than reinvesting them abroad, where they are not subject to additional corporate income tax. Think about the lunacy of that, Madam Speaker. In the name of so- called ``helping the American economy'' by bringing in more revenue through higher tax rates, what we do to American companies is discourage them from bringing money home and investing it here, and instead encourage them to keep the money overseas and invest there. I don't know what you are thinking of when you are thinking of investment. I am thinking of building a new factory, I am thinking of expanding productivity of your workers, I am thinking of those things that grow economies. The President's Council says our Tax Code encourages those things to happen for other people's citizens. I want to encourage those things to happen for our citizens. Corporate tax reform is the answer. Madam Speaker, I am going to close in a place that makes me happy. I told you I had bad news when I got down here to start. I did have bad news. The bad news is we have tied one arm of the American economy behind America's back. We have burdened ourselves with the worst Tax Code the world has ever seen, and we are demanding that American companies follow our disastrous model or else face the accusation that they are somehow unpatriotic. That has been the White House's solution to a slow economy and rapid job deterioration. Madam Speaker, what you can't see on this poster is Ronald Reagan's solution to some of those very same challenges. Because when he was elected in 1980, he faced some of those very same economic challenges that we are facing here today. And Ronald Reagan came together with the U.S. House of Representatives, led by Democrats, and passed fundamental tax reform for the last time it was passed in this country--1986--last large tax reform that we had in this country. They said he couldn't do it. They said he couldn't do it, Madam Speaker. They said it was too big. He did two things that this White House, this administration, has not done, and that I implore them to do, Madam Speaker--two things. Number one, he didn't just talk about it, he released a proposal of his own. He didn't just release one proposal, his Treasury Department released two proposals. Our Treasury Department giving speeches on why it is a corporation's fault, Ronald Reagan's Treasury Department offering solutions; two entire fundamental tax reform proposals for the Congress to examine, improve, and pass. Ronald Reagan said this, Madam Speaker. He said: Just as sure as Ruth could hit home runs and Rose can break records, during this session of the Congress, America's tax plan will become law. But it's going to take all of us and all of you letting the folks in Washington know you that you want this change made. He led, Madam Speaker. I thank you for your leadership, I ask my colleagues for their leadership, and, together, we can make sure that American jobs come first and the American economy is first in the world. With that, Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL

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

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague on the Rules Committee, my friend from Oklahoma, for yielding. I am not sure what it is that is happening here on this floor right now because the bill that is before us that everyone is rising to object to is the bill that allows us to bring up the same day, just as soon as we find a solution that can bring this House together, bring a bill immediately to the floor to solve a crisis. I just want to make that clear. The bill that is before us today is the only piece of legislation in this town that allows us to move immediately to solve a crisis. I am not talking about a crisis that is imagined by Republicans or imagined by Democrats. I have in my hand here a letter from Jeh Johnson, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Speaker. In an open letter to families all across the world he says: So, let me be clear: there is no path to deferred action or citizenship, or one being contemplated by Congress, for a child who crosses our border illegally today. I have heard the hearts of my friends on the other side of the aisle, I have heard the hearts. But we are a Nation of laws, as well as hearts, and you know that the law of the land does not allow for that, as the Secretary of Homeland Security said. Yet, down here on the floor today, if I was watching this from my home in Guatemala or Honduras or El Salvador, I would be led to believe there is. We are better than that, and we have to be better than that because this is, in fact, a crisis. It is not an imagined crisis. It is a real crisis. Folks thought this House was going to go home yesterday, they thought this House was going to go home yesterday, just like the Senate did, without providing a response. That is not the House I ran to be a part of. We are still here, we are still here working, and, by golly, I believe we are going to have a solution on the floor. I believe we are going to have a solution on the floor before the Sun goes down today, and I am so proud, I am so proud that we are here to do that. But I tell you this, we cannot do it if this bill does not pass. This rule today gives us a pathway to success. In its absence, that pathway will be delayed. Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. These are not partisan issues. Education is not a partisan issue. Children are not partisan issues. We have votes with 360 Members of this body. Again, this is the hyperpartisan House--so the news tells me--and two bills right there in front of you are making a difference in people's lives. They could make that difference today, and yet the Senate does nothing. I have been preaching the ``Stuck in the Senate'' hashtag message, I will say to my friend, because I still believe. I told folks when we started this hour tonight that this is a good news/bad news hour. The good news is I am sitting on top of a stack of 356 bills that this House has passed in a bipartisan way, and the bad news is that they are stuck in the Senate. I believe that perhaps you and I, as young Congressmen, can't move the Senate, but I believe the American people still can move the Senate.

Mr. WOODALL. I thank my friend. It is exactly that commitment to working together to make a difference that I think folks long for in this place. And it is exactly what you have there, H.R. 803, the Workplace Innovation Act. It is true. That is one of our success stories. But you first came to the floor to support that in March of 2013. The reason we are able to call this a success is because the Senate finally got around to dealing with it in June of 2014--over a year. It could have been making a difference in people's lives. I am thrilled that now we are making that difference, but we wasted a year. And the family that you talked about, a family struggling to try to decide what tomorrow is going to look like, doesn't have a year to wait. The Internet Tax Freedom bill you discussed just came out of this body this summer. That is something the Senate could take up immediately. As you said, it came out of here with wild bipartisan support. It could begin to make a difference tomorrow--tomorrow. I am happy to yield to my friend.

Mr. WOODALL. I thank my friend. He is such a great leader. Bringing voices together is that skill set that sometimes this institution lacks, and he has it in spades. As I close tonight, Mr. Speaker, I just want to make it clear, this isn't a partisan stunt. This isn't Republican machinations. 356 bills sit in the Senate right now that, if the Senate moved them, could begin to make a difference in the lives of American families. I want to tell you about those bills: 98 percent of them passed with a bipartisan vote. 98 percent of these bills passed with a bipartisan vote. 254 of these bills passed with either no opposition or two-thirds support. Almost 200, no opposition at all; 60 introduced by my Democratic colleagues. Making a difference for America is not a partisan exercise, Mr. Speaker, but it is a sacred trust. I am so proud of this House for moving forward on these bills to make a difference. I know that we can work together to encourage Harry Reid to do the same. I know our friends across the country, the bosses of the United States Senate, can encourage the Senate to do the same. This country is thirsty for leadership. I am proud of my colleagues on both sides of the House for providing it. I look forward to partnering with the Senate and the President to move these bills into that difference-making position for those families across this country. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. I am looking at the Northern Route Approval Act poster you have got behind you, and I am looking at the ``days in the Senate'' column. It says it has been 434 days that that bill has been in the Senate. You are a new Member in this body. I have only had a voting card for 3 years. I know it is a collaborative process, but as I look at that 434 days in the Senate, does it mean that we have sent over a proposal to expand energy production to make those family-providing jobs that you mention and the Senate didn't like our idea, and so they sent us back a different proposal, and we have dropped the ball? Is that a possibility?