Rob Woodall

Mr. WOODALL

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

Mr. WOODALL

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

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, it is my great pleasure to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Messer).

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. No.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. I am the final speaker on our side.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I am surprised we have spent most of the hour talking about what is not in this rule today because we have great cause of celebration for what is in this rule today. It has not been months; it has been years we have been working to get a farm bill. There is an extension that this rule allows to be voted on that will bring us in the next 30 days that agreement we have been so long searching for. Mr. Speaker, it has been since 1997 that the SGR has been a part of our lingo here. That is that provision that threatens access to health care for every senior in America. This bill today, this rule today allows us to have a vote on a bipartisan, bicameral solution to that. It is actually a 3-month extension that leads to the end of this discussion forever, putting at ease every senior's mind in America that around this time of year, every year, their access to care will be threatened. Perhaps most importantly, Mr. Speaker, this rule allows for a vote on the bipartisan, bicameral budget agreement. This is not a grand agreement. It is not the grand agreement that I have been fighting for on the Budget Committee for the last 3 years, but what it is is a small step in the right direction. The reason it is a small step in the right direction, Mr. Speaker, is that we take those sequester cuts that no one would argue were done in a discriminate manner, we preserve those savings, but we apply them in a much more discriminate manner. For me, that is national security. The concern has always been national security. Today, Air Force units have reduced their training activities by about 25 percent. With the sequester, only 2 of 43 active brigade combat teams are ready or available for deployment in the United States Army. We absolutely must rein in Federal spending--this budget agreement does that--but we must do so in a responsible way that preserves our national security. The sequester reductions that were coming up in January, as many of my friends know, fell on no program in the land except for our Armed Forces, except for our national security. The Constitution does not ask much of us in this House, Mr. Speaker--far too often we are doing too much here as opposed to not enough--but it asks us to protect and preserve our national security. And with this bill today, while it does not achieve my Medicare goals, while it does not achieve my Social Security goals, while it does not achieve the budget reduction goals I would like to see, it does replace an indiscriminate sequester with discriminate reductions in mandatory spending programs, putting those dollars, instead, towards our national security. I will end where I began, Mr. Speaker, with the letter from Thomas Jefferson to Charles Clay in 1790: The ground of liberty is to be gained by inches, and we must be contented to secure what we can from time to time and eternally press forward for what is yet to get. I urge a strong ``yes'' vote on this rule and a ``no'' vote on my colleague's motion so that we do those things that we are able to do today and then tomorrow eternally press forward.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to go back to the place I was earlier, and that is how one of the worst things we do in this institution is create fears in the minds of the American people. The gentlelady from California has a powerful voice. She is listened to, admired, and respected across this great land; and it has to be said, I was just in a hearing, Mr. Speaker, in the Oversight Committee where we were hearing from doctors who were talking about all the fears their patients had that they were going to lose access to their doctor and lose access to their pharmaceuticals because of ObamaCare. Now, those fears have been realized. That is exactly what happened to those patients. But these fears are not realized. I want to make clear to everybody back home because I talk to constituents every day who are losing their jobs in response to what their employers are doing to be able to afford the ObamaCare mandates. They are losing their jobs, Mr. Speaker, and absolutely every week of State unemployment that has always been available to them will continue to be available to them. Fear not from what you are hearing from the other side of the aisle. Mr. Speaker, for those folks who are losing their jobs in my district as their employers are trying to comply with those mandates, understand that every week that you paid your insurance premium for unemployment insurance, all of those Federal weeks that have been there not for a year, not for 5 years, but for a decade, those will still be there for you. Fear not, that is still there. What we are talking about here today, Mr. Speaker, are benefits in the emergency unemployment category, benefits that folks have not paid the insurance premiums for, benefits that are absolutely being utilized by families across this country. I don't minimize the impact of those going away. I don't minimize the impact; but I reject, Mr. Speaker, the fear creation that coming to the floor of the House and saying unemployment benefits are going away tomorrow is going to create in my district. Folks are losing their jobs today. Why, because after we do job creation bill after job creation bill after job creation bill, I can't find a bipartisan, bicameral agreement on those. I'm going to keep looking, but I haven't found it yet. My message, Mr. Speaker, is if you are losing your job today because of the heavy foot--and I won't yield because I am running low on time. I know my friend has much time remaining. If you are one of those folks in my district or others who are losing your job because the heavy hand of government is on your employer, those unemployment benefits on which you are counting to apply tomorrow will be there. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to remind my colleagues about the successes that we have had when we worked together and about the terrible, terrible failures that we have had when we decide fussing with each other is better than seeking long-term solutions. One issue at a time we can absolutely make a difference, Mr. Speaker. I am glad that my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle have not come down to express all of their disappointments about everything that wasn't included. I hope that we will be able to use this time to celebrate our successes on those things that were included and again rise tomorrow to solve the rest. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Well, I would say to my friend suggesting anyone is skipping town is also not a good answer.

Mr. WOODALL. The gentleman knows, and it is so frustrating, Mr. Speaker, because, again, much, much to the surprise of the odds makers all across this country, we have got three provisions before us today on which Republicans and Democrats on the House side and the Senate side, with the support of the White House, have been able to come together on. If we want to go down the road of moving things on which we don't have agreement, the gentleman knows those things don't move. If you want to make a difference for people, I say stop the recriminations and begin the conversations. That is the only way we have been able to find these, Mr. Speaker. I say to my folks back home, Mr. Speaker, it is not the happiest day in the life of their Seventh District Congressman that we have these bills on the floor today. I would do something different in every single one of them--every single one. I would do a lot of things different in every single one. While I appreciate the opportunity to speak on behalf of the Speaker, perhaps one day if I am Speaker of the House I will have the power to do those things by myself. I think if you ask the Speaker, he will say he does not have the power to do things alone. It takes herding 434 other cats to make that happen. But we have successes here today, hard-fought successes on behalf of the American people. Not frivolous things, but things that are going to make a difference in people's lives. My colleague from New York mentioned earlier, Mr. Speaker, medical research. I am a huge believer in medical research, a huge believer in NIH. CDC is stationed in my great home State of Georgia. We have an opportunity with this budget agreement to restore some funding to those two agencies that do amazing work on behalf of all Americans, in fact, in the case of the CDC, on behalf of the world. We should take advantage of these successes, Mr. Speaker, and then we should show up again--maybe it is not even tomorrow; maybe it is the very next hour--and build on these successes to do more. We have got that framework now. We know what it takes to come together and do things that matter to the American people, do things that make a difference for this land that we both love. We have that opportunity today.

Mr. WOODALL. I would say to my friend that we are very lopsided on time. If the gentlelady runs out later in the hour, I will be happy to yield to my friend. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I would say to my friend that I wouldn't want anyone to be confused who is listening to this debate that we can't find agreement on this in a bipartisan way. Why would folks come to that conclusion? Well, much has been said here on the floor; but the facts are that time and time and time again these provisions have been extended and they were not extended January 2013, February 2012. All the way back to the beginning they were not extended on party-line votes alone. They were extended in a bipartisan, bicameral way.

Mr. WOODALL. In just one moment, I would be happy to yield to my friend from Maryland. We have here on the floor, Mr. Speaker, a rule, again, to bring bipartisan, bicameral agreements on the budget, bipartisan, bicameral agreements on Medicare, bipartisan, bicameral agreements on the farm bill; and we have two of the finest minds in this institution with two of the biggest hearts in this institution, who want to do the right thing for the American people, who are using this as their opportunity to try to get that done. I can promise my friends, Mr. Speaker, that we are not going to solve that problem here in the 1 hour of debate on this entirely separate measure. What the gentleman characterized as the agreement within the Budget Committee is we weren't going to be able to find an answer to SGR within the budget conference and we didn't. We found it outside of the conference. We didn't find an answer to my issues with Medicare in the conference. We didn't find the answers to saving Social Security in the conference. So many things I wanted we didn't find in the conference. The commitment that was made was to deal with UI outside of the conference. I don't sit on any of the relevant committees for UI, but I take folks at their word that that is something we can solve outside of conference. We are not going to solve it here. Knowing that folks need that help, it is a great frustration to me, Mr. Speaker, that some of the finest minds in this Congress are focusing their energy on this hour while we are trying to move things forward that we do agree on instead of focusing their energy trying to find that agreement on things we do not yet agree on but we could agree on if folks would focus their energies in that direction. I will be happy to yield to my friend from Maryland.

Mr. WOODALL. Will the gentlelady yield?

Mr. WOODALL. In just one moment, I will be happy to yield to my friend. Folks back home are so frustrated, Mr. Speaker. They know that we can argue with each other. They are absolutely convinced we can do that. We do that every single day. Today, we have an opportunity on this rule to move forward those things that we have not found an easy agreement on, but things we have struggled to find agreement on for, again, not days, not weeks, in most cases months, in many cases years, and we have finally found that agreement. I do not believe, Mr. Speaker, it advances any of our causes to turn what should be an hour on those things that we are doing well together into any kind of an hour on accusations that somebody is right and somebody is wrong and only if we do it one way can we find the answers. I will be happy to yield 30 seconds to my friend.

Mr. WOODALL. I am sure that the gentlelady does not mean to suggest that there is meanness going on, I would ask the gentlelady.

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

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 438 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. WOODALL

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

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say to this body there are actually more that my friend from Florida and I agree on than what we disagree on. I might not say that at a townhall meeting back home, but I will say that to you here, because at its core we all share a vision of what this Nation can be, what this Nation should be; but we do get mired in the rhetoric. It is interesting that we have a bill today that those folks who represent mom-and-pop businesses say is so important to them they are going to make sure that every single Member of this House knows that they are keeping score on this and they want a ``yes'' vote on that legislation. Yet we have other bills here that the trial lawyers are saying are so important to them that they are going to write letter after letter after letter saying this is not in the best interest of the country, we should move in a different direction. I will tell you, those are exactly the kinds of bills that we ought to be working on. Now, are there bigger-picture bills out there? Absolutely there are. I would like to see a bill that solves Social Security forever, where we end this business about Social Security is going to go bankrupt, and once and for all we solve that issue so no senior is ever concerned about that again. We don't have that bill on the floor today. We have an opportunity to stop frivolous lawsuits. I would like to see a bill on the floor that balances the Federal budget. I am old fashioned that way, Mr. Speaker. I think if you want to spend it, you ought to raise it. If you don't want to raise it, then don't spend it. But we don't have that bill on the floor today. We have a bill to make sure that trust funds intended to protect victims of a horrible, horrible perpetration by industry have an opportunity to collect what little money there is left from those businesses that perpetrated those harms. I think we should support that bill today. Mr. Speaker, one step at a time we really can make a difference. I have been reading with great dismay that some of the colleagues that I was elected with 3 years ago have decided they are not going to run for reelection. They have been here 3 years, and they have found that while they came here to make America a better place, while they came here to serve the men and women back home, while they came here to make sure their children grew up with the same freedoms and opportunities that they grew up with, they have decided that it might not be happening. We can and we must do better. In fact, we had a committee hearing last night. My colleague from Florida (Mr. Webster) said, I think ``comprehensive'' ought to be a dirty word. Comprehensive ought to be a dirty word, because when I hear ``comprehensive,'' Mr. Speaker, what I hear is we are throwing everything in, and the kitchen sink, and I want you to pass all or nothing on the House floor. It doesn't have to be that way. I promise you if you put together a 2,000-page bill, Mr. Speaker, there are going to be parts of it that my constituency does not believe are in the best interest of America. But if we pass bills 10 pages at a time, 20 pages at a time, maybe even 30 pages at a time, Mr. Speaker, if we move one idea at a time, we get a ``yes'' or ``no'' vote from both sides of the aisle, we send it to the Senate, we pass it in the Senate, and the President puts a signature on it, we can make a difference. I believe that that momentum matters. I hope we get a ``yes'' vote on the rule. I hope we get a ``yes'' vote on these underlying bills. I hope we get bills coming out of the farm bill conference. I hope we get bills coming out of the budget conference. I hope we get bills coming out of the Water Resources and Reform Development Act conference. I hope we move these things before we begin to build that momentum. We are at a stumbling place, Mr. Speaker. There is an impediment in our way. I read some White House sources this week that said they recognize that we have not come through on the promise of ``if you like your insurance, you can keep it.'' They were looking for solutions, but they weren't going to come to Congress to look for solutions. They were going to look for administrative solutions, and they were going to try to fix it on their own. As we have heard on this floor many times, the Affordable Care Act is the law of the land; ObamaCare is the law of the land. An administrative branch shouldn't just be able to unilaterally change the law of the land. The Constitution gives that responsibility to us. We have got to step up and take responsibility for those things that the Constitution invests in us, and article III courts are one of those things. We are taking that responsibility up today. Mr. Speaker, we have an opportunity not to be Republicans and Democrats, but to be representatives of Americans in the greatest body in this entire land, the closest to the American people--the U.S. House of Representatives. We have a chance to announce our position, the House position, and move that to the Senate and then, lo and bold, we have an opportunity to work with the Senate not to adopt a Republican position or a Democrat position, but a congressional opinion, an article I constitutional opinion that we then march down Pennsylvania Avenue and say to the Executive, be he or she a Republican or a Democrat, this is what the people have to say; we need your signature on that. They can say ``yes'' or ``no.'' We have set up these roadblocks, Mr. Speaker, where it is not House and Senate; it is Republican and Democrat. It does not serve this institution well. It does not serve America well. I hope we are going to have bipartisan votes on these two bills today, Mr. Speaker. We are exercising a constitutional responsibility to direct the courts. We can vote ``yes,'' we can vote ``no,'' but it is not something that is peripheral to what we are about. It is something that is essential to the responsibilities that the Constitution has placed with us. I promise my colleagues this institution will be a better institution if we pull out that rule book called the United States Constitution more often and start with those priorities that it has invested in us, not the priorities that some interest group has invested in us, not the priorities that the news media has invested in us, not the priorities that a Republican Party or a Democratic Party have invested in us, but the priorities the United States Constitution invests in us, we will restore the faith of the American people in this institution. These two bills do that, Mr. Speaker. I encourage a strong ``yes'' vote on the rule that has made in order all of the amendments that were offered, save one. Let this body work its will. Support this rule. Support the underlying bill. Vote your conscience on the amendments to make the bills better if you want to, but let's get our constitutional responsibilities done.