Rob Woodall

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my friend from New York (Ms. Slaughter), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 370 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. WOODALL. I thank my friend from New York for joining me on the floor today. Mr. Speaker, in closing, it is sad for the House that we have come to define a CR as any sort of success whatsoever. Every Member of this body knows that, when we talk about CRs, we are just talking about varying degrees of failure, because there was a better way that the House was obligated to do that we didn't do. I want to say to my friends again that no one has said this bill won't help. Absolutely, everyone knows this bill will help, but I want to reach out my hand once again, Mr. Speaker, and say what my friend from South Carolina said moments ago: take your pick. I will meet you on your terms. Either let's take these things that we agree on in government, and let's fund them--let's pick and choose those things we agree on, and let's fund them--or let's fund it all, and let's stop the picking and choosing in ObamaCare of what we like. If it's all good, let's fund all of the government, and let's obey all of ObamaCare, giving those waivers to individuals that Big Business got. If it's not good, then let's focus on these things that we unanimously agree are good. There is a path forward, Mr. Speaker. We can find it together. I believe the rule and the bill we have before us today begin to take us down that path.

Mr. WOODALL. I very much thank my friend. I do not have any speakers remaining.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, at this time, it gives me great pleasure to yield 1 minute to a leader from the great State of South Carolina (Mr. Rice), a good friend of mine and a new Member of this body.

Mr. WOODALL. I yield myself an additional 30 seconds to say that it encourages me that what I hear from my friend is that he doesn't like our proposal because he thinks it's a policy of divisiveness, and he would like to move toward those things that unite us. I happen to feel the same way about these proposals before us. I think where the Senate is pushing us is a place that divides us, but that these ideas are common-ground ideas that unite us. While we may disagree on that, it does give me great encouragement, as I know it does my constituents back home, that the goal is to find those things that unite us, to focus on those and to move America forward. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. I yield myself an additional 30 seconds, and I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 60 seconds to say to my friend I know he has a lot of Federal employees in his district, as do I--certainly not as many as he does. I know he speaks from the heart in terms of the struggles that those families are going through. But I would say to my friend that while that might be his goal, we could have taken a step towards it yesterday and all of your VA employees would have been back and all of your park service employees would have been back and all of your folks who are in the D.C. Government would have been protected. We could have done it yesterday, and the Democrats defeated it. Now we are bringing it back today, but we could have made a difference yesterday, and we didn't. I would just say to the gentleman that I know his concern for everyone is heartfelt, but I wish that he would join me in helping at least someone today. We might get all the way there. I believe that we can, but we have got to get started. These bills today get us started in that direction. Again, I appreciate the gentleman's commitment.

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

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, at this time, it gives me great pleasure to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Holding), a new Member of this body, but a growing leader in this body.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 60 seconds to agree with my friend that folks are not entitled to their own facts. The fact is that the law of the land is the budget number that the Senate is proposing. There is no set of circumstances you can spend a penny more than that. In fact, as all of my colleagues know, beginning on January 1 that number is going to drop another $19 billion. To suggest that the Senate is compromising by agreeing to follow the law of the land says a lot about where we are in this town, but it says absolutely nothing about genuine compromise. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Reclaiming my time, I say to my friend that the clean CR that he is advocating so passionately for cuts the exact same $6 billion that he said is a problem. I agree with him that that's a problem. I hope we won't do that. I hope the Senate will take up that bill. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Radel), a new Member of this body, but one who brings commonsense idea after commonsense idea, bipartisan idea after bipartisan idea to the Rules Committee.

Mr. WOODALL. I would be happy to yield to my friend from Texas.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 60 seconds to ask my friend from Texas whose words had an impact on me. My friend from Texas who was talking about the bill we passed in June, I happen to share his commitment to that legislation. It is my understanding that that legislation is sitting today, as it has been since June, in the Senate, and they could take it up and pass it and not fund veterans just for a week or 10 days, but fund those programs at those levels for the entire year. I would ask my friend if he would join with me in calling on the Senate to do exactly that.

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

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would say to my friend from Virginia, before he leaves the floor, that I'm grateful to his nephew for his service. I, too, represent a part of the world where service is not an opportunity but an obligation. I would say, as my friend knows very well, this body, this United States House, in June, passed our Veterans and Military Construction appropriations bill. This whole idea that you're supposed to fund the government in one giant bill is more of that revisionist history. That's exactly the wrong way to fund the government. The way the government is supposed to be funded, as you know, Mr. Speaker, is that we're supposed to fund it one piece at a time--that's the way it always has been, the way it always should be--because you end up looking to see where those funding priorities are. So this House, Mr. Speaker, in June, with only four dissenting votes, passed a bill affirming the financial commitment that this Nation should have to our veterans, and it has been sitting, gathering dust, in the United States Senate since June. Funding for all veterans ran out on September 30. We all knew that. We knew it last September 30 that funding was going to run out this September 30, which is why this House has moved forward on appropriations bills. The Senate has moved forward on zero, Mr. Speaker. That's why it's my way or the highway. There's a right way to get this done, and we've been trying to do it here. The Senate won't do it the right way. They want to do it their way--and a way that doesn't serve folks back home the way you and I, Mr. Speaker, know that they are entitled to be served. You have not heard one voice on this floor today dispute that the bills we have before us would make a difference in the lives of American families. You've had folks say it doesn't do enough, but you haven't had folks say it doesn't do what it's intended to do. We have an opportunity to do some good. Let's do it. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, it's clear we're going to hear more ``it's my way or the highway'' from the other side throughout today. I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Indiana (Mrs. Walorski), a freshman Member of this body who believes that there is a pathway forward and that we can make a difference.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 60 seconds to say to my friend that there's a little revisionist history in that recitation. You will remember, Mr. Speaker, that the House passed its package, and the Senate said, No, it's our way or the highway. So the House said, Well, let me give you a different package--one that is a little closer to that position. The Senate said, No, it's my way or the highway. Then the House said, Let me give you a third position that's a little closer to you. And the Senate said a third time, No, it's my way or the highway. And then the House said, Well, come and sit down with me at the table so that we can find a way through our differences. And the Senate said, No, it's my way or the highway. The American people know who's looking for common ground and consensus in this body. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Miller), a real supporter of finding that pathway forward, the chairwoman of the House Administration Committee.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds just to say to my friend that we have an opportunity to do something today. There's been a lot of talk on this floor. We have an opportunity to actually do something, and I don't think there's going to be a single Member on the other side of the aisle that challenges the notion that, if we pass these bills, we will make a difference for American veterans, we will make a difference for American families, and we will make a difference for American Guardsmen and Reservists. And I do not believe that the heart of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle is that, because we can only do a little, we should do nothing. At this time, Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Roe), a good friend and great leader in this institution,

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I have a heavy heart about this issue, as I know many of my colleagues do. In fact, I haven't bumped into one of the 432 of us who is enthusiastic about the situation that we are in. I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, one of the things that is most troubling to me is the decision to define success as passing a CR that the Senate is dictating. I don't say that because it is the Senate. My constituency back home doesn't care about CRs. A CR is a continuing resolution, as you know, Mr. Speaker. The only time--the only time--a continuing resolution comes to the floor of this House is when the House has already failed to do the job it was supposed to do. That is passing appropriations bills, Mr. Speaker. That is appropriating through 12 different bills, one step at a time, making those decisions about spending priorities for the Nation. It is fascinating to me, Mr. Speaker, because it has been years-- years--since this House has gone through that process not through any fault of this House, but because we have absolutely no activity on the Senate side. Again, it somehow is getting defined today as if you do things ``piecemeal'' that you are somehow doing something wrong. Again, that is regular order. Doing things one bill at a time is normal. That is what is supposed to happen. You are supposed to make individual decisions on individual bills. Last year, the House passed seven different appropriations bills, Mr. Speaker, one step at a time the way the government is supposed to be funded. The Senate passed one and, thus, the process broke down. No appropriations bills were passed. We have been funding the government through these continuing resolutions. Well, here we are again: this year, Mr. Speaker, the House has worked on five appropriations bills; the Senate has passed zero--zero. So we are here where we are today because the Senate hasn't been able to move anything at all. It is with a heavy heart that I hear my colleagues say we could reopen services for veterans, but we are not going to do it because we have a better plan that we ought to do everything at once. If we can't help everybody, we don't want to help anybody. I don't believe that is actually the sentiment of my friends on the other side of the aisle. In fact, Mr. Speaker, in June of this year, we came together--we came together--in this House, only four votes against a Veterans Affairs appropriations bill. Four votes in this entire House of Representatives voted ``no.'' Everyone else voted ``yes.'' That bill, which fully funds all of our veterans services, in fact, pluses up the funding for our veterans services not for 3 months, not for 3 weeks, but for the entire fiscal year. We passed that in June, Mr. Speaker, and it sits in the Senate dusty today having received no attention since June. I don't know about your constituents, Mr. Speaker, but my constituents want us to get something done. They understand there are things that we disagree about, but isn't there more that unites us than divides us? I tell you that there is. I am absolutely certain that there is. If the only way we can find it is to move one small piece of legislation at a time, that may not be the most efficient way to do it, but if that gets the job done, let's get the job done. Mr. Speaker, I am tired of excuses and I am tired of the blame. The Rules Committee is going to report out a rule today that is going to bring these provisions back to the House for an opportunity to open up those parks that my colleague was talking about just a few minutes ago, an opportunity to serve our veterans, an opportunity to deal with the important research at NIH, and on and on. Let's find those things we agree on. Let's get something done. We can do it, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I take no pleasure in coming down to the House floor to talk about the government shutting down today. I represent the metro Atlanta suburbs, Mr. Speaker; and we got a lot of CDC employees in my district. I know everybody has got important Federal functions going on in their district; but I will tell you what the CDC does is honest to goodness life and death business--serious, serious business. I want to see the CDC open, I want to see the CDC funded, I want to see the CDC making America proud, as it has year after year. We have to look at how we got here today, Mr. Speaker. I have been in Congress 2\1/2\ years and the sad fact is in those 2\1/2\ years there has only been one time that I felt like the White House gave two hoots what my constituents cared about, just one time. That was in the debt ceiling debate in August of 2011. One time. It was a crisis circumstance, a crisis like a government shutdown--the only time the President came to knock on the door to say how do you think we ought to handle it, how do your 700,000 constituents believe we ought to handle it, how can we come together and make something happen? And we did. We came together, and we made a difference. Mr. Speaker, I remember coming to this Chamber as a young man. I sat over there, I sat right over there in the gallery, Mr. Speaker. I looked over there on the House floor and there was absolutely no one here. I don't mean not many people here, I mean absolutely no one here. I happened to have the misfortune of being here coming to see the Congress on a day when the Congress was not in session. There wasn't a thing going on. Mr. Speaker, where we are now in 2013, where the President's new position is, I will never negotiate, period, never, ever; where the Senate's new position is we do not need to have conversations with the House, we have the President of the United States on our team and so we never need to negotiate, ever--Mr. Speaker, if that is what we are going to have here in America, not only should I take my Constitution and toss it out the door, we should just go ahead and turn the lights off altogether. We shouldn't have to have a young man sitting in the balcony wondering why the place is closed down. We should just go ahead and confess that the reason the House no longer meets is because the President no longer cares what the people's House has to say. Mr. Speaker, I hear it over and over again: it's the law of the land; we should follow it. Now, I happened to hear it in the context of the President's health care bill. I don't hear it in the context of immigration law, for example, where the President just decides what it is that he wants to do, and he just goes out and implements it on his own. I don't hear it in the context of Federal drug law where the President decides, do you know what, these laws aren't as important as those laws so I'm just not going to enforce those anymore. And I don't hear it in the context of the President's health care bill, Mr. Speaker, for the literally thousands of exemptions he has already given to the law because he knows parts of it are unworkable. Now, we have to confess, Mr. Speaker: America moves in fits and starts. The pendulum swings back and forth. I have to give the President credit for bringing the discussion of health care in this country to a new place. He absolutely did. He brought attention to folks who are uninsured who can't find insurance. Not only did he bring attention to it, Mr. Speaker, really we have created a majority of America that believes we ought to do something and solve that problem. But instead of solving that problem, the President re-regulated America's entire health care industry. There is not a man or woman in this Chamber, Mr. Speaker, there is not a man or woman representing Americans in the U.S. House of Representatives who doesn't have someone in their district who has lost their health insurance because of the President's health care bill. If you like your health insurance, you can keep it, was the promise. Do you remember the promise, Mr. Speaker? If you like your health insurance, you can keep it. That promise hasn't just been broken, that promise has been virtually erased from America's memory because tens of thousands of Americans are losing their health insurance. There is a headline in the paper every day, Mr. Speaker. All we are asking is for the Senate to sit down with us and let's try to solve real problems that real American families are really having today. For all the knowledge that my colleagues have of these citizens in their districts losing their health insurance, they've proffered nothing, nothing. We have an opportunity, Mr. Speaker, right now before it gets any worse to do better. We should seize that opportunity. We should come together as our constituents expect us to. We have offered that hand to the Senate, Mr. Speaker. I hope they will take it.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. I thank my chairman for yielding me the time. I thank him for his leadership in the Rules Committee. Mr. Speaker, we've been here night after night after night, I say to my chairman, trying to keep the government open. And to my colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle, we have an opportunity to work together. I'm a hardcore, right-wing Georgia Republican, and I'm here to tell you I want to keep the government open. And I don't think there's one of you over there who questions my word that I'm here today to keep the government open, not to bring the government to a halt. But there are also other concerns. And the biggest frustration I've had, Mr. Speaker, in my 2\1/2\ years here in the House is that the President doesn't want to talk with me and my 700,000 constituents about our priorities for America. I carry a copy of the Constitution in my pocket, Mr. Speaker, and it lays out clearly our bicameral system here in Congress: our article I, the Congress; our article II, the White House; and our article III, the courts. The President has been saying over and over and over again as we come upon this brink of a government shutdown, I will not negotiate. Over and over again, Mr. Speaker. I will not negotiate. So often it's so easy for my friends to characterize Republicans as being folks who are just looking for a fight. I've been down here with my Republican colleagues as they have passed a bill to fund the government and completely repeal ObamaCare. I've been down here with my Republican colleagues when they came back and they passed a bill to fund the government but just delay the most troublesome parts for a year. And now I'm back down here again with my Republican colleagues with a bill that will fund the government but simply prevent the individual mandate from compelling individuals to engage in behavior they didn't want to engage in and to ensure that all Americans have access to the same set of rules that are applying to Congress. I don't know how to be any more fair than that. Harry Reid said, We don't need to have any more conversations. Folks, we have more serious problems than keeping the government open if the rule book for how this place is to operate no longer means anything. Mr. Speaker, if the President just gets to decide how it's going to be and that's going to be the way America runs, we no longer have a constitutional Republic. We have something very, very different. We're here on the floor today to keep the government open. We're here on the floor today to continue to try to negotiate. I'm very proud of what my chairman has done in the Rules Committee in terms of bringing us together and trying to build a program that unites people rather than divides people. You have to be seeing the same headlines I'm seeing. Delta Air Lines is dropping employees, Home Depot is dropping employees, UPS is dropping, Kroger is dropping employees. You have to be seeing that. And it has to hurt you in the same way it hurts me. Let's come together and solve that problem. This is a step in that direction. There is much more negotiation to be done, and I hope we'll do it over the next few weeks. Support this rule, support this bill.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for yielding me the time and thank you for your leadership on the Rules Committee because when I signed up for Rules Committee, I knew I was going to get a lesson in rhetoric up there. I look at some of my colleagues from the Rules Committee on the other side. We have some long days and some long nights up there. But 9 times out of 10, it's about things that matter. It's about substance. And that's what it's about today. To talk about a Republican bill to shut down the government is obviously nonsense, Mr. Speaker. I know there's not a point of order here against nonsense on the House floor. If there was, I would have brought it up. Because that's nonsense. This is a bill to keep the government open. It uses the exact same funding level that the Senate just sent back to us. I've got a lot of colleagues on my side of the aisle who would like for that funding level to be lower. I promise you, if we could get the group together who wanted to lower that funding level, we could do that here, too. But we didn't. This is a bill that brings exactly the same funding level that the Senate sent over to us. What else does this bill do? This bill empowers the government to continue to pay our men and women in uniform if, by some outside chance, our colleagues in the Senate abdicate responsibility and can't pass a bill. I think we all agree on that. I don't think there's a man or woman in this Chamber that thinks military families ought to have to worry because we can't come together on a bill. We are going to come together. But that worry is in their hearts and their minds today. We have an opportunity to take it away, and we should. In terms of bringing people together, Mr. Speaker, you know, something else that's in this bill is the repeal of the medical device tax. We talk about jobs bills here on the floor of the House regularly. If you have a medical device manufacturer in your district, let them talk to you about the impact this tax is having on their business. It is killing jobs. It is destroying American leadership in this area. This is not a divisive issue. We agree on this issue here. Our friends in the Senate, Mr. Speaker, voted 79-20 in favor of this very same issue. I understand folks are worn out, Mr. Speaker. It's been a long weekend. It's been a long couple of weeks. But the American people deserve to know the truth of what's going on here on the floor tonight. The truth is the passage of this rule and this underlying legislation keeps the doors of the government open; repeals the job-killing medical device tax that both the House and Senate have said they wanted to repeal; protects changes of the Affordable Care Act that American families have come to depend on, like keeping children on their policies; but eliminates all of the uncertainty of all of the broken portions of the Affordable Care Act, all of the broken portions of ObamaCare, all of the portions that have already seen 1,200 waivers-- and waivers again just yesterday. It doesn't ask to repeal it, Mr. Speaker. It asks to delay it for 1 year so all the uncertainty that's happened can be explored. Every Member in this Chamber has someone in his district who has lost their insurance policy, Mr. Speaker. Everyone in this Chamber has a person in their district who heard from the President of the United States: If you like your insurance policy, you can keep it. And every single one of you know, Mr. Speaker, that someone in your district has had that promise broken for them. Let's keep what's working. Let's stop what's broken. Let's come together. Let's get this passed. We owe it to the American people.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I serve on the Budget Committee. Yesterday, we had a hearing with the Director of the Congressional Budget Office. That's the nonpartisan group that does the scoring and that talks about what the impact of the decisions we make here will have on Americans, on taxpayers, on future generations. We all know that the largest costs we have in the Federal budget are driven by health care. That's why we are focused so much on bringing health care costs down. In the midst of that, we are developing an entirely new Federal health care benefit in this country, and the Congressional Budget Office, Mr. Speaker, said this: that of all the Federal health care costs that will be paid over the next 10 years, more than half will be brand new costs from ObamaCare. This is already the biggest expense we have, and we are going to double it. That's why this is a budget issue. That's why we are talking about it in the time of funding the government and funding the national debt. Mr. Speaker, this bill will bankrupt us. We must take care of families in our districts. We must address preexisting conditions. We must cover children--but we must do it in a way that does not bankrupt America.