Rob Woodall

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, at this time it's my great pleasure to yield to my friend from North Carolina (Mr. Jones).

Mr. WOODALL. I thank the chairwoman. I could see Mr. Pierson reaching out for his beloved Jefferson Manual as she was going through those words. At this time, Mr. Speaker, it's my great pleasure to yield to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus), the chairman of the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. WOODALL. I thank my friend from Georgia. Mr. Speaker, at this time, it's my great pleasure to yield to a colleague on the Rules Committee, the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop).

Mr. WOODALL. I thank the gentleman for his words about Dr. Jay Pierson. At this time, it's my great pleasure, Mr. Speaker, to yield to the gentlelady from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert), a distinguished public servant.

Mr. WOODALL. I thank the gentleman from California. Mr. Speaker, at this time, it's my great pleasure to yield to my friend from Alabama (Mr. Aderholt).

Mr. WOODALL. I thank the gentleman. At this time, Mr. Speaker, it's my great pleasure to yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton), the chairman of the Commerce Committee.

Mr. WOODALL. I thank the gentleman for his words. At this time it's my great pleasure to yield to my friend from Texas (Mr. Gohmert).

Mr. WOODALL. I very much thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, at this time it's my great pleasure to yield to the new secretary of the Republican Conference, the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx).

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, so often in this town, they say, Everything has been said, but not everyone has said it. That's not the case here with Member after Member after Member talking about Dr. Jay Pierson. The gentleman from California had it right: everybody on this floor thinks they're Jay's best friend; everybody on this floor feels that personal relationship and that personal bond; yet everyone who has come to the floor tonight has taught me something new about Jay that I did not know. When I first came to this Chamber, Mr. Speaker, just 2 years ago, I was a little nervous. It's an intimidating job to walk out on the House floor for the very first time. And my mentor and friend, former- Congressman John Linder, came to me and he said, Rob, if you get worried, if you get into trouble, don't worry. Jay will be there. I think about how in one way or another, over 34 years, how many young, frightened, yet enthusiastic, public servants have been comforted with those words: Don't worry. If you get into trouble, Jay Pierson will be there. This new incoming freshman class is going to miss those comforting words, and this incoming freshman class, along with 435 of the rest of us, are going to miss Jay Pierson. I want to thank Dr. Pierson, Mr. Speaker, for his long, diligent, but most importantly, cheerful service that is an example that we could all learn from, and I hope that we do. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. I thank the gentlelady for her words. Mr. Speaker, at this time it's my great pleasure to yield to the gentlelady from Florida, Chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I know there are so many Members who could not be here tonight and wanted to be here. So I'd like to ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, at this time, it's my great pleasure to yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson).

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Iowa. At this time, it's my privilege to yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Olson).

Mr. WOODALL. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, at this time, it's my pleasure to yield to a friend and colleague, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).

Mr. WOODALL. I thank the gentlelady. Mr. Speaker, at this time, it's my great pleasure to yield to a friend and mentor, the gentleman from the great State of Georgia, Dr. Tom Price.

Mr. WOODALL. I thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I hope 60 minutes will be enough because we're here tonight to honor one of the great servants of this institution, Jay Pierson, who has dedicated the last 34 years to the service of us, particularly on this side of the aisle; but, it's noteworthy to say, to folks on both sides of the aisle. I want to go ahead and get started with someone much more eloquent than I am. Actually, he is a gentleman who has served here on the floor with Jay. He is the chairman of the Rules Committee, the gentleman from California, David Dreier.

Mr. WOODALL. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, at this time, it is my great pleasure to yield to our chairman of the Budget Committee, my good friend Paul Ryan.

Mr. WOODALL. I thank the chairman, Mr. Speaker. At this time it's my great pleasure to yield to a cardinal on the Appropriations Committee, my good friend from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Mr. WOODALL. I thank the chairman. I would like to yield to the minority leader, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Mr. WOODALL. I thank the chairman. At this time, it is my great pleasure to yield to one of my Rules Committee colleagues, the gentleman from Florida, Alcee Hastings.

Mr. WOODALL. I thank the gentleman. At this time, it's my great pleasure to yield to the Judiciary Committee chairman, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith).

Mr. WOODALL. I thank the gentleman. At this time, Mr. Speaker, it's my great pleasure to yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Petri).

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. I appreciate my colleagues for their take on where we are, and I wanted to offer kind of an alternative view on that. And it's not an alternative view in that it is one that's not commonly shared. It's a bipartisan view. But we hadn't heard it much in this particular debate. I want to take you back, Mr. Speaker, to John F. Kennedy. He's a revered President for a whole variety of reasons. I come from a rock- solid, hard-core conservative district in the State of Georgia, but I absolutely see the wisdom of so much of what President Kennedy was trying to do for the country. He said this: It's a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low, and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now. The purpose of cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus. John F. Kennedy, November 20, 1962. Those words are as true today as they were then, Mr. Speaker. But we have a different kind of budget challenge today than we had then. The largest budget deficits in your and my lifetime, Mr. Speaker, were run up during the George W. Bush administration. Again, I come from a hard- core red State, Republican through and through in our part of the world, and I can tell you the largest budget deficits in the history of this country were run up during a Republican Presidential administration. And those record-setting deficits have now been surpassed. We're not running 100 percent of those deficits today. We're not running 200 percent of those deficits today. We're not running 300 percent of those deficits today. Mr. Speaker, the deficits today are almost four times larger than what was formerly the largest budget deficit in American history. We've got to get a handle on that. There are revenue components, there are spending components, but it seems like this town is obsessed with the tax side of that ledger. I want to talk about that because, for Pete's sake, I didn't come to Congress to be a Congressman; I came to Congress to make America better. I came to Congress to solve the problems that plague my family and my neighbor's family and the families surrounding us in the community. I came to Congress to make a difference. So it's whatever we need to do here, Mr. Speaker, to make a difference. And I don't mean just to change things. Change for change's sake has no constituency with me. I mean to make a difference so that our children's lives and our grandchildren's lives are better than they would be otherwise. Let me go again to John F. Kennedy and how he was trying to make a difference. He said this: Lower rates of taxation will stimulate economic activity and so raise the levels of personal and corporate income as to yield, within a few years, an increased--not a reduced-- flow of revenues to the Federal Government. Mr. Speaker, he was right. He was right then. Ronald Regan was right when he said it. President Clinton was right in the tax cuts that he presided over, as was President Bush. It's absolutely true. I'll say it again: Lower rates of taxation will stimulate economic activity and so raise the levels of personal and corporate income as to yield, within a few years, an increased--not a reduced-- flow of revenues to the Federal Government. It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low, and the soundest way to raise revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now. Why do I bring this up? Is there anybody in Washington, D.C., who's talking about cutting tax rates? And the answer is no. There's really not. There's not one person in this Chamber who comes to the floor and talks about cutting tax rates. We might like to, but we're in a tough economic crisis right now and folks are concerned about the revenue side of the equation. What folks are talking about, though, is not raising tax rates. And for some reason, for reasons that I can't understand, Mr. Speaker, the President has gotten wrapped around the axle on an insistence that actual rates go up. Speaker John Boehner offered him revenue. He said, If you just want the money, we'll find a way to get the money through taxes. It doesn't have to be through higher rates. We can do it by broadening the base, by reducing exceptions and exemptions, by eliminating loopholes and deductions. The President said, No, I want actual higher rates. President Kennedy talked about the damage of those higher rates, Mr. Speaker. It's as true today as it was then. When we're not talking about higher rates from the White House, Mr. Speaker, we're talking about fairness. And I've got to tell you, Mr. Speaker, you and I are freshmen in this body. We came with the largest freshman class in modern times. And we came not from folks who had dreams of being a Congressman one day, but folks who were from families back home that were struggling and people were running for Congress then because they wanted to find a better way. Folks did not come to be Congressmen; they came to be agents of change, to make a difference for America, to make sure the promise of America continues for another generation. And yet we find ourselves in this debate about whether now is the right time to raise taxes on family-owned businesses, whether now is the right time to raise taxes on American job creators. Milton Friedman is one of my favorite economists. He's a Nobel Prize- winning economist. He passed on from this Earth, but his words remain with us today. He said this about taxes, and I think it's profound. He said: There is all the difference in the world, however, between two kinds of assistance through government that seem superficially similar. Two kinds, superficially similar. The first, when 90 percent of us agree to impose taxes on ourselves in order to help the bottom 10 percent. That happens all the time. It happens all the time. I love the generous spirit of the United States of America. And I've got to tell you I know, Mr. Speaker, folks are from all parts of the world--I'm from Georgia and you're from California--but the people in Georgia, their generosity is second to none, and I love being part of that community. And Milton Friedman says it's one thing when 90 percent of us in America agree to tax ourselves, agree to bear the burden ourselves in order to help 10 percent who are struggling, that's one thing. Or, second, he says: The other thing is when 80 percent vote to impose taxes on the top 10 percent to help the bottom 10 percent. Hear that. It's one thing when 90 percent of us agree that we need to bear the burden such that the least fortunate among us can prosper-- that's the American way, and I love that about this Nation--but it's something else altogether, Milton Freidman says, when 80 percent decide they want to tax the top 10 percent so that they can help the bottom 10 percent. That is not who we are in America. That is not who we have ever been in America, where we let someone else carry the burden. What makes this country great is the shared burden. I heard the words ``shared burden'' from my friends on the other side of the aisle. I hear the words ``shared sacrifice'' from my friends on the other side of the aisle, and I see proposal after proposal after proposal that exempts most of America from bearing any part of that burden and continuing to place the burden on someone else. Milton Friedman goes on to say this: ``The first way may be wise or unwise''--talking about the 90 percent of us taxing ourselves to help the 10 percent--``that could be unwise, it just depends on why you're doing it and what the purpose is you're doing it for. It could be effective or ineffective as a way to help the disadvantaged. But it is consistent with the belief in both equality of opportunity and liberty.'' The second way, Milton Friedman says--that's the way where 80 percent of the folks agree that they're going to tax the top 10 percent so that they can help the bottom 10 percent--that second approach seeks equality of outcome and is entirely antithetical to liberty. When we all come together to agree to help one another, that is consistent with a belief in equality of opportunity and liberty, but when we try to amass enough votes in this Chamber or enough votes across the Nation so that we can take from one group to give to another group, that is entirely antithetical to liberty. And so, Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor today not as a defender of the 1 percent. I'm not in the 1 percent. I do hope one day I'll be fortunate to have those opportunities. I think that's what all kids do in America; you try to work hard, apply yourself, good work ethic, good ideas, you want to be successful one day. But I'm not in the 1 percent. But I recognize the immorality of passing on bills to our children and our grandchildren in the form of debt because we, the 80 percent, refuse to take on that burden and, instead, we try to thrust that burden off on someone else. We have burdens in this country, and it falls to every citizen of this country to shoulder those burdens. Mr. Speaker, because I do think it's a moral case, I think folks need to understand what it is the President is proposing and why he's proposing it. I have two sets of figures here, Mr. Speaker. One is the percent of the income that each kind of strata of American income earner earns. I've got the lowest 20 percent of income earners, the second 20 percent, the middle 20 percent, the fourth 20 percent, and the highest 20 percent--in fact, I have the top 1 percent pulled out on the side because they seem to attract so much attention these days. I also have the share of the individual income tax burden that each of these groups are paying. How many times, Mr. Speaker, have you heard the President of the United States say he just wants the top 1 percent to pay a little bit more; he just wants the top 1 percent to do their fair share? How many times have you heard ``fair share,'' Mr. Speaker? I've heard it more times than I can count. This is what I see: For the most recent year for which the Congressional Budget Office has numbers, the top 1 percent of all income earners earned 13.4 percent of all the income in America. I'll got to tell you they're doing well, there's no doubt about it. They are 1 percent of the population and they are earning 13 percent of all the income in America. That's impressive. They can afford to pay. They can afford to pay. You won't get any argument from me. But today, Mr. Speaker, again, with the most recent numbers the Congressional Budget Office has available, that top 1 percent--that's earning 13.4 percent of the income in this country--is paying 38.7 percent of all the burden. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, what incarnation of fairness leads you to believe that when you earn 13 percent of the money and you're paying 38 percent of the bills that you need to do more to do your fair share? Mr. Speaker, if you think for a moment that you might fall into that category let me take you to the other end of the spectrum, where the ``we'' are. I'm not trying to put the burden on someone else, I'm trying to take the burden on myself. Mr. Speaker, we passed a bill in this Congress that gave a payroll tax break to every single Member of Congress--well, in fact, it gave it to every single member of America. Every citizen in America got this payroll tax break. This was a payroll tax break. As you know, payroll taxes are dedicated to Social Security and Medicare. All they do is fund those important programs. Every man, woman, and child in America knows those two programs are going bankrupt, but this President and this Congress, in their wisdom, passed a bill to give every American a tax break in that category, reducing the amount of tax dollars going into that trust fund. I voted no, but I lost and I got a tax break-- didn't want one, didn't need one. I have obligations to contribute to the survival of this economy and this Republic, but I got one anyway. Look at what's happening here, Mr. Speaker. If you're in the bottom 20 percent of all income earners, we want you to succeed. Mr. Speaker, if you're in the bottom 20 percent of all income earners, we develop every single Federal program around the idea that if you apply yourself, if you put your ideas to work, if we can give you enough of a helping hand here, a hand up there, that you will be able to change your economic future, you will be able to improve your income lot tomorrow relative to today. In the Tax Code, Mr. Speaker, today, if you're in the bottom 20 percent of all income earners--in fact, if you're in the bottom 40 percent of all income earners the Tax Code pays you money. You get every penny of your pay back. It pays you money. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, what's becoming of our Republic? How are we defining ``fair share?'' There is no, no, no constituency in this Nation that wants to extend a helping hand more than my constituency does back home. And you know where that comes from--and you see it right now in the tax rates, Mr. Speaker--folks are saying let me give away all the money I can right now because the Tax Code is going to change. I'm not going to give away money next year because I'm going to get punished for it; I'm going to give away money this year instead. Folks who can give do give. Folks who can support this country do support this country. Mr. Speaker, the top 20 percent of all income earners in this country earn 50 percent of all the income. The top 20 percent of all income earners earn 50 percent of all the income. We can talk about whether or not that's right, we can talk about where those jobs come from, we can talk about why we can't get more high-paying jobs, why the highest corporate tax rate in the world is driving all those high-paying jobs overseas, we can talk about all of that. But the fact is that 20 percent of Americans earn 50 percent of all the money. So, what's a fair burden of the bills for them to pay, Mr. Speaker? Top 20 percent earn 50 percent of the money, so they should certainly pay 50 percent of the bills. In fact, they should pay more than their fair share, right? They should pay 60 percent of the bills--maybe even 70 percent of the bills. Mr. Speaker, the top 20 percent of income earners today in America pay 94 percent of all the bills--94.1, in fact. What that means, Mr. Speaker, then is that the other 80 percent of us, the other 80 percent of us, families here in this Chamber, 80 percent of America is only paying six percent of the bills. When you're in a Republic, Mr. Speaker--a lot of folks say democracy; of course we're not a democracy, we're in a Republic--but when the people rule, what becomes of you when 80 percent of the people are only paying 6 percent of the bills. What kind of decisions do I make? I know the answer to that, Mr. Speaker, because I love things that are free with rebate. I don't know if you read the CVS and Walgreens ads on Sunday like I do, Mr. Speaker--in fact, I look them up online on Saturday night just so I know what to pick up on the way home from church. If toothpaste is free with rebate, I don't care if I have 12 tubes of toothpaste in the closet at home, I'm going to go by and pick it up because it's free. We make decisions based on how much things cost us. Right now, if you think government is too big in this country, if you think we waste government dollars in this country, if you think we tax you too much in this country, understand that when we go to the voting booths, I get to vote for 100 percent of government benefits and I only have to pay for 6 percent of it. That's true for everybody in the 80 percent, Mr. Speaker. Is it American, is it who we are as a people that 80 percent of us who all get to vote are not asked to shoulder the burden of today's bills? The thing is, Mr. Speaker, it's not as if they're getting a free ride, it's not as if we're getting a free ride. We are passing the burden on to our children and our grandchildren. You may not have to pay the bill today, your family might not have to pay the bill today, but your children and your grandchildren are going to have to pay that bill tomorrow. It's immoral. It's immoral. I say that to my conservative colleagues back home in Georgia. I say if someone is willing to spend your money and they're not willing to raise your taxes, don't you dare applaud them because you're just going to have to pay those taxes later when the debt comes due. We either need to stop the spending or we need to pony up the money to pay the taxes. But Mr. Speaker, don't you dare let it be said, the top 1 percent, they earn 13 percent of the income, they're paying 40 percent of the bills, and the President of the United States thinks that's not enough, they need to pay more. Be very careful, Mr. Speaker, about changing who has skin in the game in this country. When we don't have skin in the game as voters, we make bad decisions. What has always made America great is there has been more that unites us than that divides us, and one of the things that has always united us is that we all have skin in the game. The changes that have been made to the Tax Code are changing that, Mr. Speaker. You know, I'm not the first one to come up with this idea. A man much wiser than I am, much earlier in this country's history, Benjamin Franklin, observed that very same thing. He's cited to have said this: ``When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the Republic.'' One of the great thinkers of his time, Mr. Speaker. What he observed is not rocket science, it's common sense, but it's worth restating. That is, when you're in a Republic, when you're in a democracy, 51 percent of the people can get together and say I don't want to shoulder any of the burden, I want to put it all on the 49 percent and let's live life that way. That signals the end of the Republic. It's always been true, it always will be true. What unites us as a country is that we are not shirkers of responsibility, we are acceptors of responsibility, and we want skin in the game. Mr. Speaker, I don't want to let it be said that the President today, President Obama, is the first President to have ever come up with the idea that wouldn't it be neat if none of the voters have to pay for anything except for the top 1 percent, wouldn't that be a good plan. That has actually been the plan of every American President in my lifetime and every Congress in my lifetime. Why? Because folks want to get elected. Folks want the voters back home to think nice things about them. And guess what. When I go home and I tell people they have to actually pay for government, they're less excited than when I tell them it's free. In 1979, the last President from the great State of Georgia, Jimmy Carter, when he took office, the bottom 80 percent, most of us, 80 percent of Americans paid 35 percent of the bills. Eighty percent of us paid 35 percent of the bills in 1979. The top 1 percent at that time were paying 18 percent of the bills. Look what's happened in my adult lifetime, Mr. Speaker. This red line represents the burden that we placed on the 1 percent. The blue line represents the burden that we placed on the 80 percent. And it is so changed today that, again, the bottom 80 percent of us, middle class America, the bread and butter of this country, are paying 6 percent of the bills. Mr. Speaker, we owe America better than that. Folks need to make informed decisions at the voting box, and government isn't free. We spend $3.8 trillion--trillion dollars--a year in this government. When you are paying 6 cents out of every dollar, you may think you're getting your money's worth, but if you were paying 10 cents out of every dollar, or 50 cents out of every dollar, or even $1 out of every dollar, you begin to view your responsibilities for ensuring that government dollars are spent wisely differently. I just asked you, we are in control of our own destiny. I tell the kids I talk to in schools all the time that what's so great about this country is they're going to run it one day, and it's going to look however it is they want it to look within the bounds of the United States Constitution. Is this the kind of country you want to live in where, when times get tough, when burdens have to be carried, when bills have to be paid, more and more often we say, Do you know what? Don't tax me; tax him. He's the one who should shoulder the burden. It's a dangerous, dangerous precedent. There's no question that the wealthy should pay more in this country. They earn more; they should pay more. They have more disposable income. I've never had a wealthy man or woman come to me and say, Rob, I don't want to pay my fair share. In fact, folks come to me all the time and say: Rob, I'm willing to pay more, except I think you're going to throw it down a rat hole like you threw the last bit I sent to you down a rat hole. And if you guys in Congress ever get your act straight and put us on a path to a balanced budget, I'll be happy to pay a share in order to make that happen. I love this country--love this country. This is not the country that you and I grew up in, Mr. Speaker. So, why is it, then, if we're talking so much about taxes, why aren't taxes the problem or the solution? The truth is, and you know this, Mr. Speaker, if we tax everything in America not at 10 percent, not at 20 percent, but at 100 percent, if we took everything from every family in America, if every man, woman, and child had all of their income confiscated, if we sold your clothes, your house, and your possessions on the auction block, if we liquidated every single company in America and we put all that money into a bank account in present value, we still wouldn't have enough money to pay for all the promises that this Congress, past Presidents, past Congresses, and this President have made. This is what I have here, Mr. Speaker. I have a chart of revenue versus spending. This green line is revenue in this country. As a percentage of the size of our economy, it turns out that wealthy people are pretty smart. And so if you start taxing part of their income at 90 percent and part of their income at 20 percent, they just move all their income from the 90 percent category to the 20 percent category. That's what happens here. No matter what the tax rates have been over the history of this country, the modern history of this country, Americans are willing to give about 18 percent of GDP in tax revenue. It's just the way it's been. Tax rates have been as high as 90 percent; we were only paying 18 percent. Tax rates have been as low as 28 percent; we were paying 18 percent. The red line represents spending. And that's what I want to point out, Mr. Speaker. Spending, historically, has been flat, as well. The red line comes up above the green line, which shows you all the budget deficits that we've been running. It's been a common occurrence in the history of this country. But we are spending today--these are the promises. If we close Congress today, Mr. Speaker, if we never make one new promise, not one new promise in this country, this red line represents the costs of all the promises we've already made. Spending, not taxes, is the problem. We are in a spending-driven crisis. If you don't believe it, Mr. Speaker, I have another chart here. The green line, again, this one only goes from 2006 out to 2041, but the green line represents the current taxes that are on the books. The red line represents the spending that we've already promised out of this body. And the blue line represents the tax increase that the President is proposing, the tax increase on small businesses, on family-owned businesses, a tax increase that economists agree is going to lead to slower growth in the jobs market and less hiring. This blue line represents the sum total of that tax increase. Now, Mr. Speaker, I know enough to know that if I'm bringing in this much money and I'm spending this much money, when I add this blue line to it, I still don't have enough money. This chart is labeled #SpendingIsTheProblem, Mr. Speaker. Folks can tweet it out. Spending is the problem. It's not a revenue problem. We're bringing in about the same revenue that we've always brought in in this country. The President can raise taxes all he wants to; he'll never be able to pay for the spending promises that he has made--never. There is not enough money to do it. Spending is the problem. Current taxes, the President's tax increase and the President's spending plan don't come to balance. Mr. Speaker, we can do better. In fact, here's the President's 10- year budget plan, Mr. Speaker. The President raises taxes by $2 trillion in his 10-year budget plan, and he doesn't lower the projected debt by one penny, not by one penny from its projected levels in 2013 or 14 or 15, not in 16 or 17 and 18, not in 19 or 20, but just a little bit--and I blew it up so everybody could see it because you can't see it, Mr. Speaker, as it is on the chart. If you raise--if you agree to the President's budget and you raise taxes by $2 trillion, he predicts that way out in 2021, things will be just a little bit better for America--just a little bit better. Not $2 trillion better, just a little bit better. It's not the right plan, Mr. Speaker. Do you know what is the right plan? The one that we've passed here in the House. And by the one that we've passed here in the House, I mean the one we've passed here in the House in a bipartisan way. And by the one that we passed here in the House in a bipartisan way, Mr. Speaker, I mean the only budget in the entire city of Washington, D.C., that has been passed. It doesn't just make a little bitty change that you can't see 10 years from now, Mr. Speaker. It takes us from this red path, our current spending path, our current debt and deficit path, and it puts us on the road to balance, on the road to balance; not just on the road to eliminating our annual deficits, but on the road to finally paying all the bills back. Taxes can't do it, Mr. Speaker. They can destroy the economy, but they cannot pay the bills. Spending is the problem. We can take that challenge on, Mr. Speaker. We have, in this House, with our budget, passed in a bipartisan way, we have taken on those tough challenges. I say to the President again, Mr. Speaker, I know he wants to raise taxes. He's been talking about it for 2 years. Where are his spending cuts? They asked the folks in the Presidential debate, Mr. Speaker, Republicans, would you agree to a $1 tax increase if we'd cut spending by $10, and everybody said no. Mr. Speaker, I challenge the President to give that a whirl. Take all these tax increases he wants to create, the ones that have absolutely no chance at all of solving the problem, take those tax increases and couple them 10 to 1 with spending cuts, couple them 9 to 1 with reforms and programs, couple them 8 to 1 with things that will actually matter to American families and send that bill to the Congress. Send that bill. Call our bluff. Are we serious about solving the problem or are we not? The budget that we passed in this United States House says that we are, Mr. Speaker, and I challenge the President to be equally serious. In 4 years of his budgets, we've never once seen him introduce one that was balanced. We've never once seen him introduce one that ever comes to balance. We've never once seen him introduce one that pays back even a penny of our national debt. The bipartisan budget we passed in this House does all of those things. And I would love to see the President's proposal for achieving that very same goal, which is absolutely critical for the American economy, for American families, and, I dare say, Mr. Speaker, for the American way of life. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas. This is exactly the kind of deliberative House that I came to be a part of just 2 short years ago. We have the ability to get these things done in the next few days. I reject the idea that I read over and over and over again, Mr. Speaker, that this House has been delaying action. This House got it right. We got it right in our budget in April of 2011. We got it right in our budget in 2012. We got it right when we passed a sequester replacement. We got it right when we passed a tax replacement--and we're getting it right with this rule today, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. WOODALL. I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding. He will be our chairman next year, and I'm looking forward to his leadership. We are kind of setting the tone for what's going to happen next year. I said all through the fall, Mr. Speaker, that this was going to be that opportunity, that we were going to have to kind of define where this Congress was going to go for the next 2 years. I'd say to my friend from New York, for whom I have great respect and with whom I've enjoyed working on the Rules Committee for 2 years, Mr. Speaker, that this rule today does exactly what my constituents back home have asked me to come back to Washington to do. The gentlelady cited bill after bill after bill that I have been proud to support to try to rip the President's health care bill out by its roots. We absolutely worked hard at that. Of course, the Senate hasn't cooperated with us and the President hasn't cooperated with us, so we weren't able to get that done. What this rule does is to say let's move beyond those controversial topics, and let's move beyond those topics that we know we could jam through. For Pete's sake, there's a Republican majority in this House. We could jam through absolutely any piece of legislation we wanted to jam through. But what this rule says is that that's not the way to finish out the year. The way to finish out this year is to make sure that we're grabbing each piece of legislation out there that has bipartisan support. Let's grab each piece of legislation out there that folks have been laboring on for 2 years, that folks have brought together a consensus around and brought together a majority behind, and let's pass those things. I think that's fantastic. I think that's fantastic that every single bill that Members have been investing their energy in they'll now have a chance to move to the floor. My frustration is, what about the bills that we've already worked on here in a bipartisan way that have yet to be taken up on the Senate side? I heard from my constituents in a town hall meeting last night, and somebody said, Rob, why do you always put everything off until the last minute? Why didn't you deal with this sequester earlier? I said, Do you mean like back in May when the U.S. House passed the only sequester replacement bill to have been passed in this town? It was back in May. He said, Okay. Maybe that takes care of the sequester problem, but why didn't you fix these tax rates? I said, Well, we did. As my friend from Texas just pointed out, what about back in August? In a bipartisan way, we passed a bill in this House to extend current tax rates for everyone in order to prevent tax rates from going up. Then I took another question from one of the folks who said, But what about that Senate bill people keep talking about? What about the Senate bill? Why won't that get a vote in the House? I said, Well, actually, it's quite unusual in the Rules Committee. You don't see it very often when a tax bill is coming to the floor. The Rules Committee back in August, when we were voting on taxes in general, waived all the points of order, took all the roadblocks out of the way, in kind of an unprecedented way, to allow what we call the Levin amendment, which was, basically, exactly the plan the President has been pushing, which is to raise taxes on family-owned businesses, to punish those job creators. We took that vote here on the House floor, and I'm proud to say that, again, in a bipartisan way, Republicans and Democrats came together, rejected class warfare, and said let's get behind a program that expands the economy for everyone. We passed that tax bill back in August, then again in September. Again, in being worried about this defense sequester that's coming up, we took up the bill from the gentleman from Florida to say, how could we deal with these defense sequestrations in a responsible way? So I go back to May when this House did its work. I go back to August when this House did its work. I go back to September when this House did its work. There is proposal after proposal after proposal that, as the gentleman from Texas said, we could take to conference tomorrow. If I could ask the gentleman from Texas, because you know better than I: I know this rule allows for suspensions to come to the floor, but what about that? What about when the Senate decides to get to work and takes up the companion legislation to some of these bills that we've passed in the House? Will we be able to move to go to conference?