Rob Woodall

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I actually had this conversation with some schoolchildren in my district over the break, as I'm sure everybody in this body did. They call it a break, Mr. Speaker. The truth is, it's a district work period. You're working every bit as hard down in your home State as you are here and probably harder back home. I was talking to young people and I said, Does anybody here have a parent that just let's them eat anything they want to, drink all the soda they want, eat all the candy they want? There wasn't a single hand that went up. Apparently, parents had some discipline incorporated in the lives of each one of these children. I asked, Who thinks their parents love them? The answer was every child in that room felt loved by their parents. They didn't get everything they wanted all the time, there were limits to it, but they felt loved. Mr. Speaker, we're in the business of spending other people's money. It's not my money; it's not my colleague from Florida's money. It is other people's money in this body. Not only are we spending every penny of the money that they send us, Mr. Speaker. We are borrowing even more. If you think about it, we talk about how we borrow 40 cents out of every dollar that we spend. What that means, Mr. Speaker, is we collect every penny that America is willing to give us, and we borrow 66 percent more. Communities back home aren't operating under that kind of funny mathematics. They understand they can only spend the money that they have. Families back home aren't operating under those kinds of funny mathematics. It's only here. So in the case of these programs--again, student loans are in absolutely no way at issue in the underlying bill, and they are absolutely in no way at issue in this rule. But just to touch on that topic for a moment--and we had the Speaker of this House come down and give a passionate plea for votes in support of the very provision that is being discussed here today. Not only did he speak on behalf of those provisions; this Chamber passed it. We talk about the ticking time bomb. That's the ticking time bomb in action in the Senate. This body has acted. Now, what did we do? I happen to be one of those folks who took out student loans, Mr. Speaker. So I know a little bit about the student loan process. I happened to take mine out from a private institution. We were using competition to keep the marketplace regulated in those days. Now the Federal Government is the only place you can go for a student loan. That was courtesy of my friends on the other side of the aisle. Again, it was heartfelt. They believed in their heart that it was going to be a better program if only the Federal Government ran it instead of letting private financial institutions who lend money for a living manage it. But 6.8 percent is the below-market rate that's available for folks who borrow Stafford loan money. You may have had a Stafford loan, Mr. Speaker. Other folks out here might have had a Stafford loan. But there are two kinds of Stafford loans. There is the Stafford loan that you pay interest on after you've borrowed the money. Imagine that, you borrow the money, you pay interest on it. Then there is the Stafford loan that's called the subsidized Stafford loan. That's a much smaller piece of the pie, Mr. Speaker. We have the loans that families have to go out and get on their own to help pay for their children's education. We have savings that folks are going out and spending on their children's education. We have grant programs that are scholarship programs all that are out there to help with education. We have the PLUS program out there, which is a loan that parents and students can take out together. Then, in addition to all those programs, we have the Stafford loans, which, again, some of them are loans you pay interest on immediately and some of them--a very small fraction of them--are loans that are subsidized while you're in school. This conversation we're having here today is about whether or not this subsidized Stafford loan, that was over 7 percent when I borrowed it--it's 6.8 percent in normal times; but the rate was reduced to 3.4 percent by my colleagues. This conversation is about whether or not that rate should be allowed to return to normal levels. Again I say to folks, there is no money that's coming out of anybody's pocket in this room. This is America's money, America's money that we're borrowing, that we're spending. If we want to borrow that money to cut artificially low rates in half, make them artificially lower, we absolutely can. Not only can, we did. We talk about this as if it is something that might happen one day. We did it. It was 2 weeks ago. I was down here on the House floor. In fact, I sat right over there. I remember the vote happening. It's done here. Did we pay for it, Mr. Speaker? We did. We paid for it with a program that I would characterize as a slush fund. It is $15 billion that exists over there in the Health and Human Services Department. It came out of the Affordable Care Act. The President looked at it and said, You know what, that really was too much of a slush fund. He cut it by almost a third. Now we said, You know what, perhaps we should go after the rest of it because accountability is an issue here, Mr. Speaker. We hear folks talk about prevention and cancer and women and children. I wish that's where the money went. I went and got the list of where those projects are, Mr. Speaker. In my part of the world, it was a $2.5 million grant to the county I grew up in to help with obesity training in schools. I'm in favor of that. I think we ought to absolutely work on obesity. I hope my home school district is already working on those issues. In other parts of the country, New York, for example, this is money that went to lobby in favor of soda taxes. That's right. This money that is being described by my friends on the other side of the aisle as critical to protecting the health of women so that they can get breast cancer screenings was spent in New York City to lobby in favor of job-killing taxes for my home State of Georgia. This is not about women and children, Mr. Speaker. This is about unaccountability when you start handing out slush funds to bureaucrats. In Philadelphia, it was to lobby against cigarettes. Is that something we ought to do? Well, golly, we can go out and do that on our own every day. Does the Federal Government need to borrow from our children and our grandchildren to help Philadelphia lobby against cigarette taxes? In California, it's going to put up signs so folks can find the local parks in the name of obesity training, Mr. Speaker. Do we need signs to help us find the local parks? We have them in our community. I thought they had them in other communities. Do I need to borrow from my children and my grandchildren to put up more signs for parks? Mr. Speaker, we don't. This is not a priority that the American people stood up and voted for. This is a slush fund that is used by bureaucrats to focus on whatever their priority of the day is. And what's so disappointing is that this responsible government endorsed by a vote of this full House, is being described by my colleagues as an assault on women's health. It is offensive to me. There are so many things that we legitimately disagree about. Go back where we began, Mr. Speaker. We disagree from the heart about so many directions in this country. There is not one person in this body--not one--that wants to put women's health at risk. Not one. This is about responsible government and cutting out the waste, cutting out the low-priority spending, cutting out the dollars that come from taxpayers' pockets in my district to spend for job-killing legislation in New York. Mr. Speaker, we're going to have a full debate on this, a full debate. Every Member of this body will be able to bring their voice to the floor. I look forward to that full debate. I believe in this country. I believe in this institution. I believe that full debate is going to take us exactly where we need to be. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. I yield myself such time as I may consume to say I've just gotten the sad news that our friends on the Senate side hadn't just stuck it to us by not passing a budget last year and didn't just stick it to us by not passing a budget this year, but have just stuck it to us one more time by failing to move forward on the student loan legislation there. I don't know what to do down here, Mr. Speaker. I mean, on the one hand, my colleagues say--rightfully so--that they don't want us just running on our own down here, doing our own thing all the time, pretending as if the Senate doesn't exist. On the other hand, we've dealt with the student loan issue--we've preserved rates at their current low levels--and the Senate can't get its work done. I don't know what more we can do. Folks are prepared to go over for a vigil outside the Senate Chamber. I want you to put me on your invitation list. I'll go by there with you, and we'll see what we can do to shake things up over there, but those 6-year term limits are not quite as effective at motivating action as are 2-year term limits here on the House side. Mr. Speaker, this bill before us today isn't actually about student loans. You might not have believed that in listening to the last speaker. It's about the Commerce Department; it's about the Justice Department; and it's about science funding in this body. Now, the good news is we're going to be able to deal with all of these issues one by one by one. I came to this Chamber, Mr. Speaker, in wanting to move away from the 2,000-page bills that I'd seen in past Congresses. I came to this Chamber in wanting to deal with one issue at a time, in wanting to deal with things so you didn't have to vote for all or nothing but so that you could vote for the individual items that you actually believe in and vote against those items that you don't believe in. That's the process we have today. This is the first of a dozen different bills that are going to come down through this Chamber, and folks will be able to offer amendments line item by line item. If I didn't say it before, Mr. Speaker, I want to say it now: that that's actually what can happen here. This isn't a ``take it or leave it'' proposition today. This rule, again, I can't take all the credit for. I was actually tied up in the reconciliation markup yesterday. My friend from Florida was actually as responsible as anyone for bringing a rule to the floor that would allow every single line of the underlying bill to be considered by the 435 folks in this Chamber. As you know, Mr. Speaker, you have a subcommittee, and that's a small group of folks who knows a lot about the issue on which it works. This is the Commerce, Justice, Science Subcommittee over there. Then you have a full committee, and the full committee has a lot of really smart people who know a lot about their topic here. In this case, that's the Appropriations Committee, the full Appropriations Committee, and, of course, they both passed that out by a voice vote. If you're like me, Mr. Speaker, if you serve on the Budget Committee and on the Rules Committee, you don't ever get a say in appropriations spending. There are a lot of really smart guys on that subcommittee and a lot of really smart men and women on that full committee. But what about my say? What about the 920,000 people I represent, Mr. Speaker? And that's the solution that the Rules Committee brought out last night. They said you have not gotten your say yet for the Seventh District of Georgia, Mr. Woodall, but you will get it during this process--and not just you, but you and you and you and you. Every single Member of this House, by virtue of the fact that they were elected by American citizens back home, will have the opportunity to come to this floor and have their voices heard. Mr. Speaker, this isn't a tough decision today. This is one of the proudest decisions we get to make in this House, and that is to have its membership work its will and report out the very best bill that we can, send that over to the Senate, and see what happens next. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 643 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

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, I always look around when I hear the Reading Clerk reading the rule because I can't tell if folks are glossing over or if they are excited about it, like I am. If you paid close attention to the Reading Clerk this morning, Mr. Speaker, you're excited about it. You're excited about it because we're here to do the first appropriations bill of the FY 2013 cycle. Now, Mr. Speaker, as you know, there is about two-thirds of the budget that is the mandatory spending--that budget that gets spent whether Congress shows up to work or not. It's just money that gets borrowed from our children and goes right out the door. This one-third of the budget, the discretionary spending side, is the part that doesn't go out the door unless the House comes together and passes a bill, sends it to the Senate, and gets the Senate to pass a bill, and it goes to the President's desk for signature. This is the first of those bills that we're going to have a chance to do in this Congress. And as we began the year last year, we are going to begin the year this year--with an open rule. Mr. Speaker, as you know, an open rule allows any Member of this body to bring any idea that they have and offer it as an amendment to the underlying bill. You don't have to be a high-ranking Republican to get an amendment to this bill. You don't have to be a senior Democrat to get an amendment to this bill. You just have to be a representative of constituents back home, and you can show up on this floor and have a say. This is going to be Congress at its best, Mr. Speaker. When you hear it read, it sounds like a lot of legalistic mumbo jumbo, but when you see it in action, it is this House as our Founding Fathers intended this House to be. This is House Resolution 643, Mr. Speaker, and it is an open rule for consideration of H.R. 5326, the fiscal year 2013 Commerce-Justice- Science appropriations bill. You know, last year, Mr. Speaker, we only got through 6\1/2\ of the appropriations bills in this House before it became apparent the process was going to break down, and we went to a minibus to finish the deal. But we considered 350 amendments--350 different ideas, Mr. Speaker--350 lines that came from the body right here that said we have a better way than what the committee has reported to us. Now, this is a special day, as my colleague from Florida knows, because this appropriations bill passed out of subcommittee by a voice vote--a voice vote. Democrats and Republicans came together in subcommittee, passed this bill, and sent it on to the full committee where, again, Mr. Speaker, Democrats and Republicans came together to pass out of full committee this bill on a voice vote, and now we bring it to the House floor today. Goodness knows, we may be able to pass this rule on a voice vote, I say to my colleague from Florida, and perhaps the underlying legislation as well. This is the House working as the folks back home intended the House to work. Now, this is funding for the Commerce Department, Mr. Speaker. All of those programs intended to grow jobs in this country, to promote trade in this country, Commerce Department, funded under this bill. This is the bill that funds the Justice Department, funds our U.S. Marshals, funds our FBI, funds those parts of our society that we know need special attention, Mr. Speaker, in these difficult times. This is the bill that funds NASA, Mr. Speaker. This is the bill that funds the National Science Foundation. This is the bill that funds the U.S. Trade Representative and the International Trade Commission. Mr. Speaker, I will quote the subcommittee chairman, Frank Wolf, who said: This legislation builds on significant spending reductions achieved in last year's bill while continuing to preserve core priorities. Those priorities continue to be job creation, fighting crime and terrorism--with a focus on cybersecurity--and boosting U.S. competitiveness through smart investments in science. This bill makes job creation a priority by maintaining and expanding manufacturing and job repatriation initiatives. Mr. Speaker, these are tough times. I don't know if you've seen all the young people outside this Chamber today, Mr. Speaker, folks in town with their schools, folks in town visiting Washington, D.C. You know, 40 cents out of every dollar that this Chamber spends, Mr. Speaker, we borrow from those children. We heard lots of 1-minutes this morning about the student loan program. Of course, every penny that goes out the door is a penny that we borrowed from the next generation of Americans. This bill, passed out of subcommittee and full committee on a voice vote, represents a 1-percent reduction from the President's request in this title. A lot of folks in this body would like it to be more than 1 percent. I suspect we'll have some amendments on this floor during this wonderful open amendment process that will in fact try to change that number to be greater than 1 percent. But what folks came together to say is these are priorities for this country. These all are important funding priorities that only the national and the Federal Government can do. So we want to fund those in a responsible way that both focuses on not borrowing from the next generation, but still maintaining important core priorities that I think we would all agree are important to this Federal Government. Mr. Speaker, with that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. I thank the chairwoman, and I thank the chairman of the committee, Mr. Kline. I rise in reluctant opposition to this bill, but in strong support of the committee and the work that they're doing. We got caught up in politics again today. It makes me so angry. I'm so angry I could spit. I'm trying to bring my blood pressure down over here as a freshman, remember, because I came here for results. I am the keynote speaker tonight for the Georgia College Republicans' statewide convention, and I'm going to go down there and proudly tell them that I voted ``no'' on this bill today that is pandering to their interests, not because I don't like young people in education, but because I love young people in education. Every time we come to this floor and talk about how proud we are that we're paying for a piece of legislation, every oil industry tax you want to raise and every millionaire tax you rant to raise, those could be paying down the deficit that we're borrowing from these young people that you purport to support here today. With every new piece of ObamaCare that we want to abolish and that should be abolished, we could put that money towards reducing the over $1 trillion a year we're borrowing and asking our young people to pay back. But let me tell you, as a conservative Republican, I am not embarrassed of what we do to serve our young people. Congratulations on our subsidies for our young people. We've now driven our student loan debt higher than the credit card debt in this country. Congratulations. Congratulations that we now have a 3.4 percent interest rate so that the one out of two young people who comes out of college and can't find a job can default on those loans at a lower rate instead of at a higher rate. Congratulations. What about focusing on the jobs? What about focusing on our children's futures? What about focusing on the better tomorrow that we owe to these young people? There is a choice of two futures here. The committee, as everyone in this House knows, is working on a permanent solution. We subsidize student loans today with a Federal Government guarantee for below- market interest rates; 6.8, that's a below-market interest rate. We subsidize student loans today with an above-the-line deduction on the 1040. Everybody can take that today, already today; and here we are in the midst of the largest economic crisis in our Nation's history, saying, once again, let's spend the money instead of putting the money towards these children's futures. There is no free lunch in this town. Every single penny that we spend we're spending from them. You're not subsidizing these people. You're asking them to pay more with interest in their futures. In graduating from college, one out of two kids can't find a job. Student loans are higher than credit card loans for the first time in American history. Are we headed in the right direction, or are we headed in the wrong direction? I say focus on what this Committee on Education and the Workforce is doing. Look at what they are doing for a permanent fix to provide certainty. This is another short-term fix. I know my colleagues on the left and on the right are trying their best to do what they believe in their hearts is going to serve our young people, but short-term fixes are not the answer. There is a better answer, and it's coming from the committee later on this year. I hope my colleagues will oppose this bill today and will support that bill coming forward.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I thank you for the time and being down here with me. I will set up my charts tonight because I can't commit it all to memory. I'm glad to be here at the end of the leadership hour. We've talked about China, we've talked about U.S. energy, and we've talked about the big issues that are on the floor of this House and that are here in Washington, D.C. I want to say to folks, I come from a conservative part of the world. I come from the Deep South. I come from the suburbs of Atlanta, Gwinnett County, Forsyth County, Walton County and Barrow County. But I brought with me tonight quotes from President Barrack Obama because, as I have said in town hall meeting after town hall meeting, I disagree with about 80 percent of what the President does, but I believe in about 80 percent of what he says. I think if we can come together on some of those principles that he is enunciating, we might be able to make some real progress. This is from the President's 2011 inaugural address. He says this: At stake right now is not who wins the next election. At stake is whether new jobs and industries take root in this country or somewhere else. That is absolutely true. Folks come down to the floor of this House every day. They say what they're doing, they're doing for job creation. They say what they're doing, they're doing for economic growth. But we have a substantial disagreement about what that means. I happen to believe that one of the things that encourages job creation and economic growth is fiscal responsibility. We need fiscal responsibility in our families, we need it in our businesses, and we need it in our government. The President said this, Madam Speaker, his State of the Union address in 2010. He said: Families across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions; the Federal Government should do the same. State of the Union address, 2010, ``the Federal Government should do the same.'' It wasn't just in 2010. I'm not cherry-picking comments. Here we are in the President's State of the Union address in 2011, Madam Speaker: Every day, families sacrifice to live within their means. They deserve a government that does the same. He said it in 2010. He said it in 2011. In fact, go back to the beginning of his Presidency. Here we are in 2009, the same State of the Union address: Given these realities, everyone in this Chamber, Democrats and Republicans, will have to sacrifice some worthy priorities for which there are no dollars, and that includes me. Madam Speaker, he was right there in front of where you sit tonight. He said: Given these realities, everyone in this Chamber must sacrifice some worthy priorities for which there are no dollars, and that includes me. The President of the United States. But what's the reality, Madam Speaker? We can put the words back up. We can put the words up from 2009, from 2010, from 2011, but what's the reality? The reality, sadly, is this chart, Madam Speaker. You can't see it from where you are, but it's a chart from The Wall Street Journal, entitled, ``The Debt Boom.'' It charts the public debt of the United States from the year 2000 to the year 2012. What we see, Madam Speaker, is that as a percent of GDP, the debt was entirely too high during the Bush years. Don't get me wrong. There is not a party in this town that is blameless in this debate. For Pete's sake, we were having economic boon times and our debt was running 35 percent of GDP. Thirty-five percent of all the economy of the United States of America was being borrowed in debt. But look what happens. Look what happens. President Obama is sworn in in January of 2009. You see a debt boom, where we rise from 35 percent of GDP as our debt level up to 80 percent of GDP as our debt level. Now, again, I can put the words back up: ``Time for sacrifice.'' ``Families are tightening their belts, we must do the same.'' ``Everyone must sacrifice priorities, including me,'' the President of the United States. I can put the words back up. The reality, Madam Speaker, is that the President has continued to promote spending with reckless abandon. And it's not just in the debt. Madam Speaker, this chart is a chart produced by the Budget Committee on which I have the privilege of serving. What it charts is the debt of the United States. We see it on the white dotted line here. And it charts the proposed plan of President Barack Obama. The President, to his credit, introduced a budget in January--the law requires him to do it and he did it. In fact, he has every year that he's been in office. The law requires the Senate to produce a budget every year. They ignore that law and have again this year for the third time in a row. But the President produced his budget. I can, again, go back to the words where he talks about sacrifice, where he talks about tightening his belt, where he talks about what American families are doing and says America deserves a government that does the same, but look at this chart. The white dotted line represents the current debt path of America. The red line represents the President's proposal from February of this year. If you look closely, Madam Speaker, what you can see is that under the President's proposal of February of this year, enacting the President's proposal raises the deficit of the United States year after year after year after year-- 2012, '13, '14, '15, '16, '17, '18, '19, and '20--more than doing nothing. Madam Speaker, you ask: How can that be true? The President's proposal includes $2 trillion in new taxes on American families. That's true. That's true. The President has made no secret of his desire to work our way through our current economic crisis by taxing the American people. I don't believe that's the right way to go, but he has introduced that as a plan. And, yes, his budget raises taxes by $2 trillion, but he spends so much more that even with a $2 trillion tax increase, Madam Speaker, we don't see any improvement in our debt in 2013 or '14 or '15 or '16 or '17 or '18 or '19 or '20 or '21. Now, I've blown up, Madam Speaker, just so folks can see it, way out there in 2022, you finally begin to see a better debt trajectory from the President's budget than if we had done something. Nine years from now, America would have a slightly lower deficit under the President's plan than if we did nothing and just left all of our systems on autopilot. That doesn't jibe with what we heard. Can I go back to the beginning, Madam Speaker? At stake is not who wins the election; at stake is new jobs, new jobs that come through fiscal responsibility. Go back to his State of the Union address: Families across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions. The Federal Government should do the same. Madam Speaker, there's not one tough decision made when you tax the American people by $2 trillion but you spend even more. I believed the President. I believed the President when he said: Given these realities, everyone in this Chamber, Republicans and Democrats, will have to sacrifice some worthy priorities for which there are no dollars. He was right when he said that. That was an applause line, Madam Speaker. Folks got to their feet here in the House Chamber. He's right, that sacrifice is necessary. His budget includes none of it. The good news, though, Madam Speaker, is we're not limited to the President's ideas in this town. We have a freshman class here in Washington, D.C., Madam Speaker, of which you are a critical part, that says we can do better; in fact, we must do better; in fact, we cannot take ``no'' for an answer. Let me show you what I have here, Madam Speaker. It's a chart of discretionary appropriations. Now, discretionary appropriations, for folks who are in the freshman class who haven't followed that back in their offices, that's the part that we have to affirmatively act on every year. About two-thirds of the Federal budget is on autopilot. If we closed the doors of Congress tomorrow, that money would continue to flow out the door, but not so with one-third of the Federal budget. We call that discretionary spending. You and I, Madam Speaker, we have responsibility to do oversight on that every year. Look what we see here. FY 2010--that's the first year I've charted-- we spent about $1.3 trillion in this discretionary spending. That was 2010. You and I were not yet here, Madam Speaker. You and I showed up while we were still working on the FY 2011 budget. You will see we spent less in this Congress--and I don't just mean we proposed spending less. I don't just mean we talked about spending less. I don't mean that we got together as Republicans and said this is our idea, but we're not going to be able to get the Democrats to go along with it. I mean, as a body in this House, as a Congress on Capitol Hill, with the cooperation of the President's signature, we actually passed into law a budget for discretionary spending that went down in 2011 from 2010 levels. And guess what? We didn't stop there, Madam Speaker. As you know, we passed another set of appropriations bills that took spending down even further. From 2011 levels, we went down further in 2012. And guess what? This freshman class, we're not done yet. This House leadership, they're not done yet. For 2013, we are on track to reduce spending--I don't mean reduce rates of growth. I don't mean reduce projected increases. I mean reduce the actual dollars going out the door for a third year in a row. The third year in a row. It's unprecedented. It hadn't happened since World War II. It's happened because the American people said we have to do better. It happened because the American people said we can't just talk about it; we have to do it. But I've got some bad news, Madam Speaker. We're going to keep working on this discretionary spending side of the ledger. We're going to keep trying to drive those numbers down. But that's not where the real spending is. As I said a few minutes ago, that's only one-third of the budget. Two-thirds of the budget is on autopilot. I have it up here, Madam Speaker. In yellow, you see what they call mandatory spending. That's the autopilot money. Again, you could close the White House tomorrow, you could close the Congress tomorrow, this money still flows out the door. If we're going to stop it, we have to act affirmatively to stop it. This little piece of the pie up here is the defense part. You would think that national security is one of the biggest things we spend money on around here. Madam Speaker, it's down to less than 20 percent of the money that goes out the door in Washington, D.C. goes towards national security. This 17 percent here is everything else, everything else that's in that discretionary budget. The 63 percent, 64 percent, so says the Congressional Budget Office, this is the mandatory spending that's on autopilot. I have it displayed here in a slightly different way. The red bar represents our discretionary spending. And you can see that discretionary spending, as a percentage of the budget, has been in decline each and every year since 1962. Now, those aren't actual dollars going down, that's just a share of what we do in Washington, D.C. It's been this Congress that's brought the actual dollars down, as I said, for the first time since World War II. But over time we've had a shift in this country. Discretionary spending has declined as a percentage of what we do, and this out-of- control mandatory spending, this autopilot spending is increasing. What are we going to do about that? There's not enough time tonight, Madam Speaker, to get into the details. But I encourage all of our colleagues, Madam Speaker, and I hope you will help me to encourage them, to keep an eye out on what's coming down the road, because what's coming down the road in this body is a process called reconciliation. And I put to you that we haven't had a real reconciliation process in this House. In 1997, Republicans in the House and Senate, and a Democrat in the White House, came together to pass the biggest spending reduction bill that we'd had in our lifetime prior to this point. We can't balance the budget on the discretionary spending side of the ledger alone. As you know, Madam Speaker, if we zeroed out everything-- and I mean everything. I don't mean cut by 5 percent, I don't mean cut by 10 percent, I mean zeroed out everything except Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the national debt, those mandatory spending programs that I'm talking about, those autopilot programs, if we zeroed out everything else, the budget still wouldn't be balanced. That's how far out of whack we are. And that's how big those categories are. We're going to do something that hasn't been done since 1997 and that is, go through reconciliation, where we ask the committees of this House, we go back to our communities and ask in town hall meetings, what can we do on that mandatory spending side of the ledger to tighten our belts, to do better to provide more bang for their buck to the American taxpayers. Those bills are going to start coming to the floor in the month of May, for the first time since 1997, in a serious way. Now, it's going to be a small process at first. We're talking about just the amount of money to cover some of our necessary defense spending needs. But we're going to start to talk about priorities here. And when I say talk about, I mean legislate on. Madam Speaker, the talking has already been done. ``Every day families sacrifice to live within their means. They deserve a government that does the same.'' President Barack Obama, 2011. ``Families across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions. The Federal Government should do the same.'' President Obama 2010. At stake right now is not who wins the election. At stake is whether new jobs and industry take root in this country or not. Madam Speaker, we are bankrupting this country. We are bankrupting this country. We have doubled, doubled the annual spending deficits that we've seen in this country. We've seen the public debt of this Nation increase by 50 percent in the last 3\1/2\ years. And that was with the efforts of the most conservative U.S. House of Representatives we've seen in our lifetime. That was with the efforts of this U.S. House of Representatives that has cut spending, not 1 year in a row, not 2 years in a row, but 3 years in a row. Madam Speaker, the good ship United States of America is in troubled waters. The President is saying all the right things. I come to the floor here tonight, Madam Speaker, to ask you to encourage him to do the right things. Join this U.S. House of Representatives, join these 100 new Democrat and freshman Members in this body as we try to do something that hasn't been done since 1997, and that's take programs off of autopilot and make sure that every dollar leaving this institution is doing the very best that it can for the hardworking American taxpayers that have entrusted us to spend it. Madam Speaker, I thank you for being here and yielding me this time this evening. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. With that, I want to thank the ranking member and the chairman for their tremendous openness throughout this entire process. Briefing after briefing, phone call after phone call, they both made themselves available to Members on both sides of the aisle so that we could get our questions answered in what is sometimes a difficult area to understand and digest. I thank them both for their leadership, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Chair, my amendment is a simple amendment. What we're doing here in this bill today, to the great credit of the chairman and the ranking member, is instituting a voluntary system by which our private companies and utilities can cooperate in the name of securing America's cyberspace. But what happens so often is, when the Federal Government creates a so-called ``voluntary'' standard, suddenly those folks who choose not to play on that playing field are subject to new liabilities because they rejected that voluntary standard. Well, if it's going to be a truly voluntary standard, we have to ensure that those who reject it are not held to any new liabilities. I believe that was the intent of the committee as they crafted this legislation, but my amendment makes that clear to say that no new liabilities arise for any company that chooses not to participate in this new truly voluntary cybersecurity cooperative regime. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. I appreciate my friend from New York for yielding. You are absolutely right. I have some Fair Tax passion. I believe that there is a better way to create a United States Tax Code, and I believe the Fair Tax is that. H.R. 25, for folks who haven't read it. But the truth is I came down here tonight because I knew that we were going to have that debate of ideas that you're talking about. I mean, whether it's your leadership on this Special Order, whether it's the enthusiasm my friend from Wisconsin brings to the floor, we're talking about the challenges that we face using a different language than we've used in this body before. This is a floor that has been taken over by freshmen here tonight. This is an institution that's been taken over by new ideas. I don't mean just new freshman ideas; I mean new ideas from all aspects of this institution. I hear my friend from Wisconsin talking, and he comes from a competitive district. There is all this talk about these rabid freshmen, crazy Republicans. The people of Wisconsin, they can choose anybody they want. They don't have to choose Republican. They can choose a Democrat. They can choose an independent. They can choose anybody they want, and they choose him. His message is not: Look what I am going to go to Washington and get for you. His message is: We don't need a subsidy here because we've got the hardest-working workforce in the world. His message is not: How can I give you an unfair advantage over your neighbors? His message is: How can we make the American economy the most competitive economy in the world, because if we do that, the American worker will succeed because we work harder, better, and longer than anybody else on the planet. That is a different take on what happens in Washington, D.C., and it's a different take on what happens in the Tax Code. I know my friend from New York sits on the powerful Ways and Means Committee, as does my friend from Tennessee, and you have to have a Ways and Means Committee. For folks who don't sit on that committee, they're the ones who write all the Tax Code. The Tax Code is a complicated thing to do. What this Ways and Means Committee is doing--and it's important to be said because this is an election year, and a lot of crazy things happen in an election year. There are crazy things like people supporting a Buffett rule to solve deficit problems, a rule that if it had been in place this year and collected that same amount of revenue for the next 250 years, it still would not have balanced the budget from last year. That's right. This great savior of all that's good that ails us in this country, President Obama's Buffett rule, had it been in place this year, and not just this year but the next 250 years, it had raised that revenue, it still would not have balanced the budget from last year, just the budget gap from last year. We have all this nonsense in a political year. But what we're getting out of the Ways and Means Committee--and I know my two friends from the Ways and Means Committee wouldn't brag on themselves, so I'm going to brag on you for you. We have had more serious hearings about fundamental tax reform in this Ways and Means Committee over the last 16 months than we've had in the last decade. This is a committee that, by virtue of simplifying the American Tax Code, is going to undo the work of the Ways and Means Committee for decades and decades and decades in the past. They're doing it not to exploit the power of their position; they're doing it to help grow the American economy. As an alternative to the Buffett rule, I have brought down a chart to demonstrate what happens in today's Tax Code. My friends on the Ways and Means Committee know it all too well. But in today's Tax Code, the folks who have the money benefit from all the loopholes and exceptions and exemptions and carve-out. Of course they do. It makes sense. I will tell you, the folks who have the money are the ones who are paying the taxes, so it certainly makes sense that they are the ones benefiting from the carve-outs. We have a choice of two futures here. We can either implement the President's Buffett rule, which again, by simple mathematics, will have absolutely no effect either on growing the economy or paying down the deficit, or we can simplify today's Tax Code to make it flatter and fairer. That's what my friends on the Ways and Means Committee have been working on, Chairman Dave Camp and the rest of the committee, in ways that I have never seen before, with a sincerity that I have never seen before. You're absolutely right, and I appreciate my friend from New York for saying it. They've said, Bring all comers. Bring all comers. We're not the smartest people in the room. If the idea comes from Lawrenceville, Georgia, bring it. If it comes from Seneca, New York, bring it. If it comes from Chattanooga, Tennessee, bring it. We want all the ideas, and we'll just let the chips fall where they may. That's what's different in this town. I say to my colleague, what is different in this town with this Republican class is we don't have to rig the game to get to the outcome. We just bring the debates to the floor. Bring the facts to the floor. Let the facts speak for themselves. And then guess what. Have a vote. If it's a good idea, it wins, and if it's a bad idea, it loses. We see both of those happen on this floor every day, and the Ways and Means Committee is leading in this tax process. This would have been a great year for the Ways and Means Committee-- putting my political hat on for a moment--a great year for you all to play some sort of game with the Tax Code. I have seen it happen in Congresses past. Oh, this is going to be good for reelection. We're going to go do X, Y, or Z. It's not going to happen. It's not going to be real. But we're going to play the game. The folks on this committee this year, the freshmen in the body this year, would rather lose in November, having tried each and every day to do the right thing, than win in November, having played the game the way it's been played for so many years. So serious is the effort in the Ways and Means Committee that it was included in the House-passed budget this year--flatter, fairer rates, eliminating exemptions, loopholes, carve-outs--all of those things that the American people look at and lose faith in this body. You've stood up to them all. You've stood up to them all in the Ways and Means Committee. We've stood up to them in the Budget Committee to say, No more. There's a better way. And we're going to share with the American people. I appreciate my colleague for taking on the time tonight. And I ask him to commit this chart to memory. I say to all my other colleagues who might be watching back in their offices that on budget.house.gov, you'll find myriad charts to talk about all the things that my friend from Wisconsin discussed and my friend from Kansas discussed and my friend from Florida discussed. It will lay them out in easy-to-see and visualized ways. But if we want to get a handle on what's happening in America with the discrepancies--call it fairness, call it economic growth, you name your ill--a flatter and fairer tax code is the beginning of that solution, it's not the end. But the Tax Code was not designed to implement social policy. It was designed to collect revenue so that we can run the national defense of this country. And if we get back there, the American economy and the American taxpayer is going to be the beneficiary. I thank my friend for his leadership tonight.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. That is what is so amazing about small business folks. You never have a small business person come to your office and say, Rob, what I want is a leg up on everybody else. I want an unfair playing field so I can beat all my competition. That's not who our small business owners are. Our small business owners are people who say, Rob, give me a level playing field, and I will out-compete anybody in any nation around the globe because nobody works harder and has more powerful ideas than does the American worker. Well, that's what the Fair Tax is all about. It says, let's create a level playing field. My friend is not a freshman as I am. He got here 6 months earlier in a special election that he had to work incredibly hard for; but those of us who are newer to this institution, as you and I are, know there are some folks here who like using the Tax Code to pick winners and losers. I mean, it's an easy thing to do. I look around this body. I can find some examples. I see fluorescent lights here in the Chamber. I could put a huge tax on fluorescent lights so we would never have any more fluorescent lights. I could put a huge tax on plaid shirts so we never have any more plaid shirts. That is what happens with the Tax Code. The Fair Tax says no. It says we're going to have a single tax rate on everything the consumer buys. You're going to be taxed on everything once--but only once--because those small business men and women who write those letters to your office and to mine say, Rob, I spend more time trying to figure out tax decisions than I do figuring out business decisions. So, when these are the men and women who employ so many of our friends and neighbors, when these are the men and women who create the job growth in this country, we have to have them focus on business decisions, not on tax decisions; and the Fair Tax does that.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Graves, I appreciate you taking this time tonight. Folks ask me, What goes on in the evenings there on Capitol Hill? When you finish the votes for the day, what goes on next? I say, Well, folks are all back in their offices, working, just like small business folks across the country. Just because the customers leave doesn't mean the doors close. Folks are still working, and this is that time when we get to come down and really fully debate some of these ideas that folks have been watching all day today. We've been talking about transportation policy. We've been talking about Mark Twain a little bit. We've been talking about the rules, the process; but we haven't gotten to talk about small businesses. When we talk about economic growth in this country--you're from the great State of Georgia, as I am, and we've got some fantastic big companies there. UPS is there, doing fantastic things. They're the folks dressed in brown. Delta Airlines is there, carrying more passengers than anybody else in the country. We've got Coca-Cola there, a brand name that's known the world around. There's Home Depot, the Big Orange, which everybody understands. But that is not where the jobs come from. The jobs come from those small business men and -women who risk everything--everything--to believe that by the sweat of their brows and the power of their ideas they can make their tomorrows better than today. That letter that you got from your constituent, Mr. Graves, is exactly the kind of letter that I get from folks every single day who say, Rob, I don't mind paying the taxes. I understand part of the social contract is that the government has to run, but it doesn't have to be this painful. We can do it in a better way, in H.R. 25, the Fair Tax, of which you are a proud cosponsor, a huge leader on that bill. It is the single most popularly cosponsored piece of fundamental tax reform legislation in either the U.S. House or the U.S. Senate because voters are demanding it one Member of Congress at a time.

Mr. WOODALL

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

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I appreciate the comments of my friend from New York. We serve together on the Rules Committee, Mr. Speaker, and we grapple with tough issues on the Rules Committee every single time we meet. There's no easy day on the Rules Committee. Every bill is a challenge because of the different ideas that folks have to make it better. But what I've learned in that time, Mr. Speaker, is that I'm not the smartest guy in the room, I'm not the smartest guy in this Congress, and I'm not the smartest guy in my district. There's a reason we have regular order here in the U.S. House of Representatives, so that even a good idea we can make better. I have some folks come to me in my district and they say, Rob, why is it that you put that hospital funding that we need in the transportation bill? Those things don't have anything to do with one another. Why do you combine those two things? If it's a good idea to pass the transportation bill, let's pass the transportation bill; and if it's a good idea to pass the hospital bill, let's pass the hospital bill. But why do you put these disconnected things together? Why do you try to fund a new military procurement program in the environmental and National Park funding? Why do you stick those things together, Rob? They don't have anything to do with one another. I actually campaigned on that issue, Mr. Speaker, because I think they're right. I think that the American people deserve an up-or-down vote on one issue at a time. I think my colleague from New York, my colleague from Connecticut, my colleague from the District of Columbia, and my colleague from Wisconsin make extremely compelling cases for why we should see the Violence Against Women Act come through regular order. But my understanding is--and I would be happy to be corrected if I'm mistaken--my understanding is the bill was just introduced yesterday, that it hasn't had an opportunity to go through those committees where folks know so much more about these issues than we do in the Rules Committee or in the Budget Committee; that it has not had an opportunity to be amended and improved, to have the opportunity for those Members for whom this is a heartfelt and compelling issue to put in their two cents to make it even better. I think it should have that opportunity, Mr. Speaker. I encourage folks to vote ``yes'' on the previous question so that we can move forward to debate these budgets today, and then I urge my colleagues-- let me say it, Mr. Speaker, because I know folks are watching this on the screens back in their rooms--the bill number of the Violence Against Women Act is H.R. 4271, Mr. Speaker. There's no question-- because this is a House where folks believe in regular order--that the more cosponsors a bill accumulates and the faster it accumulates them, the more likely it is to end up on this floor in haste, rapidly, immediately in order to have a hearing. I would encourage my colleagues to go and look at that bill again just dropped yesterday, but certainly something that I know this House and the Judiciary Committee and others are going to want to consider. The opportunity we have today, though, Mr. Speaker, with this rule, is to define our national vision. I don't mean our vision for just the Nation, our land, Mr. Speaker. I mean a vision for us as a people. Who are we as a people, Mr. Speaker? I heard one of the Presidential candidates speak the other day and he said, This year we don't need politicians that we can believe in; we need politicians who believe in us. I thought that was pretty profound. I don't need somebody I can believe in. I need somebody who believes in me. That's true, Mr. Speaker. We lay out all of these different competing budget visions here, the summaries of which I hold in my hand. My question to my colleagues is: Which of these visions do you believe believes in you? Which of these visions lays out that future of America that is best for you and your family, that is best for your constituents and their families, that is best for your State, that is best for our Nation? The visions are starkly different, Mr. Speaker. Again, the base bill is the bill that we reported out of the Budget Committee. That is the base text. These are substitutes for that. For example, we have a bipartisan substitute--Republican and Democratic Members of the House--that raises taxes by $2 trillion more. To be perfectly accurate, it's $1.8 trillion more than the Republican budget that the committee passed. It spends $3.1 trillion more. It focuses on different priorities. The debt increases by about $1.4 trillion. That's the cost of those priorities. Again, some priorities may be worth that cost. We'll have that debate on the floor. The ranking member on the Budget Committee, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Maryland, his budget substitute also raises taxes by $1.8 trillion over the next 10 years more than the House Budget Committee budget does and spends $4.7 trillion more than the House Budget Committee budget does and thus adds $2.9 trillion more to the backs of our children. As I said, Mr. Speaker, about $15.5 trillion today, soon to be $16 trillion, that we've borrowed and spent, that we've impoverished our children with so that we can live today at the standard of living that we have, Mr. Speaker. The gentleman from Maryland's substitute increases that by $3 trillion more than does the House Budget Committee report. Do the priorities that he spends on merit that kind of increase? Do the priorities that he focuses on merit that kind of debt increase? Perhaps they do. We're going to have that debate on the floor of the House, Mr. Speaker. The Congressional Black Caucus substitute raises taxes by $6 trillion over 10 years, more than the House budget bill does, and it spends $5.3 trillion more, which means the Congressional Black Caucus substitute actually reduces the national debt more than the House Budget Committee does. Now, it does so by raising taxes $6 trillion, and it only reduces the debt by under $1 trillion, but that's one of those priorities that folks have had the courage to lay out here on the floor of the House that we're going to make in order. My colleague from New York, the chairman from California, this Budget Committee of men and women, Mr. Speaker, has made every single option available. The Congressional Progressive Caucus, Mr. Speaker, their proposal is to raise taxes by $6.8 trillion more than the Republican Budget Committee budget, the budget that was passed out of the entire Budget Committee. It increases spending by about $6.6 trillion, one of the highest spending of the bunch, again, focusing on priorities that all 435 Members of this House deserve an opportunity to hear and an opportunity to consider. We have an opportunity in this House, Mr. Speaker, to do great things. We have an opportunity in this House to stand up for the priorities that are the priorities of our constituents back home. And we don't have to vote on 100 different ideas in one bill, Mr. Speaker. In the 15 months I've been here, Mr. Speaker, all but about five of the bills have been short enough for me to read; I don't have to staff it out, and I don't have to have a team of speed readers out there working through it. All but about five have been short enough for me to read. That's a source of great pride for me on the Rules Committee, because I've told folks back home and folks believe it back home that we ought to have time to carefully deliberate each and every thing. Folks are tired of 1,500-page bills. Folks are tired of 2,500-page bills. Folks are tired of the defense bill being merged with the transportation bill which is merged with the health care bill which is merged with the national parks bill which also funds the White House. That's crazy, and it doesn't have to be that way. There's not one rule of this House that requires that nonsense to go on. In fact, the opposite is true. The rules of the House were actually created to prevent that from going on, and we have to work really hard to pervert the process in a way that makes that possible. This Speaker has made an effort unlike any I've ever seen to try to have one idea at a time down here on the floor of the House, one idea at a time so that the American people's voice can be heard. If we bring a bill to the floor, Mr. Speaker, that supports dogcatchers on the one hand and hospital funding on the other and somebody votes ``no,'' what are they voting ``no'' on? Are they voting ``no'' on the dogcatchers or are they voting ``no'' on the hospital? You can't tell. And that's what happens. Have you seen that? Have you ever wondered why it is, Mr. Speaker, that in our appropriations process the food stamp language and the agricultural subsidy language is in the same appropriations bill? I always wondered. I started thinking about it as I watched the votes going on the board, and what I figured out is that we don't have enough farmers in this country for everybody to vote to increase farm spending, and we don't have enough folks with high food stamp populations in their district to support having high food stamp spending, but when you combine those two groups together, guess what? You get 51 percent of this House and you can make things happen. Well, I guess I support the ingenuity of folks who find ways to cobble a multitude of ideas together and find 51 percent, but I ask my colleagues, is that really what our constituents sent us here to do? Is cobbling together multiple ideas and just trying to game the system enough to find your 51 percent, Mr. Speaker, is that really what our Framers intended? Or, alternatively, should we commit ourselves to not just having an open process, Mr. Speaker, but an open process on a single idea? Do you know what I found on the Rules Committee? And it was a surprise to me--and if you haven't had a chance to serve on the Rules Committee, it might not be intuitive to you--but when you bring a small bill to the Rules Committee, when you focus on one single idea, when you find one priority that you want to make the law of the land and you send that to the Rules Committee, Mr. Speaker, then the amendment process is only open to amendments that are germane to that underlying idea. If you bring a bill about hospital funding to the Rules Committee, well, then, the only germane amendments that will be considered are amendments that have to do with hospital funding. So the shorter we make these bills and the more single-minded we make these bills, the more open we can have the process here on the House floor. Mr. Speaker, this freshman class is full of a bunch of CEOs from the private sector, folks who ran for Congress because they're worried about the direction of this country, and they said, Dadgumit, I've got to step up; I've got to run, and I've got to be a part of the solution. And they get here thinking that they were going to be able to do it all overnight. It turns out there are 435 of us, and we all have the same voting card. It's harder. Nobody is king of the world in here. It's one man, one woman, one vote, and there are 435 of us. You've got to find that agreement. Well, it turns out there really is a lot of agreement, not just agreement on the Republican side of the aisle, not just agreement on the Democratic side of the aisle, but agreement across this whole House when we open up the process and allow the House to work its will. Mr. Speaker, that is what we have here today. We have a rule that opens up the process, that flings open the doors of democracy and lets every single idea be considered. Mr. Speaker, I encourage an affirmative vote on the rule.

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

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say that I think the gentlelady from New York is right on target. I mean, these budgets are moral documents. They talk about our priorities as a people. I tell folks back home, Mr. Speaker, and we don't have any young people on the floor with us today, but for all those young folks who are entrepreneurs, Mr. Speaker, who want to go out, and they don't want to work for the Man, they want to go out and hang out their own shingle, run their own business; you know, if they lost, at their small business, beginning on the day Jesus Christ was born, $1 million a day, and they lost $1 million a day at that small business every single day from the day Jesus was born, 7 days a week, through today, Mr. Speaker, they would have to continue to lose $1 million a day every day, 7 days a week for another 700 years to lose their first trillion dollars. Their first trillion. And the budgets that have been passed by this House and by the United States Senate and signed by Presidents of both parties have saddled our young people today in America with more than $15 trillion--not $1 trillion, Mr. Speaker--$15 trillion and climbing, soon to be 16. So when we talk about the morality of our budgets, we've got to talk about the morality of continuing to run budgets that are unbalanced. We've got to talk about the morality of continuing to pay for our priorities today with IOUs from our children in the future. We've got to talk about the prosperity that we experience today that we're trading away the prosperity of the future to have. Health care, Mr. Speaker. It's going on right across the street. The longest line in Washington, D.C., today is right out there at the Supreme Court, folks who want to get in and find out what's going to happen. Well, the budget that makes up the foundation of this debate that we'll have assumes the President's health care bill is going to go away. It assumes the Supreme Court Justices will accurately conclude that this mandate is unconstitutional, that the whole house of cards unfolds beyond that, and we'll start again. And you know what's interesting? Again, I'm so proud to be a member of this Budget Committee that I do think is doing it better than we have done it in the past under both parties. You know, had the President's health care bill come to the floor of this House five pages at the time, 10 pages at the time, 20 pages at the time, I would wager that this House would have passed the majority of it. In fact, I would wager that the American people would have approved and been enthusiastic about the majority of it. But what has happened in this House too often, Mr. Speaker, is that we take those policies that we can all agree on, and for some reason unbeknownst to me, we decide that it would be bad if we all agreed on good policy, and so we begin to stuff things in there that we know are going to create controversy. We just manufacture an argument that we don't have to have, and that's what happened to the President's health care bill. There was this nugget of the individual mandate, that theft of freedom, a new definition about what it means to be an American. We knew that the body wouldn't support that so we began to add on sweetener after sweetener after sweetener. We could have just voted on those sweeteners. This rule doesn't put up with that, Mr. Speaker. This rule says we're not going to try to buy anybody's vote on the floor, we're not going to try to hide the ball in these budgets. Every single Member of Congress who has a vision of America, who has a vision of the morality that my colleague from New York discussed, who has a vision of what we could be as a people if only we had the political will to implement it right here. Each and every Member of Congress was invited to put that vision forward. There are at least two visions that we'll have today, Mr. Speaker, and tomorrow that I plan to support, visions that I think outline that correct vision of how we can retain America's economic prosperity, how we can continue to be a leader in the free world. But I support bringing to the floor those budgets that I do not believe in because just because those folks in north metro Atlanta, Mr. Speaker, just because those folks in the Seventh District of Georgia that I represent don't approve of every budget doesn't mean that those budgets don't deserve a vote, and that is a fundamental difference between the leadership that this Speaker has brought to this Institution and the leadership that we have had from both parties in years past. What we've said is every single idea is worthy of consideration--win or lose. Win or lose, bring those ideas to the floor for debate, and let's see where the votes fall. Mr. Speaker, again, as a member of both the Budget Committee and the Rules Committee, I am strongly supportive of the underlying budget bill but particularly proud of this rule that makes every other budget option in order as well. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my colleague 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. Mr. Speaker, it's budget day. It's budget day, and we get to begin that in the Rules Committee. Now, I have the great pleasure in this body, as a freshman, of serving on both the Rules Committee and the Budget Committee, so you can imagine the sincerity with which I bring my enthusiasm to the floor today. Coming here as a freshman who believes in an open process, who believes that we ought to have the opportunity to bring all ideas before the American people and let the 435 Members of the people's House express their opinion, I'm proud to tell you that the rule that is before us today allows for not one budget to be debated, not two budgets to be debated, not three, not four, not five, and not six, Mr. Speaker; but the rule that we bring today allows for seven different visions of the United States budget to be brought before this institution and debated. That is every single budget that was introduced, offered yesterday, Mr. Speaker, in front of the Rules Committee. Candidly, had more Members submitted budgets, had we had 11, had we had 12, we would have made those in order, too, because this debate that we will have over these next 2 days, Mr. Speaker, is a debate about the vision that we have in this body for this country. I am so proud of the vision that was voted, reported out of the Budget Committee, and that will be made in order by this rule. The options we'll have before us, Mr. Speaker, as made in order by this rule, include the President's budget. You may remember last year, Mr. Speaker, the President submitted his budget to Congress and not a single Member of the House offered that budget on the floor. It was offered in the Senate. It didn't get any votes. It was defeated 97 0, but it was offered there. This year, we're going to be able to look at the President's budget and debate that here on the floor of the House for the first time in my term. We're going to have a budget offered by the Congressional Black Caucus today that lays out a vision for America, that talks about taxation, that talks about revenues and spending and where we should prioritize. We have a bipartisan budget that's been introduced, Mr. Speaker, that will come before the floor of this House, again, to be debated in its entirety. We have the Progressive Caucus budget that's coming. We have the Republican Study Committee budget that is coming. And, Mr. Speaker, we have the Democratic Caucus substitute that is coming, all to compete with, in this grand arena of ideas, the budget that we reported out of the Budget Committee. I see my colleague from Wisconsin, with whom I have the great pleasure of serving on the Budget Committee. We went through amendment after amendment after amendment--some 30 amendments offered and considered, debated, some with bipartisan support, some with bipartisan opposition--to create this one budget that will be the foundation for the budget debate, Mr. Speaker, if this rule is enacted. I don't know how we could have done it any better in the Rules Committee. I hope that's what we'll hear from my friend from New York. Again, every single budget that was offered--and that was the invitation put out by the Speaker, just to be clear. The openness and the invitation was, Mr. Speaker: Come one, come all. If you have a competing vision, send it to the Rules Committee. We'll make it in order on the floor so that we can have the kind of open debate that's going to make America proud. This is the beginning of that, right here, Mr. Speaker, right now. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 597 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I appreciate the comments of my colleague from California, and I know her concern for America's seniors is heartfelt, and it's one that I share as well; and I hope that she will support this rule that allows for a series of votes on many different Medicare solutions. Some solutions are better than others; but even if she opposes the underlying budget, I do hope we'll have her support on the rule, because we do lay out the opportunity for folks to choose among seven different visions for solving the Medicare challenge. I don't have the charts with me down here on the floor. I know my colleagues on the Budget Committee will bring them during the main debate; but I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, and I can picture the charts in my mind, if you charted Medicare spending going out from 2020 to 2050, that two-generation horizon heading out there, and you charted the President's commitment to spend dollars on Medicare, and you charted the Budget Committee's commitment to spend dollars on Medicare, you'd find that the dollar value commitment is about dollar-for-dollar going out over that 30-year window. So the question then, Mr. Speaker, is not about how much money is this Congress committing, the question is to what priorities is this Congress committing that money. Now, the President's budget, which we'll have an opportunity to debate and vote here on the floor of the House, turns those Medicare financing decisions, those decisions about how to save money in the system, over to what we've all come to know as IPAB, the Independent Payment Advisory Board, to make recommendations and suggestions about how to clamp down on costs. Now, generally, that means clamping down on reimbursements to doctors. What the Budget Committee budget does, Mr. Speaker, is give those dollars to individuals so the individuals can enter the marketplace-- not a free-for-all marketplace--but a regulated and guaranteed marketplace where policies are guaranteed to these seniors so that individuals can then control those dollars and make their own choices about health care decisions. So just to be clear, we're not arguing about dollars and cents in Medicare. The President's vision and the Budget Committee's vision is virtually identical. What we are talking about, though, is who controls those dollars. Are they controlled by a one-size-fits-all 1965 Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan, soon to be revised by the IPAB board, or are they controlled by my mother and my father and your mother and your father and our neighbors, our aunts and uncles, individuals, Americans who will make those health care decisions for themselves. Again, for me that choice is clear. Individual freedom will always be my choice over government control. But getting back to the actual rule, Mr. Speaker, that's what's so wonderful about the way this Rules Committee has operated and this resolution that we have before us today. You're not restricted to just voting on my vision of solutions for this country. We're offering six other visions as well. In fact, we're offering every single vision that has come out of this U.S. House of Representatives so that we can have a free, open, and honest debate and let the American people know what their true choices for freedom are. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would like to say to my friend from Connecticut, because I can see her passion--again, I know it comes from the heart--your mother will be in no way affected by the budget that we're voting on today, and I would like to make that clear if anybody else is concerned about their mothers. For folks who are aged 55 or older, there is not one word in the Republican budget plan that changes the commitment that we've made to folks over the past three or four decades. That commitment since 1965 remains as solid today and tomorrow under the Budget Committee budget as it has ever been. The alternative, Mr. Speaker, is to take our 98-year-old mothers and turn them over to IPAB. Now, again, there are choices here. The Republican budget, which has become the House Budget Committee budget, allows everyone in the current Medicare system and those 55 years of age or older to experience no changes whatsoever to that program guaranteed from 1965. Because the dollars still have to be regulated and because we still have to protect this program from bankruptcy, which is a program important to so many of us, the alternative is to turn it over to this government board and to let them cut costs where they can. Let me tell you a story, Mr. Speaker, if I can just take a moment of personal privilege. I was talking with a physician from back home in Gwinnett County, my hometown. He is a neurologist, Mr. Speaker. He has been practicing neurology for 17 years, and he is the youngest neurologist in the county. This is one of the largest counties in the State of Georgia, which is one of the largest States in the Nation, and we haven't had one new neurologist coming into our area in 17 years. This doc says he's thinking about getting out. He has got an uncle who is a primary care physician in south Georgia, a primary care physician who is the only one to accept Medicaid, Mr. Speaker, in a five-county radius. Folks say that there is this guarantee of health care. Let me tell you, if you can't find a doctor who will take you, your insurance card isn't worth much. What we have to do, Mr. Speaker, is to restore the promise of America's health care system. What is it about the American health care system that's driving our doctors into retirement? Is it that we're not clamping down enough and that if only we had the IPAB board clamp down even more that it's going to increase access to care? I tell you that it's not, Mr. Speaker. There are lots of different ways to prepare budgets, and I didn't know what to expect when I got on the Budget Committee, Mr. Speaker. I'll be honest. It could easily degenerate into a political exercise. I've seen it happen. It could become all about the right talking points and about all the right focus group conversations and have nothing to do with how we should actually lead this country forward--but not so on the Chairman Paul Ryan Budget Committee. In meeting after meeting, in conversation after conversation, in argument after argument, this Budget Committee chairman said there is one way to do a budget, and that is to do a budget with honest numbers and honest priorities that lay out in plain vision, for all to see, our vision of America's future--and he did it. He did it. He did it with the help of a very competent Budget Committee. Again, as I look to my friend from Wisconsin with whom I share the bottom dais there on the Budget Committee, he did it with lots of input and lots of conversation; but he did it in a way so that no one would say they're just gaming the numbers, so that no one would say this is all about politics, and so that everyone who comes to the floor of this House can vote for this House Budget Committee reported budget with the pride of knowing it was put together with integrity about a vision for a better future. Again, we are going to have six other competing visions, Mr. Speaker. I can only hope that those numbers, those charts, those graphs were put together with the same care and integrity that Chairman Ryan used in the Budget Committee. For folks who are trying to make up their minds about where they're going to cast their votes today, again I urge the strong support of this open rule that allows for the complete debate over all of these alternatives; but I also encourage my colleagues to give a look at that work product that we created on the House Budget Committee, a work product that I believe, Mr. Speaker, is crafted in a way that can make every Member of this body proud. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. I yield myself such time as I may consume to say to my colleague from Wisconsin that her words are always among some of the most powerful that we have on the Budget Committee, and I don't believe I've ever heard her speak from a place that was not of conviction. I want to say I appreciate those words, and you have my support on the Rules Committee. If we can get that bill reported out of Judiciary, I would love to see that in the Rules Committee and would love to see us report that to the House floor for that same kind of free and open debate that we are having today on the Budget Committee, and I appreciate the words that you shared. I must say, though, Mr. Speaker, I have a tough time connecting the Violence Against Women Act with these budgets. I will disagree with my colleague from Wisconsin and will encourage folks to support the previous question so that we can have this budget debate. Should we have the debate that my colleague is discussing? I believe we absolutely should. Again, I know the committees of jurisdiction are working on that, and my hope is that they will report that and send that to the Rules Committee. But today, Mr. Speaker, we have an opportunity. It's not an unprecedented opportunity, but it's one of the rarest of opportunities that we have here in the House, which is to have a debate on the floor that includes every single idea that any of our 435 Members have offered as a vision of how to govern this land, of how to set our fiscal priorities, of this morality that is deciding how to spend taxpayer dollars. We must seize that opportunity today. It's one that comes but once a year, Mr. Speaker; an opportunity but once a year to set these priorities. And again, the Rules Committee has provided time not just today but tomorrow as well to make sure we can thoroughly flesh out each and every one of these ideas and make sure that no one's voice on the floor of this House is silenced. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. I thank my chairman for yielding. As a freshman, I have the privilege of serving on the Budget Committee. And in years past, the Budget Committee has been all about producing a political document, a document that may make for great sound bites, may make for great television, but doesn't make for great governance. As my friend from Arizona said earlier, the challenge, the $15.5 trillion in debt that has been placed on the backs of every child, every man and woman, every family in this country, has been the path that both parties have chosen. My friend from Maryland, the ranking member of the Budget Committee, says there is no disagreement that we have to get the debt under control. Yet the President, who, to his credit, has submitted a budget, submitted a budget that raised taxes by $2 trillion on the American people, but so increased spending as well that the debt continued to climb even faster under the President's budget than it does under the broken system we have today. Take a look at this. You can't see this, Mr. Chairman, but it's the drivers of our debt. If you look here at the blue line, it is Social Security; and Social Security is a situation that we know is facing peril, but it's facing peril in a predictable way that we'll be able to solve and control. We see here the green line. It's Medicaid and other health saving in this country, and yet it is growing rapidly. We know how we can begin to curb that spending. Look at this red line. This is Medicare spending growing out of control. We know it. We know it's true. That's the question folks ask me back home. In this budget conversation, they say: Rob, why does it sound like it's a big Medicare discussion? The reason is because Medicare is the driver. Medicare spending, the spending that is done through a government mandate where individuals don't have control over their own health care, is driving this debt train. Going back to my pride at being a freshman member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Chairman, this is a headline from MSNBC. And you know MSNBC is not one of the biggest fans of this freshman class, not one of the biggest fans of this Republican Congress. But this is what they said in a headline from March 15: ``In risky election-year move, Republicans offer Medicare alternatives.'' That's right. That is why 100 new freshmen came to this body last year. They didn't come to recycle old ideas. They came to offer solutions. Yes, I know it's an election year, but dadgummit, Mr. Chairman, an election year ought to bring out the best in this body as folks work even harder to fulfill the hopes and dreams of the American people. That's what Chairman Ryan and this Budget Committee have done. Could they have punted on this, Mr. Chairman? Could they have said, You know what, this is just too hard. We know it's coming, we know it threatens every senior in this country, but let's just punt until after the election. We've heard some folks who have adopted exactly that attitude, but not this chairman, not Paul Ryan and the Budget Committee, not this U.S. House of Representatives. It may be risky, but they do it because it's the right thing to do. And I tell you, Republicans and Democrats alike who were elected in this freshman class in 2010 came to do the right thing for the right reasons, not to follow election-year politics; and I'm just so proud of this chairman for giving us this opportunity. So what is it that this Budget Committee solution is? Well, what it doesn't do, Mr. Chairman, is change anything for seniors on Medicare today, not one. No changes for today's seniors, whereas the President's proposal makes dramatic changes by empowering this 15-member IPAB board. We preserve and protect Medicare in this budget by providing for seniors--my parents, your parents and your grandparents--providing an opportunity for them to have some say in their health care decisions. We tried that with Medicare Advantage. It's been dramatically successful, and we expand that to give families more choices about their health care decisions. Preserving and protecting the Medicare mandate for future generations, this is the alternative. Just to be clear, you can't read this, Mr. Chairman, it's the small print, it's all of the small print, that indicates the IPAB board. And it takes a lot of small print to create it because folks were scared to death when this thing was created. There's all sorts of language in this small print, Mr. Speaker, about how rationing will not happen with this board. Why? Because when you put a government board in charge of people's health care, the first thing you think is rationing. Well, what this board can do is clamp down on what we pay providers. Now, I want you to think about the doctors in your life. I want you to think about those folks.

Mr. WOODALL. In your church, in your Sunday school class, at the CVS and at the Walgreen's is where you see those family practice docs. Do you really think those folks are the health care problem in this country? Do you really think that clamping down on more of your neighbors who provide the care to our community is the answer? Because that's the only thing this IPAB board can do: clamp down on those docs, denying care to every senior in this country. We offer an alternative. It may be a risky election-year move, but it's the right thing to do. And I want to thank the chairman. All the naysayers in this country who said you couldn't, you did. All the folks who said you shouldn't, you did. And you did it because it was the right thing to do. This is a document that can govern our Nation, and it's one that we can be proud of, and I've been proud to be a part of it.