Rob Woodall

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Reclaiming my time.

Mr. WOODALL. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. To get back on the topic of this continuing resolution today, that is, this number that we agreed on just a month ago, $1.043 trillion, to fund the operations of this government. Mr. Speaker, I go back and I look at emergency requests that this body has made. Now, I'm a freshman. I was just elected in November, began my service in January. But over the last 10 years, there have been 30 emergency and supplemental bills passed. Now, what I would say to my friends who have been here longer than I have is perhaps if you have to do it three times a year, it's really not a surprise. Perhaps we ought to be able to budget for it. And to his great credit, and to the committee's great credit, and candidly I would say to the House's great credit, we are trying for the first time in a long time to say you know what, we can't prevent tragedy. Tragedy is going to happen. But we can plan ahead for tragedy so that the American people have the security of knowing the money's going to be there when they need it. And when I look, Mr. Speaker, at the way we're pouring money out of this body, I worry will the money be there when the American people need it. This budget makes sure that it does.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, to correct what may be a misunderstanding about the swiftness with which this Congress is reacting to those tragedies, I yield 5 minutes to the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, who has moved immediately on these issues, the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers).

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

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to speak to what's inexcusable here. And I hate that that's where we have to end up. The truth of the matter is what we have down here today is the re- litigation of something that we already litigated in July and August, and that is that this bill today funds just until November 18 at the level that we, as a body, agreed to. You may not like it, I may not like it, but we agreed to it: a level that's 1043, $1.043 trillion. That's a big number. That is a big number. This resolution today, this continuing resolution to get us through November 18, does not re-litigate that decision. We spent a lot of time on that in July and August, and again, we come from different places on whether or not that's the right number. I probably say it's too high, you may say it's too low, but this is simply a resolution that implements the will of this House.

Mr. WOODALL. I appreciate the gentleman yielding. You may have some information that we did not have in the Rules Committee. My understanding is that this program, which has billions that were appropriated in 2008 and have not yet been spent, not only can----

Mr. WOODALL. Will the gentleman yield?

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

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

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield 5 minutes to a gentleman who has presided over the most open Rules Committee in recent memory, not just a chairman, but my chairman, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier). (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 405 provides for a closed rule for the consideration of H.R. 2608. It's a temporary continuing resolution that will fund the operations of the United States Government through November 18 of this year. It is important to note that the funding levels in this CR are the very same fiscally responsible levels that this Congress and President Barack Obama approved in the Budget Control Act just 1 month ago. This is not a departure from our path of restoring fiscal sanity, Mr. Speaker. We are committed to continuing on that path. But, unfortunately, the actions of the other body leave us no choice but to consider this continuing resolution today. I take no pride, Mr. Speaker, in sharing with you--actually, that's not true. That's not true at all. I take great pride in sharing with you what the House has done over the last 6 months, 7 months, 8 months; but I take no pride at all in pointing out what has not happened on the other end of this Capitol to do the work that needs to be done. Constitutionally, we are required to fund the operations of the government. June 2 of this year, the House passed the Homeland Security appropriations bill. To date, the Senate has not. On June 14 of this year, the House passed the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs bill. This is the one bill that our friends in the Senate have passed as well. June 16, the House passed the Agriculture appropriations bill. To date, the Senate has taken no action at all. July 15, the House passed the Energy and Water appropriations bill. To date, the Senate has not. July 22, the House passed the Legislative Branch appropriations bill. To date, the Senate has not. Mr. Speaker, I did not run for Congress last November, I did not show up here as a freshman to continue business as usual, passing continuing resolution after continuing resolution after continuing resolution. And I know my friends on both sides of the aisle believe that's a process which has long since exceeded its usefulness. I am so proud that we as a body have begun to pass those appropriations bills one by one by one. And what have we gotten because of that? We've gotten oversight. We've had the opportunity to discuss line by line by line what are our priorities as the House. Now, those priorities differ from time to time between my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle and my friends on the Republican side of the aisle, but we have an opportunity at least to discuss those priorities. When the other body fails to pass the appropriations bills, what choices do we have left? What choices are available to me as a new freshman Member of the House? I could choose to abrogate responsibility. I could choose to say no. No, we're just going to wait, and if the Senate fails to act, then so be it. Let the government shut down and let the chips fall where they may. That's not the kind of operation I want to run. That's not why I came to the United States Congress. I came to the United States Congress because this is the people's House. This is where thoughtful discussion of the people's priorities takes place. What brings me to the floor today is to consider this continuing resolution that for just 1\1/2\ short months, through November 18, will extend the operations of the government so we can continue that thoughtful discussion that I know so many of the Members here came for. With that, I urge my colleagues to thoughtfully consider this rule today, thoughtfully consider the underlying bill; and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 405 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. I appreciate my friend from Alabama for yielding. Candidly, I can't say it much better than my freshman colleague from Tennessee just did. We are a Nation of immigrants, and we are a Nation of laws. And my question is, When did it become so clear to everyone else that those things were in conflict with one another? Because when I look at it, it's not in conflict at all; in fact, it's in concert, in concert with one another. It was hard to listen to the story that my friend from Alabama was telling because it's not a story that you only hear once. It's a story that you hear heartbroken families tell over and over and over again. It's a family in Alabama, it's a family in Georgia, it's a mom in South Carolina, and it's a grandmother from Indiana, and on and on and on. What I want to know is, Who is it who's coming to defend that story tonight? Because I hear it in town hall meetings all the time, and I know my friend from Alabama hears the same thing: Rob, I want you to go up there and I want you to fight for what's right, and I don't want you to compromise. Well, I don't want to compromise on principle. There is absolutely no principle I have that I'm interested in compromising on. But what I tell folks back home is there's common ground. There's common ground where no matter where you sit on the political spectrum you can see your way clear to this path forward. What I want to know from my colleagues--and I wish there were more of them in the Chamber tonight--and, again, I'm grateful to my friend from Alabama for putting this hour together--but where are the folks who oppose enforcing the laws? Where are the folks who believe that legal immigration is what we don't want and illegal immigration is what we do want? Where are the folks who believe that when criminals commit crimes, they're not supposed to be prosecuted? Where are those folks defending that? Because what I see in my part of the world--and I'm there in the northeastern suburbs of Atlanta--what I see in my part of the world are people who are proud of our history as an immigrant Nation and proud of our future as an immigrant Nation. I tell folks all the time I don't worry that people want to come to America. I worry about the one day people don't want to come to America. What happens when they want to take their big brain and their hard work ethic and their entrepreneurial ideas and take it to China or take it to India or take it to Brazil? I worry about that. We have so many challenges, as my friend from Alabama knows, in terms of restructuring our legal immigration process. I am heartbroken that we spend even a moment arguing amongst ourselves about the necessity of shutting down illegal immigration now--not tomorrow, not a week from tomorrow, not after the next election cycle, today. Of the few things that the United States Constitution empowers the Federal Government to do, requires that the Federal Government do, enforcing our border security is one; and we don't do that well. We have so many conversations down here, as the Speaker knows, about all the things the Federal Government should stick its nose into, as if we're going to do those well. What about the one the Constitution requires us to do, which is secure our borders? For me, the untalked-about victim in the illegal immigration debate is the legal immigrant. Have you ever been to a naturalization ceremony? Do you have any friends who have been naturalized, who have earned the right to be a United States citizen? Wow. Wow. It's tears, but it's tears of joy. I wish we were teaching the same thing to our young people in schools that we're teaching to our immigrants in their citizenship classes, who are developing this deep and abiding respect for the rule of law and the American way of life. And the victim, when we turn a blind eye to illegal immigration, is the legal immigrant who does it all right because they're the victim of the animus that comes out of this debate. They're a victim of the sadness. In fact, I will tell you, the angriest people--again, I come from the Deep South. A lot of folks have a lot of stereotypes about how it is in the Deep South. But I will tell you, the angriest people in my part of the world about illegal immigration are not the ninth generation white guy; it's the legal immigrants. Somebody stopped me the other day and they said, Rob, if you ever pass an amnesty bill--which we never will do, just to be clear, never, ever going to happen, not while I'm here in Congress--give me my money back. You can't give me my life back; you can't give me back all the years and years and years I worked and I waited on the list and I waited patiently in my home country until my number came up, you can't give me that back, but I want my money back because it wasn't cheap. It's not. Being a United States citizen is advanced citizenship. It requires great commitments, as it is a great opportunity; and we treat it in this country as if it's a nothing. As my friend from Alabama knows, there's another bill, introduced by my friend from Iowa (Mr. King), called the Birthright Citizenship Act-- and I'm a cosponsor of that act--that goes back to the 14th Amendment. It goes back to that time in this country when we were struggling with our national identity and says those born in the United States, under the jurisdiction thereof, shall be United States citizens. As you tell the story, I say to my friend from Alabama, of someone who has been convicted of crime after crime after crime, of someone who has warrants out for their arrest across the United States, of someone who hasn't yet found a single American law that they have chosen to obey, I tell you that person is not under the jurisdiction of the United States, and births that are associated with that person do not give rise to citizenship in the United States. But the courts have said Congress just won't decide on this; Congress won't take a stand on this. Well, Steve King of Iowa said, yes, we will. And I was proud to join him on that to define what is the greatest gift we have in this country, and that's the gift of American citizenship. I was born with it, and I'm grateful for it every day of the week, but we treat it like it's nothing. And I will say to folks who think that it's nothing, go to one of these naturalization ceremonies. Talk to your friends and neighbors who have worked for it and earned it, and they will tell you that it's something. And in the army that we're developing across America to come and stand strong on the issue of illegal immigration, the army that's forming across America to say we are proud that we're a Nation of immigrants, but we're even more proud that we're a Nation of laws, that army is composed of legal immigrants of every stripe from coast to coast, from north to south. It makes me so proud because I think that's what America is all about. I want to go back and say to the gentleman from Alabama, thank you for introducing the American Jobs Act. For folks who look those things up on TV, it's H.R. 2670, I believe; is that correct?

Mr. WOODALL. Again, where are those folks? We're not talking about compromising our principles; we're talking about pursuing those things that are common ground. In this era of 10 percent unemployment, who are those folks who think that hardworking, taxpaying American citizens don't deserve that job first if they're willing to work for it? Who is that? I'm sure that there has been an editorial or two in your local newspapers--if your newspapers are anything like mine--that have not reacted all that kindly to your decision to stand up and do what is right. But doing what's right is not always easy, and it's rarely appreciated in its time. It's often appreciated as history writes it. But who is it who believes that folks who have paid their taxes for a decade, who have been laid off in the middle part of their life, who can't afford to send their kids to college, who can't afford to buy medicine for their wife? Who are those people who believe that those folks don't deserve first crack at that job? First crack. We have a legal immigration process in place in this country that will allow you to come here the right way, get a green card the right way, and apply for jobs just like everybody else. Folks do it. Do it, and I welcome you. But in this era of unemployment, who are those folks who defend this practice of illegal labor? I will tell you, it's not just the folks who go to work. It's the folks who employ those folks who go to work. This is not about illegal immigrants alone. This is about those businesses that hire those illegal immigrants. A crime is a crime here in this country. They're not all the heartbreaking crimes that my friend from Alabama has described, but they are crimes that have consequences. These are not victimless crimes. Illegal immigration is not a victimless crime. The victim could be that American who can't find a job to support his kids and his family. The victim could be that school district that can't afford to sort out how those classes are going to go, that can't afford all the teachers, but has an increasing workload because of the children associated with illegal immigration today. The victim could be that health care system that can't treat folks as they'd like to treat them, doesn't have enough money to deal with the community as it is, and the burden keeps growing and growing and growing. It is not a victimless crime. In terms of finding common ground, I looked at my friend Rob Bishop's bill. Rob Bishop is from Utah, and he's introduced H.R. 1505, the National Security and Federal Lands Act. Now, the preposterous things that we discuss here in Washington, this is one. Look it up for yourself. H.R. 1505, what it does is it changes the law, changes the law so that Border Patrol agents can access areas of the border. Hear that. There is a bill in this Congress to change the law so that Border Patrol agents can get access to the border. 4.3 million acres of border designated wilderness along our southern border, and in those areas the Border Patrol can't use motorized vehicles, can't construct roads, can't even install security and communication apparatus. Hear that. Hear that. The law of the land in America today is that the Border Patrol agents cannot patrol the borders. H.R. 1505 will change that, and I hope we'll pass that here. I want to say finally to my friend from Alabama, you and I are both new here. I've only been here 9 months, and I'm learning something every day here. I was more than a little bit surprised when the administration came out and said, no, it's really not whether or not you're illegal; it's whether or not you're illegal and when we make our decisions about whether or not to deport you. But what I learned in that conversation is that we have a backlog of deportations in this country. When we talk about funding priorities in this country, for the last 9 months I've been focusing on funding the Border Patrol. I thought what we needed were more boots on the ground, and I still believe we do. But what I have learned from the administration is we also need more bottoms in the seats in immigration courtrooms across this country. We may need more immigration judges. If we don't have enough people to process all the deportations that are in line, what we need is not to stop the deportations; what we need is to hire more people to process those deportations. I tell you, I'm a small government conservative. You're not going to find many government programs that I want to come down here and spend money on. But again, the Constitution has given to you and me the responsibility of enforcing this part of the law, has given us the responsibility of securing our borders; and if what it takes to be successful is spending more money to hire more immigration court judges to fill more buses to comply with more of the law that is, in fact, the law of the land, then I'm prepared to do that. I appreciate the administration, again, for educating me in that way, because I had no idea that we were so successful at identifying folks and we just weren't successful at finishing that deportation process. So I say to my friend from Alabama, again, I so much appreciate his leadership on this issue. I am a proud supporter of the Jobs for Americans Act. I look forward to bipartisan support on that act because, again, we're not talking about asking anyone to compromise their principles. We're asking people to celebrate that we are an immigrant nation and that we are a nation of laws. And I tell you, I don't want to live in a nation that is willing to give up on either one of those, and we don't have to. I thank my friend.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. I thank the chairman for yielding. I was excited to come down here today, because when I ran for Congress, there was just a short list of things that I wanted to do when I got here. I'm one of the new guys, one of this crowd of 96 new freshmen. Two things among those: Number one, folks back home said we're spending too much. $1.091 trillion is how much we spent in discretionary spending in 2010. This bill that the Rules Committee brings to the floor today brings it down to $1.043 trillion, a $50 billion cut from 2 years ago, not decreasing the rate of growth but actually changing the trajectory of spending in this country. That's what folks back home said they wanted me to do. Number two, I hold in my hand the United States Constitution. I turn to the back; conveniently enough in my edition, there's a little blank space after Amendment 27. There is space for Amendment 28, and for the first time in 15 years, this bill guarantees us a vote on a balanced budget amendment. If you don't trust your Members of Congress, trust your United States Constitution, and trust that this bill gives the American people a vote that they have not had in far too long.

Mr. WOODALL

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

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I'm grateful. I hustled over here this morning because I heard there was a question about what kind of options have we provided for the United States Senate and what can we do to get America out of this crisis, and I know the answer. We've got lots of choices on their desk, Mr. Speaker, and if you talk to them, I hope you'll recommend these. Just look on the desk in front of them; they've got three good choices. You want a long-term solution to this challenge? Ten years. Look at the House budget plan we sent to the Senate in April--10 years we can solve this crisis, 10 years out into the future, cut $6 trillion out of the budget, put America on a track towards fiscal responsibility. Is 10 years too long? Mr. Speaker, last week we passed Cut, Cap, and Balance, an 18-month solution to this problem, 18-month solution, cuts spending, caps spending, balances the budget. Is 2 years too long? Look at what we sent over last night, Mr. Speaker, 6 months. Six months. It also cuts; it also caps; it also balances. A 6-month extension on the debt ceiling. Mr. Speaker, when you talk to the Senate, please tell them: 6 months, 2 years, 10 years. The House has acted on all of those. They sit in the Senate awaiting on action.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. I very much thank the gentleman from Texas. We're going to do whatever it takes to get the job done, but there is a teaching moment in this process, Madam Speaker. Maybe it's obvious to some of the senior Members. Again, I'm one of the new guys--only 7 months on the job here in Congress--but what I've noticed this week is this: Last night, we tried to bring up a bill. Now, it was a bill that our Speaker and the majority leader of the Senate negotiated over last weekend. We thought bringing that bill to the floor would be that compromise, and I promise you it was a compromise because it was not what I wanted to bring to the floor of this House. We thought that compromise would be the solution to get America out of this situation.

Mr. WOODALL. I very much thank my friend from Texas for yielding. It's true. I'm one of the new guys there on the Rules Committee, one of the new guys here in this Congress; and because I haven't been watching this process go on quite this closely before, I'm prepared to answer the questions today of ``Why are we here?'' and ``Why are we here doing this?'' Now, for folks who don't watch the process, who haven't watched it like I have, this rule that we're working on today is to say that you can bring up a bill in the Rules Committee and then bring that bill to the floor on the very same day. That's unusual because regular order in this body says, if you bring something up, let's let it sit overnight so that everybody has a chance to look at it, and we'll bring it up the next day. I'm a big proponent of regular order. I believe we get the best work product out of this body when we work through regular order, and we've done that time and time and time again in this Congress, and we'll do it time and time again in the future. But today we're faced with a predicament where August 2 is looming on the horizon. Now, it's Friday. For folks who don't know, we're not going home tonight after work. Don't worry, Madam Speaker. As you know, this House is going to be in full swing tonight, tomorrow morning, tomorrow night, on Sunday, on Monday to get America through this challenge; but my White House, my President, tells me that August 2 is the day by which we must pass a bill, and here we are at the last hour to make that happen. Now, why are we at the last hour? That was a question my friend from Colorado asked, and I have the answer: because we didn't actually start this process today. We didn't start it last night in the Rules Committee. We started this process back in February with H.R. 1, a bill to fund the government all the way through October 1 of this year. It was an open rule. For the first time in the history of this House of Representatives, it was an open rule on a continuing resolution. It took us 5 days, going day and night--24 hours a day at the end--to get that bill discussed fully, because we all had input on that process; we all had things that we wanted to add. This House passed that bill. It went across to our friends in the Senate, and they did nothing. We had another shot at this in April when we worked through the budget process. That budget process, as you know, Madam Speaker, is supposed to take us through 10 years--10 years. We asked every Member of this House of Representatives to bring their ideas to the floor. The Rules Committee, in its wisdom, made every single budget that any Member of this House offered available as a bill on the floor to consider, and we debated them all. There were some that raised taxes by $10 trillion. There were others that cut spending by $10 trillion and all in between. We debated them all, and the House decided on one: the House budget in April of this year. We sent it to the Senate, and they did nothing. In fairness, they did defeat that bill we sent to them. They defeated ours. We only got 40 votes on ours, which was better than when they worked on the President's budget over there--he got zero votes on his. So they're good at defeating things, but they didn't pass anything at all. That's the partnership we have to have. I say to my friend from Colorado that I'm so proud of our partnership in the Rules Committee and, really, of our partnership beyond the Rules Committee, too, on some of the issues that we work on here. If we could develop the kind of partnership with our friends in the Senate that we've been able to develop between ourselves here on the House side, it would be a completely different situation here in Washington, D.C. But even as part of that raucous freshman class that folks read about in the newspaper, I don't have the ability to control what goes on in the United States Senate. All I have the ability to do is to come down here and participate in our process, which in February produced H.R. 1, which could have averted this crisis today; in April produced the House budget, which could have averted this crisis today; and last week produced Cut, Cap, and Balance--which was sent to the Senate and they did nothing--which could have averted this crisis yet again. In light of all of those failures of action in the Senate, we are forced to come here today. We don't have overnight to lay a bill over. We don't have 72 hours to lay a bill over. We only have 72 hours until my President tells me D-day arrives for our financial markets. So we're here supporting this rule for same-day consideration so that we can do whatever it takes to get the job done.

Mr. WOODALL. I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

Mr. WOODALL. I thank my friend. There is a lot of conversation in this town, but I maintain that this was the topic of discussion and agreement between the Speaker and the majority leader last week. Absolutely, the majority leader has walked away from that agreement since then, and I don't dispute that; but here's the thing: We had this agreement on the floor of the House last night, and we couldn't find one Democrat vote in favor of it. Fair enough. Folks ought to vote their consciences; they ought to do what they need to do. We couldn't find one Democrat vote in favor of it, and we've come back with a new bill today that moves us to the right. Now, as someone who comes from one of the most conservative districts in the country, I think that's fantastic. More moving to the right. Let's keep on moving. There's a lot more space over there. Let's move some more over to the right. But I say to my friends on the left as we try to get through a crisis, a national crisis, that we only needed a few votes from you last night, and then this would have been a bipartisan bill. Instead, we're back down here today.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. I thank the chairman.