Rob Woodall

Mr. WOODALL

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

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to say to the gentleman from New Jersey that I just couldn't agree with him more. The House spoke. It wasn't Republicans that spoke. It wasn't Democrats that spoke. The House spoke with H.R. 1. We need to get to the negotiating table. Now I don't know when the Senate is going to act. I hope the Senate acts today. And I will stay here just as long as it takes to work through those things with the Senate. But we can't do it alone, as much as we'd like to. As much as we'd like to do it alone, we can't, and we are being held at bay by a Senate that refuses to move something forward. I think all of the gentleman's words would be useful to our friends on the Senate side. With that, Mr. Speaker, I am tremendously proud to yield 2 minutes to my good friend and a great American patriot, the gentleman from Iowa, Mr. Steve King.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds just to say that we brought H.R. 1 to the floor under the single most open process this House has seen in 4 years--and I've only been on the job 65 days--the single most open process that this House has seen in 4 years. I'm proud of that. I'm proud of what we did together. Are there other alternatives out there to H.R. 1? I don't know, Mr. Speaker, because I haven't seen one, haven't seen one come back from the Senate. Is the Senate over there debating things? Absolutely. Are they passing things? No, they're not, and I don't know where we go to move forward with that. But a gentleman who might, Mr. Speaker, is my good friend, the president of the freshman class from the great State of Georgia. And I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Austin Scott).

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 167 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern). During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave

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

Mr. WOODALL. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 167 provides a closed rule for consideration of H.J. Res. 48. Keeping in line with the actions of the minority party and its CRs last year, this rule also provides for 1 hour of debate and a motion to recommit. We are here again today dealing with the continuing resolution, Mr. Speaker, because H.R. 1 sits idly on the Senate side. As you will recall, H.R. 1 has been the singly most debated piece of legislation that we've had in this body this year. In fact, we considered more amendments on that spending bill in February than on all of the previous spending bills in the last two Congresses combined. Yet, even as the House has worked its will, even as, I think, we on both sides of the aisle identify that as one of the finest hours of this body, it sits in the Senate--unused, unexamined, undebated. Mr. Speaker, we are in the middle of a debate on spending. It's not that we tax too little in this country. It's that we spend too much. We're operating with $1.4 trillion annual operating deficits, $1.5 trillion, $1.6 trillion, and now they're saying next year it could be $1.7 trillion--spending that we do with money that we don't have. We need to get to the big picture, Mr. Speaker. We need to have this debate about how do we move beyond what was last year's business and get on to what is this year's business. These thing that we're working on, this three-week CR, Mr. Speaker, is not the real business. The real business is yet to come. I sit on the Budget Committee. If you want to talk about real business, look at the tough decisions that are coming down the pipe from the Budget Committee. Look at what it's going to take to get this budget back in balance. Look at what it's going to take to restore integrity to our fiscal system. Look at what it's going to take to inspire confidence in our foreign creditors. These are the real issues that we have to discuss, but we can't discuss them, Mr. Speaker, because we are still working on last year's business. Now, I think we're frustrated on both sides of the aisle that we're still working on last year's business, and candidly, it may come as a surprise to you, Mr. Speaker, but I don't blame a soul on the other side. The other side of this body has been our partner in moving H.R. 1 to the Senate. They've been our partner in making the tough decisions that had to be had, and we had Republican amendments that succeeded and Republican amendments that failed. We had Democratic amendments that succeeded and Democratic amendments that failed, and this body worked its will. But the Senate has yet to take up the legislation, has yet to take up legislation passed in February, has yet to be taken up as we sit here in the middle of March. Now, I don't know how in the world we have negotiations, Mr. Speaker. We have done our work here in the House. I'm proud not only that we did it but I'm proud of the way in which we did it. But now we wait on the Senate to come to the table and lay down its vision for how we fund this government through September of this year. We continue to wait, and hopefully, these 3 weeks, Mr. Speaker, will provide the time needed for the Senate to gear up and get going, because I will say it over and over and over again today, this is last year's business, and it is distracting us from the important business that needs to happen. I'll tell you this. This CR for 3 weeks isn't what I would have liked to have seen. What I would like to see is H.R. 1 come back to this floor. What I would like to see is H.R. 1 go to the President's desk. What I would like to see are the tough, tough, tough decisions that we made and the difficult, difficult, difficult decisions that we had on this floor be translated into the law of the land as it sits on the President's desk and receives his signature. But we cannot move to that point until the Senate acts. So I rise today, Mr. Speaker, to support this rule that will bring to the floor a continuing resolution that will give the Senate three more weeks to get its house in order to do the business that the American people sent the Senate here to do, to join us in doing the good work that we have done, and to move a bill to the President's desk so that we can get on to the rest of the business that the country has laid before us. With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. Reckless and heartless is exactly the debate that we are going to have to have. Is it reckless to pass on $14 trillion in debt to our children with no end in sight? I would say to you that it is. Is it heartless to saddle our children with that burden that is going to drain their economy dry? I would say to you that it is. Is it reckless to treat the world credit markets as if they will forever feed our voracious appetite? And I say to you that it is. We have to take these steps today. Mr. Speaker, with that, I yield 2 minutes to my good friend and colleague on the Rules Committee, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Nugent).

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say there are really a number of things that we agree on across this body. The gentleman from Massachusetts has very strong feelings about paying for the bills that we create today. I share his passion, and I look forward to getting into the business of paying for those bills. What I do know is that we are not paying for the bills today. What I do know is that when I showed up for Congress on January 3 of this year, that there was no spending plan to get us past March 4. No spending plan. Just to be clear, I showed up as a brand new Member of Congress in January to learn that getting about the business means putting together a funding bill before March 4 because the previous Congress didn't take care of business. Now, I know my friend from Massachusetts wasn't in charge of the other side of the aisle last year. He certainly wasn't in charge of the Senate, although we all wish that we could be in charge of the Senate. But the business didn't get done, and that is why we are here today. That is the first reason why we are here today, to take care of business that didn't get done last year. But the second reason, Mr. Speaker, and the more important reason that we are here today, is because we said when we took over this body on January 5 that we would not go along with business as usual. It would have been a nothing to pass a bill that the President would sign that would say, hey, just keep on funding the government the way you've been funding it. Keep on racking up those trillion-dollar deficits the way you've been racking them up. Don't change a thing. Fiddle while Rome burns. It would have been easy. Except for my conscience, except for the conscience of the folks who were elected with me in November, except for our principles, it would have been easy. We chose the road less traveled that said, no, we're not going to put it off. There is always a reason to wait Mr. Speaker. There is always a reason to wait. And we said, no, we are going to begin making the tough decisions today. Today. Now, that today was back in February, and we are still waiting for the Senate to get to the table so that we can have some of those negotiations. But I will say to my friend from New Jersey, who was so terribly pleased that the riders were not included on this bill: If you think for a minute that I am done fighting for life, you're mistaken. If you think for a minute that I am done working to defund Planned Parenthood and its work that it is doing with Federal dollars, you're mistaken. If you think for a minute that I have given up on ripping every nickel out of the budget that belongs to ObamaCare and the nationalization of our health care system, you are mistaken. And if you think for a minute that I am going to stop trying to repeal every single one of the job- killing, energy price-hiking regulations that the EPA is promulgating across this country chaining our small businesses down, you are mistaken. That fight might not be today. Today is about cutting $6 billion out of a budget that our children are not going to have to repay. Today is about keeping the government open for 3 more short weeks to give our friends in the Senate a chance to come to the table. But, Mr. Speaker, that day of reckoning is coming. The day of reckoning is coming because these are ideals that deserve the attention of this body. These are decisions that cannot be kicked down the road even further. These are decisions of principle on which compromise is often not an option. Sometimes you just have to take the vote, and somebody's going to win and somebody's going to lose. I rise in strong support of this rule, and I rise in strong support of the underlying bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution. The previous question was ordered.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I send to the desk a privileged concurrent resolution and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. WOODALL

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

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, we are here today for one reason and one reason only, and that's to provide ample time for the Senate to consider H.R. 1, to keep the doors of the Federal Government open, to keep important services being dispensed, to keep the government of America on track for 2 more weeks while the Senate takes time. I will associate myself with the gentleman from Colorado when he says we can't always get what we want. I sadly haven't gotten what I wanted so far, and I am prepared to get even less of what I want going forward. But I don't mind telling you I don't know how we are going to get to what any of us want if folks don't even start considering the bill. This was our very best shot. It was our very best work product. Whether you love it or whether you hate it, it was the most openly produced work product in continuing resolution history. And there it sits, and there it sits, almost 10 days now with no advancement whatsoever. Mr. Speaker, I hope these 2 weeks are enough. I recognize the caution that my friend from Colorado suggests that we may be back here one more time doing this again. I hope this is the last time that we will be here. But I know this: I know we can't continue to mortgage our children's future while we wait. I know we can't fiddle while Rome burns. So we have passed, we have presented this continuing resolution with cuts there to prevent our children's future from continuing to be mortgaged. As I spoke with school groups across the district last week--and I share my friend from Colorado's passion for education--I asked them to turn on C-SPAN this week, because I said it doesn't matter who stands up, whether they stand up on the left or the right, or whether they speak from the well or from the leadership table, they will tell you that the reason they are there today is for you, is for you, the children. It's for your future that they are there on the floor of that House. I believe that. I believe that in everyone's heart they are here to make sure that tomorrow's generation does better than today's generation. I would just say, Mr. Speaker, that if there are schoolchildren out there watching today, perhaps they will pick up the phone and they will give us a call and let us know exactly which one of us is on the right track, because I know it's all about them that we do what we do. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

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

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

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I associate myself with the gentleman from New Jersey's comments. We absolutely have to work together. It's a great source of pride for me that I've only been on the job 60 days and we've already seen more working together than this House has allowed in the past 4 years combined. Understand that. Understand that as we're working on this appropriations bill, as we're working through this appropriations process, that 2 weeks ago you saw more openness and working together in this Chamber--right here, right here in the people's House--more working together than you had seen in the previous 4 years combined. Can we do more? I say to the gentleman from New Jersey, I think we can, and I look forward to being a partner and making that happen. But to say that what is sitting on the desk in the Senate is the product of take-it-or-leave-it legislating could not be further from the truth. It's the furthest from take-it-or-leave-it legislating that the House has seen in 4 years. Arguably, it's the furthest thing from take-it-or- leave-it legislating that the House has seen on continuing appropriations bills in modern time. So when we talk about where we are and where we're going, we have to ask that question of, why are we characterizing this as a process that's broken? Why are we characterizing H.R. 1 as something that doesn't work? Why isn't H.R. 1 the very best, the very best, given the makeup of this House, given our collective intellect and wisdom? Why isn't H.R. 1 the very best that we can do? Because when the process is open and everyone gets to participate, it ought to bring out our very best. And I'll say to the gentleman from New Jersey, he has some of the lowest gas prices in the country. I enjoy traveling through his great State. Every time I go through, not only do I get full-service gasoline, I get it for the best prices in the country. Gas prices are up 25 cents a gallon in Gwinnett County, where I come from; 25 cents a gallon in the past 10 days. We have economic crises in this country; we have economic challenges in this country; but spending more government resources is not the answer. We have about a $15 trillion economy. Even with a $3.5 trillion Federal budget, the Federal player is small, small--8.5 cents of every dollar in education in Georgia comes from the Federal Government. The rest comes from exactly where you expect it to come from, local communities and State governments. We have to get the government out of the way. And if you're worried about uncertainty, as I am, if you share our concern about uncertainty, then let's pass H.R. 1. Let's be done. Let's be done with this 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 6 weeks, 12 weeks. Let's get us through the end of the year. Let's finish the job that we should have gotten done last year. Let's put it behind us, and let's start that new open process again. And it's one that I look forward to joining my colleagues in. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say to my friend, I could not agree with him more. We must ask ourselves: How did we get here? How did we get here? I have been on the job for 60 days, but the fiscal year began back on October 1 of 2010. How did we get here? We got here because the work of the people's House didn't get done last year, and I regret that. Candidly, I'm not sure how. I hear so many folks talk about the partisanship in the Congress and the partisanship in Washington, DC, and people can't get things done because of the partisanship. But, of course, last year Democrats controlled the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. And yet we still sit here today without a budget, without the appropriations that the speaker knows we need for the government to continue its operations. How did we get here? I don't know. But I know this: Nobody elected me in November to come up here and point the finger of blame. They elected me to work with my friend to clean up this mess. Irrespective of how we got here, we have to move forward. I have to say, because I was at home for the past week with my constituents working through these very same issues we are talking about today, the question I got over and over and over again is: Rob, that is a great start, but let's do more. That's a great start, but let's do more. You know, getting started is what is hard. It is hard to get started. Over and over again we have heard our friends on both sides of the aisle say: You know, this program, it can be fixed. It can be fixed. I wonder if we will have a day here where we can start from a blank sheet, just a blank sheet, and say: What is it that is worth borrowing from our children for? What is it that is worth increasing our children's credit card balance for? What is it that is worth mortgaging our children's future for? Let me just say to my friend, because I know he has a great passion for education, and it is a passion I very much respect, I have the great fortune of coming from the part of the world called Gwinnett County, Georgia. And Gwinnett County was the recipient of the Broad Prize for the single best urban education school district in America. We made it as a finalist 2 years ago, but last year we won. And we won in spite of Federal Government intervention--not because of it, in spite of it. We won because, as a community, we got together back in 1996 and said there is a better way. What can we do to enable our children to succeed better? We were doing standardized testing in Gwinnett County before standardized testing was in vogue because we knew we had to have a way to measure. We knew we had to have a way to sort out what works and what doesn't. Well, folks, we need some of that standardized testing here on Capitol Hill: What works and what doesn't? And there are a lot of things that aren't working. Not only do we need to get the bad out of the budget, we've got to decide that we're going to choose between good and good, between good and good because every school group I spoke to over our district workweek is a school group from whose future we are borrowing, whose future we are mortgaging over and over and over again. It has to be said that the House worked its will in an unprecedented fashion, an unprecedented fashion. Mr. Speaker, I don't say that lightly. I mean never, never before in modern times has the House worked its will on a continuing appropriations bill the way it did last week. Again, I don't care whose fault it is. I don't care why we couldn't get it done last October. I don't care why we couldn't get it done in November. I don't care why we couldn't get it done in December. What I care about is we have an opportunity to get it done, and we did that last week. The House worked its will, and we had some winners and we had some losers. I voted for a number of amendments that failed. I didn't get everything that I wanted in that bill. I know my friend from Colorado didn't get everything he wanted in that bill, but the House worked its will, Mr. Speaker, with unprecedented openness, and H.R. 1 was the result. Well, I asked my staff to call over to the Senate before I came down here. I wanted to find out exactly how much debate the Senate had been putting in on H.R. 1. Of course, we debated it for almost 50 hours. We went through the night on a couple of nights. We wanted to make sure that the entire House had an opportunity to be involved. My staff tells me, Mr. Speaker, not a moment. Not a moment. I hear the sense of urgency from my friend from Colorado that we have to take action; this is no way to run a government. I think he is right. I think cleaning up this mess means passing a single continuing resolution that gets us through to the end of the fiscal year. For Pete's sake, the Appropriations Committee is already taking testimony to try to get us into the 2012 budget cycle. This is leftover work that simply didn't get done last Congress. Not one second has been spent on the Senate side, Mr. Speaker, from what my staff tells me. Not one second has been spent considering a bill on which the entire United States House of Representatives worked its will; a bill that was the only open process that this House has seen on a continuing resolution; a bill that allowed Members from both sides of the aisle to come down here to the House floor and represent their constituents back home by doing exactly what my friend from Colorado is suggesting--trying to make good cuts, trying to make those things, present those things on the House floor that make the most sense to folks back home. Well, Mr. Speaker, we are where we are. No one wants the Senate to act expeditiously on the work of the people's House more than I do. But given that not one moment has been dedicated to that, we have to come down here and fund the government one more time. It is the responsible thing to do. It is the responsible thing to do. The better thing to do would be to act on H.R. 1, which the House passed last week with the support of Members in this body. But now, we have to come down here and extend for 2 weeks to give us time to finish those negotiations with the Senate side. And if that is not enough time, I suspect we will be back down here again. My friend from Colorado and I will be back down here in this well doing this same thing. But it is no way to run the government, Mr. Speaker. It is no way to run the government. This is just what we have to do while we wait on the Senate to take up that bill on which the House worked its will last week. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 115 provides a closed rule for consideration of H.J. Res. 44. This bill would fund the government through March 18 and reduce federal spending by $4 billion over the remainder of the fiscal year. The measure cuts $2.7 billion in earmarks from Energy and Water, Labor-HHS, Transportation-HUD, Homeland Security, and Legislative Branch appropriations, but most importantly, this measure averts a government shutdown and allows the Senate time to continue to consider H.R. 1, the bill that we successfully passed in this Chamber just 1 week ago. Mr. Speaker, on that bill, we had roughly 50 hours of debate from both sides of the aisle, debate that ran late into the night that allowed the House to work its will for the first time in a long time. And the end result was that continuing resolution, H.R. 1, that now sits idly in the Senate. This resolution today, this rule today, which I urge Members to strongly support, will allow for the 2-week extension of Federal funding to allow the Senate time to seriously consider this bill, again, H.R. 1, the first bill in a long time on which the House has had a chance to work its will. I reserve the balance of my time.

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 my friend from Colorado (Mr. Polis), pending which time I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 115 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. WOODALL. And we could not have done it without your support.

Mr. WOODALL. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds only to say that's why we're here today, as the gentleman knows, so that there is no government shutdown. And I could not be more proud that we're here taking that responsibility exactly as seriously as it is. It's very difficult to have a conversation about jobs when we have carbon regs coming down the pipe that will destroy jobs and we have financial regulations coming down the pipe that will destroy jobs and we have health care regs coming down the pipe that will destroy jobs over and over again. My folks are saying ``enough.'' With that, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), the chairman of the Rules Committee, the gentleman that I give credit to for giving us the most open process on a continuing resolution that we've seen in modern times.

Mr. WOODALL. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, to put these cuts in perspective, because, again, we have to get started somewhere, there is not going to be a speaker who stands up here today who doesn't speak out in favor of fiscal restraint. The questions are: When do we start? How much do we do? Compare the bill that's before us today, which is the continuing resolution to fund the government for 2 weeks and is adding about $4 billion in cuts, to the bill we passed last week, which had $100 billion of cuts in it. Now put that $100 billion of cuts in perspective. Let's take the average American family who has to go out and buy groceries. That family has a 31-day grocery bill. Knowing that you've got to go out and buy 31 days' worth of groceries, what we're asking of the American people is to cut 1 day out. We're going to tell you now that we're going to cut 1 day out, and we need you to stretch your 30- days' worth of groceries into 31. Mr. Speaker, that doesn't seem that draconian. In fact, it doesn't seem draconian at all. It seems like what American families are doing over and over and over again in the recession that we've been battling. When we talk about these jobs numbers, these are the same jobs numbers about which folks said, If only you'll put your children in debt to the tune of another $1.5 trillion, we'll get unemployment down under 8 percent. It's the same economist who said, Well, it didn't work the first year, but what if we do it the second year? If we put you in debt to the tune of $1.6 trillion, in addition to the 1.5, in addition to the 1.3 the year before, then we're going to get unemployment back down under 8 percent. Those jobs didn't materialize because the Federal Government can't create jobs. We can destroy jobs--we can and we do--but we can't create jobs. Our young entrepreneurs create those jobs. The business owners in our communities create those jobs. We destroy jobs, but we cannot create jobs. That is what this continuing resolution is a recognition of, Mr. Speaker: that the government can absolutely get out of the way. We're not going to hear today about the numbers of jobs that will be lost if the EPA continues to classify carbon dioxide as a pollutant and hamstrings the American economy in a way that no other economy on this planet is hamstrung. We're not going to hear those jobs numbers. H.R. 1 would solve that, and we have to get started somewhere. Mr. Speaker, I take no pride of authorship. I'm just a participant in H.R. 1 as it passed the House, as the House worked its will, as Democratic amendments passed and as Republican amendments passed. I wish we'd been governing the right way and that this had been done back on October 1. We passed that continuing resolution, and it's unclear to me why there was no open process there. We passed the second one in December and then the third one in December. Again, the openness that this House has seen in this 112th Congress is absolutely unprecedented. Now, I know my friend from Colorado is a strong supporter of CBO and of the work that CBO does. I couldn't agree with him more. Then when Mr. Dicks came before the committee last night with an amendment that would cut even more, as someone who believes we need to cut more, I was incredibly enthusiastic about that. My understanding was that CBO hadn't had a chance to score that amendment, that there was no scoring to be had, and so we couldn't tell whether or not this was going to cut or whether or not this was going to add or how the spend rates were going to sort themselves out, because it came at the very last minute. Yet what didn't come at the last minute was the opportunity for the minority to offer a substitute. The Speaker reached out to the minority to say if you were interested in offering the same continuing resolution that you had offered before, which was going to freeze funding--and we've heard that a lot. Let's just freeze things. We don't want to cut anything, and we don't want to be draconian--the majority would have absolutely made that in order. Again, the House could work its will, but my understanding is that that offer was turned down and that folks were not interested in offering that substitute. I would have been a proud ``no'' vote on that substitute, but I still believe, as the gentleman from Colorado said, openness in the process yields a better result. This brings me full circle, Mr. Speaker, to H.R. 1, which is the single continuing resolution that has had more openness in the process than any other continuing resolution this House has ever considered. It led to the best process, and it led to the best outcome. This is the bill that sits in the United States Senate today, that could be acted on today, that would fund the government and provide the certainty that we need today through the end of the fiscal year, which is on September 30. So when we're talking about certainty, and I absolutely believe that our economy needs certainty, it is the government that's creating the uncertainty. We are creating the uncertainty. We have historically created the uncertainty. We have an opportunity with H.R. 1 to eliminate that uncertainty for the rest of the fiscal year and to get back to doing what this House always should have been doing, which is considering appropriations bills under regular order. Candidly, I hope my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle are throwing down that gauntlet today. I hope they're saying, You know, Rob, it's not easy to lead. It's not easy to move bills through regular order. I want that opportunity to try. I want an opportunity to do it the right way. If we can move H.R. 1 through the Senate and onto the President's desk, we can then come together with the same kind of open process that we began 2 weeks ago to consider all of the appropriations bills and to make the priorities that this House chooses to make priorities, not the last Congress, not two Congresses ago, not President Obama in his first year, not President Bush in his last term--but this House today, together. What are our priorities? As soon as we move this continuing resolution behind us, Mr. Speaker, we can begin to focus on those priorities, which is where the true work of the House is intended to be. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time I have remaining.