Rob Woodall

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, at this time I am proud to yield 2 minutes to a hardworking member of the Appropriations Committee, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen).

Mr. WOODALL. I would say to the gentleman that having an open process and abiding by the rules of the House is critical to getting our work done. And if the rules of the House permit this amendment, I look forward to supporting it.

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

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the chairman of the Rules Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier). (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. WOODALL. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 92 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. WOODALL

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

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I could not get over here to the floor fast enough when I saw this rule come up for debate, and I rise in strong support of this rule today and in strong support of the underlying legislation. I am pleased to be joined on this day after the State of the Union not just by my colleagues but with so many young people in the gallery today, because that is exactly what this debate is about. We've heard much talk on the floor of this House over the past week about the upcoming CBO baseline report. Well, if it arrived in your email boxes this morning like it did mine, you saw that CBO's most recent score predicts a $6.9 trillion, 10-year operating deficit. That's not the $14 trillion in debt that these young people are going to have to pay back, it's the actual operating deficit, the additional debt that we're going to add over the next 10 years. This proposal today is one small step towards attacking that operating deficit. Now we're talking about big numbers here today. Somewhere between $500 million and $600 million will be saved with the elimination of this proposal. But folks, $6.9 trillion is where we have to go over the next 10 years. So if you think that this underlying proposal, the public financing proposal, has some merit, I look forward to debating that when the time comes, when we get our operating deficit under control. But we don't just need to pass this provision today; we need to pass this provision and 10,000 more just like it to get to a balanced budget. Now, I want you to think about that. All of the discussion, all of the gnashing of teeth, the handwringing about eliminating this provision today, folks, this is just the beginning. This proposal and 10,000 more just like it are what we need to pass in this House. The question isn't why are we bringing up this proposal today; the question is why don't we have three or four or five more just like it. I look forward to joining with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to talk about those provisions, talk about those spending items in our budget that we can get rid of. But folks, I am absolutely certain, as the YouCut site pointed out when America voted, that public financing is one of the top 10,000 things that we can get rid of. We don't have to decide today whether this is number one of the 10,000 most wasteful programs in government or number 10,000 of the 10,000 most wasteful programs in government; we only have to decide if it's somewhere on that spectrum. I tell you that it is, and I rise in strong support of this rule. The second reason I had to rush over here to the floor is I'm brand new. I've been in this House less than 1 month, and I'm down here speaking on a rule that offers an open amendment process. Now, if anybody has been watching the House floor, as I have, over the past 2 years, you might wonder what an open amendment process is, and you would be right to wonder because you've never seen one. I may be a freshman in this body, but folks who came 2 years before me, the sophomores in this body, they don't have any more experience in this process than I do, because this is the first open amendment process that we've seen on the floor of the House. Why are we seeing it? Because it's the right thing to do for the institution. Speaker Boehner has made a point of saying the House is going to work its will. I come from a very conservative district in the northeastern suburbs of Atlanta. And I tell you, when the House works its will, we're not always going to get what we want in the northeastern suburbs of Atlanta, because the House sits kind of here in the middle, and I'm a little further over here on the right-hand side of the spectrum. But in order for this Congress to work, in order for this House to work, in order to restore the dignity of this House, we have to allow the House to work its will. I am just so pleased, in my very first month in Congress, that we not only have seen very narrowly focused pieces of legislation come to the floor, but we're seeing them come to the floor under an open amendment process. And let me just say one thing about that open amendment process, particularly for folks, again, who haven't seen one before, folks who are in the gallery or watching on TV who have not seen an open amendment process before. Just because it's open doesn't mean you can do whatever you want to do on the House floor. We're talking about the public financing of elections today. So if you have an amendment that's going to change the way we finance education, that amendment is not going to be germane. If you have an amendment about what you want to do with the health care system, that amendment is not going to be germane. When you bring narrowly crafted pieces of legislation to the floor, the amendments that are germane are narrowly crafted amendments. And folks, I love that. For too long we have had 2,000-page bills, 1,000- page bills that folks can't read and can't understand and that can't be amended. And I am so pleased today to be standing here in strong support of my colleague from North Carolina's resolution. I will be voting in favor of the rule, and I will be voting in favor of the underlying legislation. I thank the gentlelady for the time. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Madam Speaker, I have been a Member of this body for 2 weeks and 2 days, and I could not be prouder to be on the House floor today in support of the chairman's resolution. For the entire last year in my district we have been focused on one thing and one thing only, since March of 2010, and that is the repeal of the President's health care bill. You know, before March of 2010 my district cared about health care reform. We talked about tort reform, we talked about putting patients back in charge of decisions. We talked about ending the tax preference that businesses get so that we can purchase insurance on our own and own those policies as we do our other insurance policies. But the moment this bill was signed into law, the moment the President's bill was signed into law that discussion stopped and the repeal discussion began. And with the repeal yesterday, we now begin anew the discussion of how properly to reform the system. And I am anxious to have that discussion. You know, we learned a lot in our time in the minority. One of those things we learned is that bringing simple, straightforward resolutions to the floor is better for the process. It's better for the American people. The Speaker has made that commitment. We continue that commitment today with these instructions to go back to the drawing board and bring things forward one at a time. Now, I sat through 10 hours of hearings in the Rules Committee, where folks came forward and said go ahead and repeal the bill, but save this one provision. Let's have this one provision stay. Go ahead and repeal the bill, but keep this other one provision. We now have that opportunity. We have now repealed the bill here in the House, and we have the opportunity to bring those provisions forward one by one. And I will tell you what, I am not going to like all those provisions. And some of those provisions are going to pass the House. And that's the way it ought to be. You shouldn't have a one-size-fits- all, take-it-or-leave-it kind of system. You ought to be able to have that discussion on both sides of the aisle. And I have no doubt that provisions are going to come forth from our committees that I am going to vote ``no'' on, but my colleagues on the left and on the right are both going to vote ``yes'' on, and it's going to pass. And that's the way the process ought to be, one provision at a time, one idea at a time. Tort reform, insurance reform, putting patients back in charge of those decisions, putting doctors back in charge of those relationships.

Mr. WOODALL. Thank you for yielding, Mr. Chairman. Madam Speaker, I return to the well because I wonder if folks have the same small business people in their district that I have in my district. I wonder if folks are doing the same listening in their district that I'm doing in my district. We are here today to respond to exactly what folks have been asking for. Now to give credit where credit is due, last year before the last Congress expired, Democrats and Republicans came together to extend for 1 year, and I would have liked to have seen it extended longer, but to extend for 1 year the tax cuts that our small business men and women were demanding. But the second part of the indecision that was there in the small business community, of the anxiety that was there, the uncertainty that was there, is what's going to happen with my health care cost. What's going to happen with the health care plan? Now we have not solved that. We have not solved that anxiety. We have not solved that indecision, because we've only gotten one-half of it done. We've gotten it passed in the House, but we've still got to take it to the Senate and we've still got to take it to the White House. Now again, in the spirit of giving credit where credit is due, I told folks throughout my campaign that I thought the President identified exactly the right two health care challenges, rising costs and access, and then came up with exactly the wrong solutions to those problems. Now we talk about what's going to happen to folks when the doughnut hole change goes away. Well, did we have a chance last year? And I'm new to Congress. Did we have a chance in the last Congress to vote on that standalone doughnut hole closure? I don't believe we did. Did we have a chance in the last Congress to vote on a standalone preexisting conditions solution? I don't believe we did. Did we have a chance in the last Congress to talk about kids under the age of 26 and what they can do? We did not. But what we do, we have this resolution today that is going to give us, for the first time, the opportunity as a nation to vote on those provisions one by one, because the only option Congress had last time under Democratic leadership to vote for a doughnut hole solution, to vote for preexisting condition solutions, to vote for insurance for kids under the age of 26, was to do it with the unconstitutional mandate, a trillion dollars in new spending, and hundreds of new bureaucracies.

Mr. WOODALL. I thank the chairman. Madam Speaker, I would just say to my friend that I absolutely voted no on every single one of those Rules Committee amendments in the name of repealing the bill yesterday, and now today I have returned to speak in favor of this resolution so that you can work with the committee leadership to bring each and every one of those provisions to this floor for a vote again for the very first time. For the very first time. I'm glad to support you in having that opportunity and I'm pleased to be here in support of this resolution today. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore