Providing for Consideration of Senate Amendment to H.R. Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, Providing for Proceedings During the Period From December Through January and for Other Purposes

Floor Speech

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Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 566 and ask for its immediate consideration.

The Clerk read the resolution, as follows: H. Res. 566

Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 2029) making appropriations for military construction, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2016, and for other purposes, with the Senate amendment thereto, and to consider in the House, without intervention of any point of order, a motion offered by the chair of the Committee on Appropriations or his designee that the House concur in the Senate amendment with each of the two amendments specified in section 3 of this resolution. The Senate amendment and the motion shall be considered as read. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the motion to its adoption without intervening motion or demand for division of the question except as specified in section 2 of this resolution. Clause 5(b) of rule XXI shall not apply to the motion.

Sec. 2. (a) The question of adoption of the motion shall be divided between the two House amendments specified in section 3 of this resolution. The two portions of the divided question shall be considered in the order specified by the Chair. Either portion of the divided question may be subject to postponement as though under clause 8 of rule XX. (b) The portion of the divided question comprising the amendment specified in section 3(a) of this resolution shall be debatable for one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations. The portion of the divided question comprising the amendment specified in section 3(b) of this resolution shall be debatable for one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Sec. 3. The amendments referred to in the first and second sections of this resolution are as follows: (a) An amendment consisting of the text of Rules Committee Print 114-39 modified by the amendment printed in the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution.

(b) An amendment consisting of the text of Rules Committee Print 114-40.

Sec. 4. If only the portion of the divided question comprising the amendment specified in section 3(b) of this resolution is adopted, that portion shall be engrossed as an amendment in the nature of a substitute to the Senate amendment to H.R. 2029.

Sec. 5. The chair of the Committee on Appropriations may insert in the Congressional Record at any time during the remainder of the first session of the 114th Congress such material as he may deem explanatory of the Senate amendment and the motion specified in the first section of this resolution.

Sec. 6. On any legislative day of the first session of the One Hundred Fourteenth Congress after December 18, 2015-- (a) the Journal of the proceedings of the previous day shall be considered as approved; and

(b) the Chair may at any time declare the House adjourned to meet at a date and time, within the limits of clause 4, section 5, article I of the Constitution, to be announced by the Chair in declaring the adjournment.

Sec. 7. On any legislative day of the second session of the One Hundred Fourteenth Congress before January 5, 2016-- (a) the Speaker may dispense with organizational and legislative business;

(b) the Journal of the proceedings of the previous day shall be considered as approved if applicable; and

(c) the Chair at any time may declare the House adjourned to meet at a date and time, within the limits of clause 4, section 5, article I of the Constitution, to be announced by the Chair in declaring the adjournment.

Sec. 8. The Speaker may appoint Members to perform the duties of the Chair for the duration of the periods addressed by sections 6 and 7 of this resolution as though under clause 8(a) of rule I.

Sec. 9. Each day during the periods addressed by sections 6 and 7 of this resolution shall not constitute a calendar day for purposes of section 7 of the War Powers Resolution (50 U.S.C. 1546).

Sec. 10. Each day during the periods addressed by sections 6 and 7 of this resolution shall not constitute a legislative day for purposes of clause 7 of rule XIII.

Sec. 11. It shall be in order at any time through the legislative day of December 18, 2015, for the Speaker to entertain motions that the House suspend the rules as though under clause 1 of rule XV. The Speaker or his designee shall consult with the Minority Leader or her designee on the designation of any matter for consideration pursuant to this section.

Sec. 12.

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Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), 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. General Leave
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Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Rules Committee met and reported a rule for the consideration of the Senate amendment to H.R. 2029. The resolution makes in order a motion offered by the chair of the Committee on Appropriations that the House concur in the Senate amendment with two House amendments.

Amendment No. 1, consisting of the text of the omnibus appropriations bill, is provided 1 hour of debate, equally divided and controlled by the Chair and ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations. Amendment No. 2, consisting of the text of the tax extenders bill, is provided 1 hour of debate, equally divided and controlled by the Chair and ranking member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

The rule provides for a separate vote on each amendment. In addition, the rule provides that, if one or both amendments are adopted, then the bill is sent to the Senate. Finally, Mr. Speaker, the rule provides the standard recess authorities typically given at the end of the first session of Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be presenting to the House today the rule which will provide for the consideration of two critical pieces of legislation which are the product of long and hard negotiations between the House, the Senate, and the administration.

First, Mr. Speaker, this rule provides for the consideration of the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015, the PATH Act. This legislation makes over 20 different tax provisions permanent, like the Research and Development Tax Credit, section 179 expensing, and the State and local sales tax deduction.

Many of these provisions have existed as part of the Tax Code for many years. However, they were often extended retroactively or on a yearly basis, making it difficult for businesses and individuals to plan effectively. Making these provisions permanent will allow businesses and individuals to make more sensible decisions throughout the year, not just during the final 12 or 14 days at the end of the year after Congress passes a retroactive extension.

This bill also includes extensions of other tax provisions, like the New Markets Tax Credit, the bonus depreciation, and the Work Opportunity Tax Credit through 2019. Additionally, there are other provisions that are retroactively extended for 2015 and through 2016.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, the PATH Act includes a number of program integrity measures designed to strengthen the integrity of the tax credit programs that have high rates of improper payments, fraud, and abuse.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, this bill includes a series of reforms designed to rein in the power of the Internal Revenue Service and better protect the American people, like firing IRS employees who take politically motivated actions against taxpayers and prohibiting IRS employees from using personal email accounts for official business.

In addition to these critical tax extenders, the rule also provides for the consideration of the omnibus spending bill for fiscal year 2016 at the funding levels agreed to in the Bipartisan Budget Act passed earlier this year.

There is much to be proud of in this 2,000-page bill and accompanying explanatory statement. But, as I have told many of my colleagues, if you can't find something you don't agree with in the bill, you must not be looking hard enough.

That being said, Mr. Speaker, this omnibus spending measure is a compromise and a reflection of divided government, but it also demonstrates a commitment by both sides to restoring regular order to this House.

While I could provide a long list of things I wish were included, this bill still maintains key Republican and conservative priorities. For example, the bill keeps the EPA staffing levels at the lowest level since 1989. In addition, it terminates dozens of duplicative, ineffective, or unauthorized programs.

Beyond the numerous cuts and restrictions on the executive branch, this bill also delays additional, onerous ObamaCare mandates. For example, it delays the Cadillac tax on healthcare insurance for an additional 2 years and imposes a moratorium on the health insurer excise tax in 2017.

In addition to these important changes, the omnibus also reveals some of the programs that Republicans value and that, frankly, Democrats value as well. Included in this legislation is a $2 billion increase for the National Institutes of Health. Likewise, it increases funding by 9.8 percent at the VA while strengthening the restrictions and oversight to ensure that taxpayer dollars will be used more effectively.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, this legislation includes a repeal of the crude oil export ban. Repealing this ban, which has been in place for the past 40 years, has the potential to create more than a million new jobs across the United States, add $170 billion annually to our gross domestic product, and lead to still lower gasoline prices. This provision is a victory for the American people.

I am sure many of my colleagues will speak about other portions of this legislation. However, in closing, I would like to recognize the hard work of Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Lowey, and Speaker Ryan, who were able to lead us to this necessary compromise.

This is the second year in a row that we will have been able to complete a vast majority of the appropriations process before the end of the calendar year, giving us the ability to begin the process anew when we return in January. It is a culmination of the hard work of the Members and of the staff over the past 10 months, and it should be worthy of all of the Members' support.

I urge the support of the rule and of the underlying legislation.

I want to begin by agreeing with my friend from Massachusetts on a very important point, but perhaps adding a little bit of nuance.

I celebrate, probably as much as anybody in this Chamber, my friend's and his side of the aisle's newfound commitment to regular order. When they were in the majority here, they certainly didn't practice it. As a matter of fact, in 2009, I think only one or two appropriations bills reached the floor. During that period, the right of having an open rule, where every Member with an amendment could come down and offer it in the House, was taken away by my friend. Again, I appreciate that.

My friend and I will disagree about what happened this year, because, indeed, we did begin down the path of regular order, we did bring six bills across the floor, we did bring all 12 bills through the committee. But, as my friend said, the Senate did not do that. Frankly, when regular order breaks down on one side of the rotunda in the Capitol building, it breaks down on the other as well. You can't keep bringing bills down when the other side simply won't bring bills at all. You are wasting a lot of time and you are casting a lot of votes that, frankly, become meaningless.

Let us put this behind us. I actually agree with my friend. I think because of the bipartisan budget agreement, which my friend supported, and I supported as well, we now know what our spending levels will be next year. We now have an opportunity to do exactly what I am sure he wants to do, and I think every Member, regardless of viewpoint of party, wants to do. That is to bring all 12 bills to the floor and give every Member an opportunity to participate. That would be a good thing.

The second point I would like to make in response to my friend deals with sequestration. I agree with him. To his credit, he has been a consistent opponent of sequestration. But we ought to remember this about that particular proposal. Sequestration was President Obama's idea--suggestion--in the 2011 budget agreement.

There are a lot of imperfections in that budget agreement. One of the things was that a supercommittee was set up that was supposed to work these things out and sequester was never supposed to happen. For whatever reason, that committee was unable to actually do that. Sequester did save a lot of money. Our deficit is considerably lower than it was.

Speaking of deficits--and my friend raised his concern about deficit spending--I share that concern too. I think it is worth pointing out that the last 4 years that my friends on the other side were in the majority, the deficit rose every single year, peaking at about $1.4 trillion.

While we may disagree on particular provisions, the truth is for the 4 years--and now 5--that Republicans have been in power in the House, the deficit has gone down every single year. I think that tells you who is committed to deficit reduction and who is serious about cutting spending.

Indeed, we are spending less money in this omnibus spending bill in discretionary accounts than we were spending when George Bush was President of the United States in 2008, so that is a pretty serious reduction. I would invite my friends to work with this on the real driver of the deficit, and that is the entitlement programs, which desperately need reform--Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. That is something that can only be done in a bipartisan fashion, and, frankly, can only be done with Presidential leadership. In this case, sadly, the President of the United States has been AWOL in the effort to actually rein in entitlement spending.

My friend raised the lifting of the oil export ban in his remarks. On this we just simply have a different point of view. I come from a part of the world that has produced energy for this country for over 100 years and exported it. We think this is the key to sustaining the growth in the industry.

Frankly, right now, $38 a barrel for oil means actually thousands of layoffs in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and other energy-producing States. The productivity of that sector, which has benefited every American with lower energy prices and lower gasoline prices, has also created a lot of difficulty for them.

We are the only country on the planet that does not allow for the export of petroleum--the only one. Frankly, I think this is a case where we ought to listen to other countries around the world, and we ought to recognize some basic principles. Willing producers, willing buyers, and free markets are good for everybody. That always gives you the best product at the lowest price and creates the most innovation.

I think this is an enormous step in the right direction. I am very proud that the two sides compromised and made this tough call--I know for some of my friends--but I think the right call long term for our country.

Finally, I would just like to conclude, Mr. Speaker, by noting that in my friend's remarks, while he certainly made what I think were some excellent points about process, certainly had some points where we differed, and certainly made some fair and legitimate critiques in what is a very large bill--as I said earlier, you can always find something to be critical of in this legislation--my friend also pointed out a lot of the very many good things in this bill. Frankly, some of those things that he likes, Members on my side don't necessarily agree with.

That is the product of a real negotiation between the two sides, the two Chambers, and with the administration. There are wins and losses in here--if we even want to call them losses. But I think there is a victory here for the American people--stability, certainty, some really key national investments, no government shutdown, and I think this year the foundation, if we pass this legislation, for regular order, which I know my friend very much wants, next year.

We have moved a long way from where we were several years ago-- frankly, under both parties--to where we are today. I actually give both sides considerable credit for this because I think there is a genuine yearning from Members of both sides to get to regular order, to make sure that, when we appropriate, everything is down here, transparent, every amendment has an opportunity.

So, in the spirit of the Christmas season, we can put aside maybe some of our differences here. I think we will pass, ultimately, a very good bipartisan bill. I think we can make a commitment, an early New Year's resolution, that next year we will go to exactly where my friend wants to go and where I want to go and, frankly, where I know the Speaker wants to go, and that is regular order where each bill comes to the floor, receives due consideration, every Member has an opportunity to participate, things are more transparent and, frankly, things are more orderly. That will be possible because we came to a bipartisan budget agreement this year early that set the spending limits for next year. I think that is a very good thing.

I want to respond quickly to my friend from New Jersey on the refinery issue because I actually have two refineries in my district, so not all refineries are located on the East and West Coast or in the Gulf. There are quite a few of them in the historic middle part of the country as well.

I am always concerned about those jobs as well because, as my friend suggests, they are extremely important. He is precisely correct when he says that just producing oil is not enough. You want to be able to refine it.

I also will tell you that sitting in Cushing, Oklahoma, is over 250 million barrels of oil that can't be refined because there is not a sufficient capacity for that particular kind of oil in this country.

I would also suggest that it is not fair for people to say you can only sell the product you produce one place. Nobody else in the world does that. Nobody else says you can't sell your product to any place in the world in any market you want to. Only we do that.

Many people might want a captive audience, but that is just simply not fair to the people at the other end of the process. They ought to be able to sell their product, particularly when, in certain kinds of crude, there is just simply not sufficient capacity. I would suggest over time if we just have faith in the free market, those things will be worked out, and we will eventually have the appropriate balance and supply.

Again, I want to agree with my friend about the importance of the refining industry, but I also want to agree about the importance of free markets and the right and ability of people that produce products and make substantial investments to sell their product anyplace to any market that they care to do that. We are the only country in the world that denies that privilege to people that find and produce oil. I think if we remove that, frankly, we will have a more robust domestic industry.

Again, this is an industry that is to be commended because it has been their innovation that has created this abundance of production. We have increased production in the United States by 85 percent in the last 5 or 6 years. That wasn't done with any government program. That wasn't done by the government. That was actually done by hardworking entrepreneurs and workers in historic oil-producing areas and new areas that are being opened up, in States like Pennsylvania and Ohio. This is a good thing for the United States, and we ought to take full advantage.

Their productivity has also brought them record low prices, and they need the opportunity to market their product anyplace in the world that they think they can get a decent price. In the long-term, that will preserve the industry in the United States.

Again, to my friend's point, I care a lot about jobs. I would be happy to take you to my State and show you how many thousands of jobs we have lost in the last few months, in the last year and a half.

It is not just a question of oilfield work; it is also machinery, production, and that sort of thing. Frankly, those losses will reach into the manufacturing section of our country that produces much of the steel, the pipe, and the concrete that are important. Those jobs aren't just in our part of the country; they are all through the country.

Again, I want to work with my friend. I agree with his observation. There were efforts made in good faith by both sides to provide some tax relief to the refining industry. If that is not sufficient, I would be happy to work with my friend to try and do more in that regard.

Again, I think this is a balanced bill. It is a historic opportunity to do the right thing. At the end of the day, we are always better off when we trust free markets, free men and women producing and selling the products that they choose to make as widely as possible. That is what has made the country great. That has certainly been the key to the success in the energy industry. This is a step in the right direction to make sure that we not only maintain, but expand that principle.

Just very quickly, I want to thank my friend from Oregon for his hard, bipartisan work on Ways and Means and various elements in this package that came here. I want to thank him as well for the kind remarks he made about the omnibus and his interest in research. I know that is genuine, and he has been a champion of that. I look forward to continuing to work with that.

Finally--and I know my friend would think this, too--we are all concerned about the deficit. Some day, if we get serious about entitlement reform, we will sit down and do it. Now, I believe that can only be done in a bipartisan way. I would invite my friend sometime to look at a bill that Mr. Delaney and I have to begin the process of perhaps reforming Social Security in a bipartisan way. So, again, I look forward to that. I appreciate my friend's good work.

I want to join my friend from Texas in his concern about the national debt and the deficit. I think those are genuine and real.

I do point out to my friend that every year his side was in power the annual deficit got greater for 4 consecutive years, peaking at $1.4 trillion. Every year the Republicans have been in power in the House, it has come down.

We can argue about the specifics of national debt, but who ran it up and who is trying to bring it down I think is pretty clear over the last several years.

Second, while my friend is critical of many of the provisions--and, frankly, I could list some provisions that I am critical of in this legislation as well--I remind him it was negotiated by the Democratic minority leader, the Speaker of the House, the leader of the Senate, the minority leader of the Senate, and the President of the United States.

Whatever is in this bill has been signed off by the leaders of both parties, but certainly the leaders of his party. It is not some Democrats that are involved. It is the top Democrats that were involved. I presume they think this was in the best interest of the country.

There are many items in here that we all like and agree on. There are going to be items that both sides do not like. I mean, that is just the nature of a compromise.

I could certainly tick off a list of things that I think either should have been in the bill and aren't or that are in the bill that I don't like. I look at the broader virtues here. I think it is good.

The final point I wish to make, Mr. Speaker, is this idea that we are making permanent tax cuts, the reality is they have been permanent anyway. We have been extending these things ad infinitum, forever.

The problem is, when you extend taxes instead of create certainty, people don't know whether to invest, what to invest, what to do. You actually don't get the productive value out of the tax cut.

I applaud my friend, Mr. Brady, on Ways and Means and his colleagues on both sides of the aisle who are trying to make some things that are common sense and that we do every single year or every other year permanent so the American people can make an appropriate calculation.

I do invite my friend to come down next year and work seriously, as I know he will, on trying to come to some sort of agreement on entitlement spending, some sort of reforms. That is where 71 percent of the total spending of the budget is. If you want to balance, you can't rope it off and say these things we can never change over here.

I would invite my friend to look at Mr. Delaney's bill and my bill, which is a process bill. It doesn't lay these things out. It doesn't cut anything. What it does do is actually force us to sit down and make some decisions. People on both sides of the aisle keep postponing this.

We ought to go back and honestly do what Ronald Reagan, Tip O'Neill, and Howard Baker did in 1983. They had a commission similar to what Mr. Delaney and I have. Any recommendation to that commission would have to be bipartisan. Then the Congress would have to vote on it up or down. I can assure you that there will be things in a reform package that both sides don't like, but Congress has ignored these things.

On Medicare and Medicaid, two big drivers, I am proud that we have at least put proposals on the table in the Ryan and now the Price budgets, proposals I know my friends probably don't agree with, but I think are real efforts to actually reform those things.

What we don't have is a Democratic proposal on Medicare, a Democratic proposal on Medicaid. Frankly, neither side has been willing to really put something out on Social Security. I think that is something we ought to do. That is something Mr. Delaney and I in a bipartisan way have tried to do. I hope other Members will work with us next year.

I know that the Speaker is committed to trying to reform these programs so we can save them so that the scenario that my friend laid out does not happen, that they do not go bankrupt, that the American people do not lose them. We are going to have to sit down and make some hard decisions and make them in a bipartisan way.

The fact that we did this on this bill, this omnibus spending bill and the tax extender portion, I think is a good start to sitting down and having that conversation more broadly next year. I hope we do that.

I listen with a great deal of attention to my good friend from New York whenever she rises on this issue because, frankly, I know she is much more knowledgeable about it than I am.

I do not pretend to be an expert in this area at all. It is not something we handle normally on the Committee on Appropriations. It would normally come through another committee.

I think, from what I have been told, that is actually what the great concern is. I don't think there is much doubt that there is a serious crisis here. Nobody debates that.

I think that the intent next year, as I understand it, is to try to work through regular order and resolve this, as we should, because it is a complex problem.

I think probably the decision at higher levels than mine was that this is not the appropriate vehicle. That does not take away from my friend's point that it is a serious problem. It needs the attention of Congress. I look forward to working with her in that regard.

I do not think this was the right vehicle. I do think, actually, there would have been many Members with many questions who would not have had a chance to study it.

It just makes more sense to work its way through the committee. I hope we do that. I think that is the right thing to do. I think my friend was certainly well within her rights and very appropriately raised an important issue that this House needs to turn its attention to next year.

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to thank my friend from New Jersey for coming down here and making that point and, frankly, for his hard work and continuous dedication on this important provision.

When this legislation was first offered a number of years ago, I was very proud to vote for it. I thought it was the right thing to do. I was happy to cosponsor its extension and being made permanent, and I look forward to having the opportunity to vote for it in this context again.

My friend is exactly right when he talks about the consequences of 9/ 11 to the men and women who heroically went to the site trying to save other Americans, risking their own lives and health, as we know, in the long term. I dealt with a similar situation when I was secretary of state in Oklahoma in the Oklahoma City bombing. I must say, we got tremendous help from our friends in New York and New Jersey and other parts of the country. We had rescue teams. We got wonderful help from the United States in the aftermath of the disaster and the recovery. Of course, the scale of 9/11 dwarfs anything that has ever happened in our country.

So I am glad on this note: The two parties have sat down and worked together and done the right thing. My friend from New Jersey has been a leader in that effort every step along the way. This is something in the bill that I think for even those who don't support the bill, frankly, had we run it individually, I believe it would have passed on this floor overwhelmingly in a bipartisan fashion, but it does come to us in the context of this bill, and I hope many of my friends can support the bill for a variety of reasons, and this would be one of the chief amongst them.

Frankly, if they cannot, I would recognize again that, had this come individually, I think even those who are opposed would have supported this, because this is a uniting experience in American history. It is something we are proud of. And we can't ever forget the sacrifices that men and women on the ground at the site in the moment of enormous danger made for their fellow Americans and the example they set for us all. So the least we can do is to make sure that those who suffered on our behalf are taken care of appropriately in the aftermath of this great tragedy.

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to thank my friend. As always, it is a privilege to have a debate and a discussion with him. I think his characterization of this legislation as a mixed bag is a fair characterization, but that is what I would expect in anything that is a compromise--and particularly a compromise of this magnitude.

I take considerable pride, frankly, in all those involved in this. They did come to some major agreements. Again, I think each of the leaders of the House and of the Senate and certainly the President and his team could point to things they don't like in this bill or things they gave up or things they wanted that didn't make it. I know each of them has a long list of disappointments.

But the bottom line is they found a way to get the job done. They found a way to sit down, work across the institutional divide, the partisan divide, their philosophical differences, and produce a good bill.

I also want to agree with my friend on his concern about the process. He is precisely right; this is not the best way to operate. I am glad we got all these bills on the appropriations side through the full committee. I am proud that we got six of them across the floor. I am disappointed that our friends in the Senate, frankly, because of the minority's opposition, didn't get any onto the floor. They did get, though, in fairness, all 12 of theirs through committee. And that is progress for both bodies. We have moved in a broad direction. But my friend is right, we need to go further next year.

I am going to disagree with him a little bit about the deficit. He is not going to be surprised. Again, I point out the reality that for the last 4 years my friends were in the majority, the deficit went up every single year; and since we have been in the majority, it has come down every single year. I don't think those are coincidences. I think they show who is committed.

I am also proud that we have put forward real reform proposals on entitlement spending, the real drivers of the debt. I invite my friends to actually offer proposals in that regard or to look at Mr. Delaney's bill and my bill. I wish our side would do that, too, by the way, because I think it offers us a reasonable way to get to reforming the Social Security system, probably the most important single program that we have in the country.

I am also going to disagree with my good friend on the oil export ban, not surprisingly. In my part of the world, we are losing thousands of jobs. The idea that you would restrict where Americans, who have produced a product, can sell it to only one place, when no other country in the world does that. This is something that shouldn't have been in this bill. It should have never happened in the first place. It should have gone 40 years ago.

Now, my friend mentioned Mr. Clinton and balancing the budget. I think that is an appropriate thing to do. He somehow left out the part that it was a Republican Congress working with President Clinton. Frankly, President Clinton never ever submitted a balanced budget to the Congress. Congress reduced the spending, and eventually we got lucky. We had a growth spurt. We had a peace dividend. We had a lot of things going on in the nineties. We had the baby boomers at the top of their earning potential. They were not retiring at the rate of 10,000 a day, as we have now.

So I would argue our problem is tougher, but my friend is right when he makes the point that in a bipartisan fashion, we dealt with this problem in the 1990s. We need to be bipartisan and deal it with again, going forward.

Mr. Speaker, I think that as we conclude the legislative business of this Congress, it is critical for us to end in a way that honors the trust the American people have placed in us. Divided government is difficult; however, it is a position that we have been placed in.

The last few weeks have been filled with legislative activity: a long-term transportation bill, a fundamental overhaul of our elementary education programs, a Customs bill which makes it easier for Americans to trade overseas, and finally, both tax certainty for individuals and businesses and the completion of the fiscal year 2016 appropriations process.

None of these pieces of legislation have been perfect, from my perspective or I am sure from my friend's perspective, but they have all been better than the alternative we have faced. And they were, in my estimation, the best deals we could negotiate. That is a testament to the leadership of Speaker Ryan; Leader Pelosi; the committee chairman, Mr. Rogers; Mr. Brady on our side, of their counterparts, Mrs. Lowey; Mr. Shuster; the ranking member of Ways and Means, Mr. Levin, one of my favorite Members.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I do want to end with one note. I want to join my friend, my valued colleague in the Rules Committee, in our joint hope that we do not meet again in that context. I want to wish him and his family a Merry Christmas, as well as to all those in this institution. And frankly, I want to congratulate all involved in this on a job well done. It was a hard deal, a long negotiation, but one where each side worked together.

The material previously referred to by Mr. McGovern is as follows:

An Amendment to H. Res. 566 Offered by Mr. McGovern of Massachusetts

At the end of the resolution, add the following new section:

Sec. 13. Rules Committee Print 114-39 is modified by striking subsections (a) through (d) of section 101 of Division O concerning oil exports. ____ The Vote on the Previous Question: What It Really Means

This vote, the vote on whether to order the previous question on a special rule, is not merely a procedural vote. A vote against ordering the previous question is a vote against the Republican majority agenda and a vote to allow the Democratic minority to offer an alternative plan. It is a vote about what the House should be debating.

Mr. Clarence Cannon's Precedents of the House of Representatives (VI, 308-311), describes the vote on the previous question on the rule as ``a motion to direct or control the consideration of the subject before the House being made by the Member in charge.'' To defeat the previous question is to give the opposition a chance to decide the subject before the House. Cannon cites the Speaker's ruling of January 13, 1920, to the effect that ``the refusal of the House to sustain the demand for the previous question passes the control of the resolution to the opposition'' in order to offer an amendment. On March 15, 1909, a member of the majority party offered a rule resolution. The House defeated the previous question and a member of the opposition rose to a parliamentary inquiry, asking who was entitled to recognition. Speaker Joseph G. Cannon (R-Illinois) said: ``The previous question having been refused, the gentleman from New York, Mr. Fitzgerald, who had asked the gentleman to yield to him for an amendment, is entitled to the first recognition.''

The Republican majority may say ``the vote on the previous question is simply a vote on whether to proceed to an immediate vote on adopting the resolution . . . [and] has no substantive legislative or policy implications whatsoever.'' But that is not what they have always said. Listen to the Republican Leadership Manual on the Legislative Process in the United States House of Representatives, (6th edition, page 135). Here's how the Republicans describe the previous question vote in their own manual: ``Although it is generally not possible to amend the rule because the majority Member controlling the time will not yield for the purpose of offering an amendment, the same result may be achieved by voting down the previous question on the rule. . . . When the motion for the previous question is defeated, control of the time passes to the Member who led the opposition to ordering the previous question. That Member, because he then controls the time, may offer an amendment to the rule, or yield for the purpose of amendment.''

In Deschler's Procedure in the U.S. It is one of the only available tools for those who oppose the Republican majority's agenda and allows those with alternative views the opportunity to offer an alternative plan.
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