Providing for Consideration of H.R. 367 Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2013; Providing for Consideration of H.R. 2009, Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act of 2013; Providing for Proceedings During the Period from August 3, 2013, through September 6, 2013; and Providing for Consideration of H.R. 2879, Stop Government Abuse Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule for consideration of H.R. 367, the REINS Act; H.R. 2009, the Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act; and H.R. 2879, the Stop Government Abuse Act.

The rule provides a structured rule for consideration of the REINS Act, allowing debate time for 12 of 23 amendments submitted. In addition, the rule incorporates a technical correction to the bill from Chairman Sessions. The rule provides for 1 hour of debate equally divided between the chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee.

Additionally, the rule provides a closed rule for consideration of H.R. 2009, the Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act, and provides for 1 hour of debate equally divided between the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Furthermore, the rule provides a closed rule for consideration of H.R. 2879, the Stop Government Abuse Act, and provides for 1 hour of debate equally divided between the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, the rule provides floor management tools to be used during the August recess.

Mr. Speaker, America's job creators have struggled against strong headwinds to recover. In fact, since President Obama took office, 131 new major regulations, costing at least $70 billion, have been added to America's regulatory system.

Under current law, Congress only has the power to disapprove regulations put forward by the executive branch. H.R. 367 flips that presumption on its head. Any major regulation estimated to cost over $100 million would need to be approved by Congress and must be given an ``up-or-down'' vote within 70 legislative days.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama said:

To reduce barriers to growth and investment, when we find rules that put an unnecessary burden on businesses, we will fix them.

H.R. 367 does just that. It allows Congress to decide whether major rules place unnecessary burdens on job creators.

The second bill covered by this rule, Mr. Speaker, would prohibit the Treasury Department, including the IRS, from implementing or enforcing any provision of ObamaCare. In the last few months, the American people have learned that the IRS has targeted and intimidated Americans exercising their First Amendment rights. Given the recent scandal and the massive amount of sensitive information the IRS is required to collect under ObamaCare, it's completely inappropriate for the IRS to be given this responsibility.

A recent poll showed that 53 percent of Americans want ObamaCare repealed entirely. Mr. Speaker, health care decisions should be made by a patient and his or her doctor, not Washington bureaucrats.

The final bill covered by this rule, H.R. 2879, was extensively debated on the floor yesterday. In fact, it combined three bills, all aimed at limiting government and returning that power back to the people. This bill accomplishes three major objectives:

First, it caps bonuses for Federal employees at a maximum 5 percent of their salary through the end of fiscal year 2015. With Federal officials furloughing employees due to sequestration, the government should not, at the same time, be handing out millions of dollars in bonuses to other employees;

Second, this bill allows for senior Federal officials under investigation for serious misconduct to be put on unpaid leave. Under current law, agencies have little recourse but to put officials on paid leave, where they can collect a paycheck for months or even years while the investigation occurs;

Finally, this bill allows for citizens to record their meetings and telephone exchanges with Federal regulatory officials. In my home State of Oklahoma, along with 37 other States, this is already the case. However, 12 States require all parties involved in the conversation to consent to recording. This bill would allow individuals in all 50 States to record their conversations when meeting with Federal officials acting in their official capacity.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 367, H.R. 2009, and H.R. 2879 all express the views of my constituents. They're increasingly concerned and opposed to an intrusive and expansive government that seeks to tell them what they can and cannot do. These bills seek to stem the tide of crushing regulation and rein in an overbearing Federal bureaucracy.

I urge support for the rule and the underlying bills, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I want to quickly respond, if I may, to a couple of points my good friend made.

First, I want to begin by agreeing with her because, quite frankly, as I've stated publicly on many occasions, I don't believe a government shutdown is a good idea either. I think that's not a responsible political tactic. And while my good friend has been concerned that some people in my party have advocated that, I would also express a similar concern, quoting press reports that some advisors to the President have recommended that, should we send a so-called ``continuing resolution'' that funded the government that did not repeal sequester, he should veto it and that would shut down the government.

So I think there's been a little bit of irresponsible discussion about shutting down the government--which, with my friend, I agree, is never a good idea--that's come from both sides of the aisle.

In terms of her observations about sequestration, as an appropriator, again, we probably find some common ground here. I would like to see us also get rid of sequestration, but I'd like to do it by redistributing the cuts to the nondiscretionary side of the budget where I think they belong. We need to keep the savings--that's why the deficit is coming down--but there are certainly smarter and better ways to do that. And if the President is willing to do that, I suspect he would find a willing negotiating partner on our side of the aisle.

In fact, though, many of my friends advocate what is effectively a third tax increase this year. We had a tax increase with the so-called ``fiscal cliff.'' When all the Bush tax cuts ended, the President used that to raise taxes. We have a tax increase this year associated with his health care plan kicking in that's major. And now my friends on the other side of the aisle want a third tax increase to keep the government open and operating. We think we can spend money better and smarter, and that we ought to continue to reduce spending, not increase the burdens on the American people.

Finally, I want to talk to my friend, who discussed ObamaCare, and she's absolutely right; we certainly would like to repeal it, and we certainly have tried to make that point repeatedly. Frankly, her disagreement is not with us so much as it is with the American people. This is an extraordinarily unpopular law. No poll has ever shown that more people like it than dislike it; quite the opposite. People would like to see it repealed. It's simply not a very good idea. Frankly, we're seeing signs of that right now. The President himself, in a signature piece of legislation, had to ask that the business mandates actually be pushed back by a year. We would like to help him in that, and we'd like to do it for individuals as well, but that suggests this was certainly a bill not ready for prime time.

A former Presidential candidate--I very seldom quote Howard Dean in agreement, but he had an interesting piece in The Wall Street Journal this week on why the central cost-control mechanism of ObamaCare--the Independent Payment Advisory Board--simply wouldn't work. Now, that's not us; that's criticism from somebody that probably supports a national health care plan of some kind.

Finally--and I think this does get overlooked in a debate, and I want to end my comments on a point of agreement, because while we have voted repeatedly to repeal, there have actually been times that we have, on both sides of the aisle, agreed--and agreed with the President--about changing this bill.

In the last couple of years, we have actually passed seven pieces of legislation when we were in the majority--they obviously had to go through a Democratic Senate and to the President's desk--that changed or modified ObamaCare--and saved, by the way, about $62 billion. My friends, after ramming that legislation through, looked at the so-called 1040s that were going to be attached to every $600 purchase and said, you know, you guys are right, that's a really bad idea. The President thought so too. And we got rid of it.

We also got rid of the assisted living portion of it, the so-called ``CLASS Act'' that was just financially unsustainable. Why? Secretary Sebelius looked at it and said, you know, this really isn't going to work. And I'll bet you sooner or later we'll get a medical device tax elimination down here on this floor--people on both sides know it's nuts to be taxing people's wheelchairs and oxygen cans because they're sick and use that to fund health care, and I'll bet you we can probably find common agreement on that.

So, while we would like to repeal, we certainly are willing to work when we find common areas and continue to try and improve a very flawed product.

With that, I'd like to yield such time as he may consume to my good friend and fellow Rules Committee member from Florida (Mr. Nugent).

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Mr. COLE. And I want to say, my friend, the gentleman, exercised it to the extreme, but he's always worth listening to.

I want to underscore a point my good friend made, because I do agree with you very much about government shutdown. I don't think that's a responsible tactic. I've seen it advocated from time to time from people on both sides of the aisle. We've had reports of it from advisors to the President. I certainly wouldn't suggest the President would agree with that. But I hope we don't get there, and I will pledge to work with my friend to make sure that we do not.

I also think, though, that we ought to recognize that we have worked together on some occasions. My friend and I worked together on the fiscal cliff, we worked together on violence against women, we worked together on Sandy, we worked together, actually, on the CR in March. So there are times when we can come together.

We are working together now. I suspect the President will soon sign the Student Loan Act, an act that was originated on our side--problems were on the Senate side--and passed. Eventually, they came around and saw the same thing the way the President and we saw it on this side of the aisle.

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Mr. COLE. We did. I appreciate that, and we found common ground. I hope we can again.

But also when we're lectured a little bit on rules--and, look, we both wear these hats occasionally--I will remind my friends, when they were in the majority, the rules under which they brought a massive health care bill to this floor with almost no debate, a massive stimulus, billions of dollars, with essentially no debate and no consideration, the Dodd-Frank rule.

So whatever sins have been committed on our side of the aisle, I would suggest this is one where you need to look at the log in your own eye in terms of the size and scope of that legislation and the rules that accompany them.

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Mr. COLE. Reclaiming my time, I seriously doubt that you have never said we wouldn't do this. I've heard the same thing when we talk about debt ceiling where we know the rules get reversed from time to time.

So I think this legislation--and I think it's very significant legislation--but I don't think it ranks with either of the three examples that I gave in which this body was not given the opportunity. Frankly, I think the Republican majority is here today largely because that's the way the House was operated the way the last time my friends had an opportunity to do that.

But regardless of that, I appreciate my friend's remarks as always. I always enjoy the exchange, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. COLE. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, we did have a referendum on ObamaCare. Do you know what we got? We got a split decision because, while the American people certainly reelected the President, they also reelected a Republican House. That's a hard thing to achieve in what my friends would regard as a great Presidential victory. We had 435 different referendums about this. So the American people, for whatever reason, either wanted the debate to continue or certainly didn't want to leave the President, as they did in 2009 and 2010, with essentially total control over the legislative branch. They didn't like what they saw then, and I don't think they would like what they would see if that were to happen.

As for our friends in the Senate, letting them decide what the agenda is going to be in the House, I think, is, quite frankly, a mistake. They don't get a lot done over there. Every now and then, though, they'll surprise you.

I remember hearing these same arguments about the Student Loan Act in that, gosh, what we were planning and proposing, even though it was relatively close to what the President proposed, was never going to happen. In fact, if you'll remember at one point and if I recall correctly, I think the President, himself, issued a veto threat against the legislation. So, had we followed our friend's advice, everybody's student loans in America would be skyrocketing right now.

Every now and then, you just have to go out and fight for the things that you believe in; and, amazingly, sometimes the United States Senate will come around, and, occasionally, the President of the United States will change his mind or at least will decide this was close enough to be good enough.

So I would suggest we just continue to get up every day as we all do, to work as best we can for the things that we believe in, and at the end of the day--believe me--the American people will make a judgment, and we'll see what happens.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. COLE. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I want to respond to a number of points my friends have made about the issue of sequester. I simply want to remind them whose idea it was. If they have any doubt, they should read the Bob Woodward book, ``The Price of Politics,'' or follow the lively correspondence that came after the book was published.

The reality is that the idea of sequester was the President's proposal. He proposed it; he advocated for it; he signed it into law. Now we hear from our friends, gosh, the Republicans won't undo it or we didn't really mean that it would actually ever happen.

We've had this discussion before. The simple truth is that we are willing to renegotiate where the cuts come from. We actually agree with our friends on that. What they're not willing to do is to actually reduce spending. That's essentially what the debate is about.

This is the method that the President recommended, signed and advocated for. If he wants to undo it--something, by the way, this House twice in the last term did, but our friends in the Senate never picked it up, and the President never came up with a counteroffer, so we're sort of still waiting over here--and if the President would like to redistribute the cuts, I have no doubt the Speaker would like to talk to him. But the idea that we're just going to simply undo it and lose all the savings, I think, is also unlikely to occur.

So let's sit down. We all know there are better ways to do this. We're willing to do that on our side, but we are not willing to raise taxes, and we are not willing to lose savings.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

In closing, I want to begin by reminding my friends whose idea sequester was. It was the President of the United States.

The President likes to take some credit--and in some ways he deserves some--for our budget deficit coming down. Frankly, after four trillion-dollar deficits in a row, a Republican Congress came into office and that deficit is now moving down. It's about half of what it was. We've worked with the President to actually achieve something he said he wanted to, which is lower the deficit. He likes to take credit for it.

Second, I'd like to also remind my friends, Mr. Speaker, in closing, that I think these bills really are good bills. They provide important checks on the expanding power of the executive branch. How many times have all of us gone home and been regaled with tales of bureaucrats that are simply out of control or rules that make no sense or have an enormous economic impact? It happens all the time. That needs to change.

Senator Daniel Webster described the Federal Government as ``made by the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people.'' I would suggest we've forgotten the last of these three phases, ``answerable to the people.'' That's what these bills are about, trying to make the Federal Government more responsive and more answerable to the people. The underlying bills recognize just that and restore the power of governance to elected officials, not to unaccountable Washington bureaucrats.

I would urge my colleagues to support this rule and the underlying legislation.

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