Transcripts For CSPAN LIVE U.S. House Of Representatives 20171012

Respond to recent devastating natural disasters. Over the past two months, millions of americans have had their lives forever altered by destructive hurricanes in texas, florida, puerto rico, and the Virgin Islands. By raging and by raging and tedly wildfires in the west. We all support those who were victimized, particularly those who lost lives, lost their lives or lost lowed ones and will continue to be with them every step of the way with the federal support they need as they recover and rebuild. Our thanks go to the First Responders, volunteers and states, who have saved countless lives, protected communities and demonstrated the best of human tainity. That includes fema, the army corps of engineers, the department of defense, the coast guard, and many other federal agencies. For getting the first installment of relief to those in need. However, with such massive unprecedented damage, more help is needed. Clearly needed to continue to respond to these Recovery Efforts to rebuild communities with dollars, with resources, with manpower and with our support. This emergency funding legislation, the second installment, addresses urgent shortterm immediate priorities. Replenishing femas its aer relief fund, supporting ongoing federal wildlife suppression effort, providing debt relief for the federal Flood Insurance program, and other assistance that will help our fellow americans in their time of greatest need. To summarize, 36. 5 billion provided in this bill, in total 18. 7 billion is provided for the Disaster Relief fund. This includes 13. 77 billion for the most Immediate Response needs. Lifesaving missions, emergency protection, repair and restoration of Public Infrastructure like communications, power, transportation, and yes, shelter. And Financial Assistance to individuals and families affected as they rebuild their lives. This package also includes 4. 9 billion for Community Disaster loans which will ensure local governments are able to provide basic Municipal Service such as police and Fire Protection and public education. Throughout this trying time. In addition to these Disaster Relief funds, this bill provides a onetime payment of 1. 27 billion to allow puerto rico and our fellow citizens to receive the same access to emergency disaster Nutrition Program benefits that other states receive. The bill also ensures that the national Flood Insurance program is able to meet its existing claim obligations as americans cope with the tremendous flood damage to their homes and communities. For wildlife suppression, the as contains 576. 5 million we see in the situation out west has grown even more desperate and deadly. We must ensure that those heroic firefighters can continue to save lives and protect property. As we know, the needs of each disaster area are everchanging. Consequently, our Appropriations Committee and all of our members continue to monitor the progress of Recovery Efforts as well as anticipate emerging needs. This will be a long process, mr. Speaker. This second package package or installment of federal support will certainly in the be all that is needed over the long term. Mr. Speaker, i urge support of the of this bill, its important for the nation, for the communities affected, and i reserve the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman reserves. The gentlelady from new york is recognized. Mrs. Lowey mr. Speaker, i yield myself two minutes. The speaker pro tempore the gentlelady is recognized. Mrs. Lowey since Hurricane Harvey wrought historic flooding in texas, 12 major disasters have been declared. From a hurricane that damaged large swaths of florida, storms that annihilated puerto rico and the Virgin Islands, and wildfires burning in the west, americans deserve certainty the federal government will stand by them in their time of need. This is particularly important after the president threatened to abandon puerto rico in his latest twitter this morning. Congress cannot turn its back on recovery, no matter how reckless the president s outbursts may wile take you back live now to the house floor for additional debate and votes. Live coverage on cspan. Title the bill. The clerk h. R. 2810, an act to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2018 for military activities of the department of defense, for military construction and for Defense Activities of the department of energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year and for other purposes. The speaker pro tempore is there objection to the gentlemans request . Hearing none, without objection, so ordered. Without objection, a motion to rereconsider is laid on the table. For what purpose does the gentleman from rhode island seek recognition . I have a motion to instruct conferees at the desk. The speaker pro tempore the clerk will report the motion. The clerk the gentleman from rhode island moves to instruct the members of the house at the conference to the bill h. R. 2810 be instructed as follows. One, to disagree with subsection c of section 336 of the Senate Amendment, two, to receive from section 1064 of the house bill, three, to disagree with section 1087 of the Senate Amendment. The speaker pro tempore pursuant to clause 7 of rule 22, the gentleman from rhode island, mr. Langevin, and the gentleman from texas, mr. Thornberry, each will control 30 minutes. The chair recognizes the gentleman from rhode island. Mr. Langevin thank you, mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as i may consume. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Langevin mr. Speaker, the army has a surplus of pistols, the m1911a145 caliber pistol, the armed forbeses standard issue sidearm for more than 50 years, it was replaced in 1980 by a newer model. Since then, the army accumulated pistolsf surplus m1911 housed in alabama. Theres no National Security reason to keep these pistols. The army stopped issuing them 30 them 30 years ago. Et the army has been prevented from disposing of them due to the civilian Marksmanship Program. The c. M. P. Want to transfer the pistols to a private corporation so they can sell them. Do we want this to happen . We have the opportunity in this years ndaa to stop this transfer of tens of thousands of m1911 pistol which is continues a multimillion dollar government giveaway. Which constitutes a multimillion dollar government giveaway. Its also important to note that this would make our streets more dangerous at a time when gun violence is all too common. The c. M. P. Was established in 1903, just to put this in historical context, following e spanishamerican war, when militiamen demonstrated poor marksmanship. At that time we needed a better train and organized militia and the c. M. P. Helped build a broader base of citizen soldiers. It was an important component of our National Defense back then. Today, over a century later, we have a professional military and many rifle clubs and the crmplet m. P. Is, quite frankly, no longer needed. Congress clearly understood this when it privatized the c. M. P. In 1996. As an initial Capital Investment at a time when earmarks were still common, congress provided the newly chartered corporation with a stock of rifle, ammunition and other spare parts. The c. M. P. Could sell the surplus equipment, mostly m1 rifles in order to fund its activities until it became selfsufficient. However, it was never Congress Intent to equip the c. M. P. With withuns or or provide them those pistols at the time. More than two decades later, the c. M. P. Is running out of rifle tots sell. The reality is that it is in dire financial strait tts tissue financial straits as more than 20 years later theyre reliant on rifle sales to support its activities. Mr. Speaker, it is clearly not the taxpayers responsibility to bail out the c. M. P. To do so would be an unprecedented government handout at a time when earmarks have been banned for years. So what make this is program, what makes this so special . There is none. Beyond this, it would flood our streets with handguns, the guns most often used by criminals. I believe this would be extremely dangerous. When more than two years ago a first attempt was made to effectuate this earmark i heard the argument that storing surplus pistols as the army is now doing is a waste of government funds. Well, i agree. However, a handout is not the answer. There is no National Security reason to put these guns on our streets. In fact, the number of an increase in the number of handguns will only result potentially in more violence. We should allow the army to dispose of these pistols by melting them down as it plans to do with other surplus arms. I urge my colleagues to instruct the conferees to rejection the exemption. No reason to flood our streets with the pistols. There is no reason to give an earmark to a private corporation. They should be melted down and repurposed for other military uses, which is what this motion supports. With that, mr. Speaker, i reserve the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman reserves. The gentleman from texas is recognized. Thank you, mr. Speaker. I rise against the motion to instruct. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Thornberry and yield myself such time as i may consume. Mr. Speaker, i believe that this is the first motion to instruct that the house has voted on so far this year and this congress. D so not all members may realize that as the house and senate are about to go to Conference Committee to work out differences in the house and Senate Versions of whatever bill they are focused on, procedurally it is possible to have a motion to instruct conferees, such as the gentleman from rhode island has offered. Binding motion is not on the conferees, but it is an attempt to have a vote on an issue that a member or group bi on the of members thinks is important or they can make a point upon. The subject of this motion to instruct is the disposal of excess weapons, as the gentleman from rhode island mentioned, i would just say, mr. Speaker, i of no evidence that as the government has over the years disposed of these weapons, there is any evidence that any of them have been improperly used. They must be disposed of fully consistent with the law. That includes background checks and the rest. And the proceeds support safety programs, which i would suspect a all of us think are worthwhile endeavor. I would also say, mr. Speaker, the house has regularly a worthwhile expressed its opinion, its will with amendment votes, both on the floor and in committee, over the years. We have voted on this program a number of times. And it is consistently it has consistently been the will of the house this program should continue. In this years bill we had a vote in committee and the amendment to provide for this program was adopted. So to me, mr. Speaker, the most important point to make is this. Is one that e us helps this Congress Fulfill the first responsibilities of the federal government. Citizens. Defend our is one tht it also provides the support that the men and women who serve our nation and the military must have if they are to carry out citizens. S that is the purpose of this bill. That is the focus of this bill defend the country and to support our troops. And that will continue to be the focus as the house and senate moves into conference. At this point i would reserve the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman reserves. The gentleman from rhode island is recognized. Million langevin i certainly have Great Respect for the chairman and his leadership for the Armed Services committee. No one questions his commitment to defending the nation in support of our military. But we dont need to support earmarks to private corgses. With that im proud to yield two minutes to the gentleman from california, mr. Carbajal. The speaker pro tempore gentleman from california is recognized. Mr. Carbajal thank you, mr. Langy vifpblet thank you, mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, i rise today to speak against provisions in the house and senate National Defense authorization act that would allow the transfer of all surplus pistols to the civilian Marksmanship Program, c. M. P. , for sale to the public. Allowing the transfer of this large volume of guns for sale to the public moves the c. M. P. Into the retail gun market and away from hits statutory mandated functions. This is a program meant to instruct citizens in marksmanship and promote safety in the use of firearms. Not to deal firearms. The army has opposed such provisions in the past, and i am here to oppose any ndaa provisions that would allow the transfer of any surplus army firearms to the cmp. I join my colleague, mr. Langevin, in calling for all surplus firearms to be melted down and not distributed to the public. There are over 300 million guns in america. Nearly one for every citizen. We have lost way too many lives to gun violence. The department of defense should not participate in freely distributing third guns on to our streets. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back. The gentleman from rhode island reserves. Mr. Langevin i reserve the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from texas is recognized. Mr. Thornberry im pleased to yield such time he may consume to the gentleman from alabama, mr. Rogers. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Rogers i thank you. I thank the chairman. Thank you, mr. Speaker. The civilian Marksmanship Program is an organization that was established initially by congress. Because we needed institutions to help people bert understand gun safety. And better understand gun safety congress. And how to handle weapons. It has fulfilled a Vital Mission. Fortunately until recent years we have been able to not have to fund it anymore by being able to self fund through the refurbishment and sale of surplus weapons. It has been their mission for a century. These 1911s are surplus pistols that were used up in thele early 90s by our military. Since that time, statutorily, law were made available to enforcement and allied countries, but as you might imagine most Law Enforcement and allied countries would rather have new modern weapons rather than surplus. So we have approximately 100,000 of these weapons in storage at the depot in my district. It costs us approximately little over 50,000, 60,000 a year in direct costs to store these weapons. What the Armed Services ommittee and this congress has repeatedly is instruct the department of the army to start turning those over to the civilian Marksmanship Program, 10,000 a year, until the full 100,000 has been eliminated from our storage. The c. M. P. , this Marksmanship Program takes those weapons as they get them, completely refurbishes them, and it sells them to collectors. These are not weapons that wind up on the streets. They generally will cost between 800 and 1,000 and they are sold to collectors. To buy one you have to go throughout same background checks as any other buyer, but you cant not just anybody can buy theesms you have to be either in Law Enforcement, military, or you have to be a member of an active member of a gun club. So these are not a danger to the public. In fact, they are i think, this whole process of taking this money that the c. M. P. , sells the weapons for, and goes into their trust fund to allow them to continue to train americans in gun safety is a Vital Mission that we should be supporting in this congress, and this congress has repeatedly supported it over the years. Its my hope that the full body will reject this motion by my friend and colleague, mr. Langevin. Repeatedly defeated in Armed Services committee, and it will be defeated again today. With that i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from texas continues to reserve. The gentleman from rhode island is recognized. Mr. Langevin thank you, mr. Speaker. I would just mention there are many wonderful organizations around the country, meritorious organization that is would love to have earmarks, but we dont do earmarks anymore. It will ben today. With that i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from texas continues to with that i yield to yield hree minutes to the gentlelady from nevada, ms. Rosen. The speaker pro tempore the gentlelady is recognized. Miss rosen thank you. Ms. Rosen mr. Speaker, i rise in opposition to the provision in the ndaa authorizing the transfer of nearly 100,000 surplus military grade firearms to the civilian Marksmanship Program for sale to the public. This multimillion dollar government handout to a private corporation is bad policy. It places more military grade weapons on our streets and in our communities. The horrific violence on the first of october in las vegas,ed deadliest mass shooting in modern american history, has forever altered the lives of hundreds of thousands of related to those 22,000 victims that were there the day of the shooting. So it is now more urgent than meaningful take action on passing gun safety measures. That should be our priority. And yet here were taking a step backwards. Instead of bringing legislation on the floor to ban the manufacture of bump stocks that action on allow semiautomatic rifles to fire hundreds of rounds per minute, instead of being on the floor to ban high capacity passion, or instead of being on the floor to expand background checks to all commercial gun sales so that felons antiseriously mentally ill and terrorists cannot obtain access to dangerous weapons, were here today debating a provision that increases the number of military weapons on our streets. Uphold the uphold the Second Amendment while taking reasonable steps, reasonable steps to reduce the toll of gun violence inflicted on our communities. Putting nearly 100,000 more military grade firearms designed for army use into our neighborhoods is not a reasonable step in the right direction. According to its text, the provision included in this bill mandates the immediate transfer and unlimited number of guns to the civilian Marksmanship Program for sale to the public. This program was originally created to instruct americans in arksmanship, promote firearm safety, and conduct friendly shooting competitions in controlled safety, and conduct friendly shooting competitions in controlled environments. But the ndaa provision were speaking of today would turn this program into a mass firearms retailer, with a new mission to sell as many military grade weapons to the public as possible. Defies logic and common sense. And gun violence has become a Public Health crisis. So i urge my colleagues to join together and work across the aisle to decrease the scope and the devastation caused by tragic Mass Shootings. No community. I repeat no Community Across america should be forced to experience the grief and trauma that my community and others like mine have gone through in these past few years. So i ask all members of congress to support the democratic motion to instruct conferees to remove this dangerous provision from the ndaa. Thank you. I yield back the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from rhode island reserves. The gentleman from texas is recognized. Mr. Thornberry i reserve. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman reserves. The gentleman from rhode island is recognized. I yield myself such time as i may consume. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Langevin mr. Speaker, congress intended for the c. M. P. To become selfsufficient after it is prized privatized in 1996. It was never meant to be the recipient of another multimillion dollar government handout years late. Especially not a hand out of tens of thousands of pistols which then would be used immediately for sale to the public that would fund its operations. Again, perhaps one could argue that when earmarks are around that the they needed this to fund their operations. That was a time when earmarks were in existence. Earmarks are no longer regular order. They dont exist anymore. They were done away with several years ago. Mr. Speaker, i think its clear that i dont hold with the need for the c. M. P. To receive federal support. And on another note i dont offer see eye to eye with the n. R. A. , but i must agree with the statement on the n. R. A. s website that the association is, and i quote, the premiere firearms Education Organization in the world, end quote. The n. R. A. Does not receive federal support from its Education Programs which are widely accessible and the need for marksmanship training for National Security purposes have evaporated. Even if we truly think the c. M. P. Is deserving of a government subsidy, congress should do so through the appropriations process, not through a provision that quite frankly again an earmark. So as my colleagues well know, earmarks were banned in the 112th congress, yet the provisions at issue in the housepassed ndaa would transfer millions of dollars in Government Property to a corporation that is the Congressional District of the measures chief advocate. And while i have deep respect for my colleague, the government shouldnt be engaged this this type of practice. The government has occasionally transferred Surplus Property to nonprofit corporations for education or other purposes. However, it has never done so with the intent that the property be immediately sold with the proceedings going to the corporations bottom line. So if that isnt an earmark, mr. Speaker, i dont know what is. Its blatant subversion of congressional order and it would set i believe a very dangerous precedent. So i hope my colleagues will join me in upholding the rules of the house and support the motion to instruct. With that, mr. Speaker, i reserve the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman reserves. The gentleman from texas is recognized. Mr. Speaker, i continue to reserve the balance of the time in order to close. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman reserves. The gentleman from rhode island is recognized. Mr. Langevin mr. Speaker, i once again yield myself such time as i may consume. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Langevin so mr. Speaker, d also like to highlight the danger of this transfer potentially to safety. Injecting tens of thousands of new pistols onto our streets by providing them to the c. M. P. Which could become disastrous as handguns are used in crime. 2013 of the 6,498 homicides committed by firearms for which the type of weapon was known, 89 were handgunrelated. 89 . Only 4 were carried out using a rifle. The type of firearm the c. M. P. Has traditionally sold. The qualities that made the m1911a1. 45 caliber pistol a sidearm, the fact that its easily concealed, extremely relyable and packs quite a punch are all qualities that make them prized also among criminals. In fact, the department of ustices tracked 1,768 m119a1s over the last deck ude due to their involvement in criminal activity. In a time when Mass Shootings ve become all too common and 93 americans were killed every day with guns every day, the last thing we need is more guns on our streets. So with that, mr. Speaker, i continue to reserve the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman reserves. The gentleman from texas is recognized. Mr. Thornberry mr. Speaker, again, i reserve and reserve the right to close. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman reserves. The gentleman from rhode island is recognized. Mr. Langevin thank you, mr. Speaker. Again, the bill before us, mr. Speaker, is overall a fine mark. I was proud to support it in Committee Overall because it provides for our National Defense. It supports key programs of the department of defense to make sure our war fighter has war fighters have every advantage as possible. E dont want to send our war fighters in an unfair fight. This provides support for our men and women in uniform. Unfortunately, this c. M. P. Issue has been an unnecessary destruction. Its something i dont think believe belongs in the bill. I made the point we made away with earmarks. So we shouldnt be using earmarks earmark subverting Congressional Authority and will to the regular order process, through the appropriations process. To help fund a private organization. Again, meritorious organizations around the country would love to have an earmark. We dont them anymore and we sidestep be doing a here to give a private organization such an earmark. So that as i said i highlighted again the potential for guns to fall into the wrong hands. Although the owners of the weapons may be of good character and those who purchase the guns to fund, again, the operations of the c. M. P. , a private organization, even if they have them in their home, if there are certainly criminal activity that takes place whether its an act of violence or the home is broken into and the weapon is stolen, which happens every day in america, that a lawabiding citizen has a weapon that gets in the wrong hands, the weapon is then used in the crime, the more weapons out there the more Something Like that can potentially happen. This is what were trying to prevent. We want to do this in a responsible way. We want to make sure the guns dont wind up in our streets. If we want to make sure theyre melted down like other surplus equipment. The army certainly does not need to store them any longer. They want to get rid of them. We want the army to be able to do that, but they should be able to do what they do with other surplus equipment and thats melt it down, melt it down to make other weapons that army does need thats relevant at this time. So mr. Speaker, i would urge my the gues to oppose language in the current ndaa. We should Work Together and support my motion to instruct so that as we go to conference we have clear direction from the house as to what the house believes we should do and not allow these weapons out in our communities. We shouldnt be supporting earmarks. As i said, i know the senate provision does in fact have provision in there that would allow these weapons to be melted down, and thats the way we should go. I believe we have an opportunity to make that statement right here. O with that, mr. Speaker, i at this time like to yield as much time as he may consume to the Ranking Member of the full house Armed Services committee, mr. Smith from the great state of washington. Mr. Smith thank you very much. I just want to support mr. Langevin for his support on this issue. Something we brought up in the committee, and a program that really should be discontinued. And i think the motion to instruct is perfectly program. It was a program that was originally created and the reason we were selling back firearms to the public from the u. S. Military, the program was literally created because we were worried there wouldnt be enough people in our country that knew how to fire a weapon if we should need to draft them into a war. Thats why the program was created. Obviously for a whole bunch of reasons thats no longer applicable. We have an allvolunteer military. They are trained to shoot. They know how to shoot. We dont need to train random folks with weapons from the military. And the program was essentially aimed at rifles. I think they threw in 100,000 rounds of pistols they want to sell back to the public. This Company Makes money. The taxpayers dont. And we put 100,000 more weapons out on the streets. I think something we should agree on is theres more than enough firepower out there amongst the public. We shouldnt be taking military weapons and selling them back out into the public. And this motion, this amendment that mr. Langevin first brought up has a very simple solution, well hold onto those weapons, we will melt them down and i think thats the appropriate response. We dont need to sell more firearms out there into the public. So i think the gentleman from rhode island did an outstanding job of showing leadership on this issue. I urge us to adopt the motion to instruct, and i urge the committee the Conference Committee to adopt this as final part of the National Defense authorization act that we will ultimately pass. And with that i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back. Does the gentleman continue to reserve . Mr. Langevin mr. Speaker, how much time do i have remaining . The speaker pro tempore the gentleman has 11 1 2 minutes. Mr. Langevin thank you. I reserve the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman reserves. The gentleman from texas is recognized. Mr. Thornberry mr. Speaker, i have no further speakers other than myself and ill reserve. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman reserves to close. The gentleman from rhode island is recognized. Mr. Langevin thank you, mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as i may consume. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Langevin thank you, mr. Speaker. I want to thank Ranking Member smith for speaking on behalf of this motion to instruct. I deeply appreciate his leadership on the Armed Services committee and his years of service as i, again, have deep respect for chairman thornberry and his leadership as chairman. F the Armed Services committee most case in point, the ndaa this year, as been in the case of past years, has truly been a bipartisan effort, and its one of the reasons i truly enjoy serving on the Armed Services committee is because of the bipartisan cooperation thats demonstrated when it comes to protecting our country, when it comes to providing for our National Defense. Especially supporting our men and women in uniform, its a bipartisan effort. Its unfortunate that in this one particular case we have the difference of opinion. We are, again, a program that was initially intended to train marksmen years ago when we didnt have a professional military. The organization was supported but we have a professional military now. Great Marksmanship Program, Training Programs as well as private organizations that do this but it doesnt require or need a government subsidy so it wouldnt be appropriate in this case any further to continue to support this private organization, c. M. P. Program, but its an earmark. With that, mr. Speaker, i am proud to yield three minutes to the gentlelady from california, mrs. Davis. Mrs. Davis thank you. The speaker pro tempore the gentlelady is recognized. Mrs. Davis thank you, mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today were considering a National Defense authorization act measure that would transfer thousands of military weapons to a civilian nonprofit, the civilian Marksmanship Program. These guns will then make their way into the public for purchase. The army has recommended against this proposal. One of their concerns not a surprise is public safety. For us to go against the recommendations of our own military on this matter is frankly absurd. Every single day our country, ur country experience horrific gun violence, and the last thing, the last thing we should be doing is going against the advice of our military and utting more guns onto american streets. Those who are in support of the measure claim that transferring these weapons to the civilian Marksmanship Program will save the government the cost of storing these guns, but the amount of the money to be saved o store some weapons is really negligible, and that small cost is nothing compared to the potential cost to human life but unleashing these handguns for the public to purchase. Mr. Speaker, i urge my colleagues to employ common sense here. Listen to the advice of our army and support the motion to instruct. And i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentlelady yields back. Does the gentleman wish to reserve . Mr. Langevin i reserve the balance of my time, mr. Speaker. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from texas is recognized. Mr. Thornberry mr. Speaker, i continue to reserve. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman continues to reserve to close. The gentleman is recognized. Mr. Langevin thank you, mr. Speaker. I now yield myself the balance of the time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Langevin thank you, mr. Speaker. I just want to thank the gentlelady from california for her comments in support of the motion to instruct. I want to commend her, thank her for her leadership on the Armed Services committee. Mr. Speaker, just to once again reiterate how proud i am of the overall ndaa that we worked on in a bipartisan, collaborative way. This one Sticking Point is the provision in the ndaa that, again, is an earmark and could potentially put tens of thousands of additional weapons on our streets that could wind up in the wrong hands. Its an unnecessary step. Again, when the c. M. P. Was first created, it had a legitimate purpose. That purpose is no longer needed. For the military, in terms of marksmanship training. There are other organizations that do that, but its also we have a professional military. Mr. Speaker, again, in closing, the provisions in the housepassed ndaa would give a multimillion dollar handout in the form of. 45 caliber pistols to the Marksmanship Program. Its unwise use of taxpayer property that could potentially make our streets unsafe. My motion will have the conferees to reject this and allow the army to meltdown and reuse its surplus firearms as it does with firearms and other surplus equipment. Congress needs to find solutions to the endemic gun violence thats plaguing our nation right now. We saw it seems time after time multiple incidents where firearms get into the wrong nds and are misused, causing loss of life and sometimes unfortunately sadly in significant numbers just as we saw, as mississippi rosen mentioned, with the terrible shooting in las vegas of 58 people who lost their lives, hundreds more were injured. Terrible tragedy, both for nevada, for those who lost their lives, for those who were injured and really it was a tragedy, once again, thats plagued and infected our country. It has to stop. We should not add to the problem by injecting tens of thousands of handguns on to our streets. Mr. Speaker, with that i hope my colleagues will support the motion to instruct and i yield back the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. The gentleman from texas is recognized. Mr. Thornberry mr. Speaker, i yield my southwest balance of the time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman virginia tech. Mr. Thornberry first i want to express my appreciation to the gentleman from rhode island. As he said, we make every effort ensure that the support for the men and women who serve in the military is on a bipartisan basis. And the gentleman from rhode island is a key leader on a number of those issues, whether its cyber, directed energy, and a host of others. And i appreciate all of the members who have spoken on both sides of the aisle. That bipartisan support is what helped lead us to pass the house version of this bill by the biggest majority in years. That does not mean we agree on everything, obviously, but when it comes 20 supporting to supporting the military their are first and i think we need to keep it that way. The subject of this motion to instruct is a long Running Program designed to are first a support safety programs. While we have had votes on this on the floor and in committee over the years, its never been a particularly controversial program. Even though the gentleman from rhode island support safety has consistently been against it. From the start. But in both the house and senate bills this year there are provisions dealing with these programs. We come to some resolution every year and for 55 straight years the conference report has gotten signed into law. I would like to correct one point, mr. Speaker. I do not believe that the army is opposed to this program. As a matter of fact both mr. Rogers and i have talked to the army about this and they have not expressed in any sense that they are opposed to t they were what direction they were given. And they are happy to go implement that. Mr. Speaker, in recent weeks our country has been buffeted by a number of tragedies. Hurricanes, of course wildfires going on now in the west, and the horrible, horrific murders in las vegas are much on our minds, as are the victims and the whole communities. Its important to take time and to learn what that investigation yields. So that we k. Hopefully, prevent it from happening in the future. I just want to point out there is nothing whether these provisions stay or go that will have any effect on an event like we just saw in las vegas. In the ter of fact, history of this program i know of no single instance where one of these weapons that has been disposed of for gun safety programs know of no instance where it has been used in the history of this program improperly. Most of these weapons go up on a mantle somewhere. They are collectors items. So it would be inappropriate, in my opinion, to try to tie that horrible tragedy in las vegas or other to these particular programs. And that leads me to the last point id like to make, mr. Speaker. Its similar to the first. On a bipartisan basis this house and indeed this Congress Comes together to support the men and women who risk their lives to defend us. The world is getting more dangerous. And unfortunately the fault of both parties, both executive and legislative branches of government, on a and were seeing the effects we too much. Of that through declining readiness, through increasing accidents, a whole variety of things where the fruits of that neglect is becoming more apparent. But i think it is crucial as we begin to rebuild and repair our military that we not let other agendas, other issues impair our bility to do so. Im concerned, for example, that some republicans say, oh, yeah, ill increase funding for defense as long as you can cut that money in other parts of the budget. Im concerned when democrats say, im im concerned, for for increasi as long as you increase other parts of the budget. Im concerned when anybody brings any other agenda, any other issue, that impedes our ability to support the men and women who serve our nation. We ought to do our best to support them on the basis of those issues alone and let other debates, whatever they may be, stand on their own as well. As i mentioned, mr. Speaker, motions to instruct are, of course, nonbinding. I think in this case the better vote is to vote no. There are provisions dealing with this in both the house and senate bill. I hope we can come to a reasonable conclusion on these provisions and the whole bill. But the goal is to defend the country and support the men and women who serve. We can never be distracted from that goal. I yield back the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. All time for debate has expired. Without objection, the previous question is ordered. The question is on the motion to instruct. So many as are in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. In the opinion of the chair, the noes have it. Mr. Langevin i ask for a recorded vote, mr. Speaker. The speaker pro tempore does the gentleman ask for the yeas and nays . Mr. Langevin i ask for the yeas and nays, mr. Speaker. The speaker pro tempore the yeas and nays are requested. Those favoring a vote by the yeas and nays will rise. A sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, further proceedings on this uestion will be postponed. Pursuant to sclause 12a of rule 1, the chair declares the house in recess for a period of less than 15 minutes. Ms. Pelosi good morning, everyone. Lets see how much we can get done in 20 minutes. Ill try to be brief with my answers. So here we are. Its such a sad time for us in california with the wildfires. Mother nature is really raging out there with the wildfires, the hurricanes and the rest. So much uncertainty in the lives of so Many American people, and we want to make sure that we meet their needs. But it really is still raging. In Northern California and southern somewhat as well. And here we are going home today, a day early. As if we have time to spare where we have no jobs bill, no infrastructure bill, no commonsense action on gun violence prevention, no vote on a bipartisan dream act, no championship reauthorization. Instead, republicans the president is sabotaging health care and we have no action in the congress. As you know, there is the ryanmcconnell tax cut framework. Its not tax reform. Its a tax framework. It raises taxes on the middle class, slashes taxes on the wealthiest 1 and explodes the deficit. Explodes the deficit. And this this is whats so sad is because when i say no dream act excuse me we go back live to the house floor for a series of votes. Clause 8 of rule 20, proceedings will resume on questions previously postponed. Votes will be taken in the following order. The motion to instruct on h. R. 2810. The motion conference meetings on h. R. 2810 if offered. The motion to suspend the rules on House Resolution 569. The motion to recommit on s. 585. And passage of s. 585, if ordered. The Unfinished Business is the vote on the motion to instruct on h. R. 2810. Offered by the gentleman from rhode island. Mr. Langevin. On which the yeas and nays were ordered. The the clerk will designate the motion. The clerk motion to instruct conierees on h. R. 2810, offered by mr. Langevin of rhode island. The speaker pro tempore yet is on the motion town struck. Members shall record their votes by electronic device. This is a 15minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc. , in cooperation with the United States house of representatives. Any use of the closedcaptioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u. S. House of representatives. ] the speaker pro tempore on this vote, the yeas are 184, the nays are 237. The motion is not adopted. Without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. For what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition . Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 12 of rule 22, i move that meets of the conference between the house and senate on h. R. 2810 may be closed to the public at such times as classified National Security information may be discussed, provided that any sitting member of Congress Shall be entitled to attend any meeting of the conference. The speaker pro tempore pursuant to clause 12 of rule 22, the motion is not debatable and the yeas and nays are ordered. Members will record their votes by electronic device. This is a fiveminute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc. , in cooperation with the United States house of representatives. Any use of the closedcaptioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u. S. House of representatives. ] the speaker pro tempore on this vote, the yeas are 414 and the nays are 8. The motion is adopted. Without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. The Unfinished Business is the vote on the motion of the the gentleman from new jersey, mr. Frelinghuysen, to suspend the rules and agree to House Resolution 569 on which the the yeas and nays are ordered. The clerk will report the title of the resolution. The clerk House Resolution 569s, resolution providing for the concurrence in the Senate Amendment to h. R. 2266 with an amendment. The speaker pro tempore the question is will the house suspend the rules and agree to the resolution. Members will record their votes by electronic device. This is a fiveminute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc. , in cooperation with the United States house of representatives. Any use of the closedcaptioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u. S. House of representatives. ] the speaker pro tempore on this vote, the yeas are 353. The nays are 69. 2 3 being in the affirmative, the rules are suspended. The resolution is agreed to, and without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. The Unfinished Business is on agreeing to the question to recommit offered by the gentleman from arizona on which the yeas and nays are ordered. The clerk will rezregget the motion. The clerk motion to recommit offered by mr. Ohalleran of arizona. The speaker pro tempore the question is on the motion to recommit. This is a fiveminute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc. , in cooperation with the United States house of representatives. Any use of the closedcaptioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u. S. House of representatives. ] the speaker pro tempore on this vote, the yeas are 190, the nays are 230. The motion is not adopted. The nays are 232. The motion is not adopted. The question is on passage of the bill. Those in favor please say aye. Those opposed, no. The ayes have it. The bill is passed. Mr. Speaker. On that i request a recorded vote. The speaker pro tempore a recorded vote is requested. Those favoring a recorded vote will rise. A sufficient number having risen a recorded vote is ordered. Members will record their votes by electronic device. This is a fiveminute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc. , in cooperation with the United States house of representatives. Any use of the closedcaptioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u. S. House of representatives. ] the speaker pro tempore on this vote, the yeas are 420, the nays are zero. The bill is passed. Without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. Without objection, the chair appoints the following conferees n h. R. 2810. The clerk from the committee on Armed Services for consideration of the house bill with modifications to conference, mr. Thornberry, lobiondo, roggers of alabama, franks of arizona, lamb rn, whitman, hartzler, ms. Stefa nick, knight, bacon, smith of washington, mrs. Davis of alifornia, langevin, cooper, bordallo, mr. Courtney, mr. Garamendi, ms. Tsongas, mr. Veasey and ms. Gabard. From the Permanent Select Committee on intelligence for consideration of matters of the jures within the jurisdiction of that committee under clause 11 of rule 10, nunez, stewart nd schiff. And marylandifications committed to the conference, johnson of ohio, bergman and yarmuth. From the committee on education and the work force, for consideration of sections 221, 551, 555, and 3509 of the house bill and sections 236, 551 and 600153, 3116, 5508 of the Senate Amendment and modifications committed to the foxx mr. Byrne and scott of virginia. 723, sideration of 314, 72, 732, 3118 and 31 2 of the house bill and sections 6017, and 3114 1089a, 1625, of the Senate Amendment and modifications committed to conference, walden, barton and pallone. From the committee on Financial Services for for consideration of section 86 of the Senate Amendment and modifications committed to conference, farr, williams, and ms. Maxine waters of california. From the committee on Foreign Affairs for consideration of ctions 64, 132, 1039, 1040, 1205, 01, 1203 through 211, 1222, 1223, 1231, 1232, 234, 1243, 1246, 1247, 1265, 278, 1272, 1276, 1278, 1280, 1687, 302, 1521, 1522, 841 and 3117 of the house bill 10, ections 111, 861, 867, 11,1203 through 1205, 1212, 1213, 1231 through 1233, 1241 through 1245, 1250, 1251 through 1270wc. 0b, 1280, 1531 and 1651 of the Senate Amendments and modifications committed to conference. Royce of california, donovan and engel. From the committee on the judiciary for consideration of ctions 515, 1062, 1063, 1067 rks 1080, 1695, 2483 and 3510 of the house bill and sections 528, 9, 1035, 1081, 1083, 1217, 1264 and 14013 of the senate and modifications committed to conference, goodlatte, issa and conyers. From the committee on Natural Resources for consideration of , 2827, 601, 1062,1265 2865, 831, 2832, 2844, subtitle f of title 28, and section 2863 of the house bill d sections 311, 338, 601 rks 253, 1264, 2850 and 12801 of the Senate Amendment and modifications committed to conference, mr. Westerman, ms. Chaney, mr. Grijalva. From the committee on oversight and government reform for consideration of sections 323, 01, 805, 803, 859 through 868, 873, 1101 through 09 of the use bill and sections 218, 822, 829, 01, 821, 52, 902, 931 rks 934, 938, 1104 093, 1101, 1102, hrough 1106 6005, 6012, 101023 through 25 and 11603 of the Senate Amendment and modifications committed to conference. Meadows, ross and lynch. From the committee on science, space and technology for sections 223 of the house bill and section 897, 896, and 6002 of the Senate Amendment and modifications committed to conference. Mr. Smith of texas and ms. Johnson of texas. For consideration of sections 1711 67, 1701 through 04, rough 13, 1721 through 23, 1331 through and 1741 of the house bill and sections 897, 98, 899c and 10 of the Senate Amendment. And modifications committed to conference, mr. Chabot, kelly of mississippi and ms. Velazquez. From the committee on transportation and infrastructure for sections of 1082, 1611, on 1695, 3501 and 3505 through 10 of the house bill and section 13501 and 135508 and and 14013 of the Senate Amendment. And modifications committed to conference, messers. Graves of missouri. And from the committee on 1077ans affairs, 573, 576, and 2841 of the house bill and 1254. N 731, 1084, 1088, 11001. 11008 and 14004 of the Senate Amendment and modifications committed to conference. Messers. Roe of tennessee, bilirakis and walz. From the committee of ways and means consideration of Senate Amendment and modifications committed to conference, mr. Tiberi, pls walorski. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition . Mr. Speaker, i ask unanimous consent to take from the speakers table the bill h. R. 1616, strengthening state and local cyber Crime Fighting act with the Senate Amendment thereto and concur in the Senate Amendment. The speaker pro tempore the clerk will report the title of the bill. The clerk an act to amend the Homeland Security act of 20 of 2002 to authorize the national forensics. Strike all after the enacting clause i ask unanimous consent to take i ask unanimous consent to dispense with the reading of the bill. The speaker pro tempore without objection. The reding is dispensed with. Is there an objection to the original request . Without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. For what purpose does the gentleman from new jersey seek recognition . I send to the desk a concurrent resolution and ask unanimous consent for its immediate consideration in the house. The speaker pro tempore the clerk will report the title of the concurrent resolution. The clerk concurrent resolution providing for a correction in the enrollment of h. R. 2266. The speaker pro tempore is there objection to consideration of the concurrent resolution . Without objection, the con current resolution is agreed to and the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. For what purpose does the gentleman from new jersey seek recognition . Mr. Frelinghuysen i ask unanimous consent that when the house adjourns today it adjourn to meet 10 00 a. M. On monday next. The speaker pro tempore without objection. The chair will entertain requests for oneminute peeches. For what purpose does the gentlelady from new york seek recognition . Request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore without objection. Tan tan i rise today to recognize Brian Mcqueen, a constituent and a dear friend from the 22nd district who has dedicated his life to public service. For 34 years he worked as a teacher and a principal. Brian took his compassion for our community to the Volunteer Fire Department where he served as fire chief from 1999 to 2002 and currently serves as lieutenant and Safety Officer in addition to serving as on the board of directors of the fire Mens Association for the state of new york. In 2013, brian was diagnosed with bcell none hodgkins lymphoma. He joined the Fire Department to assist volunteer firefighters nd e. M. T. s who are battling lifethreatening difficult diseases. They have provided financial support. With increased exposures to smoke and toxins, firefighters are at a much hire risk of contracting cancer. He is compassionate to all volunteer firefighters who risk their lives and honor to recognize my friend and Great Community partner Brian Mcqueen today. Yield back. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman from new jersey seek recognition . Permission to address the house for one minute and revise and extend. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Speaker, in new jersey, nearly 231,000 children rely on the Childrens Health insurance program. Mr. Payne chip gets them to the doctor, chip gets them to the hospital, chip saves their lives. The last month, republican members of congress made a choice to put on another repeal and replace dog and uponny show and let chip expire. What do my republican colleagues have against needy children . Who thought it would be a good idea to put nine million Childrens Health at risk for political gains . So much for compassionate conservativism. Chip is vital to the nations future. Chip has cut the rate of lowincome uninsured children tionally by half from 14 to 7 . If congress doesnt immediately reauthorize longterm chip funding, children will not get to see their doctors and wont have access to hospitals and some may die. And with that, i yield back. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman from michigan seek recognition . I ask to address the house for one minute and revise and stepped my remarks. The speaker pro tempore without objection. I rise today in support of our framework for tax reform. Put American Workers and businesses first. I come from michigan and the last time our tax system was updated, steve everybody eiser was the captain of detroit red wings. We have the opportunity to reform and reduce taxes for American Workers and the Small Businesses that create jobs. Americans and nearly 30 million Small Businesses are the engine of our economy. Current tax code is a monstrosity when combined with state and local taxes, Small Businesses pay up to 50 of their income. Small and midsized businesses ould use their increase in hiringing wages and rewarding work and prosperity for all americans. Lets get on with our work. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition . Permission to address the house for one minute and revise and extend. The speaker pro tempore without objection. The gentleman is recognized for one minute. Mr. Speaker, madam speaker, did he liea is a graduate at the university of california, riverside who exemplifies the american spirit. As a i dont know woman she worked two and three jobs to support her family and help her father who was her sole provider and three years ago, did he liea stepped up while he recovered. She went on to take a Fulltime Position as a Sexual Assault advocate in our community. She said that job allowed her to help those who live in fear and live without hope. This year, she will graduate with a masters degree and there is no question that she is destined to accomplish great things. The only question is where she will accomplish them. Did he lie ha is a dreamer and her future is whether we pass the dream act. Once again, im asking my colleagues to do the right thing, pass the dream act so people like did he liela can continue to make our communities proud. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman from florida seek recognition . Permission to address the house for one minute. I rise today to support our friend and ally israel and to stand for the obvious proposition that israel, the jewish people, have a connection to the city of jerusalem. This connection has been forged through shared faith and shared history. Yet the u. N. Is actually trying to rewrite history and condemn jerusalem and call it an occupying power in jerusalem and prevent scientists from ex ca vating even though past findings have been significant. They have been silent when israels culture has been attacked including the burning of wholly sites. There are no horrors to the u. N. Their attempts to erase history and antisemitism cannot be tolerated. Im introducing a resolution reaffirming the connection of the jewish people and condemning to delegitimize israel. Show solidarity with israel and to support this resolution i proposed. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition . Permission to address the house for one minute and revise and extend. The speaker pro tempore without objection. The gentleman is recognized for one minute. I support the Clean Power Plan. This rule was intended to combat and mitigate the effects of Climate Change and create limits on Carbon Pollution from power plants. Mr. Mcnerney some of the strongest hurricanes and the wildfires that are raging through western states we cant stand by while this administration eliminates the Clean Power Plan condemning future generations to scarce resources and harsher climates. Extreme weather has cost the u. S. Economy 240 billion. Climate change is extreme weather. Shouldnt we focus on hardening and making it more resilient. The Clean Power Plan would reduce plant pollutants that cause respiratory illnesses and projected to cause thousands of deaths and provide at least 20 billion. The denial of science by this administration is alarming and dangerous. I urge my colleagues to stand up for clean energy and our environment and take positive action to address Climate Change. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition . Permission to address the house for one minute and revise and extend. The speaker pro tempore without objection. The gentleman is recognized for one minute. Mr. Rothfus buried in todays disaster supplemental spending bill is a 16 billion of the national Flood Insurance program. Nearly half the cost of this bill. This bailout does not come with a single reform that would put the program on the path. This maintains a program that has resulted in subsidized redevelopment and reconstruction of homes that repeatedly flood. Why are we not reforming this program that puts residents and First Respond i. R. S. In harms way and how much more debt are we willing to pile onto the next generation . Americans need help and i would have liked to vote for todays legislation but the taxpayer bailout of an unreformed program made the bill unacceptable. We could have had a bill that not only provided relief but for taxpayers and the next generation as well. We will reconsider the additional funding. Lets hope we make progress. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman from new jersey seek recognition . Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. Thank you. Madam speaker, i rise today because i came to washington to cut taxes for the residents of north jersey. Our taxes sorry. Think thats the wrong one. Thank you very much. Madam speaker, i rise today because i came to washington to cut taxes for the residents of north jersey. Our taxes are simply too high. This morning at the heritage foundation, the speaker claimed that the rest of the country is, quote, propping up new jersey. Thats backwards. Currently new jersey pays in so that states like wisconsin can cash out. New jerseys already a grand subsidizer of other states. Were one of the top 3 tax paying districts in the entire country and at the bottom what have we get back and we need to change that. New jersey only gets back 33 cents for every 1 we send to washington. Ew jersey residents get 3,076 fewer dollars than they pay in. Mr. Gottheimer west virginia, for example, gets 4ds. 23 back for every 1 it sends in. New jersey is not americas piggy bank. Our one saving grace has been the state and local property Tax Deduction. The ability to deduct those higher state, local and property taxes before we have to send in our tax checks to the i. R. S. Every april. It allows to us avoid double taxation. Eliminating the state level Tax Deductions will cost new jersey an average of 3,500 tax increase per resident. Property values will go up will go down more than 10 . So im fighting to remove this tax hike provision before the tax reform bill that could hurt our businesses and our citizens. Thank you. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman rom virginia seek recognition . Without objection, the gentleman from virginia is recognized for one minute. Madam speaker, today Congress Approved the second trauverage of emergency funding for those affected by hurricanes harvey, irma, maria and the wildfires in the western United States. Id like to take a second and shine light on virginians who have stepped forward to help our fellow americans impacted by these natural disasters. Just the other day i pulled up to a restaurant in Virginia Beach where there was a steady line of vehicles coming in the parking lot to drop off goods and essential items. Hundreds came together to give money and items for the people of puerto rico. Mr. Taylor from Hampton Roads to richmond to roanoke, virginians rose to the occasion. We had soldiers and sailors and coastguardsmen and civilians deployed forward to help in texas, florida, puerto rico and the Virgin Islands. We had national guardsmen, spanish speakers and fema workers and e. M. S. Units, helicopters and drones and boats and medical supplies and much more. We should all be very proud of virginias vast efforts, their leadership and their compassion. Virginia has never been afraid to lead. And i yield back. The speaker pro tempore thank you. For what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition . Without objection, the gentleman from california is recognized for one minute. Madam speaker, i am proud to rise today to recognize the reopening of the pfieffer canyon bridge in big sur, california. Up to four years of drought, my district on the Central Coast of california, finally got the rain it needed. But a little too much. And as a result this year there were many large scale landslides. Including this one as we see here to my right. Which knocked out the pilings of the pfieffer canyon bridge, causing this bridge to fail. Mr. Panetta this left a community of people isolated and numerous businesses without revenue for at least eight months. But over that same amount of time, the people of big sur, the people in government of monterey county, the engineers and construction crews in the California Department of transportation, they dim straighted a lot of grit, guts, demonstrated a lot of grit, guts, determination. They came together to fix this bridge. Tomorrow ill be able to attend the opening of this bridge. And we will be able to show our pride for the record pace of construction, the government working together things done, the businesses that struggle but remained open in big sur during this time, and most importantly well show our pride in the people of big sur and the communities on the Central Coast of california. Thank you. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman from florida seek recognition . Without objection, the gentleman from florida is recognized for one minute. Mr. Speaker, i rise today as a member of the spain caucus to discuss why a unified spain is both legally, culturally and economically justified in how it best serves the United States Foreign Policy interests. The illegal referendum was held in violation of the spanish constitution and in definals of the federal government. Catalonia is an autonomous region in spain and enjoys many rights and privileges under the spanish constitution, but selfdetermination is clearly not one of them. The historical and cultural ties between spain and catalonia are strong. Spain and catalonia have a shared history, being united since the reign of ferdinand and isabel. Mr. Rooney because of this history, catalonia has a Pluralistic Society with a mix of spaniards and catalonians, where both cultures and languages are regularly spoken. Lastly, the deep economic ties catalonia shares with spain evidenced that spain should be united. Catalonia regularly relies on madrid for its financial sector, infrastructure and its debt. The united spain is a friend of the United States and a strong united spain has been a reliable ally in fighting the spread of islamic terrorism. Our relationship with spain is invaluable to our Foreign Policy interests nomplet reason we need to speak out on interests. For this reason we need to speak out on behalf of a unified spain. I yield. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia seek recognition . I ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from virginia is recognized for one minute. Thank you investment madam speaker, i rise today to honor a special group worthy of our recognition, the sacrifices they have made for our country. This month the surviving members of the 50th company infantry officers candidate school class oc2469 will have their first reunion at fort benning, 48 years after pipping on the gold bars of second lunalds. Bine beyer buyer the men came from mr. Beyer the men came from 42 different states, representing all walks of life and backgrounds. They send the risks and volunteered to become Army Officers at the height of the veet unanimously war. After graduation over half received orders to vietnam and two classmates made the ultimate sacrifice. James dupont and thomas edgran. Many others earned the purple heart. These men will renew the bonds forged 48 years ago. Please join me in pausing to reflect on their sacrifices and extending them our thanks. Madam speaker, i yield back. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman from alabama seek recognition. The gentleman is recognized for one anyone. Thank you, madam speaker. Today i rise to recognize the tremendous work of elizabeth dent who has been an invaluable part of the House Appropriations subcommittee of agriculture for the past three years. Elizabeth came to work with the subcommittee i chaired after working several years with former appropriator, congressman jam kingston. Elizabeth has been a valuable member of the team on the subcommittee. Shes diligent, shes dedicated and she is keen to detail. Something thats very important to the appropriations work. Ardard ardard elizabeth is always eager to mr. Aderholt elizabeth is always eager to volunteer, lend a hand to accomplish whatever task may be needed and assist on the work of agriculture. Thats become an integral part of the team and she will be greatly missed on our subcommittee. Elizabeth will be leaving the house agricultural appropriations subcommittee to work for the Senate Agricultural Appropriations Committee. I want to thank elizabeth for her outstanding work and the senate Appropriations Committee is very fortunate to have her work on the staff and we wish her all the very best. We look forward to working with her in her new capacity. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman rom illinois seek recognition . Without objection, the gentleman from illinois is recognized for one minute. Madam speaker, i rise today in defense of every womans access to health care and the right to make her own personal Health Care Decisions in private consultation with her physician and her family. Last week President Trump issued a shameful executive order that will allow employers to deny Women Insurance coverage for contraception. Mr. Schneider this rolls back progress under the Affordable Care act that requires Insurance Companies to cover Birth Control without a copay. This is outrageous. Employers have no role dictating what Health Care Women can and cannot have. Thats a decision between a woman and her doctor. Nearly nine in 10 women will use Birth Control at some point in their lives. This order is a direct attack on their health care. President trump tried to sneak this change through, announcing it on a friday afternoon before a long weekend. Well, we noticed. So did millions of other women this order will adversely impact. Were paying attention and were not about to stop speaking out and working to protect womens access to health care. Madam speaker, i yield back. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition . The gentleman is recognized for one minute. Without objection. Madam speaker, i rise today to pay tribute to a fallen hero, officer floyd east jr. Officer east was a Police Officer at the Texas Tech University police department. On monday, october 9, officer east completed his final patrol to protect and serve. Officer east has been described by friends as someone you could rely on and someone who was always there to help or just listen. Mr. Arrington no doubt he represented the very best of the values of texas tech. His loss reminds us that policemen and women police men and women put their lives at risk every day. Left behind a loving wife, carmen, who generously allowed him to dedicate his life to keeping us safe. To his children, anna and monday carks our prayers are with you monica, our prayers are with you. The scripture tells us that theres no greater love than for a man to lay down his life for a friend. That was gods greatest gift to this world and that was your dads greatest gift to his fellow man. Our red raider family is behind you and well never forget floyd and how he held the thin blue line. God bless your family. Madam speaker, i yield back. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman from oregon seek recognition . I ask unanimous consent to address the chamber and revise and extend. The speaker pro tempore without objection, the gentleman from oregon is recognized for one minute. Thank you, madam speaker. I rise today to share the story of aldo solano of oregon. He was only 6 years old when his family first immigrated to the United States from mexico. Mr. Schrader economic distress and corruption pushed his parents to leave everything behind and head to the valley. They wanted a different life for aldo and his siblings. One where they could go to school and pursue their dreams. Aldo has done just that. He serves as Vice President of his class. While earning good grades he participated in sports and volunteer opportunities. Like 4h latino summer camp, encouraging young people to enter the stem field. He became a daca recipient. Through daca hes been able to work for the oregon Latino Health coalition, where he worked to pass cover all kids, a state law to ensure access to health care for every child in oregon. This winter hell work for a Public Health degree at Portland State university. Without daca, none of this would have been possible for aldo. Young people across the country are relying on us. We need to pass a clean dream act that will recognize aldo and over 800,000 dreamers as equal members of our community. And i yield back. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia seek recognition . I ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute, to revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. Mr. Carter madam speaker, i rise today to recognize the month of october, 2017, as American Pharmacist month. During this month id like to recognize all pharmacists across america who work to ensure that americans have access to important and often lifesaving medications. As the only pharmacist currently serving in congress, im proud to recognize the work that pharmacists are doing to promote a healthy america. Every day pharmacists provide vaccines for a number of illnesses and carefully counsel patients on prescriptions and overthecounter medications to help heal sickness and reduce pain. Pharmacists are also considered one of the top two most trusted professions in america. During october, as well as throughout the year, i encourage everyone to visit your pharmacist, ask questions about your prescriptions, receive advice about preventive care, and get to know the person who provides your medicine and works to keep you healthy. Thank you fellow pharmacists for all that you do thank you, fellow pharmacists, for all that you do. Please know your work is yush work is appreciated and youre your work is appreciated and youre an important part of keeping our nation healthy. Thank you, mr. Speaker. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentlewoman from texas seek recognition . Without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for ne minute. Ms. Jackson lee madam speaker, we are now some days after the most violent and largest massacre in modern american history, of americans in las vegas, nevada. Everyone that you encounter or many that you encounter has a story, amazingly, about who was there during that week. They obviously were not at that site, but they may have been in las vegas for work or otherwise. It will be on the minds of americans for a long time. And just this past monday i stood with the sheriff of my chief of police, my sheriff, constable. And mothers who have lost loved ones and children. And a woman who had been abused and had a spouse or significant other that carried around a heavy weapon to scare her and threaten her and abuse her. Why we cant have gun safety regulation i dont know, but i elieve after sandy hook, after pulse night club, we must pass real gun safety legislation. We must ban assault weapons. Ban the bundy stocks. We must have universal background checks. Madam speaker, it is a shame that we cannot save lives. Gun safety now. Not monday in your pocket. I yield back mott nun not money in your pocket. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentlewoman is out of order. For what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition . Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. Thank you, madam speaker. I want to commend President Trumps decision this week with executive orders to do some of the work weve been unable to do so far in the house and the senate. Helping people overcome issues with the Affordable Care act. Association health plans would allow employers and employees to form health plans that suit them. Indeed to associate with their type of business, their type of industry on a small scale in their neighborhood. Makes perfect sense if you want to give people more choices. Also, shortterm limited duration Health Insurance plans which would allow people if theyre in between jobs, instead three months, perhaps a little longer. In the interim in between jobs they can afford with the plan they like. Finally, Health Reimbursement arrangements where it makes employees, employers to their employees they can reimburse more in their plan such as helping them pay for their premiums. So flexibility is what we need. Choices are what we need and Congress Needs to accomplish something in the senate so we can bring it back and give it to the American People. The speaker pro tempore are there any other requests for oneminute speeches . The chair lays before the house the following personal request. The clerk leave of be a requested for mr. Clyburn absence requested for mr. Clyburn of South Carolina for today. The speaker pro tempore without objection, the request s granted. Under the speakers announced policy of january 3, 2017, the gentleman from california, mr. Khanna, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader. Mr. Khanna madam speaker, i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore without objection. Mr. Khanna madam speaker, before my colleagues in the congressional progressive caucus and i begin our discussion about the response to the republican tax plan, i wish to take a moment to express our sympathy for the people of Northern California who are facing devastating and disruptive wildfires. I represent a Silicon Valley district where hundreds of our neighbors to our north and south remain missing. Tens of thousands are suffering at this very moment from the destruction of more than 150,000 acres and counting, as well as an increasing number of family homes and businesses. It seems that our nation has been struck by one National Tragedy after another. Our prayers are with the california residents, and i know that everyone in this body is committed to their relief. I also want on a personal note want to recognize liz who has been my Communications Director and worked very hard with the congressional progressive caucus, is going on to work for Democracy Alliance and wish her very well in her next steps and thank her for her service to our office and to the congressional progressive caucus. E purpose of this hour is to discuss the republican economic plan, and weve got distinguished colleagues of mine who will be joining us. Just want to at the outset particulate the basis of difference in philosophy. The president and the republicans believe that to grow our economy, to create jobs, the way to achieve that is by giving tax cuts to corporations, giving tax cuts to the investors and stuff, giving tax cuts to the executives who already get large compensation packages. And that if we do that, if we cut Corporate Tax rates at a time where corporations are making record profits, if we give more tax breaks to those who are investing in our stock market, if we give more tax breaks to those who get dividend checks then somehow magically people making 30,000 or 40,000 will see their wages go up, that somehow were going to get many more jobs in places across this country. And the question is, why would we believe that . Why would we think that trickle down economics, when its failed time and again, is going to help . Does someone really believe in my district who is a construction worker or a nurse or a teacher that lowering the Corporate Tax rate is going to do anything to put more money in their pocket, that its going to do anything for a nurse whos struggling to get an apartment and pay rent to be able to afford that rent, or that its going to do anything for people in youngstown, ohio, to be able to send their kids to school or get Vocational Training or get a College Education . The difference is very simple. Our believe is if you want to raise wages, if you want to give more pay to average americans, just go raise wages. Provide the tax credit to those making under 75,000. For 1 3 of the cost of the republican tax plan, which is geared towards corporations and the investor class, we give we could give every single american under whos making under 75,000 a 20 pay raise. A 20 pay raise. I believe that is bottom up economics and thats actually going to grow the economy. And its not a matter of just the economists. Its a matter of common sense. Think about it. Who do you think is going to create more jobs in the United States . Someone worth 5 who gets tax money 5 million who gets tax money back going to invest in stocks, is that money going to create jobs in the United States . Or could that money be spent anywhere in the world . Sheltered anywhere in the world . As opposed if you give that money to someone making 50,000, 60,000, theyre going to spend that money in their local community. Theyre going to buy more groceries. Theyre going to buy more things for their house. Theyre going to get more education. That moneys going to go into the local economy, and its going to actually create jobs. That is whats going to grow the economy. Its our only shot of getting 3 Economic Growth. If we invest in actual workers, the people doing the work. And by the way, they havent gotten a raise for the past 40 years. Since 1979, wages in this country have stagnated. We heard the same thing, just cut the taxes on the top and the wages will go up. The wages havent gone up. And guess who promised to help finally those forgotten americans . Guess who promised to help them . President donald trump. That was his whole campaign. The stock markets doing great, but youve been left behind. Im going to come to the white house and im not going to give the keys to the wall street bankers. Im going to actually worry about raising wages. His biggest disappointment as president is that he went back on the promise that he made ordinary americans, and we know that he can do it if he wants to. All he has to do is tell his wall Street Advisors no, no more tax breaks for wall street. I want the tax credits going to main street, and i can do that at a third of the cost to the plan that youre selling to me and the American People. This is the debate in this country, supplyside economics that believes the greatness of america is with the investor class and the c. E. O. Class and the elite class, or bottom up economics that our party and the progressive caucus is putting forward that believes the greatness in america is the people that actually do the work, who work 40 hours, 50 hours, who go on the Assembly Lines and work in factories, who are overnight as nurses taking care of folks, who are doing the education as teachers. Who do we believe is really contributing to the economy . Who do we believe is really driving americas Economic Growth . The democrats believe its ordinary workers across this country. That is the greatness that drives the american economy. And the republicans tax plan believes its the investor class. Its a very clear difference. And our commitment is not just one towards fairness but also one about investing in people who are going to create jobs and create innovation in this country. With that i want to yield five minutes to my distinguished colleague from maryland, congressman jamie raskin, who is not just a constitutional law professor and leading thinking on issues of jurisprudence but has been a leader of the congressional progressive caucus to help us craft an Economic Policy that is really for ordinary americans and not for the very, ery wealthy. Mr. Raskin thank you very much, congressman khanna. Thank you for your leadership in putting us together. Thank you, madam speaker, for this time. I want to invoke a great republican member of this body who went on to become president of the United States, abraham lincoln, who spoke of government of the people, by the people, for the people. The tax plan that has been presented to us by the g. O. P. In the 21st century is government of the 1 , by the 1 , and for the 1 . It was written by a billionaire cabinet, of a billionaire president , for the richest 1 of taxpayers in the country. The same policy experts whose Health Care Plan was to throw 30 million americans off their Health Insurance and reduce womens access to complete Reproductive Services now have a tax plan to sell america. But read the fine print first. In fact, you dont even need to read the fine print. You just have to look at the headlines. Under this plan, 80 of the total tax cut will end up going to the wealthiest 1 of americans who earn more than 900,000 a year. Let me repeat that. 80 of the money that will be saved in this tax cut will go to americans earning 900,000 a year. Thats astounding. Meantime, tens of millions of middleclass families making between 50,000 and 150,000 a year will pay higher taxes than they were paying before. And check this out. The very wealthiest sliver of americans, those who make at least 5 million a year and on average 16 million a year, would get an average tax cut of over 1 million. Thats 1 million tax cut for millionaires. The slogan for this plan should be, the trump tax cut because the rich just arent rich enough and everybody else is doing just fine. Madam speaker, if you know anyone who makes 16 million a year, please ask them to write me and tell me what theyre going to do with their extra million dollars. Maybe theyll send it to a Swiss Bank Account or to the bahamas. Maybe theyll run for congress. Maybe theyll invest it in australia where a lot of the superrich are now buying property in order to have a getaway plan from the escalating crises of Climate Change in north america. So the billionaires make out like bandits. What about the rest of us . How much will this plan cost us . Well, the Bipartisan Committee for a responsible federal budgets initial Analysis Shows that the g. O. P. Plan would add 2. 2 trillion to deficits over the next decade. This is a result of cuts tacks taxes for the wealthy by trillions of dollars and then adding new tax revenue of only 3. 6 trillion. So were going to be agenda 2. 2 trillion in deficit adding 2. 2 trillion in deficit. What happened to the deficit hawks . Theyre an endangered species as congresswoman pelosi says now. Actually theyve mutated into a completely new species. We dont have deficit hawks anymore. We have deficit ostriches. Theyre willing to squawk and strut and kick dust like hawks when theres a democrat in the white house, but when a budgetbusting, deficitballooning, debtdeepening republican occupies the white house and proposes inflating the deficit and the debt to unprecedented levels, with the most breathtaking fiscal recklessness anyones ever seen, they become deficit Chicken Hawks and turn into deficit doves and then finally turn into fastscurrying deficit ostriches and run away from everything theyve been saying for years about the necessary itity to reduce the necessity to reduce the deficit. They simply bury their heads deep in the sand and let the debt and the deficits climb up all around them. Speaker paul ryan, when he was campaigning with mitt romney, said the National Debt is threatening jobs today. Its threatening our prosperity today. Senator majority leader mitch mcconnell, while calling for changes to Social Security and medicare in 2013, told supporters, only one thing can save this country and thats to get a handle on the deficit and debt issue. Well, that was then. This is now. As they say. Now the g. O. P. Leaders are twisting arms to vote for a tax plan that will blow up the deficit and drive our children and our grandchildrens generations deeply into debt. What happened to all the fine speeches we heard about how we owe it to our kids not to enghage deficit spending . What happen to engage in deficit spending . What happened to the National Debt being a moral crisis . Can any of the members of congress who built their careers on the principle of deficit reduction and ending the debt explain why its responsible today to add more than 2 trillion to our National Deficit . We await an answer, madam speaker. Why are they doing this to america . Why are they proposing it . Who wins with this assault on the common good . Well, lets see. Donald trump and his family certainly do. The only president who ever bragged that he would be able to make money by running for president is showing what a good job hes actually doing at achieving his objective. A New York Times Analysis Shows that trump and his family could save more than 1 billion under this plan. Thats right. The president and his family could save more than 1 billion under the tax proposal that has been sent to us in congress. Of course its impossible to know precisely how much would be saved because President Trump, despite his Campaign Promise to relies his tax returns if elected, still refuses to release his tax returns. Which constitutes not only a radical breach of faith with the people, but a radical break from past practices of other president s for the last half century, who have opened up their tax records for the rest of us to see. But, lets see what we can do based on the information we know. This proposal would eliminate the estate tax, which would generate massive tax savings for President Trump and his family. If his assets, reportedly valued at 2. 86 billion, were transferred after his death under todays rules, his estate would be taxed at around the 40 level. Still leaving his heirs with more than 1 billion. Repealing the federal estate tax, which they propose to do, would save his family 1. 1 llion at least in estate tax costs. Why would we do this . The founders of our country were passionately opposed to her ettary wealth. Just like they were opposed to that government. They thought it was dangerous to have the intergenerational transmission of wealth and great fortunes like that. They said that it would cause idleness and irresponsibility in the heirs to great wealth. And they would be able to convert their wealth not just into bigger estates, bigger land purchases, bigger houses, but actually in the public offices. They had a very profound democratic critique of that kind of intergenerational wealth inequality. Because at a certain point, youve bought enough houses, you bought enough jets and now you want a governorship. You want the presidency. You want a senate see the. In a democracy, we need a senate seat. In a democracy we need to have much greater levels of democracy. They also are proposing to abolish the alternative minimum tax, which is the only reason that President Trump paid any taxes in the one year over the last two decades that we know he paid taxes in, in 2005. You remember somebody leaked the information about that year to a tv show. And it turned out that the president paid taxes because of the alternative minimum tax, which says that you cant push a good joke too far, you can only use all of your deductions and allowances and so on up to a certain point. If youre at a certain place in terms of your wealth, you have to pay something. Well, the New York Times now estimates that the g. O. P. Tax plan to repeal the alternative minimum tax would save the president at least 31. 3 million. He would not have had to pay in that one year that we know where he paid taxes in, we dont know about the rest because hes refused to release it. Lets look at one more provision. Which would change the treatment of tax through business income. According to the New York Times, President Trump could save as much as 6. 2 million on business income and 9. 8 million on income from real estate and other kinds of partnerships under changes to the taxation of passthrough income. Now, look, madam speaker, nobody likes paying taxes. Nobody loves it. Especially when we know that there are billions of dollars being wasted, for example, at the department of defense in boondoggles and fraud and abuse taking place. According to a hearing we had just this session in the House Oversight and government reform committee. So people dont love the experience. But just as holmes said he did not mind paying taxes because he understood that they were the price of civilization. Its what we all put in in order to have roads and highways and airports and schools and universities. Thats what it means to be a citizen. People dont mind. As long as theres a basic sense in the public that everybodys participating and were not getting ripped off. And im terrified that if they succeed in barreling this plan through congress, that its going to spread more cynicism and more disenchantment and more negativity about the tax system and about the government. And we cant afford it. Because of the escalating crises of Climate Change, which are all around us, our people are suffering. He would weve got millions of people in puerto rico weve got millions of people in puerto rico and the Virgin Islands tonight who have no access to power. No access to electricity or clean water. We have people in florida and texas and mississippi and louisiana who are still recovering from the last hurricanes. Weve got californians, many of whom have died already, who are struggling against the forest fires out of control. Now is a point when we need a tax system that brings our people together. That says that wealthier people can pay more because theyre wealthy. But everybodys going pay their share and were all going participate together. Thats the tax system we should be looking for. A tax system where we get rid all of the special interest inflect special interest ripoffs that are built into the system. Where its simplified. You know, in the European Countries you can pay your taxes in about 10 or 15 minutes. And you dont have to go to the multibilliondollar tax preparation industry or go find law firms to do it. We can simplify our taxes if we decide to get rid of all the special interest loopholes. And wealthy people can pay more because they get more out of being part of this society. And they use more of the infrastructure of the country. Instead of paying less than everybody else. Instead of trying to rip off he system by paying nothing. Madam speaker, now is a time when we need the wisest and most principled leadership to get us through the accumulating crises of the time. This tax plan is totally irresponsible. And i hope that it will be withdrawn and we can Work Together across the aisle on a bipartisan plan that will represent the best values of government, of the people, by the people, for the people. I yield back and thank my distinguished colleague from california for allowing me this ime. Mr. Khanna thank you, representative raskin. For your thoughtful points. And comments on the president s tax policy. A few other points before we conclude. The president has said that we cant afford foreign aid, given our deficit. But the president thinks that the average american doesnt know math. Mr. President , the average american can do math. The deficit is 20 trillion. Our foreign aid every year is no more than 30 billion to 40 billion. Your proposal would increase the deficit between 200 billion and 500 billion. So this red herring that somehow foreign aid is responsible for the deficit is just false. Whats responsible for the deficit is the massive tax cuts that youre proposing that would add, according to conservative economists, between 2 trillion and 5 trillion more to our deficit. And its all to finance the corporate interests. All to finance the investor class. We have on the democratic side, on the progressive side, proposed an alternative. And that alternative is based on the view that we need to encourage job creation and raise wages for mainstream america. That we need to invest in the people actually doing the work. It is based on the thinking of people who used to be republicans and people like jack kemp who said, let us invest in areas that dont have jobs and Economic Growth. And have heavy investment for training on the technologies of the future. That used to be the thinking on the other side of the aisle. We used to have differences, but there used to be creativity and a sense of whats actually going to invest in people to grow the economy. And now under this president its just a mantra of tax cuts for the very wealthy. Tax cuts for the people who need it least. Tax cuts for corporations. No sense of actually investing in new industries, investing in the training and skills of the twefrpbl. Investing in bringing cap the 21st century. Investing in bringing capital to the places that need them. I hope and believe that as people in good faith will look at the two contrasting proposals, one that says tax cuts for corporations, the other that says, lets invest in American Workers, lets invest in american communities, that they will conclude that the way to actually raise wages, the way to actually create jobs, the way to actually grow our economy is by bottomup economics, by investing in the American Workers and in those americans who are part of the middle class. Thank you, madam speaker. I yield back the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities oward the president. Under the speakers announced policy of january 3, 2017, the gentleman from texas, mr. Gohmert, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader. Mr. Gohmert its been an interesting number of days here this week. Continue to have hearings and fight for good legislation. And continue to hear from people back home that we simply at least work on our promises to repeal obamacare and bring their Health Insurance into a realm thats affordable. They realize they were lied to, theyll never get the insurance they liked back, theyd like to try to get their doctors back. But one of the interesting things about the design of the devious architect of obamacare, the guy that bragged later, yeah, we knew you couldnt keep your insurance, you couldnt keep your doctor, but when he to say that to sell it but we had to say that to sell it, t they actually incentivized the handful of remaining Insurance Companies not to put the best cancer provider, Health Care Providers in their network. The obamacare actually incentivizes Insurance Companies not putting the best heart Health Care Providers or in fact any chronic expensive disease, the Insurance Companies, because of the design of obamacare, and i think it was intentional, basically were penalized if they put the very best cancer treaters, heart treaters, put those in their network. And so there were indications that Insurance Companies, they could see what the administration was encouraging them to do, so, for example, id read that m. D. Anderson was not in most networks as a cancer provider. Some argue thats the best Cancer Treatment facility. That certainly can be debated, but i think it still comes down to the effort to get to governments completely in charge of every Americans Health care. Obamacare was a good start, but obviously if you design a system so that the Insurance Companies get they just get down to a handful of monopolies and theyre having record years and that same bill even allows those Insurance Companies to get what are called bailouts after they had record profits, well, most people are going to end up hating the insurance seen that. Nd weve and what would happen, of course, eventually people get so outraged with premiums going , i hether its 10 or 70 heard it being doubled, being tripled since the last seven years, heard all kinds of Horror Stories from people in east texas, around other places i visited, its the same thing happening. They cant afford their policy, yet they cant afford to pay an extra tax for not having a policy that the government says they have to have, and yet if they pay for their policy, the deductibles so high they still arent going to get any benefit out of it. So its easy to see when you start looking at the way in which obamacare was created, the rules in place for it, the day would come when people got so outraged at how expensive their insurance, Health Insurance was that they would scream, look, i just cant stand it anymore. I never wanted the government to be in charge of my personal life, but anythings got to be better than the current system. Just let the government take it over, and then there you are. Government controlling everybodys body, everybodys personal life. Of course we got this Consumer Finance Protection Bureau out there, created by during the obama years by the democrats. We were not helpful in that. We thought, sure, we want to help people that are being taken advantage of by unscrupulous lenders, but we dont need a bureau to monitor everybodys debits and credit card transactions. There were those that argue, yeah, but this way they can monitor and they can tell if somebodys being taken advantage of, because there was a time as a felony judge in texas that if someone wanted your bank records, they had to come, under the Fourth Amendment of the constitution, were supposed to be protected from unreasonable searches and seizures and that includes anyones bank records. So people would come to me as a judge, they had affidavits and they hoped that would prove under oath probable cause that a crime had been committed and that this person committed it, and if so, i could sign the warrant that allowed them to go get bank records. We used to care about the Fourth Amendment, and i know my friends across the aisle, our democratic friends, they cared greatly because i heard over and over in Judiciary Committee arguments about the protections against unreasonable searches. And yet they set up a bureau that violates that. Says, just give us all your information. Well, sure, if somebodys being taken advantage of by an unscrupulous lender, then the remedy is they go complain to the appropriate government Law Enforcement or the s. E. C. , whoever it is, and then they come to a judge like i was, get the warrant, get the records and make the determination if theres probable cause. We just lost so much of our privacy. Said, well, ago since obamacare is going to allow the mass gathering of peoples medical records and our democratic friends set up racket sumer protection here in washington, we could conceivably have a day, and if we dont do something about obamacare and the cfpb, then its closer than i imagined, but a day when you get your madam. Speaker speaker, and you see, oh, i got a letter from the government here. And you open it up and it says, we notice when you were at Brookshires Grocery store the other day you bought a pound of bacon and we know from your Health Care Records that your cholesterol rate is at this certain level and so, therefore, since we control your health care now and we monitor your debit and credit purchases, heres the deal. You either are going to join a health club and start working out once a week and stop buying bacon or were going to have to raise the amount you pay in each month. I mean, this is where it goes when you have the orwellian big brother that was advanced more through obamacare than anything thats ever occurred in u. S. History. Its got to be repealed. Nd i want to applaud and thank President Trump for taking steps today through an. Xecutive order he shouldnt have had to do that. Im very, very grateful he did. God bless him for doing it. But we should have already taken care of that stuff. Thats our job. And what do we do here in the house . It was contentious. The first bill was a disaster. But we got it to where it actually was going to bring premiums down for the middle class in america. It was going to make their premiums cheaper. Was going to make their deductibles lower, and then people in the senate that got elected on the promise of repealing obamacare that voted we still have to do something. I love seeing the president s interview with our good friend, sean hannity, last night, and i love this about President Trump. I think its why he got elected, because when sean asked him about, you know, basically, is this over, he gets this smile and says, no, were not giving up. We are not giving up. And the truth is we cannot give up. People are counting on us. They dont know what to do. Small business employers like the one in tyler that told me a few years ago he was paying 50,000 for his employees Health Insurance. He has the same number of employees and this year its 153,000. Hes going to have to start letting people go or drop their insurance. It just cannot continue. Already taking losses. It cant continue. Well, with the proper president in place and here in congress emeal aken some steps to , te some of the damage here things have turned around some, but if we actually keep our promise, and i think we do that by putting a lot more heat on the senate as the house body, house republicans, we got to put pressure on the senate. Like the president said, this fight cannot be over. And normally, been told from my freshman year, you cant do big things in Election Year, but i wonder if america makes it clear to the senators, to the republicans in the senate, that you either will keep your promise on obamacare, you will keep your promise on tax reform or you will not be back in the senate, then i think we can buck tradition in this place. This idea that we were told back in 2006 in january, ok, well, we didnt keep any of our promises last year as the republican majority but now you veterans know were into an even number year. That means its an Election Year. So we cant do any of those big things because Everybody Knows you just cant do big things in an Election Year or you might lose. Well, it would have been a lot better if we had already done those things if we had repealed obamacare and put a system in place that was affordable, that gave people the health care they needed and with actual insurance and encouraged instead of spending 700, 800, 900 sending to the insurance company, how about putting 700, 800 in your own medical Health Savings account you control, debit card coded where it can only be spent on health care, whether its crutches, medicine, doctor visit, hospital stay, whatever and you could have a high deductible, we could have a day where 700 goes to your account, 200 goes for a catastrophic coverage. Thats the kind of thing that we should have been pushing for and gone to, but instead, were pouring that money into Health Insurance companies. And just in case, madam speaker, there are those that are already wondering, maybe we should just let the government take over everything, thats got to be better, heard on the news again today another horror story. Just when you thought the v. A. Was being cleaned up, here comes another horror story. Some doctor at the v. A. Was allowed to do 80someodd surgeries that were unnecessary, inappropriate or , even surgery not even needed at all, on the wrong person, but had been covered up for some time. Well, when the governments in charge of your health care, you cant expect any more than the lowest common denominator in the government. I am very, very grateful we do have some good doctors, some good nurses in the v. A. , but ive also talked to good doctors and nurses in the v. A. With re so frustrated system. Albatross of a why not just let people, if you want to go to the v. A. Clinic, heres your card, you go . We thought we were doing a good thing, and i think it was the step in the right direction when we were going to allow veterans to go to a civilian clinic, hospital, Health Care Provider if there was not one within minimum number of miles i believe it was 40 but i heard Horror Stories from that, how people have been jerked around and not been allowed to utilize the program as it was designed. Here again, we come back to what you get when the government is in charge. You got to do that. They were asking today again about tax reform. We promised it. We have got to deliver on that. These rumors i hear emanating from people at the senate side of this building that, eh, well, the house can do the reform. They did their obamacare repeal, we didnt pass that, so maybe we wont do their tax reform package like were working on, it takes a lot of work to pass a major reform like we did on obamacare. Takes even more work, perhaps, to do a significant tax reform package, where it becomes simplified. People pay less tax. The economy explodes. You would think it would be a no brainer but apparently there are too many people up here with no brains and its not getting done. So we co we do have to do that. We promised we would. Weve got to do it for the sake of the economy that will make peoples lives so much better. But in the meantime if were going to be an effective congress, weve got to make sure systems aintain proper in place that we can do our business without inappropriate outside influence. Whether its coming from russia, pakistan, wherever its coming from, we need to know. And we need to protect ourselves. Taxed enoughy this already caucus meeting we had, we invited people in the tradition of my friend tim huelskamp, the former chair of the of that caucus from kansas, just a great guy, great american, great to talk to him ecently. Tim started with this caucus having representatives of outside groups with Important Information we should share coming in and having members of Congress Come in and share information, figure out how we can help get the nations business done. Weve been concerned about articles we continue to read, especially by luke roziak of daily caller, no one has done more investigation on the issue awan family cohorts orking here on capitol hill. For house members, they happened to be democrat house members. One republican said, these folks are great, before you know it you have dozens of people having he same i. T. Computer workers. Working part time. People are allowed to do that. Hire somebody part time so it doesnt overwhelm your budget, others can hire them part time but under no circumstances can anybody working on the hill make more than, i think its around 160,000. We found out this week from the lead investigator, not Law Enforcement, oh, no, f. B. I. , apparently, theyre not getting anything done, ill explain why in a moment, but as hes gone around and investigated and asked witnesses questions that have direct information about hats gone on, luke roziak would also ask, has anyone from the nib talked to you . Or any Law Enforcement talked to you . He said 80 of the time, the answer is no. No one from the f. B. I. Has talked to me. No one from any Law Enforcement has talked to me. Staggering. There are rumors that there are people from the f. B. I. Telling the department of justice yeah, weve looked into it. Theres nothing there. Yeah, just the way the f. B. I. Looked in to the notice from russia that the sarnyeave older rother had been the tsaernaev older brother had been radicalized. And what did they do . I know because i asked director mueller after he had run off thousands and thousands of years of our best experienced f. B. I. Agents, done more damage to the f. B. I. Than anybody since hoover , he got plenty of young, aggressive people without enough experience to call him out when he was making mistakes as he made many. So they send out an f. B. I. Agent to talk to the older tsarnaev after the second notice from russian agents that this guy has been radicalized, hes going to be a threat. But because director mueller, now special counsel mueller who is hiring lawyers and investigators right and left, built up a beautiful, comfortable nest for himself, that same mueller as director of the f. B. I. Had the f. B. I. Training materials on radical islamists purged of anything that might offend radical islamists. Yes, he was more concerned about the little lunches and dinners he had with cair, the counsel on the council on American Islamic relations, than he was about people being killed in boston. Because if he had he would have made sure that the tsarnaev brothers were properly investigated after they got two heads up. If they had bothered to look, they would have seen where the older tsarnaev went and known he went to a hot bed of radicalism. They would have known to investigate, whats he been reading . What scriptures from the koran has he been reading . What has he talked about . Is he doing more memorization . Whats his appearance looking like now . Who is he hanging out with . But no, because he was too concerned about what he called to Islamic Program americans he didnt want to offend anybody. More worried about offending somebody than saving the lives and limbs of bostonians. He created a massive problem at the federal bureau of investigation and now we turn him special down special counsel over to this man . We heard from mr. Comey himself that he checked, he talked to mueller but even before his testimony, before congress , he heard from he himself that he leaked information that was clearly f. B. I. Information that should not have been leaked. Its a question of did he violate, did he commit a crime . Or did he just commit a breach of f. B. I. Ethics . What action should be taken . Oh, no. Weve got f. B. I. Director mueller on the case. And if you go back and look at the washingtonan back in 2013, this big expose on how wonderful mr. Comey was, they point out in there that, gee, basically if the whole world were on fire, comey knew one person would still be standing with him there, protect him, mr. Mueller. The same guy thats protecting him instead of investigating the leaks that have come from the f. B. I. , that appear to have gone through the exact same person, through whom he leaked what he admitted, but no, weve got mueller, the same man thats going to be there for through thick and thin to protect mueller, hes the one investigating. If Jeff Sessions is attorney general as attorney general cannot investigate mr. Comey and his violations, potential breaches of the law, then we need another special counsel and it sure aint going to come from mr. Rosen stein, thats for sure from mr. Rosensteen, thats for sure. We need a special counsel. I think the attorney general could do it. But im not sure the extent to which he has recused himself. But this has to be investigated. But unfortunately, because of the damage done to the f. B. I. , you know, i still have questions arise on things they investigate because i know the damage that mueller did to their training materials, to their ability as one of our intelligence agents explained, we have blinded ourselves of the ability to see our enemies. But dont worry. The guy that was the biggest blinder is now the special counsel. Growing his little bureaucracy. And im sure knowing how vengeful he is, when he hears what ive had to say, then he probably will open an investigation on me, thats just how vengeful this man has been. But the truth is the truth. He damaged the f. B. I. Running off thousands of years of experienced people. He purged the training materials that would have and you know, Michele Bachmann and i went through these, another congressman from georgia went through some, and there were some things, sure, cartoon stuff, sure, take them out, fine. But there were some things in , that very, very clearly every f. B. I. Agent needs to know to help them spot a radical islamist. And mueller blinded them of the opportunity to do that. Ill never forget, one of our hearings after it was so clear that he was more concerned about fending cair than he was protecting boston and he was so defensive, i said, you didnt even go to the mosque where tsarnaev went, see if hed been radicalized. And after fumbling around, finally got him to tell me what he thought, how that was wrong and he said, we did go to the mosque. I didnt hear it at first. Unfortunately, i didnt hear it until i had it played on the video. He said we did go to that mosque. In our outreach program. Oh, the outreach program. You didnt go to investigate tsarnaev to find out if hed been radicalized by asking questions in the mosque where he worshipped to find out if he was now acting like a radical, and there are clear indications, thats why we dont have to worry about most muslims. But you sure need to know what youre looking for. For those that want to call people like me an islamophobe, its another lie but theres plenty of lies around washington. But ive got enough muslim friends in the middle east and afghanistan and other countries, they know they dont want radicals and i am so proud of , alsisi,ent of egypt a man who would stand before imams and tell them, we have got to get our realback from the cad rals. Thats a courageous, great man. E owe him a lot of help. So what did we have here on capitol hill . We had guys that apparently never had a background search and as we found out from the investigator for the daily caller for the daily caller, there were actually three or more months of the year would be in an pakistan, doing his job, supposedly making sure capitol ill computers were secured, we find out that there was suspicion when they saw this imran awan clan, his wife got involved, as we heard, when they would get up to the maximum amount one person could make on capitol hill, they would add another Family Member. And then theyd get up to 160,000 and theyd add another Family Member. Add another Family Member and apparently all of these people didnt work. The people that had a lot of experience working at mcdonalds, probably didnt have that much experience on computers. But he was still making 160,000 or so a year. An we find out, i had no idea, just this week found out, they were able to gain 6 million to 7 million from the house of representatives budget. And we find out, gee, one of them had gotten 100,000 from an individual with known ties to hezbollah, and we dont know for what reason, but clearly never came to capitol hill. He was put on the payroll of the u. S. House of representatives, the guy that was owed 100,000 with ties to hezbollah and made over 200,000 or so before he was taken off the payroll. Thats a good way to pay back a len, isnt it . We had imran awan. Is wife, jamaal awan, raul abbas, and possibly a couple of others we found out. Just incredible. That this kind of thing can happen. But suspicion grew when he was supposed to be working on the Computer System of congressman, now attorney general in california, becerra, no indication becerra knew anything was wrong but people here on the hill watching this saw there had been 5,700 accesses to his Computer System. And 5,400 of them from people that should not have been getting into his Computer System. We found out he downloaded other member of congress server completely onto becerras server and actually terabytes of information that he said was for his childs home work. A little childs home work taking two terabytes but we know from what came out this week he was downloading dozens of members of computers onto one server so that anybody he wanted to could access any of that information. Now, theres no indication that classified information was revealed through the access to all these Computer Systems by people that were not hired by that member of congress. Ut we also know general petraeus read somewhere that it was actually a calendar that he gave to the lady that was to do a book that he was having an affair with had some stuff that was considered classified. Well, on every members Computer System you get all heir emails, all the stuff from the office, you get reaction to Different Things on bills, things that you learned in the intelligence community. There are all kinds of things people would pay a lot of money for. We find out you had a bankruptcy in the history, Domestic Violence in the history. Now we found out this week newly reported that his wife is now upset. We may be getting some answers now that shes upset because now shes found out that not only was he being corrupt to the banks here in the United States and on capitol hill but he also without his wifes nowledge married another lady. So that may bring his first wife around to giving us more information about just how bad things got. But the report was this week, investigators for the i. G. s office here on capitol hill had been quietly been tracking the five i. T. Workers, thats the awan group. They were alarmed by what they saw. The employees here on capitol hill appeared the employees, the awans appeared to be accessing congressional servers without ok that could be reading and or removing information according to the documents distributed to previously unreported private briefings. So i know that there are people that have reported here on capitol hill, well, its being looked into, but, you know, theres no evidence of crime. Really . Because we also learned that there may have been hundreds of for, rs filed falsely say, 800 ipad but if you say that its under 5,000, then it doesnt go in the inventory and its easier to steal and sell, for example, hypothetically in pakistan where there are reports that he sent technological systems and sold them to make extra money. We know that he was not truthful and honest in his financial disclosures. That can be a crime. But just one voucher where you claim something only cost 490 and the Service System called 310 when you know that item cost 800 and should go into the inventory, that can be a crime. And it appears that happened countless times, but we need to be trying to count, anyway. We know that there were many pieces of computer equipment found at his home after f. B. I. Agent said his wife appeared to be fleeing, to not come back, even though she had a trip back. We dont know what representations had been made to depet her to come back get her to come back, but we know the tenant, at least the house where they fled from, had been threatened by imran awans lawyer for allowing Law Enforcement to have access to that computer equipment that was there at his house. Hard drives appear to be destroyed so they could not be properly investigated. Ut its we got a report that one of the group appeared to be home most of the time, and that was not here in washington, d. C. What a great gig when you can make 160,000 a year for serving computer equipment and it appears all of these five, six, seven people in this group didnt have competence to do computer or i. T. Work. Yet, they were sure making a good living doing it. But for those who continue to say we just dont think theres much there, all that should tell you is the report by luke rosiak, all the witnesses to all this soareded matter only have been f them interviewed by f. B. I. Or Law Enforcement. It tells you somebody around here in this town, this hill, somebody does not want to get to the bottom of this. If Law Enforcement wants to get to the bottom of this, they will get to the bottom of it. Kind of like benghazi. If we really wanted to get to the bottom of it, wed do like Judicial Watch and be relentless until we got to the bottom of it. We havent gotten there yet. So, madam speaker, theres a lot that needs to be investigated, a lot that needs to be done. We need somebody sounds like needs to investigate mr. Mueller but certainly needs to be investigating various leaks that appear to come from mr. Comey through the same sources as the one he admitted. Has got to be investigated. Mueller cant do it, and apparently the current attorney general cant. Got to have somebody appointed to get to the bottom of what was happening at the d. O. J. During last year when the election was going on. We need to have an investigation to thoroughly get to this matter of having a u. N. Unmasking american information. We were assured that kind of thing would not happen if we would just reauthorize that program. Oh, no, no. If there are americans that happen to be incidentally picked up by the monitors, the wiretap, by listening in on conversations, look, if theres an american, we mask the name. You cant just get that. Youre proteched. Its minimized. Well, we found out that wasnt true, that anybody that wants to go skipping and looking into any political opponent can do that if youre corrupt enough. And if youre corrupt enough and you corrupted other people, then it wont be investigated. Maybe theres things other people around here dont want found out, but its time we cleaned up the mess thats been left here. We clean up the wiretapping capability. Its coming up for reauthorization here. Its got to be done before the end of december, and i still need a lot of answers before i could even consider to do that. In the meantime, madam speaker, we have got to help the American People by keeping our promises. With that i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back. Mr. Gohmert sorry, mr. Speaker. The speaker pro tempore under the speakers announced policy of january 3, 2017, the chair recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. Sherman, for 30 minutes. Testing. N does this microphone work . Testing. It appears that the microphone is working. Mr. Speaker, i thank you for yielding me 30 minutes, more than enough time to deliver three separate speeches that i prepared for presentation. The first two are informed or two of these speeches are informed, the first and the third are informed by my 20 years of experience on the Foreign Affairs committee. And the second speech i will deliver is informed by 40 years as a c. P. A. In the world of taxation. Mr. Speaker, i am the ranking ember on the asia subcommittee caucus. Founder of the i focused on human rights and the rule of law in pakistan and particularly in its perhaps sindh. Province, and we dedicated ourselves in the sindh caucus to preserve the culture and the language of the sindi people and particularly their dedication to religious tolerance. Unfortunately, the human rights picture in pakistan and in sindh are not are not good. Id like to say a few words about the disappearance of the leader of the voice of the missing persons of sindh movement. And about the very serious problem of disappearances in sindh. In southern pakistan. Just this past summer, he led a march between sindhs two major cities. Demanding accountability for sindi activists who had been abducted by Pakistani Security forces or simply disappeared. Where is he now . It appears that he, too, has fallen victim to the very. Erious a report from pakistan reported that over 700 people had disappeared, can i see napped and never heard of again in pakistan in the year 2016 alone. In the past year, the United Nations human rights committee, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the state departments own report on human rights have all noted serious concerns about extra judicial and targeted killings and disappearances in pakistan and particularly in sindh. Elements of government or military see an opportunity to simply make their opponents disappear. Few particulars. In 2016, the Amnesty International reported that the Pakistani Security forces had, and these are their words, committed Human Rights Violations with almost total impunity. Unquote. While Human Rights Watch observed that Law Enforcement and security agencies remained unaccountable. For Human Rights Violations. Unquote. And the state department itself noted in pakistan the most serious human rights problems were extrajudicial and targeted killings, disappearances, torture, the lack of the rule of law, unquote. Two years ago in 2015, sindhi legaria was ar murdered in pakistan. Days before he had sent a memorandum to president barack obama about Human Rights Violations by the Pakistani Military and its i. S. I. , the interservice intelligence agency. An important part of the Pakistani Military. I attended a Memorial Service here in gari washington. And have come to no to know of his work for human rights for the sindhi people of southern pack stan. The pakistani government has not been responsive to inquiry into the reasons for his death and for why his perpetrators have not been brought to justice. Two months ago, on august 18, i sent a letter to the acting assistant secretary of state for south and Central Asian affairs and the u. S. Ambassador to pakistan expressing strong concerns about Human Rights Violations of the pakistani government in sindh. Six of my house colleagues, three republicans and three democrats, joined me in that effort. There are other Human Rights Concerns in pakistan i should also bring to the attention of this house. People in sindh face religious extremist attacks. Isis claim responsibility for an attack on a shrine in sindh that killed 08 people. Yet go government has not acted o protect religious minorities and in general has not acted to protect the people of sindh from islamic extremism. In addition, in sindh, there are forced converses of sindhi girls belonging to minority communities. While the numbers are unclear, reports suggest that every year perhaps 1,000 girls and young women in pakistan, including many in sindh are forcibly converted upon marriage. Marriage not of their choice. To muslim men. The pakistani government has not done enough to stop this practice and reform measures have been circumvented and not enforced. Human rights abuses of this type cannot go unanswered. Activists disappear under suspicious circumstances, it is our obligation to speak out and demand accountability. These disappearances and other violations of human rights should be a major topic of conversation in all bilateral discussions between our governments and the government in islamabad. Now, mr. Speaker, i would like to move on to a second speech, one dealing with the tax proposal of the trump dministration. The provisions i would like to focus on chiefly are those involving taking away the deductions, the itemized deductions that so Many Americans take to reduce their tax liability. Now, these deductions are eliminated on the theory that, oh, they just go to the wealthy. For those purposes they find the wealth they define the wealthy as the wealthiest 30 or soft the American People. Say a family with an income of 100,000 or 150,000. Were told thats the same thing as increasing taxes on the top one tenth of 1 , say a family of a family with an income of 1 million or 2 million a year. There is a difference in the ability to pay of those two typical families, typifying their income brackets. And the fact is that taxing hard working families with incomes of 100,000 or 150,000 to provide reduced tax rates for those with incomes of 1 million or 2 million make ours tax system more regressive. And you cannot put the entire top 30 in one cat fwoir. For these income calculations. That is why, and that is only one reason why, i oppose the elimination of the Home Mortgage deduction. Another reason for that i oppose it is an elimination of the Home Mortgage deduction and deduction for local property taxes will probably decrease the value of homes by 20 . Thats the best estimate i have seen. If you lose 20 of the value of your home you may very well lose all of the equity in your home. How is that going to affect the economy . How is that going to affect the ability of homeowners to go spend money in their communities and support the economy of their community . What does it do to the federal budget when we are responsible through fannie maye and freddie mac for underwriting Home Mortgages . We know that if you wipe out the equity of many homeowners in their homes, this can lead to defaults and cost the federal overnment perhaps more than is being than we give up by having a Home Mortgage deduction. Another element to keep in mind is if the entire idea of the income tax is we tax people based on their ability to pay. If youre in a state with high income taxes, high property taxes, that diminishes your ability to pay. If you make a certain salary and money is taken out by your State Government before you ever see it, your ability to pay is only on that net paycheck. And so it is simply wrong to take away the deduction for state and local taxes. But make no mistake about it, the purpose of removing that hurt ion is not just to the top 30 or 50 of the American People who itemize their deductions. It is designed to punish those who are dependent on state and local government. For all the conservative theorists say if we can just eliminate the deduction for state and local taxes we will cut the size of state and local governments, we will create a political atmosphere in which they slash money for local schools, slash money for local Health Programs for the poor, slash money for police. And who will be hurt from those cuts . 50 , butthe top 30 or everyone in america, most particularly the poor. But finally, i want to focus on the medical deduction. They take away the medical deduction in this program, this proposal of the Trump Administration. Now keep in mind that we already have severe limits on deducting medical expenses. You can deduct medical expenses only they exceed 10 of your familys income. So medical expenses are itemized and deducted only by those families, including someone with very Significant Health costs. Now we have worked hard in this house to make sure that people have Health Insurance. But even with Health Insurance, there are copays. There are deductibles. These can be absorbed in a Family Budget where no one has a particular strong medical need. But what if there is some member of the family who needs experimental treatments that are not covered . Therapies that are not covered . Under the present system, at least they get to deduct these 10 aordinary, not the first of a. G. I. , of adjusted gross income, but when they start spending out of pocket costs in excess of 10 income, they can take a Tax Deduction. A Tax Deduction taken away in the trump tax proposal. I speak not just as someone who spent a lot of time as a tax expert, headed the second largest tax agency in the country but as a father of a child with special needs. What does this tax proposal mean for such a family . Well, first trk theres a cut in federal revenue under this proposal of between 150 billion ars 200 billion a year. Deficit hawks will demand that these revenue cuts be matched by cuts to federal spending. What does that do to the 13 billion the federal government dedicates to the implementation of the individuals with disabilities education act . Idea, also known as special education. And what does do these cuts in our federal expenditures mean to the 293 million spent by the National Institutes of health on research designed to prevent and treat autism and attention deficit hyper activity, adhd. So the first impact on a family with special needs is a slashing of the money the federal government spends for special education and medical research. But second, i talked about those out of pocket medical expenses. Parents with special Needs Children know that Health Insurance pays only a portion of what is needed or perhaps none of what is needed. For behavioral therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, hysical therapy, developmental pediatricians, neuropsychological services, etc. Medical insurance will pay nothing toward anything branded an experimental treatment. And of course medical insurance does not cover special schools required to meet the needs of some special Needs Children. Under current law, a special school designed to meet those with a physical or mental handicap are considered medical expenses. All these Tax Deductions are taken away from a family whose ability to pay is diminished by the costs of providing these therapies to a special needs child. In addition, right now, the tax law provides a personal exemption of 4,050 for each dependent child. The Trump Administration proposal takes that away. It does say, in some vague language, that therell be a Child Tax Credit to compensate parents who are losing the personal exemption. But this credit will be limited to children 16 year of age and younger. So what about parents with parents supporting children in their teenage years and other . And old her and remember some special Needs Children will need parental support for a lifetime. Those parents lose the exemption and are ineligible for this credit available only to parents of younger children. But perhaps parents of children with special needs should support the trump tax program. While it will tremendously increase their taxes, while it will cut federal expenditures on special education, and on Health Research and medical research, parents of children with special needs can take solace in knowing that this plan will reduce taxes for the trump family by over 1 billion in estate taxes and by tens of millions of dollars in income taxes. Perhaps we should tell parents of special Needs Children that they should stop worrying so much about their children and start worrying about Donald Trumps children. If they did, they would support the trump tax proposal. Finally, mr. Speaker, i would like to address the issue of iran and the nuclear deal, nuclear control deal that we signed with iran. First, a little background. In 1997, i sat at the Foreign Affairs committee that iran and its Nuclear Program were the number one threat to american National Security. For the last 20 years, ive supported every effort to impose sanctionsen the iranian regime. And when the Iran Nuclear Deal was finalized and published i was the first of either party to come to this floor and say that congress should not vote to endorse that deal. But the question before us now is, should we renounce the deal . Now it would be one thing if iran decides that we are so tough on them, on other issues, that they choose to renounce the deal that would be a complete but thats not the issue before us today. The issue before us today is whether america should renounce the deal. And the resounding and clear answer is that is not something we should do at this time. Now, give you an example. Lets say you bought a flawed automobile. In some jurisdictions you take back the automobile, you get back your money. But what opponents what some are proposing now, some are proposing we renounce the deal, imagine youre in a jurisdiction where you have to take back the car and the dealer keeps your money too. Taking back the car doesnt look like such a good idea anymore. , like a flawed automobile the Iran Nuclear Deal is liable to not be working next decade. But that doesnt mean you take back the car and the dealer keeps the money. What happens if we renounce the deal . Iran keeps the money. We unfroze veryroughly 100 billion of their very roughly 100 billion of their deal. If they renounce the deal, they keep the money. We delivered over 1 billion in currency on big pallets. If we renounce the deal, iran keeps the money. And if we renounce the deal, iran is liberated from all of the restrictions that it agreed to on its Nuclear Program. I opposed the deal because the restrictions on irans Nuclear Program in the deal were temporary. And ieve we need to extend enforce those limitations on their Nuclear Program. And if you listen to the Prime Minister of israel, benjamin netanyahu, he has identified the fact that we have not been able to extend and make permanent the limitations on irans Nuclear Program as the chief flaw in the deal, chief thing to correct to turn it into a better deal. But if we renounce the deal, we dont extend and enforce the limitations on Irans Nuclear rogram, we end and eliminate immediately the restrictions on irans Nuclear Program. I cannot think of a worse result. Now, there are two mechanisms that we could use as a nation to renounce the deal, give iran all the benefits and liberate them from all their obligations. The first of these is on our minds now because it could be triggered on october 15. That is a day on which the president could fail to issue could in effect decertify this deal under the Iran Nuclear Review act. I hope that if he does that the press will not overplay it, because a dessertification does nothing more desls certification does nothing more than decertification does nothing more than whether we want to enact the exact sanctions that were waived as part of the nuclear deal. A decertification does nothing more than focus our attention and over in the senate provide for expedited consideration of new sanctions reinstitution of the old sanctions, excuse me. Now, i dont think that congress would be stupid enough to do that because as ive explained if we renounce the deal, iran keeps the benefits and is liberated from its obligations. But the president should not decertify the deal and focus its attention on whether america will stand with the deal at this time. The second way that america uld renounce the deal will occur next january, because the basic element of the deal, the basic thing iran got from the United States was an agreement that the president would every sometimes four months to six months, depends on the exact statute, waive particular identified sanctions. As it happens, the existing waivers all expire in the middle of next january, and if the president were to fail to issue those waivers, that would be an american renounceation of the deal. So it does not meet our National Security objectives to renounce the deal. What meets our National Security objectives is to impose tough sanctions on iran, draft those sanctions carefully and explain them to the world, not as a renounceation but appropriate sanctions given irans nonnuclear outside the deal wrongful behavior. Now, the question is, can we have sanctions on iran and continue to force them to abide by the deal . The answer is clearly yes. July of 2015, secretary kerry came before our committee and i raised this very issue. If we adopt the deal, can we impose sanctions on the central bank of iran to deter terrorism or would that violate this agreement . And i specifically asked, is congress and the United States free under the agreement to adopt new sanctions legislation that will remain enforced as long as iran holds american hostages or supports the murderous assad regime . Secretary kerrys answers were clear. He stated, were free to adopt additional sanctions as long as they are not a phony excuse for just taking the whole pot of past ones and putting them back. So we can and should impose new sanctions on iran to the exact justified by irans behavior outside the area of Nuclear Research and uranium enrichment. An look at that as opportunity because you could make a list of every sanction any one of us here on this floor has thought of and add in the creativity of the United States senate and make a list of every sanction we could impose, and i assure you that those sanctions and more are justified by the nonnuclear in committed by the regime tehran. Iran is more responsible than russia for the hundreds of thousands of deaths in syria. The lifeline of the assads murderous regime is a lifeline to the aid and money and weapons and thugs and training that iran has provided. Hundreds of thousands of deaths. A moral responsibility of the Islamic Republic of iran. You turn to yemen where tens of thousands of people have died because of iran. You look at worldwide terrorism, and iran is the number one state sponsor of terrorism year after year, according to our state department. You look at the treatment by the of its own people, murders by the state of anyone they identify as being part of the lgbt community, the murders by the state of women its usually women accused of adultery, the evil that comes from the Islamic Republic is this ceeds the power of house to exceed sanctions points and thats why the proper policy for the United States is to impose the maximum sanctions and to explain to the rld that this is not a phony renounceation of the nuclear is the appropriate response to irans actions outside the nuclear deal. If we do that we will have substantial support from europe and asia and elsewhere. First, for demanding that iran continue to be subject to all the Nuclear Limitations and inspections under the deal and which continue to be enforced well into the next decade. What we should do next decade, well, ill come back and give another speech next decade. But at least the many years, deep in the next decade, this provides valuable limitations and valuable inspections of the Iran Nuclear Program and europe will insist that those be adhered to. Second, europe may join us in the sanctions when we sanction iran for its actions in syria, its actions to its own people, its actions in yemen. And one more, i should add, and that is irans violation of u. N. Security Council Resolutions by testing and developing missiles and exporting weapons. With the deal and sanction iran, they may choose, if those sanctions are as effective as i think they can be, they may choose to walk away from the deal. If they do we will have the whole world with us in forcing sanctions against iran. Now, there is one part of the policy i put forward that may not meet the psychological needs of the president of the United States. For he has shown an uncontrollable personal need to pour disgusting liquids on anything associated with president obama. And he gets a psychological maybe it meets his psychological needs to say hes renouncing the nuclear deal but the fact is we dont have to renounce the nuclear deal and liberate iran from its obligations in order to impose the toughest imaginable sanctions on this regime that is doing so much evil. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back. Under the speakers announced policy of january 3, 2017, the chair now recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. Rohrabacher, for 30 minutes. Mr. Rohrabacher thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, let me just note i believe that our president is doing a terrific job. I think the last president of the United States has left us an incredibly dangerous situation. This president s trying to deal with it with strength and purpose and, yes, being a forceful leader. For example, during the clinton administration, we provided 4 billion to 5 billion during to north korea. Same way the last administration tried to provide funds for iran and what do we have now is a crisis with new possible Nuclear Weapons and missiles in north korea. Thats called kicking the can down the road, and they sure kicked it down to us and now people want to kick the can down the road with the iranians. No, lets not do that again and leave future generations to face the music that we left them. Our president wants to make sure that iran does not become a Nuclear Power as long as it s controlled by radical that natic muleas that dont even fanatic mullahs that doesnt even represent their own people. If they were more democratic we wouldnt have to worry about that because they wouldnt want to have a wasteful program of Nuclear Weapons. Those are the type of issues we face today. We face a lot of uncertainties at home and abroad, and it behooves us to look for explanations for the shifts in power and the dangers and the influence that are taking place in the world today. Europe, along with the United States, for five decades seemed to be the center of world order and progress. Nate nato, the european union, the common market, all seemed to be the epitome of proper governance needed to offset humankinds destructive and the combative inclinations. World war i and world war ii had undercut if not destroyed the expansion of classical liberalism that was in the process of retiring royalist and imperialist domination of the world which, of course, thats where the world was at at the turn and the beginning of the 20th century as classical liberalism began to replace imperialism and monarchy. Well, yes, the 2 3 two world wars that we experienced were traumas that still impact our lives. The treaty of versailles that ended world war i, it was the last gasp of european colonialism. Maps drawn at that International Gathering brought on world war ii and the plague and that does plague us to this day some of those other lines they drew on that map. Those National Borders mandated by the versailles treaty made the world temporarily tranquil. Havent we heard that about maybe we heard that a few moments ago how we got to overcome the tragedy right now, like we did in korea, by not making the confrontations with those people who are engaged in hostile activity. Yes, the treaty of versailles gave the world temporary tranquility but doomed following generationso