macleginn/stanford_congress_record_longer_speeches huggingface dataset:
Date: 2014-04-09
Speaker: CAROLYN B. MALONEY (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: New York

Mr. Chairman. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Our economy is recovering from the depths of the Great Recession. but too many Americans are still left behind. This budget kicks them even further back with draconian cuts. We were sent here to create jobs. not eliminate them. According to the Congressional Budget Office. the Ryan austerity plan would slow our economy and cost us jobs over the next 3 years. Mr. Chairman. the Republican budget would make life harder for the vulnerable Americans from cradle to grave. It represents a choice to be less competitive and less compassionate. Voting for this budget is voting to slow our recovery. lower our hopes. and dim our dreams. It is not a budget. it is a retreat. and Americans deserve better. I urge my colleagues to vote "no" on this draconian Republican budget. and I yield back the balance of my time.
Date: 2014-04-09
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. some things never change. As the gentleman from South Carolina said. he offered this political stunt 2 years ago. and it is no less of a political stunt today than it was 2 years ago. Mr. Chairman. I am a strong supporter of the Presidents budget and of the Presidents policies. This is not a vote on the Presidents budget and his policies. Do you know what I wish it were? I wish the Speaker of this House would bring up the Presidents proposal to shut down those tax incentives that actually encourage multinational corporations to ship American jobs overseas and instead use some of those savings to invest in jobs here at home. I wish the Speaker of this House would let us vote on that Presidents policy. I wish the Speaker of this House would bring up the bipartisan immigration bill. One has already passed the Senate. We have a version over here in the House. Mr. Chairman. lets vote on that Presidents policy. I wish the Speaker of the House would let us vote on the Presidents minimum wage proposal. to make sure that more people would be able to prosper in our economy. We havent had a vote on that. Mr. Chairman. I wish that we could have a vote on the Presidents proposal to extend emergency unemployment compensation. The Senate has passed that. Lets have a vote over here. This is a political stunt. just like it was before and. by the way. the White House sees it as a political stunt again this year. just as they were right to call it that the other year. This is. in fact. the Presidents budget right here. right here. This is it. Mr. Chairman. It is interesting to hear our Republican colleagues who claim to be in favor of transparency. accountability. saying that this is the Presidents budget and then allocating 10 minutes per side. I thought we didnt even want to take up thousandplus page bills. we dont even want to take those up. Yet. now supposedly we are going to debate and vote on something that is over 2.000 pages. less time on the Presidents budget than on any of the other proposals before the House. Give me a break. If this was serious. it would be a total abuse of process. In fact. the Congressional Budget Office hasnt even had a chance. Mr. Chairman. to evaluate and score the Presidents budget yet. So you have got the House Republican budget. and you have got the Democratic party. all those are written to CBO. but CBO hasnt had a chance to go through that this quickly. I am surprised to hear the gentleman thinks the House can go through this in 20 minutes. So lets not play games. The White House has made clear if you want to support the Presidents priorities and the framework of the Presidents budget going forward. you should support the Democratic alternative. which I will offer tomorrow. With that. I reserve the balance of my time.
Date: 2014-04-09
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chair. the gentleman referred to the House Republican budget a couple times. Just to remind my colleagues that the House Republican budget claims to balance in 10 years. It also claims to get rid of all the Affordable Care Act. all of ObamaCare. but the reality is it has over $2 trillion in revenues and savings from the Affordable Care Act. Here is what The Heritage Foundation had to say about the budget: Perhaps the biggest shortcoming of this budget is that it keeps the tax increases associated with ObamaCare. So our Republican colleagues keep saying their budget balances in 10 years. then they keep saying they are repealing all of Affordable Care Act. Both things cannot be true. Now. what is true about the House Republican budget is the priorities it reflects. and. once again. it protects and rigs special interests tax breaks for very powerful groups at the expense of the rest of the country. Yes. as I indicated earlier. the President has proposed that we get rid of some of the tax breaks that actually have a perverse incentive for companies to ship jobs overseas. to close those tax breaks. use that revenue to invest in our infrastructure and help power our economy right here at home. From a Republican colleagues perspective. oh. no. you cant cut one special interest tax break. not for hedge fund owners. not for Big Oil companies. No. no. you cant do that. But you know what you can do? You can come after the senior prescription drug benefit by reopening the doughnut hole. costing seniors another $1.200 a month. You can come after our kids education. You can charge college students higher interest to raise about $40 billion. higher interest while they are still in school. before they get a job. You can do all that. but. hey. hands off the big special interests. So I am glad that the previous speaker reminded us exactly what this Republican budget does I reserve the balance of my time.
Date: 2014-04-09
Speaker: AL GREEN (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Speaker. today I was unavoidably detained and missed the following votes: 1. Mulvaney Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute. Had I been present. I would have voted "no" on this bill. 2. Moore Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute. Had I been present. I would have voted "yes" on this bill. 3. Grijalva Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute. Had I been present. I would have voted "yes" on this bill. 4. H.R. 4414Expatriate Health Coverage Clarification Act of 2014. Had I been present. I would have voted "no" on this bill.
Date: 2014-04-10
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Madam Chairman. I claim the time in opposition to the gentlemans amendment. The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Maryland is recognized for 15 minutes.
Date: 2014-04-10
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Madam Chairman. what we have got here with this particular amendment is more than a doubling down on what was already a bad idea. We heard. actually. from Mr. ROGERS. who is the chairman of the Appropriations Committee and a Republican Member of Congress. that the Republican version of the budget offered by Mr. RYAN was "draconian"-draconian because of the impact it has on important investments that have historically helped make our economy grow. make us a world leader. make sure that we can keep our competitive edge in a global economy. The Republican budget coming out of the Budget Committee devastated those important investments. Of course. they didnt close one single special interest tax loophole for the purpose of reducing the deficit. but they decided to cut deeply into investments in our kids education. everything from early education. to K12. to college ed. They make no secret about it. They want to charge college students higher interest rates and. at the same time. protect special interest tax breaks. What we have here in the Republican Study Committees amendment is simply a doubling down on what the chairman of the Republican Appropriations Committee already called draconian. The interesting thing to me. Madam Chairman. is that I would have thought that the Republican Study Committee would have taken a different approach. I would have thought they would have taken an approach that didnt require. as part of their budget. the revenues from the Affordable Care Act. but if you look at their revenue line. it is identical to the revenue line in the House Republican budget. which is identical to the Congressional Budget Offices revenue line. which The Heritage Foundationno leftleaning grouphas said means that these budgets incorporate the tax revenues from the Affordable Care Act. Again. here is what The Heritage Foundation said: Perhaps the biggest shortcoming of this budget is that it keeps the tax increases associated with ObamaCare. It is what they have said about the House Republican budgets revenue line. This one has the same thing. If they are going to repeal the Affordable Care Act. as they say they will. that revenue line should go down. yet no matter how you cut it. Madam Chairman. the choices remain choices that we do not believe reflect the values and priorities of this country. which are of protecting those special interest tax breaks for very powerful interests while gutting important investments in our future. investments that have been proven historically to make the United States the leading economic power in the world. I reserve the balance of my time.
Date: 2014-04-10
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Madam Chairman. I yield myself such time as I may consume. The gentleman speaks about the importance of fiscal discipline and fiscal responsibility. and we agree. The question we have is: Why do they exempt from the whole practice of fiscal discipline all of these what are called tax expenditures and tax preferences that have been put into the Tax Code many times by very powerful special interests? What does a tax preference mean? It means in many cases that. because somebody has wellheeled lobbyists. he is able to escape having to pay taxes on something that everybody else has to pay for. What our Republican colleagues are saying is they dont want to take away any of those special interest preferences for the purpose of reducing the deficit. They would rather cut deeply into our kids education. They would rather charge college students more interest on their loans. They would rather increase class sizes in K12. which is what happens when you cut Title I and special education. They talk about opportunity. but the opportunities that they are protecting are those for the special interests who had their lobbyists do very well for them in Washington. Hey. hands off all of that. We dont want to touch that. But we are coming after everybody else. including. by the way. seniors on Medicare who will immediately see the reopening of the doughnut hole. So if you are a senior with high prescription drug costs. that is going to cost you $1.200 more per year. on average. immediately. And then they begin to phase in in their budget their Medicare voucher program. which will end the Medicare guarantee. This is all about priorities. The interesting thing here is that. despite all the talk about fiscal discipline from our Republican colleagues. it is hands off imposing any fiscal discipline on powerful special interests who have succeeded in getting themselves special deals in the Tax Code. I am very pleased to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California . chairman of the Democratic Caucus and a member of the Ways and Means Committee. who has spent a lot of time focusing on these issues.
Date: 2014-04-10
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. it is now my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Florida . a distinguished member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and someone who is focused on investing in America.
Date: 2014-04-10
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. I reserve the balance of my time. The Acting CHAIR. The Committee will rise informally. The Speaker pro tempore assumed the chair.
Date: 2014-04-10
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman. it would be great if we could all believe in magic. The gentleman says that their budget closes all the tax loopholes. No tax loopholes. In fact. he says theirs is the only budget that terminates the Tax Code all together. gets rid of it. That is interesting because. if you look at the revenue levels coming in under his budget. it is identical to the current Tax Code. every year. exactly as the Congressional Budget Office says. dollar for dollar. In fact. I think he said he got rid of it in fiscal year 2017 or so. But. gee. the dollars keep rolling in just as they would be if you didnt get rid of the Tax Code. And you know why? Because they dont close any of the special interest tax breaks. It is the status quo in terms of the revenue coming in. If we were. in fact. going to close some of those special interest tax breaks. so that we could reduce our deficits. then you wouldnt have those numbers that they have got in their budget resolution. Now. look. we all agree that we need to impose fiscal discipline. The question all along has been. how do we do it? Do we do it in a way where we share responsibility as Americans. or do we do it in a way where some people dont have to pay anything. which means everybody else has to get hit that much harder? Under the Republican budget. and under this Republican study group budget even more. they protect the very wealthy. You are doing great. But at the expense of everybody else. So the gentleman talks about more funds for the National Institutes of Health. they more than double the cuts to the National Institutes of Health from the earlier budget we saw. which. again. I would just remind our colleagues. it was the Republican chairman of the Appropriations Committee who said that the House Republican budget is draconian. that one. That is from Mr. ROGERS. All right? So now this one is doubling down on draconian. And the question for us. as a country is. what are the consequences? What does that mean in peoples lives? Well. it means real things. It means less funds for Head Start and early Head Start. It means a big cut to K12 education. We have a bipartisan piece of legislation saying that Congress is already failing to meet our commitments to special ed. We asked local school jurisdictions to take on the responsibility. it was the right thing to do. to make sure every kid got a good education. That was the right thing to do. But these guys would cut that program. So this is the wrong choice for America. Mr. Chairman. I urge our colleagues to vote "no." and I yield back the balance of my time.
Date: 2014-04-10
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman I have an amendment at the desk. The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment. The text of the amendment is as follows: Strike all after the resolving clause and insert the following:
Date: 2014-04-10
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. this amendment reflects the priorities and values of the country. This amendment focuses on growing jobs now. making sure that we have a strong economy and making sure we significantly reduce our deficit and debt as a share of our economy over the longer term and does it in a balanced way. It does it by. for example. closing some of the special interest tax breaks that actually perversely encourage American corporations to ship American jobs overseas. We believe we should be in the business of shipping American products overseas. and this budget does invest in jobs right here at home. Unlike the House Republican budget. we dont allow the transportation trust fund to go insolvent later this summer. Unlike the House Republic budget. we do not make deep cuts in our kids education. We think it is important to build that ladder of opportunity. Unlike the Republican budget. we dont reopen the prescription drug doughnut hole and require seniors to pay more if they have high prescription drug costs. and we dont shred the social safety net. Mr. Chairman. I want to also bring to the attention of the body something else that is in here. We advance fund. 100 percent. the Veterans Administration. because what we saw during the unnecessary and unproductive government shutdown last fall was that the closure began to put at risk the benefits that were being paid to our veterans. Now. we already provide for the advance funding of those health care benefits. but what we dont fund in advance are the people who have to administer them to make sure that they are delivered to our veterans on time. So we are very pleased to have a letter here from the DAV and other veterans groups that strongly support this provision in our budget. It is something that they have been requesting. I just want to read one of the paragraphs: We would like to commend you for presenting an alternate budget proposal that contains a provision for advance appropriations to all VA discretionary programs and services. a critically needed reform that is universally supported by veterans organizations and is DAVs number one priority. So whether it is veterans. whether it is our kids education. or whether it is making our commitment to our seniors. we choose to make sure that we fund the priorities of the country and we dont keep offlimits tax preferences for the powerful and the privileged. I reserve the balance of my time.
Date: 2014-04-10
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. the gentleman is right that we do close some special interest tax breaks. but we also have about $400 billion in revenue from progrowth immigration reform which is in this budget. which at least some of our colleagues on the Republican side recognize as a good thing. In fact. the Congressional Budget Office has told us that one thing we could do right now to get the economy moving faster would be to pass comprehensive. bipartisan immigration reform. In fact. they say it will help reduce the deficit by close to $1 trillion over the next 20 years and generate some economic activity. So $400 billion in that revenue is from more economic activity. the kind of progrowth activity we thought our Republican colleagues liked. I am now very pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from California . a distinguished member of the Budget Committee. who has been focused on trying to make sure everybody in America gets a fair shake.
Date: 2014-04-10
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. I find this newfound ideology of having to hit a particular target at a particular time interesting since 3 years ago the Republican budget balanced maybe around the year 2040. And this year. it doesnt balance if you also claim to be getting rid of the Affordable Care Act. because you have $2 trillion in revenue in savings in this Republican budget from the Affordable Care Act. the same Affordable Care Act you say you are getting rid of. You just cant have both things true at the same time. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington . someone who knows a little bit about logic. a distinguished member of the Budget Committee.
Date: 2014-04-10
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. look. our Republican colleagues are going to have to choose and tell the American people. either they claim to have a budget that balances in 10 years or they are going to repeal the Affordable Care Act. But right now because they get rid of the entire Affordable Care Act. including the revenues and savings. they dont come close to balancing. I keep hearing balance. and the reality is that it has all that revenue from the Affordable Care Act. The one thing we know is that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says the Republican budget will slow down the economy in the next couple years. Ours wont. in part because we make investments in our infrastructure. At this time I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon . who is focused on making sure that this country has the modern infrastructure it needs. the ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee.
Date: 2014-04-10
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. what we know is old and stale and doesnt work is trickle down economics. The idea you just give the folks at the very top a little bit bigger tax break and somehow it is going to benefit everybody else didnt work and made the deficit go up. Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Minnesota . a member of the Finance Committee.
Date: 2014-04-10
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman I am now pleased to yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from Michigan . a terrific new member of the Budget Committee.
Date: 2014-04-10
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. may I inquire as to how much time is remaining. The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Maryland has 33/4 minutes remaining. The gentleman from Wisconsin has 612 minutes remaining.
Date: 2014-04-10
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. I yield myself 4 minutes. Mr. Chairman. I want to start by joining the chairman of the committee and thanking both the Democratic and Republican staff of the Budget Committee for their hard work and submit. for the RECORD. their names.
Date: 2014-04-10
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I was unavoidably detained today and missed roll Nos. 175 through 177. Had I been present. I would have voted "yea" on roll No. 176. I would have voted "nay" on roll Nos. 175 and 177.
Date: 2014-04-28
Speaker: JACKSON LEE (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Speaker. there were a number of votes that I SAFE CLIMATE CAUCUS missed because I was unavoidably de- (Mr. PETERS of California asked and tained for the memorial services at was given permission to address the Fort Hood. Texas. on April 9. 2014. and House for 1 minute.) for honoring President Lyndon Baines Mr. PETERS of California. Mr. Johnson on April 10. 2014. Speaker. I rise today as a member of Had I been present. I would have the Safe Climate Caucus to highlight voted as follows: an important program for resiliency On rollcall vote No. 171. the sub- and preparedness. stitute amendment of Mulvaney. I Americas PrepareAthon! is taking would have voted "no." place this Wednesday as a reminder to On rollcall vote No. 172. which in- communities across the country that volved the budget resolution on the while we hope for the best. we must Congressional Black Caucus budget. I prepare for the worst. would have voted "yes." In California. 1.108 wildfires have On rollcall vote No. 173 on the Pro- been reported this yearwell above the gressive Caucus budget. I would have yeartodate average. In 2003 and 2007. voted "yes." wildfires devastated communities in On rollcall vote No. 174 on the Expa- the San Diego region. especially affecttriate Health Coverage Clarification ing the 52nd District communities of Act. I would have voted "no." Scripps Ranch. Tierrasanta. Rancho On rollcall vote No. 175 on the Bernardo. and Poway and claiming 29 Woodall of Georgia substitute budget lives. amendment. I would have voted "no." On rollcall vote No. 176. the Demo- The PrepareAthon! is a national day cratic alternative for Mr. VAN HOLLEN. to refocus our attention on emergency I would have voted "yes." planning and resiliency. as well as exOn rollcall vote No. 177. the Repub- ercises and drills that can save lives in lican fiscal year 2015 budget resolution a disaster. Last year. I introduced the of Mr. RYAN. I would have voted "no." bipartisan STRONG Act to equip comThis concludes the votes that I munities. State and local governments missed due to the memorial at Fort with better information and data on Hood and the honoring of President preparedness so we dont reinvent the Lyndon Baines Johnson. wheel with every disaster. While there is debate in this Chamber about climate change. there isnt HONORING THE LIFE OF FAITH. among scientists. We must prepare our GRACE. AND ACHIEVEMENT OF communities. families. and businesses SISTER FRANCESCA ONLEY for the hurricanes. more powerful