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Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate you being down with me here tonight. It took me awhile to get my materials over here because the topic I have tonight is the topic of what this House has been doing to make a difference in the life of families across this country. That is the good news. I have to confess, I am here with good news/bad news tonight.
This is the stack of bills that this House has passed, again, to make a difference in the lives of families, to makes a difference in small businesses, to grow the economy, to create jobs, the bills this House has passed collaboratively that sit collecting dust in the United States Senate. That is the bad news part of tonight.
It is fair enough if folks think this process is broken. It is fair enough if folks think there is too much partisanship in Washington, but what we have here are the successes. What we have here are not the hypothetical ``if only'' bills. What we have here are the bills that have actually left this House and sit in the United States Senate. It is 356 bills, Mr. Speaker, 356 bills that have left this House that sit collecting dust in the Senate. We did a hashtag, Mr. Speaker: #StuckInTheSenate. We all remember, ``I am just a bill sitting on Capitol Hill,'' that Saturday morning cartoon. This is not a dictatorship. We had that conversation a little bit earlier this afternoon. It is not a dictatorship. It is a collaborative effort, and the House has collaborated to pass over 356 bills that have gone to the Senate to do nothing.
Now, again, it is good news/bad news day. Let me start with something that is good news, because if folks don't believe there is opportunity for success, I could imagine how folks would give up, not just folks here in this Chamber, but folks across the country, families across the country.
This, Mr. Speaker, you may remember it, H.R. 803, the Workplace Innovation and Opportunity Act. This passed the House. It passed the Senate. It was signed by the President. This has become law. This was a bill to consolidate a variety of workplace training programs. We talk so much about a trained workforce, how it is we get Americans who may be transitioning in their life, are transitioning home from Iraq or Afghanistan, transitioning from an industry that is in decline to an industry that is growing, how do we get those folks trained.
I credit Dr. Virginia Foxx with this. She is one of my colleagues here in the House. I serve with her on the Rules Committee, but she also serves on the Education and the Workforce Committee. She has been working to try to consolidate programs, take money from programs that were not effective and move the money to programs that were effective. Imagine that. Imagine that. Here she is, a conservative Republican, and what she was trying to do was take money from places that weren't working and put it into places where it would make a difference for moms and dads and kids. And she did it. She did it.
Now, what we passed out of the House was strong, Mr. Speaker. We went out and we found every single program that was failing in America and we brought them together and put them into a single pot and sent it over to the Senate. The Senate said: No, we don't think all of those programs are failing. We don't want to move that big of a package. We want to do something smaller. They ended up consolidating about half of what we consolidated in the House.
But guess what. When you elect Rob Woodall dictator, then I get to have it my way every day. Until then, this is a collaborative effort here: the House, the Senate, and the President.
So we worked with the Senate, and we worked out our differences. We found that package of consolidation that we could all live with, and we sent it to the President and we got a signature. That is what the American people expect. That is what my constituents expect. They expect us to work together to get things done, not sacrificing principle, not compromising on values, but finding consensus because we all agree that American workers need help. We all agree that moms and dads in transition need to find a better way to feed their families.
We can spend tax dollars better. We found a way to do that here. I call it common sense, Mr. Speaker. It is not supposed to take a rocket scientist to sort some of these issues out. It is supposed to be common sense.
Did I mention #StuckInTheSenate, Mr. Speaker? If I didn't, I want to mention it right now because here is one that really gets me.
We were just talking about hiring more moms and dads. It is called the Hire More Heroes Act. Do you remember it, Mr. Speaker? We passed it out of this House with over 400 votes. Now, young high school students, middle school students, they might not know how many Members there are in the House. There are 435 Members in this House, and more than 400 of them said we should pass the Hire More Heroes bill, but it is stuck in the Senate. Over 400 folks voted ``yes,'' only one voted ``no,'' so I don't want to hear about bipartisanship in the House. I don't want to hear about Republican this and Democratic that.
Mr. Speaker, 400-plus folks said let's pass this bill. I will tell you what it does. The Hire More Heroes Act says one of the highest rates of unemployment we have in this country are men and women in uniform coming home from overseas. It says that we have small employers in this country, and as you know, Mr. Speaker, most of the employment in this country is not driven by the big guys. It is driven by small employers. We heard from small employers in this country who said: I want to hire those veterans, but I am worried about that 50-employee threshold that throws me into this brand-new round of ObamaCare regulations.
Guess what this House did, Mr. Speaker. More than 400 out of 435 got together and they said, if you are a small business owner in America and you want to put unemployed veterans to work but you don't because you are worried about some Federal Government regulation dealing with ObamaCare, we will waive that regulation for you. Hire all of the veterans you want to, and be not afraid of Federal Government regulation.
Think about that. Think about that. It is what I think about. It is why I ran
for Congress. It is why my friends on the other side of the aisle ran for Congress. We came to make a difference--to make a difference. Who among us doesn't want to see unemployed veterans get a job? Who among us doesn't want to see small businesses succeed? We came together, more than 400 of us, to pass the Hire More Heroes Act, but it is stuck in the Senate.
Why? Why? Over 400 of us, almost every Democrat--we lost one--but every Republican, almost every one of us voted ``yes'' to make a difference for small businesses, get them the labor that they need and make a difference for veterans looking for a job.
That was a good bill, Mr. Speaker, and still is, and it is stuck in the Senate. It is not stuck because we can't come to agreement on it, Mr. Speaker. It is not stuck because Republicans are intransigent. It is stuck because the Senate can't get these bills moving.
Mr. Speaker, I am not asking folks to just come together and do what I want them to do. What I am talking about are things that we are celebrating in this institution. I am not talking about things that squeaked through by the skin of their teeth. I am not talking about Republican proposals that we jammed through with the might of the majority. I am talking about commonsense proposals that make a difference in people's lives.
I will give you another one. How about H.R. 4414, Mr. Speaker? It is the Expatriate Health Coverage Clarification Act of 2014. That doesn't sound very exciting, does it? And you know what, it is not very exciting for about 99 percent of Americans. But for Americans who have to work overseas and who have seen their health insurance policies canceled, quadrupled in price, folks who have struggled to find coverage, what this says is, if you don't live in America but you are working for an American company, really, you can sort out your insurance needs on your own over there. If you don't live in America, you don't have to comply with all these needs because--guess what--if you are doing business in London, the health care system is different in England.
If you are doing business in Paris, the health care system is different in France. If you are doing business in Moscow, the health care system is different in Russia. The rules we passed here won't work in those places. It is commonsense.
Had we not jammed that bill through Congress, that Affordable Care Act, maybe we would have gotten to that, but I don't know. It is a small group of people.
We passed a solution--let's look--269-150. I dare say those folks who voted ``no'' wouldn't say they opposed the policy, they would say they just thought it was a symbol of undermining ObamaCare in some way, they didn't want to undermine the President. I say nonsense about undermining the President. I want to make a difference in the lives of families.
Ninety-two days, Mr. Speaker, 92 days this bill has been sitting in the Senate.
Now, that is a minor piece of legislation, Mr. Speaker, that could make a big impact, but for a small number of people. What about things that make a big impact for a large number of people? What about those things?
The REINS Act, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 367, the REINS Act says--and it is a crazy bill, I will confess--it says before you pass a regulation, you need to consider the economic impact of that regulation. Now, while that is commonsense back home in Atlanta, it may seem crazy here in Washington, D.C.
Before you pass a regulation, weigh the pros and the cons to see if it is a good idea or not, weigh those pros and the cons. It is a REINS Act because we are just out of control here with regulation and we need to have a thoughtful conversation about it.
H.R. 1105, the Small Business Capital Access and Job Preservation Act. Trying to find ways for our small businesses to get access to the capital they need in what have been incredibly tight credit markets.
H.R. 2374, the Retail Investor Protection Act.
Time and time again, Mr. Speaker, we are passing bills--they are all here, they are all sitting on Harry Reid's desk over in the Senate--passing bills in an effort to make a difference in people's lives. If it didn't matter, we wouldn't be interested in doing it. I don't have a bill in this stack that is about making a political statement. I don't have a bill in this stack that is about trying to be one up on the other guy, trying to embarrass somebody, trying to call somebody out. What I have in this stack--did I mention there are 356 bills in this stack?--what I have in this stack are bills that could make a difference to a struggling economy today--today. I say today. These bills passed a week ago, a month ago, a year ago or more. They could make a difference. They are #StuckInTheSenate--356 bills.
I have got the great honor tonight, Mr. Speaker--I am not alone in this endeavor, haven't been alone in passing 356 bills. It has been a team sport from day one, team sport from day one--Republicans, Democrats, folks from the North, folks from the South, folks representing families from across the country.
Tonight, I have got Mr. Rothfus here, an 18-month Member of this institution, who came, I wager, not to make a point, but to make a difference, and has been doing that every day he has been in this Chamber.
I would be happy to yield to the gentleman.
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Mr. WOODALL. I would like to ask the gentleman if he would stay just 1 more minute. I see you are down here with three lovely young women from the next generation of Americans. When they grow up, they are going to be the leaders of this country.
You mentioned energy in your presentation. I have got to be honest with you, I didn't come to deal with those big issues that are sometimes amorphous. I came to deal with the issues that make a difference in families' lives today, tomorrow, and in the next generation.
We talk about energy, we talk about streamlining production, we talk about the Keystone pipeline, but I live in Georgia. We are not drilling any wells in Georgia. I can't tell much of a difference at the price of the pump. I don't have that many families who say: This is going to make a difference in my pocketbook, this is going to make a difference for a job right here in Atlanta, Georgia. But you come from a different part of the country.
Can you see the difference that these bills make, not from a Republican/Democrat partisan perspective, but from a real world difference, real dollars in families' pockets back home?
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Mr. WOODALL. The gentleman said it so well. This isn't about one person. This isn't about one Chamber. This isn't about one part of the government. We are all in this together. Families in western Pennsylvania and families in north Georgia are in this together. We will rise or fall as a Nation together.
I go back to what you said when you first took the well. There are so many awful stories about Washington, D.C., and the way that we work together. Some of them are true, and many of them are just lore, but I believe you said--and my staff handed it to me after you said it--that about 254 of the 356 bills that are stuck in the Senate passed this House either unanimously or with more than two-thirds of the Members voting in favor of them.
I don't know everything about western Pennsylvania, but I know you don't get elected to Congress there because you are interested in propounding wild views that make no difference to people. You get elected there because you care about people and you want to do the things that matter. You know who the boss is, and it is those folks back home.
When I think that about this stack of bills, it would be so easy for people to dismiss it as: well, those are those crazy Republican ideas, and this is just some sort of political stunt.
How many times have we heard that it is a political stunt? Why are those guys talking about those bills? It is because of what you said. Sixty of these bills introduced by Democrats passed this Chamber, and 254 of these bills stuck in the Senate passed with two-thirds of us coming together--or more--to send them over to the Senate.
We have an obligation to work together. The answer to the question is that, after 434 days, the Senate hasn't said no. The Senate hasn't said: we have a better idea, so we will send this back to you. The Senate didn't say: you are focused on the wrong pathway; let's look at a different route approval.
The Senate did nothing.
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Mr. WOODALL. I thank my friend for focusing on those commonsense points.
Again, when I open up the newspaper, what I hear is it is about partisan nonsense and it is about election-year politics. When we are talking about over 350 bills and we are talking about 60 of those bills being introduced by Democrats, but passed with Democrat and Republican support here in the House, when we are talking about 250 of those bills being passed with more than a two-thirds vote--many of those unanimously--what it tells me is we are not in the business of trying to make a point.
We are in the business of trying to make a difference, and if we had a willing partner in the Senate, we could absolutely make that difference.
I yield to my friend from Indiana, a former secretary of State, which has you in the executive side of things. You actually had to be responsible for getting things done. I guess that is my frustration with the Senate.
I just need somebody to stand up and be a partner and take responsibility for moving a few of these things forward, trying to make a difference in people's lives.
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Mr. WOODALL. It is a ``we'' question. I thank my friend. There are folks who get wrapped up in the partisan issues of the day, and there are those folks who have committed themselves to finding willing partners wherever those partners may be.
What I have seen of you in our 3 years of working together is that you came here to do things that mattered, and whoever you have to partner with and however late you have to work and however early you have to get up--whatever you have to do--if this job is worth doing, it is because it is making a difference in people's lives, and I am grateful to you for that.
It may be a Midwestern values night. I have got the gentleman from Indiana, and I have been joined by a gentleman from Illinois, who has also been a true champion, Mr. Speaker. You didn't have the great pleasure of coming in with this big freshman class of 2010, but what was so neat about it to me was that, in showing up to freshman orientation, I met these two guys for the very first time, and I met my new Democratic colleagues for the very first time.
Truthfully, when we talked about why we came here, I couldn't tell the difference between the two because the American people sent a crowd of folks here to do the things that mattered, and we have partnered to do those.
The gentleman from Illinois is one of those great partners, and I would be happy to yield.
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Mr. WOODALL. I thank my friend. It is exactly that commitment to working together to make a difference that I think folks long for in this place. And it is exactly what you have there, H.R. 803, the Workplace Innovation Act. It is true. That is one of our success stories.
But you first came to the floor to support that in March of 2013. The reason we are able to call this a success is because the Senate finally got around to dealing with it in June of 2014--over a year. It could have been making a difference in people's lives.
I am thrilled that now we are making that difference, but we wasted a year. And the family that you talked about, a family struggling to try to decide what tomorrow is going to look like, doesn't have a year to wait.
The Internet Tax Freedom bill you discussed just came out of this body this summer. That is something the Senate could take up immediately. As you said, it came out of here with wild bipartisan support. It could begin to make a difference tomorrow--tomorrow.
I am happy to yield to my friend.
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Mr. WOODALL. I thank my friend. He is such a great leader. Bringing voices together is that skill set that sometimes this institution lacks, and he has it in spades.
As I close tonight, Mr. Speaker, I just want to make it clear, this isn't a partisan stunt. This isn't Republican machinations. 356 bills sit in the Senate right now that, if the Senate moved them, could begin to make a difference in the lives of American families.
I want to tell you about those bills: 98 percent of them passed with a bipartisan vote. 98 percent of these bills passed with a bipartisan vote. 254 of these bills passed with either no opposition or two-thirds support. Almost 200, no opposition at all; 60 introduced by my Democratic colleagues.
Making a difference for America is not a partisan exercise, Mr. Speaker, but it is a sacred trust. I am so proud of this House for moving forward on these bills to make a difference. I know that we can work together to encourage Harry Reid to do the same. I know our friends across the country, the bosses of the United States Senate, can encourage the Senate to do the same.
This country is thirsty for leadership. I am proud of my colleagues on both sides of the House for providing it. I look forward to partnering with the Senate and the President to move these bills into that difference-making position for those families across this country.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.