Providing for Consideration of H.R. Department of Defense Appropriations Act, Providing for Consideration of H.R. Unlocking Our Domestic Lng Potential Act of and Providing for Consideration of H.Res. Condemning the Actions of Governor of New Mexico, Michelle Lujan Grisham, for Subverting the Second Amendment to the Constitution and Depriving the Citizens of New Mexico of Their Right to Bear Arms

Floor Speech

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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 712 and ask for its immediate consideration.

The Clerk read the resolution, as follows: H. Res. 712

Resolved, That at any time after adoption of this resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 4365) making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, and for other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations or their respective designees. After general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. The bill shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill are waived.

Sec. 2. (a) No amendment to the bill shall be in order except those printed in part A of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution, amendments en bloc described in section 3 of this resolution, and pro forma amendments described in section 4 of this resolution.

(b) Each amendment printed in part A of the report of the Committee on Rules shall be considered only in the order printed in the report, may be offered only by a Member designated in the report, shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for the time specified in the report equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, shall not be subject to amendment except as provided by section 4 of this resolution, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question in the House or in the Committee of the Whole.

(c) All points of order against amendments printed in part A of the report of the Committee on Rules or against amendments en bloc described in section 3 of this resolution are waived.

Sec. 3. It shall be in order at any time for the chair of the Committee on Appropriations or her designee to offer amendments en bloc consisting of amendments printed in part A of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution not earlier disposed of. Amendments en bloc offered pursuant to this section shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for 20 minutes equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations or their respective designees, shall not be subject to amendment except as provided by section 4 of this resolution, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question in the House or in the Committee of the Whole.

Sec. 4. During consideration of the bill for amendment, the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations or their respective designees may offer up to 10 pro forma amendments each at any point for the purpose of debate.

Sec. 5. At the conclusion of consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee shall rise and report the bill to the House with such amendments as may have been adopted. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit.

Sec. 6. At any time after adoption of this resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 1130) to repeal restrictions on the export and import of natural gas. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce or their respective designees. After general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. The amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on Energy and Commerce now printed in the bill shall be considered as adopted in the House and in the Committee of the Whole. The bill, as amended, shall be considered as the original bill for the purpose of further amendment under the five-minute rule and shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill, as amended, are waived. No further amendment to the bill, as amended, shall be in order except those printed in part B of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution. Each such further amendment may be offered only in the order printed in the report, may be offered only by a Member designated in the report, shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for the time specified in the report equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, shall not be subject to amendment, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question in the House or in the Committee of the Whole. All points of order against such further amendments are waived. At the conclusion of consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee shall rise and report the bill, as amended, to the House with such further amendments as may have been adopted. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill, as amended, and on any further amendment thereto to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit.

Sec. 7. Upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in order without intervention of any point of order to consider in the House the resolution (H. Res. 684) condemning the actions of Governor of New Mexico, Michelle Lujan Grisham, for subverting the Second Amendment to the Constitution and depriving the citizens of New Mexico of their right to bear arms. The resolution shall be considered as read. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the resolution and preamble to adoption without intervening motion or demand for division of the question except one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary or their respective designees.

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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), the ranking member of the Rules Committee, pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, last night the Rules Committee met and reported out a rule, House Resolution 712, providing for consideration of H.R. 4365, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2024, under a structured rule.

It provides 1 hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations or their respective designees. It also makes in order 184 amendments, more than 75 percent of those eligible for consideration. Finally, it provides for one motion to recommit.

The rule also makes in order H.R. 1130, the Unlocking our Domestic LNG Potential Act of 2023 under a structured rule. It provides for 1 hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce or their respective designees. It provides for one motion to recommit.

Finally, the rule makes in order H. Res. 684 under a closed rule. It provides 1 hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary or their respective designees.

I rise today, Madam Speaker, in support of the rule and the underlying legislation.

Madam Speaker, as Members are aware, the House has previously debated an identical rule covering H.R. 4365. This was a fulsome and passionate debate, and I said most of what was needed to be said from my point of view during that debate, but I will make a few key points about this bill again now.

The bill before us provides full funding for our national defense. It appropriates $826 billion in new discretionary spending, which is a modest increase of $300 million over the President's budget request of nearly $29 billion or 3.6 percent over the FY 2023 enacted level.

Madam Speaker, this truly is a good bill, one that I think the House can and should be proud of. It makes appropriate investments in the military and ensures that dollars are being directed where they are needed the most. It invests heavily in our servicemembers, providing them with a 5.2 percent pay raise. It provides continued funding for new advanced weapons systems, ensuring that the military has the force it needs to confront any foe anywhere in the world at any time, and it continues to expand the Navy to protect the freedom of the seas and invests heavily in Asia and the Pacific theater where China continues to expand its own military might in anticipation of a confrontation with the United States and our allies.

Madam Speaker, providing funding for our national defense is both Congress' privilege and its responsibility. In order for our brave men and women in uniform to do their jobs, Congress must do its job. Today, we can take that first step toward doing so.

The rule also provides for consideration of H.R. 1130, the Unlocking our Domestic LNG Potential Act of 2023. This bill removes regulatory barriers for the construction and licensing of new liquid natural gas or LNG import and export terminals.

Madam Speaker, when the Republican majority took over in January, we committed to unleashing America's energy potential. For too long, regulatory roadblocks and active hostility of the Biden administration have made it difficult to expand production of America's abundant energy resources, but despite the Biden administration's hostility, America is today the top producer of natural gas in the world.

From my home State of Oklahoma, this is not an academic point. Oklahoma is the fifth largest natural gas producing State in the country, with nearly 350,000 jobs in the State tied directly to natural gas production. It is a critical part of my home State's economy.

In recent years, innovation and new technology have revolutionized and expanded the production of natural gas, both in Oklahoma and in the United States as a whole. The people of my district are very proud to be part of that revolution. There is still more to be done, and the passage of H.R. 1130 will help make it easier, cheaper, and quicker to bring new LNG export terminals online.

It is no exaggeration to say that American natural gas is a critical part of the world's energy mix, particularly in Europe, which previously sourced much of its natural gas from Russia, and we are capable of achieving more. The end result will be a strong future for us as we create more high-paying jobs and maintain America's energy independence and a strong future for our friends and allies around the world who can source their energy needs from us rather than from vicious dictators like Vladimir Putin.

Madam Speaker, all in all, this is a strong bill, one that I am certainly proud to support.

Finally, the rule makes in order H. Res. 684, which condemns New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham for her executive order attempting to subvert the Second Amendment rights of New Mexico's citizens.

As Members are aware, earlier this month, Governor Grisham issued an executive order purporting to suspend the right of New Mexicans to open and concealed carry of firearms. Governor Grisham claimed that this was necessary in order to deal with a public health emergency.

Of course, this claim is patently absurd, and there is not now, nor has there ever been, a public health emergency and exception for constitutional rights. The right of Americans to bear arms is protected by the Second Amendment to the Constitution, and a constitutional right cannot be subverted at the whim of an elected official.

Last week, a Federal judge in New Mexico agreed and issued a restraining order blocking implementation of this patently unconstitutional order.

Governor Grisham has rightly received condemnation on a bipartisan basis for her actions. H. Res. 684 will give all Members of Congress an opportunity to do so officially and on the record.

It is always appropriate for the House to take time to reaffirm our values as a country and to protect the constitutional rights that form the foundation of our Republic.

Indeed, I urge all Members to do so and speak with one voice, reminding all Americans that when it comes to their constitutional rights, the House of Representatives has their back.

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

Madam Speaker, I would again return my friend's compliments. I enjoy working with him on the Rules Committee. We have been there together a long time. There is nobody I have a higher professional and personal regard for than my good friend.

Now honestly, Madam Speaker, I wish I had his talent for colorful rhetoric. I particularly like the ``Groundhog Day'' reference. I remind my friend, while there are some similarities, the movie had a happy ending. Everybody learned some lessons and they got to where they needed to be. I think we may be involved in a process something like that.

I disagree with my friend that the issues being brought up in this bill are trivial. Defending the United States of America is not a trivial thing. You can agree or disagree with the bill, and I will talk about that in a minute. That is fair enough. I don't consider that trivial.

Providing natural gas in abundance and at modest prices to Americans and having that resource to deal with our adversaries overseas, who often use energy as a weapon, and to be able to provide for our friends and allies reliable energy is not a trivial matter. It is an extraordinarily important matter.

The 10 million Americans that work in the domestic energy industry think what we are doing here is the right thing to do. I don't consider their interests and their views trivial. I am just very privileged to represent many people that have that point of view and are involved in that particular profession.

Finally, I don't consider standing up for the Second Amendment a trivial thing. We have a Governor that issued an order that a Federal judge immediately overturned and Democrats in New Mexico condemned-- elected Democrats, law enforcement officials. It is actually one of the areas that is usually a contentious issue that we had really strong bipartisan agreement. We think it is important to make my point.

My friends have a different point of view. That is fair enough. Just express it, and we will move on. Again, we don't consider defense of the Constitution to be trivial.

I agree with my friend about a number of things, and we have had this discussion, frankly, as friends in the Rules Committee.

I agree with him about shutdowns. I do not think it is an appropriate tactic, and I hope that we are able to avoid one. There will be an appropriate time, I am sure, when we discuss with our friends how to do that, but we need a negotiating position. We are working toward that, and we hope we will get there.

Believe me, I am well aware that we have a Democratic Senate. This House has done wonderful work on things like H.R. 1 to deal with energy, H.R. 2 to deal with our border. We send them over there and they are never picked up, never heard of again unless we can snatch pieces out of them here or there and attach them to one of these broader agreements, as we were able to do on the debt ceiling crisis over permitting of facilities, both for renewable and nonrenewable energy.

Again, it is a difficult legislative process, and I agree it is going to be complicated, but our goal is to get to the same place; that is, to make sure that the government is funded, and also, that we advance shared values that we have and have an open and honest discussion with the United States Senate. When we do that, we have been able to find some agreement.

My friend likes to point out--all my Democratic friends like to point out regularly--well, gosh, why are you passing appropriations bills that are less than to the letter agreed on? Well, gee whiz, where I come from, if you can do something for less money, that is usually a good thing to do. I am never going to apologize. If we see a different way to get to a policy objective that costs less money, that is a good thing to do.

Now, I know when we discussed this last night, the Senate is consistently appropriating above the agreed-upon number. All the appropriations bills, or pretty much all of them that they have dealt with so far, are at higher levels. So guess what? We will get into negotiation. My guess is they will come down some. We will come up some, and we will find some sort of common deal. That is just the way politics work. I am never going to be critical of my colleagues for trying to do something cheaper and save money.

I remind my friend of the condition in which the Democratic majority left our fiscal finances. We are running a $1.7 trillion deficit this year. That is bigger than all the discretionary budget of the United States of America. We have not had a Democratic President submit a budget that comes into balance--not in a decade, but ever, since Bill Clinton.

President Obama never did. President Biden never has. I don't think any future Democrat will.

We used to have Democrats in the 1990s that we disagreed with, that we fought, but they said, well, let's try to get to a balanced budget within 10 years, and they managed to do that.

My friends have basically abdicated that debate. They just let it go on and on out to infinity. Even President Trump submitted budgets that within a decade came into balance. I didn't always agree with some of the decisions. I don't think either party has done a very good job.

My friend and I have had this discussion in dealing with the real drivers of debt: that is mandatory spending; that is Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. We need to have that debate. I hope the Presidential contest has it. I note at least some of the discussions we have been having in our caucus talk about having a debt commission attached to some of this, so perhaps we can make some modest steps.

My friends heard me talk about my Social Security bill, which is really modeled after what was done in 1983 by Ronald Reagan, Tip O'Neill, and Howard Baker working together, a commission, then Congress voting--including, by the way, the President of the United States at that time who liked commissions, voting for the commission, for the deal, and it worked. It improved the fiscal solvency of the country. It extended the life of Social Security, a program I know that we both support.

Again, you may think these are trivial issues. We don't. We think we have a long process in front of us. These are steps in the right direction on the appropriate end that won't be enough.

Madam Speaker, the last point I will make--and my friend and I just disagree here--look, defense is a very different thing than any other part of the appropriations process. Most appropriations process is about things that are desirable and good.

I have worked pretty hard on cancer research, so my friend's points are well made there. I think those are valuable investments.

Defense is about threats. We had a peace dividend in the 1990s. You know why we had it? Because the Soviet Union had collapsed, and we could prudently save money in defense.

I will tell you right now, I would go higher than the number here; but if the number we have on defense is outrageous, your first call ought to be to the White House because it is basically the President's number. We actually pulled back from where our defense appropriators wanted to go and a lot of our defense hawks wanted to go because we did think addressing the horrific deficits that were inherited from the last Democratic era meant we even had to make sacrifices here.

I am not really comfortable with it, but it is a step in the right direction. We might not even had to have that if you hadn't, through reckless spending, unleashed the worst inflation in 40 years. I actually have a 40-year-old son. He had never seen anything like what happened in the Biden administration because of irresponsibly passing the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan and another $700 billion much- misnamed Inflation Reduction Act.

We inherited a mess. We inherited inflation. We inherited record deficits.

It is a pretty tough deal. My friends don't want to address it. Well, this majority is going to do its best to address those issues. We do struggle and disagree, and sometimes I get frustrated with some of my friends on my side of the aisle about tactics.

My colleague is right about one thing, and I will agree 100 percent. There is nothing wrong with it. It has 184 amendments. You can agree or disagree with the bill, but it is a good rule.

In my view, there is nothing wrong with the bill, other than I would like to have spent a little bit more money. Like any bill that spends this amount of money, everybody could do it a little bit differently.

People are trying to make other points unrelated to the bill, and I will agree with my friend that that is unfortunate. I don't think that is a good way to legislate. I think my colleagues should look at the legislation in front of them. If they agree with the rule, they ought to vote for it. If they disagree, it is fair enough to vote against it. However, if they agree with the basic bill, don't relate it to something else and try to use it as a weapon. We don't have many Members who do that, but we have a few.

As my friend knows, we have a very narrow majority. He has been here once or twice himself when they had narrow majorities. It is part of the legislative process. We will continue to work it.

My hope today is we will advance this rule. It will open the way to advance what I think is a good Defense appropriations bill, and we will continue to move legislatively as rapidly as we can. We will work and, at the appropriate time, I am sure, work across the rotunda with Democrats in the Senate and probably in this Chamber with some of my Democratic friends. Hopefully, we will avoid a government shutdown.

The most important thing today: Move the rule. Move the bill. That is what we are going to try to do.

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

I want to respond to some of my good friend from Pennsylvania's points, and some of them I agree with. I do think shutting down the government is not an appropriate tactic. We agree on that.

You know, linking them to election results is really an interesting exercise. The government shutdown that I think my friend thought was in 2011, if I am correct, and I may be wrong, was really the one in 2013. We actually picked up seats in 2014. I don't think that is why we picked up seats. My friends always forget that they shut down the government in 2017, and they won seats in 2018. So you can pretty much play these numbers however you want.

The important point, which my friend makes and I agree with, is that shutting down the government is bad for the American people. It is an abdication of our responsibility. It is something we should not do. I have never supported it in the past. I hope we manage to avoid one now. I think that is exactly what the Speaker is engaged in trying to accomplish, whether my friends agree with his methods or not.

I will tell you, I am mystified by this concern about the agreement. Again, we agreed on top-line numbers. We didn't say we are going to the top-line numbers. This is the top-line number, and if we can do it for less and persuade the Senate that that is a good idea, then I don't see that as a bad thing.

If my friends are concerned about keeping agreements, maybe they ought to call over to their friends in the United States Senate who are producing bill after bill that are above these numbers.

Guess what? I suspect each side is positioning for a negotiation, and magically, we probably won't be too far off, if we come to an agreement, of the numbers that are laid out in the debt ceiling deal.

I am not telling you this is the most efficient way to legislate, but I have seen it before, and we are seeing it from both sides right now.

In terms of the budget, I tell you what, I am interested in the opinions my friends have on the budget because they didn't bother to do one for the 4 years they were in the majority. I am thrilled they are actually marking up a budget in the Budget Committee. I give Chairman Arrington a lot of credit for doing it. It is hard to do. My friends didn't do it for 4 years because they couldn't do it because they couldn't come to an agreement.

As a matter of fact, I remember those 4 years I used to serve on the Budget Committee. You couldn't get a budget out of the Budget Committee that you controlled.

Do you want to talk about dysfunction? The Budget Committee sets the top-line number for all spending. Maybe that is why we overspent so much. As a matter of fact, you deemed budgets in the rule.

So I would agree with you. We should probably be sitting down and figuring out ways to run our fiscal affairs better and particularly do it in a more cooperative way because, as my friends point out, they do control the United States Senate and the United States Presidency.

However, please don't lecture me on how you do budgets when you had the House, the Senate, and the Presidency and could not write a budget in 4 years and get it out of your own committee, let alone bring it to this floor. Some of those years you weren't operating with a five-seat majority. You just couldn't get the job done.

We are trying. I commend the Budget Committee. I hope they bring one out here. I will be disappointed if they don't, but at least they are making the effort.

Finally, again, to my friends, I can't figure out whether you want the Speaker to succeed or not because there are lots of expressions that you feel sorry for him in the job he has. Don't worry, he likes the job he has. He works hard at it every day.

I think he is a good Speaker. He delivered on a debt ceiling deal that my friends even in the end came around and voted for. He delivered one that was a heck of a lot better because it had some genuine concessions in it, in terms of energy production and in terms of setting top lines.

We are on the eve of another kind of negotiation, and maybe we can find common ground again. I genuinely, quite frankly, hope that we do. In that process, there will be plenty of people on both sides of the aisle who don't like what the end product is, and they will vote accordingly. That is fair enough.

This is just kind of the way it works around here right now, and I think the Speaker is doing a terrific job of trying to work the process, trying to make sure legislation moves across the floor in regular order, and trying to get to numbers that begin to bring down this horrific deficit that my friends left the country with, with no plan to deal with it.

Nobody in the White House has a plan. The President has never submitted a budget that comes into balance. He won't talk about entitlement reform. He rules it out.

Sorry, if you are serious about the budget deficit, you do control two-thirds of this process. I know it is inconvenient when we bring up the fact that we are spending a lot more money and you have no plan to deal with it, but that is what we are going to do.

We will see. The American people can make a choice in the next election about that, but I am not going to be critical of my friends. Even when I am critical of their tactics, and I am sometimes, I am not critical of people who are trying to lower the budget deficit and trying to restore a measure of fiscal sanity to this country. That is something the Democrats used to care about, did care about when I first got here. They totally abandoned it during the Obama Presidency.

When my friends want to get serious, they will have a willing negotiating partner on the budget.
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Mr. COLE. In closing, I urge all of my colleagues to support the resolution.

The rule will make in order three bills.

First, it makes in order the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2024. It will provide full and complete funding for our Armed Forces and Defense needs and provides the resources necessary to defend freedom around the world.

It makes in order H.R. 1130, Unlocking our Domestic LNG Potential Act. We think that is important.

My friend had an interesting discussion about LIHEAP. I actually share my friend's view. It is an important program. I remember when I chaired the subcommittee on Appropriations, I had to actually reverse a cut ordered by President Obama of $300 million in his own budget, and we stopped that from happening.

People throw out numbers, and then you work it through. I always call a Presidential budget a bargaining position. I think the same thing tends to be true of congressional budgets, but we will work that through.

The real cause of lack of heating, though--let's be real about this-- is not LIHEAP and whether it is funded or not. It is whether or not there is natural gas to heat it in the first place. My friends have done everything possible to increase the cost and limit the availability of the very product that they want to provide with a government program.

It would be better for every single American if you would just simply be pro-energy production in our country. It is okay to be for renewables. I am for renewables. My State is number one or two in the country in wind power, well ahead of a lot of other progressive States.

We just think what works is what you ought to do. We have got a lot of wind in Oklahoma. It makes a lot of sense, so we use it, and, if it lowers emissions, we think that is good. Natural gas, by the way, has been the single biggest driver of lowering emissions. My friends have done nothing but make it harder in that industry. Frankly--and I mean this with all due respect--I hear people in that industry and companies in that industry vilified routinely. If I said those things about people in your respective States engaged in energy or in other kinds of production, you would be appalled, because you know those people.

I have got millions of people in the energy industry. I have thousands of people in my district that go out and work on rigs. They go out and lay pipeline. They go out and find oil and gas. It is hard work. They do that, and they give many parts of the country that don't have energy production the cheapest energy in the world outside of a couple of petrostates, and the most secure product, and they have tripled production in petroleum since about 2006. Yet, the price of gas goes up--it is a lot less here than it is almost anyplace in the world--and then they say, oh, my gosh, they are profiteering. No, there are market forces out there. That is off the subject.

I would just say my friends are worried about the cost of heating. LIHEAP is a good program. I support it. I have proven that over and over again. Please, let's make sure that we have the gas in the first place.

Finally, my friends dismiss the importance of the Second Amendment because they disagree with it for the most part. That is fair enough. All we are saying is we want the opportunity to actually invest things.

My friend made a couple of other points I just want to quickly address, because I want him to be under no-- and I don't think he is--under any illusion. I hold Senator Murray and Senator Collins in very high regard. I have worked with them both. I have worked with Senator Murray, in particular, for 8 years, either as chair, or ranking member of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies when she held the same respective position. We came to a deal almost every year. The gentlewoman is a good legislator, and Senator Collins is legendary.

What the Senate is crafting over there right now is well above the agreement that my friend thinks we are violating. It is pretty easy to declare emergencies. Yes, I would love to spend more money on defense. I have said that on this floor. I have said that during this debate. Let's call it emergency and heap it on.

They are laying out a negotiating position. It is fair enough. My guess is we are going to end up pretty close to the numbers we agreed upon.

My friends have been very critical of my leader, the Speaker of the House, and that is fair enough. This is politics. I will tell you this: You guys said he wouldn't get elected, and he did. You said he wouldn't get a bill across the floor to deal with the debt ceiling and then negotiate a deal, but he did. Let's wait and see how this plays out.

My friends need to remember, when it comes to these fiscal issues, they are the ones that never passed a budget for 4 years. They are the ones that left us with a $1.7 trillion deficit, and they have got the White House and the Senate and have not produced any plan to address it, nor have they been willing to sit down and talk to us about, in a bipartisan way, how could we start dealing with what we all know is the big driver, and that is entitlement programs.

We have a lot of problems in front of us. We can point a lot of fingers. Let's do the right thing today, though, and start addressing them.

The right thing today is to move ahead and pass this rule, get onto a debate about what we think are important issues. Defending the country is certainly an important issue. Securing our energy future is important, and dealing with constitutional rights, and we will continue to discuss and work on these other matters.

I will agree with my friend. I am not for shutting down the government. I hope we don't get there, and I always worry about that as we approach these kind of deadlines.

The previous question was ordered.

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