If the VA continues to outsource more and more activities, at some point, we are going to reach a point where the VA is a health insurance provider and not a health care provider.

We should not be outsourcing these jobs. Civil servants who decide to pursue a career assisting veterans lead to better services.

So as we continue to hear folks talk about job loss, that the Affordable Care Act will result in job loss, just the opposite is occurring.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to once again remind the President that it is Congress that makes the laws, not the Executive. It is time the President works with Congress, not around it, to achieve realistic policy goals to help grow the…

find out what works, do more of that.

One is that you are going to destroy jobs. We have all heard a couple of times the fact that between 500,000 and 900,000 jobs will be destroyed.

I would only ask you, Secretary Perez, why are we not spending more time talking about creating jobs...

This is a ridiculous concept that we seem to continue to discuss and reinforce with the notion of listening to employers say that we need a higher minimum wage when in fact they can just raise the minimum wage in their companies whenever…

The fact is without question that 3 percent of hourly workers--3 percent of hourly workers over the age of 25--make the minimum wage.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Booker). The clerk will call the roll. The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the…

Mr. President, I have taken to the floor many times to talk about the Chesapeake Bay--the largest estuary in the Northern Hemisphere, and declared a national treasure by not only President Obama but by several U.S. Presidents. For the 17…

But we are doing a one-size-fits-all approach.

We make a lot of rules here that have unintended consequences. And when we have a one-size-fit-all approach, it has unintended consequences.

And I think it is quite hypocritical that you are working outside the parameters and the hours that you are telling the truckers that they can't work.

We need to raise the visibility, and I am not blaming other countries any more than I am blaming ourselves.

I think we did a really good job on water, and I hope we can do an excellent job on the surface transportation bill.

And so the way to address that is to close the on-post facilities, again affecting military families, and I just see this as just--and it couldn't possibly have been an intended consequence.

Mr. Speaker, recently, I received a heartbreaking email from Connie in Irmo, South Carolina. Because of ObamaCare, Connie's health care policy premiums have increased $100 a month, and her deductible has grown to over $2,500 a year. She…