Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker--and again, pleasure to yield--I say to my friend, I fear it's thinking like that that's going to take us exactly there. {time} 1500 Mr. Speaker, again, I take no pleasure in this freeze today. I believe in…

I yield myself an additional 30 seconds. This isn't a Republican idea; it's not a Democrat idea; it's not something that was created in the minds of folks who hate Federal employees and the Federal Government. It's an idea that came…

I yield myself 2 minutes. I just want to read from the Simpson-Bowles Commission report. And I want to read from it not because I support everything the Simpson- Bowles Commission had to say. I want to read from it not because it's a bill…

After this one sentence, and that is, in this tough time, until we can get our handle on the debt and the deficit, my constituents continue to look at how their tax dollars appear to be paying salaries and benefits higher to Federal…

I appreciate my friend's comment. He's absolutely right. So my advice to my new freshman colleague from California would be, in this case, it's not an open rule that he's after; it's his colleagues on the Rules Committee working their…

In reclaiming my time, I welcome my friend to the sequestration debate, the one that we tried to have last May with absolutely no assistance whatsoever. Here we are at midnight on sequestration day, saying, Hey, let's do it. Folks, let's…

I yield myself 4 minutes to talk about cheap political stunts because I see a few cheap political stunts down here from time to time. I don't want to characterize anybody's behavior in that way as I don't think that's appropriate, but what…

I will yield to the gentleman to answer this question: The gentleman sees here $10,793. That's the additional burden that the gentleman, when he controlled this Congress for 2 years with the President of the United States, also of his…

I thank the gentleman. In fact, I thought that's where the gentleman's heart lay. As the gentleman knows, the reason the Bera-Connolly amendment is not on the floor today, among others, is that it is nongermane to this legislation. We…

There's a reason that we're spending so much time talking about things other than the underlying bill, other than the rule. The reason is because the rule is a good rule, and the bill is a good bill. We can use this time for the political…

To read from the President's inaugural address. It took place just outside our backdoor here. He said: We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit. He didn't say we should make the easy…

I just want to say to my friend from New York, for whom I do have tremendous respect and value her counsel, to call this a stupid piece of legislation I think really misses the point about what we're doing here. I would encourage you to…