Regular order if there were a budget brought to the floor of the house that had bipartisan support and was a product of regular order with strong bipartisan support in the Budget Committee and on the floor. Thank you. Thank you very much. We look forward to your support. \[laughter] mr. Ryan. Participation. A new issue has just been brought up by the gentleman and that is perhaps the timing, do you believe that this is timely and that youve given people an opportunity rather than waiting until the last minute and thus getting to a deadline and having to react . Mr. Levin and i are friends. He and i are friends. Our intention, as before, is to write a committee mark, bring it to the committee, entertain probably at the 40 or so amendments, some of which weve taken in the past, and then to bring a product out of committee. There may be irreconcilable differences. Thats the way things ought to be. There was one budget that did get a bipartisan vote. Didnt get many votes. It was cooper and latourette and a few others. There was some bipartisan votes. Got 35 votes or Something Like that. I hope it happens in this congress. There may be a moment where well have irreconcilable differences on how to solve these problems. At least in the house we brought budgets. Mr. Van hollen, to his credit, brought a budget and brought it to the floor, to his credit. That didnt happen in the senate. They didnt even attempt to do that. So the senate hasnt done that. All were saying is lets get the senate in the game to do that so we can debate how to fix a problem, not whether we are going to try to fix a problem. Mr. Chairman, i have been handed a note saying i need to go to another for forum. I recognize that. And the gentlewoman, ms. Slaughter, hears that. I should be there too. Yeah, im next. Ill talk long so that you let me ask very quickly if someone has a question for mr. Levin before he goes. And anyone you have to leave. Then i would not stand in the way of democracy. I think youll give me leave. And the chairman will . Well, as always, we want to reserve the right, as we agree with you, to at least give our members an equal shot and i see no member necessarily that has a question. Ill try to come back if youre still in session. The gentleman will be considered excused at this point then. Thank you. Ms. Foxx. The resolution the bill thats been brought to us today, and i dont really want to repeat or ask chairman ryan or chairwoman miller to repeat the things that they said, but i do think its important that we highlight the fact that the house, under republican leadership, has been adopting a budget. We have the last two years. And the senate has not. And there is a law that says we are to adopt a budget. Chairman ryan pointed out that the president s folks have said they will not adhere to the law again this year. My recollection is they were late last year. I think they submitted a budget but my recollection is they were late last year. I may be not correct on that. They submitted a budget. They missed the deadline three out of four times. Ok. Herethink whats important is we are the lawmakers, and its important that we be good role models for the rest of the country. And we certainly are cast gaited on an individual level when we break the law. Some people have. Some inadvertently. Some purposefully. But i think its very important that we follow the law. So i think its important that we continue to point this out to the American People and im very pleased that were going to be doing this. Raising the debt ceiling is a very, very serious issue. And we dont do this lightly. Nobody i think should do it lightly. I believe that the way we are going to be doing this will help us move forward with working on the budget. I think you dont get the baseline numbers to until when, mr. Ryan . The c. B. O. Is late because of the end of the year fiscal issues. They anticipate getting their january baseline updated on february 4. Typically you have a budget resolution off of c. B. O. s rescore of the president s submitted budget. The president s budget is coming late. The administration has not said when they are going to submit a budget, so we dont know when c. B. O. Will have the opportunity to score it. Usually takes about three weeks to score it. Then you get your final baseline with what you normally write your budget. So thats the issue here. Timing. But since c. B. O. Will give us their newer baseline, we call the january baseline, in february, that gives us something to start with. And i read an article the other day that says one of the things that resulted as has come about is the result of what we did january 1, i guess it was, was that we should not be having arguments about baseline. That we hope thats been cleared up and that will be a useful thing going forward. I know it is a difficult thing for you to explain and me to explain sometimes to people, but i just want to applaud you all for what youre doing and want to thank chairwoman miller for coming. And mr. Brady, its always nice to see you. Thank you very much. I yield back. Ms. Slaughter. Thank you, mr. Chairman. First, id like to ask unanimous consent to put the administrations statement of policy in the record. Without objection. And you know, we all started out, everybodys friends. You are friends with sandy. And i want to be your friend. I got to tell you, friends, i am not sure what it is were doing here today. This was filed yesterday morning, 7 00 on inauguration day. I read the article, which i assume was everything i heard was the father of this idea. And but the fact is the Democrat Party has been totally left out of this. We keep going down the road here, sort of lurching and jerking about. Sort of like plan b. Leaving us out, calling us up to the rules committee where we all sit up here, sitting up higher than everybody else, looking so we really know whats going on. We really have about had it. There is nothing called regular order. We talk about it all the time. We talk about budgets being law. We read it this week. This is a step too far for me. I really think what youre doing here, while i appreciate it as well as i think everybody else, on my side of the committee, that the idea of dollar for dollar business seems to be gone. Were glad for that im not really clear. We pass the law. We think that the senate will pass the same bill. Is that the same idea . We believe that will happen . Thats how a legislative process works. The house passes bail. The senate acts. And if they dont act you go to a conference committee. Theres been no committee hearings, no public hearing, no discussion. There is a hearing right now on ways and means. Im assuming you are not having the conversations with the senate. We have. This bill came from a member on your side of the aisle, mr. Cooper. It came the decision was before that article. I really think what yourei rear we had decided this is a better course of action. We felt the bipartisan bill that mr. Cooper, the democrat, authored was a sound way forward and thats why we included the cooper legislation with a shortterm debt limit extension. But given the importance of this, id like to know what kind of negotiations youve had with the senate. We dont know if the senate will pass this or not. I said that the white house supports a shortterm extension. Have theyve been discussed theyve been sent the legislation. I dont know what the senate will do. But thats i think that happens fairly often. I dont know if every bill we pass through here we first have to wait for the senate to say that they will support it and then we pass it, i dont think thats how the legislative process works. I think we dont know if the senate will pass it or not. I think were down to the alice in wonderland piece, that we pretend that the legislative process are working. You and i both know that it is not. Something like this we would have had committee hearings. The goal is to get the legislative process working. You know, we are perfectly willing, even eager here as part of the congress of the United States to be part of what youre doing. Thats we never know. Its sort of dropped in on us, parachuted in from someplace, telegraphed in the newspaper, maybe. But our participation in this, i understand it, we were sort of talking by ourselves. We didnt quite understand the paid piece. If we pass a budget, house members gets paid, is that right . Thats right. Each chamber has the responsibility to pass a budget through their chamber. And the senate and the pay is in escrow until they do that. After the statutory deadline. So the house will be treated the house is in control of its own fate. The senate of theirs. So the frustration that is expressed in this legislation is the fact that our federal government has gone without a budget for almost four years. It is that the senate yes, your party is in control of the budget the senate has chosen not we are talking about raising the debt limit here. We are not talking about the budget. Thats what this legislation does. All right. Youve done that. And this legislation is authored by a democrat here in the house. The fact of the matter is that there has been no regular order on this, and weve gotten used to we went through plan b. There was no regular order on that and you know how that turned out. You remember are you talking about the fiscal cliff . On the fiscal cliff. There are other plan bs but i understand there are a lot of plan bs. I just want to know which one you are talking about. Let me reiterate that we would be more than happy to join in your process here. Maybe even give you a great idea every now and then. Maybe something we can all Work Together on. Once again, the house of representatives would be the peoples house, and all the people sent to serve here will be able to participate in it. We long for that day. I appreciate that. I had a conversation with mr. Cooper this morning which was we saw a democrat with a piece of legislation that we thought was a good idea. Thats why this includes that legislation. Well, it would have been nice if some of the rest of us heard about it. We would have i dont know what to say about that. Theres not much we can say about it today. Im sure you have the votes to pass it and it will go out of here ok. The strongest terms i can, the idea of continually coming up here and sitting here with something that was just handed to us and trying to pretend that were part of the process here is i just cant do that any more. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. In defense of me asking you three or four as it were to come up here, im delighted that we did this now rather than waiting until the very end because, mr. Ryan, i dont even know and you dont have to respond to this but i dont know what day we have to have it ready. And so i viewed that as committee chairman, speaking with each other, including our republican leadership, that we were trying to do the correct thing and to make sure the Administration Read us as clear. This is not a poison pill. This would be something that the senate would have to agree to and Public Comments out of the senate by Senate Democrats have indicated the willingness to accept it. Right. Thats one of the reasons we are doing it now because we dont want to bring it to brinksmanship. The statement of administration policies, snap, we use acronyms around here, we dont know what the x date is, meaning the date when the borrowing money is run out. Its estimated that that occurs sometime between february 15 and march 15, but we dont know when that is. We dont want to test it. Thats why were doing this now. I applaud chairman camp and you and each of you for being here today. Mr. Cole. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I appreciate that. Just one question to any of you that might care to take it up. I heard a number of people that expressed concerns about the constitutionality of the pay provisions. I know, mr. Chairman, you looked into that but i invite either two gentlemen to comment as well. Can you elaborate on that a little bit, what kind of research youve done to ensure this is within the constitution . Ok. I i will preface my statement by reminding you i am not a constitutional attorney. I have my notes from my constitutional attorneys. That gives me more confidence. Again, you know, james madison, obviously, proposing the 27th amendment, 1789, and i have the attorneys go through and they agree, our side, anyway, the attorneys agrees it applies to varying varying being the operative phrase of the compensation. Its interesting. They looked at a couple cites couple of lawsuits that have been before the supremes, about this issue. One was about the cola provisions that the congress automatically gets some increases, etc. , and there was another one that was brought by a congressman, bob schaefer. Some of you might recall him. It was before my time. On the grounds that lets see 27th amendment. Anyway, i wont go through all the weeds on that. Again, it spoke to the varying. They decided that varying the compensation is really the operative phrase, as i say, with that. So our attorneys in the housed a minute, on our side, agree house admin, on our side, there is no as long as you pay members at the end i should say by the end of the 113th congress or obviously we would like to have this negated completely by having the senate pass a budget, the house pass a budget, senate pass a budget, as required by law and on time. So as ive talked to them, i feel pretty good about the constitutionality of the 27th amendment and how it applies to this. I would, if i could, make a couple other comments. I do think its interesting in the spirit of bipartisanship, as youve pointed out, this was a piece of legislation for the most part pretty much mirrors what was introduced in the 112th with by a democrat with several other democratic cosponsors as well as republicans here. I sort of feel like this is an effort at a bipartisan bipartisanship. I know sandy had to leave. We were talking about the ratings agencies and what happened when we were downgraded during the last debt ceiling debate. I thought it was interesting reading the executive management report from the Ratings Agency that also pointed to the congress that one of the reasons huge reason for the downgrade, they didnt feel that the congress had the political will to address the spending crisis that we are in either. So that was also a big part of the downgrade of our credit rating. Now i think, you know, we are trying to exercise the political will to address our spending by having a budget which you cant really talk about appropriation bills and all of these kinds of things in my mind having continuing resolutions to fund the government forever is unsustainable. You need to pass a budget to begin with a foundation. Mr. Cole, i also talked to attorneys, our attorneys, some other attorneys, not just on our staff and i tell them, talk to me like i can understand you. Because they talk too much legal lease. I ask them, if i get a paycheck in my account every month and i dont get that paycheck in my account, so whenever it may come, at the end of the year, thats varying. Their opinion, that could be. They didnt say it was. They said it could be that could violate the 27th amendment because theyre varying something. Not coming this month. Coming at the end of the year. The other thing i would like to dont understand and i want to tell you like i think and how it is. We are kind of like trying to not punish but penalize the other side. The senate. Because they havent acted. So what were doing is drafting legislation thats going to make our side, whether we pass or maybe sometimes not pass a budget, and were going to punish, not punish. Maybe penalize our side by not getting a payroll or paycheck until the end of the year. Now im probably not i think im talking maybe by my own knowledge, i dont think it hurts any of the United States senators. But a mayor, one of our 435 members here, because some of them i know may have to make a mortgage payment, maybe have to make a car payment, maybe have to make an Insurance Payment or some type of payment. And they may not be able to talk to their bank or whoever they might be, can you wait until the end of the year . I can show you my escrow account. Im probably thinking well pass a budget in the house, so maybe it might not happen to us. It may not bother the other side too much. Thats my opinion. Mr. Ryan, do you have any thoughts on this . Well, just to state for the record, its not meant to punish people for past behavior. This is meant to get congress back to doing its job, to simply following the law to budgeting. We have a fiscal crisis. We are racking up trillion dollar deficits. This is not a republican against democrat thing. Its a math thing. This debt crisis is coming because of the debt that is piling up. All of the independent fiscal authorities tell us this. The rating agencies downgrade us because they think our political system is broken at an impasse. Therefore, no solution is occurring. And our argument is the way to break that impasse is to start budgeting. The law says we should budget. We should follow the law. We have disagreements on how to budget. But at least we ought to come to the table with each of our individuals and our plans. If youre ever going to get to a solution, what usually happens under what we call regular order is we pass our budget vision, the other side passes their budget vision, and then we bring ideas to the table and we start negotiating. That hasnt happened for four years because the senate has chosen not to even begin this process. And so we think we are advancing the goal of restoring fiscal discipline to our federal government by just getting congress, the house and the senate, to begin to follow the budgeting law again to budget. Now at the end of the day we hope this will result in getting a down payment on our debt problem so that we can continue to meet the obligations of our seniors, of our military, of the people who are living on the safety net, of the vulnerable, of the bond markets so we can keep Interest Rates low so we can make sure we dont hurt our economy. I want to command commend you on the effort of people to just put out a budget. With all due respect on my friends on the other side, last year they were in majority, they chose not to do that. They chose thinking it would provide political cover. It didnt. I think thats whats gone encore booknotes the senate side. I think its a political calculation that somehow this will spare some of our members from difficult votes. I commend you for developing a difficult budget and getting your colleagues to vote on it and it was a legitimate issue in the campaign. I have no problem with that. I think its an appropriate place to have the discussion. You come, you vote, we go have a campaign. That helps the country clarify the issues. We move on. The house has fulfilled its responsibility in that regard in the last two years and went through the fire in the election. I think thats fair. The senate just simply has not. And it is discouraging. You know,