mr. mckeon: i agree with much of what the gentlelady from new york, my good friend, said. sequestration is bad. and if we don't pass this c.r., we'll feel worse than the effects of the sequestration, we'll shut down the whole government. nobody wants to see that. and so i commend her for what she says. this is not perfect. but it keeps a lot of people working. i think it's very, very important that we get it done. as chairman of the house armed services committee, i'm happy to see us voting to include a full year appropriations -- defense appropriations bill, as well as full year military construction and veterans affair bill. this is very important. at least we have one committee thatan do regular order still, and i think that is very important. enacting a full year d.o.d. appropriations bill is the first ep toward restoring funding for our military which has been whip sod by the dual combination of the sequester and the c.r. we are operating under. none of our currently serving overseas, the chief of the army, navy, air force, marines, including the chief of -- all of th

mr. mckeon: i agree with much of what the gentlelady from new york, my good friend, said. sequestration is bad. and if we don't pass this c.r., we'll feel worse than the effects of the sequestration, we'll shut down the whole government. nobody wants to see that. and so i commend her for what she says. this is not perfect. but it keeps a lot of people working. i think it's very, very important that we get it done. as chairman of the house armed services committee, i'm happy to see us voting to include a full year appropriations -- defense appropriations bill, as well as full year military construction and veterans affair bill. this is very important. at least we have one committee that can do regular order still, and i think that is very important. enacting a full year d.o.d. appropriations bill is the first step toward restoring funding for our military which has been whip sod by the dual combination of the sequester and the c.r. we are operating under. none of our currently serving overseas, the chief of the army, navy, air force, marines, including the chief of -- all o

mr. mckeon in the last congress on similar legislation. i enjoyed working with my colleagues in the committee on this bill. i rise in support of the skills act. back in my district the biggest concerns of my constituents are still jobs and the economy. southern nevada was hit hard by the recession due to our economy relying heavily on the travel and tourism industry and construction industry. we lost a lot of jobs in those sectors. unemployment is just under 10% in our state today. madam chair, the skills act is exactly what southern nevada needs to foster our recovery. our state is identifying and attracting new in demand industries that will come to nevada and create jobs and economic opportunity. now we need to train our workers to do these jobs. the jobs that do and will exist, not the jobs that did exist. the skills act will help us to -- do that because it strengthens the role of employers and work force development decisions by requiring 2/3 of the work force board members be local employers and focuses training on in-demand occupat

mr. mckeon said, quote, this is just the first indicator of the extraordinary economic damage defense cuts will do, unquote. you've got across the board cuts in biomedical research to try to find treatments and cures for diseases that hit families throughout this country. you're going to be putting people out of work who do that important research for our country. and in the end of the day, in addition to the furloughs and the disruption that will cause in the economy, throughout the entire economy, 750,000 fewer jobs will result at the end of the calendar year. so why in the world are we debating a bill that we already passed, i believe unanimously, one month ago that does nothing about jobs, nothing about the deficit rather than take up think proposal we put forward to replace the sequester in a smart and balanced way, through targeted cuts but also the elimination of these tax breaks. and the answer is unfortunately that our republican colleagues, many of whom have signed that grover norquist pledge, have said they're not willing to close one tax loophole for the pup of reducing the def