[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 12 (Wednesday, February 4, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H359-H361]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. HOYER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring of the 
majority leader the schedule for the House next week.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HOYER. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, the House will convene on Tuesday at 12:30 
p.m. for morning hour debates and 2 p.m. for legislative business. We 
will consider several measures under suspension of the rules. A final 
list of those bills will be sent to Members' offices by the end of this 
week. Any votes called on these measures will be rolled until 6:30 p.m.
  On Wednesday, the House will convene at 10 a.m. We plan to consider 
the Senate amendment to H.R. 743, the Social Security Protection Act. 
In addition, we plan to consider H.R. 1561, the U.S. Patent and 
Trademark Fee Modernization Act and a short extension of the highway 
program as well. The current extension expires at the end of February, 
so we must consider a short-term extension while we are working 
actively on TEA-LU.
  Finally, I would like to remind all Members that we do not plan to 
have votes on Friday, February 13. I will be happy to answer any 
questions.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the information he 
has given to the Members and for the schedule.
  Mr. Leader, you indicate there will be a short-term extension of the 
highway reauthorization bill scheduled for next week. Can you tell us 
as to when the full reauthorization, the permanent reauthorization, 
will be ready for consideration on the floor?
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I think that the committee should be prepared 
to mark up this very important legislation very shortly after the 
Presidents' Day district work period. The 4-month extension that we are 
talking about doing next week should not in any way indicate that we 
want to postpone the completion of this very important bill until June. 
The 4-month extension that we are talking about is simply to give 
highway administrators, especially in the northern States, the 
predictability that they need to let contracts for the spring and 
summer construction season.
  In discussions with the chairman of the Committee on Transportation 
and Infrastructure, he informs me that he is working as hard as he can 
to get the TEA-LU bill up as quickly as possible. And once they get it 
marked up, it goes through the Committee on Ways and Means. After that, 
we will bring it to the floor as quickly as possible.

                              {time}  1815

  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for those comments. To reiterate, 
the extension will be until May 30 or 31?
  Mr. DeLAY. I have not seen the actual language. That is being 
consulted with your side. The last I was advised, it would probably be 
June 30.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for that information.
  For Members' planning purposes, does the gentleman expect to have 
votes next Thursday? I know we have it on the schedule, but I am 
wondering whether or not the leader has any insight into whether or not 
we will need next Thursday or not.
  Mr. DeLAY. We do not have a busy week on the floor for next week, but 
at this point we are inclined to work through Thursday, not through 
Thursday but at least Thursday morning to early afternoon. This will 
give committees an opportunity to hold hearings and get some markups 
completed so we will have legislation ready for the end of February and 
through March. But I do not expect to have a long day Thursday.
  Mr. HOYER. Unemployment insurance, as the gentleman knows, has been a 
real concern, I think, of all of ours but particularly we have raised 
this issue in terms of the extension. When Congress adjourned last 
year, it failed to extend, as the gentleman knows, the emergency 
unemployment compensation program which left 90,000 American workers 
and their families every week, which now is approximately 375,000 
workers by the end of last month, in the lurch, off of unemployment 
benefits.
  We have just passed, in my perspective at least, a very significant 
amendment which will give some hope and relief to these folks whose 
families have lost at least some type of floor for their maintenance of 
their families, the purchase of food and payment of rent and mortgages 
and things of that nature. I know we just passed it, but I would be 
very interested in whether the leader has any thoughts as to whether or 
not it would be possible to accelerate this matter so that we could get 
it back here so that we could give relief to these families that we 
have been talking about for many months.
  Mr. DeLAY. My friend considers that amendment a very significant 
amendment. I have a different point of view. As the gentleman is surely 
aware, the provision that he refers to that just passed is a completely 
new, unfunded program in a new agency with no experience or competence 
to handle this issue. Frankly, it was a very clever political stunt and 
I have to hand it to

[[Page H360]]

the gentleman, but if you look at the substance of this, I cannot 
imagine any member of the conference committee actually voting to allow 
that to come out of conference.
  I would remind the gentleman that the unemployment rate today is 
lower than it was when President Clinton and a Democrat-controlled 
Congress cut off extended unemployment benefits, and in my opinion the 
way to help the working class is not to grow the government but to grow 
the economy and create jobs.
  Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, and I appreciate the leader's 
observation of my cleverness or the cleverness at least of the 
gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) and our side of the 
aisle. The most clever thing, though, that we did was to get 229 people 
in the House of Representatives to say, we need to give relief to these 
folks who have lost their unemployment insurance. That was the most 
clever. The gentleman did not vote on that side of the proposition, I 
understand that, but 229 Members did, Republicans and Democrats. I 
would respectfully suggest to the leader that his observation may be 
correct, that the way in which this was done, because the rules 
required us to do it this way, may not be the best way to do it. There 
is a best way to do it and it can be done immediately, hopefully even 
by unanimous consent; simply extend, as we have been requesting for the 
last 4 months, to extend unemployment benefits so that these folks, 
these 375,000 who have lost their unemployment benefits, would be 
covered. The gentleman and I may agree. This may not be the best way to 
do it. It may have been a clever way, as the gentleman observes, for us 
to get this issue up, but as I say, the more clever thing was to get 
229 Members of the House, a majority of the House, to say that we ought 
to be doing this.
  Mr. DeLAY. If the gentleman will yield, he did not use all of my 
quote. I said it was a clever political stunt. Members do vote 
sometimes, without questioning anybody's motive, do vote for political 
reasons or whatever reason they may. But the truth still remains, and 
our side of the aisle feels very strongly that it is more important to 
provide jobs than unemployment. We understand the gentleman's point of 
view. We respect his point of view. We have a different point of view. 
If this was a substantive amendment that had real teeth in it, I do not 
think the vote would have been the same.
  Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, apparently the leader believes the 39 
Republicans who voted for it voted for it as a political maneuver. I do 
not think that is the case. I do not think it was a political stunt.
  Mr. DeLAY. That is not what I said.
  Mr. HOYER. There were 39 Republicans who joined over 190 Democrats to 
say that we need to give unemployment insurance to those families who 
have lost it. To assert that that was a political stunt, with all due 
respect, Mr. Leader, is incorrect. It was a conviction, a belief, 
strongly held, long advocated, that we give relief to those who have 
lost their unemployment insurance benefits, just as it has been our 
belief for a long period of time that we give that child tax credit to 
those 6.5 million families, those 12 million children, those 200,000 
service personnel who are not covered by the child tax credit.
  Mr. DeLAY. If the gentleman will yield, I have to correct the 
gentleman. He says a long-held belief. I do not understand what the 
gentleman's definition of ``long-held belief'' is. When his party was 
in control in 1993 and the unemployment figures were higher than they 
are now, the economy was not as good as it is now, his party brought to 
this floor the cutting off of long-term unemployment benefits. Yet now 
when the economy is even better, when the unemployment rate is almost 
to full employment, the gentleman feels very strongly, and it is not 
for politics, I am sure, very strongly that now we have to extend. So 
long-held beliefs are in the eyes of the beholder.

  Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, surely the majority leader jests. 
Surely the majority leader knows that Secretary Snow said that the 
administration was going to create 200,000 jobs per month. Surely the 
gentleman knows that last month the economy created, in December, the 
last month we have figures for, 1,000 jobs. That is one-half of a 
percent of the performance that the Secretary of Treasury said was 
going to be accomplished, 1,000 out of 200,000. Surely the gentleman 
knows that during the time period in which he talks, the Clinton years, 
the 8 years, 22 million jobs were created. This administration has lost 
2.5 million jobs over the last 3\1/2\ years.
  Mr. Speaker, there is a commitment on this side of the aisle. There 
was the commitment in the Reagan recession, there was a commitment in 
the first Bush recession to extend. In fact, as the leader must know, 
we extended unemployment benefits more frequently with Democratic votes 
in the Reagan administration and in the first Bush administration than 
we have done in this recession, with Democratic not only support but 
leadership on those extensions. With all due respect, Mr. Leader, I 
would say that the assertion that somehow that Democrats are not for 
extending unemployment benefits when we have families in trouble is 
simply inaccurate.
  I would be glad to yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. DeLAY. I appreciate the gentleman yielding to me. It is not 
inaccurate to state that in 1993, before the Clinton administration 
took credit for an economy that was created by a Republican Congress, 
the Democrat-controlled House cut off extended benefits. The gentleman 
knows that we can use figures all over the place. The gentleman is 
right, only 1,000 jobs were created in December, but it was very 
interesting to note that 146,000 long-term unemployed went off the 
rolls and went to work in December alone. The trends are that jobs are 
going up, the trends are that unemployment is going down, that jobs are 
being available and the long-term unemployed will be able to find jobs.
  Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Leader, I want to make this 
comment. I make it as an interesting comment, that during the Clinton 
years, the gentleman claims that it was the Republicans who created 
those jobs. Is it not ironic, Mr. Leader, that the Republicans cannot 
do that when they not only have the House, the Senate, but also the 
Presidency? Could it be that perhaps the difference was President 
Clinton? Because with total control, as your friend Dick Armey noticed 
last time, you own the town and have for the last 3 years. Is it not 
ironic that you claim credit for doing it before but you cannot do it 
now?
  Mr. DeLAY. I lived this history. I very much remember that the 
Balanced Budget Act of 1996 and 1997 was vetoed twice by President 
Clinton and then signed by President Clinton with very little changes. 
The restraint on spending through the whole process, the Welfare Reform 
Act that was vetoed two or three times if I remember, all of the issues 
that actually got to the President's desk in those years were resisted 
by the President while he took credit after he signed it for 
everything, including the economy.
  Then we find ourselves coming into a new administration when the 
recession started in the old administration, and this administration 
was saddled with a recession as it came in and did exactly what needed 
to be done, along with the Republican House and Senate and, that is, 
give the types of tax relief and economic policies that now we see are 
working and a growing economy that the American people are 
experiencing, not the economy described by the other side of the aisle. 
Unemployment is going down, jobs are going up, people are finding jobs. 
I see no reason to extend after 26 weeks unemployment benefits.
  Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, I know that the leader believes that. 
He has said it before. He has voted that way. We understand that. There 
is very little confusion.
  I noted that by the President's own admission when he spoke to the 
House and the Senate, he was saddled with a $5.6 trillion surplus. He 
has successfully turned that into a $4 trillion deficit, an almost $10 
trillion turnaround the wrong way. So in terms of being saddled, Mr. 
Leader, the recession, by the admission of the administration, was over 
some many months ago and we still find ourselves in a place where not 
only do we have 2.5 million people unemployed but we have some 3 
million people who are discouraged and are no longer on the rolls 
because they are no longer seeking employment.

[[Page H361]]

  I guess we could go on all night on this. We have a different view. 
But I really believe and would hope, as we did in the child tax credit, 
that we could certainly pass an extension to take care of those 375,000 
people who have lost their unemployment insurance over the last 3 
months.

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