[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 186 (Thursday, December 6, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H14445-H14448]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. BLUNT asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend from Maryland, the 
majority leader, for information about next week's schedule.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, on Monday the House will meet at 3 p.m. in a pro forma 
session. On Tuesday, the House will meet at 10:30 a.m. for morning-hour 
debate and noon for legislative business, with votes rolled until 6:30 
p.m. On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for 
legislative business and at 9 a.m. on Friday.
  We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. A list 
of those bills will be announced before the close of business tomorrow.
  Under a rule, we expect to consider a conference report on the 
Intelligence authorization bill and on the Department of Defense 
authorization bill and further action on appropriations and terrorism 
risk insurance. There may well be other legislation, if it comes from 
the Senate.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman.
  I am wondering, on the appropriations process, the remaining 11 
bills, if

[[Page H14446]]

the gentleman has a sense of when those might come before the House. I 
know there was at least a discussion of a same-day rule for Tuesday for 
that purpose. So whatever information my friend has, I yield to get his 
ideas on when we might see the first effort on the appropriations bill 
on the floor or maybe the final effort on that bill.
  Mr. HOYER. I will tell my friend, the first action we had on 
appropriation bills was of course when we passed all of our 
appropriation bills before we left for the August break. We now hope to 
have action on the remaining appropriation bills. We expect those to be 
included in an omnibus appropriation bill. Obviously, we have 
considered all of them. They essentially have been conferenced, 
notwithstanding the fact that the other body did not pass through the 
Senate five of their bills, as you know, but they did in fact pass them 
out of subcommittee. So we had products to conference with.
  Both the House and the Senate have been working together to get them 
in a place where they could be considered, and it would be my 
expectation that we would consider an omnibus appropriation bill 
Tuesday night after we come back. I would hope to be able to pass such 
a bill on Tuesday. Again, that is being worked on between the House and 
the Senate. There have been discussions, as you know, with the 
administration as well trying to reach agreement so that we can ensure 
that the Government certainly doesn't shut down.

                              {time}  1545

  The CR expires on the 14th of next week. We would hope that we can 
pass an omnibus appropriation before that.
  Mr. BLUNT. On the remaining 11 of the 12 appropriations bills, some 
of which the Senate did not pass, was the minority involved in these 
nonconference conferences that you described?
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Obey is not here, and I think the answer to that 
question is ``yes,'' but you would know better than I. I am sure you 
would hear complaints if that were not the case, and perhaps you have 
heard complaints.
  Frankly, as you know, and you and I have discussed this experience by 
the House before under both parties, because of the lateness of the 
Senate's actions, we are not in a position where we had all of the 
bills passed. Furthermore, there was not an inclination on some of the 
bills to go to the conference. Thirdly, we have been facing, as you 
know, a veto threat from the President on all of the bills except the 
Veterans MILCON bill and perhaps Homeland Security. Defense was signed, 
as you know. Notwithstanding the fact that the MILCON bill is very 
substantially above the President's request, he said he would sign that 
one, but bills like the Labor-Health bill were vetoed, so we have to 
consider that one again.
  Mr. Obey has had a meeting with Mr. Nussle, as you know. It has been 
reported in the paper. That meeting was to try to figure out whether 
they could come to agreement. That meeting was not dispositive over 
that issue. Others have had meetings, including myself. We are hopeful 
to get to a place where everyone will not get everything that they 
want, but hopefully we will have agreement. I can't guarantee that.
  The answer to your question, as I told you at the outset, I don't 
have specific answers to. My presumption is, however, the staffs have 
been talking to one another.
  Mr. BLUNT. That's what I thought, the possibility of Tuesday.
  I would point out to my friend that the bill that the President did 
sign, the Defense bill, was very close to the amount of money, a 
reduction in the amount of money that was equal to the increase on the 
Military Construction and Veterans bill the President said he would 
sign, which is actually in the context of both what most of the Members 
on this side of the aisle had hoped for and what the President said he 
would insist on, which is the obvious ability of the majority, within 
the 6.5 percent increase that he proposed, to stay below that number. 
Actually, Military Construction and Defense, while they are not a 
perfectly balanced outcome, come close to the way that system can work 
and still be within the President's number and an example of two bills 
that he said he would be willing to sign, neither of which are the 
bills he proposed, but the combination of which certainly are within an 
amount of money that could be adjusted in the other bills.
  On the military question, those two bills we are talking about, does 
the gentleman anticipate any opportunity to have funding, either full 
or partial, for Iraq and Afghanistan without withdrawal language in the 
bill we would send over to the Senate or at some later time next week?
  Mr. HOYER. I anticipate at some point in time that will be the case.
  Mr. BLUNT. I would hope that can be the case, and we'd hope for our 
troops in the field and to prevent any layoffs that might occur between 
now and the time we return in January.
  Mr. HOYER. Would the gentleman yield on that issue?
  Mr. BLUNT. I would.
  Mr. HOYER. I appreciate the gentleman yielding.
  As you know, I had a discussion with my good friend, and I know you 
know him well, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Gordon England. 
Obviously he is required, the Department of Defense is required under 
contract agreements that if there is not funding at a certain point in 
time, for them to send notice, not because they necessarily anticipate 
that there will be a necessity to have RIFs, but because under the 
agreement, when they contemplate running out of money, which would be 
sometime in February, 60 days before that, they have to send out a 
notice.
  My expectation is that the Secretary will be sending us a letter. But 
I think the Secretary's expectation, and I think the letter may say 
this, his expectation is, pursuant to our conversations, that will not 
be necessary nor does anybody contemplate that being done. And I 
certainly want to say to any and all employees who are listening, that 
is not going to happen.
  Mr. BLUNT. I am glad with that assurance that won't happen, and I am 
sure they will be, too. While we won't know on the 15th whether they 
can run out of money by the date you mentioned, the middle of February, 
it is very possible that we will know by the day we leave here, and a 
January letter then would be required before we got back that indicated 
that a furlough would happen.
  Mr. HOYER. If the gentleman would yield again?
  Mr. BLUNT. I would.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman.
  I am very hopeful and we are working very hard, as I know Mr. Obey is 
and others, and I know Senator Reid is as well, trying to reach 
agreement with the President.
  Let me say respectfully that the discretionary spending that we have 
provided for is less a percentage of the GDP in terms of the spending 
of our national income than any of the bills that were passed from 2002 
to 2006. We believe the differences are relatively small between the 
executive and the legislative branches.
  We are prepared, as you have undoubtedly read and, as a matter of 
fact, you and I have discussed, to make some accommodations with the 
President, as is appropriate, to try to negotiate those.
  What we are not prepared to do is simply have the President say, 
``Look, this is what I have determined you can do.'' He can veto, we 
understand that, but we don't think that the proper place for the 
Congress of the United States under article I of the Constitution, 
which gives us the authority and puts in the Congress of the United 
States, the Senate and the House, the responsibility to make policy and 
appropriate funds for the priorities that we deem to be appropriate for 
our national security and general welfare, we don't think that it is 
appropriate to simply be given a number that we must meet. That is not 
what the Founding Fathers contemplated. As you well know, the budget is 
a relatively recent advent in terms of the President's authority over 
the budget.
  Having said that, we want to work with the President. We think that 
the differences are very small. We think that they can be bridged 
hopefully relatively easily, which is why we hope by next week we can 
accomplish both of the issues you raise.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman. I hope you are right. I don't know 
what the Founding Fathers contemplated for sure, the Founders when they 
wrote the Constitution. I do know they gave the House the ability to 
initiate spending bills and the President the ability to veto.

[[Page H14447]]

  In the context of how much money we are really talking about, the 
President added a 6.5 percent increase, and then the House-passed bill 
added $23 billion to that, which is more than the individual budgets of 
more than 35 of the States. So people, as they look at this discussion 
that this isn't much money, it is more than all of the money spent by 
35 or 36 of the States in the country. You know, I think in that 
context, $23 billion is a significant amount of money.
  Mr. HOYER. And the $196.4 billion that the President wants to spend 
in Baghdad and Kabul is probably more than the budgets of those States 
as well.
  Mr. BLUNT. Well, that is absolutely true. And the money that we spend 
to defend the country every day is important and it is the primary 
responsibility of the Federal Government, and I agree with that.
  Mr. HOYER. We agree.
  Mr. BLUNT. On AMT, I am not sure the Senate has dealt with AMT yet, 
but my understanding is that they may very well send that back without 
the money to offset that tax relief in a tax increase. I am wondering 
under what circumstances we might or might not see the alternative 
minimum tax relief in the next 2 weeks.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for that question. We believe very, 
very strongly, as you know, that the alternative minimum tax was never, 
ever meant to apply to some of the people it may well be applied to 
this tax year. We have passed legislation to prevent that. In that 
legislation, as the gentleman knows, was also tax cuts for millions of 
people on property taxes, on other taxes, tax relief for teachers who 
buy things for their classroom, in effect, business expenses for making 
sure that our kids are learning.
  The Senate, as you know, tried to bring that bill, not that bill but 
the chairman of the Finance Committee today made a unanimous consent to 
place the alternative minimum tax relief bill on the floor of the 
United States Senate without paying for it and it was objected to, as 
you know, as you probably know, by a Republican Member of the Senate 
because there was a refusal, apparently not an allowed amendment on the 
flat tax. We think that is unfortunate.
  In answer to your question, we hope the AMT, in fact, is passed by 
the Senate. We hope that it is paid for. We have committed ourselves to 
paying for things that we spend money on so our children don't have to 
pay for them.
  But we are going to be working very hard next week, I want to assure 
the gentleman, to make sure that the AMT is, in fact, addressed so that 
the 23 million people who are at risk of a tax increase and were never 
intended to be, as both sides agree, do not have that reality come 
April 15.
  Mr. BLUNT. I appreciate that. My view of that and most of our 
Members' view of that is that those 23 million people are not paying 
that tax this year, and so the idea that you have to replace that money 
to keep them from paying it next year is the fallacy of the PAYGO 
argument generally, as are many of the other extenders that you 
mentioned, the supplies for teachers and other things that are tax 
benefits they currently have, but that is obviously a fundamentally 
different view of how we view noncollected taxes this year that would 
be collected unless somehow what I consider to be very good tax 
policies for teachers and others are extended.
  On those tax extenders, the doctor payment issue is another issue 
that I am wondering if the gentleman has any information on, and I 
would yield on that as well. This is the doctor payment issue under 
Medicare and the fact that they would take an automatic cut.
  Mr. HOYER. As you know, we passed a bill earlier this year, some 
months ago, which not only dealt with children's health insurance but 
it also dealt with reimbursement to doctors, medical providers who will 
be confronting on January 1 of this year a 10 percent decrease in 
reimbursement. Many of them will not continue to serve Medicare 
patients. We think that is a great problem.
  Unfortunately, the Senate refused to go to conference on that bill. 
We did have meetings on our SCHIP bill. Our SCHIP bill, our children's 
health bill, was a part of the larger bill dealing with Medicare during 
rural health, dealing with ensuring that nobody was disadvantaged by 
any of the pay-fors in our bill, but the Senate would not go to 
conference on that. The meetings that resulted essentially resulted in 
taking the Senate bill on children's health insurance.
  As you know, the Senate had indicated they were going to address the 
Medicare reimbursement issue which we had already addressed. 
Unfortunately, it is my understanding that yesterday they decided they 
either could not or were not going to do that. I talked to Mr. Rangel 
just a few minutes ago about that issue. We are going to be talking 
about that a little later today as to how we might address that. We 
think, again, that is a critical need for us to address. But I can't 
tell the gentleman exactly how that is going to be addressed because I 
don't know what ability we have to work with the Senate on this 
particular issue, but it needs to be addressed.
  Mr. BLUNT. It does. As the gentleman knows, a month from today, 
actually starting January 1, those new payment schedules would go into 
effect which would go back to a cut in what those providers are being 
paid for those same services almost 10 years ago. That is a significant 
problem, and I am glad that the gentleman appreciates it and I am sad 
that we have gotten right down to this last moment in the year and not 
gotten to it yet.
  You mentioned SCHIP. I know my good friend has worked hard to try to 
get the votes to override a veto and now perhaps to pass another bill 
since the President has the bill we had earlier passed. If that does 
not happen, would you anticipate an extension of SCHIP? My view is that 
the State programs and the Governors in those States should have some 
assurance that they can move forward as we continue to work for a 
better solution than I believe we have found so far. But assuming that 
has not happened in weeks and doesn't happen in the next 2, would you 
expect to see an extender, a bill, of the current program while we 
continue to look for changes in that legislation? Or would that program 
end on December 14 or 15 when this current CR ends?

                              {time}  1600

  Mr. HOYER. Of course my friend could help me solve that problem very 
easily. I just need 10 or 12 votes; and you are such an excellent whip, 
I'm sure you could get those votes for me and we could cover those 4 
million children. But if you don't give me those 10 votes, or 15, that 
we need, we have no intention of leaving here without presenting for 
the floor, which we hope will pass the Senate as well, an extension of 
the existing law.
  In addition to the extension of the existing law, I'm sure you've 
talked to Republican Governors and Democratic Governors. I've talked to 
Democratic Governors just yesterday. All of them are very concerned. 
Missouri, as you well know, has a shortfall. A number of other States 
have a shortfall, including my own, so there will be need to, if we're 
going to simply extend, to also fund the shortfall, or children will be 
off the program that are currently on the program.
  In addition to that, as you well know, a very controversial 
regulation was issued by the administration capping or requiring a 90 
percent coverage of those under 200 percent or you can't participate 
further in the program, can't expand the program. No State, as I 
understand it, meets that obligation, so that we're also working on 
that.
  But the answer to your question is, we are certainly planning for, if 
we cannot get, we hope to be able to get, frankly, in the near future, 
in the next few days, hopefully, we've worked very, very hard in trying 
to meet some of the concerns that some of your Members have had.
  As you know, you and I and your leader had an opportunity to meet. 
Mr. Boehner indicated he thought there was a significant number of 
Republicans that would like to vote for the bill. But we got, as you 
know, 45 Republicans who did vote for the bill.
  We have had extraordinary meetings, and I think it's worth telling 
the body. Mr. Dingell and myself, as well as Mr. Baucus and Mr. 
Grassley and Mr. Hatch and Mr. Rockefeller, and from time to time, Mr. 
Barton and Mr. Deal and others, Mr. Whip, literally spent about 50 
hours over the last

[[Page H14448]]

month in meetings trying to come to a place where we could reach 
agreement. Obviously, we're not there in terms of sufficient numbers to 
think that we can, or are ready to, introduce a new bill. That would be 
our preference, to introduce a bill that, after these long discussions, 
that would enjoy hopefully 60, 70, 80 Members, which is the number your 
leader used as possible to vote for such legislation and move that 
through the Senate and send it to the President. That would be our 
hope.
  Mr. BLUNT. I appreciate the gentleman's work on this. I do know that 
in terms of a bill that would continue this program, that a significant 
majority of our Members would vote for that; and the bill that would 
even expand the program, a number of our Members might vote for that. 
But it has to be the right bill, structured in the right way.
  I know you've spent a lot of time on that. I hope you can negotiate 
even further from where you've been. But I also know that my staff and 
your staff hopefully are even working together on this to determine 
that exact right number that would continue the existing program to be 
sure that shortfalls are met, and that the existing program and the 
impact of that potential guideline on the existing program, and I think 
I can assure my friend that there will be enough votes in the House, 
including votes on our side, to easily extend the existing program and 
cover those shortfalls while we work for a better program.
  The last question I have is the gentleman's certainty about Friday. I 
know a few weeks ago we had scheduled that these 2 weeks would be 3-day 
weeks and the Members would be able to schedule things in their 
districts on Mondays and Fridays. I think your sense is today that we 
might very well be here on Friday, and I would appreciate some 
clarification on that.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for that question. As the gentleman 
knows, and I've been involved in this business for a long time, four 
decades about, and whether it was in the State Senate, which had a 
constitutional ending date, or in the House of Representatives, it's 
very difficult to predict the last days of a session.
  Now, I will tell you that the Speaker and I are working around the 
clock, almost literally, to ensure that we can adjourn this first 
session of the Congress of the United States on the 14th. We had hoped 
the 13th, but we're letting Members know that the 14th, that's only 4 
days from now. We've just gone through some pretty heavy lifting in 
terms of the appropriation bills, in terms of the AMT, in terms of 
SCHIP, in terms of Iraq and in terms of other matters that we need to 
address before we leave here. But we think we can do it, and it is our 
intention to do it.
  But, obviously, there are things that are pending that we cannot 
leave without doing, so that if we cannot get that done in that time 
frame, we will have to see where we go from there.
  But I want to make it very, very clear to everybody that the Speaker, 
Senator Reid, and I have talked; and we are all very focused on the 
14th being the day that we adjourn. The following week is the week 
before Christmas. We believe that individuals need to be home. I need 
to do shopping and decorating because all my family's coming to my 
house from some parts of the country, so I need to be home. And I'm 
sure every other Member shares that view.
  So all I can tell my friend, and he knows this as well as I do, that 
the unpredictability of the next 4 legislative days is such that I 
can't make any guarantees, other than we are doing everything we can to 
get the business that we've just discussed done. We may have some very 
late nights on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday; but we are hopeful 
that we will get this done and not have to ask Members to come back the 
week before Christmas.
  Mr. BLUNT. Well, I'm hopeful that my friend has mentioned that date 
again. Even after the experience of this week, we're still looking at 
that date. It may be the triumph of hope over experience, but we may 
all be motivated enough to get that done.
  Mr. HOYER. Well, we've had some success this week. As you know, we 
think we've passed a historic energy bill. Not only that, as my friend 
knows, because he's from the State of our distinguished chairman of the 
Armed Services Committee, we were able to go to conference today, which 
has been somewhat contentious for a few days. We expect that conference 
to be on the floor early next week. So we are moving ahead.
  But as we've discussed, there are some issues of difficulty that we 
haven't resolved that we need to resolve, and so we'll have to see 
whether or not we will be successful.
  Mr. BLUNT. Hopefully next Friday we won't even have to have a 
discussion about the week's work coming up because we will be done. And 
I appreciate the information of the gentleman.
  I yield back.

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