[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 39 (Thursday, March 5, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H3026-H3028]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. CANTOR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland, the 
majority leader, for the purpose of announcing next week's schedule.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the Republican whip for yielding.
  On Monday, the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning hour and 2 
p.m. for legislative business.
  On Tuesday, the House will meet at 10:30 a.m. for morning hour and 12 
p.m. for legislative business.
  On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for 
legislative business.
  On Friday, no votes are expected.
  We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. A 
complete list of suspensions will be announced by the close of business 
tomorrow, as is usual.
  In addition, we will consider H.R. 1262, the Water Quality Investment 
Act of 2009. We also possibly will consider H.R. 157, the District of 
Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2009.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman regarding the schedule going 
forward if he could tell the House what the timing would be on bringing 
the so-called card-check bill to the floor.
  Mr. HOYER. With respect to the card-check bill, as the gentleman 
knows, we have already passed that bill with a very handy vote. We 
believe that that is an appropriate bill to be passed and are 
supportive of it. However, we have passed that bill. The Senate has 
indicated that they are going to consider that bill, and my expectation 
is that they will be doing so in the relatively near future and we will 
see what action they take.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman that we have in this House 
passed in prior Congresses that bill. As the gentleman knows, there are 
plenty of new Members here that have not had a chance to vote on that 
bill. So if I hear the gentleman correctly, we will await Senate action 
prior to any House action.
  Mr. HOYER. I want to make it clear, if the gentleman will yield, that 
it is our intention to move this bill, but we are expecting the Senate 
to move and we will see what they have done and we will take that up in 
good time.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, I would also like to ask the gentleman for the 
anticipated timing on the public lands bill and when the gentleman 
thinks that he will bring that to the floor.
  Mr. HOYER. As you know, there is a lot of interest on both sides of 
the aisle on this bill and very significant interest in the Senate to 
see this bill completed and sent to the President. We will continue to 
work together with the Republican leadership and the Senate leadership 
to get this bill to the President's desk as soon as possible. I have 
discussed this, as you know, with you and the leader, so we are hoping 
to bring this forward soon, possibly next week.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, I would also point out to the gentleman from Maryland, 
there has been a lot of discussion lately, certainly on the part of the 
White House, the President, about his plans for making sure of the 
security of our troops in Iraq and his announcement of the withdrawal 
timeline. I know that the Speaker has also spoken out on this issue, 
seeming to have somewhat of a different position than the White House 
on this. I know the gentleman himself, I believe, has said that he is 
in agreement with the President. We support the President, Mr. Speaker, 
in his decision to listen to the commanders on the ground.
  I would note that in Congresses past we certainly have had a number 
of resolutions based on a timeline for withdrawal of our troops, and 
would ask the gentleman, is he anticipating any type of resolution of 
disapproval of the President's announcement?
  Mr. HOYER. If the gentleman will yield, as you have stated, the 
President announced a plan last Friday at a meeting in the White House 
and then announced it publicly down at Camp Lejeune. It calls for 
withdrawal of our troops, to be out of Iraq in terms of a military role 
within 18 months. This is, I think personally, a responsible plan.
  The gentleman asked me whether or not I think there will be a 
resolution of disapproval. I don't think there will be a resolution of 
disapproval. Clearly, as the gentleman well knows, there will be an 
authorizing bill that will come forward later this spring, there will 
be an appropriations bill appropriating money for the Defense 
Department, and obviously those two opportunities will present 
themselves to Members who may want to express themselves on this issue.

[[Page H3027]]

  But as to the gentleman's question, do I expect a resolution of 
disapproval, I do not.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman on that.
  Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman just in the context of the 
budget discussion that is ongoing obviously here on Capitol Hill in 
Congress and at the White House, there are some unanswered questions as 
far as the Republican Conference is concerned as to the direction of 
this budget that the leader sees coming through the House.
  Obviously there have been some discussions about charitable giving 
that the gentleman himself has raised concerns regarding and that I 
have extraordinary concerns about taking away incentives to help 
support our charities in such a tough economic period, and was 
wondering if the gentleman could comment on whether he felt that the 
House budget that he will bring to the floor would reflect our concern 
that perhaps we shouldn't be throttling back on people's giving to 
charities.
  Mr. HOYER. If the gentleman will yield, I thank the gentleman for his 
question and I understand his concern. As he says, I have expressed a 
concern with respect to that issue. However, having said that, I am not 
going to anticipate at this point in time what the Budget Committee is 
going to do. Clearly the Budget Committee is having hearings and the 
Budget Committee will be, some weeks from now, marking up a budget and 
bringing it to the floor.
  As you know, we are very committed on this side of the aisle to 
PAYGO, paying our bills and trying to reduce our deficit. Clearly we 
have added very substantially to the deficit because of the economic 
crisis that confronts us, but we still feel a great responsibility to 
move ahead on making sure that we move towards reducing that deficit in 
the long term.
  Clearly the President has proposed from our perspective one of the 
most honest budgets that we have received in the sense that it includes 
costs of the war, it includes costs for adjusting the alternative 
minimum tax, it includes the costs within its budget contemplation of 
fixing the doctors payments for Medicare. So in all those ways and 
more, this budget sets forth a responsible alternative for us to 
pursue. In addition, as the gentleman knows, it provides for the 
continuation of a tax cut for 95 percent of American families and 
individuals. So we think those are all very important proposals. We 
know that the Budget Committee will be considering that.
  As the gentleman knows, both your side of the aisle and my side of 
the aisle will be discussing and debating that and we will be adopting 
a budget. I do not want to at this point in time anticipate each and 
every item that they may or may not include in that budget, however.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman for that answer and just would like 
to underscore our concern that as he knows and we have discussed as 
late as today at the President's summit on health care at the White 
House, these are extraordinary times. We have tough choices to make.

                              {time}  1900

  Families are out there struggling to make ends meet. And the 
President has continued to say that we will provide tax relief for 
working Americans. We will provide tax relief to 95 percent of the 
American people.
  The trouble, Mr. Speaker, that we're having is when we hear members 
of the President's administration talk about the President's desire to 
see cap-and-trade legislation pass through this House, and the 
admission on the part of officials in the administration that that 
legislation would produce $1,300 worth of additional tax to every 
household in this country, if we do the math, with the Make Work Pay 
Program, and even if one was able to get the maximum relief under that 
program, that's an $800 relief for a household. You do the math, we 
still are at a point where you have a $500 deficit in each household, 
if every one of those were to be able to receive the maximum relief.
  So I would ask the gentleman, as far as the overall sense of the 
budget that he will bring to the floor, are we really going to deliver 
on this tax relief? Or are we going to try and address this cap-and-
trade program, which has now been admitted to be an extra tax that will 
outweigh any tax relief under the Make Work Pay Program?
  I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his question.
  Let me first observe that, quite obviously, we are going to provide 
for tax relief, as the President said in his campaign, as he's 
reiterated in his speech to the joint session, tax relief for 95 
percent of taxpayers. We have every intention of pursuing that.
  We also have every intention of having a fiscally responsible budget. 
We also, as the President also indicated in his speech to the joint 
session, will pursue vigorously energy independence and the issue of 
global warming.
  The gentleman speaks of one of the alternatives, an alternative 
proposed by the President to deal with that issue in terms of cap-and-
trade. The Energy and Commerce Committee will be considering that, as 
the gentleman knows, and I'm not going to anticipate their specific 
action. But I am going to say that we are committed on this side of the 
aisle, as I hope your side of the aisle will be as well, to very, very 
substantially reducing the carbon footprint that we are making in this 
country, and indeed, that's being made around the world, which we 
believe that science is pretty clear on this. And very frankly, the 
previous administration, which did not express that view early in its 
tenure, during its last year, changed somewhat its view. In any event, 
we want to deal with that.
  And the gentleman has mentioned an alternative the President has 
proposed. It's an alternative supported by a large number of people, 
and that is before the committee. And we'll see what the committee does 
with it.
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman again, and would say 
that, again, our priority must be on, as he has said in the past as 
well, must be on this economy. It must be on maintaining, protecting 
and creating jobs. And we believe, as the gentleman knows, on this side 
of the aisle, that the way to do that is to focus on small businesses, 
to ensure that we're not adding burdens to the real job generators, 
which are our small businesses.
  So if we're talking about bringing this budget forward and talking 
about PAYGO, as the gentleman has referred to, I know last year we 
passed the stimulus bill, and the gentleman indicated that we waived 
PAYGO back then for tax relief. I know that Members on our side of the 
aisle would certainly be supportive of any bit of relief we could give 
to those small businesses.
  But, Mr. Speaker, I'd ask the gentleman again, in the context of 
where we're operating now, and the fact that the Dow Jones dropped 
another 280 points today, and the fact we've not gotten from the White 
House and the administration a plan for the bank fix. We don't know the 
direction that the TARP funding is going. We have a sense from some of 
the statements made in the Budget Committee and others this last 
several days, that the TARP money has been all committed. And if so, is 
there any indication, do we know how much more money will be impacting 
this budget?
  Because, Mr. Speaker, I'd ask the gentleman how he expects this House 
to produce an honest budget if we do not know the plans of this 
administration, which will occur, I'm sure, imminently in their request 
for more assistance and more money towards the banking problem.
  And I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his question. Of course, at the 
center of that question is the crisis that we confront in the economy. 
As the gentleman knows, he talked about, in a bipartisan way, 
supporting the President's policy on Iraq. As the gentleman knows, in a 
bipartisan way, we supported the Bush administration's request, both in 
January of 2008, in September of 2008, and again in December of 2008, 
when the President made a request for the second tranche of the TARP. I 
think every Member of this Congress believes that the first tranche did 
not work as well as we had hoped it would work.
  We also, in these past 2 weeks, have passed extraordinarily quickly 
and robustly, consistent with the advice of the last administration and 
this administration, an attempt to do what the gentleman says we want 
to do, create jobs.

[[Page H3028]]

  The gentleman also knows that we passed a recovery and reinvestment 
bill that had over $250 billion of tax relief, some for individuals and 
some for small businesses, some for businesses generally. About 35 
percent of that bill was tax relief for our citizens. The other 
percentage of that bill was for investment, was for dealing with those 
who have been put at deepest risk by the economic crisis, in terms of 
losing jobs, in terms of not being able to feed their families and not 
having health care available to them.
  So I say to my friend that, as we move forward on the budget, and as 
we look to the administration for the clarification that the gentleman 
seeks, appropriately, in my opinion, and in our opinion, a more 
specific outline of how the administration's going to proceed, we will 
have that in consideration when we produce a budget. And as I say, we 
intend to produce a responsible budget that looks towards deficit 
reduction. That obviously won't be until some time from now. We've got 
to turn this economy around, start creating jobs which, hopefully, will 
have the effect of the stock market going up, not down, which is to the 
interest of all of us.
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I yield back my time.

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